Produced by Edmund Dejowski





THE DESTINY OF THE SOUL.

A CRITICAL HISTORY
OF THE
DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE,

BY
WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.

TENTH EDITION,

WITH SIX NEW CHAPTERS, AND

A Complete Bibliography of the Subject.
[Note: bibliography not included here]

COMPRISING 4977 BOOKS RELATING TO THE NATURE, ORIGIN, AND
DESTINY OF THE SOUL. THE TITLES CLASSIFIED AND ARRANGED
CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH NOTES, AND INDEXES OF THE AUTHORS AND
SUBJECTS.

BY EZRA ABBOT,

PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION IN
THE DIVINITY SCHOOL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY.


BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1880

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the District of Massachusetts.

Copyright 1878, W.R. Alger

ELECTROTYPED BY JOHNSON & CO., PHILADA.

University Press: John Wilson & Son,
Cambridge.


PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION.


THIS work has passed through nine editions, and has been out of
print now for nearly a year. During the twenty years which have
elapsed since it was written, the question of immortality, the
faith and opinions of men and the drift of criticism and doubt
concerning it, have been a subject of dominant interest to me, and
have occupied a large space in my reading and reflection.
Accordingly, now that my publisher, moved by the constant demand
for the volume, urges the preparation of a new edition introducing
such additional materials as my continued researches have gathered
or constructed, I gladly comply with his request.

The present work is not only historic but it is also polemic;
polemic, however, not in the spirit or interest of any party or
conventicle, but in the spirit and interest of science and
humanity. Orthodoxy insists on doctrines whose irrationality in
their current forms is such that they can never be a basis for the
union of all men. Therefore, to discredit these, in preparation
for more reasonable and auspicious views, is a service to the
whole human race. This is my justification for the controversial
quality which may frequently strike the reader.

Looking back over his pages, after nearly a quarter of a century
more of investigation and experience, the author is grateful that
he finds nothing to retract or expunge. He has but to add such
thoughts and illustrations as have occurred to him in the course
of his subsequent studies. He hopes that the supplementary
chapters now published will be found more suggestive and mature
than the preceding ones, while the same in aim and tone. For he
still believes, as he did in his earlier time, that there is much
of error and superstition, bigotry and cruelty, to be purged out
of the prevailing theological creed and sentiment of Christendom.
And he still hopes, as he did then, to contribute something of
good influence in this direction. The large circulation of the
work, the many letters of thanks for it received by the author
from laymen and clergymen of different denominations, the numerous
avowed and unavowed quotations from it in recent publications,
all show that it has not been produced in vain, but has borne
fruit in missionary service for reason, liberty, and charity.

This ventilating and illumining function of fearless and
reverential critical thought will need to be fulfilled much longer
in many quarters. The doctrine of a future life has been made so
frightful by the preponderance in it of the elements of material
torture and sectarian narrowness, that a natural revulsion of
generous sentiment joins with the impulse of materialistic science
to produce a growing disbelief in any life at all beyond the
grave. Nothing else will do so much to renew and extend faith in
God and immortality as a noble and beautiful doctrine of God and
immortality, freed from disfiguring terror, selfishness, and
favoritism.

The most popular preacher in England has recently asked his
fellow believers, "Can we go to our beds and sleep while China,
India, Japan, and other nations are being damned?" The proprietor
of a great foundry in Germany, while he talked one day with a
workman who was feeding a furnace, accidentally stepped back, and
fell headlong into a vat of molten iron. The thought of what
happened then horrifies the imagination. Yet it was all over in
two or three seconds. Multiply the individual instance by
unnumbered millions, stretch the agony to temporal infinity, and
we confront the orthodox idea of hell!

Protesting human nature hurls off such a belief with indignant
disdain, except in those instances where the very form and
vibration of its nervous pulp have been perverted by the hardening
animus of a dogmatic drill transmitted through generations. To
trace the origin of such notions, expose their baselessness,
obliterate their sway, and replace them with conceptions of a more
rational and benignant order, is a task which still needs to be
done, and to be done in many forms, over and over, again and
again. Though each repetition tell but slightly, it tells.

Every sound argument is instantly crowned with universal victory
in the sight of God, and therefore must at last be so in the sight
of mankind. However slowly the logic of events limps after the
logic of thoughts, it always follows. Let the mind of one man
perceive the true meaning of the doctrine of the general
resurrection and judgment and eternal life, as a natural evolution
of history from within, and it will spread to the minds of all
men; and the misinterpretation of that doctrine so long prevalent,
as a preternatural irruption of power from without, will be set
aside forever. For there is a providential plan of God, not
injected by arbitrary miracle, but inhering in the order of the
world, centred in the propulsive heart of humanity, which beats
throb by throb along the web of events, removing obstacles and
clearing the way for the revelation of the completed pattern. When
it is done no trumpets may be blown, no rocks rent, no graves
opened. But all immortal spirits will be at their goals, and the
universe will be full of music.

NEW YORK, February 22, 1878.

PREFACE.


WHO follows truth carries his star in his brain. Even so bold a
thought is no inappropriate motto for an intellectual workman, if
his heart be filled with loyalty to God, the Author of truth and
the Maker of stars. In this double spirit of independence and
submission it has been my desire to perform the arduous task now
finished and offered to the charitable judgment of the reader. One
may be courageous to handle both the traditions and the novelties
of men, and yet be modest before the solemn mysteries of fate and
nature. He may place no veil before his eyes and no finger on his
lips in presence of popular dogmas, and yet shrink from the
conceit of esteeming his mind a mirror of the universe. Ideas,
like coins, bear the stamp of the age and brain they were struck
in. Many a phantom which ought to have vanished at the first cock
crowing of reason still holds its seat on the oppressed heart of
faith before the terror stricken eyes of the multitude. Every
thoughtful scholar who loves his fellow men must feel it an
obligation to do what he can to remove painful superstitions, and
to spread the peace of a cheerful faith and the wholesome light of
truth. The theories in theological systems being but philosophy,
why should they not be freely subjected to philosophical
criticism? I have endeavored, without virulence, arrogance, or
irreverence towards any thing sacred, to investigate the various
doctrines pertaining to the great subject treated in these pages.
Many persons, of course, will find statements from which they
dissent, sentiments disagreeable to them. But, where thought and
discussion are so free and the press so accessible as with us, no
one but a bigot will esteem this a ground of complaint. May all
such passages be charitably perused, fairly weighed, and, if
unsound, honorably refuted! If the work be not animated with a
mean or false spirit, but be catholic and kindly, if it be not
superficial and pretentious, but be marked by patience and
thoroughness, is it too much to hope that no critic will assail it
with wholesale condemnation simply because in some parts of it
there are opinions which he dislikes? One dispassionate argument
is more valuable than a shower of missile names. The most vehement
revulsion from a doctrine is not inconsistent, in a Christian
mind, with the sweetest kindness of feeling towards the persons
who hold that doctrine. Earnest theological debate may be carried
on without the slightest touch of ungenerous personality. Who but
must feel the pathos and admire the charity of these eloquent
words of Henry Giles?

"Every deep and reflective nature looking intently 'before and
after,' looking above, around, beneath, and finding silence and
mystery to all his questionings of the Infinite, cannot but
conceive of existence as a boundless problem, perhaps an
inevitable darkness between the limitations of man and the
incomprehensibility of God. A nature that so reflects, that
carries into this sublime and boundless obscurity 'the large
discourse of Reason,' will not narrow its concern in the solution
of the problem to its own petty safety, but will brood over it
with an anxiety which throbs for the whole of humanity. Such a
nature must needs be serious; but never will it be arrogant: it
will regard all men with an embracing pity. Strange it should ever
be otherwise in respect to inquiries which belong to infinite
relations, that mean enmities, bitter hatreds, should come into
play in these fathomless searchings of the soul! Bring what
solution we may to this problem of measureless alternatives,
whether by Reason, Scripture, or the Church, faith will never
stand for fact, nor the firmest confidence for actual
consciousness. The man of great and thoughtful nature, therefore,
who grapples in real earnest with this problem, however satisfied
he may be with his own solution of it, however implicit may be his
trust, however assured his convictions, will yet often bow down
before the awful veil that shrouds the endless future, put his
finger on his lips, and weep in silence."

The present work is in a sense, an epitome of the thought of
mankind on the destiny of man. I have striven to add value to it
by comprehensiveness of plan, not confining myself, as most of my
predecessors have confined themselves, to one province or a few
narrow provinces of the subject, but including the entire subject
in one volume; by carefulness of arrangement,  not piling the
material together or presenting it in a chaos of facts and dreams,
but grouping it all in its proper relations; by clearness of
explanation, not leaving the curious problems presented wholly in
the dark with a mere statement of them, but as far as possible
tracing the phenomena to their origin and unveiling their purport;
by poetic life of treatment, not handling the different topics
dryly and coldly, but infusing warmth and color into them; by
copiousness of information, not leaving the reader to hunt up
every thing for himself, but referring him to the best sources for
the facts, reasonings, and hints which he may wish; and by
persevering patience of toil, not hastily skimming here and there
and hurrying the task off, but searching and researching in every
available direction, examining and re examining each mooted point,
by the devotion of twelve years of anxious labor. How far my
efforts in these particulars have been successful is submitted to
the public.

To avoid the appearance of pedantry in the multiplication of foot
notes, I have inserted many authorities incidentally in the text
itself, and have omitted all except such as I thought would be
desired by the reader. Every scholar knows how easy it is to
increase the number of references almost indefinitely, and also
how deceptive such an ostensible evidence of wide reading may be.

When the printing of this volume was nearly completed, and I had
in some instances made more references than may now seem needful,
the thought occurred to me that a full list of the books published
up to the present time on the subject of a future life, arranged
according to their definite topics and in chronological order,
would greatly enrich the work and could not fail often to be of
vast service. Accordingly, upon solicitation, a valued friend  Mr.
Ezra Abbot, Jr., a gentleman remarkable for his varied and
accurate scholarship  undertook that laborious task for me; and he
has accomplished it in the most admirable manner. No reader,
however learned, but may find much important information in the
bibliographical appendix which I am thus enabled to add to this
volume. Every student who henceforth wishes to investigate any
branch of the historical or philosophical doctrine of the
immortality of the soul, or of a future life in general, may thank
Mr. Abbot for an invaluable aid.

As I now close this long labor and send forth the result, the
oppressive sense of responsibility which fills me is relieved by
the consciousness that I have herein written nothing as a bigoted
partisan, nothing in a petty spirit of opinionativeness, but have
intended every thought for the furtherance of truth, the honor of
God, the good of man.

The majestic theme of our immortality allures yet baffles us. No
fleshly implement of logic or cunning tact of brain can reach to
the solution. That secret lies in a tissueless realm whereof no
nerve can report beforehand. We must wait a little. Soon we shall
grope and guess no more, but grasp and know. Meanwhile, shall we
not be magnanimous to forgive and help, diligent to study and
achieve, trustful and content to abide the invisible issue? In
some happier age, when the human race shall have forgotten, in
philanthropic ministries and spiritual worship, the bigotries and
dissensions of sentiment and thought, they may recover, in its
all embracing unity, that garment of truth which God made
originally "seamless as the firmament," now for so long a time
torn in shreds by hating schismatics. Oh, when shall we learn that
a loving pity, a filial faith, a patient modesty, best become us
and fit our state? The pedantic sciolist, prating of his clear
explanations of the mysteries of life, is as far from feeling the
truth of the case as an ape, seated on the starry summit of the
dome of night, chattering with glee over the awful prospect of
infinitude. What ordinary tongue shall dare to vociferate
egotistic dogmatisms where an inspired apostle whispers, with
reverential reserve, "We see through a glass darkly"? There are
three things, said an old monkish chronicler, which often make me
sad. First, that I know I must die; second, that I know not when;
third, that I am ignorant where I shall then be.

"Est primum durum quod scio me moriturum: Secundum, timeo quia hoc
nescio quando: Hine tertium, flebo quod nescio ubi manebo."

Man is the lonely and sublime Columbus of the creation, who,
wandering on this cloudy strand of time, sees drifted waifs and
strange portents borne far from an unknown somewhere, causing him
to believe in another world. Comes not death as a means to bear
him thither? Accordingly as hope rests in heaven, fear shudders at
hell, or doubt faces the dark transition, the future life is a
sweet reliance, a terrible certainty, or a pathetic perhaps. But
living in the present in the humble and loving discharge of its
duties, our souls harmonized with its conditions though aspiring
beyond them, why should we ever despair or be troubled overmuch?
Have we not eternity in our thought, infinitude in our view, and
God for our guide?


CONTENTS


Part First.

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTORY VIEWS.

CHAPTER I.

THEORIES OF THE SOUL'S ORIGIN

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF DEATH

CHAPTER III.

GROUNDS OF THE BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER IV.

THEORIES OF THE SOUL'S DESTINATION

Part Second.

ETHNIC THOUGHTS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

BARBARIAN NOTIONS OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER II.

DRUIDIC DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER III.

SCANDINAVIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER IV.

ETRUSCAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER V.

EGYPTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER VI.

BRAMANIC AND BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER VII.

PERSIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER VIII.

HEBREW DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER IX.

RABBINICAL DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER X.

GREEK AND DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER XI.

MOHAMMEDAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER XII.

EXPLANATORY SURVEY OF THE FIELD AND ITS MYTHS

Part Third.

NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

PETER'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER II.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

CHAPTER III.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE APOCALYPSE

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER V.

JOHN'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER VI.

CHRIST'S TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER VII.

RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

CHAPTER VIII.

ESSENTIAL CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF DEATH AND LIFE

Part Fourth.

CHRISTIAN THOUGHTS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

PATRISTIC DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER II.

MEDIAVAL DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER III.

MODERN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

Part Fifth.

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL DISSERTATIONS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

CHAPTER II.

METEMPSYCHOIS; OR, TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS

CHAPTER III.

RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH

CHAPTER IV.

DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT; OR, CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF
A HELL

CHAPTER V.

THE FIVE THEORETIC MODES OF SALVATION

CHAPTER VI.

RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER VII.

LOCAL FATE OF MAN IN THE ASTRONOMIC UNIVERSE

CHAPTER VIII.

CRITICAL HISTORY OF DISBELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE

CHAPTER IX.

MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE

Part Sixth.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.

THE END OF THE WORLD

CHAPTER II.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

CHAPTER III.

THE MYTHOLOGICAL HELL AND THE TRUE ONE; OR, THE LAW OF PERDITION

CHAPTER IV.

THE GATES OF HEAVEN; OR, THE LAW OF SALVATION IN ALL WORLDS

CHAPTER V.

RESUME OF THE SUBJECT: HOW THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY NOW STANDS

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRANSIENT AND THE PERMANENT IN THE DESTINY OF THE SOUL

PART FIRST.


HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTORY VIEWS.

CHAPTER I.

THEORIES OF THE SOUL'S ORIGIN.

PAUSING, in a thoughtful hour, on that mount of observation whence
the whole prospect of life is visible, what a solemn vision greets
us! We see the vast procession of existence flitting across the
landscape, from the shrouded ocean of birth, over the illuminated
continent of experience, to the shrouded ocean of death. Who can
linger there and listen, unmoved, to the sublime lament of things
that die? Although the great exhibition below endures, yet it is
made up of changes, and the spectators shift as often. Each rank
of the host, as it advances from the mists of its commencing
career, wears a smile caught from the morning light of hope, but,
as it draws near to the fatal bourne, takes on a mournful cast
from the shadows of the unknown realm. The places we occupy were
not vacant before we came, and will not be deserted when we go,
but are forever filling and emptying afresh.

"Still to every draught of vital breath
Renew'd throughout the bounds of earth and ocean,
The melancholy gates of death
Respond with sympathetic motion."

We appear, there is a short flutter of joys and pains, a bright
glimmer of smiles and tears, and we are gone. But whence did we
come? And whither do we go? Can human thought divine the answer?

It adds no little solemnity and pathos to these reflections to
remember that every considerate person in the unnumbered
successions that have preceded us, has, in his turn, confronted
the same facts, engaged in the same inquiry, and been swept from
his attempts at a theoretic solution of the problem into the real
solution itself, while the constant refrain in the song of
existence sounded behind him, "One generation passeth away, and
another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever." The
evanescent phenomena, the tragic plot and scenery of human birth,
action, and death, conceived on the scale of reality, clothed in

"The sober coloring taken from an eye That hath kept watch o'er
man's mortality,"

and viewed in a susceptible spirit, are, indeed, overwhelmingly
impressive. They invoke the intellect to its most piercing
thoughts. They swell the heart to its utmost capacity of emotion.
They bring us upon the bended knees of wonder and prayer.

"Between two worlds life hovers, like a star'
Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge.
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles: as the old burst, new emerge,
Lash'd from the foam of ages: while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves."

Widely regarding the history of human life from the beginning,
what a visionary spectacle it is! How miraculously permanent in
the whole! how sorrowfully ephemeral in the parts! What pathetic
sentiments it awakens! Amidst what awful mysteries it hangs! The
subject of the derivation of the soul has been copiously discussed
by hundreds of philosophers, physicians, and poets, from Vyasa to
Des Cartes, from Galen to Ennemoser, from Orpheus to Henry More,
from Aristotle to Frohschammer. German literature during the last
hundred years has teemed with works treating of this question from
various points of view. The present chapter will present a sketch
of these various speculations concerning the commencement and
fortunes of man ere his appearance on the stage of this world.

The first theory to account for the origin of souls is that of
emanation. This is the analogical theory, constructed from the
results of sensible observation. There is, it says, one infinite
Being, and all finite spirits are portions of his substance,
existing a while as separate individuals, and then reassimilated
into the general soul. This form of faith, asserting the efflux of
all subordinate existence out of one Supreme Being, seems
sometimes to rest on an intuitive idea. It is spontaneously
suggested whenever man confronts the phenomena of creation with
reflective observation, and ponders the eternal round of birth and
death. Accordingly, we find traces of this belief all over the
world; from the ancient Hindu metaphysics whose fundamental
postulate is that the necessary life of God is one constant
process of radiation and resorption, "letting out and drawing in,"
to that modern English poetry which apostrophizes the glad and
winsome child as

"A silver stream
Breaking with laughter from the lake Divine
Whence all things flow."

The conception that souls are emanations from God is the most
obvious way of accounting for the prominent facts that salute our
inquiries. It plausibly answers some natural questions, and boldly
eludes others. For instance, to the early student demanding the
cause of the mysterious distinctions between mind and body, it
says, the one belongs to the system of passive matter, the other
comes from the living Fashioner of the Universe. Again: this
theory relieves us from the burden that perplexes the finite mind
when it seeks to understand how the course of nature, the
succession of lives, can be absolutely eternal without involving
an alternating or circular movement. The doctrine of emanation
has, moreover, been supported by the supposed analytic similarity
of the soul to God. Its freedom, consciousness, intelligence,
love, correspond with what we regard as the attributes and essence
of Deity. The inference, however unsound, is immediate, that souls
are consubstantial with God, dissevered fragments of Him, sent
into bodies. But, in actual effect, the chief recommendation of
this view has probably been the variety of analogies and images
under which it admits of presentation. The annual developments of
vegetable life from the bosom of the earth, drops taken from a
fountain and retaining its properties in their removal, the
separation of the air into distinct breaths, the soil into
individual atoms, the utterance of a tone gradually dying away in
reverberated echoes, the radiation of beams from a central light,
the exhalation of particles of moisture from the ocean, the
evolution of numbers out of an original unity, these are among the
illustrations by which an exhaustless ingenuity has supported the
notion of the emanation of souls from God. That "something cannot
come out of nothing" is an axiom resting on the ground of our
rational instincts. And seeing all things within our comprehension
held in the chain of causes and effects, one thing always evolving
from another, we leap to the conclusion that it is precisely the
same with things beyond our comprehension, and that God is the
aboriginal reservoir of being from which all the rills of finite
existence are emitted.

Against this doctrine the current objections are these two. First,
the analogies adduced are not applicable. The things of spirit and
those of matter have two distinct sets of predicates and
categories. It is, for example, wholly illogical to argue that
because the circuit of the waters is from the sea, through the
clouds, over the land, back to the sea again, therefore the
derivation and course of souls from God, through life, back to
God, must be similar. There are mysteries in connection with the
soul that baffle the most lynx eyed investigation, and on which no
known facts of the physical world can throw light. Secondly, the
scheme of emanation depends on a vulgar error, belonging to the
infancy of philosophic thought, and inconsistent with some
necessary truths. It implies that God is separable into parts, and
therefore both corporeal and finite. Divisible substance is
incompatible with the first predicates of Deity, namely,
immateriality and infinity. Before the conception of the
illimitable, spiritual unity of God, the doctrine of the emanation
of souls from Him fades away, as the mere figment of a dreaming
mind brooding over the suggestions of phenomena and apparent
correspondences.

The second explanation of the origin of souls is that which says
they come from a previous existence. This is the theory of
imagination, framed in the free and seductive realm of poetic
thought. It is evident that this idea does not propose any
solution of the absolute origination of the soul, but only offers
to account for its appearance on earth. The pre existence of souls
has been most widely affirmed. Nearly the whole world of Oriental
thinkers have always taught it. Many of the Greek philosophers
held it. No small proportion of the early Church Fathers believed
it.1 And it is not without able advocates among the scholars and
thinkers

1 Keil, Opuscula; Be Pre existentia Animarum. Beausobre, Hist. du
Manicheisme, lib. vii. cap. iv.


of our own age. There are two principal forms of this doctrine;
one asserting an ascent of souls from a previous existence below
the rank of man, the other a descent of souls from a higher
sphere. Generation is the true Jacob's ladder, on which souls are
ever ascending or descending. The former statement is virtually
that of the modern theory of development, which argues that the
souls known to us, obtaining their first organic being out of the
ground life of nature, have climbed up through a graduated series
of births, from the merest elementary existence, to the plane of
human nature. A gifted author, Dr. Hedge, has said concerning pre
existence in these two methods of conceiving it, writing in a
half humorous, half serious, vein, "It is to be considered as
expressing rather an exceptional than a universal fact. If here
and there some pure liver, or noble doer, or prophet voice,
suggests the idea of a revenant who, moved with pity for human
kind, and charged with celestial ministries, has condescended to

'Soil his pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapors of this sin worn mould,'

or if, on the other hand, the 'superfluity of naughtiness'
displayed by some abnormal felon seems to warrant the supposition
of a visit from the Pit, the greater portion of mankind, we
submit, are much too green for any plausible assumption of a
foregone training in good or evil. This planet is not their
missionary station, nor their Botany Bay, but their native soil.
Or, if we suppose they pre existed at all, we must rather believe
they pre existed as brutes, and have travelled into humanity by
the fish fowl quadruped road with a good deal of the habitudes and
dust of that tramp still sticking to them." The theory of
development, deriving human souls by an ascension from the lower
stages of rudimentary being, considered as a fanciful hypothesis
or speculative toy, is interesting, and not destitute of plausible
aspects. But, when investigated as a severe thesis, it is found
devoid of proof. It is enough here to say that the most
authoritative voices in science reject it, declaring that, though
there is a development of progress in the plan of nature, from the
more general to the more specific, yet there is no advance from
one type or race to another, no hint that the same individual ever
crosses the guarded boundaries of genus from one rank and kingdom
to another. Whatever progress there may be in the upward process
of natural creation or the stages of life, yet to suppose that the
life powers of insects and brutes survive the dissolution of their
bodies, and, in successive crossings of the death gulf, ascend to
humanity, is a bare assumption. It befits the delirious lips of
Beddoes, who says,

"Had I been born a four legg'd child, methinks I might have found
the steps from dog to man And crept into his nature. Are there not
Those that fall down out of humanity Into the story where the
four legg'd dwell?"

The doctrine that souls have descended from an anterior life on
high may be exhibited in three forms, each animated by a different
motive. The first is the view of some of the Manichean teachers,
that spirits were embodied by a hostile violence and cunning, the
force and fraud of the apostatized Devil. Adam and Eve were angels
sent to observe the doings of Lucifer, the rebel king of matter.
He seized these heavenly spies and encased them in fleshly
prisons. And then, in order to preserve a permanent union of these
celestial natures with matter, he contrived that their race should
be propagated by the sexes. Whenever by the procreative act the
germ body is prepared, a fiend hies from bale, or an angel stoops
from bliss, or a demon darts from his hovering in the air, to
inhabit and rule his growing clay house for a term of earthly
life. The spasm of impregnation thrills in fatal summons to hell
or heaven, and resistlessly drags a spirit into the appointed
receptacle. Shakspeare, whose genius seems to have touched every
shape of thought with adorning phrase, makes Juliet, distracted
with the momentary fancy that Romeo is a murderous villain, cry,

"O Nature! what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?"

The second method of explaining the descent of souls into this
life is by the supposition that the stable bliss, the uncontrasted
peace and sameness, of the heavenly experience, at last wearies
the people of Paradise, until they seek relief in a fall. The
perfect sweetness of heaven cloys, the utter routine and safety
tire, the salient spirits, till they long for the edge and hazard
of earthly exposure, and wander down to dwell in fleshly bodies
and breast the tempest of sin, strife, and sorrow, so as to give a
fresh charm once more to the repose and exempted joys of the
celestial realm. In this way, by a series of recurring lives below
and above, novelty and change with larger experience and more
vivid contentment are secured, the tedium and satiety of fixed
happiness and protection are modified by the relishing opposition
of varied trials of hardship and pain, the insufferable monotony
of immortality broken up and interpolated by epochs of surprise
and tingling dangers of probation.

"Mortals, behold! the very angels quit
Their mansions unsusceptible of change,
Amid your dangerous bowers to sit
And through your sharp vicissitudes to range!"

Thus round and round we run through an eternity of lives and
deaths. Surfeited with the unqualified pleasures of heaven, we
"straggle down to this terrene nativity:" When, amid the sour
exposures and cruel storms of the world, we have renewed our
appetite for the divine ambrosia of peace and sweetness, we
forsake the body and ascend to heaven; this constant recurrence
illustrating the great truths, that alternation is the law of
destiny, and that variety is the spice of life.

But the most common derivation of the present from a previous life
is that which explains the descent as a punishment for sin. In
that earlier and loftier state, souls abused their freedom, and
were doomed to expiate their offences by a banished, imprisoned,
and burdensome life on the earth. "The soul," Plutarch writes,
"has removed, not from Athens to Sardis, or from Corinth to
Lemnos, but from heaven to earth; and here, ill at ease, and
troubled in this new and strange place, she hangs her head like a
decaying plant."

Hundreds of passages to the same purport might easily be cited
from as many ancient writers. Sometimes this fall of souls from
their original estate was represented as a simultaneous event: a
part of the heavenly army, under an apostate leader, having
rebelled, were defeated, and sentenced to a chained bodily life.
Our whole race were transported at once from their native shores
in the sky to the convict land of this world. Sometimes the
descent was attributed to the fresh fault of each individual, and
was thought to be constantly happening. A soul tainted with impure
desire, drawn downwards by corrupt material gravitation, hovering
over the fumes of matter, inhaling the effluvia of vice, grew
infected with carnal longings and contagions, became fouled and
clogged with gross vapors and steams, and finally fell into a body
and pursued the life fitted to it below. A clear human child is a
shining seraph from heaven sunk thus low. Men are degraded
cherubim.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar."

The theory of the pre existence of the soul merely removes the
mystery one stage further back, and there leaves the problem of
our origin as hopelessly obscure as before. It is sufficiently
refuted by the open fact that it is absolutely destitute of
scientific basis. The explanation of its wide prevalence as a
belief is furnished by two considerations. First, there were old
authoritative sages and poets who loved to speculate and dream,
and who published their speculations and dreams to reign over the
subject fancies of credulous mankind. Secondly, the conception was
intrinsically harmonious, and bore a charm to fascinate the
imagination and the heart. The fragmentary visions, broken
snatches, mystic strains, incongruous thoughts, fading gleams,
with which imperfectrecollection comes laden from our childish
years and our nightly dreams, are referred by self pleasing fancy
to some earlier and nobler existence. We solve the mysteries of
experience by calling them the veiled vestiges of a bright life
departed, pathetic waifs drifted to these intellectual shores over
the surge of feeling from the wrecked orb of an anterior
existence. It gratifies our pride to think the soul "a star
travelled stranger," a disguised prince, who has passingly
alighted on this globe in his eternal wanderings. The gorgeous
glimpses of truth and beauty here vouchsafed to genius, the
wondrous strains of feeling that haunt the soul in tender hours,
are feeble reminiscences of the prerogatives we enjoyed in those
eons when we trod the planets that sail around the upper world of
the gods. That ennui or plaintive sadness which in all life's deep
and lonesome hours seems native to our hearts, what is it but the
nostalgia of the soul remembering and pining after its distant
home? Vague and forlorn airs come floating into our consciousness,
as from an infinitely remote clime, freighted with a luxury of
depressing melancholy.

"Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use,
Not daily labor's dull Lethean spring,
Oblivion in lost angels can infuse
Of the soil'd glory and the trailing wing."

How attractive all this must be to the thoughts of men, how
fascinating to their retrospective and aspiring reveries, it
should be needless to repeat. How baseless it is as a
philosophical theory demanding sober belief, it should be equally
superfluous to illustrate further.

The third answer to the question concerning the origin of the soul
is that it is directly created by the voluntary power of God. This
is the theory of faith, instinctively shrinking from the
difficulty of the problem on its scientific ground, and evading it
by a wholesale reference to Deity. Some writers have held that all
souls were created by the Divine fiat at the beginning of the
world, and laid up in a secret repository, whence they are drawn
as occasion calls. The Talmudists say, "All souls were made during
the six days of creation; and therefore generation is not by
traduction, but by infusion of a soul into body." Others maintain
that this production of souls was not confined to any past period,
but is continued still, a new soul being freshly created for every
birth. Whenever certain conditions meet,

"Then God smites his hands together,
And strikes out a soul as a spark,
Into the organized glory of things,
From the deeps of the dark."

This is the view asserted by Vincentius Victor in opposition to
the dogmatism of Tertullian on the one hand and to the doubts of
Augustine on the other.2 It is called the theory of Insufflation,
because it affirms that God immediately breathes a soul into each
new being: even as in the case of Adam, of whom we read that "God
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a
living soul." The doctrine drawn from this Mosaic text, that the
soul is a divine substance, a breath of God, miraculously breathed
by Him into every creature at the commencement of its existence,
often reappears, and plays a prominent part in the history of
psychological opinions. It corresponds with the beautiful Greek
myth of Prometheus, who is fabled to have made a human image from
the dust of the ground, and then, by fire stolen from heaven, to
have animated it with a living soul. So man, as to his body, is
made of earthly clay; but the Promethean spark that forms his soul
is the fresh breath of God. There is no objection to the real
ground and essence of this theory, only to its form and
accompaniments. It is purely anthropomorphitic; it conceives God
as working, after the manner of a man, intermittently,
arbitrarily. It insulates the origination of souls from the fixed
course of nature, severs it from all connection with that common
process of organic life which weaves its inscrutable web through
the universe, that system of laws which expresses the unchanging
will of God, and which constitutes the order by whose solemn logic
alone He acts. The objection to this view is, in a word, that it
limits the creative action of God to human souls. We suppose that
He creates our bodies as well; that He is the immediate Author of
all life in the same sense in which He is the immediate Author of
our souls. The opponents of the creation theory, who strenuously
fought it in the seventeenth century, were accustomed to urge
against it the fanciful objection that "it puts God to an invenust

2 Augustine, De Anima et ejus Origine, lib. iv.


employment scarce consistent with his verecundious holiness; for,
if it be true, whenever the lascivious consent to uncleanness and
are pleased to join in unlawful mixture, God is forced to stand a
spectator of their vile impurities, stooping from his throne to
attend their bestial practices, and raining down showers of souls
to animate the emissions of their concupiscence"3

A fourth reply to the inquiry before us is furnished in
Tertullian's famous doctrine of Traduction, the essential import
of which is that all human souls have been transmitted, or brought
over, from the soul of Adam. This is the theological theory: for
it arose from an exigency in the dogmatic system generally held by
the patristic Church. The universal depravity of human nature, the
inherited corruption of the whole race, was a fundamental point of
belief. But how reconcile this proposition with the conception,
entertained by many, that each new born soul is a fresh creation
from the "substance," "spirit," or "breath" of God? Augustine
writes to Jerome, asking him to solve this question.4 Tertullian,
whose fervid mind was thoroughly imbued with materialistic
notions, unhesitatingly cut this Gordian knot by asserting that
our first parent bore within him the undeveloped germ of all
mankind, so that sinfulness and souls were propagated together. 5
Thus the perplexing query, "how souls are held in the chain of
original sin," was answered. As Neander says, illustrating
Tertullian's view, "The soul of the first man was the fountain
head of all human souls: all the varieties of individual human
nature are but modifications of that one spiritual substance." In
the light of such a thought, we can see how Nature might, when
solitary Adam lived, fulfil Lear's wild conjuration, and

"All the germens spill
At once that make ingrateful man."

In the seventh chapter of the Koran it is written, "The Lord drew
forth their posterity from the loins of the sons of Adam." The
commentators say that God passed his hand down Adam's back, and
extracted all the generations which should come into the world
until the resurrection. Assembled in the presence of the angels,
and endued with understanding, they confessed their dependence on
God, and were then caused to return into the loins of their great
ancestor. This is one of the most curious doctrines within the
whole range of philosophical history. It implies the strict
corporeality of the soul; and yet how infinitely fine must be its
attenuation when it has been diffused into countless thousands of
millions! Der Urkeim theilt sich ins Unendliche.

"What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?"

The whole thought is absurd. It was not reached by an induction of
facts, a study of phenomena, or any fair process of reasoning, but
was arbitrarily created to rescue a dogma from otherwise
inevitable rejection. It was the desperate clutch of a heady
theologian reeling in a vortex of hostile argument, and ready to
seize any fancy, however artificial, to save

3 Edward Warren, No Pre Existence, p. 74.

4 Epistola CLXVI.

5 De Anima, cap. x. et xix.


himself from falling under the ruins of his system. Henry Woolner
published in London, in 1655, a book called "Extraction of Soul: a
sober and judicious inquiry to prove that souls are propagated;
because, if they are created, original sin is impossible."

The theological dogma of traduction has been presented in two
forms. First, it is declared that all souls are developed out of
the one substance of Adam's soul; a view that logically implies an
ultimate attenuating diffusion, ridiculously absurd. Secondly, it
is held that "the eating of the forbidden fruit corrupted all the
vital fluids of Eve; and this corruption carried vicious and
chaotic consequences into her ova, in which lay the souls of all
her posterity, with infinitely little bodies, already existing."6
This form is as incredible as the other; for it equally implies a
limitless distribution of souls from a limited deposit. As Whewell
says, "This successive inclusion of germs (Einschachtelungs
Theorie) implies that each soul contains an infinite number of
germs."7 It necessarily excludes the formation of new spiritual
substance: else original transmitted sin is excluded. The doctrine
finds no parallelism anywhere else in nature. Who, no matter how
wedded to the theology of original sin and transmitted death,
would venture to stretch the same thesis over the animal races,
and affirm that the dynamic principles, or animating souls, of all
serpents, eagles, and lions, were once compressed in the first
patriarchal serpent, eagle, or lion?

That the whole formative power of all the simultaneous members of
our race was concentrated in the first cell germ of our original
progenitor, is a scientific impossibility and incredibleness. The
fatal sophistry in the traducian account of the transmission of
souls may be illustrated in the following manner. The germs of all
the apple trees now in existence did not lie in the first apple
seed. All the apple trees now existing were not derived by literal
development out of the actual contents of the first apple seed.
No: but the truth is this. There was a power in the first apple
seed to secure certain conditions; that is, to organize a certain
status in which the plastic vegetative life of nature would posit
new and similar powers and materials. So not all souls were latent
in Adam's, but only an organizing power to secure the conditions
on which the Divine Will that first began, would, in accordance
with His creative plan, forever continue, His spirit creation. The
distinction of this statement from that of traduction is the
difference between evolution from one original germ or stock and
actual production of new beings. Its distinction from the third
theory the theory of immediate creation is the difference between
an intermittent interposition of arbitrary acts and the continuous
working of a plan according to laws scientifically traceable.

There is another solution to the question of the soul's origin,
which has been propounded by some philosophers and may be called
the speculative theory. Its statement is that the germs of souls
were created simultaneously with the formation of the material
universe, and were copiously sown abroad through all nature,
waiting there to be successively taken up and furnished with the
conditions of development.8 These latent seeds of souls, swarming
in all places, are drawn in with the first breath or imbibed with
the earliest nourishment of the

6 Hennings, Geschichte von den Seelen der Menschen, s. 500.

7 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. I. b. ix. ch. iv.
sect. 4.

8 Ploucquet, De Origin atque Generatione Anima Humana ex
Principiis Monadologicis stabilita.

new born child into the already constructed body which before has
only a vegetative life. The Germans call this representation
panspermismus, or the dissemination theory. Leibnitz, in his
celebrated monadology, carries the same view a great deal further.
He conceives the whole created universe, visible and invisible, to
consist of monads, which are not particles of matter, but
metaphysical points of power. These monads are all souls. They are
produced by what he calls fulgurations of God. The distinction
between fulguration and emanation is this: in the latter case the
procession is historically defined and complete; in the former
case it is momentaneous. The monads are radiated from the Divine
Will, forth through the creation, by the constant flashes of His
volition. All nature is composed of them, and nothing is
depopulated and dead. Their naked being is force, and their
indestructible predicates are perception, desire, tendency to
develop. While they lie dormant, their potential capacities all
inwrapped, they constitute what we entitle matter. When, by the
rising stir of their inherent longing, they leave their passive
state and reach a condition of obscure consciousness, they become
animals. Finally, they so far unwind their bonds and evolve their
facultative potencies as to attain the rank of rational minds in
the grade of humanity. Generation is merely the method by which
the aspiring monad lays the organic basis for the grouped building
of its body. Man is a living union of monads, one regent monad
presiding over the whole organization. That king monad which has
attained to full apperception, the free exercise of perfect
consciousness, is the immortal human soul. 9 Any labored attempt
to refute this ingenious doctrine is needless, since the doctrine
itself is but the developed structure of a speculative conception
with no valid basis of observed fact. It is a sheer hypothesis,
spun out of the self fed bowels of a priori assumption and
metaphysic fancy. It solves the problems only by changes of their
form, leaving the mysteries as numerous and deep as before. It is
a beautiful and sublime piece of latent poetry, the evolution and
architecture of which well display the wonderful genius of
Leibnitz. It is a more subtle and powerful process of thought than
Aristotle's Organon, a more pure and daring work of imagination
than Milton's Paradise Lost. But it spurns the tests of
experimental science, and is entitled to rank only among the
splendid curiosities of philosophy; a brilliant and plausible
theorem, not a sober and solid induction.

One more method of treating the inquiry before us will complete
the list. It is what we may properly call the scientific theory,
though in truth it is hardly a theory at all, but rather a careful
statement of the observed facts, and a modest confession of
inability to explain the cause of them. Those occupying this
position, when asked what is the origin of souls, do not pretend
to unveil the final secret, but simply say, everywhere in the
world of life, from bottom to top, there is an organic growth in
accordance with conditions. This is what is styled the theory of
epigenesis, and is adopted by the chief physiologists of the
present day. Swammerdam, Malebranche, even Cuvier, had defended
the doctrine of successive inclusion; but Wolf, Blumenbach, and
Von Baer established in its place the doctrine of epigenesis. 10

9 Leibnitz, Monadologie.

10 Ennemoser, Historisch psychologische Untersuchungen tiber den
Ursprung der menschlichen Seelen, zweite Auflage.


Scrupulously confining themselves to the mass of collected facts
and the course of scrutinized phenomena, they say there is a
natural production of new living beings in conformity to certain
laws, and give an exposition of the fixed conditions and sequences
of this production. Here they humbly stop, acknowledging that the
causal root of power, which produces all these consequences, is an
inexplicable mystery. Their attitude is well represented by
Swedenborg when he says, in reference to this very subject, "Any
one may form guesses; but let no son of earth pretend to penetrate
the mysteries of creation." 11

Let us notice now the facts submitted to us. First, at the base of
the various departments of nature, we see a mass of apparently
lifeless matter. Out of this crude substratum of the outward world
we observe a vast variety of organized forms produced by a
variously named but unknown Power. They spring in regular methods,
in determinate shapes, exist on successive stages of rank, with
more or less striking demarcations of endowment, and finally fall
back again, as to their physical constituents, into the inorganic
stuff from which they grew. This mysterious organizing Power,
pushing its animate and builded receptacles up to the level of
vegetation, creates the world of plants.

"Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers."

On the level of sensation, where the obscure rudiments of will,
understanding, and sentiment commence, this life giving Power
creates the world of animals. And so, on the still higher level of
reason and its concomitants, it creates the world of men. In a
word, the great general fact is that an unknown Power call it what
we may, Nature, Vital Force, or God creates, on the various planes
of its exercise, different families of organized beings. Secondly,
a more special fact is, that when we have overleaped the mystery
of a commencement, every being yields seed according to its kind,
wherefrom, when properly conditioned, its species is perpetuated.
How much, now, does this second fact imply? It is by adding to the
observed phenomena an indefensible hypothesis that the error of
traduction is obtained. We observe that human beings are begotten
by a deposit of germs through the generative process. To affirm
that these germs are transmitted down the generations from the
original progenitor of each race, in whom they all existed at
first, is an unwarranted assertion and involves absurdities. It is
refuted both by Geoffrey St. Hilaire's famous experiments on eggs,
and by the crossing of species.12 In opposition to this
theological figment, observation and science require the belief
that each being is endowed independently with a germ forming
power.

Organic life requires three things: a fruitful germ; a quickening
impulse; a nourishing medium. Science plainly shows us that this
primal nucleus is given, in the human species, by the union of the
contents of a sperm cell with those of a germ cell; that this
dynamic start is imparted from the life force of the parents; and
that this feeding environment is

11 Tract on the Origin and Propagation of the Soul, chap. i.

12 Flourens, Amount of Life on the Globe, part ii. ch. iii. sect. ii.

furnished by the circle of co ordinated relations. That the
formative power of the new organism comes from, or at least is
wholly conditioned by, the parent organism, should be believed,
because it is the obvious conclusion, against which there is
nothing to militate. That the soul of the child comes in some way
from the soul of the parent, or is stamped by it, is also implied
by the normal resemblance of children to parents, not more in
bodily form than in spiritual idiosyncrasies. This fact alone
furnishes the proper qualification to the acute and significant
lines of the Platonizing poet:

"Wherefore who thinks from souls new souls to bring,
The same let presse the sunne beames in his fist
And squeeze out drops of light, or strongly wring
The rainbow till it die his hands, well prest."

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh: that which is born of
the spirit is spirit." As the body of the child is the derivative
of a germ elaborated in the body of the parent, so the soul of the
child is the derivative of a developing impulse of power imparted
from the soul of the parent. And as the body is sustained by
absorbing nutrition from matter, so the soul is sustained by
assimilating the spiritual substances of the invisible kingdom.
The most ethereal elements must combine to nourish that consummate
plant whose blossom is man's mind. This representation is not
materialism; for spirit belongs to a different sphere and is the
subject of different predicates from matter, though equally under
a constitution of laws. Nor does this view pretend to explain what
is inherently transcendent: it leaves the creation of the soul
within as wide a depth and margin of mystery as ever. Neither is
this mode of exposing the problem atheistic. It refers the forms
of life, all growths, all souls, to the indefinable Power that
works everywhere, creates each thing, vivifies, governs, and
contains the universe. And, however that Power be named, is it not
God? And thus we still reverently hold that it is God's own hands
"That reach through nature, moulding men." The ancient heroes of
Greece and India were fond of tracing their genealogy up directly
to their deities, and were proud to deem that in guarding them the
gods stooped to watch over a race of kings, a puissant and
immortal stock,

"Whose glories stream'd from the same clond girt founts
Whence their own dawn'd upon the infant world."

After all the researches that have been made, we yet find the
secret of the beginning of the soul shrouded among the fathomless
mysteries of the Almighty Creator, and must ascribe our birth to
the Will of God as piously as it was done in the eldest mythical
epochs of the world. Notwithstanding the careless frivolity of
skepticism and the garish light of science abroad in this modern
time, there are still stricken and yearning depths of wonder and
sorrow enough, profound and awful shadows of night and fear
enough, to make us recognise, in the golden joys that visit us
rarely, in the illimitable visions that emancipate us often, in
the unearthly thoughts and dreams that ravish our minds,
enigmatical intimations of our kinship with God, prophecies of
a super earthly destiny whose splendors already break through the
clouds of ignorance, the folds of flesh, and the curtains of
time in which our spirits here sit pavilioned.

Augustine pointedly observes, "It is no evil that the origin of
the soul remains obscure, if only its redemption be made
certain."13 Non est periculum si origo animoe lateat, dum
redemptio clareat. No matter how humanity originates, if its
object be to produce fruit, and that fruit be immortal souls. When
our organism has perfected its intended product, willingly will we
let the decaying body return into the ground, if so be we are
assured that the ripened spirit is borne into the heavenly garner.
Let us, in close, reduce the problem of the soul's origin to its
last terms. The amount of force in the universe is uniform.14
Action and reaction being equal, no new creation of force is
possible: only its directions, deposits, and receptacles may be
altered. No combination of physical processes can produce a
previously non existent subject: it can only initiate the
modification, development, assimilation, of realities already in
being. Something cannot come out of nothing. The quickening
formation of a man, therefore, implies the existence, first, of a
material germ, the basis of the body; secondly, of a power to
impart to that germ a dynamic impulse, in other words, to deposit
in it a spirit atom, or monad of life force. Now, the fresh body
is originally a detached product of the parent body, as an apple
is the detached product of a tree. So the fresh soul is a
transmitted force imparted by the parent soul, either directly
from itself, or else conditioned by it and drawn from the ground
life of nature, the creative power of God. If filial soul be
begotten by procession and severance of conscious force from
parental soul, the spiritual resemblance of offspring and
progenitors is clearly explained. This phenomenon is also equally
well explained if the parent soul, so called, be a die striking
the creative substance of the universe into individual form. The
latter supposition seems, upon the whole, the more plausible and
scientific. Generation is a reflex condition moving the life basis
of the world to produce a soul, as a physical impression moves the
soul to produce a perception.15

But, however deep the mystery of the soul's origin, whatever our
conclusion in regard to it, let us not forget that the inmost
essence and verity of the soul is conscious power; and that all
power defies annihilation. It is an old declaration that what
begins in time must end in time; and with the metaphysical shears
of that notion more than once the burning faith in eternal life
has been snuffed out. Yet how obvious is its sophistry! A being
beginning in time need not cease in time, if the Power which
originated it intends and provides for its perpetuity. And that
such is the Creative intention for man appears from the fact that
the grand forms of belief in all ages issuing from his mental
organization have borne the stamp of an expected immortality. Our
ideas may disappear, but they are always recoverable. If the souls
of men are ideas of God, must they not be as enduring as his mind?

13 Epist. CLVI.

14 Faraday, Conservation of Force, Phil. Mag., April, 1857.

15 Dr. Frohschammer, Ursprang der menechlichen Seelen, sect. 115.


The naturalist who so immerses his thoughts in the physical phases
of nature as to lose hold on indestructible centres of
personality, should beware lest he lose the motive which propels
man to begin here, by virtue and culture, to climb that ladder of
life whose endless sides are affections, but whose discrete rounds
are thoughts.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF DEATH.

DEATH is not an entity, but an event; not a force, but a state.
Life is the positive experience, death the negation. Yet in nearly
every literature death has been personified, while no kindred
prosopopoeia of life is anywhere to be found. With the Greeks,
Thanatos was a god; with the Romans, Mors was a goddess: but no
statue was ever moulded, no altar ever raised, to Zoe or Vita. At
first thought, we should anticipate the reverse of this; but, in
truth, the fact is quite naturally as it is. Life is a continuous
process; and any one who makes the effort will find how difficult
it is to conceive of it as an individual being, with distinctive
attributes, functions, and will. It is an inward possession which
we familiarly experience, and in the quiet routine of custom we
feel no shock of surprise at it, no impulse to give it imaginative
shape and ornament. On the contrary, death is an impending
occurrence, something which we anticipate and shudder at,
something advancing toward us in time to strike or seize us. Its
externality to our living experience, its threatening approach,
the mystery and alarm enwrapping it, are provocative conditions
for fanciful treatment, making personifications inevitable.

With the Old Aryan race of India, death is Yama, the soul of the
first man, departed to be the king of the subterranean realm of
the subsequent dead, and returning to call after him each of his
descendants in turn. To the good he is mild and lovely, but to the
impious he is clad in terror and acts with severity. The purely
fanciful character of this thought is obvious; for, according to
it, death was before death, since Yama himself died. Yama does not
really represent death, but its arbiter and messenger. He is the
ruler over the dead, who himself carries the summons to each
mortal to become his subject.

In the Hebrew conception, death was a majestic angel, named
Sammael, standing in the court of heaven, and flying thence over
the earth, armed with a sword, to obey the behests of God. The
Talmudists developed and dressed up the thought with many details,
half sublime, half fantastic. He strides through the world at a
step. From the soles of his feet to his shoulders he is full of
eyes. Every person in the moment of dying sees him; and at the
sight the soul retreats, running through all the limbs, as if
asking permission to depart from them. From his naked sword fall
three drops: one pales the countenance, one destroys the vitality,
one causes the body to decay. Some Rabbins say he bears a cup from
which the dying one drinks, or that he lets fall from the point of
his sword a single acrid drop upon the sufferer's tongue: this is
what is called "tasting the bitterness of death." Here again, we
see, it is not strictly death that is personified. The embodiment
is not of the mortal act, but of the decree determining that act.
The Jewish angel of death is not a picture of death in itself, but
of God's decree coming to the fated individual who is to die.

The Greeks sometimes depicted death and sleep as twin boys, one
black, one white, borne slumbering in the arms of their mother,
night. In this instance the phenomenon of dissolving
unconsciousness which falls on mortals, abstractly generalized in
the mind, is then concretely symbolized. It is a bold and happy
stroke of artistic genius; but it in no way expresses or suggests
the scientific facts of actual death. There is also a classic
representation of death as a winged boy with a pensive brow and
an inverted torch, a butterfly at his feet. This beautiful image,
with its affecting accompaniments, conveys to the beholder not
the verity, nor an interpretation, of death, but the sentiments
of the survivors in view of their bereavement. The sad brow denotes
the grief of the mourner, the winged insect the disembodied
psyche, the reversed torch the descent of the soul to the under
world; but the reality of death itself is nowhere hinted.

The Romans give descriptions of death as a female figure in dark
robes, with black wings, with ravenous teeth, hovering everywhere,
darting here and there, eager for prey. Such a view is a
personification of the mysteriousness, suddenness, inevitableness,
and fearfulness, connected with the subject of death in men's
minds, rather than of death itself. These thoughts are grouped
into an imaginary being, whose sum of attributes are then
ignorantly both associated with the idea of the unknown cause and
confounded with the visible effect. It is, in a word, mere poetry,
inspired by fear and unguided by philosophy.

Death has been shown in the guise of a fowler spreading his net,
setting his snares for men. But this image concerns itself with
the accidents of the subject, the unexpectedness of the fatal
blow, the treacherous springing of the trap, leaving the root of
the matter untouched. The circumstances of the mortal hour are
infinitely varied, the heart of the experience is unchangeably the
same: there are a thousand modes of dying, but there is only one
death. Ever so complete an exhibition of the occasions and
accompaniments of an event is no explanation of what the inmost
reality of the event is.

The Norse conception of death as a vast, cloudy presence, darkly
sweeping on its victims, and bearing them away wrapped in its
sable folds, is evidently a free product of imagination brooding
not so much on the distinct phenomena of an individual case as on
the melancholy mystery of the disappearance of men from the
familiar places that knew them once but miss them now. In a
somewhat kindred manner, the startling magnificence of the sketch
in the Apocalypse, of death on the pale horse, is a product of
pure imagination meditating on the wholesale slaughter which was
to deluge the earth when God's avenging judgments fell upon the
enemies of the Christians. But to consider this murderous warrior
on his white charger as literally death, would be as erroneous as
to imagine the bare armed executioner and the guillotine to be
themselves the death which they inflict. No more appalling picture
of death has been drawn than that by Milton, whose dire image has
this stroke of truth in it, that its adumbrate formlessness
typifies the disorganizing force which reduces all cunningly built
bodies of life to the elemental wastes of being. The incestuous
and mistreated progeny of Sin is thus delineated:

"The shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either, black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart: what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on."

But the most common personification of death is as a skeleton
brandishing a dart; and then he is called the grisly king of
terrors; and people tremble at the thought of him, as children do
at the name of a bugbear in the dark. What sophistry this is! It
is as if we should identify the trophy with the conqueror, the
vestiges left in the track of a traveller with the traveller
himself. Death literally makes a skeleton of man; so man
metaphorically makes a skeleton of Death! All these
representations of death, however beautiful, or pathetic, or
horrible, are based on superficial appearances, misleading
analogies, arbitrary fancies, perturbed sensibilities, not on a
firm hold of realities, insight of truth, and philosophical
analysis. They are all to be brushed aside as phantoms of
nightmare or artificial creations of fiction. Poetry has mostly
rested, hitherto, on no veritable foundation of science, but on a
visionary foundation of emotion. It has wrought upon flitting,
sensible phenomena rather than upon abiding substrata of facts.
For example, a tender Greek bard personified the life of a tree as
a Hamadryad, the moving trunk and limbs her undulating form and
beckoning arms, the drooping boughs her hair, the rustling foliage
her voice. A modern poet, endowed with the same strength of
sympathy, but acquainted with vegetable chemistry, might personify
sap as a pale, liquid maiden, ascending through the roots and
veins to meet air, a blue boy robed in golden warmth, descending
through the leaves, with a whisper, to her embrace. So the
personifications of death in literature, thus far, give us no
penetrative glance into what it really is, help us to no acute
definition of it, but poetically fasten on some feature, or
accident, or emotion, associated with it.

There are in popular usage various metaphors to express what is
meant by death. The principal ones are, extinction of the vital
spark, departing, expiring, cutting the thread of life, giving up
the ghost, falling asleep. These figurative modes of speech spring
from extremely imperfect correspondences. Indeed, the unlikenesses
are more important and more numerous than the likenesses. They are
simply artifices to indicate what is so deeply obscure and
intangible. They do not lay the secret bare, nor furnish us any
aid in reaching to the true essence of the question. Moreover,
several of them, when sharply examined, involve a fatal error. For
example, upon the admitted supposition that in every case of dying
the soul departs from the body, still, this separation of the soul
from the body is not what constitutes death. Death is the state of
the body when the soul has left it. An act is distinct from its
effects. We must, therefore, turn from the literary inquiry to the
metaphysical and scientific method, to gain any satisfactory idea
and definition of death.

A German writer of extraordinary acumen and audacity has said,
"Only before death, but not in death, is death death. Death is so
unreal a being that he only is when he is not, and is not when he
is."1 This paradoxical and puzzling as it may appear is
susceptible of quite lucid interpretation and defence. For death
is, in its naked significance, the state of not being. Of course,
then, it has no existence save in the conceptions of the living.
We compare a dead

1 Feuerbach, Gedanken uber Tod and Unsterblichkeit, sect. 84.


person with what he was when living, and instinctively personify
the difference as death. Death, strictly analyzed, is only this
abstract conceit or metaphysical nonentity. Death, therefore,
being but a conception in the mind of a living person, when that
person dies death ceases to be at all. And thus the realization of
death is the death of death. He annihilates himself, dying with
the dart he drives. Having in this manner disposed of the
personality or entity of death, it remains as an effect, an event,
a state. Accordingly, the question next arises, What is death when
considered in this its true aspect?

A positive must be understood before its related negative can be
intelligible. Bichat defined life as the sum of functions by which
death is resisted. It is an identical proposition in verbal
disguise, with the fault that it makes negation affirmation,
passiveness action. Death is not a dynamic agency warring against
life, but simply an occurrence. Life is the operation of an
organizing force producing an organic form according to an ideal
type, and persistently preserving that form amidst the incessant
molecular activity and change of its constituent substance. That
operation of the organic force which thus constitutes life is a
continuous process of waste, casting off the old exhausted matter,
and of replacement by assimilation of new material. The close of
this process of organific metamorphosis and desquamation is death,
whose finality is utter decomposition, restoring all the bodily
elements to the original inorganic conditions from which they were
taken. The organic force with which life begins constrains
chemical affinity to work in special modes for the formation of
special products: when it is spent or disappears, chemical
affinity is at liberty to work in its general modes; and that is
death. "Life is the co ordination of actions; the imperfection of
the co ordination is disease, its arrest is death." In other
words, "life is the continuous adjustment of relations in an
organism with relations in its environment." Disturb that
adjustment, and you have malady; destroy it, and you have death.
Life is the performance of functions by an organism; death is the
abandonment of an organism to the forces of the universe. No
function can be performed without a waste of the tissue through
which it is performed: that waste is repaired by the assimilation
of fresh nutriment. In the balancing of these two actions life
consists. The loss of their equipoise soon terminates them both;
and that is death. Upon the whole, then, scientifically speaking,
to cause death is to stop "that continuous differentiation and
integration of tissues and of states of consciousness"
constituting life. 2 Death, therefore, is no monster, no force,
but the act of completion, the state of cessation; and all the
bugbears named death are but poor phantoms of the frightened and
childish mind.

Life consisting in the constant differentiation of the tissues by
the action of oxygen, and their integration from the blastema
furnished by the blood, why is not the harmony of these processes
preserved forever? Why should the relation between the integration
and disintegration going on in the human organism ever fall out of
correspondence with the relation between the oxygen and food
supplied from its environment? That is to say, whence originated
the sentence of death upon man? Why do we not live immortally as
we are? The current reply is, we die because our first parent
sinned. Death is a penalty inflicted upon the

2 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, pp. 334-373.


human race because Adam disobeyed his Maker's command. We must
consider this theory a little.

The narrative in Genesis, of the creation of man and of the events
in the Garden of Eden, cannot be traced further back than to the
time of Solomon, three thousand years after the alleged
occurrences it describes. This portion of the book of Genesis, as
has long been shown, is a distinct document, marked by many
peculiarities, which was inserted in its present place by the
compiler of the elder Hebrew Scriptures somewhere between seven
and ten centuries before Christ.3 Ewald has fully demonstrated
that the book of Genesis consists of many separate fragmentary
documents of different ages, arranged together by a comparatively
late hand. Among the later of these pieces is the account of the
primeval pair in paradise. Grotefend argues, with much force and
variety of evidence, that this story was derived from a far more
ancient legend book, only fragments of which remained when the
final collection was made of this portion of the Old Testament.4
Many scholars have thought the account was not of Hebrew origin,
but was borrowed from the literary traditions of some earlier
Oriental nation. Rosenmuller, Von Bohlen, and others, say it bears
unmistakable relationship to the Zendavesta which tells how
Ahriman, the old Serpent, beguiled the first pair into sin and
misery. These correspondences, and also that between the tree of
life and the Zoroastrian plant hom, which gives life and will
produce the resurrection, are certainly striking. Buttmann sees in
God's declaration to Adam, "Behold, I have given you for food
every herb bearing seed, and every tree in which is fruit bearing
seed," traces of a prohibition of animal food. This was not the
vestige of a Hebrew usage, but the vegetarian tradition of some
sect eschewing meat, a tradition drawn from South Asia, whence the
fathers of the Hebrew race came.5 Gesenius says, "Many things in
this narrative were drawn from older Asiatic tradition." 6 Knobel
also affirms that numerous matters in this relation were derived
from traditions of East Asian nations.7 Still, it is not necessary
to suppose that the writer of the account in Genesis borrowed any
thing from abroad. The Hebrew may as well have originated such
ideas as anybody else. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the
Chaldeans, the Persians, the Etruscans, have kindred narratives
held as most ancient and sacred.8 The Chinese, the Sandwich
Islanders, the North American Indians, also have their legends of
the origin and altered fortunes of the human race. The
resemblances between many of these stories are better accounted
for by the intrinsic similarities of the subject, of the mind, of
nature, and of mental action, than by the supposition of
derivation from one another.

Regarding the Hebrew narrative as an indigenous growth, then, how
shall we explain its origin, purport, and authority? Of course we
cannot receive it as a miraculous revelation conveying infallible
truth. The Bible, it is now acknowledged, was not given in the
providence

3 Tuch, Kommentar uber Genesis, s. xcviii.

4 Zur altesten Sagenpoesie des Orients. Zeitschrift der deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, band viii. ss. 772-779.

5 Mythologus, (Schopfung and Sundenfall, ) band i. s. 137.

6 Article "Adam," in Encyclopadia by Ersch and Gruber.

7 Die Genesis erklart, s. 28.

8 Palfrey's Academical Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 21-28.


of God to teach astronomy, geology, chronology, and the operation
of organic forces, but to help educate men in morality and piety.
It is a religious, not a scientific, work. Some unknown Hebrew
poet, in the early dawn of remembered time, knowing little
metaphysics and less science, musing upon the fortunes of man, his
wickedness, sorrow, death, and impressed with an instinctive
conviction that things could not always have been so, casting
about for some solution of the dim, pathetic problem, at last
struck out the beautiful and sublime poem recorded in Genesis,
which has now for many a century, by Jews, Christians,
Mohammedans, been credited as authentic history. With his own
hands God moulds from earth an image in his own likeness, breathes
life into it, and new made man moves, lord of the scene, and lifts
his face, illuminated with soul, in submissive love to his
Creator. Endowed with free will, after a while he violated his
Maker's command: the divine displeasure was awakened, punishment
ensued, and so rushed in the terrible host of ills under which we
suffer. The problem must early arise: the solution is, to a
certain stage of thought, at once the most obvious and the most
satisfactory conceivable. It is the truth. Only it is cast in
imaginative, not scientific, form, arrayed in emblematic, not
literal, garb. The Greeks had a lofty poem by some early unknown
author, setting forth how Prometheus formed man of clay and
animated him with fire from heaven, and how from Pandora's box the
horrid crew of human vexations were let into the world. The two
narratives, though most unequal in depth and dignity, belong in
the same literary and philosophical category. Neither was intended
as a plain record of veritable history, each word a naked fact,
but as a symbol of its author's thoughts, each phrase the
metaphorical dress of a speculative idea.

Eichhorn maintains, with no slight plausibility, that the whole
account of the Garden of Eden was derived from a series of
allegorical pictures which the author had seen, and which he
translated from the language of painting into the language of
words. At all events, we must take the account as symbolic, a
succession of figurative expressions. Many of the best minds have
always so considered it, from Josephus to Origen, from Ambrose to
Kant. What, then, are the real thoughts which the author of this
Hebrew poem on the primal condition of man meant to convey beneath
his legendary forms of imagery? These four are the essential ones.
First, that God created man; secondly, that he created him in a
state of freedom and happiness surrounded by blessings; third,
that the favored subject violated his Sovereign's order; fourth,
that in consequence of this offence he was degraded from his
blessed condition, beneath a load of retributive ills. The
composition shows the characteristics of a philosopheme or a myth,
a scheme of conceptions deliberately wrought out to answer an
inquiry, a story devised to account for an existing fact or
custom. The picture of God performing his creative work in six
days and resting on the seventh, may have been drawn after the
septenary division of time and the religious separation of the
Sabbath, to explain and justify that observance. The creation of
Eve out of the side of Adam was either meant by the author as an
allegoric illustration that the love of husband and wife is the
most powerful of social bonds, or as a pure myth seeking to
explain the incomparable cleaving together of husband and wife by
the entirely poetic supposition that the first woman was taken out
of the first man, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. All early
literatures teem with exemplifications of this process, a
spontaneous secretion by the imagination to account for some
presented phenomenon. Or perhaps this part of the relation
"and he called her woman [manness], because she was taken
out of man" may be an instance of those etymological myths with
which ancient literature abounds. Woman is named Isha because she
was taken out of man, whose name is Ish. The barbarous treatment
the record under consideration has received, the utter
baselessness of it in the light of truth as foundation for literal
belief, find perhaps no fitter exposure than in the fact that for
many centuries it was the prevalent faith of Christendom that
every woman has one rib more than man, a permanent memorial of the
Divine theft from his side. Unquestionably, there are many good
persons now who, if Richard Owen should tell them that man has the
same number of ribs as woman, would think of the second chapter of
Genesis and doubt his word!

There is no reason for supposing the serpent in this recital to be
intended as a representative of Satan. The earliest trace of such
an interpretation is in the Wisdom of Solomon, an anonymous and
apocryphal book composed probably a thousand years later. What is
said of the snake is the most plainly mythical of all the
portions. What caused the snake to crawl on his belly in the dust,
while other creatures walk on feet or fly with wings? Why, the
sly, winding creature, more subtle, more detestable, than any
beast of the field, deceived the first woman; and this is his
punishment! Such was probably the mental process in the writer. To
seek a profound and true theological dogma in such a statement is
as absurd as to seek it in the classic myth that the lapwing with
his sharp beak chases the swallow because he is the descendant of
the enraged Tereus who pursued poor Progne with a drawn sword. Or,
to cite a more apposite case, as well might we seek a reliable
historical narrative in the following Greek myth. Zeus once gave
man a remedy against old age. He put it on the back of an ass and
followed on foot. It being a hot day, the ass grew thirsty, and
would drink at a fount which a snake guarded. The cunning snake
knew what precious burden the ass bore, and would not, except at
the price of it, let him drink. He obtained the prize; but with
it, as a punishment for his trick, he incessantly suffers the
ass's thirst. Thus the snake, casting his skin, annually renews
his youth, while man is borne down by old age.9 In all these cases
the mental action is of the same kind in motive, method, and
result.

The author of the poem contained in the third chapter of Genesis
does not say that man was made immortal. The implication plainly
is that he was created mortal, taken from the dust and naturally
to return again to the dust. But by the power of God a tree was
provided whose fruit would immortalize its partakers. The penalty
of Adam's sin was directly, not physical death, but being forced
in the sweat of his brow to wring his subsistence from the sterile
ground cursed for his sake; it was indirectly literal death, in
that he was prevented from eating the fruit of the tree of life.
"God sent him out of the garden, lest he eat and live forever." He
was therefore, according to the narrative, made originally subject
to death; but an immortalizing antidote was prepared for him,
which he forfeited by his transgression. That the writer made use
of the trees of life and knowledge as embellishing allegories is
most

9 Alian, no Nat. Animal., lib. vi. cap. 51.


probable. But, if not, he was not the only devout poet who, in the
early times, with sacred reverence believed the wonders the
inspiring muse gave him as from God. It is not clear from the
Biblical record that Adam was imagined the first man. On the
contrary, the statement that Cain was afraid that those who met
him would kill him, also that he went to the land of Nod and took
a wife and builded a city, implies that there was another and
older race. Father Peyrere wrote a book, called "Praadamita," more
than two hundred years ago, pointing out this fact and arguing
that there really were men before Adam. If science should
thoroughly establish the truth of this view, religion need not
suffer; but the common theology, inextricably built upon and
intertangled with the dogma of "original sin," would be hopelessly
ruined. But the leaders in the scientific world will not on that
account shut their eyes nor refuse to reason. Christians should
follow their example of truth seeking, with a deeper faith in God,
fearless of results, but resolved upon reaching reality.

It is a very singular and important fact that, from the appearance
in Genesis of the account of the creation and sin and punishment
of the first pair, not the faintest explicit allusion to it is
subsequently found anywhere in literature until about the time of
Christ. Had it been all along credited in its literal sense, as a
divine revelation, could this be so? Philo Judaus gives it a
thoroughly figurative meaning. He says, "Adam was created mortal
in body, immortal in mind. Paradise is the soul, piety the tree of
life, discriminative wisdom the tree of knowledge; the serpent is
pleasure, the flaming sword turning every way is the sun revolving
round the world."10 Jesus himself never once alludes to Adam or to
any part of the story of Eden. In the whole New Testament there
are but two important references to the tradition, both of which
are by Paul. He says, in effect, "As through the sin of Adam all
are condemned unto death, so by the righteousness of Christ all
shall be justified unto life." It is not a guarded doctrinal
statement, but an unstudied, rhetorical illustration of the
affiliation of the sinful and unhappy generations of the past with
their offending progenitor, Adam, of the believing and blessed
family of the chosen with their redeeming head, Christ. He does
not use the word death in the Epistle to the Romans prevailingly
in the narrow sense of physical dissolution, but in a broad,
spiritual sense, as appears, for example, in these instances: "To
be carnally minded is death;" "The law of the spirit of life in
Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death." For the
spiritually minded were not exempt from bodily death. Paul himself
died the bodily death. His idea of the relations of Adam and
Christ to humanity is more clearly expressed in the other passage
already alluded to. It is in the Epistle to the Corinthians, and
appears to be this. The first man, Adam, was of the earth, earthy,
the head and representative of a corruptible race whose flesh and
blood were never meant to inherit the kingdom of God. The second
man, Christ the Lord, soon to return from heaven, was a quickening
spirit, head and representative of a risen spiritual race for whom
is prepared the eternal inheritance of the saints in light. As by
the first man came death, whose germ is transmitted with the
flesh, so by the second man comes the resurrection of the dead,
whose type is seen in his glorified ascension from Hades to
heaven. "As in Adam all die, even so in

10 De Mundi Opificio, liv lvi. De Cherub. viii.


Christ shall all be made alive." Upon all the line of Adam sin has
entailed, what otherwise would not have been known, moral death
and a disembodied descent to the under world. But the gospel of
Christ, and his resurrection as the first fruits of them that
slept, proclaim to all those that are his, at his speedy coming, a
kindred deliverance from the lower gloom, an investiture with
spiritual bodies, and an admission into the kingdom of God.
According to Paul, then, physical death is not the retributive
consequence of Adam's sin, but is the will of the Creator in the
law of nature, the sowing of terrestrial bodies for the gathering
of celestial bodies, the putting off of the image of the earthy
for the putting on of the image of the heavenly. The specialty of
the marring and punitive interference of sin in the economy is, in
addition to the penalties in moral experience, the interpolation,
between the fleshly "unclothing" and the spiritual "clothing
upon," of the long, disembodied, subterranean residence, from the
descent of Abel into its palpable solitude to the ascent of Christ
out of its multitudinous world. From Adam, in the flesh, humanity
sinks into the grave realm; from Christ, in the spirit, it shall
rise into heaven. Had man remained innocent, death, considered as
change of body and transition to heaven, would still have been his
portion; but all the suffering and evil now actually associated
with death would not have been.

Leaving the Scriptures, the first man appears in literature, in
the history of human thought on the beginning of our race, in
three forms. There is the Mythical Adam, the embodiment of
poetical musings, fanciful conceits, and speculative dreams; there
is the Theological Adam, the central postulate of a group of
dogmas, the support of a fabric of controversial thought, the lay
figure to fill out and wear the hypothetical dresses of a
doctrinal system; and there is the Scientific Adam, the first
specimen of the genus man, the supposititious personage who, as
the earliest product, on this grade, of the Creative organic force
or Divine energy, commenced the series of human generations. The
first is a hypostatized legend, the second a metaphysical
personification, the third a philosophical hypothesis. The first
is an attractive heap of imaginations, the next a dialectic mass
of dogmatisms, the last a modest set of theories.

Philo says God made Adam not from any chance earth, but from a
carefully selected portion of the finest and most sifted clay, and
that, as being directly created by God, he was superior to all
others generated by men, the generations of whom deteriorate in
each remove from him, as the attraction of a magnet weakens from
the iron ring it touches along a chain of connected rings. The
Rabbins say Adam was so large that when he lay down he reached
across the earth, and when standing his head touched the
firmament: after his fall he waded through the ocean, Orion like.
Even a French Academician, Nicolas Fleurion, held that Adam was
one hundred and twenty three feet and nine inches in height. All
creatures except the angel Eblis, as the Koran teaches, made
obeisance to him. Eblis, full of envy and pride, refused, and was
thrust into hell by God, where he began to plot the ruin of the
new race. One effect of the forbidden fruit he ate was to cause
rotten teeth in his descendants. He remained in Paradise but one
day. After he had eaten from the prohibited tree, Eve gave of the
fruit to the other creatures in Eden, and they all ate of it, and
so became mortal, with the sole exception of the phoenix, who
refused to taste it, and consequently remained immortal.

The Talmud teaches that Adam would never have died had he not
sinned. The majority of the Christian fathers and doctors, from
Tertullian and Augustine to Luther and Calvin, have maintained the
same opinion. It has been the orthodox that is, the prevailing
doctrine of the Church, affirmed by the Synod at Carthage in the
year four hundred and eighteen, and by the Council of Trent in the
year fifteen hundred and forty five. All the evils which afflict
the world, both moral and material, are direct results of Adam's
sin. He contained all the souls of men in himself; and they all
sinned in him, their federal head and legal representative. When
the fatal fruit was plucked,

"Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, Sighing through
all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost."

Earthquakes, tempests, pestilences, poverty, war, the endless
brood of distress, ensued. For then were

"Turn'd askance The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle, and with labor push'd Oblique the centric
globe."

Adam's transcendent faculties and gifts were darkened and
diminished in his depraved posterity, and all base propensities
let loose to torment, confuse, and degrade them. We can scarcely
form a conception of the genius, the beauty, the blessedness, of
the first man, say the theologians in chorus.11 Augustine
declares, "The most gifted of our time must be considered, when
compared with Adam in genius, as tortoises to birds in speed."
Adam, writes Dante, "was made from clay, accomplished with every
gift that life can teem with." Thomas Aquinas teaches that "he was
immortal by grace though not by nature, had universal knowledge,
fellowshipped with angels, and saw God." South, in his famous
sermon on "Man the Image of God," after an elaborate panegyric of
the wondrous majesty, wisdom, peacefulness, and bliss of man
before the fall, exclaims, "Aristotle was but the rubbish of an
Adam, and Athens the rudiments of Paradise!" Jean Paul has
amusingly burlesqued these conceits. "Adam, in his state of
innocence, possessed a knowledge of all the arts and sciences,
universal and scholastic history, the several penal and other
codes of law, and all the old dead languages, as well as the
living. He was, as it were, a living Pegasus and Pindus, a movable
lodge of sublime light, a royal literary society, a pocket seat of
the Muses, and a short golden age of Louis the Fourteenth!"

Adam has been called the Man without a Navel, because, not being
born of woman, there could be no umbilical cord to cut. The
thought goes deep. In addition to the mythico theological pictures
of the mechanical creation and superlative condition of the first
man, two forms of statement have been advanced by thoughtful
students of nature. One is the theory of chronological progressive
development; the other is the theory of the

11 Strauss gives a multitude of apposite quotations in his
Christliche Glaubenslehre, band i. s. 691, sect. 51, ff.


simultaneous creation of organic families of different species or
typical forms. The advocate of the former goes back along the
interminable vistas of geologic time, tracing his ancestral line
through the sinking forms of animal life, until, with the aid of a
microscope, he sees a closed vesicle of structureless membrane;
and this he recognises as the scientific Adam. This theory has
been brought into fresh discussion by Mr. Darwin in his rich and
striking work on the Origin of Species12 The other view contrasts
widely with this, and is not essentially different from the
account in Genesis. It shows God himself creating by regular
methods, in natural materials, not by a vicegerent law, not with
the anthropomorphitic hands of an external potter. Every organized
fabric, however complex, originates in a single physiological
cell. Every individual organism from the simple plant known as red
snow to the oak, from the zoophyte to man is developed from such a
cell. This is unquestionable scientific knowledge. The phenomenal
process of organic advancement is through growth of the cell by
selective appropriation of material, self multiplication of the
cell, chemical transformations of the pabulum of the cell,
endowment of the muscular and nervous tissues produced by those
transformations with vital and psychical properties.

But the essence of the problem lies in the question, Why does one
of these simple cells become a cabbage, another a rat, another a
whale, another a man? Within the limits of known observation
during historic time, every organism yields seed or bears progeny
after its own kind. Between all neighboring species there are
impassable, discrete chasms. The direct reason, therefore, why one
cell stops in completion at any given vegetable stage, another at
a certain animal stage, is that its producing parent was that
vegetable or that animal. Now, going back to the first individual
of each kind, which had no determining parent like itself, the
theory of the gradually ameliorating development of one species
out of the next below it is one mode of solving the problem.
Another mode more satisfactory at least to theologians and their
allies is to conclude that God, the Divine Force, by whom the life
of the universe is given, made the world after an ideal plan,
including a systematic arrangement of all the possible
modifications. This plan was in his thought, in the unity of all
its parts, from the beginning; and the animate creation is the
execution of its diagrams in organic life. Instead of the lineal
extraction of the complicated scheme out of one cell, there has
been, from epoch to epoch, the simultaneous production of all
included in one of its sections. The Creator, at his chosen times,
calling into existence a multitude of cells, gave each one the
amount and type of organic force which would carry it to the
destined grade and form. In this manner may have originated, at
the same time, the first sparrow, the first horse, the first man,
in short, a whole circle of congeners.

"The grassy clods now calved; now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane."

12 The most forcible defence of this hypothesis is that made by
Herbert Spencer. See, in his volume of Essays, No. 2 of the
Haythorne Papers. Also see Oken, Entstehung des ersten Menechen,
Isis, 1819, ss. 1117-1123.


Each creature, therefore, would be distinct from others from the
first. "Man, though rising from not man, came forth sharply
defined." The races thus originated in their initiative
representatives by the creative power of God, thenceforth possess
in themselves the power, each one, in the generative act, to put
its typical dynamic stamp upon the primordial cells of its
immediate descendants. Adam, then, was a wild man, cast in
favoring conditions of climate, endowed with the same faculties as
now, only not in so high a degree. For, by his peculiar power of
forming habits, accumulating experience, transmitting acquirements
and tendencies, he has slowly risen to his present state with all
its wealth of wisdom, arts, and comforts.

By either of these theories, that of Darwin, or that of Agassiz,
man, the head of the great organic family of the earth, and it
matters not at all whether there were only one Adam and Eve, or
whether each separate race had its own Adams and Eves,13 not
merely a solitary pair, but simultaneous hundreds, man, physically
considered, is indistinguishably included in the creative plan
under the same laws and forces, and visibly subject to the same
destination, as the lower animals. He starts with a cell as they
do, grows to maturity by assimilative organization and endowing
transformation of foreign nutriment as they do, his life is a
continuous process of waste and repair of tissues as theirs is,
and there is, from the scientific point of view, no conceivable
reason why he should not be subject to physical death as they are.
They have always been subject to death, which, therefore, is an
aboriginal constituent of the Creative plan. It has been
estimated, upon data furnished by scientific observation, that
since the appearance of organic life on earth, millions of years
ago, animals enough have died to cover all the lands of the globe
with their bones to the height of three miles. Consequently, the
historic commencement of death is not to be found in the sin of
man. We shall discover it as a necessity in the first organic cell
that was ever formed.

The spherule of force which is the primitive basis of a cell
spends itself in the discharge of its work. In other words, "the
amount of vital action which can be performed by each living cell
has a definite limit." When that limit is reached, the exhausted
cell is dead. To state the fact differently: no function can be
performed without "the disintegration of a certain amount of
tissue, whose components are then removed as effete by the
excretory processes." This final expenditure on the part of a cell
of its modification of force is the act of molecular death, the
germinal essence of all decay. That this organic law should rule
in every living structure is a necessity inherent in the actual
conditions of the creation. And wherever we look in the realm of
physical man, even "from the red outline of beginning Adam" to the
amorphous adipocere of the last corpse when fate's black curtain
falls on our race, we shall discern death. For death is the other
side of life. Life and death are the two hands with which the
organic power works.

The threescore simple elements known to chemists die, that is,
surrender their peculiar powers and properties, and enter into new
combinations to produce and support higher forms of life.
Otherwise these inorganic elemental wastes would be all that the
material universe could show.

13 The Diversity of Origin of the Human Races, by Louis Agassiz,
Christian Examiner, July, 1850.


The simple plant consists of single cells, which, in its
development, give up their independent life for the production
of a more exalted vegetable form. The formation of a perfectly
organized plant is made possible only through the continuous dying
and replacement of its cells. Similarly, in the development of an
animal, the constituent cells die for the good of the whole
creature; and the more perfect the animal the greater the
subordination of the parts. The cells of the human body are
incessantly dying, being borne off and replaced. The epidermis or
scarf skin is made of millions of insensible scales, consisting of
former cells which have died in order with their dead bodies to
build this guardian wall around the tender inner parts. Thus,
death, operating within the individual, seen in the light of
natural science, is a necessity, is purely a form of self
surrendering beneficence, is, indeed, but a hidden and indirect
process and completion of life.14

And is not the death of the total organism just as needful, just
as benignant, as the death of the component atoms? Is it not the
same law, still expressing the same meaning? The chemicalelements
wherein individuality is wanting, as Wagner says, die that
vegetable bodies may live. Individual vegetable bodies die that
new individuals of the species may live, and that they may supply
the conditions for animals to live. The individual beast dies that
other individuals of his species may live, and also for the good
of man. The plant lives by the elements and by other plants: the
animal lives by the elements, by the plants, and by other animals:
man lives and reigns by the service of the elements, of the
plants, and of the animals. The individual man dies if we may
trust the law of analogy for the good of his species, and that he
may furnish the conditions for the development of a higher life
elsewhere. It is quite obvious that, if individuals did not die,
new individuals could not live, because there would not be room.
It is also equally evident that, if individuals did not die, they
could never have any other life than the present. The foregoing
considerations, fathomed and appreciated, transform the
institution of death from caprice and punishment into necessity
and benignity. In the timid sentimentalist's view, death is
horrible. Nature unrolls the chart of organic existence, a
convulsed and lurid list of murderers, from the spider in the
window to the tiger in the jungle, from the shark at the bottom of
the sea to the eagle against the floor of the sky. As the perfumed
fop, in an interval of reflection, gazes at the spectacle through
his dainty eyeglass, the prospect swims in blood and glares with
the ghastly phosphorus of corruption, and he shudders with
sickness. In the philosophical naturalist's view, the dying
panorama is wholly different. Carnivorous violence prevents more
pain than it inflicts; the wedded laws of life and death wear the
solemn beauty and wield the merciful functions of God; all is
balanced and ameliorating; above the slaughterous struggle safely
soar the dove and the rainbow; out of the charnel blooms the rose
to which the nightingale sings love; nor is there poison which
helps not health, nor destruction which supplies not creation with
nutriment for greater good and joy.

By painting such pictures as that of a woman with "Sin" written on
her forehead in great glaring letters, giving to Death a globe
entwined by a serpent, or that of Death as a

14 Hermann Wagner, Der Tod, beleuchtet vom Standpunkte der
Naturwissenschaften.

skeleton, waving a black banner over the world and sounding
through a trumpet, "Woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth!" by
interpreting the great event as punishment instead of fulfilment,
extermination instead of transition, men have elaborated, in the
faith of their imaginations, a melodramatic death which nature
never made. Truly, to the capable observer, death bears the double
aspect of necessity and benignity: necessity, because it is an
ultimate fact, as the material world is made, that, since organic
action implies expenditure of force, the modicum of force given to
any physical organization must finally be spent; benignity,
because a bodily immortality on earth would both prevent all the
happiness of perpetually rising millions and be an unspeakable
curse upon its possessors.

The benevolence of death appears from this fact, that it
boundlessly multiplies the numbers who can enjoy the prerogatives
of life. It calls up ever fresh generations, with wondering eyes
and eager appetites, to the perennial banquet of existence. Had
Adam not sinned and been expelled from Paradise, some of the
Christian Fathers thought, the fixed number of saints foreseen by
God would have been reached and then no more would have been
born.15

Such would have been the necessity, there being no death. But, by
the removal of one company as they grow tired and sated, room is
made for a new company to approach and enjoy the ever renewing
spectacle and feast of the world. Thus all the delightful boons
life has, instead of being cooped within a little stale circle,
are ceaselessly diffused and increased. Vivacious claimants
advance, see what is to be seen, partake of what is furnished, are
satisfied, and retire; and their places are immediately taken by
hungry successors. Thus the torch of life is passed briskly, with
picturesque and stimulating effect, along the manifold race of
running ages, instead of smouldering stagnantly forever in the
moveless grasp of one. The amount of enjoyment, the quantity of
conscious experience, gained from any given exhibition by a
million persons to each of whom it is successively shown for one
hour, is, beyond all question, immensely greater and keener than
one person could have from it in a million hours. The generations
of men seem like fire flies glittering down the dark lane of
History; but each swarm had its happy turn, fulfilled its hour,
and rightfully gave way to its followers. The disinterested
beneficence of the Creator ordains that the same plants, insects,
men, shall not unsurrenderingly monopolize and stop the bliss of
breath. Death is the echo of the voice of love reverberated from
the limit of life.

The cumulative fund of human experience, the sensitive affiliating
line of history, like a cerebral cord of personal identity
traversing the centuries, renders a continual succession of
generations equivalent to the endless existence of one generation;
but with this mighty difference, that it preserves all the edge
and spice of novelty. For consider what would be the result if
death were abolished and men endowed with an earthly immortality.
At first they might rejoice, and think their last, dreadest enemy
destroyed. But what a mistake! In the first place, since none are
to be removed from the earth, of course none must come into it.
The space and material are all wanted by those now in possession.
All are soon mature men and women, not another infant ever to hang
upon a mother's breast or be lifted in a father's arms.

15 Augustine, Op. Imp. iii. 198.


All the prattling music, fond cares, yearning love, and
gushing joys and hopes associated with the rearing of children,
gone! What a stupendous fragment is stricken from the fabric of
those enriching satisfactions which give life its truest value and
its purest charm! Ages roll on. They see the same everlasting
faces, confront the same returning phenomena, engage in the same
worn out exercises, or lounge idly in the unchangeable conditions
which bear no stimulant which they have not exhausted. Thousands
of years pass. They have drunk every attainable spring of
knowledge dry. Not a prize stirs a pulse. All pleasures,
permutated till ingenuity is baffled, disgust them. No terror
startles them. No possible experiment remains untried; nor is
there any unsounded fortune left. No dim marvels and boundless
hopes beckon them with resistless lures into the future. They have
no future. One everlasting now is their all. At last the incessant
repetition of identical phenomena, the unmitigated sameness of
things, the eternal monotony of affairs, become unutterably
burdensome and horrible. Full of loathing and immeasurable
fatigue, a weariness like the weight of a universe oppresses them;
and what would they not give for a change! any thing to break the
nightmare spell of ennui, to fling off the dateless flesh, to
die, to pass into some unguessed realm, to lie down and sleep
forever: it would be the infinite boon!

Take away from man all that is dependent on, or interlinked with,
the appointment of death, and it would make such fundamental
alterations of his constitution and relations that he would no
longer be man. It would leave us an almost wholly different race.
If it is a divine boon that men should be, then death is a good to
us; for it enables us to be men. Without it there would neither be
husband and wife, nor parent and child, nor family hearth and
altar; nor, indeed, would hardly any thing be as it is now. The
existent phenomena of nature and the soul would comprise all. And
when the jaded individual, having mastered and exhausted this
finite sum, looked in vain for any thing new or further, the world
would be a hateful dungeon to him, and life an awful doom; and how
gladly he would give all that lies beneath the sun's golden round
and top of sovereignty to migrate into some untried region and
state of being, or even to renounce existence altogether and lie
down forever in the attractive slumber of the grave! Without
death, mankind would undergo the fate of Sisyphus, no future, and
in the present the oppression of an intolerable task with an
aching vacuum of motive. The certainty and the mystery of death
create the stimulus and the romance of life. Give the human race
an earthly immortality, and you exclude them from every thing
greater and diviner than the earth affords. Who could consent to
that? Take away death, and a brazen wall girds in our narrow life,
against which, if we remained men, we should dash and chafe in the
climax of our miserable longing, as the caged lion or eagle beats
against his bars.

The gift of an earthly immortality conferred on a single person a
boon which thoughtless myriads would clasp with frantic triumph
would prove, perhaps, a still more fearful curse than if
distributed over the whole species.

Retaining his human affections, how excruciating and remediless
his grief must be, to be so cut off from all equal community of
experience and destiny with mankind, to see all whom he loves,
generation after generation, fading away, leaving him alone, to
form new ties again to be dissolved, to watch his beloved ones
growing old and infirm, while he stands without a change! His love
would be left, in agony of melancholy grandeur, "a solitary angel
hovering over a universe of tombs" on the tremulous wings of
memory and grief, those wings incapacitated, by his madly coveted
prerogative of deathlessness, ever to move from above the sad rows
of funereal urns. Zanoni, in Bulwer's magnificent conception, says
to Viola, "The flower gives perfume to the rock on whose breast it
grows. A little while, and the flower is dead; but the rock still
endures, the snow at its breast, the sunshine on its summit." A
deathless individual in a world of the dying, joined with them by
ever bereaved affections, would be the wretchedest creature
conceivable. As no man ever yet prayed for any thing he would pray
to be released, to embrace dear objects in his arms and float away
with them to heaven, or even to lie down with them in the kind
embrace of mother earth. And if he had no affections, but lived a
stoic existence, exempt from every sympathy, in impassive
solitude, he could not be happy, he would not be man: he must be
an intellectual marble of thought or a monumental mystery of woe.

Death, therefore, is benignity. When men wish there were no such
appointed event, they are deceived, and know not what they wish.
Literature furnishes a strange and profound, though wholly
unintentional, confirmation of this view. Every form in which
literary genius has set forth the conception of an earthly
immortality represents it as an evil. This is true even down to
Swift's painful account of the Struldbrugs in the island of
Laputa. The legend of the Wandering Jew,16 one of the most
marvellous products of the human mind in imaginative literature,
is terrific with its blazoned revelation of the contents of an
endless life on earth. This story has been embodied, with great
variety of form and motive, in more than a hundred works. Every
one is, without the writer's intention, a disguised sermon of
gigantic force on the benignity of death. As in classic fable poor
Tithon became immortal in the dawning arms of Eos only to lead a
shrivelled, joyless, repulsive existence; and the fair young witch
of Cuma had ample cause to regret that ever Apollo granted her
request for as many years as she held grains of dust in her hand;
and as all tales of successful alchemists or Rosicrucians concur
in depicting the result to be utter disappointment and revulsion
from the accursed prize; we may take it as evidence of a
spontaneous conviction in the depths of human nature a conviction
sure to be brought out whenever the attempt is made to describe in
life an opposite thought that death is benign for man as he is
constituted and related on earth. The voice of human nature speaks
truth through the lips of Cicero, saying, at the close of his
essay on Old Age, "Quodsi non sumus immortales futuri, tamen
exstingui homini suo tempore optabile est."

In a conversation at the house of Sappho, a discussion once arose
upon the question whether death was a blessing or an evil. Some
maintained, the former alternative; but Sappho victoriously closed
the debate by saying, If it were a blessing to die, the immortal
gods would experience it. The gods live forever: therefore, death
is an evil.17 The reasoning was plausible and brilliant. Yet its
sophistry is complete. To men, conditioned as they are in this
world, death may be the greatest blessing; while to the gods,
conditioned so differently, it may have no similar application.

16 Bibliographical notice of the legend of the wandering Jew, by
Paul Lacroix; trans. into English by G.W. Thornbury. Grasse, Der
ewige Jude.

17 Fragment X. Quoted in Mare's Hist. Lit. Greece, book iii. chap.
v. sect. 18.


Because an earthly eternity in the flesh would be a frightful
calamity, is no reason why a heavenly eternity in the spirit
would be other than a blissful inheritance.

Thus the remonstrance which may be fallaciously based on some of
the foregoing considerations namely, that they would equally make
it appear that the immortality of man in any condition would be
undesirable is met. A conclusion drawn from the facts of the
present scene of things, of course, will not apply to a scene
inconceivably different. Those whose only bodies are their minds
may be fetterless, happy, leading a wondrous life, beyond our
deepest dream and farthest fancy, and eternally free from trouble
or satiety.

Death is to us, while we live, what we think it to be. If we
confront it with analytic and defiant eye, it is that nothing
which ever ceases in beginning to be. If, letting the
superstitious senses tyrannize over us and cow our better part of
man, we crouch before the imagination of it, it assumes the shape
of the skeleton monarch who takes the world for his empire, the
electric fluid for his chariot, and time for his sceptre. In the
contemplation of death, hitherto, fancy inspired by fear has been
by far too much the prominent faculty and impulse. The literature
of the subject is usually ghastly, appalling, and absurd, with
point of view varying from that of the credulous Hindu,
personifying death as a monster with a million mouths devouring
all creatures and licking them in his flaming lips as a fire
devours the moths or as the sea swallows the torrents,18 to that
of the atheistic German dreamer, who converts nature into an
immeasurable corpse worked by galvanic forces, and that of the
bold French philosopher, Carnot, whose speculations have led to
the theory that the sun will finally expend all its heat, and
constellated life cease, as the solar system hangs, like a dead
orrery, ashy and spectral, the ghost of what it was. So the
extravagant author of Festus says,

"God tore the glory from the sun's broad brow And flung the
flaming scalp away."

The subject should be viewed by the unclouded intellect, guided by
serene faith, in the light of scientific knowledge. Then death is
revealed, first, as an organic necessity in the primordial life
cell; secondly, as the cessation of a given form of life in its
completion; thirdly, as a benignant law, an expression of the
Creator's love; fourthly, as the inaugurating condition of another
form of life. What we are to refer to sin is all the seeming
lawlessness and untimeliness of death. Had not men sinned, all
would reach a good age and pass away without suffering. Death is
benignant necessity; the irregularity and pain associated with it
are an inherited punishment. Finally, it is a condition of
improvement in life. Death is the incessant touch with which the
artist, Nature, is bringing her works to perfection.

Physical death is experienced by man in common with the brute.
Upon grounds of physiology there is no greater evidence for man's
Spiritual survival through that overshadowed crisis than there is
for the brute's. And on grounds of sentiment man ought not to
shrink from sharing his open future with these mute comrades. Des
Cartes and Malebranche taught that animals are mere machines,
without souls, worked by God's arbitrary power. Swedenborg held
that "the souls of brutes are extinguished with their bodies." 19


18 Thomson's trans. of Bhagavad Gita, p. 77.

19 Outlines of the Infinite, chap. ii. sect. iv. 13.


Leibnitz, by his doctrine of eternal monads, sustains the
immortality of all creatures.

Coleridge defended the same idea. Agassiz, with much power and
beauty, advocates the thought that animals as well as men have a
future life. 20 The old traditions affirm that at least four
beasts have been translated to heaven; namely, the ass that spoke
to Balaam, the white foal that Christ rode into Jerusalem, the
steed Borak that bore Mohammed on his famous night journey, and
the dog that wakened the Seven Sleepers. To recognise, as Goethe
did, brothers in the green wood and in the teeming air, to
sympathize with all lower forms of life, and hope for them an open
range of limitless possibilities in the hospitable home of God, is
surely more becoming to a philosopher, a poet, or a Christian,
than that careless scorn which commonly excludes them from regard
and contemptuously leaves them to annihilation. This subject has
been genially treated by Richard Dean in his "Essay on the Future
Life of Brutes."

But on moral and psychological grounds the distinction is vast
between the dying man and the dying brute. Bretschneider, in a
beautiful sermon on this point, specifies four particulars. Man
foresees and provides for his death: the brute does not. Man dies
with unrecompensed merit and guilt: the brute does not. Man dies
with faculties and powers fitted for a more perfect state of
existence: the brute does not. Man dies with the expectation of
another life: the brute does not. Three contrasts may be added to
these. First, man desires to die amidst his fellows: the brute
creeps away by himself, to die in solitude. Secondly, man inters
his dead with burial rites, rears a memorial over them, cherishes
recollections of them which often change his subsequent character:
but who ever heard of a deer watching over an expiring comrade, a
deer funeral winding along the green glades of the forest? The
barrows of Norway, the mounds of Yucatan, the mummy pits of
Memphis, the rural cemeteries of our own day, speak the human
thoughts of sympathetic reverence and posthumous survival, typical
of something superior to dust. Thirdly, man often makes death an
active instead of a passive experience, his will as it is his
fate, a victory instead of a defeat.21 As Mirabeau sank towards
his end, he ordered them to pour perfumes and roses on him, and to
bring music; and so, with the air of a haughty conqueror, amidst
the volcanic smoke and thunder of reeling France, his giant spirit
went forth. The patriot is proud to lay his body a sacrifice on
the altar of his country's weal. The philanthropist rejoices to
spend himself without pay in a noble cause, to offer up his life
in the service of his fellow men. Thousands of generous students
have given their lives to science and clasped death amidst their
trophied achievements. Who can count the confessors who have
thought it bliss and glory to be martyrs for truth and God?
Creatures capable of such deeds must inherit eternity. Their
transcendent souls step from their rejected mansions through the
blue gateway of the air to the lucid palace of the stars. Any
meaner allotment would be discordant and unbecoming their rank.

Contemplations like these exorcise the spectre host of the brain
and quell the horrid brood of fear. The noble purpose of self
sacrifice enables us to smile upon the grave, "as some sweet
clarion's breath stirs the soldier's scorn of danger."

20 Contributions to the Natural History of the United States, vol.
i. pp. 64-66. Umbreit, fiber das Sterben ais einen Akt menschlich
personlicher Selbststandigkeit. Studien und Kritiken, 1837.


Death parts with its false frightfulness, puts on its true beauty,
and becomes at once the evening star of memory and the morning
star of hope, the Hesper of the sinking flesh, the Phosphor of
the rising soul. Let the night come, then: it shall be welcome.
And, as we gird our loins to enter the ancient mystery, we will
exclaim, with vanishing voice, to those we leave behind,

"Though I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for
a time I press God's lamp Close to my breast: its splendor, soon
or late, Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge somewhere."

CHAPTER III.

GROUNDS OF THE BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE.

IT is the purpose of the following chapter to describe the
originating supports of the common belief in a future life; not to
probe the depth and test the value of the various grounds out of
which the doctrine grows, but only to give a descriptive sketch of
what they are, and a view of the process of growth. The objections
urged by unbelievers belong to an open discussion of the question
of immortality, not to an illustrative statement of the suggesting
grounds on which the popular belief rests. When, after sufficient
investigation, we ask ourselves from what causes the almost
universal expectation of another life springs, and by what
influences it is nourished, we shall not find adequate answer in
less than four words: feeling, imagination, faith, and reflection.
The doctrine of a future life for man has been created by the
combined force of instinctive desire, analogical observation,
prescriptive authority, and philosophical speculation. These are
the four pillars on which the soul builds the temple of its hopes;
or the four glasses through which it looks to see its eternal
heritage.

First, it is obvious that man is endowed at once with
foreknowledge of death and with a powerful love of life. It is not
a love of being here; for he often loathes the scene around him.
It is a love of self possessed existence; a love of his own soul
in its central consciousness and bounded royalty. This is an
inseparable element of his very entity. Crowned with free will,
walking on the crest of the world, enfeoffed with individual
faculties, served by vassal nature with tributes of various joy,
he cannot bear the thought of losing himself, of sliding into the
general abyss of matter. His interior consciousness is permeated
with a self preserving instinct, and shudders at every glimpse of
danger or hint of death. The soul, pervaded with a guardian
instinct of life, and seeing death's steady approach to destroy
the body, necessitates the conception of an escape into another
state of existence. Fancy and reason, thus set at work, speedily
construct a thousand theories filled with details. Desire first
fathers thought, and then thought woos belief.

Secondly, man, holding his conscious being precious beyond all
things, and shrinking with pervasive anxieties from the moment of
destined dissolution, looks around through the realms of nature,
with thoughtful eye, in search of parallel phenomena further
developed, significant sequels in other creatures' fates, whose
evolution and fulfilment may haply throw light on his own. With
eager vision and heart prompted imagination he scrutinizes
whatever appears related to his object. Seeing the snake cast its
old slough and glide forth renewed, he conceives, so in death man
but sheds his fleshly exuvia, while the spirit emerges,
regenerate. He beholds the beetle break from its filthy sepulchre
and commence its summer work; and straightway he hangs a golden
scarsbaus in his temples as an emblem of a future life. After
vegetation's wintry deaths, hailing the returning spring that
brings resurrection and life to the graves of the sod, he dreams
of some far off spring of Humanity, yet to come, when the frosts
of man's untoward doom shall relent, and all the costly seeds sown
through ages in the great earth tomb shall shoot up in celestial
shapes. On the moaning sea shore, weeping some dear friend, he
perceives, now ascending in the dawn, the planet which he lately
saw declining in the dusk; and he is cheered by the thought that

"As sinks the day star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his
drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled
ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky, So Lycidas, sunk
low, shall mount on high."

Some traveller or poet tells him fabulous tales of a bird which,
grown aged, fills its nest with spices, and, spontaneously
burning, soars from the aromatic fire, rejuvenescent for a
thousand years; and he cannot but take the phoenix for a
miraculous type of his own soul springing, free and eternal, from
the ashes of his corpse. Having watched the silkworm, as it wove
its cocoon and lay down in its oblong grave apparently dead, until
at length it struggles forth, glittering with rainbow colors, a
winged moth, endowed with new faculties and living a new life in a
new sphere, he conceives that so the human soul may, in the
fulness of time, disentangle itself from the imprisoning meshes of
this world of larva, a thing of spirit beauty, to sail through
heavenly airs; and henceforth he engraves a butterfly on the
tombstone in vivid prophecy of immortality. Thus a moralizing
observation of natural similitudes teaches man to hope for an
existence beyond death.

Thirdly, the prevailing belief in a future life is spread and
upheld by the influence of authority. The doctrine of the soul's
survival and transference to another world, where its experience
depends on conditions observed or violated here, conditions
somewhat within the control of a select class of men here, such a
doctrine is the very hiding place of the power of priest craft, a
vast engine of interest and sway which the shrewd insight of
priesthoods has often devised and the cunning policy of states
subsidized. In most cases of this kind the asserted doctrine is
placed on the basis of a divine revelation, and must be implicitly
received. God proclaims it through his anointed ministers:
therefore, to doubt it or logically criticize it is a crime.
History bears witness to such a procedure wherever an organized
priesthood has flourished, from primeval pagan India to modern
papal Rome. It is traceable from the dark Osirian shrines of Egypt
and the initiating temple at Eleusis to the funeral fires of Gaul
and the Druidic conclave in the oak groves of Mona; from the
reeking altars of Mexico in the time of Montezuma to the masses
for souls in Purgatory said this day in half the churches of
Christendom. Much of the popular faith in immortality which has
prevailed in all ages has been owing to the authority of its
promulgators, a deep and honest trust on the part of the people in
the authoritative dicta of their religious teachers.

In all the leading nations of the earth, the doctrine of a future
life is a tradition handed down from immemorial antiquity,
embalmed in sacred books which are regarded as infallible
revelations from God. Of course the thoughtless never think of
questioning it; the reverent piously embrace it; all are educated
to receive it. In addition to the proclamation of a future life by
the sacred books and by the priestly hierarchies, it has also been
affirmed by countless individual saints, philosophers, and
prophets. Most persons readily accept it on trust from them as a
demonstrated theory or an inspired knowledge of theirs. It is
natural for modest unspeculative minds, busied with worldly cares,
to say, These learned sages, these theosophic seers, so much more
gifted, educated, and intimate with the divine counsels and plan
than we are, with so much deeper experience and purer insight than
we have, must know the truth: we cannot in any other way do so well
as to follow their guidance and confide in their assertions.
Accordingly, multitudes receive the belief in a life to come on
the authority of the world's intellectual and religious leaders.

Fourthly, the belief in a future life results from philosophical
meditation, and is sustained by rational proofs.1 For the
completion of the present outline, it now remains to give a brief
exposition of these arguments. For the sake of convenience and
clearness, we must arrange these reasonings in five classes;
namely, the physiological, the analogical, the psychological, the
theological, and the moral.

There is a group of considerations drawn from the phenomena of our
bodily organization, life and death, which compose the
physiological argument for the separate existence of the soul. In
the first place, it is contended that the human organization, so
wondrously vitalized, developed, and ruled, could not have grown
up out of mere matter, but implies a pre existent mental entity, a
spiritual force or idea, which constituted the primeval impulse,
grouped around itself the organic conditions of our existence, and
constrained the material elements to the subsequent processes and
results, according to a prearranged plan.2 This dynamic agent,
this ontological cause, may naturally survive when the fleshly
organization which it has built around itself dissolves. Its
independence before the body began involves its independence after
the body is ended. Stahl has especially illustrated in physiology
this idea of an independent soul monad.

Secondly, as some potential being must have preceded our birth, to
assimilate and construct the physical system, so the great
phenomena attending our conscious life necessitate, both to our
instinctive apprehension and in our philosophical conviction, the
distinctive division of man into body and soul, tabernacle and
tenant. The illustrious Boerhaave wrote a valuable dissertation on
the distinction of the mind from the body, which is to be found
among his works. Every man knows that he dwells in the flesh but
is not flesh. He is a free, personal mind, occupying and using a
material body, but not identified with it. Ideas and passions of
purely immaterial origin pervade every nerve with terrific
intensity, and shake his encasing corporeity like an earthquake. A
thought, a sentiment, a fancy, may prostrate him as effectually as
a blow on his brain from a hammer. He wills to move a palsied
limb: the soul is unaffected by the paralysis, but the muscles
refuse to obey his volition: the distinction between the person
willing and the instrument to be wielded is unavoidable.

Thirdly, the fact of death itself irresistibly suggests the
duality of flesh and spirit. It is the removal of the energizing
mind that leaves the frame so empty and meaningless. Think of the
undreaming sleep of a corpse which dissolution is winding in its
chemical embrace. A moment ago that hand was uplifted to clasp
yours, intelligent accents were vocal on those

1 Wohlfarth, Triumph des Glaubens an Unsterblichkeit und
Wiedersehen uber jeden Zweifel. Oporinus, Historia Critica
Doctrina de Immortalitate Mortalium.

2 Muller, Elements of Physiology, book vi. sect. i. ch. 1.


lips, the light of love beamed in that eye. One shuddering sigh,
and how cold, vacant, forceless, dead, lies the heap of clay! It
is impossible to prevent the conviction that an invisible power
has been liberated; that the flight of an animating principle has
produced this awful change. Why may not that untraceable something
which has gone still exist? Its vanishing from our sensible
cognizance is no proof of its perishing. Not a shadow of genuine
evidence has ever been afforded that the real life powers of any
creature are destroyed.3 In the absence of that proof, a multitude
of considerations urge us to infer the contrary. Surely there is
room enough for the contrary to be true; for, as Jacobi profoundly
observes, "life is not a form of body; but body is one form of
life." Therefore the soul which now exists in this form, not
appearing to be destroyed on its departure hence, must be supposed
to live hereafter in some other form.4

A second series of observations and reflections, gathered from
partial similarities elsewhere in the world, are combined to make
the analogical argument for a future life. For many centuries, in
the literature of many nations, a standard illustration of the
thought that the soul survives the decay of its earthy investiture
has been drawn from the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the
butterfly.5 This world is the scene of our grub state. The body is
but a chrysalis of soul. When the preliminary experience and
stages are finished and the transformation is complete, the spirit
emerges from its cast off cocoon and broken cell into the more
ethereal air and sunnier light of a higher world's eternal day.
The emblematic correspondence is striking, and the inference is
obvious and beautiful. Nor is the change, the gain in endowments
and privileges, greater in the supposed case of man than it is
from the slow and loathsome worm on the leaf to the swift and
glittering insect in the air.

Secondly, in the material world, so far as we can judge, nothing
is ever absolutely destroyed. There is no such thing as
annihilation. Things are changed, transformations abound; but
essences do not cease to be. Take a given quantity of any kind of
matter; divide and subdivide it in ten thousand ways, by
mechanical violence, by chemical solvents. Still it exists, as the
same quantity of matter, with unchanged qualities as to its
essence, and will exist when Nature has manipulated it in all her
laboratories for a billion ages. Now, as a solitary exception to
this, are minds absolutely destroyed? are will, conscience,
thought, and love annihilated? Personal intelligence, affection,
identity, are inseparable components of the idea of a soul. And
what method is there of crushing or evaporating these out of
being? What force is there to compel them into nothing? Death is
not a substantive cause working effects. It is itself merely an
effect. It is simply a change in the mode of existence. That this
change puts an end to existence is an assertion against analogy,
and wholly unsupported.

Thirdly, following the analogy of science and the visible order of
being, we are led to the conception of an ascending series of
existences rising in regular gradation from coarse to fine, from
brutal to mental, from earthly composite to simply spiritual, and
thus pointing up the rounds of life's ladder, through all nature,
to the angelic ranks of heaven. Then, feeling his kinship and
common vocation with supernal beings, man is assured of a loftier
condition of

3 Sir Humphry Davy, Proteus or Immortality.

4 Bakewell, Natural Evidence of a Future State.

5 Butler, Analogy, part i. ch. 1.


of existence reserved for him. There are no such immense, vacantly
yawning chasms, as that would be, between our fleshly estate and
the Godhead. Nature takes no such enormous jumps. Her scaling
advance is by staid and normal steps.

"There's lifeless matter.
Add the power of shaping,
And you've the crystal: add again the organs
Wherewith to subdue sustenance to the form
And manner of one's self, and you've the plant:
Add power of motion, senses, and so forth,
And you've all kinds of beasts: suppose a pig.
To pig add reason, foresight, and such stuff,
Then you have man.
What shall, we add to man
To bring him higher?"

Freedom from the load of clay, emancipation of the spirit into the
full range and masterdom of a spirit's powers!

Fourthly, many strong similarities between our entrance into this
world and our departure out of it would make us believe that death
is but another and higher birth.6 Any one acquainted with the
state of an unborn infant deriving its sole nutriment, its very
existence, from its vascular connection with its mother could
hardly imagine that its separation from its mother would introduce
it to a new and independent life. He would rather conclude that it
would perish, like a twig wrenched from its parent limb. So it may
be in the separation of the soul from the body. Further, as our
latent or dimly groping senses were useless while we were
developing in embryo, and then implied this life, so we now have,
in rudimentary condition, certain powers of reason, imagination,
and heart, which prophesy heaven and eternity; and mysterious
intimations ever and anon reach us from a diviner sphere,

"Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the
womb."

The Persian poet, Buzurgi, says on this theme,

"What is the soul? The seminal principle from the loins of
destiny. This world is the womb: the body, its enveloping
membrane: The bitterness of dissolution, dame Fortune's pangs of
childbirth. What is death? To be born again, an angel of
eternity."

Fifthly, many cultivated thinkers have firmly believed that the
soul is not so young as is usually thought, but is an old stager
on this globe, having lived through many a previous existence,
here or elsewhere.7 They sustain this conclusion by various
considerations, either drawn from premises presupposing the
necessary eternity of spirits, or resting on dusky reminiscences,
"shadowy recollections," of visions and events vanished long ago.
Now, if the idea of foregone conscious lives, personal careers oft
repeated with unlost being, be admitted, as it frequently has been
by such men as Plato and Wordsworth, all the

6 Bretschneider, Predigten uber Tod, Unsterblichkeit, und
Anferstehung.

7 James Parker, Account of the Divine Goodness concerning the
Pre existence of Souls.


connected analogies of the case carry us to the belief that
immortality awaits us. We shall live through the next transition,
as we have lived through the past ones.

Sixthly, rejecting the hypothesis of an anterior life, and
entertaining the supposition that there is no creating and
overruling God, but that all things have arisen by spontaneous
development or by chance, still, we are not consistently obliged
to expect annihilation as the fate of the soul. Fairly reasoning
from the analogy of the past, across the facts of the present, to
the impending contingencies of the future, we may say that the
next stage in the unfolding processes of nature is not the
destruction of our consciousness, but issues in a purer life,
elevates us to a spiritual rank. It is just to argue that if
mindless law or boundless fortuity made this world and brought us
here, it may as well make, or have made, another world, and bear
us there. Law or chance excluding God from the question may as
easily make us immortal as mortal. Reasoning by analogy, we may
affirm that, as life has been given us, so it will be given us
again and forever.

Seventhly, faith in immortality is fed by another analogy, not
based on reflection, but instinctively felt. Every change of
material in our organism, every change of consciousness, is a kind
of death. We partially die as often as we leave behind forgotten
experiences and lost states of being. We die successively to
infancy, childhood, youth, manhood. The past is the dead: but our
course is still on, forever on. Having survived so many deaths, we
expect to survive all others and to be ourselves eternally.

There is a third cluster of reasonings, deduced from the
distinctive nature of spirit, constituting the psychological
argument for the existence of the soul independent of the body. In
the outset, obviously, if the soul be an immaterial entity, its
natural immortality follows; because death and decay can only be
supposed to take effect in dissoluble combinations. Several
ingenious reasons have been advanced in proof of the soul's
immateriality, reasons cogent enough to have convinced a large
class of philosophers.8 It is sufficient here to notice the
following one. All motion implies a dynamic mover. Matter is
dormant. Power is a reality entirely distinct from matter in its
nature. But man is essentially an active power, a free will.
Consequently there is in him an immaterial principle, since all
power is immaterial. That principle is immortal, because
subsisting in a sphere of being whose categories exclude the
possibility of dissolution.9

Secondly, should we admit the human soul to be material, yet if it
be an ultimate monad, an indivisible atom of mind, it is immortal
still, defying all the forces of destruction. And that it actually
is an uncompounded unit may be thus proved. Consciousness is
simple, not collective. Hence the power of consciousness, the
central soul, is an absolute integer. For a living perceptive
whole cannot be made of dead imperceptive parts. If the soul were
composite, each component part would be an individual, a
distinguishable consciousness. Such not being the fact, the
conclusion results that the soul is one, a simple substance.10

8 Astrue, Dissertation sur l'Immaterialite et l'Immortalite de
l'Ame. Broughton, Defence of the Doctrine of the Human Soul as an
Immaterial and Naturally Immortal Principle. Marstaller, Von der
Unsterblichkeit der Menschlichen Seele.

9 Andrew Baxter, Inquiry into the Nature of the Soul.

10 Herbart, Lehrbuch zur Psychologie, sect. 150.


Of course it is not liable to death, but is naturally eternal.

Thirdly, the indestructibleness of the soul is a direct inference
from its ontological characteristics. Reason, contemplating the
elements of the soul, cannot but embrace the conviction of its
perpetuity and its essential independence of the fleshly
organization. Our life in its innermost substantive essence is
best defined as a conscious force. Our present existence is the
organic correlation of that personal force with the physical
materials of the body, and with other forces. The cessation of
that correlation at death by no means involves, so far as we can
see, the destruction or the disindividualization of the primal
personal force. It is a fact of striking significance, often
noticed by psychologists, that we are unable to conceive ourselves
as dead. The negation of itself is impossible to consciousness.
The reason we have such a dread of death is that we conceive
ourselves as still alive, only in the grave, or wandering through
horrors and shut out from wonted pleasures. It belongs to material
growths to ripen, loosen, decay; but what is there in sensation,
reflection, memory, volition, to crumble in pieces and rot away?
Why should the power of hope, and joy, and faith, change into
inanity and oblivion? What crucible shall burn up the ultimate of
force? What material processes shall ever disintegrate the
simplicity of spirit? Earth and plant, muscle, nerve, and brain,
belong to one sphere, and are subject to the temporal fates that
rule there; but reason, imagination, love, will, belong to
another, and, immortally fortressed there, laugh to scorn the
fretful sieges of decay.

Fourthly, the surviving superiority of the soul, inferred from its
contrast of qualities to those of its earthy environment, is
further shown by another fact, the mind's dream power, and the
ideal realm it freely soars or walks at large in when it
pleases.11 This view has often been enlarged upon, especially by
Bonnet and Sir Henry Wotton. The unhappy Achilles, exhausted with
weeping for his friend, lay, heavily moaning, on the shore of the
far sounding sea, in a clear spot where the waves washed in upon
the beach, when sleep took possession of him. The ghost of
miserable Patroclus calve to him and said, "Sleepest thou and art
forgetful of me, O Achilles?" And the son of Peleus cried, "Come
nearer: let us embrace each other, though but for a little while."
Then he stretched out his friendly hands, but caught him not; for
the spirit, shrieking, vanished beneath the earth like smoke.

Astounded, Achilles started up, clasped his hands, and said,
dolefully, "Alas! there is then indeed in the subterranean abodes
a spirit and image, but there is no body in it."12 The realm of
dreams is a world of mystic realities, intangible, yet existent,
and all prophetic, through which the soul nightly floats while the
gross body slumbers. It is everlasting, because there is nothing
in it for corruption to take hold of. The appearances and sounds
of that soft inner sphere, veiled so remote from sense, are
reflections and echoes from the spirit world. Or are they a direct
vision and audience of it? The soul really is native resident in a
world of truth, goodness, and beauty, fellow citizen with divine
ideas and affections. Through the senses it has knowledge and
communion with the hard outer world of matter. When the senses
fall away, it is left, imperishable denizen of its own appropriate
world of idealities.

11 Schubert, Die Symbolik des Traumes.

12 Iliad, lib. xxiii. ll. 60 106.


Another assemblage of views, based on the character of God, form
the theological argument for the future existence of man.13
Starting with the idea of a God of infinite perfections, the
immortality of his children is an immediate deduction from the
eternity of his purposes. For whatever purpose God originally gave
man being, for the disinterested distribution of happiness, for
the increase of his own glory, or whatever else, will he not for
that same purpose continue him in being forever? In the absence of
any reason to the contrary, we must so conclude. In view of the
unlimited perfections of God, the fact of conscious responsible
creatures being created is sufficient warrant of their perpetuity.
Otherwise God would be fickle. Or, as one has said, he would be a
mere drapery painter, nothing within the dress.

Secondly, leaving out of sight this illustration of an eternal
purpose in eternal fulfilment, and confining our attention to the
analogy of the divine works and the dignity of the divine Worker,
we shall be freshly led to the same conclusion. Has God moulded
the dead clay of the material universe into gleaming globes and
ordered them to fly through the halls of space forever, and has he
created, out of his own omnipotence, mental personalities
reflecting his own attributes, and doomed them to go out in
endless night after basking, poor ephemera, in the sunshine of a
momentary life? It is not to be imagined that God ever works in
vain. Yet if a single consciousness be extinguished in everlasting
nonentity, so far as the production of that consciousness is
concerned he has wrought for nothing. His action was in vain,
because all is now, to that being, exactly the same as if it had
never been. God does nothing in sport or unmeaningly: least of all
would he create filial spirits, dignified with the solemn
endowments of humanity, without a high and serious end.14 To make
men, gifted with such a transcendent largess of powers, wholly
mortal, to rot forever in the grave after life's swift day, were
work far more unworthy of God than the task was to Michael Angelo
set him in mockery by Pietro, the tyrant who succeeded Lorenzo the
Magnificent in the dukedom of Florence, that he should scoop up
the snow in the Via Larga, and with his highest art mould a statue
from it, to dissolve ere night in the glow of the Italian sun.

Thirdly, it is an attribute of Infinite Wisdom to proportion
powers to results, to adapt instruments to ends with exact
fitness. But if we are utterly to die with the ceasing breath,
then there is an amazing want of symmetry between our endowments
and our opportunity; our attainments are most superfluously
superior to our destiny. Can it be that an earth house of six feet
is to imprison forever the intellect of a La Place, whose
telescopic eye, piercing the unfenced fields of immensity,
systematized more worlds than there are grains of dust in this
globe? the heart of a Borromeo, whose seraphic love expanded to
the limits of sympathetic being? the soul of a Wycliffe, whose
undaunted will, in faithful consecration to duty, faced the fires
of martyrdom and never blenched? the genius of a Shakspeare, whose
imagination exhausted worlds and then invented new? There is vast
incongruity between our faculties and the scope given them here.
On all it sees below the soul reads "Inadequate," and rises

13 Aebli, Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele, sechster Brief.

14 Ulrici, Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele aus dem Wesen
Gottes erwiesen.


dissatisfied from every feast, craving, with divine hunger and
thirst, the ambrosia and nectar of a fetterless and immortal
world. Were we fated to perish at the goal of threescore, God
would have harmonized our powers with our lot. He would never have
set such magnificent conceptions over against such poor
possibilities, nor have kindled so insatiable an ambition for so
trivial a prize of dust to dust.

Fourthly, one of the weightiest supports of the belief in a future
life is that yielded by the benevolence of God. Annihilation is
totally irreconcilable with this. That He whose love for his
creatures is infinite will absolutely destroy them after their
little span of life, when they have just tasted the sweets of
existence and begun to know the noble delights of spiritual
progress, and while illimitable heights of glory and blessedness
are beckoning them, is incredible. We are unable to believe that
while his children turn to him with yearning faith and gratitude,
with fervent prayer and expectation, he will spurn them into
unmitigated night, blotting out those capacities of happiness
which he gave them with a virtual promise of endless increase.
Will the affectionate God permit humanity, ensconced in the field
of being, like a nest of ground sparrows, to be trodden in by the
hoof of annihilation? Love watches to preserve life. It were
Moloch, not the universal Father, that could crush into death
these multitudes of loving souls supplicating him for life, dash
into silent fragments these miraculous personal harps of a
thousand strings, each capable of vibrating a celestial melody of
praise and bliss.

Fifthly, the apparent claims of justice afford presumptive proof,
hard to be resisted, of a future state wherein there are
compensations for the unmerited ills, a complement for the
fragmentary experiences, and rectification for the wrongs, of the
present life.15 God is just; but he works without impulse or
caprice, by laws whose progressive evolution requires time to show
their perfect results. Through the brief space of this existence,
where the encountering of millions of free intelligences within
the fixed conditions of nature causes a seeming medley of good and
evil, of discord and harmony, wickedness often triumphs, villany
often outreaches and tramples ingenuous nobility and helpless
innocence. Some saintly spirits, victims of disease and penury,
drag out their years in agony, neglect, and tears. Some bold
minions of selfishness, with seared consciences and nerves of
iron, pluck the coveted fruits of pleasure, wear the diadems of
society, and sweep through the world in pomp. The virtuous suffer
undeservedly from the guilty. The idle thrive on the industrious.
All these things sometimes happen. In spite of the compensating
tendencies which ride on all spiritual laws, in spite of the
mysterious Nemesis which is throned in every bosom and saturates
the moral atmosphere with influence, the world is full of wrongs,
sufferings, and unfinished justice.16 There must be another world,
where the remunerating processes interiorly begun here shall be
openly consummated. Can it be that Christ and Herod, Paul and
Nero, Timour and Fenelon, drop through the blind trap of death
into precisely the same condition of unwaking sleep? Not if there
be a God!

15 M. Jules Simon, La Religion Naturelle, liv. iii.:
l'Immortalite.

16 Dr. Chalmers, Bridgewater Treatise, chap. 10.


There is a final assemblage of thoughts pertaining to the
likelihood of another life, which, arranged together, may be
styled the moral argument in behalf of that belief.17 These
considerations are drawn from the seeming fitness of things,
claims of parts beseeching completion, vaticinations of
experience. They form a cumulative array of probabilities whose
guiding forefingers all indicate one truth, whose consonant voices
swell into a powerful strain of promise. First, consider the
shrinking from annihilation naturally felt in every breast. If man
be not destined for perennial life, why is this dread of non
existence woven into the soul's inmost fibres? Attractions are co
ordinate with destinies, and every normal desire foretells its own
fulfilment. Man fades unwillingly from his natal haunts, still
longing for a life of eternal remembrance and love, and confiding
in it. All over the world grows this pathetic race of forget me
nots. Shall not Heaven pluck and wear them on her bosom? Secondly,
an emphatic presumption in favor of a second life arises from the
premature mortality prevalent to such a fearful extent in the
human family. Nearly one half of our race perish before reaching
the age of ten years. In that period they cannot have fulfilled
the total purposes of their creation. It is but a part we see, and
not the whole. The destinies here seen segmentary will appear full
circle beyond the grave.

The argument is hardly met by asserting that this untimely
mortality is the punishment for non observance of law; for,
denying any further life, would a scheme of existence have been
admitted establishing so awful a proportion of violations and
penalties? If there be no balancing sphere beyond, then all should
pass through the experience of a ripe and rounded life. But there
is the most perplexing inequality. At one fell swoop, infant,
sage, hero, reveller, martyr, are snatched into the invisible
state. There is, as a noble thinker has said, an apparent "caprice
in the dispensation of death strongly indicative of a hidden
sequel." Immortality unravels the otherwise inscrutable mystery.

Thirdly, the function of conscience furnishes another attestation
to the continued existence of man. This vicegerent of God in the
breast, arrayed in splendors and terrors, which shakes and
illumines the whole circumference of our being with its thunders
and lightnings, gives the good man, amidst oppressions and woes, a
serene confidence in a future justifying reward, and transfixes
the bad man, through all his retinue of guards and panoplied
defences, with icy pangs of fear and with a horrid looking for
judgment to come. The sublime grandeur of moral freedom, the
imperilling dignities of probation, the tremendous
responsibilities and hazards of man's felt power and position, are
all inconsistent with the supposition that he is merely to cross
this petty stage of earth and then wholly expire. Such momentous
endowments and exposures imply a corresponding arena and career.
After the trial comes the sentence; and that would be as if a
palace were built, a prince born, trained, crowned, solely that he
might occupy the throne five minutes! The consecrating, royalizing
idea of duty cannot be less than the core of eternal life.
Conscience is the sensitive corridor along which the mutual
whispers of a divine communion pass and repass. A moral law and a
free will

17 Crombie, Natural Theology, Essay IV.: The Arguments for
Immortality. Bretschneider, Die Religiose Glaubenslehre, sect.
20-21.


are the root by which we grow out of God, and the stem by which we
are grafted into him.

Fourthly, all probable surmisings in favor of a future life, or
any other moral doctrine, are based on that primal postulate
which, by virtue of our rational and ethical constitution, we are
authorized and bound to accept as a commencing axiom, namely, that
the scheme of creation is as a whole the best possible one,
impelled and controlled by wisdom and benignity. Whatever, then,
is an inherent part of the plan of nature cannot be erroneous nor
malignant, a mistake nor a curse. Essentially and in the finality,
every fundamental portion and element of it must be good and
perfect. So far as science and philosophy have penetrated, they
confirm by facts this a priori principle, telling us that there is
no pure and uncompensated evil in the universe. Now, death is a
regular ingredient in the mingled world, an ordered step in the
plan of life. If death be absolute, is it not an evil? What can
the everlasting deprivation of all good be called but an immense
evil to its subject? Such a doom would be without possible solace,
standing alone in steep contradiction to the whole parallel moral
universe. Then might man utter the most moving and melancholy
paradox ever expressed in human speech:

"What good came to my mind I did deplore, Because it perish must,
and not live evermore."

Fifthly, the soul, if not outwardly arrested by some hostile
agent, seems capable of endless progress without ever exhausting
either its own capacity or the perfections of infinitude.18 There
are before it unlimited truth, beauty, power, nobleness, to be
contemplated, mastered, acquired. With indefatigable alacrity,
insatiable faculty and desire, it responds to the infinite call.
The obvious inference is that its destiny is unending advancement.
Annihilation would be a sequel absurdly incongruous with the
facts. True, the body decays, and all manifested energy fails; but
that is the fault of the mechanism, not of the spirit. Were we to
live many thousands of years, as Martineau suggests, no one
supposes new souls, but only new organizations, would be needed.
And what period can we imagine to terminate the unimpeded spirit's
abilities to learn, to enjoy, to expand? Kant's famous
demonstration of man's eternal life on the grounds of practical
reason is similar. The related ideas of absolute virtue and a
moral being necessarily imply the infinite progress of the latter
towards the former. That progress is impossible except on
condition of the continued existence of the same being. Therefore
the soul is immortal.19

Sixthly, our whole life here is a steady series of growing
preparations for a continued and ascending life hereafter. All the
spiritual powers we develop are so much athletic training, all the
ideal treasures we accumulate are so many preliminary attainments,
for a future life. They have this appearance and superscription.
Man alone foreknows his own death and expects a succeeding
existence; and that foresight is given to prepare him. There are
wondrous impulses in us, constitutional convictions prescient of
futurity, like those prevising instincts in birds leading them to
take preparatory flights before their actual migration.

18 Addison, Spectator, Nos. 3 and 210.

19 Jacob, Beweis fur die Unsterblichkeit der Seele aus dem
Begriffe der Pflicht.


Eternity is the stuff of which our love, flying forward, builds
its nest in the eaves of the universe. If we saw wings growing
out upon a young creature, we should be forced to conclude that
he was intended some time to fly. It is so with man. By exploring
thoughts, disciplinary sacrifices, supernal prayers, holy toils
of disinterestedness, he fledges his soul's pinions, lays up
treasures in heaven, and at last migrates to the attracting clime.

"Here sits he, shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a
mystery; He names the name eternity."

Seventhly, in the degree these preparations are made in obedience
to obscure instincts and the developing laws of experience, they
are accompanied by significant premonitions, lucid signals of the
future state looked to, assuring witnesses of its reality. The
more one lives for immortality, the more immortal things he
assimilates into his spiritual substance, the more confirming
tokens of a deathless inheritance his faith finds. He becomes
conscious of his own eternity.20 When hallowed imagination weighs
anchor and spreads sail to coast the dim shores of the other
world, it hears cheerful voices of welcome from the headlands and
discerns beacons burning in the port. When in earnest communion
with our inmost selves, solemn meditations of God, mysterious
influences shed from unseen spheres, fall on our souls, and many a
"strange thought, transcending our wonted themes, into glory
peeps." A vague, constraining sense of invisible beings, by whom
we are engirt, fills us. We blindly feel that our rank and
destination are with them. Lift but one thin veil, we think, and
the occult Universe of Spirit would break to vision with cloudy
crowds of angels. Thousand "hints chance dropped from nature's
sphere," pregnant with friendly tidings, reassure us. "Strange,"
said a gifted metaphysician once, "that the barrel organ, man,
should terminate every tune with the strain of immortality!" Not
strange, but divinely natural. It is the tentative prelude to the
thrilling music of our eternal bliss written in the score of
destiny. When at night we gaze far out into immensity, along the
shining vistas of God's abode, and are almost crushed by the
overwhelming prospects that sweep upon our vision, do not some
pre monitions of our own unfathomed greatness also stir within us?
Yes: "the sense of Existence, the ideas of Right and Duty, awful
intuitions of God and immortality, these, the grand facts and
substance of the spirit, are independent and indestructible. The
bases of the Moral Law, they shall stand in every tittle, although
the stars should pass away. For their relations and root are in
that which upholds the stars, even with worlds unseen from the
finite, whose majestic and everlasting arrangements shall burst
upon us as the heavens do through the night when the light of this
garish life gives place to the solemn splendors of eternity."

Eighthly, the belief in a life beyond death has virtually
prevailed everywhere and always. And the argument from universal
consent, as it is termed, has ever been esteemed one of the
foremost testimonies, if not indeed the most convincing testimony,
to the truth of the doctrine. Unless the belief can be shown to be
artificial or sinful, it must seem conclusive. Its innocence is
self evident, and its naturalness is evidenced by its
universality.

20 Theodore Parker, Sermon of Immortal Life.


The rudest and the most polished, the simplest and the most
learned, unite in the expectation, and cling to it through
every thing. It is like the ruling presentiment implanted in
those insects that are to undergo metamorphosis. This believing
instinct, so deeply seated in our consciousness, natural,
innocent, universal, whence came it, and why was it given?
There is but one fair answer. God and nature deceive not.

Ninthly, the conscious, practical faith of civilized nations, to
day, in a future life, unquestionably, in a majority of
individuals, rests directly on the basis of authority, trust in a
foreign announcement. There are two forms of this authority. The
authority of revelation is most prominent and extensive. God has
revealed the truth from heaven. It has been exemplified by a
miraculous resurrection. It is written in an infallible book, and
sealed with authenticating credentials of super natural purport.
It is therefore to be accepted with implicit trust. Secondly, with
some, the authority of great minds, renowned for scientific
knowledge and speculative acumen, goes far. Thousands of such men,
ranking among the highest names of history, have positively
affirmed the immortality of the soul as a reliable truth. For
instance, Goethe says, on occasion of the death of Wieland, "The
destruction of such high powers is something which can never, and
under no circumstances, even come into question." Such a dogmatic
expression of conviction resting on bare philosophical grounds,
from a mind so equipped, so acute, and so free, has great weight,
and must influence a modest student who hesitates in confessed
incompetence.21 The argument is justly powerful when but humanly
considered, and when divinely derived, of course, it absolutely
forecloses all doubts.

Tenthly, there is another life, because a belief in it is
necessary to order this world, necessary as a comfort and an
inspiration to man now. A good old author writes, "the very nerves
and sinews of religion is hope of immortality." The conviction
that there is a retributive life hereafter is the moral cement of
the social fabric. Take away this truth, and one great motive of
patriots, martyrs, thinkers, saints, is gone. Take it away, and to
all low minded men selfishness becomes the law, earthly enjoyment
the only good, suffering and death the only evil. Life then is to
be supremely coveted and never put in risk for any stake. Self
indulgence is to be secured at any hazard, little matter by what
means. Abandon all hope of a life to come, and "from that instant
there is nothing serious in mortality." In order that the world
should be governable, ethical, happy, virtuous, magnanimous, is it
possible that it should be necessary for the world to believe in
an untruth?

"So, thou hast immortality in mind?
Hast grounds that will not let thee doubt it?
The strongest ground herein I find:
That we could never do without it!"

Finally, the climax of these argumentations is capped by that
grand closing consideration which we may entitle the force of
congruity, the convincing results of a confluence of harmonious
reasons. The hypothesis of immortality accords with the cardinal
facts of observation, meets all points of the case, and
satisfactorily answers every requirement.

21 Lewis, Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion.


It is the solution of the problem, as the fact of Neptune explained
the perturbations of the adjacent planets. Nothing ever gravitates
towards nothing; and it must be an unseen orb that so draws our
yearning souls. If it be not so, then what terrible contradictions
stagger us, and what a chilling doom awaits us! Oh, what mocking
irony then runs through the loftiest promises and hopes of the
world! Just as the wise and good have learned to live, they
disappear amidst the unfeeling waves of oblivion, like snow flakes
in the ocean. "The super earthly desires of man are then created
in him only, like swallowed diamonds, to cut slowly through his
material shell" and destroy him.

The denial of a future life introduces discord, grief, and despair
in every direction, and, by making each step of advanced culture
the ascent to a wider survey of tantalizing glory and experienced
sorrow, as well as the preparation for a greater fall and a sadder
loss, turns faithful affection and heroic thought into "blind
furies slinging flame." Unless immortality be true, man appears a
dark riddle, not made for that of which he is made capable and
desirous: every thing is begun, nothing ended; the facts of the
present scene are unintelligible; the plainest analogies are
violated; the delicately rising scale of existence is broken off
abrupt; our best reasonings concerning the character and designs
of God, also concerning the implications of our own being and
experience, are futile; and the soul's proud faculties tell
glorious lies as thick as stars. Such, at least, is the usual way
of thinking.

However formidable a front may be presented by the spectral array
of doubts and difficulties, seeming impediments to faith in
immortality, the faithful servant of God, equipped with
philosophical culture and a saintly life, will fearlessly advance
upon them, scatter them right and left, and win victorious access
to the prize. So the mariner sometimes, off Sicilian shores, sees
a wondrous island ahead, apparently stopping his way with its
cypress and cedar groves, glittering towers, vine wreathed
balconies, and marble stairs sloping to the water's edge. He sails
straight forward, and, severing the pillared porticos and green
gardens of Fata Morgana, glides far on over a glassy sea smiling
in the undeceptive sun.

CHAPTER IV.

THEORIES OF THE SOUL'S DESTINATION.

BEFORE examining, in their multifarious detail, the special
thoughts and fancies respecting a future life prevalent in
different nations and times, it may be well to take a sort of
bird's eye view of those general theories of the destination of
the soul under which all the individual varieties of opinion may
be classified. Vast and incongruous as is the heterogeneous mass
of notions brought forth by the history of this province of the
world's belief, the whole may be systematized, discriminated, and
reduced to a few comprehensive heads. Such an architectural
grouping or outlining of the chief schemes of thought on this
subject will yield several advantages.

Showing how the different views arose from natural speculations on
the correlated phenomena of the outward world and facts of human
experience, it affords an indispensable help towards a
philosophical analysis and explanation of the popular faith as to
the destiny of man after death, in all the immense diversity of
its contents. An orderly arrangement and exposition of these
cardinal theories also form an epitome holding a bewildering
multitude of particulars in its lucid and separating grasp,
changing the fruits of learned investigation from a cumbersome
burden on the memory to a small number of connected formularies in
the reason. These theories serve as a row of mirrors hung in a
line of historic perspective, reflecting every relevant shape and
hue of meditation and faith humanity has known, from the ideal
visions of the Athenian sage to the instinctive superstitions of
the Fejee savage. When we have adequately defined these theories,
of which there are seven, traced their origin, comprehended their
significance and bearings, and dissected their supporting
pretensions, then the whole field of our theme lies in light
before us; and, however grotesque or mysterious, simple or subtle,
may be the modes of thinking and feeling in relation to the life
beyond death revealed in our subsequent researches, we shall know
at once where to refer them and how to explain them. The precise
object, therefore, of the present chapter is to set forth the
comprehensive theories devised to solve the problem, What becomes
of man when he dies?

But a little while man flourishes here in the bosom of visible
nature. Soon he disappears from our scrutiny, missed in all the
places that knew him. Whither has he gone? What fate has befallen
him? It is an awful question. In comparison with its concentrated
interest, all other affairs are childish and momentary. Whenever
that solemn question is asked, earth, time, and the heart, natural
transformations, stars, fancy, and the brooding intellect, are
full of vague oracles. Let us see what intelligible answers can be
constructed from their responses.

The first theory which we shall consider propounds itself in one
terrible word, annihilation. Logically this is the earliest,
historically the latest, view. The healthy consciousness, the
eager fancy, the controlling sentiment, the crude thought, all the
uncurbed instinctive conclusions of primitive human nature, point
forcibly to a continued existence for the soul, in some way, when
the body shall have perished. And so history shows us in all the
savage nations a vivid belief in a future life. But to the
philosophical observer, who has by dint of speculation freed
himself from the constraining tendencies of desire, faith,
imagination, and authority, the thought that man totally ceases
with the destruction of his visible organism must occur as the
first and simplest settlement of the question.1 The totality of
manifested life has absolutely disappeared: why not conclude that
the totality of real life has actually lost its existence and is
no more? That is the natural inference, unless by some means the
contrary can be proved. Accordingly, among all civilized people,
every age has had its skeptics, metaphysical disputants who have
mournfully or scoffingly denied the separate survival of the soul.
This is a necessity in the inevitable sequences of observation and
theory; because, when the skeptic, suppressing or escaping his
biassed wishes, the trammels of traditional opinion, and the
spontaneous convictions prophetic of his own uninterrupted being,
first looks over the wide scene of human life and death, and
reflectingly asks, What is the sequel of this strange, eventful
history? obviously the conclusion suggested by the immediate
phenomena is that of entire dissolution and blank oblivion. This
result is avoided by calling in the aid of deeper philosophical
considerations and of inspiring moral truths. But some will not
call in that aid; and the whole superficial appearance of the
case regarding that alone, as they then will is fatal to our
imperial hopes. The primordial clay claims its own from the
disanimated frame; and the vanished life, like the flame of an
outburnt taper, has ceased to be. Men are like bubbles or foam
flakes on the world's streaming surface: glittering in a momentary
ray, they break and are gone, and only the dark flood remains
still flowing forward. They are like tones of music, commencing
and ending with the unpurposed breath that makes them. Nature is a
vast congeries of mechanical substances pervaded by mindless
forces of vitality. Consciousness is a production which results
from the fermentation and elaboration of unconscious materials;
and after a time it deceases, its conditions crumbling into their
inorganic grounds again.

From the abyss of silence and dust intelligent creatures break
forth, shine, and sink back, like meteor flashes in a cloud. The
generations of sentient being, like the annual growths of
vegetation, by spontaneity of dynamic development, spring from
dead matter, flourish through their destined cycle, and relapse
into dead matter. The bosom of nature is, therefore, at once the
wondrous womb and the magnificent mausoleum of man. Fate, like an
iron skeleton seated at the summit of the world on a throne of
fresh growing grass and mouldering skulls, presides over all, and
annihilation is the universal doom of individual life. Such is the
atheistic naturalist's creed. However indefensible or shocking it
is, it repeatedly appears in the annals of speculation; and any
synopsis of the possible conclusions in which the inquiry into
man's destiny may rest that should omit this, would be grossly
imperfect.

This scheme of disbelief is met by insuperable objections. It
excludes some essential elements of the case, confines itself to a
wholly empirical view; and consequently the relentless solution it
announces applies only to a mutilated problem. To assert the
cessation of the soul because its physical manifestations through
the body have ceased, is certainly to affirm without just warrant.
It would appear impossible for volition and intelligence to

1 Lalande, Dictionnaire des Athees Anciens et Modernes.


originate save from a free parent mind. Numerous cogent evidences
of design seem to prove the existence of a God by whose will all
things are ordered according to a plan. Many powerful impressions
and arguments, instinctive, critical, or moral, combine to teach
that in the wreck of matter the spirit emerges, deathless, from
the closing waves of decay. The confirmation of that truth becomes
irresistible when we see how reason and conscience, with delighted
avidity, seize upon its adaptedness alike to the brightest
features and the darkest defects of the present life, whose
imperfect symmetries and segments are harmoniously filled out by
the adjusting complement of a future state.2

The next representation of the fate of the soul disposes of it by
re absorption into the essence from which it emanated. There is an
eternal fountain of unmade life, from which all individual,
transient lives flow, and into which they return. This conception
arose in the outset from a superficial analogy which must have
obtruded itself upon primitive notice and speculation; for man is
led to his first metaphysical inquiries by a feeling contemplation
of outward phenomena. Now, in the material world, when individual
forms perish, each sensible component relapses into its original
element and becomes an undistinguishable portion of it. Our
exhaled breath goes into the general air and is united with it:
the dust of our decaying frames becomes part of the ground and
vegetation. So, it is strongly suggested, the lives of things, the
souls of men, when they disappear from us, are remerged in the
native spirit whence they came. The essential longing of every
part for union with its whole is revealed and vocal throughout all
nature. Water is sullen in stillness, murmurs in motion, and never
ceases its gloom or its complaining until it sleeps in the sea.
Like spray on the rock, the stranding generations strike the
sepulchre and are dissipated into universal vapor. As lightnings
slink back into the charged bosom of the thunder cloud, as eager
waves, spent, subside in the deep, as furious gusts die away in
the great atmosphere, so the gleaming ranks of genius, the
struggling masses of toil, the pompous hosts of war, fade and
dissolve away into the peaceful bosom of the all engulfing SOUL.
This simplest, earliest philosophy of mankind has had most
extensive and permanent prevalence.3 For immemorial centuries it
has possessed the mind of the countless millions of India. Baur
thinks the Egyptian identification of each deceased person with
Osiris and the burial of him under that name, were meant to denote
the reception of the individual human life into the universal
nature life. The doctrine has been implicitly held wherever
pantheism has found a votary, from Anaximander, to whom finite
creatures were "disintegrations or decompositions from the
Infinite," to Alexander Pope, affirming that

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is,
and God the soul."

The first reasoners, who gave such an ineradicable direction and
tinge to the thinking of after ages, were furthermore driven to
the supposition of a final absorption, from the

2 Drossbach, Die Harmonie der Ergebnisse der Naturforschung mit
den Forderungen des Menschlichen Gemuthes.

3 Blount, Anima Mundi; or, The Opinions of the Ancients concerning
Man's Soul after this Life.


impossibility, in that initiatory stage of thought, of grasping
any other theory which would apparently meet the case so well or
be more satisfactory. They, of course, had not yet arrived at the
idea that God is a personal Spirit whose nature is revealed in the
constitutive characteristics of the human soul, and who carries on
his works from eternity to eternity without monotonous repetition
or wearisome stagnancy, but with perpetual variety in never
ceasingmotion. Whatever commences must also terminate, they said,
forgetting that number begins with one but has no end. They did
not conceive of the universe of being as an eternal line, making
immortality desirable for its endless novelty, but imaged it to
themselves as a circle, making an everlasting individual
consciousness dreadful for its intolerable sameness, an immense
round of existence, phenomena, and experience, going forth and
returning into itself, over and over, forever and ever. To escape
so repulsive a contemplation, they made death break the fencing
integument of consciousness and empty all weary personalities into
the absolute abyss of being.

Again: the extreme difficulty of apprehending the truth of a
Creator literally infinite, and of a limitless creation, would
lead to the same result in another way. Without doubt, it seemed
to the naive thinkers of antiquity, that if hosts of new beings
were continually coming into life and increasing the number of the
inhabitants of the future state, the fountain from which they
proceeded would some time be exhausted, or the universe grow
plethoric with population. There would be no more substance below
or no more room above. The easiest method of surmounting this
problem would be by the hypothesis that all spirits come out of a
great World Spirit, and, having run their mortal careers, are
absorbed into it again. Many especially the deepest Oriental
dreamers have also been brought to solace themselves with this
conclusion by a course of reasoning based on the exposures, and
assumed inevitable sufferings, of all finite being. They argue
that every existence below the absolute God, because it is set
around with limitations, is necessarily obnoxious to all sorts of
miseries. Its pleasures are only "honey drops scarce tasted in a
sea of gall." This conviction, with its accompanying sentiment,
runs through the sacred books of the East, is the root and heart
of their theology, the dogma that makes the cruelest penances
pleasant if a renewed existence may thus be avoided. The sentiment
is not alien to human longing and surmise, as witnesses the night
thought of the English poet who, world sated, and sadly yearning,
cries through the starry gloom to God,

"When shall my soul her incarnation quit, And, readopted to thy
blest embrace, Obtain her apotheosis in thee?"

Having stated and traced the doctrine of absorption, it remains to
investigate the justice of its grounds. The doctrine starts from a
premise partly true and ends in a conclusion partly false. We
emanate from the creative power of God, and are sustained by the
in flowing presence of his life, but are not discerptions from his
own being, any more than beams of light are distinct substances
shot out and shorn off from the sun to be afterwards drawn back
and assimilated into the parent orb. We are destined to a
harmonious life in his unifying love, but not to be fused and lost
as insentient parts of his total consciousness. We are products of

God's will, not component atoms of his soul. Souls are to be in
God as stars are in the firmament, not as lumps of salt are in a
solvent. This view is confirmed by various arguments.

In the first place, it is supported by the philosophical
distinction between emanation and creation. The conception of
creation gives us a personal God who wills to certain ends; that
of emanation reduces the Supreme Being to a ghastly array of laws,
revolving abysses, galvanic forces, nebular star dust, dead ideas,
and vital fluids. According to the latter supposition, finite
existences flow from the Infinite as consequences from a
principle, or streams from a fountain; according to the former,
they proceed as effects from a cause, or thoughts from a mind.
That is pantheistic, fatal, and involves absorption by a logical
necessity; this is creative, free, and does not presuppose any
circling return. Material things are thoughts which God
transiently contemplates and dismisses; spiritual creatures are
thoughts which he permanently expresses in concrete immortality.
The soul is a thought; the body is the word in which it is
clothed.

Secondly, the analogy which first leads to belief in absorption is
falsely interpreted. Taken on its own ground, rightly appreciated,
it legitimates a different conclusion.

A grain of sand thrown into the bosom of Sahara does not lose its
individual existence. Distinct drops are not annihilated as to
their simple atoms of water, though sunk in the midst of the sea.
The final particles or monads of air or granite are not
dissolvingly blended into continuity of unindividualized
atmosphere or rock when united with their elemental masses, but
are thrust unapproachably apart by molecular repulsion. Now, a
mind, being, as we conceive, no composite, but an ultimate unity,
cannot be crushed or melted from its integral persistence of
personality. Though plunged into the centre of a surrounding
wilderness or ocean of minds, it must still retain itself unlost
in the multitude. Therefore, if we admit the existence of an
inclusive mundane Soul, it by no means follows that lesser souls
received into it are deprived of their individuality. It is "one
not otherwise than as the sea is one, by a similarity and
contiguity of parts, being composed of an innumerable host of
distinct spirits, as that is of aqueous particles; and as the
rivers continually discharge into the sea, so the vehicular
people, upon the disruption of their vehicles, discharge and
incorporate into that ocean of spirits making the mundane Soul."4

Thirdly, every consideration furnished by the doctrine of final
causes as applied to existing creatures makes us ask, What use is
there in calling forth souls merely that they may be taken back
again? To justify their creation, the fulfilment of some educative
aim, and then the lasting fruition of it, appear necessary. Why
else should a soul be drawn from out the unformed vastness, and
have its being struck into bounds, and be forced to pass through
such appalling ordeals of good and evil, pleasure and agony? An
individual of any kind is as important as its race; for it
contains in possibility all that its type does. And the purposes
of things, so far as we can discern them, the nature of our
spiritual constitution, the meaning of our circumstances and
probation, the resulting tendencies of our experience, all seem to
prophesy, not the destruction, but the perfection and
perpetuation, of individual being.

4 Tucker, Light of Nature, Part II. chap. xxii.


Fourthly, the same inference is yielded by applying a similar
consideration to the Creator. Allowing him consciousness and
intentions, as we must, what object could he have either in
exerting his creative power or in sending out portions of himself
in new individuals, save the production of so many immortal
personalities of will, knowledge, and love, to advance towards the
perfection of holiness, wisdom, and blessedness, filling his
mansions with his children? By thus multiplying his own image he
adds to the number of happy creatures who are to be bound together
in bands of glory, mutually receiving and returning his affection,
and swells the tide of conscious bliss which fills and rolls
forever through his eternal universe.

Nor, finally, is it necessary to expect personal oblivion in God
in order to escape from evil and win exuberant happiness. Those
ends are as well secured by the fruition of God's love in us as by
the drowning of our consciousness in his plenitude of delight.
Precisely herein consists the fundamental distinction of the
Christian from the Brahmanic doctrine of human destiny. The
Christian hopes to dwell in blissful union with God's will, not to
be annihilatingly sunk in his essence. To borrow an illustration
from Scotus Erigena,5 as the air when thoroughly illumined by
sunshine still keeps its aerial nature and does not become
sunshine, or as iron all red in the flame still keeps its metallic
substance and does not turn to fire itself, so a soul fully
possessed and moved by God does not in consequence lose its own
sentient and intelligent being. It is still a bounded entity,
though recipient of boundless divinity. Thus evil ceases, each
personality is preserved and intensely glorified, and, at the same
time, God is all in all. The totality of perfected, enraptured,
immortalized humanity in heaven may be described in this manner,
adopting the masterly expression of Coleridge:

"And as one body seems the aggregate Of atoms numberless, each
organized, So, by a strange and dim similitude, Infinite myriads
of self conscious minds In one containing Spirit live, who fills
With absolute ubiquity of thought All his involved monads, that
yet seem Each to pursue its own self centring end."

A third mode of answering the question of human destiny is by the
conception of a general resurrection. Souls, as fast as they leave
the body, are gathered in some intermediate state, a starless
grave world, a ghostly limbo. When the present cycle of things is
completed, when the clock of time runs down and its lifeless
weight falls in the socket, and "Death's empty helmet yawns grimly
over the funeral hatchment of the world," the gates of this long
barred receptacle of the deceased will be struck open, and its
pale prisoners, in accumulated hosts, issue forth, and enter on
the immortal inheritance reserved for them. In the sable land of
Hades all departed generations are bivouacking in one vast army.
On the resurrection morning, striking their shadowy tents, they
will scale the walls of the abyss, and, reinvested with their
bodies, either plant their banners on the summits of the earth in
permanent encampment, or storm the battlements of the sky and
colonize heaven with flesh and blood.

5 Philosophy and Doctrines of Erigena, Universalist Quarterly
Review, vol. vii. p. 100.


All advocates of the doctrine of psychopannychism, or the sleep
of souls from death till the last day, in addition to the general
body of orthodox Christians, have been supporters of this
conclusion.6

Three explanations are possible of the origination of this belief.
First, a man musing over the affecting panorama of the seasons as
it rolls through the year, budding life alternating with deadly
desolation, spring still bringing back the freshness of leaves,
flowers, and carolling birds, as if raising them from an annual
interment in winter's cold grave, and then thinking of the destiny
of his own race, how many generations have ripened and decayed,
how many human crops have been harvested from the cradle and
planted in the tomb, might naturally  especially if he had any
thing of the poet's associating and creative mind say to himself,
Are we altogether perishable dust, or are we seed sown for higher
fields, seed lying dormant now, but at last to sprout into swift
immortality when God shall make a new sunshine and dew
omnipotently penetrate the dry mould where we tarry? No matter how
partial the analogy, how forced the process, how false the result,
such imagery would sooner or later occur; and, having occurred, it
is no more strange that it should get literal acceptance than it
is that many other popular figments should have secured the firm
establishment they have.

Secondly, a mourner just bereaved of one in whom his whole love
was garnered, distracted with grief, his faculties unbalanced, his
soul a chaos, is of sorrow and fantasy all compact; and he solaces
himself with the ideal embodiment of his dreams, half seeing what
he thinks, half believing what he wishes. His desires pass through
unconscious volition into supposed facts. Before the miraculous
power of his grief wielded imagination the world is fluent, and
fate runs in the moulds he conceives. The adored form on which
corruption now banquets, he sees again, animated, beaming, clasped
in his arms. He cries, It cannot be that those holy days are
forever ended, that I shall never more realize the blissful dream
in which we trod the sunny world together! Oh, it must be that
some time God will give me back again that beloved one! the
sepulchre closed so fast shall be unsealed, the dead be restored,
and all be as it was before! The conception thus once born out of
the delirium of busy thought, anguished love, and regnant
imagination, may in various ways win a fixed footing in faith.

Thirdly, the notion which we are now contemplating is one link in
a chain of thought which, in the course of time and the range of
speculation, the theorizing mind could not fail to forge. The
concatenation of reflections is this. Death is the separation of
soul and body. That separation is repulsive, an evil. Therefore it
was not intended by the Infinite Goodness, but was introduced by a
foe, and is a foreign, marring element. Finally God will vanquish
his antagonist, and banish from the creation all his thwarting
interferences with the primitive perfection of harmony and
happiness. Accordingly, the souls which Satan has caused to be
separated from their bodies are reserved apart until the fulness
of time, when there shall be a universal resurrection and
restoration. So far as reason is competent to pronounce on this
view considered as a sequel to the disembodying doom of man, it is
an arbitrary piece of fancy. Philosophy ignores it. Science gives
no hint of it.

6 Baumgarten, Beantwortung des Sendschreibens Heyns vom Schlafe
der abgeschiedenen Seelen. Chalmers. Astronomical Discourses, iv.


It sprang from unwarranted metaphors, perverted, exaggerated,
based on analogies not parallel. So far as it assumes to rest
on revelation it will be examined in another place.

Fourthly, after the notion of a great, epochal resurrection, as a
reply to the inquiry, What is to become of the soul? a dogma is
next encountered which we shall style that of a local and
irrevocable conveyance. The disembodied spirit is conveyed to some
fixed region,7 a penal or a blissful abode, where it is to tarry
unalterably. This idea of the banishment or admission of souls,
according to their deserts, or according to an elective grace,
into an anchored location called hell or heaven, a retributive or
rewarding residence for eternity, we shall pass by with few words,
because it recurs for fuller examination in other chapters. In the
first place, the whole picture is a gross simile drawn from
occurrences of this outward world and unjustifiably applied to the
fortunes of the mind in the invisible sphere of the future. The
figment of a judicial transportation of the soul from one place or
planet to another, as if by a Charon's boat, is a clattering and
repulsive conceit, inadmissible by one who apprehends the
noiseless continuity of God's self executing laws. It is a jarring
mechanical clash thrust amidst the smooth evolution of spiritual
destinies. It compares with the facts as the supposition that the
planets are swung around the sun by material chains compares with
the law of gravitation.

Moral compensation is no better secured by imprisonment or freedom
in separate localities than it is, in a common environment, by the
fatal working of their interior forces of character, and their
relations with all things else. Moreover, these antagonist
kingdoms, Tartarean and Elysian, defined as the everlasting
habitations of departed souls, have been successively driven, as
dissipated visions, from their assumed latitudes and longitudes,
one after another, by progressive discovery, until now the
intelligent mind knows of no assignable spot for them. Since we
are not acquainted with any fixed locations to which the soul is
to be carried, to abide there forever in appointed joy or woe, and
since there is no scientific necessity nor moral use for the
supposition of such places and of the transferrence of the
departed to them, we cannot hesitate to reject the associated
belief as a deluding mistake. The truth, as we conceive it, is not
that different souls are borne by constabulary apparitions to two
immured dwellings, manacled and hurried into Tophet or saluted and
ushered into Paradise, but that all souls spontaneously pass into
one immense empire, drawn therein by their appropriate
attractions, to assimilate a strictly discriminative experience.
But, as to this, let each thinker form his own conclusion.

The fifth view of the destination of the soul may be called the
theory of recurrence.8 When man dies, his surviving spirit is
immediately born again in a new body. Thus the souls, assigned in
a limited number to each world, continually return, each one still
forgetful of his previous lives. This seems to be the specific
creed of the Druses, who affirm that all souls were created at
once, and that the number is unchanged, while they are born over
and over. A Druse boy, dreadfully alarmed by the discharge of a
gun, on being asked by a Christian the cause of his fear, replied,
"I was born murdered;" that is, the soul of a man who had been
shot

7 Lange, Das Land der Herrlichkelt.

8 Schmidius, Diss. de Multiplici Animarum Reditu in Corpora.


passed into his body at the moment of his birth.9 The young
mountaineer would seem, from the sudden violence with which he was
snatched out of his old house, to have dragged a trail of
connecting consciousness over into his new one. As a general rule,
in distinction from such an exception, memory is like one of those
passes which the conductors of railroad trains give their
passengers, "good for this trip only." The notion of an endless
succession of lives on the familiar stage of this dear old world,
commencing each with clean wiped tablets, possesses for some minds
a fathomless allurement; but others wish for no return pass on
their ticket to futurity, preferring an adventurous abandonment
"to fresh fields and pastures new," in unknown immensity, to a
renewed excursion through landscapes already traversed and
experiences drained before.

Fourier's doctrine of immortality belongs here. According to his
idea, the Great Soul of this globe is a composite being,
comprising about ten billions of individual souls. Their
connection with this planet will be for nearly eighty thousand
years. Then the whole sum of them will swarm to some higher
planet, Fourier himself, perhaps, being the old gray gander that
will head the flock, pilot king of their flight. Each man is to
enjoy about four hundred births on earth, poetic justice leading
him successively through all the grades and phases of fortune,
from cripplehood and beggary to paragonship and the throne. The
invisible residence of spirits and the visible are both on this
globe, the former in the Great Soul, the latter in bodies. In the
other life the soul becomes a sharer in the woes of the Great
Soul, which is as unhappy as seven eighths of the incarnated
souls; for its fate is a compound of the fates of the human souls
taken collectively. Coming into this outward scene at birth, we
lose anew all memory of past existence, but wake up again in the
Great Soul with a perfect recollection of all our previous lives
both in the invisible and in the visible world. These alternating
passages between the two states will continue until the final
swooping of total humanity from this exhausted planet in search of
a better abode.10

The idea of the recurrence of souls is the simplest means of
meeting a difficulty stated thus by the ingenious Abraham Tucker
in his "Light of Nature Pursued." "The numbers of souls daily
pouring in from hence upon the next world seem to require a
proportionable drain from it somewhere or other; for else the
country might be overstocked." The objection urged against such a
belief from the fact that we do not remember having lived before
is rebutted by the assertion that

"Some draught of Lethe doth await, As old mythologies relate, The
slipping through from state to state."

The theory associated with this Lethean draught is confirmed by
its responsive correspondence with many unutterable experiences,
vividly felt or darkly recognised, in our deepest bosom. It seems
as if occasionally the poppied drug or other oblivious antidote

9 Churchill, Mount Lebanon, vol. ii. ch. 12.

10 Fourier, Passions of the Human Soul, (Morell's translation,)
Introduction, vol. i. pp. 14-18; also pp. 233-236.


administered by nature had been so much diluted that reason, only
half baffled, struggles to decipher the dim runes and vestiges of
a foregone state;

"And ever something is or seems That touches us with mystic
gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams."

In those excursive reveries, fed by hope and winged with dream,
which scour the glens and scale the peaks of the land of thought,
this nook of hypothesis must some time be discovered. And, brought
to light, it has much to interest and to please; but it is too
destitute of tangible proof to be successfully maintained against
assault.11

There is another faith as to the fate of souls, best stated,
perhaps, in the phrase perpetual migration. The soul, by
successive deaths and births, traverses the universe, an
everlasting traveller through the rounds of being and the worlds
of space, a transient sojourner briefly inhabiting each.12 All
reality is finding its way up towards the attracting, retreating
Godhead. Minerals tend to vegetables, these to animals, these to
men. Blind but yearning matter aspires to spirit, intelligent
spirits to divinity. In every grain of dust sleep an army of
future generations. As every thing below man gropes upward towards
his conscious estate, "the trees being imperfect men, that seem to
bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground," so man himself
shall climb the illimitable ascent of creation, every step a star.
The animal organism is a higher kind of vegetable, whose
development begins with those substances with the production of
which the life of an ordinary vegetable ends.13 The fact, too,
that embryonic man passes through ascending stages
undistinguishable from those of lower creatures, is full of
meaning. Does it not betoken a preserved epitome of the long
history of slowly rising existence? What unplummeted abysses of
time and distance intervene from the primary rock to the Victoria
Regia! and again from the first crawling spine to the fetterless
mind of a Schelling! But, snail pace by snail pace, those
immeasurable separations have been bridged over; and so every
thing that now lies at the dark basis of dust shall finally reach
the transplendent apex of intellect. The objection of theological
prejudice to this developing succession of ascents that it is
degrading is an unhealthy mistake. Whether we have risen or fallen
to our present rank, the actual rank itself is not altered. And in
one respect it is better for man to be an advanced oyster than a
degraded god; for in the former case the path is upwards, in the
latter it is downwards. "We wake," observes a profound thinker,
"and find ourselves on a stair: there are other stairs below us,
which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a
one, which go upward and out of sight." Such was plainly the trust
of the author of the following exhortation:

"Be worthy of death; and so learn to live That every incarnation
of thy soul In other realms, and worlds, and firmaments Shall be
more pure and high."

11 Bertram, Prufung der Meinung von der Praexistenz der
menechlichen Seele.

12 Nurnberger, Still Leben, oder uber die Unsterblichkeit der
Seele.

13 Liebig, Animal Chemistry, ch. ix.


Bulwer likewise has said, "Eternity may be but an endless series
of those emigrations which men call deaths, abandonments of home
after home, ever to fairer scenes and loftier heights. Age after
age, the spirit that glorious nomad may shift its tent, fated not
to rest in the dull Elysium of the heathen, but carrying with it
evermore its twin elements, activity and desire."

But there is something unsatisfactory, even sad and dreary, in
this prospect of incessant migration. Must not the pilgrim pine
and tire for a goal of rest? Exhausted with wanderings, sated with
experiments, will he not pray for the exempted lot of a contented
fruition in repose? One must weary at last of being even so
sublime a vagabond as he whose nightly hostelries are stars. And,
besides, how will sundered friends and lovers, between whom, on
the road, races and worlds interpose, ever over take each other,
and be conjoined to journey hand in hand again or build a bower
together by the way? A poet of finest mould, in happiest mood,
once saw a leaf drop from a tree which overhung a mirroring
stream. The reflection of the leaf in the watery sky hollow far
below seemed to rise from beneath as swiftly as the object fell
from above; and the two, encountering at the surface, became one.
Then he sang, touching with his strain the very marrow of deepest
human desire,

"How speeds, from in the river's thought,
The spirit of the leaf that falls,
Its heaven in that calm bosom wrought,
As mine among yon crimson walls!
From the dry bough it spins, to greet
Its shadow on the placid river:
So might I my companions meet,
Nor roam the countless worlds forever!"

Moreover, some elements of this theory are too grotesque, are the
too rash inferences from a too crude induction, to win sober
credit to any extent. It is easy to devise and carry out in
consistent descriptive details the hypothesis that the soul has
risen, through ten thousand transitions, from the condition of red
earth or a tadpole to its present rank, and that,

"As it once crawl'd upon the sod, It yet shall grow to be a god;"

but what scientific evidence is there to confirm and establish the
supposition as a truth? Why, if it be so, to borrow the humorous
satire of good old Henry More,

"Then it will follow that cold stopping curd And harden'd moldy
cheese, when they have rid Due circuits through the heart, at last
shall speed Of life and sense, look thorough our thin eyes And
view the close wherein the cow did feed Whence they were milk'd:
grosse pie crust will grow wise, And pickled cucumbers sans doubt
philosophize!"

The form of this general outline stalks totteringly on stilts of
fancy, and sprawls headlong with a logical crash at the first
critical probe.

The final theory of the destination of souls, now left to be set
forth, may be designated by the word transition.14 It affirms that
at death they pass from the separate material worlds, which are
their initiating nurseries, into the common spiritual world, which
is everywhere present. Thus the visible peoples the invisible,
each person in his turn consciously rising from this world's
rudimentary darkness to that world's universal light. Dwelling
here, free souls, housed in frames of dissoluble clay,

"We hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth,
On the last verge of mortal being stand,
lose to the realm where angels have their birth,
Just on the boundaries of the spirit land."

Why has God "broken up the solid material of the universe into
innumerable little globes, and swung each of them in the centre of
an impassable solitude of space," unless it be to train up in the
various spheres separate households for final union as a single
diversified family in the boundless spiritual world? 15 The
surmise is not unreasonable, but recommends itself strongly,
that,

"If yonder stars be fill'd with forms of breathing clay like ours,
Perchance the space which spreads between is for a spirit's
powers."

The soul encased in flesh is thereby confined to one home, its
natal nest; but, liberated at death, it wanders at will,
unobstructed, through every world and cerulean deep; and
wheresoever it is, there, in proportion to its own capacity and
fitness, is heaven and is God.16 All those world spots so thickly
scattered through the Yggdrasill of universal space are but the
brief sheltering places where embryo intelligences clip their
shells, and whence, as soon as fledged through the discipline of
earthly teaching and essays, the broodlet souls take wing into the
mighty airs of immensity, and thus enter on their eternal
emancipation. This conjecture is, of all which have been offered
yet, perhaps the completest, least perplexed, best recommended by
its harmony with our knowledge and our hope. And so one might wish
to rest in it with humble trust.

The final destiny of an immortal soul, after its transition into
the other world, must be either unending progress towards infinite
perfection, or the reaching of its perihelion at last and then
revolving in uninterrupted fruition. In the former case, pursuing
an infinite aim, with each degree of its attainment the flying
goal still recedes. In the latter case, it will in due season
touch its bound and there be satisfied,

"When weak Time shall be pour'd out Into Eternity, and circular
joys Dance in an endless round."

14 Taylor, Physical Theory of Another Life, ch. xii.

15 Taylor, Saturday Evening, pp. 95-111.

16 Taylor, Physical Theory of Another Life, ch. xvii.


This result seems the more probable of the two; for the assertion
of countless decillions of personalities all progressing beyond
every conceivable limit, on, still on, forever, is incredible. If
endless linear progress were the destiny of each being, the whole
universe would at last become a line! And though it is true that
the idea of an ever novel chase attracts and refreshes the
imagination, while the idea of a monotonous revolution repels and
wearies it, this is simply because we judge after our poor earthly
experience and its flagging analogies. It will not be so if that
revolution is the vivid realization of all our being's
possibilities.

Annihilation, absorption, resurrection, conveyance, recurrence,
migration, transition,  these seven answers to the question of our
fate, and of its relation to the course of nature, are thinkable
in words. We may choose from among them, but can construct no real
eighth. First, there is a constant succession of growth and decay.
Second, there is a perpetual flow and ebb of personal emanation
and impersonal resumption. Third, there is a continual return of
the same persistent entities. Fourth, all matter may be sublimated
to spirit, and souls alone remain to occupy boundless space.
Fifth, the power of death may cease, all the astronomic orbs be
populated and enjoyed, each by one generation of everlasting
inhabitants, the present order continuing in each earth until
enough have lived to fill it, then all of them, physically
restored, dwelling on it, with no more births or deaths. Sixth, if
matter be not transmutable to soul, when that peculiar reality
from which souls are developed is exhausted, and the last
generation of incarnated beings have risen from the flesh, the
material creation may, in addition to the inter stellar region, be
eternally appropriated by the spirit races to their own free range
and use, through adaptations of faculty unknown to us now; else it
may vanish as a phantasmal spectacle. Or, finally, souls may be
absolutely created out of nothing by the omnipotence of God, and
the universe may be infinite: then the process may proceed
forever.

But men's beliefs are formed rather by the modes of thought they
have learned to adopt than by any proofs they have tested; not by
argumentation about a subject, but by the way of looking at it.
The moralist regards all creation as the work of a personal God, a
theatre of moral ends, a just Providence watching over the parts,
and the conscious immortality of the actors an inevitable
accompaniment. The physicist contemplates the universe as
constituted of atoms of attraction and repulsion, which subsist in
perfect mobility through space, but are concreted in the molecular
masses of the planets. The suns are vast engines for the
distribution of heat or motion, the equivalent of all kinds of
force. This, in its diffusion, causes innumerable circulations and
combinations of the original atoms. Organic growth, life, is the
fruition of a force derived from the sun. Decay, death, is the
rendering up of that force in its equivalents. Thus, the universe
is a composite unity of force, a solidarity of ultimate unities
which are indestructible, though in constant circulation of new
groupings and journeys. To the religious faith of the moralist,
man is an eternal person, reaping what he has sowed. To the
speculative intellect of the physicist, man is an atomic force, to
be liberated into the ethereal medium until again harnessed in
some organism. In both cases he is immortal: but in that, as a
free citizen of the ideal world; in this, as a flying particle of
the dynamic immensity.

PART SECOND.


ETHNIC THOUGHTS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

BARBARIAN NOTIONS OF A FUTURE LIFE.

PROCEEDING now to give an account of the fancies and opinions in
regard to a future life which have been prevalent, in different
ages, in various nations of the earth, it will be best to begin by
presenting, in a rapid series, some sketches of the conceits of
those uncivilized tribes who did not so far as our knowledge
reaches possess a doctrine sufficiently distinctive and full, or
important enough in its historical relations, to warrant a
detailed treatment in separate chapters.

We will glance first at the negroes. According to all accounts,
while there are, among the numerous tribes, diversities and
degrees of superstition, there is yet, throughout the native pagan
population of Africa, a marked general agreement of belief in the
survival of the soul, in spectres, divination, and witchcraft; and
there is a general similarity of funeral usages. Early travellers
tell us that the Bushmen conceived the soul to be immortal, and as
impalpable as a shadow, and that they were much afraid of the
return of deceased spirits to haunt them. They were accustomed to
pray to their departed countrymen not to molest them, but to stay
away in quiet. They also employed exorcisers to lay these ill
omened ghosts. Meiners relates of some inhabitants of the Guinea
coast that their fear of ghosts and their childish credulity
reached such a pitch that they threw their dead into the ocean, in
the expectation of thus drowning soul and body together.

Superstitions as gross and lawless still have full sway. Wilson,
whose travels and residence there for twenty years have enabled
him to furnish the most reliable information, says, in his recent
work,1 "A native African would as soon doubt his present as his
future state of being." Every dream, every stray suggestion of the
mind, is interpreted, with unquestioning credence, as a visit from
the dead, a whisper from a departed soul. If a man wakes up with
pains in his bones or muscles, it is because his spirit has
wandered abroad in the night and been flogged by some other
spirit. On certain occasions the whole community start up at
midnight, with clubs, torches, and hideous yells, to drive the
evil spirits out of the village. They seem to believe that the
souls of dead men take rank with good or bad spirits, as they have
themselves been good or bad in this life. They bury with the
deceased clothing, ornaments, utensils,

1 Western Africa, ch. xii.


and statedly convey food to the grave for the use of the
revisiting spirit. With the body of king Weir of the Cavalla
towns, who was buried in December of 1854, in presence of several
missionaries, was interred a quantity of rice, palm oil, beef, and
rum: it was supposed the ghost of the sable monarch would come
back and consume these articles. The African tribes, where their
notions have not been modified by Christian or by Mohammedan
teachings, appear to have no definite idea of a heaven or of a
hell; but future reward or punishment is considered under the
general conception of an association, in the disembodied state,
with the benignant or with the demoniacal powers.

The New Zealanders imagine that the souls of the dead go to a
place beneath the earth, called Reinga. The path to this region is
a precipice close to the sea shore at the North Cape. It is said
that the natives who live in the neighborhood can at night hear
sounds caused by the passing of spirits thither through the air.
After a great battle they are thus warned of the event long before
the news can arrive by natural means.2 It is a common superstition
with them that the left eye of every chief, after his death,
becomes a star. The Pleiades are seven New Zealand chiefs,
brothers, who were slain together in battle and are now fixed in
the sky, one eye of each, in the shape of a star, being the only
part of them that is visible. It has been observed that the
mythological doctrine of the glittering host of heaven being an
assemblage of the departed heroes of earth never received a more
ingenious version.3 Certainly it is a magnificent piece of insular
egotism. It is noticeable here that, in the Norse mythology, Thor,
having slain Thiasse, the giant genius of winter, throws his eyes
up to heaven, and they become stars. Shungie, a celebrated New
Zealand king, said he had on one occasion eaten the left eye of a
great chief whom he had killed in battle, for the purpose of thus
increasing the glory of his own eye when it should be transferred
to the firmament. Sometimes, apparently, it was thought that there
was a separate immortality for each of the eyes of the dead, the
left ascending to heaven as a star, the right, in the form of a
spirit, taking flight for Reinga.

The custom, common in Africa and in New Zealand, of slaying the
slaves or the wives of an important person at his death and
burying them with him, prevails also among the inhabitants of the
Feejee Islands. A chief's wives are sometimes strangled on these
occasions, sometimes buried alive. One cried to her brother, "I
wish to die, that I may accompany my husband to the land where he
has gone. Love me, and make haste to strangle me, that I may
overtake him."4 Departing souls go to the tribunal of Ndengei, who
either receives them into bliss, or sends them back, as ghosts, to
haunt the scenes of their former existence, or distributes them as
food to devils, or imprisons them for a period and then dooms them
to annihilation. The Feejees are also very much afraid of Samiulo,
ruler of a subterranean world, who sits at the brink of a huge
fiery cavern, into which he hurls the souls he dislikes. In the
road to Ndengei stands an enormous giant, armed with an axe, who
tries to maim and murder the passing souls. A powerful chief,
whose gun was interred with him, loaded it, and, when

2 Shortland, Traditions of the New Zealanders, ch. vii.

3 Library of Ent. Knowl.: The New Zealanders, pp. 223-237.

4 Wilkes, Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. iii.
ch. 3.


he came near the giant, shot at him, and ran by while the monster
was dodging the bullet.

The people of the Sandwich Islands held a confused medley of
notions as to another life. In different persons among them were
found, in regard to this subject, superstitious terror, blank
indifference, positive unbelief. The current fancy was that the
souls of the chiefs were led, by a god whose name denotes the
"eyeball of the sun," to a life in the heavens, while plebeian
souls went down to Akea, a lugubrious underground abode. Some
thought spirits were destroyed in this realm of darkness; others,
that they were eaten by a stronger race of spirits there; others
still, that they survived there, subsisting upon lizards and
butterflies.5 What a piteous life they must have led here whose
imaginations could only soar to a future so unattractive as this!

The Kamtschadales send all the dead alike to a subterranean
elysium, where they shall find again their wives, clothes, tools,
huts, and where they shall fish and hunt. All is there as here,
except that there are no fire spouting mountains, no bogs,
streams, inundations, and impassable snows; and neither hunting
nor fishing is ever pursued in vain there. This lower paradise is
but a beautified Kamtschatka, freed from discommoding hardships
and cleansed of tormenting Cossacks and Russians. They have no
hell for the rectification of the present wrong relations of
virtue and misery, vice and happiness. The only distinction they
appear to make is that all who in Kamtschatka are poor, and have
few small and weak dogs, shall there be rich and be furnished with
strong and fat dogs. The power of imagination is very remarkable
in this raw people, bringing the future life so near, and
awakening such an impatient longing for it and for their former
companions that they often, the sooner to secure a habitation
there, anticipate the natural time of their death by suicide.6

The Esquimaux betray the influence of their clime and habits, in
the formation of their ideas of the life to come, as plainly as
the Kamtschadales do. The employments and enjoyments of their
future state are rude and earthy. They say the soul descends
through successive places of habitation, the first of which is
full of pains and horrors. The good, that is, the courageous and
skilful, those who have endured severe hardships and mastered many
seals, passing through this first residence, find that the other
mansions regularly improve. They finally reach an abode of perfect
satisfaction, far beneath the storms of the sea, where the sun is
never obscured by night, and where reindeer wander in great droves
beside waters that never congeal, and wherein the whale, the
walrus, and the best sea fowls always abound.7 Hell is deep, but
heaven deeper still. Hell, they think, is among the roots, rocks,
monsters, and cold of the frozen or vexed and suffering waters;
but

"Beneath tempestuous seas and fields of ice
Their creed has placed a lowlier paradise."

The Greenlanders, too, located their elysium beneath the abysses
of the ocean, where the good Spirit Torngarsuk held his reign in a
happy and eternal summer. The wizards, who pretended to visit this
region at will, described the disembodied souls as pallid, and, if
one

5 Jarves, Hist. of the Sandwich Islands, p. 42.

6 Christoph Meiners, Vermischte Philosophische Schriften, 169-173.

7 Prichard, Physical Hist. of Mankind, vol. i. ch. 2.


sought to seize them, unsubstantial.8 Some of these people,
however, fixed the site of paradise in the sky, and regarded the
aurora borealis as the playing of happy souls. So Coleridge
pictures the Laplander

"Marking the streamy banners of the North, And thinking he those
spirits soon should join Who there, in floating robes of rosy
light, Dance sportively."

But others believed this state of restlessness in the clouds was
the fate only of the worthless, who were there pinched with hunger
and plied with torments. All agreed in looking for another state
of existence, where, under diverse circumstances, happiness and
misery should be awarded, in some degree at least, according to
desert.9

The Peruvians taught that the reprobate were sentenced to a hell
situated in the centre of the earth, where they must endure
centuries of toil and anguish. Their paradise was away in the blue
dome of heaven. There the spirits of the worthy would lead a life
of tranquil luxury. At the death of a Peruvian noble his wives and
servants frequently were slain, to go with him and wait on him in
that happy region.10 Many authors, including Prescott, yielding
too easy credence to the very questionable assertions of the
Spanish chroniclers, have attributed to the Peruvians a belief in
the resurrection of the body. Various travellers and writers have
also predicated this belief of savage nations in Central Africa,
of certain South Sea islanders, and of several native tribes in
North America. In all these cases the supposition is probably
erroneous, as we think for the following reasons. In the first
place, the idea of a resurrection of the body is either a late
conception of the associative imagination, or else a doctrine
connected with a speculative theory of recurring epochs in the
destiny of the world; and it is in both instances too subtle and
elaborate for an uncultivated people. Secondly, in none of the
cases referred to has any reliable evidence been given of the
actual existence of the belief in question. It has merely been
inferred, by persons to whose minds the doctrine was previously
familiar, from phenomena by no means necessarily implying it. For
example, a recent author ascribes to the Feejees the belief that
there will be a resurrection of the body just as it was at the
time of death. The only datum on which he founds this astounding
assertion is that they often seem to prefer to die in the full
vigor of manhood rather than in decrepit old age! 11 Thirdly, we
know that the observation and statements of the Spanish monks and
historians, in regard to the religion of the pagans of South
America, were of the most imperfect and reckless character. They
perpetrated gross frauds, such as planting in the face of high
precipices white stones in the shape of the cross, and then
pointing to them in proof of their assertion that, before the
Christians came, the Devil had here parodied the rites and
doctrines of the gospel. 12 They said the Mexican goddess, wife of
the sun, was Eve, or

8 Egede, Greenland, ch. 18.

9 Dr. Karl Andree, Gronland.

10 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. ch. 3.

11 Erskine, Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 248.

12 Schoolcraft, History, &c. of the Indian Tribes, part v. p. 93.


the Virgin Mary, and Quetzalcoatl was St. Thomas! 13 Such
affirmers are to be cautiously followed. Finally, it is a quite
significant fact that while some point to the pains which the
Peruvians took in embalming their dead as a proof that they looked
for a resurrection of the body, Acosta expressly says that they
did not believe in the resurrection, and that this unbelief was
the cause of their embalming.14 Garcilaso de la Vega, in his
"Royal Commentaries of the Peruvian Incas," says that when he
asked some Peruvians why they took so great care to preserve in
the cemeteries of the dead the nails and hair which had been cut
off, they replied that in the day of resurrection the dead would
come forth with whatever of their bodies was left, and there would
be too great a press of business in that day for them to afford
time to go hunting round after their hair and nails.15 The fancy
of a Christian is too plain here. If the answer were really made
by the natives, they were playing a joke on their credulous
questioner, or seeking to please him with distorted echoes of his
own faith.

The conceits as to a future life entertained by the Mexicans
varied considerably from those of their neighbors of Peru. Souls
neither good nor bad, or whose virtues and vices balanced each
other, were to enter a medium state of idleness and empty content.
The wicked, or those dying in any of certain enumerated modes of
death, went to Mictlan, a dismal hell within the earth. The souls
of those struck by lightning, or drowned, or dying by any of a
given list of diseases, also the souls of children, were
transferred to a remote elysium, Tlalocan. There was a place in
the chief temple where, it was supposed, once a year the spirits
of all the children who had been sacrificed to Tlaloc invisibly
came and assisted in the ceremonies. The ultimate heaven was
reserved for warriors who bravely fell in battle, for women who
died in labor, for those offered up in the temples of the gods,
and for a few others. These passed immediately to the house of the
sun, their chief god, whom they accompanied for a term of years,
with songs, dances, and revelry, in his circuit around the sky.
Then, animating the forms of birds of gay plumage, they lived as
beautiful songsters among the flowers, now on earth, now in
heaven, at their pleasure.16 It was the Mexican custom to dress
the dead man in the garb appropriated to the guardian deity of his
craft or condition in life. They gave him a jug of water. They
placed with him slips of paper to serve as passports through
guarded gates and perilous defiles in the other world. They made a
fire of his clothes and utensils, to warm the shivering soul while
traversing a region of cold winds beyond the grave.17 The
following sentence occurs in a poem composed by one of the old
Aztec monarchs: "Illustrious nobles, loyal subjects, let us aspire
to that heaven where all is eternal and corruption cannot come.
The horrors of the tomb are but the cradle of the sun, and the
shadows of death are brilliant lights for the stars." 18

13 Squier, Serpent Symbol in America, p. 13.

14 Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, book v. ch. 7.

15 Book ii. ch. 7.

16 Clavigero, History of Mexico, book vi. sect. 1.

17 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. ch. 6.

18 Ibid. sect. 39.


Amidst the mass of whimsical conceptions entering into the faith
of the widely spread tribes of North America, we find a ruling
agreement in the cardinal features of their thought concerning a
future state of existence. In common with nearly all barbarous
nations, they felt great fear of apparitions. The Sioux were in
the habit of addressing the deceased at his burial, and imploring
him to stay in his own place and not come to distress them. Their
funeral customs, too, from one extremity of the continent to the
other, were very much alike. Those who have reported their
opinions to us, from the earliest Jesuit missionaries to the
latest investigators of their mental characteristics, concur in
ascribing to them a deep trust in a life to come, a cheerful view
of its conditions, and a remarkable freedom from the dread of
dying. Charlevoix says, "The best established opinion among the
natives is the immortality of the soul." On the basis of an
account written by William Penn, Pope composed the famous passage
in his "Essay on Man:"

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind.
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way:
Yet simple nature to his faith hath given,
Behind the cloud topp'd hill, an humbler heaven,
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Or happier island in the watery waste.
To be, contents his natural desire:
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire,
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."

Their rude instinctive belief in the soul's survival, and surmises
as to its destiny, are implied in their funeral rites, which, as
already stated, were, with some exceptions, strikingly similar
even in the remotest tribes.19

In the bark coffin, with a dead Indian the Onondagas buried a
kettle of provisions, a pair of moccasins, a piece of deer skin
and sinews of the deer to sew patches on the moccasins, which it
was supposed the deceased would wear out on his journey. They also
furnished him with a bow and arrows, a tomahawk and knife, to
procure game with to live on while pursuing his way to the land of
spirits, the blissful regions of Ha wah ne u.20 Several Indian
nations, instead of burying the food, suspended it above the
grave, and renewed it from time to time. Some writers have
explained this custom by the hypothesis of an Indian belief in two
souls, one of which departed to the realm of the dead, while the
other tarried by the mound until the body was decayed, or until it
had itself found a chance to be born in a new body.21 The
supposition seems forced and extremely doubtful. The truth
probably lies in a simpler explanation, which will be offered
further on.

19 Baumgarten, Geschichte der Volker von America, xiii. haupts.:
vom Tod, Vergribniss, und Trauer.

20 Clarke, Onondaga, vol. l. p. 51.

21 Muller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, sect.
66.


The Winnebagoes located paradise above, and called the milky way
the "Road of the Dead." 22 It was so white with the crowds of
journeying ghosts! But almost all, like the Ojibways, imagined
their elysium to lie far in the West. The soul, freed from the
body, follows a wide beaten path westward, and enters a country
abounding with all that an Indian covets. On the borders of this
blessed land, in a long glade, he finds his relatives, for many
generations back, gathered to welcome him.23 The Chippewas, and
several other important tribes, always kindled fires on the fresh
graves of their dead, and kept them burning four successive
nights, to light the wandering souls on their way.24 An Indian
myth represents the ghosts coming back from Ponemah, the land of
the Hereafter, and singing this song to the miraculous Hiawatha:

"Do not lay such heavy burdens
On the graves of those you bury,
Not such weight of furs and wampum,
Not such weight of pots and kettles;
For the spirits faint beneath them.
Only give them food to carry,
Only give them fire to light them.
Four days is the spirit's journey
To the land of ghosts and shadows,
Four its lonely night encampments.
Therefore, when the dead are buried,
Let a fire, as night approaches,
Four times on the grave be kindled,
That the soul upon its journey
May not grope about in darkness." 25

The subject of a future state seems to have been by far the most
prominent one in the Indian imagination. They relate many
traditions of persons who have entered it, and returned, and given
descriptions of it. A young brave, having lost his betrothed,
determined to follow her to the land of souls. Far South, beyond
the region of ice and snows, he came to a lodge standing before
the entrance to wide blue plains. Leaving his body there, he
embarked in a white stone canoe to cross a lake. He saw the souls
of wicked Indians sinking in the lake; but the good gained an
elysian shore, where all was warmth, beauty, ease, and eternal
youth, and where the air was food. The Master of Breath sent him
back, but promised that he might at death return and stay. 26 The
Wyandots tell of a dwarf, Tcha ka bech, who climbed a tree which
grew higher as often as he blew on it. At last he reached heaven,
and discovered it to be an excellent place. He descended the tree,
building wigwams at intervals in the branches. He then returned
with his sister and nephew, resting each night in one of the
wigwams.

22 Schoolcraft, History, &c. of the Indian Tribes, part iv. p.
240.

23 Ibid. part ii. p. 135.

24 Ibid. part v. p. 64; part iv. p. 55.

25 Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha, xix.: The Ghosts.

26 Schoolcraft, Indian in his Wigwam. p 79.


He set his traps up there to catch animals. Rising in the night to
go and examine his traps, he saw one all on fire, and, upon
approaching it, found that he had caught the sun!

Where the Indian is found believing in a Devil and a hell, it is
the result of his intercourse with Europeans. These elements of
horror were foreign to his original religion.27 There are in some
quarters faint traces of a single purgatorial or retributive
conception. It is a representation of paradise as an island, the
ordeal consisting in the passage of the dark river or lake which
surrounds it. The worthy cross with entire facility, the unworthy
only after tedious struggles. Some say the latter are drowned;
others, that they sink up to their chins in the water, where they
pass eternity in vain desires to attain the alluring land on which
they gaze.28 Even this notion may be a modification consequent
upon European influence. At all events, it is subordinate in force
and only occasional in occurrence. For the most part, in the
Indian faith mercy swallows up the other attributes of the Great
Spirit. The Indian dies without fear, looking for no punishments,
only for rewards.29 He regards the Master of Breath not as a holy
judge, but as a kind father. He welcomes death as opening the door
to a sweet land. Ever charmingly on his closing eyes dawns the
prospect of the aboriginal elysium, a gorgeous region of soft
shades, gliding streams, verdant groves waving in gentle airs,
warbling birds, herds of stately deer and buffalo browsing on
level plains. It is the earth in noiseless and solemn
metamorphosis.30

We shall conclude this chapter by endeavoring to explain the
purport and origin of the principal ceremonies and notions which
have now been set forth pertaining to the disembodied state. The
first source of these particulars is to be sought, not in any
clear mental perceptions, or conscious dogmatic belief, but in the
natural workings of affection, memory, and sentiment. Among almost
every people, from the Chinese to the Araucanians, from the
Ethiopians to the Dacotahs, rites of honor have been paid to the
dead, various offerings have been placed at their graves. The
Vedas enjoin the offering of a cake to the ghosts of ancestors
back to the third generation. The Greeks were wont to pour wine,
oil, milk, and blood into canals made in the graves of their dead.
The early Christians adopted these "Feasts of the Dead" as
Augustine and Tertullian call them from the heathen, and
Celebrated them over the graves of their martyrs and of their
other deceased friends. Such customs as these among savages like
the Shillooks or the Choctaws are usually supposed to imply the
belief that the souls of the deceased remain about the places of
sepulture and physically partake of the nourishment thus
furnished. The interpretation is farther fetched than need be, and
is unlikely; or, at all events, if it be true in some cases, it is
not the whole truth. In the first place, these people see that the
food and drink remain untouched, the weapons and utensils are left
unused in the grave. Secondly, there are often certain features in
the barbaric ritual obviously metaphorical, incapable of literal
acceptance. For instance, the Winnebagoes light a small fire on
the grave of a deceased warrior to light him on his journey to the
land of souls,

27 Loskiel, Hist. Mission of United Brethren to N. A. Indians,
part i. ch. 3.

28 Schoolcraft, Indian in his Wigwam, p. 202. History, &c. of
Indian Tribes, part iv. p. 173.

29 Schoolcraft, History of Indian Tribes, part ii. p. 68.

30 Ibid. pp. 403, 404.


although they say that journey extends to a distance of four days
and nights and is wholly invisible. They light and tend that
watch fire as a memorial of their departed companion and a rude
expression of their own emotions; as an unconscious emblem of
their own struggling faith, not as a beacon to the straying ghost.
Again, the Indian mother, losing a nursing infant, spurts some of
her milk into the fire, that the little spirit may not want for
nutriment on its solitary path.31 Plato approvingly quotes
Hesiod's statement that the souls of noble men become guardian
demons coursing the air, messengers and agents of the gods in the
world. Therefore, he adds, "we should reverence their tombs and
establish solemn rites and offerings there;" though by his very
statement these places were not the dwellings or haunts of the
freely circuiting spirits.32

Not by an intellectual doctrine, but by an instinctive
association, when not resisted and corrected, we connect the souls
of the dead in our thoughts with the burial places of their forms.
The New Zealand priests pretend by their spells to bring wandering
souls within the enclosed graveyards.33 These sepulchral folds are
full of ghosts. A sentiment native to the human breast draws
pilgrims to the tombs of Shakspeare and Washington, and, if not
restrained and guided by cultivated thought, would lead them to
make offerings there. Until the death of Louis XV., the kings of
France lay in state and were served as in life for forty days
after they died.34 It would be ridiculous to attempt to wring any
doctrinal significance from these customs. The same sentiment
which, in one form, among the Alfoer inhabitants of the Arru
Islands, when a man dies, leads his relatives to assemble and
destroy whatever he has left, which, in another form, causes the
Papist to offer burning candles, wreaths, and crosses, and to
recite prayers, before the shrines of the dead saints, which, in
still another form, moved Albert Durer to place all the pretty
playthings of his child in the coffin and bury them with it, this
same sentiment, in its undefined spontaneous workings, impelled
the Peruvian to embalm his dead, the Blackfoot to inter his
brave's hunting equipments with him, and the Cherokee squaw to
hang fresh food above the totem on her husband's grave post. What
should we think if we could foresee that, a thousand years hence,
when the present doctrines and customs of France and America are
forgotten, some antiquary, seeking the reason why the mourners in
Pere la Chaise and Mount Auburn laid clusters of flowers on the
graves of their lamented ones, should deliberately conclude that
it was believed the souls remained in the bodies in the tomb and
enjoyed the perfume of the flowers? An American traveller, writing
from Vienna on All Saints' Day, in 1855, describes the avenues of
the great cemetery filled with people hanging festoons of flowers
on the tombstones, and placing burning candles of wax on the
graves, and kneeling in devotion; it being their childish belief,
he says, that their prayers on this day have efficacy to release
their deceased relatives from purgatory, and that the dim taper
flickering on the sod lights the unbound soul to its heavenly
home. Of course these rites are not literal expressions of literal
beliefs, but are

31 Andree, North America, p. 246.

32 Republic, book v. ch. 15.

33 R. Taylor, New Zealand, ch. 7.

34 Meiners, Kritische Geschichte der Religionen, buch iii. absch.
1.


symbols of ideas, emblems of sentiments, figurative and inadequate
shadows of a theological doctrine, although, as is well known,
there is, among the most ignorant persons, scarcely any
deliberately apprehended distinction between image and entity,
material representation and spiritual verity.

If a member of the Oneida tribe died when they were away from
home, they buried him with great solemnity, setting a mark over
the grave; and whenever they passed that way afterwards they
visited the spot, singing a mournful song and casting stones upon
it, thus giving symbolic expression to their feelings. It would be
absurd to suppose this song an incantation to secure the repose of
the buried brave, and the stones thrown to prevent his rising; yet
it would not be more incredible or more remote from the facts than
many a commonly current interpretation of barbarian usages. An
amusing instance of error well enforcing the need of extreme
caution in drawing inferences is afforded by the example of those
explorers who, finding an extensive cemetery where the aborigines
had buried all their children apart from the adults, concluded
they had discovered the remains of an ancient race of pigmies! 35

The influence of unspeculative affection, memory, and sentiment
goes far towards accounting for the funeral ritual of the
barbarians. But it is not sufficient. We must call in further aid;
and that aid we find in the arbitrary conceits, the poetic
associations, and the creative force of unregulated fancy and
imagination. The poetic faculty which, supplied with materials by
observation and speculation, constructed the complex mythologies
of Egypt and Greece, and which, turning on its own resources,
composed the Arabian tales of the genii and the modern literature
of pure fiction, is particularly active, fertile, and tyrannical,
though in a less continuous and systematic form, in the barbarian
mind. Acting by wild fits and starts, there is no end to the
extravagant conjectures and visions it bodies forth. Destitute of
philosophical definitions, totally unacquainted with critical
distinctions or analytic reflection, absurd notions, sober
convictions, dim dreams, and sharp perceptions run confusedly
together in the minds of savages. There is to them no clear and
permanent demarcation between rational thoughts and crazy fancies.
Now, no phenomenon can strike more deeply or work more powerfully
in human nature, stirring up the exploring activities of intellect
and imagination, than the event of death, with its bereaving
stroke and prophetic appeal. Accordingly, we should expect to find
among uncultivated nations, as we actually do, a vast medley of
fragmentary thoughts and pictures plausible, strange, lovely, or
terrible relating to the place and fate of the disembodied soul.
These conceptions would naturally take their shaping and coloring,
in some degree, from thescenery, circumstances, and experience
amidst which they were conceived and born. Sometimes these
figments were consciously entertained as wilful inventions,
distinctly contemplated as poetry. Sometimes they were
superstitiously credited in all their grossness with full assent
of soul. Sometimes all coexisted in vague bewilderment. These
lines of separation unquestionably existed: the difficulty is to
know where, in given instances, to draw them. A few examples will
serve at once to illustrate the

35 Smithsonian Contributions, vol. ii. Squier's Aboriginal
Monuments, appendix, pp. 127-131.


operation of the principle now laid down, and to present still
further specimens of the barbarian notions of a future life.

Some Indian tribes made offerings to the spirits of their departed
heroes by casting the boughs of various trees around the ash,
saying that the branches of this tree were eloquent with the
ghosts of their warrior sires, who came at evening in the chariot
of cloud to fire the young to deeds of war.36 There is an Indian
legend of a witch who wore a mantle composed of the scalps of
murdered women. Taking this off, she shook it, and all the scalps
uttered shrieks of laughter. Another describes a magician scudding
across a lake in a boat whose ribs were live rattlesnakes.37 An
exercise of mind virtually identical with that which gave these
strokes made the Philippine Islanders say that the souls of those
who die struck by lightning go up the beams of the rainbow to a
happy place, and animated Ali to declare that the pious, on coming
out of their sepulchres, shall find awaiting them white winged
camels with saddles of gold. The Ajetas suspended the bow and
arrows of a deceased Papuan above his grave, and conceived him as
emerging from beneath every night to go a hunting.38 The fisherman
on the coast of Lapland was interred in a boat, and a flint and
combustibles were given him to light him along the dark cavernous
passage he was to traverse. The Dyaks of Borneo believe that every
one whose head they can get possession of here will in the future
state be their servant: consequently, they make a business of
"head hunting," accumulating the ghastly visages of their victims
in their huts.39 The Caribs have a sort of sensual paradise for
the "brave and virtuous," where, it is promised, they shall enjoy
the sublimated experience of all their earthly satisfactions; but
the "degenerate and cowardly" are threatened with eternal
banishment beyond the mountains, where they shall be tasked and
driven as slaves by their enemies.40 The Hispaniolians locate
their elysium in a pleasant valley abounding with guava, delicious
fruits, cool shades, and murmuring rivulets, where they expect to
live again with their departed ancestors and friends.41 The
Patagonians say the stars are their translated countrymen, and the
milky way is a field where the departed Patagonians hunt
ostriches. Clouds are the feathers of the ostriches they kill.42
The play is here seen of the same mythological imagination which,
in Italy, pictured a writhing giant beneath Mount Vesuvius, and,
in Greenland, looked on the Pleiades as a group of dogs
surrounding a white bear, and on the belt of Orion as a company of
Greenlanders placed there because they could not find the way to
their own country. Black Bird, the redoubtable chief of the O Ma
Haws, when dying, said to his people, "Bury me on yonder lofty
bluff on the banks of the Missouri, where I can see the men and
boats passing by on the river." 43 Accordingly, as soon as he
ceased

36 Browne, Trees of America, p. 328.

37 Schoolcraft, Hist. &c part i. pp. 32-34.

38 Earl, The Papuans, p. 132.

39 Earl, The Eastern Seas, ch. 8.

40 Edwards, Hist. of the West Indies, book i. ch. 2.

41 Ibid. ch. 3.

42 Falkner, Patagonia, ch. 5.

43 Catlin, North American Indians, vol. ii. p. 6.


to breathe, they set him there, on his favorite steed, and heaped
the earth around him. This does not imply any believed doctrine,
in our sense of the term, but is plainly a spontaneous
transference for the moment, by the poetic imagination, of the
sentiments of the living man to the buried body.

The unhappy Africans who were snatched from their homes, enslaved
and cruelly tasked in the far West India islands, pined under
their fate with deadly homesickness. The intense longing moulded
their plastic belief, just as the sensation from some hot bricks
at the feet of a sleeping man shaped his dreams into a journey up
the side of Atna. They fancied that if they died they should
immediately live again in their fatherland. They committed suicide
in great numbers. At last, when other means had failed to check
this epidemic of self destruction, a cunning overseer brought them
ropes and every facility for hanging, and told them to hang
themselves as fast as they pleased, for their master had bought a
great plantation in Africa, and as soon as they got there they
would be set to work on it. Their helpless credulity took the
impression; and no more suicides occurred.44

The mutual formative influences exerted upon a people's notions
concerning the future state, by the imagination of their poets and
the peculiarities of their clime, are perhaps nowhere more
conspicuously exhibited than in the case of the Caledonians who at
an early period dwelt in North Britain. They had picturesque
traditions locating the habitation of ghosts in the air above
their fog draped mountains. They promised rewards for nothing but
valor, and threatened punishments for nothing but cowardice; and
even of these they speak obscurely. Nothing is said of an under
world. They supposed the ghosts at death floated upward naturally,
true children of the mist, and dwelt forever in the air, where
they spent an inane existence, indulging in sorrowful memories of
the past, and, in unreal imitation of their mortal occupations,
chasing boars of fog amid hills of cloud and valleys of shadow.
The authority for these views is Ossian, "whose genuine strains,"
Dr. Good observes, "assume a higher importance as historical
records than they can claim when considered as fragments of
exquisite poetry."

"A dark red stream comes down from the hill. Crugal sat upon the
beam; he that lately fell by the hand of Swaran striving in the
battle of heroes. His face is like the beam of the setting moon;
his robes are of the clouds of the hill; his eyes are like two
decaying flames; dark is the wound on his breast. The stars dim
twinkled through his form, and his voice was like the sound of a
distant stream. Dim and in tears he stood, and stretched his pale
hand over the hero. Faintly he raised his feeble voice, like the
gale of the reedy Lego. 'My ghost, O'Connal, is on my native
hills, but my corse is on the sands of Ullin. Thou shalt never
talk with Crugal nor find his lone steps on the heath. I am light
as the blast of Cromla, and I move like the shadow of mist.
Connal, son of Colgar, I see the dark cloud of death. It hovers
over the plains of Lena. The sons of green Erin shall fall. Remove
from the field of ghosts.' Like the darkened moon, he retired in
the midst of the whistling blast."

We recognise here several leading traits in all the early
unspeculative faiths, the vapory form, the echoless motion, the
marks of former wounds, the feeble voice, the memory

44 Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen, buch xiv. sect. 765.


of the past, the mournful aspect, and the prophetic words. But the
rhetorical imagery, the scenery, the location of the spirit world
in the lower clouds, are stamped by emphatic climatic
peculiarities, whose origination, easily traceable, throws light
on the growth of the whole mass of such notions everywhere.

Two general sources have now been described of the barbarian
conceptions in relation to a future state. First, the natural
operation of an earnest recollection of the dead; sympathy,
regret, and reverence for them leading the thoughts and the heart
to grope after them, to brood over the possibilities of their
fate, and to express themselves in rites and emblems. Secondly,
the mythological or arbitrary creations of the imagination when it
is set strongly at work, as it must be by the solemn phenomena
associated with death. But beyond these two comprehensive
statements there is, directly related to the matter, and worthy of
separate illustration, a curious action of the mind, which has
been very extensively experienced and fertile of results. It is a
peculiar example of the unconscious impartation of objective
existence to mental ideas. With the death of the body the man does
not cease to live in the remembrance, imagination, and heart of
his surviving friends. By an unphilosophical confusion, this
internal image is credited as an external existence. The dead pass
from their customary haunts in our society to the imperishable
domain of ideas. This visionary world of memory and fantasy is
projected outward, located, furnished, and constitutes the future
state apprehended by the barbarian mind. Feuerbach says in his
subtle and able Thoughts on Death and Immortality, "The Realm of
Memory is the Land of Souls." Ossian, amid the midnight mountains,
thinking of departed warriors and listening to the tempest, fills
the gale with the impersonations, of his thoughts, and exclaims,
"I hear the steps of the dead in the dark eddying blast."

The barbarian brain seems to have been generally impregnated with
the feeling that every thing else has a ghost as well as man. The
Gauls lent money in this world upon bills payable in the next.
They threw letters upon the funeral pile to be read by the soul of
the deceased.45 As the ghost was thought to retain the scars of
injuries inflicted upon the body, so, it appears, these letters
were thought, when destroyed, to leave impressions of what had
been written on them. The custom of burning or burying things with
the dead probably arose, in some cases at least, from the
supposition that every object has its mancs. The obolus for
Charon, the cake of honey for Cerberus, the shadows of these
articles would be borne and used by the shadow of the dead man.
Leonidas saying, "Bury me on my shield: I will enter even Hades as
a Lacedamonian," 46 must either have used the word Hades by
metonymy for the grave, or have imagined that a shadowy fac simile
of what was interred in the grave went into the grim kingdom of
Pluto. It was a custom with some Indian tribes, on the new made
grave of a chief, to slay his chosen horse; and when he fell they
supposed

"That then, upon the dead man's plain, The rider grasp'd his steed
again."

45 Pomponius Mela, De Orbis Situ, iii. 2.

46 Translation of Greek Anthology, in Bohn's Library, p. 58.


The hunter chases the deer, each alike a shade. A Feejee once, in
presence of a missionary, took a weapon from the grave of a buried
companion, saying, "The ghost of the club has gone with him." The
Iroquois tell of a woman who was chased by a ghost. She heard his
faint war whoop, his spectre voice, and only escaped with her life
because his war club was but a shadow wielded by an arm of air.
The Slavonians sacrificed a warrior's horse at his tomb.47 Nothing
seemed to the Northman so noble as to enter Valhalla on horseback,
with a numerous retinue, in his richest apparel and finest armor.
It was firmly believed, Mallet says, that Odin himself had
declared that whatsoever was burned or buried with the dead
accompanied them to his palace.48 Before the Mohammedan era, on
the death of an Arab, the finest camel he had owned was tied to a
stake beside his grave, and left to expire of hunger over the body
of his master, in order that, in the region into which death had
introduced him, he should be supplied with his usual bearer.49 The
Chinese who surpass all other people in the offerings and worship
paid at the sepulchres of their ancestors make little paper
houses, fill them with images of furniture, utensils, domestics,
and all the appurtenances of the family economy, and then burn
them, thus passing them into the invisible state for the use of
the deceased whom they mourn and honor.50 It is a touching thought
with the Greenlanders, when a child dies, to bury a dog with him
as a guide to the land of souls; for, they say, the dog is able to
find his way anywhere.51 The shadow of the faithful servant guides
the shadow of the helpless child to heaven. In fancy, not without
a moved heart, one sees this spiritual Bernard dog bearing the
ghost child on his back, over the spectral Gothard of death, safe
into the sheltering hospice of the Greenland paradise.

It is strange to notice the meeting of extremes in the rude
antithetical correspondence between Plato's doctrine of archetypal
ideas, the immaterial patterns of earthly things, and the belief
of savages in the ghosts of clubs, arrows, sandals, and
provisions. The disembodied soul of the philosopher, an eternal
idea, turns from the empty illusions of matter to nourish itself
with the substance of real truth. The spectre of the Mohawk
devours the spectre of the haunch of roast venison hung over his
grave. And why should not the two shades be conceived, if either?

"Pig, bullock, goose, must have their goblins too,
Else ours would have to go without their dinners:
If that starvation doctrine were but true,
How hard the fate of gormandizing sinners!"

The conception of ghosts has been still further introduced also
into the realm of mathematics in an amusing manner. Bishop
Berkeley, bantered on his idealism by Halley, retorted that he too
was an idealist; for his ultimate ratios terms only appearing with
the

47 Wilkinson, Dalmatia and Montenegro, vol. i. ch. 1.

48 Northern Antiquities, ch. 10.

49 Lamartine, History of Turkey, book i. ch. 10.

50 Kidd, China, sect. 3.

51 Crantz, History of Greenland, book iii. ch. 6, sect. 47.


disappearance of the forms in whose relationship they consist were
but the ghosts of departed quantities! It may be added here that,
according to the teachings of physiological psychology, all
memories or recollected ideas are literally the ghosts of departed
sensations.

We have thus seen that the conjuring force of fear, with its dread
apparitions, the surmising, half articulate struggles of
affection, the dreams of memory, the lights and groups of poetry,
the crude germs of metaphysical speculation, the deposits of the
inter action of human experience and phenomenal nature, now in
isolated fragments, again, huddled indiscriminately together
conspire to compose the barbarian notions of a future life.

CHAPTER II.

DRUIDIC DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THAT strange body of men, commonly known as the Druids, who
constituted what may, with some correctness, be called the Celtic
priesthood, were the recognised religious teachers throughout
Gaul, Armorica, a small part of Germany on the southern border,
all Great Britain, and some neighboring islands. The notions in
regard to a future life put forth by them are stated only in a
very imperfect manner by the Greek and Roman authors in whose
surviving works we find allusions to the Druids or accounts of the
Celts. Several modern writers especially Borlase, in his
Antiquities of Cornwall1 have collected all these references from
Diodorus, Strabo, Procopius, Tacitus, Casar, Mela, Valerius
Maximus, and Marcellinus. It is therefore needless to cite the
passages here, the more so as, even with the aid of all the
analytic and constructive comments which can be fairly made upon
them, they afford us only a few general views, leaving all the
details in profound obscurity. The substance of what we learn from
these sources is this. First, that the Druids possessed a body of
science and speculation comprising the doctrine of immortality,
which they taught with clearness and authority. Secondly, that
they inculcated the belief in a future life in inseparable
connection with the great dogma of metempsychosis. Thirdly, that
the people held such cheerful and attractive views of the future
state, and held them with such earnestness, that they wept around
the newborn infant and smiled around the corpse; that they
encountered death without fear or reluctance. This reversal of
natural sentiments shows the tampering of a priesthood who had
motives.

A somewhat more minute conception of the Druidic view of the
future life is furnished us by an old mythologic tale of Celtic
origin.2 Omitting the story, as irrelevant to our purpose, we
derive from it the following ideas. The soul, on being divested of
its earthly envelop, is borne aloft. The clouds are composed of
the souls of lately deceased men. They fly over the heads of
armies, inspiring courage or striking terror. Not yet freed from
terrestrial affections, they mingle in the passions and affairs of
men. Vainly they strive to soar above the atmosphere; an
impassable wall of sapphire resists their wings. In the moon,
millions of souls traverse tremendous plains of ice, losing all
perception but that of simple existence, forgetting the adventures
they have passed through and are about to recommence. During
eclipses, on long tubes of darkness they return to the earth, and,
revived by a beam of light from the all quickening sun, enter
newly formed bodies, and begin again the career of life. The disk
of the sun consists of an assemblage of pure souls swimming in an
ocean of bliss. Souls sullied with earthly impurities are to be
purged by repeated births and probations till the last stain is
removed, and they are all finally fitted to ascend to a succession
of spheres still higher than the sun, whence they can never sink
again to reside in the circle of the lower globes and grosser
atmosphere.

1 Book ii. ch. 14.

2 Davies, Celtic Researches, appendix, pp. 558-561.


These representations are neither Gothic nor Roman, but Celtic.

But a far more adequate exposition of the Druidic doctrine of the
soul's destinies has been presented to us through the translation
of some of the preserved treasures of the old Bardic lore of
Wales. The Welsh bards for hundreds of years were the sole
surviving representatives of the Druids. Their poems numerous
manuscripts of which, with apparent authentication of their
genuineness, have been published and explained contain quite full
accounts of the tenets of Druidism, which was nowhere else so
thoroughly systematized and established as in ancient Britain.3
The curious reader will find this whole subject copiously treated,
and all the materials furnished, in the "Myvyrian Archaology of
Wales," a work in two huge volumes, published at London at the
beginning of the present century. After the introduction and
triumph of Christianity in Britain, for several centuries the two
systems of thought and ritual mutually influenced each other,
corrupting and corrupted.4 A striking example in point is this.
The notion of a punitive and remedial transmigration belonged to
Druidism. Now, Taliesin, a famous Welsh bard of the sixth century,
locates this purifying metempsychosis in the Hell of Christianity,
whence the soul gradually rises again to felicity, the way for it
having been opened by Christ! Cautiously eliminating the Christian
admixtures, the following outline, which we epitomize from the
pioneer5 of modern scholars to the Welsh Bardic literature,
affords a pretty clear knowledge of that portion of the Druidic
theology relating to the future life.

There are, says one of the Bardic triads, three circles of
existence. First, the Circle of Infinity, where of living or dead
there is nothing but God, and which none but God can traverse.
Secondly, the Circle of Metempsychosis, where all things that live
are derived from death. This circle has been traversed by man.
Thirdly, the Circle of Felicity, where all things spring from
life. This circle man shall hereafter traverse. All animated
beings originate in the lowest point of existence, and, by regular
gradations through an ascending series of transmigrations, rise to
the highest state of perfection possible for finite creatures.
Fate reigns in all the states below that of humanity, and they are
all necessarily evil. In the states above humanity, on the
contrary, unmixed good so prevails that all are necessarily good.
But in the middle state of humanity, good and evil are so balanced
that liberty results; and free will and consequent responsibility
are born. Beings who in their ascent have arrived at the state of
man, if, by purity, humility, love, and righteousness, they keep
the laws of the Creator, will, after death, rise into more
glorious spheres, and will continue to rise still higher, until
they reach the final destination of complete and endless
happiness. But if, while in the state of humanity, one perverts
his reason and will, and attaches himself to evil, he will, on
dying, fall into such a state of animal existence as corresponds
with the baseness of his soul. This baseness may be so great as to
precipitate him to the lowest point of being; but he shall climb
thence through a series of births best fitted to free him from his
evil propensities. Restored to the probationary state, he may fall
again; but, though this should occur again and again

3 Sketch of British Bardism, prefixed to Owen's translation of the
Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hen.

4 Herbert, Essay on the Neo Druidic Heresy in Britannia.

5 Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, by Edward Williams, vol. ii. notes,
pp. 194-256.


for a million of ages, the path to happiness still remains open,
and he shall at last infallibly arrive at his preordained
felicity, and fall nevermore. In the states superior to humanity,
the soul recovers and retains the entire recollection of its
former lives.

We will quote a few illustrative triads. There are three necessary
purposes of metempsychosis: to collect the materials and
properties of every nature; to collect the knowledge of every
thing; to collect power towards removing whatever is pernicious.
The knowledge of three things will subdue and destroy evil:
knowledge of its cause, its nature, and its operation. Three
things continually dwindle away: the Dark, the False, the Dead.
Three things continually increase: Light, Truth, Life.

These will prevail, and finally absorb every thing else. The soul
is an inconceivably minute particle of the most refined matter,
endowed with indestructible life, at the dissolution of one body
passing, according to its merits, into a higher or lower stage of
existence, where it expands itself into that form which its
acquired propensities necessarily give it, or into that animal in
which such propensities naturally reside. The ultimate states of
happiness are ceaselessly undergoing the most delightful
renovations, without which, indeed, no finite being could endure
the tedium of eternity. These are not, like the death of the lower
states, accompanied by a suspension of memory and of conscious
identity. All the innumerable modes of existence, after being
cleansed from every evil, will forever remain as beautiful
varieties in the creation, and will be equally esteemed, equally
happy, equally fathered by the Creator. The successive occupation
of these modes of existence by the celestial inhabitants of the
Circle of Felicity will be one of the ways of varying what would
otherwise be the intolerable monotony of eternity. The creation is
yet in its infancy. The progressive operation of the providence of
God will bring every being up from the great Deep to the point of
liberty, and will at last secure three things for them: namely,
what is most beneficial, what is most desired, and what is most
beautiful. There are three stabilities of existence: what cannot
be otherwise, what should not be otherwise, what cannot be
imagined better; and in these all shall end, in the Circle of
Felicity.

Such is a hasty synopsis of what here concerns us in the theology
of the Druids. In its ground germs it was, it seems to us,
unquestionably imported into Celtic thought and Cymrian song from
that prolific and immemorial Hindu mind which bore Brahmanism and
Buddhism as its fruit. Its ethical tone, intellectual elevation,
and glorious climax are not unworthy that free hierarchy of
minstrel priests whose teachings were proclaimed, as their
assemblies were held, "in the face of the sun and in the eye of
the light," and whose thrilling motto was, "THE TRUTH AGAINST THE
WORLD."

The latest publication on the subject of old Welsh literature is
"Taliesin; or, The Bards and Druids of Britain." The author, D. W.
Nash, is obviously familiar with his theme, and he throws much
light on many points of it. His ridicule of the arbitrary tenets
and absurdities which Davies, Pughe, and others have taught in all
good faith as Druidic lore and practice is richly deserved. But,
despite the learning and acumen displayed in his able and valuable
volume, we must think Mr. Nash goes wholly against the record in
denying the doctrine of metempsychosis to the Druidic system, and
goes clearly beyond the record in charging Edward Williams and
others with forgery and fraud in their representations of ancient
Bardic doctrines.6 In support of such grave charges direct evidence
is needed; only suspicious circumstances are adduced. The non
existence of public documents is perfectly reconcilable with
the existence of reliable oral accounts preserved by the initiated
few, one of whom Williams, with seeming sincerity, claimed to be.

6 Taliesin, ch. iv.


CHAPTER III.

SCANDINAVIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

MANY considerations combine to make it seem likely that at an
early period a migration took place from Southern Asia to Northern
Europe, which constituted the commencement of what afterwards grew
to be the great Gothic family. The correspondence of many of the
leading doctrines and symbols of the Scandinavian mythology with
well known Persian and Buddhist notions notions of a purely
fanciful and arbitrary character is too peculiar, apparently, to
admit of any other explanation.1 But the germs of thought and
imagination transplanted thus from the warm and gorgeous climes of
the East to the snowy mountains of Norway and the howling ridges
of Iceland, obtained a fresh development, with numerous
modifications and strange additions, from the new life, climate,
scenery, and customs to which they were there exposed. The
temptation to predatory habits and strife, the necessity for an
intense though fitful activity arising from their geographical
situation, the fierce spirit nourished in them by their actual
life, the tremendous phenomena of the Arctic world around them,
all these influences break out to our view in the poetry, and are
reflected by their results in the religion, of the Northmen.

From the flame world, Muspelheim, in the south, in which Surtur,
the dread fire king, sits enthroned, flowed down streams of heat.
From the mist world, Niflheim, in the north, in whose central
caldron, Hvergelmir, dwells the gloomy dragon Nidhogg, rose floods
of cold vapor. The fire and mist meeting in the yawning abyss,
Ginungagap, after various stages of transition, formed the earth.
There were then three principal races of beings: men, whose
dwelling was Midgard; Jotuns, who occupied Utgard; and the Asir,
whose home was Asgard. The Jotuns, or demons, seem to have been
originally personifications of darkness, cold, and storm, the
disturbing forces of nature, whatever is hostile to fruitful life
and peace. They were frost giants ranged in the outer wastes
around the habitable fields of men. The Asir, or gods, on the
other hand, appear to have been personifications of light, and
law, and benignant power, the orderly energies of the universe.
Between the Jotuns and the Asir there is an implacable contest.2
The rainbow, Bifrost, is a bridge leading from earth up to the
skyey dwelling place of the Asir; and their sentinel, Heimdall,
whose senses are so acute that he can hear the grass spring in the
meadows and the wool grow on the backs of the sheep, keeps
incessant watch upon it. Their chief deity, the father Zeus of the
Northern pantheon, was Odin, the god of war, who wakened the
spirit of battle by flinging his spear over the heads of the
people, its inaudible hiss from heaven being as the song of Ate
let loose on earth. Next in rank was Thor, the personification of
the exploding tempest. The crashing echoes of the thunder are his
chariot wheels rattling through the cloudy halls of Thrudheim.
Whenever the lightning strikes a cliff or an iceberg, then Thor
has flung his hammer, Mjolnir, at Joton's head.

1 Vans Kennedy, Ancient and Hindu Mythology, pp. 452, 463-464.

2 Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. ii.


Balder was the god of innocence and gentleness, fairest,
kindest, purest of beings. Light emanated from him, and
all things loved him. After Christianity was established in the
North, Jesus was called the White Christ, or the new Balder. The
appearance of Balder amidst the frenzied and bloody divinities of
the Norse creed is beautiful as the dew cool moon hanging calmly
over the lurid storm of Vesuvius. He was entitled the "Band in the
Wreath of the Gods," because with his fate that of all the rest
was bound up. His death, ominously foretold from eldest antiquity,
would be the signal for the ruin of the universe. Asa Loki was the
Momus Satan or Devil Buffoon of the Scandinavian mythology, the
half amusing, half horrible embodiment of wit, treachery, and
evil; now residing with the gods in heaven, now accompanying Thor
on his frequent adventures, now visiting and plotting with his own
kith and kin in frosty Jotunheim, beyond the earth environing sea,
or in livid Helheim deep beneath the domain of breathing
humanity.3

With a Jotun woman, Angerbode, or Messenger of Evil, Loki begets
three fell children. The first is Fenris, a savage wolf, so large
that nothing but space can hold him. The second is Jormungandur,
who, with his tail in his mouth, fills the circuit of the ocean.
He is described by Sir Walter Scott as

"That great sea snake, tremendous curl'd, Whose monstrous circle
girds the world."

The third is Hela, the grim goddess of death, whose ferocious
aspect is half of a pale blue and half of a ghastly white, and
whose empire, stretching below the earth through Niflheim, is full
of freezing vapors and discomfortable sights. Her residence is the
spacious under world; her court yard, faintness; her threshold,
precipice; her door, abyss; her hall, pain; her table, hunger; her
knife, starvation; her man servant, delay; her handmaid, slowness;
her bed, sickness; her pillow, anguish; and her canopy, curse.
Still lower than her house is an abode yet more fearful and
loathsome. In Nastrond, or strand of corpses, stands a hall, the
conception of which is prodigiously awful and enormously
disgusting. It is plaited of serpents' backs, wattled together
like wicker work, whose heads turn inwards, vomiting poison. In
the lake of venom thus deposited within these immense wriggling
walls of snakes the worst of the damned wade and swim.

High up in the sky is Odin's hall, the magnificent Valhalla, or
temple of the slain. The columns supporting its ceiling are
spears. It is roofed with shields, and the ornaments on its
benches are coats of mail. The Valkyrs are Odin's battle maids,
choosers of heroes for his banquet rooms. With helmets on their
heads, in bloody harness, mounted on shadowy steeds, surrounded by
meteoric lightnings, and wielding flaming swords, they hover over
the conflict and point the way to Valhalla to the warriors who
fall. The valiant souls thus received to Odin's presence are
called Einheriar, or the elect. The Valkyrs, as white clad virgins
with flowing ringlets, wait on them in the capacity of cup
bearers. Each morning, at the crowing

3 Oehlenschlager, Gods of the North. This celebrated and brilliant
poem, with the copious notes in Frye's translation, affords the
English reader a full conception of the Norse pantheon and its
salient adventures.


of a huge gold combed cock, the well armed Einheriar rush through
Valhalla's five hundred and forty doors into a great court yard,
and pass the day in merciless fighting. However pierced and hewn
in pieces in these fearful encounters, at evening every wound is
healed, and they return into the hall whole, and are seated,
according to their exploits, at a luxurious feast. The
perennial boar Sehrimnir, deliciously cooked by Andrimnir, though
devoured every night, is whole again every morning and ready to be
served anew. The two highest joys these terrible berserkers and
vikings knew on earth composed their experience in heaven: namely,
a battle by day and a feast by night. It is a vulgar error, long
prevalent, that the Valhalla heroes drink out of the skulls of
their enemies. This notion, though often refuted, still lingers in
the popular mind. It arose from the false translation of a phrase
in the death song of Ragnar Lodbrok, the famous sea king, "Soon
shall we drink from the curved trees of the head," which, as a
figure for the usual drinking horns, was erroneously rendered by
Olaus Wormius, "Soon shall we drink from the hollow cups of
skulls." It is not the heads of men, but the horns of beasts, from
which the Einheriar quaff Heidrun's mead.4

No women being ever mentioned as gaining admission to Valhalla or
joining in the joys of the Einheriar, some writers have affirmed
that, according to the Scandinavian faith, women had no immortal
souls, or, at all events, were excluded from heaven. The charge is
as baseless in this instance as when brought against
Mohammedanism. Valhalla was the exclusive abode of the most daring
champions; but Valhalla was not the whole of heaven. Vingolf, the
Hall of Friends, stood beside the Hall of the Slain, and was the
assembling place of the goddesses.5 There, in the palace of Freya,
the souls of noble women were received after death. The elder Edda
says that Thor guided Roska, a swift footed peasant girl who had
attended him as a servant on various excursions, to Freya's bower,
where she was welcomed, and where she remained forever. The virgin
goddess Gefjone, the Northern Diana, also had a residence in
heaven, and all who died maidens repaired thither.6 The presence
of virgin throngs with Gefjone, and the society of noble matrons
in Vingolf, shed a tender gleam across the carnage and carousal of
Valhalla. More is said of the latter the former is scarcely
visible to us now because the only record we have of the Norse
faith is that contained in the fragmentary strains of ferocious
Skalds, who sang chiefly to warriors, and the staple matter of
whose songs was feats of martial prowess or entertaining
mythological stories. Furthermore, there is above the heaven of
the Asir a yet higher heaven, the abode of the far removed and
inscrutable being, the rarely named Omnipotent One, the true All
Father, who is at last to come forth above the ruins of the
universe to judge and sentence all creatures and to rebuild a
better world. In this highest region towers the imperishable gold
roofed hall, Gimle, brighter than the sun. There is no hint
anywhere in the Skaldic strains that good women are repulsed from
this dwelling.

According to the rude morality of the people and the time, the
contrasted conditions of admission to the upper paradise or
condemnation to the infernal realm were the admired

4 Pigott, Manual of Scandinavian Mythology, p. 65.

5 Keyser, Religion of the Northmen, trans. by Pennock, p. 149.

6 Pigott, p. 245.


virtues of strength, open handed frankness, reckless audacity, or
the hated vices of feebleness, cowardice, deceit, humility. Those
who have won fame by puissant feats and who die in battle are
snatched by the Valkyrs from the sod to Valhalla. To die in arms
is to be chosen of Odin,

"In whose hall of gold The steel clad ghosts their wonted orgies
hold. Some taunting jest begets the war of words: In clamorous
fray they grasp their gleamy swords, And, as upon the earth, with
fierce delight By turns renew the banquet and the fight."

All, on the contrary, who, after lives of ignoble labor or
despicable ease, die of sickness, sink from their beds to the
dismal house of Hela. In this gigantic vaulted cavern the air
smells like a newly stirred grave; damp fogs rise, hollow sighs
are heard, the only light comes from funeral tapers held by
skeletons; the hideous queen, whom Thor eulogizes as the Scourger
of Cowards, sits on a throne of skulls, and sways a sceptre, made
of a dead man's bone bleached in the moonlight, over a countless
multitude of shivering ghosts.7 But the Norse moralists plunge to
a yet darker doom those guilty of perjury, murder, or adultery. In
Nastrond's grisly hail, which is shaped of serpents' spines, and
through whose loop holes drops of poison drip, where no sunlight
ever reaches, they welter in a venom sea and are gnawed by the
dragon Nidhogg.8 In a word, what to the crude moral sense of the
martial Goth seemed piety, virtue, led to heaven; what seemed
blasphemy, baseness, led to hell.

The long war between good and evil, light and darkness, order and
discord, the Asir and the Jotuns, was at last to reach a fatal
crisis and end in one universal battle, called Ragnarokur, or the
"Twilight of the Gods," whose result would be the total
destruction of the present creation. Portentous inklings of this
dread encounter were abroad among all beings. A shuddering
anticipation of it sat in a lowering frown of shadow on the brows
of the deities. In preparation for Ragnarokur, both parties
anxiously secured all the allies they could. Odin therefore
joyously welcomes every valiant warrior to Valhalla, as a recruit
for his hosts on that day when Fenris shall break loose. When
Hakon Jarl fell, the Valkyrs shouted, "Now does the force of the
gods grow stronger when they have brought Hakon to their home." A
Skald makes Odin say, on the death of King Eirilc Blood Axe, as an
excuse for permitting such a hero to be slain, "Our lot is
uncertain: the gray wolf gazes on the host of the gods;" that is,
we shall need help at Ragnarokur. But as all the brave and
magnanimous champions received to Valhalla were enlisted on the
side of the Asir, so all the miserable cowards, invalids, and
wretches doomed to Hela's house would fight for the Jotuns. From
day to day the opposed armies, above and below, increase in
numbers. Some grow impatient, some tremble. When Balder dies, and
the ship Nagelfra is completed, the hour of infinite suspense will
strike. Nagelfra is a vessel for the conveyance of the hosts of
frost giants to the battle. It is to be built of dead men's nails:
therefore no one should die with unpaired nails, for if he does he

7 Pigott, pp. 137, 138.

8 The Voluspa, strophes 34, 35.


furnishes materials for the construction of that ship which men
and gods wish to have finished as late as possible.9

At length Loki treacherously compasses the murder of Balder. The
frightful foreboding which at once flies through all hearts finds
voice in the dark "Raven Song" of Odin. Having chanted this
obscure wail in heaven, he mounts his horse and rides down the
bridge to Helheim. With resistless incantations he raises from the
grave, where she has been interred for ages, wrapt in snows, wet
with the rains and the dews, an aged vala or prophetess, and
forces her to answer his questions. With appalling replies he
returns home, galloping up the sky. And now the crack of doom is
at hand. Heimdall hurries up and down the bridge Bifrost, blowing
his horn till its rousing blasts echo through the universe. The
wolf Skoll, from whose pursuit the frightened sun has fled round
the heavens since the first dawn, overtakes and devours his bright
prey. Nagelfra, with the Jotun hosts on board, sails swiftly from
Utgard. Loki advances at the head of the troops of Hela. Fenris
snaps his chain and rushes forth with jaws so extended that the
upper touches the firmament, while the under rests on the earth;
and he would open them wider if there were room. Jormungandur
writhes his entire length around Midgard, and, lifting his head,
blows venom over air and sea. Suddenly, in the south, heaven
cleaves asunder, and through the breach the sons of Muspel, the
flame genii, ride out on horseback with Surtur at their head, his
sword outflashing the sun. Now Odin leads forward the Asir and the
Einheriar, and on the predestined plain of Vigrid the strife
commences. Heimdall and Loki mutually slay each other. Thor kills
Jormungandur; but as the monster expires he belches a flood of
venom, under which the matchless thunder god staggers and falls
dead. Fenris swallows Odin, but is instantly rent in twain by
Vidar, the strong silent one, Odin's dumb son, who well avenges
his father on the wolf by splitting the jaws that devoured him.
Then Surtur slings fire abroad, and the reek rises around all
things. Iggdrasill, the great Ash Tree of Existence, totters, but
stands. All below perishes. Finally, the unnamable Mighty One
appears, to judge the good and the bad. The former hie from fading
Valhalla to eternal Gimle, where all joy is to be theirs forever;
the latter are stormed down from Hela to Nastrond, there, "under
curdling mists, in a snaky marsh whose waves freeze black and thaw
in blood, to be scared forever, for punishment, with terrors ever
new." All strife vanishes in endless peace. By the power of All
Father, a new earth, green and fair, shoots up from the sea, to be
inhabited by a new race of men free from sorrow. The foul, spotted
dragon Nidhogg flies over the plains, bearing corpses and Death
itself away upon his wings, and sinks out of sight.10

It has generally been asserted, in consonance with the foregoing
view, that the Scandinavians believed that the good and the bad,
respectively in Gimle and Nastrond, would experience everlasting
rewards and punishments. But Blackwell, the recent editor of
Percy's translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities as published
in Bohn's Antiquarian Library, argues with great force against the
correctness of the assertion.11 The point is

9 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, s. 775, note.

10 Keyser, Religion of the Northmen, part i. ch. vi.

11 Pp. 497-503.


dubious; but it is of no great importance, since we know that the
spirit and large outlines of their faith have been reliably set
forth. That faith, rising from the impetuous blood and rude mind
of the martial race of the North, gathering wonderful
embellishments from the glowing imagination of the Skalds,
reacting, doubly nourished the fierce valor and fervid fancy from
which it sprang. It drove the dragon prows of the Vikings
marauding over the seas. It rolled the Goths' conquering squadrons
across the nations, from the shores of Finland and Skager Rack to
the foot of the Pyrenees and the gates of Rome. The very ferocity
with which it blazed consumed itself, and the conquest of the
flickering faith by Christianity was easy. During the dominion of
this religion, the earnest sincerity with which its disciples
received it appears alike from the fearful enterprises it prompted
them to, the iron hardihood and immeasurable contempt of death it
inspired in them, and the superstitious observances which, with
pains and expenses, they scrupulously kept. They buried, with the
dead, gold, useful implements, ornaments, that they might descend,
furnished and shining, to the halls of Hela. With a chieftain they
buried a pompous horse and splendid armor, that he might ride like
a warrior into Valhalla. The true Scandinavian, by age or sickness
deprived of dying in battle, ran himself through, or flung himself
from a precipice, in this manner to make amends for not expiring
in armed strife, if haply thus he might snatch a late seat among
the Einheriar. With the same motive the dying sea king had himself
laid on his ship, alone, and launched away, with out stretched
sails, with a slow fire in the hold, which, when he was fairly out
at sea, should flame up and, as Carlyle says, "worthily bury the
old hero at once in the sky and in the ocean." Surely then, if
ever, "the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent
took it by force."

CHAPTER IV.

ETRUSCAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

ALTHOUGH the living form and written annals of Etruria perished
thousands of years ago, and although but slight references to her
affairs have come down to us in the documents of contemporary
nations, yet, through a comparatively recent acquisition of facts,
we have quite a distinct and satisfactory knowledge of her
condition and experience when her power was palmiest. We follow
the ancient Etruscans from the cradle to the tomb, perceiving
their various national costumes, peculiar physiognomies, names and
relationships, houses, furniture, ranks, avocations, games, dying
scenes, burial processions, and funeral festivals. And, further
than this, we follow their souls into the world to come, behold
them in the hands of good or evil spirits, brought to judgment and
then awarded their deserts of bliss or woe. This knowledge has
been derived from their sepulchres, which still resist the
corroding hand of Time when nearly every thing else Etruscan has
mingled with the ground.1 They hewed their tombs in the living
rock of cliffs and hills, or reared them of massive masonry. They
painted or carved the walls with descriptive and symbolic scenes,
and crowded their interiors with sarcophagi, cinerary urns, vases,
goblets, mirrors, and a thousand other articles covered with
paintings and sculptures rich in information of their authors.
From a study of these things, lately disinterred in immense
quantities, has been constructed, for the most part, our present
acquaintance with this ancient people. Strange that, when the
whole scene of life has passed away, a sepulchral world should
survive and open itself to reveal the past and instruct the
future! We seem to see, rising from her tombs, and moving solemnly
among the mounds where all she knew or cared for has for so many
ages been inurned, the ghost of a mighty people. With dejected air
she leans on a ruined temple and muses; and her shadowy tears fall
silently over what was and is not.

The Etruscans were accustomed to bury their deceased outside their
walls; and sometimes the city of the living was thus surrounded by
a far reaching city of the dead. At this day the decaying fronts
of the houses of the departed, for miles upon miles along the
road, admonish the living traveller. These stone hewn sepulchres
crowd nearly every hill and glen. Whole acres of them are also
found upon the plains, covered by several feet of earth, where
every spring the plough passes over them, and every autumn the
harvest waves; but the dust beneath reposes well, and knows
nothing of this.

"Time buries graves. How strange! a buried grave! Death cannot
from more death its own dead empire save."

The houses of the dead were built in imitation of the houses of
the living, only on a smaller scale; and the interior arrangements
were so closely copied that it is said the resemblance held in all
but the light of day and the sound and motion of life. The images

1 Mrs. Gray, Sepulchres of Etruria.


painted or etched on the urns and sarcophagi that fill the
sepulchres were portraits of the deceased, accurate likenesses,
varying with age, sex, features, and expression. These personal
portraits were taken and laid up here, doubtless, to preserve
their remembrance when the original had crumbled to ashes. What a
touching voice is this from antiquity, telling us that our poor,
fond human nature was ever the same! The heart longed to be kept
still in remembrance when the mortal frame was gone. But how vain
the wish beyond the vanishing circle of hearts that returned its
love! For, as we wander through those sepulchres now, thousands of
faces thus preserved look down upon us with a mute plea, when
every vestige of their names and characters is forever lost, and
their very dust scattered long ago.

Along the sides of the burial chamber were ranged massive stone
shelves, or sometimes benches, or tables, upon which the dead were
laid in a reclining posture, to sleep their long sleep. It often
happens that on these rocky biers lie the helmet, breastplate,
greaves, signet ring, and weapons, or, if it be a female, the
necklace, ear rings, bracelet, and other ornaments, each in its
relative place, when the body they once encased or adorned has not
left a single fragment behind. An antiquary once, digging for
discoveries, chanced to break through the ceiling of a tomb. He
looked in; and there, to quote his own words, "I beheld a warrior
stretched on a couch of rock, and in a few minutes I saw him
vanish under my eyes; for, as the air entered the cemetery, the
armor, thoroughly oxydized, crumbled away into most minute
particles, and in a short time scarcely a trace of what I had seen
was left on the couch. It is impossible to express the effect this
sight produced upon me."

An important element in the religion of Etruria was the doctrine
of Genii, a system of household deities who watched over the
fortunes of individuals and families, and who are continually
shown on the engravings in the sepulchres as guiding, or actively
interested in, all the incidents that happen to those under their
care. It was supposed that every person had two genii allotted to
him, one inciting him to good deeds, the other to bad, and both
accompanying him after death to the judgment to give in their
testimony and turn the scales of his fate. This belief, sincerely
held, would obviously wield a powerful influence over their
feelings in the conduct of life.

The doctrine concerning the gods that prevailed in this ancient
nation is learned partly from the classic authors, partly from
sepulchral monumental remains. It was somewhat allied to that of
Egypt, but much more to that of Rome, who indeed derived a
considerable portion of her mythology from this source. As in
other pagan countries, a multitude of deities were worshipped
here, each having his peculiar office, form of representation, and
cycle of traditions. It would be useless to specify all.2 The
goddess of Fate was pictured with wings, showing her swiftness,
and with a hammer and nail, to typify that her decrees were
unalterably fixed. The name of the supreme god was Tinia. He was
the central power of the world of divinities, and was always
represented, like Jupiter Tonans, with a thunderbolt in his hand.
There were twelve great "consenting gods," composing the council
of Tinia, and called "The Senators of Heaven." They were pitiless
beings, dwelling in the inmost recesses

2 Muller, Die Etrusker, buch iii. kap. iv. sects. 7-14.


of heaven, whose names it was not lawful to pronounce. Yet they
were not deemed eternal, but were supposed to rise and fall
together. There was another class, called "The Shrouded Gods,"
still more awful, potent, and mysterious, ruling all things, and
much like the inscrutable Necessity that filled the dark
background of the old Greek religion. Last, but most feared and
most prominent in the Etruscan mind, were the rulers of the lower
regions, Mantus and Mania, the king and queen of the under world.
Mantus was figured as an old man, wearing a crown, with wings at
his shoulders, and a torch reversed in his hand. Mania was a
fearful personage, frequently propitiated with human sacrifices.
Macrobius says boys were offered up at her annual festival for a
long time, till the heads of onions and poppies were substituted.3
Intimately connected with these divinities was Charun, their chief
minister, the conductor of souls into the realm of the future,
whose dread image, hideous as the imagination could conceive, is
constantly introduced in the sepulchral pictures, and who with his
attendant demons well illustrates the terrible character of the
superstition which first created, then deified, and then trembled
before him. Who can become acquainted with such horrors as these
without drawing a freer breath, and feeling a deeper gratitude to
God, as he remembers how, for many centuries now, the religion of
love has been redeeming man from subterranean darkness, hatred,
and fright, to the happiness and peace of good will and trust in
the sweet, sunlit air of day!

That a belief in a future existence formed a prominent and
controlling feature in the creed of the Etruscans4 is abundantly
shown by the contents of their tombs. They would never have
produced and preserved paintings, tracings, types, of such a
character and in such quantities, had not the doctrines they
shadow forth possessed a ruling hold upon their hopes and fears.
The symbolic representations connected with this subject may be
arranged in several classes. First, there is an innumerable
variety of death bed scenes, many of them of the most touching and
pathetic character, such as witnesses say can scarcely be looked
upon without tears, others of the most appalling nature, showing
perfect abandonment to fright, screams, sobbing, and despair. The
last hour is described under all circumstances, coming to all
sorts of persons, prince, priest, peasant, man, mother, and child.
Patriarchs are dying surrounded by groups in every posture of
grief; friends are waving a mournful farewell to their weeping
lovers; wives are torn from the embrace of their husbands; some
seem resigned and willingly going, others reluctant and driven in
terror.

The next series of engravings contain descriptions and emblems of
the departure of the soul from this world, and of its passage into
the next. There are various symbols of this mysterious transition:
one is a snake with a boy riding upon its back, its amphibious
nature plainly typifying the twofold existence allotted to man.
The soul is also often shown muffled in a veil and travelling
garb, seated upon a horse, and followed by a slave carrying a
large sack of provisions, an emblem of the long and dreary journey
about to be taken. Horses are depicted harnessed to cars in which
disembodied spirits are seated, a token of the swift ride

3 Saturnal. lib. i. cap. 7.

4 Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, ch. xii.


of the dead to their doom. Sometimes the soul is gently invited,
or led, by a good spirit, sometimes beaten, or dragged away, by
the squalid and savage Charun, the horrible death king, or one of
his ministers; sometimes a good and an evil spirit are seen
contending for the soul; sometimes the soul is seen, on its knees,
beseeching the aid of its good genius and grasping at his
departing wing, as, with averted face, he is retiring; and
sometimes the good and the evil spirits are leading it away
together, to abide the sentence of the tribunal of Mantus. Whole
companies of souls are also set forth marching in procession,
under the guidance of a winged genius, to their subterranean
abode.

Finally, there is a class of representations depicting the
ultimate fate of souls after judgment has been passed. Some are
shown seated at banquet, in full enjoyment, according to their
ideas of bliss. Some are shown undergoing punishment, beaten with
hammers, stabbed and torn by black demons. There are no proofs
that the Etruscans believed in the translation of any soul to the
abode of the gods above the sky, no signs of any path rising to
the supernal heaven; but they clearly expected just discriminations
to be made in the under world. Into that realm many gates are shown
leading, some of them peaceful, inviting, surrounded by apparent
emblems of deliverance, rest, and blessedness; others yawning,
terrific, engirt by the heads of gnashing beasts and furies
threatening their victim.

"Shown is the progress of the guilty soul
From earth's worn threshold to the throne of doom;
Here the black genius to the dismal goal
Drags the wan spectre from the unsheltering tomb,
While from the side it never more may warn
The better angel, sorrowing, flees forlorn.
There (closed the eighth) seven yawning gates reveal
The sevenfold anguish that awaits the lost.
Closed the eighth gate, for there the happy dwell.
No glimpse of joy beyond makes horror less."

In these lines, from Bulwer's learned and ornate epic of King
Arthur, the dire severity of the Etruscan doctrine of a future
life is well indicated, with the local imagery of some parts of
it, and the impenetrable obscurity which enwraps the great sequel.

CHAPTER V.

EGYPTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

IN attempting to understand the conceptions of the ancient
inhabitants of Egypt on the subject of a future life, we are first
met by the inquiry why they took such great pains to preserve the
bodies of their dead. It has been supposed that no common motive
could have animated them to such lavish expenditure of money,
time, and labor as the process of embalming required. It has been
taken for granted that only some recondite theological
consideration could explain this phenomenon. Accordingly, it is
now the popular belief that the Egyptians were so scrupulous in
embalming their dead and storing them in repositories of eternal
stone, because they believed that the departed souls would at some
future time come back and revivify their former bodies, if these
were kept from decay. This hypothesis seems to us as false as it
is gratuitous. In the first place, there is no evidence of it
whatever,  neither written testimony nor circumstantial hint.
Herodotus tells us, "The Egyptians say the soul, on the
dissolution of the body, always enters into some other animal then
born, and, having passed in rotation through the various
terrestrial, aquatic, and arial beings, again enters the body of a
man then born."1 There is no assertion that, at the end of the
three thousand years occupied by this circuit, the soul will re
enter its former body. The plain inference, on the contrary, is
that it will be born in a new body, as at each preceding step in
the series of its transmigrations. Secondly, the mutilation of the
body in embalming forbids the belief in its restoration to life.
The brain was extracted, and the skull stuffed with cotton. The
entrails were taken out, and sometimes, according to Porphyry2 and
Plutarch,3 thrown into the Nile; sometimes, as modern examinations
have revealed, bound up in four packages and either replaced in
the cavity of the stomach or laid in four vases beside the mummy.
It is absurd to attribute, without clear cause, to an enlightened
people the belief that these stacks of brainless, eviscerated
mummies, dried and shrunken in ovens, coated with pitch, bound up
in a hundredfold bandages, would ever revive, and, inhabited by
the same souls that fled them thirty centuries before, again walk
the streets of Thebes! Besides, a third consideration demands
notice. By the theory of metempsychosis universally acknowledged
to have been held by the Egyptians it is taught that souls at
death, either immediately, or after a temporary sojourn in hell or
heaven has struck the balance of their merits, are born in fresh
bodies; never that they return into their old ones. But the point
is set beyond controversy by the discovery of inscriptions,
accompanying pictures of scenes illustrating the felicity of
blessed souls in heaven, to this effect: "Their bodies shall
repose in their tombs forever; they live in the celestial regions
eternally, enjoying the presence of the Supreme God." 4 A writer
on this subject says, "A people who believed in the transmigration

1 Herod. lib. ii. cap. 123.

2 De Abstinentia, lib. iv. cap. 10.

3 Banquet of the Seven Wise Men.

4 Champollion, Descr. de l'Egypte, Antiq. tom ii. p. 132. Stuart's
Trans. of Greppo's Essay, p. 262.


of souls would naturally take extraordinary pains to preserve the
body from putrefaction, in the hope of the soul again joining the
body it had quitted." The remark is intrinsically untrue, because
the doctrine of transmigration coexists in reconciled belief with
the observed law of birth, infancy, and growth, not with the
miracle of transition into reviving corpses. The notion is
likewise historically refuted by the fact that the believers of
that doctrine in the thronged East have never preserved the body,
but at once buried or burned it. The whole Egyptian theology is
much more closely allied to the Hindu, which excluded, than to the
Persian, which emphasized, the resurrection of the body.

Another theory which has been devised to explain the purpose of
Egyptian embalming, is that "it was to unite the soul permanently
to its body, and keep the vital principle from perishing or
transmigrating; the body and soul ran together through the journey
of the dead and its dread ordeal." 5 This arbitrary guess is
incredible. The preservation of the body does not appear in any
way not even to the rawest fancy to detain or unite the soul with
it; for the thought is unavoidable that it is precisely the
absence of the soul which constitutes death. Again: such an
explanation of the motive for embalming cannot be correct, because
in the hieroglyphic representations of the passage to the judgment
the separate soul is often depicted as hovering over the body, 6
or as kneeling before the judges, or as pursuing its adventures
through the various realms of the creation. "When the body is
represented," Champollion says, "it is as an aid to the spectator,
and not as teaching a bodily resurrection. Sharpe's opinion that
the picture of a bird poised over the mouth of a mummy, with the
emblems of breath and life in its claws, implies the doctrine of a
general physical resurrection, is an inferential leap of the most
startling character. What proof is there that the symbol denotes
this? Hundreds of paintings in the tombs show souls undergoing
their respective allotments in the other world while their bodily
mummies are quiet in the sepulchres of the present. In his
treatise on "Isis and Osiris," Plutarch writes, "The Egyptians
believe that while the bodies of eminent men are buried in the
earth their souls are stars shining in heaven." It is equally
nonsensical in itself and unwarranted by evidence to imagine that,
in the Egyptian faith, embalming either retained the soul in the
body or preserved the body for a future return of the soul. Who
can believe that it was for either of those purposes that they
embalmed the multitudes of animals whose mummies the explorer is
still turning up? They preserved cats, hawks, bugs, crocodiles,
monkeys, bulls, with as great pains as they did men.7 When the
Canary Islands were first visited, it was found that their
inhabitants had a custom of carefully embalming the dead. The same
was the case among the Peruvians, whose vast cemeteries remain to
this day crowded with mummies. But the expectation of a return of
the souls into these preserved bodies is not to be ascribed to
those peoples. Herodotus informs us that "the Ethiopians, having
dried the bodies of their dead, coat them with white plaster,
which they paint with colors to the likeness of the deceased and
encase in a transparent substance. The dead, thus kept from being
offensive, and yet plainly visible, are retained a

5 Bonomi and Arundel on Egyptian Antiq., p. 46.

6 Pl. xxxiii. in Lepsius' Todtenb. der. Agypter.

7 Pettigrew, Hist of Egyptian Mummies, ch. xii.


whole year in the houses of their nearest relatives. Afterwards
they are carried out and placed upright in the tombs around the
city." 8 It has been argued, because the Egyptians expended so
much in preparing lasting tombs and in adorning their walls with
varied embellishments, that they must have thought the soul
remained in the body, a conscious occupant of the dwelling place
provided for it.9 As well might it be argued that, because the
ancient savage tribes on the coast of South America, who obtained
their support by fishing, buried fish hooks and bait with their
dead, they supposed the dead bodies occupied themselves in their
graves by fishing! The adornment of the tomb, so lavish and varied
with the Egyptians, was a gratification of the spontaneous
workings of fancy and affection, and needs no far fetched
explanation. Every nation has its funeral customs and its rites of
sepulture, many of which would be as difficult of explanation as
those of Egypt. The Scandinavian sea king was sometimes buried, in
his ship, in a grave dug on some headland overlooking the ocean.
The Scythians buried their dead in rolls of gold, sometimes
weighing forty or fifty solid pounds. Diodorus the Sicilian says,
"The Egyptians, laying the embalmed bodies of their ancestors in
noble monuments, see the true visages and expressions of those who
died ages before them. So they take almost as great pleasure in
viewing their bodily proportions and the lineaments of their faces
as if they were still living among them." 10 That instinct which
leads us to obtain portraits of those we love, and makes us
unwilling to part even with their lifeless bodies, was the cause
of embalming. The bodies thus prepared, we know from the testimony
of ancient authors, were kept in the houses of their children or
kindred, until a new generation, "who knew not Joseph," removed
them. Then nothing could be more natural than that the priesthood
should take advantage of the custom, so associated with sacred
sentiments, and throw theological sanctions over it, shroud it in
mystery, and secure a monopoly of the power and profit arising
from it. It is not improbable, too, as has been suggested, that
hygienic considerations, expressing themselves in political laws
and priestly precepts, may at first have had an influence in
establishing the habit of embalming, to prevent the pestilences
apt to arise in such a climate from the decay of animal
substances.

There is great diversity of opinion among Egyptologists on this
point. One thinks that embalming was supposed to keep the soul in
the body until after the funeral judgment and interment, but that,
when the corpse was laid in its final receptacle, the soul
proceeded to accompany the sun in its daily and nocturnal circuit,
or to transmigrate through various animals and deities. Another
imagines that the process of embalming was believed to secure the
repose of the soul in the other world, exempt from
transmigrations, so long as the body was kept from decay.11
Perhaps the different notions on this subject attributed by modern
authors to the Egyptians may all have prevailed among them at
different times or among distinct sects. But it seems most likely,
as we have said, that embalming first arose from physical and
sentimental considerations naturally operating, rather than from
any

8 Lib. iii. cap. 24.

9 Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. i. ch. xxi. sect. iii.

10 Lib. i. cap. 7.

11 Library of Entertaining Knowledge, vol. ii. ch. iii.


theological doctrine carefully devised; although, after the
priesthood appropriated the business, it is altogether probable
that they interwove it with an artificial and elaborate system of
sacerdotal dogmas, in which was the hiding of the national power.

The second question that arises is, What was the significance of
the funeral ceremonies celebrated by the Egyptians over their
dead? When the body had been embalmed, it was presented before a
tribunal of forty two judges sitting in state on the eastern
borders of the lake Acherusia. They made strict inquiry into the
conduct and character of the deceased. Any one might make
complaint against him, or testify in his behalf. If it was found
that he had been wicked, had died in debt, or was otherwise
unworthy, he was deprived of honorable burial and ignominiously
thrown into a ditch. This was called Tartar, from the wailings the
sentence produced among his relatives. But if he was found to have
led an upright life, and to have been a good man, the honors of a
regular interment were decreed him. The cemetery a large plain
environed with trees and lined with canals lay on the western side
of the lake, and was named Elisout, or rest. It was reached by a
boat, the funeral barge, in which no one could cross without an
order from the judges and the payment of a small fee. In these and
other particulars some of the scenes supposed to be awaiting the
soul in the other world were dramatically shadowed forth. Each
rite was a symbol of a reality existing, in solemn correspondence,
in the invisible state. What the priests did over the body on
earth the judicial deities did over the soul in Amenthe. It seems
plain that the Greeks derived many of their notions concerning the
fate and state of the dead from Egypt. Hades corresponds with
Amenthe; Pluto, with the subterranean Osiris; Mercury
psychopompos, with Anubis, "the usher of souls;" Aacus, Minos, and
Rhadamanthos, with the three assistant gods who help in weighing
the soul and present the result to Osiris; Tartarus, to the ditch
Tartar; Charon's ghost boat over the Styx, to the barge conveying
the mummy to the tomb; Cerberus, to Oms; Acheron, to Acherusia;
the Elysian Fields, to Elisout.12 Kenrick thinks the Greeks may
have developed these views for themselves, without indebtedness to
Egypt. But the notions were in existence among the Egyptians at
least twelve hundred years before they can be traced among the
Greeks.13 And they are too arbitrary and systematic to have been
independently constructed by two nations. Besides, Herodotus
positively affirms that they were derived from Egypt. Several
other ancient authors also state this; and nearly every modern
writer on the subject agrees in it.

The triumphs of modern investigation into the antiquities of
Egypt, unlocking the hieroglyphics and lifting the curtain from
the secrets of ages, have unveiled to us a far more full and
satisfactory view of the Egyptian doctrine of the future life than
can be constructed from the narrow glimpses afforded by the
accounts of the old Greek authorities. Three sources of knowledge
have been laid open to us. First, the papyrus rolls, one of which
was placed in the bosom of every mummy. This roll, covered with
hieroglyphics, is called the funeral ritual, or book of the dead.
It served as a passport through the burial rites. It contained the
names of the deceased and his parents, a series of prayers he was
to recite

12 Spineto on Egyptian Antiq, Lectures IV., V.

13 Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 2d
Series, vol. i. ch. 12.


before the various divinities he would meet on his journey, and
representations of some of the adventures awaiting him in the
unseen state.14 Secondly, the ornamental cases in which the
mummies are enclosed are painted all over with scenes setting
forth the realities and events to which the soul of the dead
occupant has passed in the other life.15 Thirdly, the various
fates of souls are sculptured and painted on the walls in the
tombs, in characters which have been deciphered during the present
century:16

"Those mystic, stony volumes on the walls long writ, Whose sense
is late reveal'd to searching modern wit."

Combining the information thus obtained, we learn that, according
to the Egyptian representation, the soul is led by the god Thoth
into Amenthe, the infernal world, the entrance to which lies in
the extreme west, on the farther side of the sea, where the sun
goes down under the earth. It was in accordance with this
supposition that Herod caused to be engraved, on a magnificent
monument erected to his deceased wife, the line, "Zeus, this
blooming woman sent beyond the ocean." 17 At the entrance sits a
wide throated monster, over whose head is the inscription, "This
is the devourer of many who go into Amenthe, the lacerator of the
heart of him who comes with sins to the house of justice." The
soul next kneels before the forty two assessors of Osiris, with
deprecating asseverations and intercessions. It then comes to the
final trial in the terrible Hall of the two Truths, the approving
and the condemning; or, as it is differently named, the Hall of
the double Justice, the rewarding and the punishing. Here the
three divinities Horns, Anubis, and Thoth proceed to weigh the
soul in the balance. In one scale an image of Thmei, the goddess
of Truth, is placed; in the other, a heart shaped vase,
symbolizing the heart of the deceased with all the actions of
his earthly life. Then happy is he "Who, weighed 'gainst Truth,
down dips the awful scale."

Thoth notes the result on a tablet, and the deceased advances with
it to the foot of the throne on which sits Osiris, lord of the
dead, king of Amenthe. He pronounces the decisive sentence, and
his assistants see that it is at once executed. The condemned soul
is either scourged back to the earth straightway, to live again in
the form of a vile animal, as some of the emblems appear to
denote; or plunged into the tortures of a horrid hell of fire and
devils below, as numerous engravings set forth; or driven into the
atmosphere, to be vexed and tossed by tempests, violently whirled
in blasts and clouds, till its sins are expiated, and another
probation granted through a renewed existence in human form.

We have two accounts of the Egyptian divisions of the universe.
According to the first view, they conceived the creation to
consist of three grand departments. First came the earth, or zone
of trial, where men live on probation. Next was the atmosphere, or
zone of temporal

14 Das Todtenbuch der Agypter, edited with an introduction by Dr.
Lepsius.

15 Ch. ix. of Pettigrew's History of Egyptian Mummies.

16 Champollion's Letter, dated Thebes, May 16, 1829. An abstract
of this letter may be found in Stuart's trans. of Greppo's Essay
on Champollion's Hieroglyphic System, appendix, note N.

17 Basnage, Hist. of the Jews, lib. ii. ch. 12, sect. 19.


punishment, where souls are afflicted for their sins. The ruler of
this girdle of storms was Pooh, the overseer of souls in penance.
Such a notion is found in some of the later Greek philosophers,
and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jews, who undoubtedly drew
it from the priestly science of Egypt. Every one will recollect
how Paul speaks of "the prince of the power off the air." And
Shakspeare makes the timid Claudio shrink from the verge of death
with horror, lest his soul should, through ages,

"Be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless
violence round about The pendent world."

After their purgation in this region, all the souls live again on
earth by transmigration.18 The third realm was in the serene blue
sky among the stars, the zone of blessedness, where the accepted
dwell in immortal peace and joy. Eusebius says, "The Egyptians
represented the universe by two circles, one within the other, and
a serpent with the head of a hawk twining his folds around them,"
thus forming three spheres, earth, firmament, divinity.

But the representation most frequent and imposing is that which
pictures the creation simply as having the earth in the centre,
and the sun with his attendants as circulating around it in the
brightness of the superior, and the darkness of the infernal,
firmament. Souls at death pass down through the west into Amenthe,
and are tried. If condemned, they are either sent back to the
earth, or confined in the nether space for punishment. If
justified, they join the blissful company of the Sun God, and rise
with him through the east to journey along his celestial course.
The upper hemisphere is divided into twelve equal parts,
corresponding with the twelve hours of the day. At the gate of
each of these golden segments a sentinel god is stationed, to whom
the newly arriving soul must give its credentials to secure a
passage. In like manner, the lower hemisphere is cut into the same
number of gloomy sections, corresponding with the twelve hours of
the night. Daily the chief divinity, in robes of light, traverses
the beaming zones of the blessed, where they hunt and fish, or
plough and sow, reap and gather, in the Fields of the Sun on the
banks of the heavenly Nile. Nightly, arrayed in deep black from
head to foot, he traverses the dismal zones of the damned, where
they undergo appropriate retributions. Thus the future destiny of
man was sublimely associated with the march of the sun through the
upper and lower hemispheres.19 Astronomy was a part of the
Egyptian's theology. He regarded the stars not figuratively, but
literally, as spirits and pure genii; the great planets as
deities. The calendar was a religious chart, each month, week,
day, hour, being the special charge and stand point of a god.20

There was much poetic beauty and ethical power in these doctrines
and symbols. The necessity of virtue, the dread ordeals of the
grave, the certainty of retribution, the mystic circuits of
transmigration, a glorious immortality, the paths of planets and
gods and souls through creation, all were impressively enounced,
dramatically shown.

18 Liber Metempsychosis Veterum Agyptiorum, edited and translated
into Latin from the funeral papyri by H. Brugsch.

19 L'Univers, Egypte Ancienne, par Champollion Figeac, pp. 123
145.

20 Agyptische Glaubenslehre von Dr. Ed. Roth, ss. 171, 174.


"The Egyptain soul sail'd o'er the skyey sea
In ark of crystal, mann'd by beamy gods,
To drag the deeps of space and net the stars,
Where, in their nebulous shoals, they shore the void
And through old Night's Typhonian blindness shine.
Then, solarized, he press'd towards the sun,
And, in the heavenly Hades, hall of God,
Had final welcome of the firmament."

This solemn linking of the fate of man with the astronomic
universe, this grand blending of the deepest of moral doctrines
with the most august of physical sciences, plainly betrays the
brain and hand of that hereditary hierarchy whose wisdom was the
wonder of the ancient world. Osburn thinks the localization of
Amenthe in the west may have arisen in the following way. Some
superstitious Egyptians, travelling westwards, at twilight, on the
great marshes haunted by the strange gray white ibis, saw troops
of these silent, solemn, ghostlike birds, motionless or slow
stalking, and conceived them to be souls waiting for the funeral
rites to be paid, that they might sink with the setting sun to
their destined abode.21

That such a system of belief was too complex and elaborate to have
been a popular development is evident. But that it was really held
by the people there is no room to doubt. Parts of it were publicly
enacted on festival days by multitudes numbering more than a
hundred thousand. Parts of it were dimly shadowed out in the
secret recesses of temples, surrounded by the most astonishing
accompaniments that unrivalled learning, skill, wealth, and power
could contrive. Its authority commanded the allegiance, its charm
fascinated the imagination, of the people. Its force built the
pyramids, and enshrined whole generations of Egypt's embalmed
population in richly adorned sepulchres of everlasting rock. Its
substance of esoteric knowledge and faith, in its form of exoteric
imposture and exhibition, gave it vitality and endurance long. In
the vortex of change and decay it sank at last. And now it is only
after its secrets have been buried for thirty centuries that the
exploring genius of modern times has brought its hidden
hieroglyphics to light, and taught us what were the doctrines
originally contained in the altar lore of those priestly schools
which once dotted the plains of the Delta and studded the banks of
eldest Nile, where now, disfigured and gigantic, the solemn

"Old Syhinxes lift their countenances bland Athwart the river sea
and sea of sand."

21 Monumental History of Egypt, vol. i. ch. 8.


CHAPTER VI.

BRAHMANIC AND BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

IN the Hindu views of the fate of the human soul, metaphysical
subtlety and imaginative vastness, intellect and fancy, slavish
tradition and audacious speculation, besotted ritualism and
heaven storming spirituality, are mingled together on a scale of
grandeur and intensity wholly without a parallel elsewhere in the
literature or faith of the world. Brahmanism, with its hundred
million adherents holding sway over India, and Buddhism, with
its four hundred million disciples scattered over a dozen
nations, from Java to Japan, and from the Ceylonese to the
Samoyedes, practically considered, in reference to their actually
received dogmas and aims pertaining to a future life, agree
sufficiently to warrant us in giving them a general examination
together. The chief difference between them will be explained in
the sequel.

The most ancient Hindu doctrine of the future fate of man, as
given in the Vedas, was simple, rude, and very unlike the forms in
which it has since prevailed. Professor Wilson says, in the
introduction to his translation of the Rig Veda, that the
references to this subject in the primeval Sanscrit scriptures are
sparse and incomplete. But no one has so thoroughly elucidated
this obscure question as Roth of Tubingen, in his masterly paper
on the Morality of the Vedas, of which there is a translation, by
Professor Whitney, in the Journal of the American Oriental
Society.1 The results of his researches may be stated in few
words.

When a man dies, the earth is invoked to wrap his body up, as a
mother wraps her child in her garment, and to lie lightly on him.
He himself is addressed thus: "Go forth, go forth on the ancient
paths which our fathers in old times have trodden: the two rulers
in bliss, Yama and Varuna, shalt thou behold." Varuna judges all.
He thrusts the wicked down into darkness; and not a hint or clew
further of their doom is furnished. They were supposed either to
be annihilated, as Professor Roth thinks the Vedas imply, or else
to live as demons, in sin, blackness, and woe. The good go up to
heaven and are glorified with a shining spiritual body like that
of the gods. Yama, the first man, originator of the human race on
earth, is the beginner and head of renewed humanity in another
world, and is termed the Assembler of Men. It is a poetic and
grand conception that the first one who died, leading the way,
should be the patriarch and monarch of all who follow. The old
Vedic hymns imply that the departed good are in a state of exalted
felicity, but scarcely picture forth any particulars. The
following passage, versified with strict fidelity to the original,
is as full and explicit as any:

Where glory never fading is, where is the world of heavenly light,
The world of immortality, the everlasting, set me there!
Where Yama reigns, Vivasvat's son, in the inmost sphere of heaven
bright.
Where those abounding waters flow, oh, make me but immortal there!
Where there is freedom unrestrain'd, where the triple vault of
heaven's in sight,
Where worlds of brightest glory are, oh, make me but immortal
there!
Where pleasures and enjoyments are, where bliss and raptures ne'er
take flight,
Where all desires are satisfied, oh, make me but immortal there!

1 Vol iii. pp. 342-346.


But this form of doctrine long ago passed from the Hindu
remembrance, lost in the multiplying developments and
specifications of a mystical philosophy, and a teeming
superstition nourished by an unbounded imagination.

Both Brahmans and Buddhists conceive of the creation on the most
enormous scale. Mount Meru rises from the centre of the earth to
the height of about two millions of miles. On its summit is the
city of Brahma, covering a space of fourteen thousand leagues, and
surrounded by the stately cities of the regents of the spheres.
Between Meru and the wall of stone forming the extreme
circumference of the earth are seven concentric circles of rocks.
Between these rocky bracelets are continents and seas. In some of
the seas wallow single fishes thousands of miles in every
dimension. The celestial spaces are occupied by a large number of
heavens, called "dewa lokas," increasing in the glory and bliss of
their prerogatives. The worlds below the earth are hells, called
"naraka." The description of twenty eight of these, given in the
Vishnu Purana,2 makes the reader "sup full of horrors." The
Buddhist "Books of Ceylon" 3 tell of twenty six heavens placed in
regular order above one another in the sky, crowded with all
imaginable delights. They also depict, in the abyss underneath the
earth, eight great hells, each containing sixteen smaller ones,
the whole one hundred and thirty six composing one gigantic hell.
The eight chief hells are situated over one another, each
partially enclosing and overlapping that next beneath; and the
sufferings inflicted on their unfortunate occupants are of the
most terrific character. But these poor hints at the local
apparatus of reward and punishment afford no conception whatever
of the extent of their mythological scheme of the universe.

They call each complete solar system a sakwala, and say that, if a
wall were erected around the space occupied by a million millions
of sakwalas, reaching to the highest heaven, and the entire space
were filled with mustard seeds, a god might take these seeds, and,
looking towards any one of the cardinal points, throw a single
seed towards each sakwala until all the seeds were gone, and still
there would be more sakwalas, in the same direction, to which no
seed had been thrown, without considering those in the other three
quarters of the heavens. In comparison with this Eastern vision of
the infinitude of worlds, the wildest Western dreamer over the
vistas opened by the telescope may hide his diminished head! Their
other conceptions are of the same crushing magnitude, Thus, when
the demons, on a certain occasion, assailed the gods, Siva using
the Himalaya range for his bow, Vasuke for the string, Vishnu for
his arrow, the earth for his chariot with the sun and moon for its
wheels and the Vedas for its horses, the starry canopy for his
banner with the tree of Paradise for its staff, Brahma for his
charioteer, and the mysterious monosyllable Om for his whip
reduced them all to ashes.4

The five hundred million Brahmanic and Buddhist believers hold
that all the gods, men, demons, and various grades of animal life
occupying this immeasurable array of worlds compose one cosmic
family. The totality of animated beings, from a detestable gnat to

2 Wilson's trans. pp. 207-209.

3 Upham's trans. vol. iii. pp. 8, 66, 159.

4 Vans Kennedy, Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 429.


thundering Indra, from the meanest worm to the supreme Buddha,
constitute one fraternal race, by the unavoidable effects of the
law of retribution constantly interchanging their residences in a
succession of rising and sinking existences, ranging through all
the earths, heavens, and hells of the universe, bound by the
terrible links of merit and demerit in the phantasmagoric dungeon
of births and deaths. The Vishnu Purana declares, "The universe,
this whole egg of Brahma, is everywhere swarming with living
creatures, all of whom are captives in the chains of acts." 5

The one prime postulate of these Oriental faiths the ground
principle, never to be questioned any more than the central and
stationary position of the earth in the Ptolemaic system is that
all beings below the Infinite One are confined in the circle of
existence, the whirl of births and deaths, by the consequences of
their virtues and vices. When a man dies, if he has an excess of
good desert, he is born, as a superior being, in one of the
heavens. According to the nature and degree of his merit, his
heavenly existence is prolonged, or perhaps repeated many times in
succession; or, if his next birth occurs on earth, it is under
happy circumstances, as a sage or a king. But when he expires,
should there, on the other hand, be an overbalance of ill desert,
he is born as a demon in one of the hells, or may in repeated
lives run the circuit of the hells; or, if he at once returns to
the earth, it is as a beggar, a leprous outcast, a wretched
cripple, or in the guise of a rat, a snake, or a louse.

"The illustrious souls of great and virtuous men
In godlike beings shall revive again;
But base and vicious spirits wind their way
In scorpions, vultures, sharks, and beasts of prey.
The fair, the gay, the witty, and the brave,
The fool, the coward, courtier, tyrant, slave,
Each one in a congenial form, shall find
A proper dwelling for his wandering mind."

A specific evil is never cancelled by being counterbalanced by a
greater good. The fruit of that evil must be experienced, and also
of that greater good, by appropriate births in the hells and
heavens, or in the higher and lower grades of earthly existence.
The two courses of action must be run through independently. This
is what is meant by the phrases, so often met with in Oriental
works, "eating the fruits of former acts," "bound in the chains of
deeds." Merit or demerit can be balanced or neutralized only by
the full fruition of its own natural and necessary consequences.6
The law of merit and of demerit is fate. It works irresistibly,
through all changes and recurrences, from the beginning to the
end. The cessation of virtue or of vice does not put an end to its
effects until its full force is exhausted; as an arrow continues
in flight until all its imparted power is spent. A man faultlessly
and scrupulously good through his present life may be guilty of
some foul crime committed a hundred lives before and not yet
expiated. Accordingly, he may now suffer for it, or his next birth
may take place in a hell. On the contrary, he may be credited with
some great merit acquired thousands of

5 P. 286.

6 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. iv. p. 87.


generations ago, whose fruit he has not eaten, and which may bring
him good fortune in spite of present sins, or on the rolling and
many colored wheel of metempsychosis may secure for him next a
celestial birthplace. In short periods, it will be seen, there is
moral confusion, but, in the long run, exact compensation.

The exuberant prodigiousness of the Hindu imagination is
strikingly manifest in its descriptions of the rewards of virtue
in the heavens and of the punishments of sin in the hells. Visions
pass before us of beautiful groves full of fragrance and music,
abounding in delicious fruits, and birds of gorgeous plumage,
crystal streams embedded with pearls, unruffled lakes where the
lotus blooms, palaces of gems, crowds of friends and lovers,
endless revelations of truth, boundless graspings of power, all
that can stir and enchant intellect, will, fancy, and heart. In
some of the heavens the residents have no bodily form, but enjoy
purely spiritual pleasures. In others they are self resplendent,
and traverse the ether. They are many miles in height, one being
described whose crown was four miles high and who wore on his
person sixty wagon loads of jewels. The ordinary lifetime of the
inhabitants of the dewa loka named Wasawartti equals nine billions
two hundred and sixteen millions of our years. They breathe only
once in sixteen hours.

The reverse of this picture is still more vigorously drawn, highly
colored, and diversified in contents. The walls of the Hindu hell
are over a hundred miles thick; and so dazzling is their
brightness that it bursts the eyes which look at them anywhere
within a distance of four hundred leagues.7 The poor creatures
here, wrapped in shrouds of fire, writhe and yell in frenzy of
pain. The very revelry and ecstasy of terror and anguish fill the
whole region. The skins of some wretches are taken off from head
to foot, and then scalding vinegar is poured over them. A glutton
is punished thus: experiencing an insatiable hunger in a body as
large as three mountains, he is tantalized with a mouth no larger
than the eye of a needle.8 The infernal tormentors, throwing their
victims down, take a flexible flame in each hand, and with these
lash them alternately right and left. One demon, Rahu, is seventy
six thousand eight hundred miles tall: the palm of his hand
measures fifty thousand acres; and when he is enraged he rushes up
the sky and swallows the sun or the moon, thus causing an eclipse!
In the Asiatic Journal for 1840 is an article on "The Chinese
Judges of the Dead," which describes a series of twenty four
paintings of hell found in a Buddhist temple. Devils in human
shapes are depicted pulling out the tongues of slanderers with
redhot wires, pouring molten lead down the throats of liars, with
burning prongs tossing souls upon mountains planted with hooks of
iron reeking with the blood of those who have gone before,
screwing the damned between planks, pounding them in husking
mortars, grinding them in rice mills, while other fiends, in the
shape of dogs, lap up their oozing gore. But the hardest
sensibility must by this time cry, Hold!

With the turmoil and pain of entanglement in the vortex of births,
and all the repulsive exposures of finite life, the Hindus
contrast the idea of an infinite rest and bliss, an endless

7 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 26.

8 Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, p. 198.


exemption from evil and struggle, an immense receptivity of
reposing power and quietistic contemplation. In consequence of
their endlessly varied, constantly recurring, intensely earnest
speculations and musings over this contrast of finite restlessness
and pain with infinite peace and blessedness, a contrast which
constitutes the preaching of their priests, saturates their sacred
books, fills their thoughts, and broods over all their life, the
Orientals are pervaded with a profound horror of individual
existence, and with a profound desire for absorption into the
Infinite Being. A few quotations from their own authors will
illustrate this:

"A sentient being in the repetition of birth and death is like a
worm in the midst of a nest of ants, like a lizard in the hollow
of a bamboo that is burning at both ends."9 "Emancipation from all
existence is the fulness of felicity."10 "The being who is still
subject to birth may now sport in the beautiful gardens of heaven,
now be cut to pieces in hell; now be Maha Brahma, now a degraded
outcast; now sip nectar, now drink blood; now repose on a couch
with gods, now be dragged through a thicket of thorns; now reside
in a mansion of gold, now be exposed on a mountain of lava; now
sit on the throne of the gods, now be impaled amidst hungry dogs;
now be a king glittering with countless gems, now a mendicant
taking a skull from door to door to beg alms; now eat ambrosia as
the monarch of a dewa loka, now writhe and die as a bat in the
shrivelling flame."11 "The Supreme Soul and the human soul do not
differ, and pleasure or pain ascribable to the latter arises from
its imprisonment in the body. The water of the Ganges is the same
whether it run in the river's bed or be shut up in a decanter; but
a drop of wine added to the water in the decanter imparts its
flavor to the whole, whereas it would be lost in the river. The
Supreme Soul, therefore, is beyond accident; but the human soul is
afflicted by sense and passion. Happiness is only obtained in
reunion with the Supreme Soul, when the dispersed individualities
combine again with it, as the drops of water with the parent
stream. Hence the slave should remember that he is separated from
God by the body alone, and exclaim, perpetually, 'Blessed be the
moment when I shall lift the veil from off that face! the veil of
the face of my Beloved is the dust of my body.'"12 "A pious man
was once born on earth, who, in his various transmigrations, had
met eight hundred and twenty five thousand Buddhas. He remembered
his former states, but could not enumerate how many times he had
been a king, a beggar, a beast, an occupant of hell. He uttered
these words: 'A hundred thousand years of the highest happiness on
earth are not equal to the happiness of one day in the dewa lokas;
and a hundred thousand years of the deepest misery on earth are
not equal to the misery of one day in hell; but the misery of hell
is reckoned by millions of centuries. Oh, how shall I escape, and
obtain eternal bliss?'" 13

9 Eastern Monachism, p. 247.

10 Vishnu Purana, p. 568.

11 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 454.

12 Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii. p. 298.

13 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. iv. p. 114.


The literary products of the Eastern mind wonderfully abound with
painful descriptions of the compromises, uncleannesses, and
afflictions inseparably connected with existence. Volumes would be
required to furnish an adequate representation of the vivid and
inexhaustible amplification with which they set forth the direful
disgusts and loathsome terrors associated with the series of ideas
expressed by the words conception, birth, life, death, hell, and
regeneration. The fifth chapter in the sixth book of the Vishnu
Purana affords a good specimen of these details; but, to
appreciate them fully, one must peruse dispersed passages in a
hundred miscellaneous works:

"As long as man lives, he is immersed in afflictions, like the
seed of the cotton amidst the down. . . . Where could man,
scorched by the fires of the sun of this world, look for felicity,
were it not for the shade afforded by the tree of emancipation? .
. . Travelling the path of the world for many thousands of births,
man attains only the weariness of bewilderment, and is smothered
by the dust of imagination. When that dust is washed away by the
bland water of real knowledge, then the weariness is removed. Then
the internal man is at peace, and obtains supreme felicity."14

The result of these views is the awakening of an unquenchable
desire to "break from the fetters of existence," to be "delivered
from the whirlpool of transmigration." Both Brahmanism and
Buddhism are in essence nothing else than methods of securing
release from the chain of incarnated lives, and attaining to
identification with the Infinite. There is a text in the
Apocalypse which may be strikingly applied to this exemption from
further metempsychosis: "Him that overcometh I will make a pillar
in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out forever." The
testimony of all who have investigated the subject agrees with the
following assertion by Professor Wilson: "The common end of every
system studied by the Hindus is the ascertainment of the means by
which perpetual exemption from the necessity of repeated births
may be won."15 In comparison with this aim, every thing else is
utterly insignificant. Prahlada, on being offered by Vishnu any
boon he might ask, exclaimed, "Wealth, virtue, love, are as
nothing; for even liberation is in his reach whose faith is firm
in thee." And Vishnu replied, "Thou shalt, therefore, obtain
freedom from existence."16 All true Orientals, however favored or
persecuted by earthly fortune, still cry night and day upwards
into the infinite, with outstretched arms and yearning voice,

"O Lord, our separate lives destroy! Merge in thy gold our souls'
alloy: Pain is our own, and Thou art Joy!"

According to the system of Brahmanism, the creation is regularly
called into being and again destroyed at the beginning and end of
certain stupendous epochs called kalpas. Four thousand three
hundred and twenty million years make a day of Brahma. At the end
of this day the lower worlds are consumed by fire; and Brahma
sleeps on the abyss for a night as long

14 Vishnu Parana, p. 650.

15 Sankhya Karika, preface, p. 3.

16 Vishnu Purana, p. 144.


as his day. During this night the saints, who in high Jana loka
have survived the dissolution of the lower portions of the
universe, contemplate the slumbering deity until he wakes and
restores the mutilated creation. Three hundred and sixty of these
days and nights compose a year of Brahma; a hundred such years
measure his whole life. Then a complete destruction of all things
takes place, every thing merging into the Absolute One, until he
shall rouse himself renewedly to manifest his energies.17 Although
created beings who have not obtained emancipation are destroyed in
their individual forms at the periods of the general dissolution,
yet, being affected by the good or evil acts of former existence,
they are never exempted from their consequences, and when Brahma
creates the world anew they are the progeny of his will, in the
fourfold condition of gods, men, animals, and inanimate things.18
And Buddhism embodies virtually the same doctrine, declaring "the
whole universe of sakwalas to be subject alternately to
destruction and renovation, in a series of revolutions to which
neither beginning nor end can be discovered."

What is the Brahmanic method of salvation, or secret of
emancipation? Rightly apprehended in the depth and purity of the
real doctrine, it is this. There is in reality but ONE SOUL: every
thing else is error, illusion, misery. Whoever acquires the
knowledge of this truth by personal perception is thereby
liberated. He has won the absolute perfection of the unlimited
Godhead, and shall never be born again. "Whosoever views the
Supreme Soul as manifold, dies death after death." God is
formless, but seems to assume form; as moonlight, impinging upon
various objects, appears crooked or straight.19 Bharata says to
the king of Sauriva, "The great end of all is not union of self
with the Supreme Soul, because one substance cannot become
another. The true wisdom, the genuine aim of all, is to know that
Soul is one, uniform, perfect, exempt from birth, omnipresent,
undecaying, made of true knowledge, dissociated with
unrealities."20 "It is ignorance alone which enables Maya to
impress the mind with a sense of individuality; for as soon as
that is dispelled it is known that severalty exists not, and that
there is nothing but one undivided Whole." 21 The Brahmanic
scriptures say, "The Eternal Deity consists of true knowledge."
"Brahma that is Supreme is produced of reflection."22 The logic
runs thus. There is only One Soul, the absolute God. All beside is
empty deception. That One Soul consists of true knowledge. Whoever
attains to true knowledge, therefore, is absolute God, forever
freed from the sphere of semblances.

The foregoing exposition is philosophical and scriptural
Brahmanism. But there are numerous schismatic sects which hold
opinions diverging from it in regard to the nature and destiny of
the human soul. They may be considered in two classes. First,
there are some who defend the idea of the personal immortality of
the soul. The Siva Gnana Potham "establishes the doctrine of the
soul's eternal existence as an individual being." 23 The Saiva
school

17 Vishnu Purana, p. 25. Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 33, note.

18 Vishnu Parana, pp. 39, 116.

19 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 359.

20 Vishnu Purana, p. 252.

21 Vans Kennedy, Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 201.

22 Vishnu Purana, pp. 546, 642.

23 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. ii. p. 141.


teach that when, at the close of every great period, all other
developed existences are rendered back to their primordial state,
souls are excepted. These, once developed and delivered from the
thraldom of their merit and demerit, will ever remain intimately
united with Deity and clothed in the resplendent wisdom.24
Secondly, there are others and probably at the present time they
include a large majority of the Brahmans who believe in the real
being both of the Supreme Soul and of separate finite souls,
conceiving the latter to be individualized parts of the former and
their true destiny to consist in securing absorption into it. The
relation of the soul to God, they maintain, is not that of ruled
and ruler, but that of part and whole. "As gold is one substance
still, however diversified as bracelets, tiaras, ear rings, or
other things, so Vishnu is one and the same, although modified in
the forms of gods, animals, and men. As the drops of water raised
from the earth by the wind sink into the earth again when the wind
subsides, so the variety of gods, men, and animals, which have
been detached by the agitation of the qualities, are reunited,
when the disturbance ceases, with the Eternal." 25 "The whole
obtains its destruction in God, like bubbles in water." The
Madhava sect believe that there is a personal All Soul distinct
from the human soul. Their proofs are detailed in one of the Maha
Upanishads.26 These two groups of sects, however, agree perfectly
with the ancient orthodox Brahmans in accepting the fundamental
dogma of a judicial metempsychosis, wherein each one is fastened
by his acts and compelled to experience the uttermost consequences
of his merit or demerit. They all coincide in one common
aspiration as regards the highest end, namely, emancipation from
the necessity of repeated births. The difference between the three
is, that the one class of dissenters expect the fruition of that
deliverance to be a finite personal immortality in heaven; the
other interpret it as an unwalled absorption in the Over Soul,
like a breath in the air; while the more orthodox believers regard
it as the entire identity of the soul with the Infinite One.

Against the opinion that there is only one Soul for all bodies, as
one string supports all the gems of a necklace, some Hindu
philosophers argue that the plurality of souls is proved by the
consideration that, if there were but one soul, then when any one
was born, or died, or was lame, or deaf, or occupied, or idle, all
would at once be born, die, be lame, deaf, occupied, or idle. But
Professor Wilson says, "This doctrine of the multitudinous
existence or individual incorporation of Soul clearly contradicts
the Vedas. They affirm one only existent soul to be distributed in
all beings. It is beheld collectively or dispersedly, like the
reflection of the moon in still or troubled water. Soul, eternal,
omnipresent, undisturbed, pure, one, is multiplied by the power of
delusion, not of its own nature."27

All the Brahmanic sects unite in thinking that liberation from the
net of births is to be obtained and the goal of their wishes to be
reached by one means only; and that is knowledge, real wisdom, an
adequate sight of the truth. Without this knowledge there is no
possible emancipation; but there are three ways of seeking the
needed knowledge.

24 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 15.

25 Vishnu Purana, p. 287.

26 Weber, Akademische Vorlesungen uber Indische
Literaturgeschichte, s. 160.

27 Sankbya Karika, p. 70.


Some strive, by direct intellectual abstraction and effort, by
metaphysical speculation, to grasp the true principles of being.
Others try, by voluntary penance, self abnegation, and pain, to
accumulate such a degree of merit, or to bring the soul into such
a state of preparedness, as will compel the truth to reveal
itself. And still others devote themselves to the worship of some
chosen deity, by ritual acts and fervid contemplation, to obtain
by his favor the needed wisdom. A few quotations may serve to
illustrate the Brahmanic attempts at winning this one thing
needful, the knowledge which yields exemption from all incarnate
lives.

The Sankhya philosophy is a regular system of metaphysics, to be
studied as one would study algebra. It presents to its disciples
an exhaustive statement of the forms of being in twenty five
categories, and declares, "He who knows the twenty five
principles, whatever order of life he may have entered, and
whether he wear braided hair, a top knot only, or be shaven, he is
liberated." "This discriminative wisdom releases forever from
worldly bondage."28 "The virtuous is born again in heaven, the
wicked is born again in hell; the fool wanders in error, the wise
man is set free." "By ignorance is bondage, by knowledge is
deliverance." "When Nature finds that soul has discovered that it
is to her the distress of migration is owing, she is put to shame
by the detection, and will suffer herself to be seen no more."29
"Through knowledge the sage is absorbed into Supreme Spirit."30
"The Supreme Spirit attracts to itself him who meditates upon it,
as the loadstone attracts the iron."31 "He who seeks to obtain a
knowledge of the Soul is gifted with it, the Soul rendering itself
conspicuous to him." "Man, having known that Nature which is
without a beginning or an end, is delivered from the grasp of
death." "Souls are absorbed in the Supreme Soul as the reflection
of the sun in water returns to him on the removal of the water."32

The thought underlying the last statement is that there is only
one Soul, every individual consciousness being but an illusory
semblance, and that the knowledge of this fact constitutes the
all coveted emancipation. As one diffusive breath passing through
the perforations of a flute is distinguished as the several notes
of the scale, so the Supreme Spirit is single, though, in
consequence of acts, it seems manifold. As every placid lakelet
holds an unreal image of the one real moon sailing above, so each
human soul is but a deceptive reflection of the one veritable
Soul, or God. It may be worth while to observe that Plotinus, as
is well known, taught the doctrine of the absolute identity of
each soul with the entire and indistinguishable entity of God:

"Though God extends beyond creation's rim, Yet every being holds
the whole of him."

It belongs to an unextended substance, an immateriality, to be
everywhere by totality, not by portions. If God be omnipresent, he
cannot be so dividedly, a part of him here and a part

28 Ibid. pp. 1, 16.

29 Ibid. pp. 48, 142, 174.

30 Vishnu Purana, p. 57.

31 Ibid. p. 651.

32 Rammohun Roy, Translations from the Veda, 2d ed., London, 1832,
pp. 69, 39, 10.


of him there; but the whole of him must be in every particle of
matter, in every point of space, in all infinitude.

The Brahmanic religion is a philosophy; and it keeps an
incomparably strong hold on the minds of its devotees. Its most
vital and comprehensive principle is expressed in the following
sentence: "The soul itself is not susceptible of pain, or decay,
or death; the site of these things is nature; but nature is
unconscious; the consciousness that pain exists is restricted to
the soul, although the soul is not the actual seat of pain." This
is the reason why every Hindu yearns so deeply to be freed from
the meshes of nature, why he so anxiously follows the light of
faith and penance, or the clew of speculation, through all mazes
of mystery. It is that he may at last gaze on the central TRUTH,
and through that sight seize the fruition of the supreme and
eternal good of man in the unity of his selfhood with the
Infinite, and so be born no more and experience no more trouble.
It is very striking to contrast with this profound and gorgeous
dream of the East, whatever form it assumes, the more practical
and definite thought of the West, as expressed in these lines of
Tennyson's "In Memoriam:"

"That each, who seems a separate whole,
Should move his rounds, and, fusing all
The skirts of self again, should fall
Remerging in the general Soul,
Is faith as vague as all unsweet:
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside,
And I shall know him when we meet."

But is it not still more significant to notice that, in the lines
which immediately succeed, the love inspired and deep musing
genius of the English thinker can find ultimate repose only by
recurring to the very faith of the Hindu theosophist?

"And we shall sit at endless feast,
Enjoying each the other's good:
What vaster dream can hit the mood
Of Love on earth! He seeks at least
Upon the last and sharpest height,
Before the spirits fade away,
Some landing place, to clasp and say,
Farewell! We lose ourselves in light!"

We turn now to the Buddhist doctrine of a future life as
distinguished from the Brahmanic. The "Four Sublime Truths" of
Buddhism, as they are called, are these: first, that there is
sorrow; secondly, that every living person necessarily feels it;
thirdly, that it is desirable to be freed from it; fourthly, that
the only deliverance from it is by that pure knowledge which
destroys all cleaving to existence. A Buddha is a being who, in
consequence of having reached the Buddhaship, which implies the
possession of infinite goodness, infinite power, and infinite
wisdom, is able to teach men that true knowledge which secures
emancipation.

The Buddhaship that is, the possession of Supreme Godhead is open
to every one, though few ever acquire it. Most wonderful and
tremendous is the process of its attainment. Upon a time, some
being, perhaps then incarnate as a mosquito alighting on a muddy
leaf in some swamp, pauses for a while to muse. Looking up through
infinite stellar systems, with hungry love and boundless ambition,
to the throne and sceptre of absolute immensity, he vows within
himself, "I will become a Buddha." The total influences of his
past, the forces of destiny, conspiring with his purpose,
omnipotence is in that resolution. Nothing shall ever turn him
aside from it. He might soon acquire for himself deliverance from
the dreadful vortex of births; but, determined to achieve the
power of delivering others from their miseries as sentient beings,
he voluntarily throws himself into the stream of successive
existences, and with divine patience and fortitude undergoes every
thing.

From that moment, no matter in what form he is successively born,
whether as a disgusting bug, a white elephant, a monarch, or a
god, he is a Bodhisat, that is, a candidate pressing towards the
Buddhaship. He at once begins practising the ten primary virtues,
called paramitas, necessary for the securing of his aim. The
period required for the full exercise of one of these virtues is a
bhumi. Its duration is thus illustrated. Were a Bodhisat once in a
thousand births to shed a single drop of blood, he would in the
space of a bhumi shed more blood than there is water in a thousand
oceans. On account of his merit he might always be born amidst the
pleasures of the heavens; but since he could there make no
progress towards his goal, he prefers being born in the world of
men. During his gradual advance, there is no good he does not
perform, no hardship he does not undertake, no evil he does not
willingly suffer; and all for the benefit of others, to obtain the
means of emancipating those whom he sees fastened by ignorance in
the afflictive circle of acts. Wherever born, acting, or
suffering, his eye is still turned towards that EMPTY THRONE, at
the apex of the universe, from which the last Buddha has vaulted
into Nirwana. The Buddhists have many scriptures, especially one,
called the "Book of the Five Hundred and Fifty Births," detailing
the marvellous adventures of the Bodhisat during his numerous
transmigrations, wherein he exhibits for each species of being to
which he belongs a model character and life.

At length the momentous day dawns when the unweariable Bodhisat
enters on his well earned Buddhaship. From that time, during the
rest of his life, he goes about preaching discourses, teaching
every prepared creature he meets the method of securing eternal
deliverance. Leaving behind in these discourses a body of wisdom
sufficient to guide to salvation all who will give attentive ear
and heart, the Buddha then his sublime work of disinterested love
being completed receives the fruition of his toil, the super
essential prize of the universe, the Infinite Good. In a word, he
dies, and enters Nirwana. There is no more evil of any sort for
him at all forever. The final fading echo of sorrow has ceased in
the silence of perfect blessedness; the last undulation of the
wave of change has rolled upon the shore of immutability.

The only historic Buddha is Sakya Muni, or Gotama, who was born at
Kapila about six centuries before Christ. His teachings contain
many principles in common with those of the Brahmans. But he
revolted against their insufferable conceit and cruelty. He
protested against their claim that no one could obtain
emancipation until after being born as a Brahman and passing
through the various rites and degrees of their order. In the
face of the most powerful and arrogant priesthood in the world,
he preached the perfect equality of all mankind, and the consequent
abolition of castes. Whoever acquires a total detachment of
affection from all existence is thereby released from birth and
misery; and the means of acquiring that detachment are freely
offered to all in his doctrine.

Thus did Gotama preach. He took the monopoly of religion out of the
hands of a caste, and proclaimed emancipation to every creature
that breathes. He established his system in the valley of the
Ganges near the middle of the sixth century before Christ. It soon
overran the whole country, and held sway until about eight hundred
years after Christ, when an awful persecution and slaughter on the
part of the uprising Brahmans drove it out of the land with sword
and fire. "The colossal figure which for fourteen centuries had
bestridden the Indian continent vanished suddenly, like a rainbow
at sunset."33

Gotama's philosophy, in its ontological profundity, is of a
subtlety and vastness that would rack the brain of a Fichte or a
Schelling; but, popularly stated, so far as our present purpose
demands, it is this. Existence is the one all inclusive evil;
cessation of existence, or Nirwana, is the infinite good. The
cause of existence is ignorance, which leads one to cleave to
existing objects; and this cleaving leads to reproduction. If one
would escape from the chain of existence, he must destroy the
cause of his confinement in it, that is, evil desire, or the
cleaving to existing objects. The method of salvation in Gotama's
system is to vanquish and annihilate all desire for existing
things. How is this to be done? By acquiring an intense perception
of the miseries of existence, on the one hand, and an intense
perception, on the other hand, of the contrasted desirableness of
the state of emancipation, or Nirwana. Accordingly, the discourses
of Gotama, and the sacred books of the Buddhists, are filled with
vivid accounts of every thing disgusting and horrible connected
with existence, and with vivid descriptions, consciously faltering
with inadequacy, of every thing supremely fascinating in
connection with Nirwana. "The three reflections on the impermanency,
suffering, and unreality of the body are three gates leading to
the city of Nirwana." The constant claim is, that whosoever by
adequate moral discipline and philosophical contemplation attains
to a certain degree of wisdom, a certain degree of intellectual
insight, instead of any longer cleaving to existence, will shudder
at the thought of it, and, instead of shrinking from death, will
be ravished with unfathomable ecstasy by the prospect of Nirwana.
Then, when he dies, he is free from all liability to a return.

When Gotama, early in life, had accidentally seen in succession a
wretchedly decrepit old man, a loathsomely diseased man, and a
decomposing dead man, then the three worlds of passion, matter,
and spirit seemed to him like a house on fire, and he longed to be
extricated from the dizzy whirl of existence, and to reach the
still haven of Nirwana. Finding ere long that he had now, as the
reward of his incalculable endurances through untold aons past,
become Buddha, he said to himself, "You have borne the misery of
the whole round of transmigrations, and have arrived at infinite
wisdom, which is the highway to Nirwana, the

33 Major Cunningham, Bbilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monuments of
Central India, p. 168.


city of peace. On that road you are the guide of all beings. Begin
your work and pursue it with fidelity." From that time until the
day of his death he preached "the three laws of mortality, misery,
and mutability." Every morning he looked through the world to see
who should be caught that day in the net of truth, and took his
measures accordingly to preach in the hearing of men the truths by
which alone they could climb into Nirwana. When he was expiring,
invisible gods, with huge and splendid bodies, came and stood, as
thick as they could be packed, for a hundred and twenty miles
around the banyan tree under which he awaited Nirwana, to gaze on
him who had broken the circle of transmigration.34

The system of Gotama distinguishes seven grades of being: six
subject to repeated death and birth; one the condition of the
rahats and the Buddhaship exempt therefrom. "Who wins this has
reached the shore of the stormy ocean of vicissitudes, and is in
safety forever." Baur says, "The aim of Buddhism is that all may
obtain unity with the original empty Space, so as to unpeople the
worlds."35 This end it seeks by purification from all modes of
cleaving to existing objects, and by contemplative discrimination,
but never by the fanatical and austere methods of Brahmanism.
Edward Upham, in his History of Buddhism, declares this earth to
be the only ford to Nirwana. Others also make the same
representation:

"For all that live and breathe have once been men, And in
succession will be such again."

But the Buddhist authors do not always adhere to this statement.
We sometimes read of men's entering the paths to Nirwana in some
of the heavens, likewise of their entering the final fruition
through a decease in a dewa loka. Still, it is the common view
that emancipation from all existence can be secured only by a
human being on earth. The last birth must be in that form. The
emblem of Buddha, engraved on most of his monuments, is a wheel,
denoting that he has finished and escaped from the circle of
existences. Henceforth he is named Tathagata, he who has gone.

Let us notice a little more minutely what the Buddhists say of
Nirwana; for herein to them hides all the power of their
philosophy and lies the absorbing charm of their religion.

"The state that is peaceful, free from body, from passion, and
from fear, where birth or death is not, that is Nirwana." "Nirwana
puts an end to coming and going, and there is no other happiness."
"It is a calm wherein no wind blows." "There is no difference in
Nirwana." "It is the annihilation of all the principles of
existence." "Nirwana is the completion and opposite shore of
existence, free from decay, tranquil, knowing no restraint, and of
great blessedness." "Nirwana is unmixed satisfaction, entirely
free from sorrow." "The wind cannot be squeezed in the hand, nor
can its color be told. Yet the wind is. Even so Nirwana is, but
its properties cannot be told." "Nirwana, like space, is
causeless, does not live nor die, and has no locality. It is the
abode of those liberated from existence." "Nirwana is not, except
to the being who attains it."36

34 Life of Gotama in Journal of the American Oriental Society,
vol. iii.

35 Symbolik and Mythologie, th. ii. abth. 2, s. 407.

36 For these quotations, and others similar, see Hardy's valuable
work, "Eastern Monachism," chap. xxii., on "Nirwana, its Paths and
Fruition."


Some scholars maintain that the Buddhist Nirwana is nothing but
the atheistic Annihilation. The subject is confessedly a most
difficult one. But it seems to us that the opinion just stated is
the very antithesis of the true interpretation of Nirwana. In the
first place, it should be remembered that there are various sects
of Buddhists. Now, the word Nirwana may be used in different
senses by different schools.37 A few persons a small party,
represented perhaps by able writers may believe in annihilation in
our sense of the term, just as has happened in Christendom, while
the common doctrine of the people is the opposite of that. In the
second place, with the Oriental horror of individuated existence,
and a highly poetical style of writing, nothing could be more
natural, in depicting their ideas of the most desirable state of
being, than that they should carry their metaphors expressive of
repose, freedom from action and emotion, to a pitch conveying to
our cold and literal thought the conceptions of blank
unconsciousness and absolute nothingness.

Colebrooke says, "Nirwana is not annihilation, but unceasing
apathy. The notion of it as a happy state seems derived from the
experience of ecstasies; or else the pleasant, refreshed feeling
with which one wakes from profound repose is referred to the
period of actual sleep."38 A Buddhist author speculates thus:
"That the soul feels not during profound trance, is not for want
of sensibility, but for want of sensible objects." Wilson,
Hodgson, and Vans Kennedy three able thinkers, as well as
scholars, in this field agree that Nirwana is not annihilation as
we understand that word. Mr. Hodgson believes that the Buddhists
expect to be "conscious in Nirwana of the eternal bliss of rest,
as they are in this world of the ceaseless pain of activity."
Forbes also argues against the nihilistic explanation of the
Buddhist doctrine of futurity, and says he is compelled to
conclude that Nirwana denotes imperishable being in a blissful
quietude.39 Many additional authorities in favor of this view
might be adduced, enough to balance, at least, the names on the
other side. Koeppen, in his very fresh, vigorous, and lucid work,
just published, entitled "The Religion of Buddha, and its Origin,"
says, "Nirwana is the blessed Nothing. Buddhism is the Gospel of
Annihilation." But he forgets that the motto on the title page of
his volume is the following sentence quoted from Sakya Muni
himself: "To those who know the concatenation of causes and
effects, there is neither being nor nothing." To them Nirwana is.
Considering it, then, as an open question, unsettled by any
authoritative assertion, we will weigh the probabilities of the
case.

No definition of Nirwana is more frequent than the one given by
the Kalpa Sutra,40 namely, "cessation from action and freedom from
desire." But this, like many of the other representations, such,
for instance, as the exclusion of succession, very plainly is not
a denial of all being, but only of our present modes of
experience. The dying Gotama is said to have "passed through the
several states, one after another, until he arrived at the state
where there is no pain. He then continued to enter the other
higher states, and from the highest entered Nirwana." Can literal
annihilation, the naked emptiness of nonentity, be better than

37 Burnouf, Introduction a l'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien,
Appendice No. I., Du mot Nirvana.

38 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 353.

39 Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. ii. chap. ix.

40 Tanslation by Dr. Stevenson, p. 23.


the highest state of being? It can be so only when we view Nothing
on the positive side as identical with All, make annihilating
deprivation equivalent to universal bestowment, regard negation as
affirmation, and, in the last synthesis of contradictions, see the
abysmal Vacuum as a Plenum of fruition. As Oken says, "The ideal
zero is absolute unity; not a singularity, as the number one, but
an indivisibility, a numberlessness, a homogeneity, a
translucency, a pure identity. It is neither great nor small,
quiescent nor moved; but it is, and it is not, all this."41

Furthermore, if some of the Buddhist representations would lead us
to believe that Nirwana is utter nothingness, others apparently
imply the opposite. "The discourses of Buddha are a charm to cure
the poison of evil desire; a succession of fruit bearing trees
placed here and there to enable the traveller to cross the desert
of existence; a power by which every sorrow may be appeased; a
door of entrance to the eternal city of Nirwana." "The mind of the
rahat" (one who has obtained assurance of emancipation and is only
waiting for it to arrive) "knows no disturbance, because it is
filled with the pleasure of Nirwana." "The sight of Nirwana
bestows perfect happiness." "The rahat is emancipated from
existence in Nirwana, as the lotus is separated from the mud out
of which it springs." "Fire may be produced by rubbing together
two sticks, though previously it had no locality: it is the same
with Nirawna." "Nirwana is free from danger, peaceful, refreshing,
happy. When a man who has been broiled before a huge fire is
released, and goes quickly into some open space, he feels the most
agreeable sensation. All the evils of existence are that fire, and
Nirwana is that open space." These passages indicate the cessation
in Nirwana of all sufferings, perhaps of all present modes of
existence, but not the total end of being. It may be said that
these are but figurative expressions. The reply is, so are the
contrasted statements metaphors, and it is probable that the
expressions which denote the survival of pure being in Nirwana are
closer approximations to the intent of their authors than those
which hint at an unconscious vacancy. If Nirwana in its original
meaning was an utter and infinite blank, then, "out of that very
Nothing," as Max Muller says, "human nature made a new paradise."

There is a scheme of doctrine held by some Buddhist philosophers
which may be thus stated. There are five constituent elements of
sentient existence. They are called khandas, and are as follows:
the organized body, sensation, perception, discrimination, and
consciousness. Death is the dissolution and entire destruction of
these khandas, and apart from them there is no synthetical unit,
soul, or personality. Yet in a certain sense death is not the
absolute annihilation of a human existence, because it leaves a
potentiality inherent in that existence. There is no identical ego
to survive and be born again; but karma that is, the sum of a
man's action, his entire merit and demerit produces at his death a
new being, and so on in continued series until Nirwana is
attained. Thus the succession of being is kept up with transmitted
responsibility, as a flame is transferred from one wick to
another. It is evident enough, as is justly claimed by Hardy and
others, that the limitation of existence to the five khandas,
excluding the idea of any independent individuality, makes death

41 Elements of Physiophilosophy, Tulk's trans. p. 9.


annihilation, and renders the very conception of a future life for
those now living an absurdity. But we are convinced that this view
is the speculative peculiarity of a sect, and by no means the
common belief of the Buddhist populace or the teaching of Gotama
himself. This appears at the outset from the fact that Gotama is
represented as having lived through millions of existences, in
different states and worlds, with preserved identity and memory.
The history of his concatenated advance towards the Buddhaship is
the supporting basis and the saturating spirit of documentary
Buddhism. And the same idea pervades the whole range of narratives
relating to the repeated births and deaths of the innumerable
Buddhist heroes and saints who, after so many residences on earth,
in the hells, in the dewalokas, have at last reached emancipation.
They recollect their adventures; they recount copious portions of
their experience stretching through many lives.

Again: the arguments cited from Buddha seem aimed to prove, not
that there is absolutely no self in man, but that the five khandas
are not the self, that the real self is something distinct from
all that is exposed to misery and change, something deep,
wondrous, divine, infinite. For instance, the report of a debate
on this subject between Buddha and Sachaka closes with these
words: "Thus was Sachaka forced to confess that the five khandas
are impermanent, connected with sorrow, unreal, not the self.42
These terms appear to imply the reality of a self, only that it is
not to be confounded with the apprehensible elements of existence.
Besides, the attainment of Nirwana is held up as a prize to be
laboriously sought by personal effort. To secure it is a positive
triumph quite distinct from the fated dissolution of the khandas
in death. Now, if there be in man no personal entity, what is it
that with so much joy attains Nirwana? The genuine Buddhist
notion, as seems most probable, is that the conscious essence of
the rahat, when the exterior elements of existence fall from
around him, passes by a transcendent climax and discrete leap
beyond the outermost limits of appreciable being, and becomes that
INFINITE which knows no changes and is susceptible of no
definitions. In the Ka gyur collection of Tibetan sacred books,
comprising a hundred volumes, and now belonging to the Cabinet of
Manuscripts in the Royal Library of Paris, there are two volumes
exclusively occupied by a treatise on Nirwana. It is a significant
fact that the title of these volumes is "Nirwana, or Deliverance
from Pain." If Nirwana be simply annihilation, why is it not so
stated? Why should recourse be had to a phrase partially
descriptive of one feature, instead of comprehensively announcing
or implying the whole case?

Still further: it deserves notice that, according to the unanimous
affirmation of Buddhist authors, if any Buddhist were offered the
alternative of an existence as king of a dewa loka, keeping his
personality for a hundred million years in the uninterrupted
enjoyment of perfect happiness, or of translation into Nirwana, he
would spurn the former as defilement, and would with unutterable
avidity choose the latter. We must therefore suppose that by
Nirwana he understands, not naked destruction, but some mysterious
good, too vast for logical comprehension, too obscure to
Occidental thought to find expression in Occidental language.

42 Hardy, Manual, p. 427.


At the moment when Gotama entered upon the Buddhaship, like
a vessel overflowing with honey, his mind overflowed with the
nectar of oral instruction, and he uttered these stanzas:

"Through many different births I have run, vainly seeking The
architect of the desire resembling house. Painful are repeated
births. O house builder! I have seen thee. Again a house thou
canst not build for me. I have broken thy rafters and ridge pole;
I have arrived at the extinction of evil desire; My mind is gone
to Nirwana."

Hardy, who stoutly maintains that the genuine doctrine of Buddha's
philosophy is that there is no transmigrating individuality in
man, but that the karma creates a new person on the dissolution of
the former one, confesses the difficulties of this dogma to be so
great that "it is almost universally repudiated." M. Obry
published at Paris, in 1856, a small volume entirely devoted to
this subject, under the title of "The Indian Nirwana, or the
Enfranchisement of the Soul after Death." His conclusion, after a
careful and candid discussion, is, that Nirwana had different
meanings to the minds of the ancient Aryan priests, the orthodox
Brahmans, the Sankhya Brahmans, and the Buddhists, but had not to
any of them, excepting possibly a few atheists, the sense of
strict annihilation. He thinks that Burnouf and Barthelemy Saint
Hilaire themselves would have accepted this view if they had paid
particular attention to the definite inquiry, instead of merely
touching upon it in the course of their more comprehensive
studies.

What Spinoza declares in the following sentence "God is one,
simple, infinite; his modes of being are diverse, complex,
finite" strongly resembles what the Buddhists say of Nirwana and
the contrasted vicissitudes of existence, and may perhaps throw
light on their meaning. The supposition of immaterial, unlimited,
absolutely unalterable being the scholastic ens sine qualitate
answers to the descriptions of it much more satisfactorily than
the idea of unqualified nothingness does. "Nirwana is real; all
else is phenomenal." The Sankhyas, who do not hold to the
nonentity nor to the annihilation of the soul, but to its eternal
identification with the Infinite One, use nevertheless nearly the
same phrases in describing it that the Buddhists do. For example,
they say, "The soul is neither a production nor productive,
neither matter nor form"43 The Vishnu Purana says, "The mundane
egg, containing the whole creation, was surrounded by seven
envelops, water, air, fire, ether, egotism, intelligence, and
finally the indiscrete principle"44 Is not this Indiscrete
Principle of the Brahmans the same as the Nirwana of the
Buddhists? The latter explicitly claim that "man is capable of
enlarging his faculties to infinity."

43 Sankhya Karika, pp. 16-18.

44 Vishnu Purana, p. 19.


Nagasena says to the king of Sagal, "Neither does Nirwana exist
previously to its reception, nor is that which was not, brought
into existence: still, to the being who attains it, there is
Nirwana." According to this statement, taken in connection with
the hundreds similar to it, Nirwana seems to be a simple mental
perception, most difficult of acquirement, and, when acquired,
assimilating the whole conscious being perfectly to itself. The
Asangkrata Sutra, as translated by Mr. Hardy, says, "From the
joyful exclamations of those who have seen Nirwana, its character
may be known by those who have not made the same attainment." The
superficial thinker, carelessly scanning the recorded sayings of
Gotama and his expositors in relation to Nirwana, is aware only of
a confused mass of metaphysical hieroglyphs and poetical
metaphors; but the Buddhist sages avow that whoso, by concentrated
study and training of his faculties, pursues the inquiry with
adequate perseverance, will at last elicit and behold the real
meaning of Nirwana, the achieved insight and revelation forming
the widest horizon of rapturous truth ever contemplated by the
human mind. The memorable remark of Sir William Hamilton, that
"capacity of thought is not to be constituted into the measure of
existence," should show the error of those who so unjustifiably
affirm that, since Nirwana is said to be neither corporeal nor
incorporeal, nor at all describable, it is therefore absolutely
nothing. A like remark is also to be addressed to those who draw
the same unwarrantable conclusion of the nothingness of Nirwana
from the fact that it has no locality, or from the fact that it is
sometimes said to exclude consciousness. Plato, in the Timaus,
stigmatizes as a vulgar error the notion that what is not in any
place is a nonentity. Many a weighty philosopher has followed him
in this opinion. The denial of place is by no means necessarily
the denial of being. So, too, with consciousness. It is
conceivable that there is a being superior to all the modes of
consciousness now known to us. We are, indeed, unable to define
this, yet it may be. The profoundest analysis shows that
consciousness consists of co ordinated changes.45 "Consciousness
is a succession of changes combined and arranged in special ways."
Now, in contrast to the Occidental thinker, who covets alternation
because in his cold climate action is the means of enjoyment, the
Hindu, in the languid East, where repose is the condition of
enjoyment, conceives the highest blessedness to consist in
exemption from every disturbance, in an unruffled unity excluding
all changes. Therefore, while in some of its forms his dream of
Nirwana admits not consciousness, still, it is not inconsistent
with a homogeneous state of being, which he, in his metaphysical
and theosophie soarings, apprehends as the grandest and most
ecstatic of all.

The etymological force of the word Nirwana is extinction, as when
the sun has set, a fire has burned out, or a lamp is extinguished.
The fair laws of interpretation do not compel us, in cases like
this, to receive the severest literal significance of a word as
conveying the meaning which a popular doctrine holds in the minds
of its believers. There is almost always looseness, vagueness,
metaphor, accommodation. But take the term before us in its
strictest sense, and mark the result. When a fire is extinguished,
it is obvious that, while the flame has disappeared, the substance
of the flame, whatever it was, has not ceased to be, has not been

45 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, ch. xxv.


actually annihilated. It has only ceased to be in a certain
visible form in which it existed before; but it still survives
under altered conditions. Now, to compare the putting out of a
lamp to the death of a man, extinction is not actual destruction,
but a transition of the flame into another state of being. That
other state, in the case of the soul, is Nirwana.

There is a final consideration, possibly of some worth in dealing
with this obscure theme. We will approach it through a preliminary
query and quotation. That nothing can extend beyond its limits is
an identical proposition. How vast, then, must be the soul of man
in form or in power!

"If souls be substances corporeal, Be they as big just as the body
is? Or shoot they out to the height ethereal? Doth it not seem the
impression of a seal Can be no larger than the wax? The soul with
that vast latitude must move Which measures the objects that it
doth descry. So must it be upstretch'd unto the sky And rub
against the stars."

Cousin asserts that man is conscious of infinity, that "the
unconditional, the absolute, the infinite, is immediately known in
consciousness by difference, plurality, and relation." Now, does
not the consciousness of infinity imply the infinity of
consciousness? If not, we are compelled into the contradiction
that a certain entity or force reaches outside of its outermost
boundary. The Buddhist ideal is not self annihilation, but self
universalization. It is not the absorption of a drop into the sea,
but the dilatation of a drop to the sea. Each drop swells to the
whole ocean, each soul becomes the Boundless One, each rahat is
identified with the total Nirwana. The rivers of emancipated men
neither disembogue into the ocean of spirit nor evaporate into the
abyss of nonentity, but are blended with infinitude as an
ontological integer. Nirwana is unexposed and illimitable space.
Buddhism is perfect disinterestedness, absolute self surrender. It
is the gospel of everlasting emancipation for all. It cannot be
that a deliberate suicide of soul is the ideal holding the deepest
desire of four hundred millions of people. Nirwana is not
negation, but a pure positive without alternation or foil.

Some light may be thrown on the subject by contemplating the
successive states through which the dying Gotama passed. Max
Muller describes them, after the Buddhist documents, thus: "He
enters into the first stage of meditation when he feels freedom
from sin, acquires a knowledge of the nature of all things, and
has no desire except that of Nirvana. But he still feels pleasure;
he even uses his reasoning and discriminating powers. The use of
these powers ceases in the second stage of meditation, when
nothing remains but a desire after Nirvana, and a general feeling
of satisfaction arising from his intellectual perfection. That
satisfaction, also, is extinguished in the third stage.
Indifference succeeds; yet there is still self consciousness, and
a certain amount of physical pleasure. In the fourth stage these
last remnants are destroyed; memory fades away, all pleasure and
pain are gone, and the doors of Nirvana now open before him. We
must soar still higher, and, though we may feel giddy

and disgusted,46 we must sit out the tragedy till the curtain
falls. After the four stages of meditation are passed, the Buddha
(and every being is to become a Buddha) enters first into the
infinity of space, then into the infinity of intelligence, and
thence he passes into the third region, the realm of nothing. But
even here there is no rest. There is still something left, the
idea of the nothing in which he rejoices. That also must be
destroyed; and it is destroyed in the fourth and last region,
where there is not even the idea of a nothing left, and where
there is complete rest, undisturbed by nothing, or what is not
nothing."47 Analyze away all particulars until you reach an
uncolored boundlessness of pure immateriality, free from every
predicament; and that is Nirwana. This is one possible way of
conceiving the fate of the soul; and the speculative mind must
conceive it in every possible way. However closely the result
resembles the vulgar notion of annihilation, the difference in
method of approach and the difference to the contemplator's
feeling are immense. The Buddhist apprehends Nirwana as infinitude
in absolute and eternal equilibrium: the atheist finds Nirwana in
a coffin. That is thought of with rapture, this, with horror.

It should be noticed, before we close this chapter, that some of
the Hindus give a spiritual interpretation to all the gross
physical details of their so highly colored and extravagant
mythology. One of their sacred books says, "Pleasure and pain are
states of the mind. Heaven is that which delights the mind, hell
is that which gives it pain. Hence vice is called hell, and virtue
is called heaven." Another author says, "The fire of the angry
mind produces the fire of hell, and consumes its possessor. A
wicked person causes his evil deeds to impinge upon himself, and
that is hell." The various sects of mystics, allied in faith and
feeling to the Sufis, which are quite numerous in the East, agree
in a deep metaphorical explanation of the vulgar notions
pertaining to Deity, judgment, heaven, and hell.

In conclusion, the most remarkable fact in this whole field of
inquiry is the contrast of the Eastern horror of individuality and
longing for absorption with the Western clinging to personality
and abhorrence of dissolution.48 The true Orientalist, whether
Brahman, Buddhist, or Sufi, is in love with death. Through this
gate he expects to quit his frail and pitiable consciousness,
losing himself, with all evil, to be born anew and find himself,
with all good, in God. All sense, passion, care, and grief shall
cease with deliverance from the spectral semblances of this false
life. All pure contemplation, perfect repose, unsullied and
unrippled joy shall begin with entrance upon the true life beyond.
Thus thinking, he feels that death is the avenue to infinite
expansion, freedom, peace, bliss; and he longs for it with an
intensity not dreamed of by more frigid natures. He often compares
himself, in this world aspiring towards another, to an enamored
moth drawn towards the fire, and he exclaims, with a sigh and a
thrill,

46 Not disgust, but wonder and awe, fathomless intellectual
emotion, at so unparalleled a phenomenon of our miraculous human
nature.

47 Buddhism and Buddhist Pilgrims, p. 19.

48 Burnouf, Le Bhagavata Purana, tome i. livre iii. ch. 28:
Acquisition de la Delivrance, ch. 31.

Marche de l'ame individuelle. "Highest nature wills the capture;
'Light to light!' the instinct cries; And in agonizing rapture
falls the moth, and bravely dies. Think not what thou art,
Believer; think but what thou mayst become For the World is thy
deceiver, and the Light thy only home." 49

The Western mind approaches the subject of death negatively,
stripping off the attributes of finite being; the Eastern mind,
positively, putting on the attributes of infinite being. Negative
acts, denying function, are antipathetic, and lower the sense of
life; positive acts, affirming function, are sympathetic, and
raise the sense of life. Therefore the end to which those look,
annihilation, is dreaded; that to which these look, Nirwana, is
desired. To become nothing, is measureless horror; to become all,
is boundless ecstasy.

49 Milnes, Palm Leaves.


CHAPTER VII.

PERSIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE name of Zoroaster is connected, either as author or as
reviser, with that remarkable system of rites and doctrines which
constituted the religion of the ancient Iranians, and which yet
finds adherents in the Ghebers of Persia and the Parsees of India.
Pliny, following the affirmation of Aristotle, asserts that he
flourished six thousand years before Plato. Moyle, Gibbon, Volney,
Rhode, concur in throwing him back into this vast antiquity.
Foucher, Holty, Heeren, Tychsen, Guizot, assign his birth to the
beginning of the seventh century before Christ. Hyde, Prideaux, Du
Perron, Kleuker, Herder, Klaproth, and others, bring him down to
about a hundred and fifty years later. Meanwhile, several weighty
names press the scale in favor of the hypothesis of two or three
Zoroasters, living at separate epochs. So the learned men differ,
and the genuine date in question cannot, at present at least, be
decided. It is comparatively certain that, if he was the author of
the work attributed to him, he must have flourished as early as
the sixth century before Christ. The probabilities seem, upon the
whole, that he lived four or five centuries earlier than that,
even, "in the pre historic time," as Spiegel says. However, the
settlement of the era of Zoroaster is not a necessary condition of
discovering the era when the religion commonly traced to him was
in full prevalence as the established faith of the Persian empire.
The latter may be conclusively fixed without clearing up the
former. And it is known, without disputation, that that religion
whether it was primarily Persian, Median, Assyrian, or Chaldean
was flourishing at Babylon in the maturity of its power in the
time of the Hebrew prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel,
twenty five hundred years ago.

The celebrated work on the religion of the ancient Medes and
Persians by Dr. Hyde, published in 1700, must be followed with
much caution and be taken with many qualifications. The author was
biassed by unsound theories of the relation of the Hebrew theology
to the Persian, and was, of course, ignorant of the most
authoritative ancient documents afterwards brought to light. His
work, therefore, though learned and valuable, considering the time
when it was written, is vitiated by numerous mistakes and defects.
In 1762, Anquetil du Perron, returning to France from protracted
journeying and abode in the East, brought home, among the fruits
of his researches, manuscripts purporting to be parts of the old
Persian Bible composed or collected by Zoroaster. It was written
in a language hitherto unknown to European scholars, one of the
primitive dialects of Persia. This work, of which he soon
published a French version at Paris was entitled by him the "Zend
Avesta." It confirmed all that was previously known of the
Zoroastrian religion, and, by its allusions, statements, and
implications, threw great additional light upon the subject.

A furious controversy, stimulated by personal rivalries and
national jealousy, immediately arose. Du Perron was denounced as
an impostor or an ignoramus, and his publication stigmatized as a
wretched forgery of his own, or a gross imposition palmed upon him
by some lying pundit. Sir William Jones and John Richardson, both
distinguished English Orientalists, and Meiners in Germany, were
the chief impugners of the document in hand. Richardson
obstinately went beyond his data, and did not live long enough to
retract; but Sir William, upon an increase of information, changed
his views, and regretted his first inconsiderate zeal and somewhat
mistaken championship. The ablest defender of Du Perron was
Kleuker, who translated the whole work from French into German,
adding many corrections, new arguments, and researches of great
ability. His work was printed at Riga, in seven quarto volumes,
from 1777 to 1783. The progress and results of the whole
discussion are well enough indicated in the various papers which
the subject drew forth in the volumes of the "Asiatic Researches"
and the numbers of the "Asiatic Journal." The conclusion was that,
while Du Perron had indeed betrayed partial ignorance and crudity,
and had committed some glaring errors, there was not the least
ground for doubt that his asserted discovery was in every
essential what it claimed to be. It is a sort of litany; a
collection of prayers and of sacred dialogues held between Ormuzd
and Zoroaster, from which the Persian system of theology may be
inferred and constructed with some approach to completeness.

The assailants of the genuineness of the "Zend Avesta" were
effectually silenced when, some thirty years later, Professor
Rask, a well known Danish linguist, during his inquiries in the
East, found other copies of it, and gave to the world such
information and proofs as could not be suspected. He, discovering
the close affinities of the Zend with Sanscrit, led the way to the
most brilliant triumph yet achieved by comparative philology.
Portions of the work in the original character were published in
1829, under the supervision of Burnouf at Paris and of Olshausen
at Hamburg. The question of the genuineness of the dialect
exhibited in these specimens, once so freely mooted, has been
discussed, and definitively settled in the affirmative, by several
eminent scholars, among whom may be mentioned Bopp, whose
"Comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend,
Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, and German Languages" is an
astonishing monument of erudition and toil. It is the conviction
of Major Rawlinson that the Zoroastrian books of the Parsees were
imported to Bombay from Persia in their present state in the
seventh century of our era, but that they were written at least
twelve centuries earlier.1

But the two scholars whose opinions upon any subject within this
department of learning are now the most authoritative are
Professor Spiegel of Erlangen, and Professor Westergaard of
Copenhagen. Their investigations, still in progress, made with all
the aids furnished by their predecessors, and also with the
advantage of newly discovered materials and processes, are of
course to be relied on in preference to the earlier, and in some
respects necessarily cruder, researches. It appears that the
proper Zoroastrian Scriptures namely, the Yasna, the Vispered, the
Vendidad, the Yashts, the Nyaish, the Afrigans, the Gahs, the
Sirozah, and a few other fragments were composed in an ancient
Iranian dialect, which may as Professor

W. D. Whitney suggests in his very lucid and able article in vol.
v. of the Journal of the American Oriental Society most fitly be
called the Avestan dialect. (No other book in this dialect, we
believe, is known to be in existence now.) It is difficult to say
when these

1 Wilson, Parsi Religion Unfolded, p. 405.


documents were written; but in view of all the relevant
information now possessed, including that drawn from the
deciphered cuneiform inscriptions, the most probable date is about
a thousand years before Christ. Professor R. Roth of Tubingen
whose authority herein as an original investigator is perhaps
hardly second to any other man's says the books of the Zoroastrian
faith were written a considerable time before the rise of the
Achamenian dynasty. He is convinced that the whole substantial
contents of the Zend Avesta are many centuries older than the
Christian era.2 Professor Muller of Oxford also holds the same
opinion.3 And even those who set the date of the literary record a
few centuries later, as Spiegel does, freely admit the great
antiquity of the doctrines and usages then first committed to
manuscript. In the fourth century before Christ, Alexander of
Macedon overran the Persian empire. With the new rule new
influences prevailed, and the old national faith and ritual fell
into decay and neglect. Early in the third century of the
Christian era, Ardeshir overthrew the Parthian dominion in Persia
and established the Sassanian dynasty. One of his first acts was,
stimulated doubtless by the surviving Magi and the old piety of
the people, to reinaugurate the ancient religion. A fresh zeal of
loyalty broke out, and all the prestige and vigor of the long
suppressed worship were restored. The Zoroastrian Scriptures were
now sought for, whether in manuscript or in the memories of the
priests. It would seem that only remnants were found. The
collection, such as it was, was in the Avestan dialect, which had
grown partially obsolete and unintelligible. The authorities
accordingly had a translation of it made in the speech of the
time, Pehlevi. This translation most of which has reached us
written in with the original, sentence after sentence forms the
real Zend language, often confounded by the literary public with
Avestan. The translation of the Avestan books, probably made under
these circumstances as early as A. D. 350, is called the
Huzvaresch. In regard to some of these particulars there are
questions still under investigation, but upon which it is not
worth our while to pause here. For example, Spiegel thinks the
Zend identical with the Pehlevi of the fourth century; Westergaard
believes it entirely distinct from Pehlevi, and in truth only a
disguised mode of writing Parsee, the oldest form of the modern
Persian language.

The source from which the fullest and clearest knowledge of the
Zoroastrian faith, as it is now held by the Parsees, is drawn, is
the Desatir and the Bundehesh. The former work is the unique
vestige of an extinct dialect called the Mahabadian, accompanied
by a Persian translation and commentary. It is impossible to
ascertain the century when the Mahabadian text was written; but
the translation into Persian was, most probably, made in the
seventh century of the Christian era.4 Spiegel, in 1847, says
there can be no doubt of the spuriousness of the Desatir; but he
gives no reasons for the statement, and we do not know that it is
based on any other arguments than those which, advanced by De
Sacy, were refuted by Von Hammer. The Bundehesh is in the Pehlevi
or Zend language, and was written, it is

2 Ueber die Heiligen Schriften der Arier. Jahrbucher fur Deutsche
Theologie, 1857, band ii. ss. 146, 147.

3 Essay on the Veda and the Zend Avesta, p. 24. See also Bunsen's
Christianity and Mankind, vol. iii. p. 114.

4 Baron von Hammer, in Heidelberger Jabrbucher der Literatur,
1823. Id. in Journal Asiatique, Juillet, 1833. Dabistan,
Preliminary Discourse, pp. xix.  lxv.


thought, about the seventh century, but was derived, it is
claimed, from a more ancient work.5 The book entitled "Revelations
of Ardai Viraf" exists in Pehlevi probably of the fourth century,
according to Troyer,6 and is believed to have been originally
written in the Avestan tongue, though this is extremely doubtful.
It gives a detailed narrative of the scenery of heaven and hell,
as seen by Ardai Viraf during a visit of a week which his soul
leaving his body for that length of time paid to those regions.
Many later and enlarged versions of this have appeared. One of
them, dating from the sixteenth century, was translated into
English by T. A. Pope and published in 1816. Sanscrit translations
of several of the before named writings are also in existence. And
several other comparatively recent works, scarcely needing mention
here, although considered as somewhat authoritative by the modern
followers of Zoroaster, are to be found in Guzeratee, the present
dialect of the Indian Parsees. A full exposition of the
Zoroastrian religion, with satisfactory proofs of its antiquity
and documentary genuineness, is presented in the Preliminary
Discourse and Notes to the Dabistan. This curious and entertaining
work, a fund of strange and valuable lore, is an historico
critical view of the principal religions of the world, especially
of the Oriental sects, schools, and manners. It was composed in
Persian, apparently by Mohsan Fani, about the year 1645. An
English translation, with elaborate explanatory matter, by David
Shea and Anthony Troyer, was published at London and at Paris in
1843.7

In these records there are obscurities, incongruities, and chasms,
as might naturally be anticipated, admitting them to be strictly
what they would pass for. These faults may be accounted for in
several ways. First, in a rude stage of philosophical culture,
incompleteness of theory, inconsistent conceptions in different
parts of a system, are not unusual, but are rather to be expected,
and are slow to become troublesome to its adherents. Secondly,
distinct contemporary thinkers or sects may give expression to
their various views in literary productions of the same date and
possessing a balanced authority. Or, thirdly, the heterogeneous
conceptions in some particulars met with in these scriptures may
be a result of the fact that the collection contains writings of
distinct ages, when the same problems had been differently
approached and had given birth to opposing or divergent
speculations. The later works of course cannot have the authority
of the earlier in deciding questions of ancient belief: they are
to be taken rather as commentaries, interpreting and carrying out
in detail many points that lie only in obscure hints and allusions
in the primary documents. But it is a significant fact that, in
the generic germs of doctrine and custom, in the essential
outlines of substance, in rhetorical imagery, in practical morals,
the statements of all these books are alike: they only vary in
subordinate matters and in degrees of fulness.

The charge has repeatedly been urged that the materials of the
more recent of the Parsee Scriptures the Desatir and the
Bundehesh were drawn from Christian and Mohammedan sources. No
evidence of value for sustaining such assertions has been adduced.
Under the circumstances, scarcely any motive for such an
imposition appears. In view of the whole case,

5 Dabistan, vol. i. p. 226, note.

6 Ibid. p. 185, note.

7 Reviewed in Asiatic Journal, 1844, pp. 582-595.


the reverse supposition is rather to be credited. In the first
place, we have ample evidence for the existence of the general
Zoroastrian system long anterior to the rise of Christianity. The
testimony of the classic authors to say nothing of the known
antiquity of the language in which the system is preserved is
demonstrative on this point. Secondly, the striking agreement in
regard to fundamental doctrines, pervading spirit, and ritual
forms between the accounts in the classics and those in the
Avestan books, and of both these with the later writings and
traditional practice of the Parsees, furnishes powerful
presumption that the religion was a connected development,
possessing the same essential features from the time of its
national establishment. Thirdly, we have unquestionable proofs
that, during the period from the Babylonish captivity to the
advent of Christ, the Jews borrowed and adapted a great deal from
the Persian theology, but no proof that the Persians took any
thing from the Jewish theology. This is abundantly confessed by
such scholars as Gesenius, Rosenmuller, Stuart, Lucke, De Wette,
Neander; and it will hardly be challenged by any one who has
investigated the subject. But the Jewish theology being thus
impregnated with germs from the Persian faith, and being in a
sense the historic mother of Christian theology, it is far more
reasonable, in seeking the origin of dogmas common to Parsees and
Christians, to trace them through the Pharisees to Zoroaster, than
to imagine them suddenly foisted upon the former by forgery on the
part of the latter at a late period. Fourthly, it is notorious
that Mohammed, in forming his religion, made wholesale draughts
upon previously existing faiths, that their adherents might more
readily accept his teachings, finding them largely in unison with
their own. It is altogether more likely, aside from historic
evidence which we possess, that he drew from the tenets and
imagery of the Ghebers, than that they, when subdued by his armies
and persecuted by his rule from their native land, introduced new
doctrines from the Koran into the ancestral creed which they so
revered that neither exile nor death could make them abjure it.
For, driven by those fierce proselytes, the victorious Arabs, to
the mountains of Kirman and to the Indian coast, they clung with
unconquerable tenacity to their religion, still scrupulously
practising its rites, proudly mindful of the time when every
village, from the shore of the Caspian Sea to the outlet of the
Persian Gulf, had its splendid fire temple,

"And Iran like a sunflower turn'd Where'er the eye of Mithra
burn'd."

We therefore see no reason for believing that important Christian
or Mohammedan ideas have been interpolated into the old
Zoroastrian religion. The influence has been in the other
direction. Relying then, though with caution, on what Dr. Edward
Roth says, that "the certainty of our possessing a correct
knowledge of the leading ancient doctrines of the Persians is now
beyond all question," we will try to exhibit so much of the system
as is necessary for appreciating its doctrine of a future life.

In the deep background of the Magian theology looms, in mysterious
obscurity, the belief in an infinite First Principle, Zeruana
Akerana. According to most of the scholars who have investigated
it, the meaning of this term is "Time without Bounds," or absolute
duration. But Bohlen says it signifies the "Untreated Whole;" and
Schlegel thinksit denotes the "Indivisible One." The conception
seems to have been to the people mostly an unapplied abstraction,
too vast and remote to become prominent in their speculation or
influential in their faith. Spiegel, indeed, thinks the conception
was derived from Babylon, and added to the system at a later
period than the other doctrines. The beginning of vital theology,
the source of actual ethics to the Zoroastrians, was in the idea
of the two antagonist powers, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the first
emanations of Zeruana, who divide between them in unresting strife
the empire of the universe. The former is the Principle of Good,
the perfection of intelligence, beneficence, and light, the source
of all reflected excellence. The latter is the Principle of Evil,
the contriver of misery and death, the king of darkness, the
instigator of all wrong. With sublime beauty the ancient Persian
said, "Light is the body of Ormuzd; Darkness is the body of
Ahriman." There has been much dispute whether the Persian theology
grew out of the idea of an essential and eternal dualism, or was
based on the conception of a partial and temporary battle; in
other words, whether Ahriman was originally and necessarily evil,
or fell from a divine estate.

In the fragmentary documents which have reached us, the whole
subject lies in confusion. It is scarcely possible to unravel the
tangled mesh. Sometimes it seems to be taught that Ahriman was at
first good, an angel of light who, through envy of his great
compeer, sank from his primal purity, darkened into hatred, and
became the rancorous enemy of truth and love. At other times he
appears to be considered as the pure primordial essence of evil.
The various views may have prevailed in different ages or in
different schools. Upon the whole, however, we hold the opinion
that the real Zoroastrian idea of Ahriman was moral and free, not
physical and fatal. The whole basis of the universe was good; evil
was an after perversion, a foreign interpolation, a battling
mixture. First, the perfect Zeruana was once all in all: Ahriman,
as well as Ormuzd, proceeded from him; and the inference that he
was pure would seem to belong to the idea of his origin. Secondly,
so far as the account of Satan given in the book of Job perhaps
the earliest appearance of the Persian notion in Jewish
literature warrants any inference or supposition at all, it would
lead to the image of one who was originally a prince in heaven,
and who must have fallen thence to become the builder and
potentate of hell. Thirdly, that matter is not an essential core
of evil, the utter antagonist of spirit, and that Ahriman is not
evil by an intrinsic necessity, will appear from the two
conceptions lying at the base and crown of the Persian system:
that the creation, as it first came from the hands of Ormuzd, was
perfectly good; and that finally the purified material world shall
exist again unstained by a breath of evil, Ahriman himself
becoming like Ormuzd. He is not, then, aboriginal and
indestructible evil in substance. The conflict between Ormuzd and
him is the temporary ethical struggle of light and darkness, not
the internecine ontological war of spirit and matter. Roth says,
"Ahriman was originally good: his fall was a determination of his
will, not an inherent necessity of his nature." 8 Whatever other
conceptions may be found, whatever inconsistencies or
contradictions to this may appear, still, we believe the genuine
Zoroastrian view was such as we have now stated. The opposite
doctrine arose from the more abstruse lucubrations of a more
modern time, and is Manichaan, not Zoroastrian.

8 Zoroastrische Glaubenslehre, ss. 397, 398.


Ormuzd created a resplendent and happy world. Ahriman instantly
made deformity, impurity, and gloom, in opposition to it. All
beauty, virtue, harmony, truth, blessedness, were the work of the
former. All ugliness, vice, discord, falsehood, wretchedness,
belonged to the latter. They grappled and mixed in a million
hostile shapes. This universal battle is the ground of ethics, the
clarion call to marshal out the hostile hosts of good and ill; and
all other war is but a result and a symbol of it. The strife thus
indicated between a Deity and a Devil, both subordinate to the
unmoved ETERNAL, was the Persian solution of the problem of evil,
their answer to the staggering question, why pleasure and pain,
benevolence and malignity, are so conflictingly mingled in the
works of nature and in the soul of man. In the long struggle that
ensued, Ormuzd created multitudes of co operant angels to assail
his foe, stocking the clean empire of Light with celestial allies
of his holy banner, who hang from heaven in great numbers, ready
at the prayer of the righteous man to hie to his aid and work him
a thousandfold good. Ahriman, likewise, created an equal number of
assistant demons, peopling the filthy domain of Darkness with
counterbalancing swarms of infernal followers of his pirate flag,
who lurk at the summit of hell, watching to snatch every
opportunity to ply their vocation of sin and ruin. There are such
hosts of these invisible antagonists sown abroad, and incessantly
active, that every star is crowded and all space teems with them.
Each man has a good and a bad angel, a ferver and a dev, who are
endeavoring in every manner to acquire control over his conduct
and possession of his soul.

The Persians curiously personified the source of organic life in
the world under the emblem of a primeval bull. In this symbolic
beast were packed the seeds and germs of all the creatures
afterwards to people the earth. Ahriman, to ruin the creation of
which this animal was the life medium, sought to kill him. He set
upon him two of his devs, who are called "adepts of death." They
stung him in the breast, and plagued him until he died of rage.
But, as he was dying, from his right shoulder sprang the
androgynal Kaiomorts, who was the stock root of humanity. His body
was made from fire, air, water, and earth, to which Ormuzd added
an immortal soul, and bathed him with an elixir which rendered him
fair and glittering as a youth of fifteen, and would have
preserved him so perennially had it not been for the assaults of
the Evil One.9 Ahriman, the enemy of all life, determined to slay
him, and at last accomplished his object; but, as Kaiomorts fell,
from his seed, through the power of Ormuzd, originated Meschia and
Meschiane, male and female, the first human pair, from whom all
our race have descended. They would never have died,10 but
Ahriman, in the guise of a serpent, seduced them, and they sinned
and fell. This account is partly drawn from that later treatise,
the Bundehesh, whose mythological cosmogony reminds us of the
Scandinavian Ymer. But we conceive it to be strictly reliable as a
representation of the Zoroastrian faith in its essential
doctrines; for the earlier documents, the Yasna, the Yeshts, and
the Vendidad, contain the same things in obscure and undeveloped
expressions. They, too, make repeated mention of the mysterious
bull, and of Kaiomorts.11 They invariably represent death as
resulting

9 Kleuker, Zend Avesta, band i. anhang 1, s. 263.

10 Ibid. band i. s. 27.

11 Yasna, 24th IIa.


from the hostility of Ahriman. The earliest Avestan account of the
earthly condition of men describes them as living in a garden
which Yima or Jemschid had enclosed at the command of Ormuzd.12
During the golden age of his reign they were free from heat and
cold, sickness and death. "In the garden which Yima made they led
a most beautiful life, and they bore none of the marks which
Ahriman has since made upon men." But Ahriman's envy and hatred
knew no rest until he and his devs had, by their wiles, broken
into this paradise, betrayed Yima and his people into falsehood,
and so, by introducing corruption into their hearts, put an end to
their glorious earthly immortality. This view is set forth in the
opening fargards of the Vendidad; and it has been clearly
illustrated in an elaborate contribution upon the "Old Iranian
Mythology" by Professor Westergaard.13 Death, like all other
evils, was an after effect, thrust into the purely good creation
of Ormuzd by the cunning malice of Ahriman. The Vendidad, at its
commencement, recounts the various products of Ormuzd's beneficent
power, and adds, after each particular, "Thereupon Ahriman, who is
full of death, made an opposition to the same."

According to the Zoroastrian modes of thought, what would have
been the fate of man had Ahriman not existed or not interfered?
Plainly, mankind would have lived on forever in innocence and joy.
They would have been blessed with all placid delights, exempt from
hate, sickness, pain, and every other ill; and, when the earth was
full of them, Ormuzd would have taken his sinless subjects to his
own realm of light on high. But when they forsook the true service
of Ormuzd, falling into deceit and defilement, they became
subjects of Ahriman; and he would inflict on them, as the
creatures of his hated rival, all the calamities in his power,
dissolve the masterly workmanship of their bodies in death, and
then take their souls as prisoners into his own dark abode. "Had
Meschia continued to bring meet praises, it would have happened
that when the time of man, created pure, had come, his soul,
created pure and immortal, would immediately have gone to the seat
of bliss."14 "Heaven was destined for man upon condition that he
was humble of heart, obedient to the law, and pure in thought,
word, and deed." But "by believing the lies of Ahriman they became
sinners, and their souls must remain in his nether kingdom until
the resurrection of their bodies."15 Ahriman's triumph thus
culminates in the death of man and that banishment of the
disembodied soul into hell which takes the place of its
originally intended reception into heaven.

The law of Ormuzd, revealed through Zoroaster, furnishes to all
who faithfully observe it in purity of thought, speech, and
action, "when body and soul have separated, attainment of paradise
in the next world,"16 while the neglecters of it "will pass into
the dwelling of the devs,"17 "after death will have no part in
paradise, but will occupy the place of darkness

12 Die Sage von Dschemschid. Von Professor R. Roth. In Zeitschrift
der Deutschen Morgeulandischen Gesellschaft, band iv. ss. 417-431.

13 Weber, Indische Studien, band iii. 8. 411.

14 Yesht LXXXVII. Kleuker, band ii. sect. 211.

15 Bundehesh, ch. xv.

16 Avesta die Heiligen Schriften der Parsen. Von Dr. F. Spiegel,
band i. s, 171.

17 Ibid. s. 158.


destined for the wicked."18 The third day after death, the soul
advances upon "the way created by Ormuzd for good and bad," to be
examined as to its conduct. The pure soul passes up from this
evanescent world, over the bridge Chinevad, to the world of
Ormuzd, and joins the angels. The sinful soul is bound and led
over the way made for the godless, and finds its place at the
bottom of gloomy hell.19 An Avestan fragment 20 and the Viraf
Nameh give the same account, only with more picturesque fulness.
On the soaring bridge the soul meets Rashne rast, the angel of
justice, who tries those that present themselves before him. If
the merits prevail, a figure of dazzling substance, radiating
glory and fragrance, advances and accosts the justified soul,
saying, "I am thy good angel: I was pure at the first, but thy
good deeds have made me purer;" and the happy one is straightway
led to Paradise. But when the vices outweigh the virtues, a dark
and frightful image, featured with ugliness and exhaling a noisome
smell, meets the condemned soul, and cries, "I am thy evil spirit:
bad myself, thy crimes have made me worse." Then the culprit
staggers on his uncertain foothold, is hurled from the dizzy
causeway, and precipitated into the gulf which yawns horribly
below. A sufficient reason for believing these last details no
late and foreign interpolation, is that the Vendidad itself
contains all that is essential in them, Garotman, the heaven of
Ormuzd, open to the pure, Dutsakh, the abode of devs, ready for
the wicked, Chinevad, the bridge of ordeal, upon which all must
enter.21

Some authors have claimed that the ancient disciples of Zoroaster
believed in a purifying, intermediate state for the dead. Passages
stating such a doctrine are found in the Yeshts, Sades, and in
later Parsee works. But whether the translations we now possess of
these passages are accurate, and whether the passages themselves
are authoritative to establish the ancient prevalence of such a
belief, we have not yet the means for deciding. There was a yearly
solemnity, called the "Festival for the Dead," still observed by
the Parsees, held at the season when it was thought that that
portion of the sinful departed who had ended their penance were
raised from Dutsakh to earth, from earth to Garotman. Du Perron
says that this took place only during the last five days of the
year, when the souls of all the deceased sinners who were
undergoing punishment had permission to leave their confinement
and visit their relatives; after which, those not yet purified
were to return, but those for whom a sufficient atonement had been
made were to proceed to Paradise. For proof that this doctrine was
held, reference is made to the following passage, with others:
"During these five days Ormuzd empties hell. The imprisoned souls
shall be freed from Ahriman's plagues when they pay penance and
are ashamed of their sins; and they shall receive a heavenly
nature; the meritorious deeds of themselves and of their families
cause this liberation: all the rest must return to Dutsakh."22
Rhode thinks this was a part of the old Persian faith, and the
source of

18 Ibid. s. 127.

19 Ibid. ss. 248-252. Vendidad, Fargard XIX.

20 Kleuker, band i. ss. xxxi. xxxv.

21 Spiegel, Vendidad, ss. 207, 229, 233, 250.

22 Kleuker, band ii. s. 173.


the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory.23 But, whether so or
not, it is certain that the Zoroastrians regarded the whole
residence of the departed souls in hell as temporary.

The duration of the present order of the world was fixed at twelve
thousand years, divided into four equal epochs. In the first three
thousand years, Ormuzd creates and reigns triumphantly over his
empire. Through the next cycle, Ahriman is constructing and
carrying on his hostile works. The third epoch is occupied with a
drawn battle between the upper and lower kings and their
adherents. During the fourth period, Ahriman is to be victorious,
and a state of things inconceivably dreadful is to prevail. The
brightness of all clear things will be shrouded, the happiness of
all joyful creatures be destroyed, innocence disappear, religion
be scoffed from the world, and crime, horror, and war be rampant.
Famine will spread, pests and plagues stalk over the earth, and
showers of black rain fall. But at last Ormuzd will rise in his
might and put an end to these awful scenes. He will send on earth
a savior. Sosiosch, to deliver mankind, to wind up the final
period of time, and to bring the arch enemy to judgment. At the
sound of the voice of Sosiosch the dead will come forth. Good,
bad, indifferent, all alike will rise, each in his order.
Kaiomorts, the original single ancestor of men, will be the
firstling. Next, Meschia and Meschiane, the primal parent pair,
will appear. And then the whole multitudinous family of mankind
will throng up. The genii of the elements will render up the
sacred materials intrusted to them, and rebuild the decomposed
bodies. Each soul will recognise, and hasten to reoccupy, its old
tenement of flesh, now renewed, improved, immortalized. Former
acquaintances will then know each other. "Behold, my father! my
mother! my brother! my wife! they shall exclaim." 24

In this exposition we have following the guidance of Du Perron,
Foucher, Kleuker, J. G. Muller, and other early scholars in this
field attributed the doctrine of a general and bodily resurrection
of the dead to the ancient Zoroastrians. The subsequent researches
of Burnouf, Roth, and others, have shown that several, at least,
of the passages which Anquetil supposed to teach such a doctrine
were erroneously translated by him, and do not really contain it.
And recently the ground has been often assumed that the doctrine
of the resurrection does not belong to the Avesta, but is a more
modern dogma, derived by the Parsees from the Jews or the
Christians, and only forced upon the old text by misinterpretation
through the Pehlevi version and the Parsee commentary. A question
of so grave importance demands careful examination. In the absence
of that reliable translation of the entire original documents, and
that thorough elaboration of all the extant materials, which we
are awaiting from the hands of Professor Spiegel, whose second
volume has long been due, and Professor Westergaard, whose second
and third volumes are eagerly looked for, we must make the best
use of the resources actually available, and then leave the point
in such plausible light as existing testimony and fair reasoning
can throw upon it. In the first place, it should be observed that,
admitting the doctrine to be nowhere mentioned in the Avesta,
still, it does not follow that the belief was not prevalent when
the

23 Rhode, Heilige Sage des Zendvolks, s. 410.

24 Bundehesh, ch. xxxi.


Avesta was written. We know that the Christians of the first two
centuries believed a great many things of which there is no
statement in the New Testament. Spiegel holds that the doctrine in
debate is not in the Avesta, the text of which in its present form
he thinks was written after the time of Alexander.25 But he
confesses that the resurrection theory was in existence long
before that time.26 Now, if the Avesta, committed to writing three
hundred years before Christ, at a time when the doctrine of the
resurrection is known to have been believed, contains no reference
to it, the same relation of facts may just as well have existed if
we date the record seven centuries earlier. We possess only a
small and broken portion of the original Zoroastrian Scriptures;
as Roth says, "songs, invocations, prayers, snatches of
traditions, parts of a code, the shattered fragments of a once
stately building." If we could recover the complete documents in
their earliest condition, it might appear that the now lost parts
contained the doctrine of the general resurrection fully formed.
We have many explicit references to many ancient Zoroastrian books
no longer in existence. For example, the Parsees have a very early
account that the Avesta at first consisted of twenty one Nosks. Of
these but one has been preserved complete, and small parts of
three or four others. The rest are utterly wanting. The fifth
Nosk, whereof not any portion remains to us, was called the Do az
ah Hamast. It contained thirty two chapters, treating, among other
things, "of the upper and nether world, of the resurrection, of
the bridge Chinevad, and of the fate after death." 27 If this
evidence be true, and we know of no reason for not crediting it,
it is perfectly decisive. But, at all events, the absence from the
extant parts of the Zend Avesta of the doctrine under examination
would be no proof that that doctrine was not received when those
documents were penned.

Secondly, we have the unequivocal assertion of Theopompus, in the
fourth century before Christ, that the Magi taught the doctrine of
a general resurrection.28 "At the appointed epoch Ahriman shall be
subdued," and "men shall live again and shall be immortal." And
Diogenes adds, "Eudemus of Rhodes affirms the same things."
Aristotle calls Ormuzd Zeus, and Ahriman Haides, the Greek names
respectively of the lord of the starry Olympians above, and the
monarch of the Stygian ghosts beneath. Another form also in which
the early Greek authors betray their acquaintance with the Persian
conception of a conflict between Ormuzd and Ahriman is in the
idea expressed by Xenophon in his Cyropadia, in the dialogue
between Araspes and Cyrus of two souls in man, one a brilliant
efflux of good, the other a dusky emanation of evil, each bearing
the likeness of its parent.29 Since we know from Theopompus that
certain conceptions, illustrated in the Bundehesh and not
contained in the fragmentary Avestan books which have reached us,
were actually received Zoroastrian

25 Studien uber das Zend Avesta, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 1855, band ix. s. 192.

26 Spiegel, Avesta, band i. s. 16.

27 Dabistan, vol. i. pp. 272-274.

28 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, Introduction,
sect. vi. Plutarch, concerning Isis and Osiris.

29 Lib. vi. cap. i. sect. 41.


tenets four centuries before Christ, we are strongly supported in
giving credence to the doctrinal statements of that book as
affording, in spite of its lateness, a correct epitome of the old
Persian theology.

Thirdly, we are still further warranted in admitting the antiquity
of the Zoroastrian system as including the resurrection theory,
when we consider the internal harmony and organic connection of
parts in it; how the doctrines all fit together, and imply each
other, and could scarcely have existed apart. Men were the
creatures of Ormuzd. They should have lived immortally under his
favor and in his realm. But Ahriman, by treachery, obtained
possession of a large portion of them. Now, when, at the end of
the fourth period into which the world course was divided by the
Magian theory, as Theopompus testifies, Ormuzd overcomes this
arch adversary, will he not rescue his own unfortunate creatures
from the realm of darkness in which they have been imprisoned?
When a king storms an enemy's castle, he delivers from the
dungeons his own soldiers who were taken captives in a former
defeat. The expectation of a great prophet, Sosiosch, to come and
vanquish Ahriman and his swarms, unquestionably appears in the
Avesta itself.30 With this notion, in inseparable union, the
Parsee tradition, running continuously back, as is claimed, to a
very remote time, joins the doctrine of a general resurrection; a
doctrine literally stated in the Vendidad,31 and in many other
places in the Avesta,32 where it has not yet been shown to be an
interpolation, but only supposed so by very questionable
constructive inferences. The consent of intrinsic adjustment and
of historic evidence would, therefore, lead to the conclusion that
this was an old Zoroastrian dogma. In disproof of this conclusion
we believe there is no direct positive evidence whatever, and no
inferential argument cogent enough to produce conviction.

There are sufficient reasons for the belief that the doctrine of a
resurrection was quite early adopted from the Persians by the
Jews, not borrowed at a much later time from the Jews by the
Parsees. The conception of Ahriman, the evil serpent, bearing
death, (die Schlange Angramainyus der voll Tod ist,) is
interwrought from the first throughout the Zoroastrian scheme. In
the Hebrew records, on the contrary, such an idea appears but
incidentally, briefly, rarely, and only in the later books. The
account of the introduction of sin and death by the serpent in the
garden of Eden dates from a time subsequent to the commencement of
the Captivity. Von Bohlen, in his Introduction to the Book of
Genesis, says the narrative was drawn from the Zend Avesta.
Rosenmuller, in his commentary on the passage, says the narrator
had in view the Zoroastrian notions of the serpent Ahriman and his
deeds. Dr. Martin Haug an acute and learned writer, whose opinion
is entitled to great weight, as he is the freshest scholar
acquainted with this whole field in the light of all that others
have done thinks it certain that Zoroaster lived in a remote
antiquity, from fifteen hundred to two thousand years before
Christ. He says that Judaism after the exile and, through Judaism,
Christianity afterwards received an important influence from
Zoroastrianism,

30 Spiegel, Avesta, band i. ss. 16, 244.

31 Fargard XVIII, Spiegel's Uebersetzung, s. 236.

32 Kleuker, band ii. ss. 123, 124, 164.


an influence which, in regard to the doctrine of angels, Satan,
and the resurrection of the dead, cannot be mistaken.33 The Hebrew
theology had no demonology, no Satan, until after the residence at
Babylon. This is admitted. Well, is not the resurrection a pendant
to the doctrine of Satan? Without the idea of a Satan there would
be no idea of a retributive banishment of souls into hell, and of
course no occasion for a vindicating restoration of them thence to
their former or a superior state.

On this point the theory of Rawlinson is very important. He
argues, with various proofs, that the Dualistic doctrine was a
heresy which broke out very early among the primitive Aryans, who
then were the single ancestry of the subsequent Iranians and
Indians. This heresy was forcibly suppressed. Its adherents,
driven out of India, went to Persia, and, after severe conflicts
and final admixture with the Magians, there established their
faith.34 The sole passage in the Old Testament teaching the
resurrection is in the so called Book of Daniel, a book full of
Chaldean and Persian allusions, written less than two centuries
before Christ, long after we know it was a received Zoroastrian
tenet, and long after the Hebrews had been exposed to the whole
tide and atmosphere of the triumphant Persian power. The
unchangeable tenacity of the Medes and Persians is a proverb. How
often the Hebrew people lapsed into idolatry, accepting Pagan
gods, doctrines, and ritual, is notorious. And, in particular, how
completely subject they were to Persian influence appears clearly
in large parts of the Biblical history, especially in the Books of
Esther and Ezekiel. The origin of the term Beelzebub, too, in the
New Testament, is plain. To say that the Persians derived the
doctrine of the resurrection from the Jews seems to us as
arbitrary as it would be to affirm that they also borrowed from
them the custom, mentioned by Ezekiel, of weeping for Tammuz in
the gates of the temple.

In view of the whole case as it stands, until further researches
either strengthen it or put a different aspect upon it, we feel
forced to think that the doctrine of a general resurrection was a
component element in the ancient Avestan religion. A further
question of considerable interest arises as to the nature of this
resurrection, whether it was conceived as physical or as
spiritual. We have no data to furnish a determinate answer.
Plutarch quotes from Theopompus the opinion of the Magi, that
when, at the subdual of Ahriman, men are restored to life, "they
will need no nourishment and cast no shadow." It would appear,
then, that they must be spirits. The inference is not reliable;
for the idea may be that all causes of decay will be removed, so
that no food will be necessary to supply the wasting processes
which no longer exist; and that the entire creation will be so
full of light that a shadow will be impossible. It might be
thought that the familiar Persian conception of angels, both good
and evil, fervers and devs, and the reception of departed souls
into their company, with Ormuzd in Garotman, or with Ahriman in
Dutsakh, would exclude the belief in a future bodily resurrection.
But Christians and Mohammedans at this day believe in immaterial
angels and devils, and in the immediate entrance of disembodied
souls upon reward or

33 Die Lehre Zoroasters nach den alten Liedern des Zendavesta.
Zeitschrift der Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, band ix. ss. 286,
683-692.

34 Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. i. pp. 426-431.


punishment in their society, and still believe in their final
return to the earth, and in a restoration to them of their former
tabernacles of flesh. Discordant, incoherent, as the two beliefs
may be, if their coexistence is a fact with cultivated and
reasonable people now, much more was it possible with an
undisciplined and credulous populace three thousand years in the
past. Again, it has been argued that the indignity with which the
ancient Persians treated the dead body, refusing to bury it or to
burn it, lest the earth or the fire should be polluted, is
incompatible with the supposition that they expected a
resurrection of the flesh. In the first place, it is difficult to
reason safely to any dogmatic conclusions from the funeral customs
of a people. These usages are so much a matter of capricious
priestly ritual, ancestral tradition, unreasoning instinct, blind
or morbid superstition, that any consistent doctrinal construction
is not fairly to be put upon them. Secondly, the Zoroastrians did
not express scorn or loathing for the corpse by their manner of
disposing of it. The greatest pains were taken to keep it from
disgusting decay, by placing it in "the driest, purest, openest
place," upon a summit where fresh winds blew, and where certain
beasts and birds, accounted most sacred, might eat the corruptible
portion: then the clean bones were carefully buried. The dead body
had yielded to the hostile working of Ahriman, and become his
possession. The priests bore it out on a bed or a carpet, and
exposed it to the light of the sun. The demon was thus exorcised;
and the body became further purified in being eaten by the sacred
animals, and no putrescence was left to contaminate earth, water,
or fire.35 Furthermore, it is to be noticed that the modern
Parsees dispose of their dead in exactly the same manner depicted
in the earliest accounts; yet they zealously hold to a literal
resurrection of the body. If the giving of the flesh to the dog
and the vulture in their case exists with this belief, it may have
done so with their ancestors before Nebuchadnezzar swept the Jews
to Babylon. Finally, it is quite reasonable to conclude that the
old Persian doctrine of a resurrection did include the physical
body, when we recollect that in the Zoroastrian scheme of thought
there is no hostility to matter or to earthly life, but all is
regarded as pure and good except so far as the serpent Ahriman has
introduced evil. The expulsion of this evil with his ultimate
overthrow, the restoration of all as it was at first, in purity,
gladness, and eternal life, would be the obvious and consistent
carrying out of the system. Hatred of earthly life, contempt for
the flesh, the notion of an essential and irreconcilable warfare
of soul against body, are Brahmanic and Manichaan, not
Zoroastrian. Still, the ground plan and style of thought may not
have been consistently adhered to. The expectation that the very
same body would be restored was known to the Jews a century or two
before Christ. One of the martyrs whose history is told in the
Second Book of Maccabees, in the agonies of death plucked out his
own bowels, and called on the Lord to restore them to him again at
the resurrection. Considering the notion of a resurrection of the
body as a sensuous burden on the idea of a resurrection of the
soul, it may have been a later development originating with the
Jews. But it seems to us decidedly more probable that the Magi
held it as a part of their creed before they came in contact with
the children of Israel. Such an opinion may be modestly held until
further information is

35 Spiegel, Avesta, ss. 82, 104, 109, 111, 122.


afforded 36 or some new and fatal objection brought.

After this resurrection a thorough separation will be made of the
good from the bad. "Father shall be divided from child, sister
from brother, friend from friend. The innocent one shall weep over
the guilty one, the guilty one shall weep for himself. Of two
sisters one shall be pure, one corrupt: they shall be treated
according to their deeds." 37 Those who have not, in the
intermediate state, fully expiated their sins, will, in sight of
the whole creation, be remanded to the pit of punishment. But the
author of evil shall not exult over them forever. Their prison
house will soon be thrown open. The pangs of three terrible days
and nights, equal to the agonies of nine thousand years, will
purify all, even the worst of the demons. The anguished cry of the
damned, as they writhe in the lurid caldron of torture, rising to
heaven, will find pity in the soul of Ormuzd, and he will release
them from their sufferings. A blazing star, the comet Gurtzscher,
will fall upon the earth. In the heat of its conflagration, great
and small mountains will melt and flow together as liquid metal.
Through this glowing flood all human kind must pass. To the
righteous it will prove as a pleasant bath, of the temperature of
milk; but on the wicked the flame will inflict terrific pain.
Ahriman will run up and down Chinevad in the perplexities of
anguish and despair. The earth wide stream of fire, flowing on,
will cleanse every spot and every thing. Even the loathsome realm
of darkness and torment shall be burnished and made a part of the
all inclusive Paradise. Ahriman himself, reclaimed to virtue,
replenished with primal light, abjuring the memories of his
envious ways, and furling thenceforth the sable standard of his
rebellion, shall become a ministering spirit of the Most High,
and, together with Ormuzd, chant the praises of Time without
Bounds. All darkness, falsehood, suffering, shall flee utterly
away, and the whole universe be filled by the illumination of good
spirits blessed with fruitions of eternal delight. In regard to
the fate of man,

Such are the parables Zartushi address'd To Iran's faith, in the
ancient Zend Avest.

36 Windischmann has now (1863) fully proved this, in his
Zoroastrische Studien. Spiegel frankly avows it: Avesta, band
iii., einleitung, s. lxxv.

37 Rhode, Heilige Sage des Zendvolks, s. 467.


CHAPTER VIII.

HEBREW DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

ON the one extreme, a large majority of Christian scholars have
asserted that the doctrine of a retributive immortality is clearly
taught throughout the Old Testament. Able writers, like Bishop
Warburton, have maintained, on the other extreme, that it says
nothing whatever about a future life, but rather implies the total
and eternal end of men in death. But the most judicious,
trustworthy critics hold an intermediate position, and affirm that
the Hebrew Scriptures show a general belief in the separate
existence of the spirit, not indeed as experiencing rewards and
punishments, but as surviving in the common silence and gloom of
the under world, a desolate empire of darkness yawning beneath all
graves and peopled with dream like ghosts.1

A number of important passages have been cited from different
parts of the Old Testament by the advocates of the view first
mentioned above. It will be well for us to notice these and their
misuse before proceeding farther.

The translation of Enoch has been regarded as a revelation of the
immortality of man. It is singular that Dr. Priestley should
suggest, as the probable fact, so sheer and baseless a hypothesis
as he does in his notes upon the Book of Genesis. He says, "Enoch
was probably a prophet authorized to announce the reality of
another life after this; and he might be removed into it without
dying, as an evidence of the truth of his doctrine." The gross
materialism of this supposition, and the failure of God's design
which it implies, are a sufficient refutation of it. And, besides
the utter unlikelihood of the thought, it is entirely destitute of
support in the premises. One of the most curious of the many
strange things to be found in Warburton's argument for the Divine
Legation of Moses an argument marked, as is well known, by
profound erudition, and, in many respects, by consummate ability
is the use he makes of this account to prove that Moses believed
the doctrine of immortality, but purposely obscured the fact from
which it might be drawn by the people, in order that it might not
interfere with his doctrine of the temporal special providence of
Jehovah over the Jewish nation. Such a course is inconsistent with
sound morality, much more with the character of an inspired
prophet of God.

The only history we have of Enoch is in the fifth chapter of the
Book of Genesis. The substance of it is as follows: "And Enoch
walked with God during his appointed years; and then he was not,
for God took him." The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
following the example of those Rabbins who, several centuries
before his time, began to give mystical interpretations of the
Scriptures, infers from this statement that Enoch was borne into
heaven without tasting death. But it is not certainly known who
the author of that epistle was; and, whoever he was, his opinion,
of course, can have no authority upon a subject of criticism like

1 Boettcher, De Inferis Rebusque post mortem futuris ex Hebraorum
et Gracoram Opinionibus.

this. Replying to the supposititious argument furnished by this
passage, we say, Take the account as it reads, and it neither
asserts nor implies the idea commonly held concerning it. It says
nothing about translation or immortality; nor can any thing of the
kind be legitimately deduced from it. Its plain meaning is no more
nor less than this: Enoch lived three hundred and sixty five
years, fearing God and keeping his commandments, and then he died.
Many of the Rabbins, fond as they are of finding in the Pentateuch
the doctrine of future blessedness for the good, interpret this
narrative as only signifying an immature death; for Enoch, it will
be recollected, reached but about half the average age of the
others whose names are mentioned in the chapter. Had this
occurrence been intended as the revelation of a truth, it would
have been fully and clearly stated; otherwise it could not answer
any purpose. As Le Clerc observes, "If the writer believed so
important a fact as that Enoch was immortal, it is wonderful that
he relates it as secretly and obscurely as if he wished to hide
it." But, finally, even admitting that the account is to be
regarded as teaching literally that God took Enoch, it by no means
proves a revelation of the doctrine of general immortality. It
does not show that anybody else would ever be translated or would
in any way enter upon a future state of existence. It is not put
forth as a revelation; it says nothing whatever concerning a
revelation. It seems to mean either that Enoch suddenly died, or
that he disappeared, nobody knew whither. But, if it really means
that God took him into heaven, it is more natural to think that
that was done as a special favor than as a sign of what awaited
others. No general cause is stated, no consequence deduced, no
principle laid down, no reflection added. How, then, can it be
said that the doctrine of a future life for man is revealed by it
or implicated in it?

The removal of Elijah in a chariot of fire, of which we read in
the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings, is usually
supposed to have served as a miraculous proof of the fact that the
faithful servants of Jehovah were to be rewarded with a life in
the heavens. The author of this book is not known, and can hardly
be guessed at with any degree of plausibility. It was
unquestionably written, or rather compiled, a long time probably
several hundred years after the prophets whose wonderful
adventures it recounts had passed away. The internal evidence is
sufficient, both in quality and quantity, to demonstrate that the
book is for the most part a collection of traditions. This
characteristic applies with particular force to the ascension of
Elijah. But grant the literal truth of the account: it will not
prove the point in support of which it is advanced, because it
does not purport to have been done as a revelation of the doctrine
in question, nor did it in any way answer the purpose of such a
revelation. So far from this, in fact, it does not seem even to
have suggested the bare idea of another state of existence in a
single instance. For when Elisha returned without Elijah, and told
the sons of the prophets at Jericho that his master had gone up in
a chariot of fire, which event they knew beforehand was going to
happen, they, instead of asking the particulars or exulting over
the revelation of a life in heaven, calmly said to him, "Behold,
there be with thy servants fifty sons of strength: let them go, we
pray thee, and seek for Elijah, lest peradventure a whirlwind, the
blast of the Lord, hath caught him up and cast him upon one of the
mountains or into one of the valleys. And he said, Ye shall not
send. But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send."
This is all that is told us. Had it occurred as is stated, it
would not so easily have passed from notice, but mighty
inferences, never to be forgotten, would have been drawn from it
at once. The story as it stands reminds one of the closing scene
in the career of Romulus, speaking of whom the historians say, "In
the thirty seventh year of his reign, while he was reviewing an
army, a tempest arose, in the midst of which he was suddenly
snatched from the eyes of men. Hence some thought he was killed by
the senators, others, that he was borne aloft to the gods."2 If
the ascension of Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire did really
take place, and if the books held by the Jews as inspired and
sacred contained a history of it at the time of our Savior, it is
certainly singular that neither he nor any of the apostles allude
to it in connection with the subject of a future life.

The miracles performed by Elijah and by Elisha in restoring the
dead children to life related in the seventeenth chapter of the
First Book of Kings and in the fourth chapter of the Second Book
are often cited in proof of the position that the doctrine of
immortality is revealed in the Old Testament. The narration of
these events is found in a record of unknown authorship. The mode
in which the miracles were effected, if they were miracles, the
prophet measuring himself upon the child, his eyes upon his eyes,
his mouth upon his mouth, his hands upon his hands, and in one
case the child sneezing seven times, looks dubious. The two
accounts so closely resemble each other as to cast still greater
suspicion upon both. In addition to these considerations, and even
fully granting the reality of the miracles, they do not touch the
real controversy, namely, whether the Hebrew Scriptures contain
the revealed doctrine of a conscious immortality or of a future
retribution. The prophet said, "O Lord my God, let this child's
soul, I pray thee, come into his inward parts again." "And the
Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came
into him again, and he revived." Now, the most this can show is
that the child's soul was then existing in a separate state. It
does not prove that the soul was immortal, nor that it was
experiencing retribution, nor even that it was conscious. And we
do not deny that the ancient Jews believed that the spirits of the
dead retained a nerveless, shadowy being in the solemn vaults of
the under world. The Hebrew word rendered soul in the text is
susceptible of three meanings: first, the shade, which, upon the
dissolution of the body, is gathered to its fathers in the great
subterranean congregation; second, the breath of a person, used as
synonymous with his life; third, a part of the vital breath of
God, which the Hebrews regarded as the source of the life of all
creatures, and the withdrawing of which they supposed was the
cause of death. It is clear that neither of these meanings can
prove any thing in regard to the real point at issue, that is,
concerning a future life of rewards and punishments.

One of the strongest arguments brought to support the proposition
which we are combating at least, so considered by nearly all the
Rabbins, and by not a few modern critics is the account of the
vivification of the dead recorded in the thirty seventh chapter of
the Book of Ezekiel. The prophet "was carried in the spirit of
Jehovah" that is, mentally, in a prophetic ecstasy into a valley
full of dry bones. "The bones came together, the flesh

2 Livy, i. 16; Dion. Hal. ii. 56.


grew on them, the breath came into them, and they lived and stood
on their feet, an exceeding great army." It should first be
observed that this account is not given as an actual occurrence,
but, after the manner of Ezekiel, as a prophetic vision meant to
symbolize something. Now, of what was it intended as the symbol? a
doctrine, or a coming event? a general truth to enlighten and
guide uncertain men, or an approaching deliverance to console and
encourage the desponding Jews? It is fair to let the prophet be
his own interpreter, without aid from the glosses of prejudiced
theorizers. It must be borne in mind that at this time the prophet
and his countrymen were bearing the grievous burden of bondage in
a foreign nation. "And Jehovah said to me, Son of man, these bones
denote the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are
dried, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off." This plainly
denotes their present suffering in the Babylonish captivity, and
their despair of being delivered from it. "Therefore prophesy, and
say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will open your
graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, O my people,
and bring you into the land of Israel." That is, I will rescue you
from your slavery and restore you to freedom in your own land. The
dry bones and their subsequent vivification, therefore, clearly
symbolize the misery of the Israelites and their speedy
restoration to happiness. Death is frequently used in a figurative
sense to denote misery, and life to signify happiness. But those
who maintain that the doctrine of the resurrection is taught as a
revealed truth in the Hebrew Scriptures are not willing to let
this passage pass so easily. Mr. Barnes says, "The illustration
proves that the doctrine was one with which the people were
familiar." Jerome states the argument more fully, thus: "A
similitude drawn from the resurrection, to foreshadow the
restoration of the people of Israel, would never have been
employed unless the resurrection itself were believed to be a fact
of future occurrence; for no one thinks of confirming what is
uncertain by what has no existence."

It is not difficult to reply to these objections with convincing
force. First, the vision was not used as proof or confirmation,
but as symbol and prophecy. Secondly, the use of any thing as an
illustration does by no means imply that it is commonly believed
as a fact. For instance, we are told in the ninth chapter of the
Book of Judges that Jotham related an allegory to the people as an
illustration of their conduct in choosing a king, saying, "The
trees once on a time went forth to anoint a king over them; and
they said to the olive tree, Come thou and reign over us;" and so
on. Does it follow that at that time it was a common belief that
the trees actually went forth occasionally to choose them a king?
Thirdly, if a given thing is generally believed as a fact, a
person who uses it expressly as a symbol, of course does not
thereby give his sanction to it as a fact. And if a belief in the
resurrection of the dead was generally entertained at the time of
the prophet, its origin is not implied, and it does not follow
that it was a doctrine of revelation, or even a true doctrine.
Finally, there is one consideration which shows conclusively that
this vision was never intended to typify the resurrection; namely,
that it has nothing corresponding to the most essential part of
that doctrine. When the bones have come together and are covered
with flesh, God does not call up the departed spirits of these
bodies from Sheol, does not bring back the vanished lives to
animate their former tabernacles, now miraculously renewed. No: he
but breathes on them with his vivifying breath, and straightway
they live and move. This is not a resurrection, but a new
creation. The common idea of a bodily restoration implies and,
that any just retribution be compatible with it, it necessarily
implies the vivification of the dead frame, not by the
introduction of new life, but by the reinstalment of the very same
life or spirit, the identical consciousness that before animated
it. Such is not represented as being the case in Ezekiel's vision
of the valley of dry bones. That vision had no reference to the
future state.

In this connection, the revelation made by the angel in his
prophecy, recorded in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel,
concerning the things which should happen in the Messianic times,
must not be passed without notice. It reads as follows: "And many
of the sleepers of the dust of the ground shall awake, those to
life everlasting, and these to shame, to contempt everlasting. And
they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,
and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever
and ever." No one can deny that a judgment, in which reward and
punishment shall be distributed according to merit, is here
clearly foretold. The meaning of the text, taken with the
connection, is, that when the Messiah appears and establishes his
kingdom the righteous shall enjoy a bodily resurrection upon the
earth to honor and happiness, but the wicked shall be left below
in darkness and death.3 This seems to imply, fairly enough, that
until the advent of the Messiah none of the dead existed
consciously in a state of retribution. The doctrine of the
passage, as is well known, was held by some of the Jews at the
beginning of the Christian era, and, less distinctly, for about
two centuries previous. Before that time no traces of it can be
found in their history. Now, had a doctrine of such intense
interest and of such vast importance as this been a matter of
revelation, it seems hardly possible that it should have been
confined to one brief and solitary text, that it should have
flashed up for a single moment so brilliantly, and then vanished
for three or four centuries in utter darkness. Furthermore, nearly
one half of the Book of Daniel is written in the Chaldee tongue,
and the other half in the Hebrew,  indicating that it had two
authors, who wrote their respective portions at different periods.
Its critical and minute details of events are history rather than
prophecy. The greater part of the book was undoubtedly written as
late as about a hundred and sixty years before Christ, long after
the awful simplicity and solitude of the original Hebrew theology
had been marred and corrupted by an intermixture of the doctrines
of those heathen nations with whom the Jews had been often brought
in contact. Such being the facts in the case, the text is
evidently without force to prove a divine revelation of the
doctrine it teaches.

In the twenty second chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, Jesus says
to the Sadducees, "But as touching the resurrection of the dead,
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I
am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." The passage to
which reference is made is written in the third chapter of the
Book of Exodus. In order to ascertain the force of the Savior's
argument, the extent of meaning it had in his mind, and the amount
of knowledge attributed by it to Moses, it will be necessary to
determine first the definite purpose he had

3 Wood, The Last Things, p. 45.


in view in his reply to the Sadducees, and how he proposed to
accomplish it. We shall find that the use he made of the text does
not imply that Moses had the slightest idea of any sort of future
life for man, much less of an immortal life of blessedness for the
good and of suffering for the bad. We should suppose, beforehand,
that such would be the case, since upon examining the declaration
cited, with its context, we find it to be simply a statement made
by Jehovah explaining who he was, that he was the ancient national
guardian of the Jews, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This does not seem to contain the most distant allusion to the
immortality of man, or to have suggested any such thought to the
mind of Moses. It should be distinctly understood from the outset
that Jesus did not quote this passage from the Pentateuch as
proving any thing of itself, or as enabling him to prove any thing
by it directly, but as being of acknowledged authority to the
Sadducees themselves, to form the basis of a process of reasoning.
The purpose he had in view, plainly, was to convince the Sadducees
either of the possibility or of the actuality of the resurrection
of the dead: its possibility, if we assume that by resurrection he
meant the Jewish doctrine of a material restoration, the reunion
of soul and body; its actuality, if we suppose he meant the
conscious immortality of the soul separate from the body. If the
resurrection was physical, Christ demonstrates to the Sadducees
its possibility, by refuting the false notion upon which they
based their denial of it. They said, The resurrection of the body
is impossible, because the principle of life, the consciousness,
has utterly perished, and the body cannot live alone. He replied,
It is possible, because the soul has an existence separate from
the body, and, consequently, may be reunited to it. You admit that
Jehovah said, after they were dead, I am the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob: but he is the God of the living, and not of the
dead, for all live unto him. You must confess this. The soul,
then, survives the body, and a resurrection is possible. It will
be seen that this implies nothing concerning the nature or
duration of the separate existence, but merely the fact of it.
But, if Christ meant by the resurrection of the dead as we think
he did the introduction of the disembodied and conscious soul into
a state of eternal blessedness, the Sadducees denied its reality
by maintaining that no such thing as a soul existed after bodily
dissolution. He then proved to them its reality in the following
manner. You believe for Moses, to whose authority you implicitly
bow, relates it that God said, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob," and this, long after they died. But evidently he
cannot be said to be the God of that which does not exist:
therefore their souls must have been still alive. And if Jehovah
was emphatically their God, their friend, of course he will show
them his loving kindness. They are, then, in a conscious state of
blessedness. The Savior does not imply that God said so much in
substance, nor that Moses intended to teach, or even knew, any
thing like it, but that, by adding to the passage cited a premise
of his own, which his hearers granted to be true, he could deduce
so much from it by a train of new and unanswerable reasoning. His
opponents were compelled to admit the legitimacy of his argument,
and, impressed by its surpassing beauty and force, were silenced,
if not convinced. The credit of this cogent proof of human
immortality, namely, that God's love for man is a pledge and
warrant of his eternal blessedness a proof whose originality and
significance set it far beyond all parallel is due to the dim
gropings of no Hebrew prophet, but to the inspired insight of the
great Founder of Christianity.

The various passages yet unnoticed which purport to have been
uttered by Jehovah or at his command, and which are urged to show
that the reality of a retributive life after death is a revealed
doctrine of the Old Testament, will be found, upon critical
examination, either to owe their entire relevant force to
mistranslation, or to be fairly refuted by the reasonings already
advanced. Professor Stuart admits that he finds only one
consideration to show that Moses had any idea of a future
retribution; and that is, that the Egyptians expressly believed
it; and he is not able to comprehend how Moses, who dwelt so long
among them, should be ignorant of it.4 The reasoning is obviously
inconsequential. It is not certain that the Egyptians held this
doctrine in the time of Moses: it may have prevailed among them
before or after, and not during, that period. If they believed it
at that time, it may have been an esoteric doctrine, with which he
did not become acquainted. If they believed it, and he knew it, he
might have classed it with other heathen doctrines, and supposed
it false. And, even if he himself believed it, he might possibly
not have inculcated it upon the Israelites; and the question is,
what he did actually teach, not what he knew.

The opinions of the Jews at the time of the Savior have no bearing
upon the point in hand, because they were acquired at a later
period than that of the writing of the records we are now
considering. They were formed, and gradually grew in consistency
and favor, either by the natural progress of thought among the
Jews themselves, or, more probably, by a blending of the
intimations of the Hebrew Scriptures with Gentile speculations,
the doctrines of the Egyptians, Hindus, and Persians. We leave
this portion of the subject, then, with the following proposition.
In the canonic books of the Old Dispensation there is not a single
genuine text, claiming to come from God, which teaches explicitly
any doctrine whatever of a life beyond the grave. That doctrine as
it existed among the Jews was no part of their pure religion, but
was a part of their philosophy. It did not, as they held it, imply
any thing like our present idea of the immortality of the soul
reaping in the spiritual world what it has sowed in the physical.
It simply declared the existence of human ghosts amidst unbroken
gloom and stillness in the cavernous depths of the earth, without
reward, without punishment, without employment, scarcely
with consciousness, as will immediately appear.

We proceed to the second general division of the subject. What
does the Old Testament, apart from the revelation claimed to be
contained in it, and regarding only those portions of it which are
confessedly a collection of the poetry, history, and philosophy of
the Hebrews, intimate concerning a future state of existence?
Examining these writings with an unbiased mind, we discover that
in different portions of them there are large variations and
opposition of opinion. In some books we trace an undoubting belief
in certain rude notions of the future condition of souls; in other
books we encounter unqualified denials of every such thought. "Man
lieth down and riseth not," sighs the despairing Job. "The dead
cannot praise God, neither any that go down into darkness," wails
the repining Psalmist. "All go to one place,"

4 Exegetical Essays, (Andover, 1830,) p. 108.


and "the dead know not any thing," asserts the disbelieving
Preacher. These inconsistencies we shall not stop to point out and
comment upon. They are immaterial to our present purpose, which is
to bring together, in their general agreement, the sum and
substance of the Hebrew ideas on this subject.

The separate existence of the soul is necessarily implied by the
distinction the Hebrews made between the grave, or sepulchre, and
the under world, or abode of shades. The Hebrew words bor and
keber mean simply the narrow place in which the dead body is
buried; while Sheol represents an immense cavern in the interior
of the earth where the ghosts of the deceased are assembled. When
the patriarch was told that his son Joseph was slain by wild
beasts, he cried aloud, in bitter sorrow, "I will go down to Sheol
unto my son, mourning."

He did not expect to meet Joseph in the grave; for he supposed his
body torn in pieces and scattered in the wilderness, not laid in
the family tomb. The dead are said to be "gathered to their
people," or to "sleep with their fathers," and this whether they
are interred in the same place or in a remote region. It is
written, "Abraham gave up the ghost, and was gathered unto his
people," notwithstanding his body was laid in a cave in the field
of Machpelah, close by Hebron, while his people were buried in
Chaldea and Mesopotamia. "Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and
was gathered unto his people;" and then we read, as if it were
done afterwards, "His sons, Jacob and Esau, buried him." These
instances might be multiplied. They prove that "to be gathered
unto one's fathers" means to descend into Sheol and join there the
hosts of the departed. A belief in the separate existence of the
soul is also involved in the belief in necromancy, or divination,
the prevalence of which is shown by the stern laws against those
who engaged in its unhallowed rites, and by the history of the
witch of Endor. She, it is said, by magical spells evoked the
shade of old Samuel from below. It must have been the spirit of
the prophet that was supposed to rise; for his body was buried at
Ramah, more than sixty miles from Endor. The faith of the Hebrews
in the separate existence of the soul is shown, furthermore, by
the fact that the language they employed expresses, in every
instance, the distinction of body and spirit. They had particular
words appropriated to each. "As thy soul liveth," is a Hebrew
oath. "With my spirit within me will I seek thee early." "I,
Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body:" the
figure here represents the soul in the body as a sword in a
sheath. "Our bones are scattered at the mouth of the under world,
as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth;" that is,
the soul, expelled from its case of clay by the murderer's weapon,
flees into Sheol and leaves its exuvioe at the entrance. "Thy
voice shall be as that of a spirit out of the ground:" the word
"Lhere used signifies the shade evoked by a necromancer from the
region of death, which was imagined to speak in a feeble whisper.

The term rephaim is used to denote the manes of the departed. The
etymology of the word, as well as its use, makes it mean the weak,
the relaxed. "I am counted as them that go down into the under
world; I am as a man that hath no strength." This faint, powerless
condition accords with the idea that they were destitute of flesh,
blood, and animal life, mere umbroe. These ghosts are described as
being nearly as destitute of sensation as they are of strength.
They are called "the inhabitants of the land of stillness." They
exist in an inactive, partially torpid state, with a dreamy
consciousness of past and present, neither suffering nor enjoying,
and seldom moving. Herder says of the Hebrews, "The sad and
mournful images of their ghostly realm disturbed them, and were
too much for their self possession." Respecting these images, he
adds, "Their voluntary force and energy were destroyed. They were
feeble as a shade, without distinction of members, as a nerveless
breath. They wandered and flitted in the dark nether world." This
"wandering and flitting," however, is rather the spirit of
Herder's poetry than of that of the Hebrews; for the whole tenor
and drift of the representations in the Old Testament show that
the state of disembodied souls is deep quietude. Freed from
bondage, pain, toil, and care, they repose in silence. The ghost
summoned from beneath by the witch of Endor said, "Why hast thou
disquieted me to bring me up?" It was, indeed, in a dismal abode
that they took their long quiet; but then it was in a place "where
the wicked ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest."

Those passages which attribute active employments to the dwellers
in the under world are specimens of poetic license, as the context
always shows. When Job says, "Before Jehovah the shades beneath
tremble," he likewise declares, "The pillars of heaven tremble and
are confounded at his rebuke." When Isaiah breaks forth in that
stirring lyric to the King of Babylon,

"The under world is in commotion on account of thee, To meet thee
at thy coming; It stirreth up before thee the shades, all the
mighty of the earth; It arouseth from their thrones all the kings
of the nations; They all accost thee, and say, Art thou too become
weak as we?"

he also exclaims, in the same connection,

"Even the cypress trees exult over thee, And the cedars of
Lebanon, saying, Since thou art fallen, No man cometh up to cut us
down."

The activity thus vividly described is evidently a mere figure of
speech: so is it in the other instances which picture the rephaim
as employed and in motion. "Why," complainingly sighed the
afflicted patriarch, "why died I not at my birth? For now should I
lie down and be quiet; I should slumber; I should then be at
rest." And the wise man says, in his preaching, "There is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol." What has already
been said is sufficient to establish the fact that the Hebrews had
an idea that the souls of men left their bodies at death and
existed as dim shadows, in a state of undisturbed repose, in the
bowels of the earth.

Sheol is directly derived from a Hebrew word, signifying, first,
to dig or excavate. It means, therefore, a cavity, or empty
subterranean place. Its derivation is usually connected, however,
with the secondary meaning of the Hebrew word referred to, namely,
to ask, to desire, from the notion of demanding, since rapacious
Orcus lays claim unsparingly to all; or, as others have fancifully
construed it, the object of universal inquiry, the unknown mansion
concerning which all are anxiously inquisitive. The place is
conceived on an immense scale, shrouded in accompaniments of
gloomy grandeur and peculiar awe: an enormous cavern in the earth,
filled with night; a stupendous hollow kingdom, to which are
poetically attributed valleys and gates, and in which are
congregated the slumberous and shadowy hosts of the rephaim, never
able to go out of it again forever. Its awful stillness is
unbroken by noise. Its thick darkness is uncheered by light. It
stretches far down under the ground. It is wonderfully deep. In
language that reminds one of Milton's description of hell, where
was

"No light, but rather darkness visible,"

Job describes it as "the land of darkness, like the blackness of
death shade, where is no order, and where the light is as
darkness." The following passages, selected almost at random, will
show the ideas entertained of the place, and confirm and
illustrate the foregoing statements. "But he considers not that in
the valleys of Sheol are her guests." "Now shall I go down into
the gates of Sheol." "The ground slave asunder, and the earth
opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all
their men, and all their goods: they and all that appertained to
them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed upon them."
Its depth is contrasted with the height of the sky. "Though they
dig into Sheol, thence shall mine hand take them; though they
climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down." It is the
destination of all; for, though the Hebrews believed in a world of
glory above the solid ceiling of the dome of day, where Jehovah
and the angels dwelt, there was no promise, hope, or hint that any
man could ever go there. The dirge like burden of their poetry was
literally these words: "What man is he that liveth and shall not
see death? Shall he deliver his spirit from the hand of Sheol?"
The old Hebrew graves were crypts, wide, deep holes, like the
habitations of the troglodytes. In these subterranean caves they
laid the dead down; and so the Grave became the mother of Sheol, a
rendezvous of the fathers, a realm of the dead, full of eternal
ghost life.

This under world is dreary and altogether undesirable, save as an
escape from extreme anguish. But it is not a place of retribution.
Jahn says, "That, in the belief of the ancient Hebrews, there were
different situations in Sheol for the good and the bad, cannot be
proved."5 The sudden termination of the present life is the
judgment the Old Testament threatens upon sinners; its happy
prolongation is the reward it promises to the righteous. Texts
that prove this might be quoted in numbers from almost every page.
"The wicked shall be turned into Sheol, and all the nations that
forget God," not to be punished there, but as a punishment. It is
true, the good and the bad alike pass into that gloomy land; but
the former go down tranquilly in a good old age and full of days,
as a shock of corn fully ripe cometh in its season, while the
latter are suddenly hurried there by an untimely and miserable
fate. The man that loves the Lord shall have length of days; the
unjust, though for a moment he flourishes, yet the wind bloweth,
and where is he?

We shall perhaps gain a more clear and adequate knowledge of the
ideas the Hebrews had of the soul and of its fate, by marking the
different meanings of the words they used to

5 Biblical Archeology, sect. 314.


denote it. Neshamah, primarily meaning breath or airy effluence,
next expresses the Spirit of God as imparting life and force,
wisdom and love; also the spirit of man as its emanation,
creation, or sustained object. The citation of a few texts in
which the word occurs will set this in a full light. "The Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the spirit of existence, and man became a conscious
being." "It is the divine spirit of man, even the inspiration of
the Almighty, that giveth him understanding." "The Spirit of God
made me, and his breath gave me life."

Ruah signifies, originally, a breathing or blowing. Two other
meanings are directly connected with this. First, the vital
spirit, the principle of life as manifested in the breath of the
mouth and nostrils. "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two
and two of all flesh in whose nostrils was the breath of life."
Second, the wind, the motions of the air, which the Hebrews
supposed caused by the breath of God. "By the blast of thine anger
the waters were gathered on an heap." "The channels of waters were
seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered, O Lord, at
the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." So they regarded the
thunder as his voice. "The voice of Jehovah cutteth out the fiery
lightnings," and "shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh." This word is
also frequently placed for the rational spirit of man, the seat of
intellect and feeling. It is likewise sometimes representative of
the character and disposition of men, whether good or bad. Hosea
speaks of "a spirit of vile lust." In the Second Book of
Chronicles we read, "There came out a spirit, and stood before
Jehovah, and said, I will entice King Ahab to his destruction. I
will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his
prophets." Belshazzar says to Daniel, "I know that the spirit of
the holy gods is in thee." Finally, it is applied to Jehovah,
signifying the divine spirit, or power, by which all animate
creatures live, the universe is filled with motion, all
extraordinary gifts of skill, genius, strength, or virtue are
bestowed, and men incited to forsake evil and walk in the paths of
truth and piety. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created,
and thou renewest the face of the earth; thou takest away their
breath, they die and return to their dust." "Jehovah will be a
spirit of justice in them that sit to administer judgment." It
seems to be implied that the life of man, having emanated from the
spirit, is to be again absorbed in it, when it is said, "Then
shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it."

Nephesh is but partially a synonym for the word whose
significations we have just considered. The different senses it
bears are strangely interchanged and confounded in King James's
version. Its first meaning is breath, the breathing of a living
being. Next it means the vital spirit, the indwelling life of the
body. "If any mischief follow, thou shalt take life for life." The
most adequate rendering of it would be, in a great majority of
instances, by the term life. "In jeopardy of his life [not soul]
hath Adonijah spoken this." It sometimes represents the
intelligent soul or mind, the subject of knowledge and desire. "My
soul knoweth right well.". Also the heart, is often used more
frequently perhaps than any other term as meaning the vital
principle, and the seat of consciousness, intellect, will, and
affection. Jehovah said to Solomon, in answer to his prayer, "Lo,
I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart." The later
Jews speculated much, with many cabalistic refinements, on these
different words. They said many persons were supplied with a
Nephesh without a Ruah, much more without a Neshamah. They
declared that the Nephesh (Psyche) was the soul of the body, the
Ruah (Pneuma) the soul of the Nephesh, and the Neshamah (Nous) the
soul of the Ruah. Some of the Rabbins assert that the destination
of the Nephesh, when the body dies, is Sheol; of the Ruah, the
air; and of the Neshamah, heaven. 6

The Hebrews used all those words in speaking of brutes, to denote
their sensitive existence, that they did in reference to men. They
held that life was in every instance an emission, or breath, from
the Spirit of God. But they do not intimate of brutes, as they do
of men, that they have surviving shades. The author of the Book of
Ecclesiastes, however, bluntly declares that "all have one breath,
and all go to one place, so that a man hath no pre eminence above
a beast." As far as the words used to express existence, soul, or
mind, legitimate any inference, it would seem to be, either that
the essential life is poured out at death as so much air, or else
that it is received again by God, in both cases implying
naturally, though not of philosophic necessity, the close of
conscious, individual existence. But the examination we have made
of their real opinions shows that, however obviously this
conclusion might flow from their pneumatology, it was not the
expectation they cherished. They believed there was a dismal
empire in the earth where the rephaim, or ghosts of the dead,
reposed forever in a state of semi sleep.

"It is a land of shadows: yea, the land
Itself is but a shadow, and the race
That dwell therein are voices, forms of forms.
And echoes of themselves."

That the Hebrews, during the time covered by their sacred records,
had no conception of a retributive life beyond the present, knew
nothing of a blessed immortality, is shown by two conclusive
arguments, in addition to the positive demonstration afforded by
the views which, as we have seen, they did actually hold in regard
to the future lot of man. First, they were puzzled, they were
troubled and distressed, by the moral phenomena of the present
life, the misfortunes of the righteous, the prosperity of the
wicked. Read the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Book of Job, some of
the Psalms. Had they been acquainted with future reward and
punishment, they could easily have solved these problems to their
satisfaction. Secondly, they regarded life as the one blessing,
death as the one evil. Something of sadness, we may suppose, was
in the wise man's tones when he said, "A living dog is better than
a dead lion." Obey Jehovah's laws, that thy days may be long in
the land he giveth thee; the wicked shall not live out half his
days: such is the burden of the Old Testament. It was reserved for
a later age to see life and immortality brought to light, and for
the disciples of a clearer faith to feel that death is gain.

There are many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures generally
supposed and really appearing, upon a slight examination, not
afterwards to teach doctrines different from those here stated. We
will give two examples in a condensed form. "Thou wilt not leave

6 Tractatus de Anima a R. Moscheh Korduero. In Kabbala Denudata.
tom. i. pars ii.


my soul in Sheol: . . . at thy right hand are pleasures for
evermore." This text, properly translated and explained, means,
Thou wilt not leave me to misfortune and untimely death: . . . in
thy royal favor is prosperity and length of days. "I know that my
Redeemer liveth:. . . in my flesh I shall see God." The genuine
meaning of this triumphant exclamation of faith is, I know that
God is the Vindicator of the upright, and that he will yet justify
me before I die. A particular examination of the remaining
passages of this character with which erroneous conceptions are
generally connected would show, first, that in nearly every case
these passages are not accurately translated; secondly, that they
may be satisfactorily interpreted as referring merely to this
life, and cannot by a sound exegesis be explained otherwise;
thirdly, that the meaning usually ascribed to them is inconsistent
with the whole general tenor, and with numberless positive and
explicit statements, of the books in which they are found;
fourthly, that if there are, as there dubiously seem to be in some
of the Psalms, texts implying the ascent of souls after death to a
heavenly life, for example, "Thou shalt guide me with thy
countenance, and afterward receive me to glory," they were the
product of a late period, and reflect a faith not native to the
Hebrews, but first known to them after their intercourse with the
Persians.

Christians reject the allegorizing of the Jews, and yet
traditionally accept, on their authority, doctrines which can be
deduced from their Scriptures in no other way than by the absurd
hypothesis of a double or mystic sense. For example, scores of
Christian authors have taught the dogma of a general resurrection
of the dead, deducing it from such passages as God's sentence upon
Adam: "From the dust wast thou taken, and unto the dust shalt thou
return;" as Joel's patriotic picture of the Jews victorious in
battle, and of the vanquished heathen gathered in the valley of
Jehoshaphat to witness their installation as rulers of the earth;
and as the declaration of the God of battles: "I am he that kills
and that makes alive, that wounds and that heals." And they
maintain that the doctrine of immortality is inculcated in such
texts as these: when Moses asks to see God, and the reply is, "No
man can see me and live;" when Bathsheba bows and says, "Let my
lord King David live forever;" and when the sacred poet praises
God, saying, "Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes
from tears, and my feet from falling." Such interpretations of
Scripture are lamentable in the extreme; their context shows them
to be absurd. The meaning is forced into the words, not derived
from them.

Such as we have now seen were the ancient Hebrew ideas of the
future state. To those who received them the life to come was
cheerless, offering no attraction save that of peace to the weary
sufferer. On the other hand, it had no terror save the natural
revulsion of the human heart from everlasting darkness, silence,
and dreams. In view of deliverance from so dreary a fate, by
translation through Jesus Christ to the splendors of the world
above the firmament, there are many exultations in the Epistles of
Paul, and in other portions of the New Testament.

The Hebrew views of the soul and its destiny, as discerned through
the intimations of their Scriptures are very nearly what, from a
fair consideration of the case, we should suppose they would be,
agreeing in the main with the natural speculations of other early
nations upon the same subject. These opinions underwent but little
alteration until a century or a century and a half before the dawn
of the Christian era.

This is shown by the phraseology of the Septuagint version of
the Pentateuch, and by the allusions in the so called
Apocryphal books. In these, so far as there are any relevant
statements or implications, they are of the same character as
those which we have explained from the more ancient writings. This
is true, with the notable exceptions of the Wisdom of Solomon and
the Second Maccabees, neither of which documents can be dated
earlier than a hundred and twenty years before Christ. The former
contains the doctrine of transmigration. The author says, "Being
wise, I came into a body undefiled."7 But, with the exception of
this and one other passage, there is little or nothing in the book
which is definite on the subject of a future life. It is difficult
to tell what the author's real faith was: his words seem rather
rhetorical than dogmatic. He says, "To be allied unto wisdom is
immortality;" but other expressions would appear to show that by
immortality he means merely a deathless posthumous fame, "leaving
an eternal memorial of himself to all who shall come after him."
Again he declares, "The spirit when it is gone forth returneth
not; neither the soul received up cometh again." And here we find,
too, the famous text, "God created man to be immortal, and made
him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy
of the devil came death into the world, and they that hold of his
side do find it."8 Upon the whole, it is pretty clear that the
writer believed in a future life; but the details are too
partially and obscurely shadowed to be drawn forth. We may,
however, hazard a conjecture on the passage last quoted,
especially with the help of the light cast upon it from its
evident Persian origin. What is it, expressed by the term "death,"
which is found by the adherents of the devil distinctively?
"Death" cannot here be a metaphor for an inward state of sin and
woe, because it is contrasted with the plainly literal phrases,
"created to be immortal," "an image of God's eternity." It cannot
signify simply physical dissolution, because this is found as well
by God's servants as by the devil's. Its genuine meaning is, most
probably, a descent into the black kingdom of sadness and silence
under the earth, while the souls of the good were "received up."

The Second Book of Maccabees with emphasis repeatedly asserts
future retribution and a bodily resurrection. In the seventh
chapter a full account is given of seven brothers and their mother
who suffered martyrdom, firmly sustained by faith in a glorious
reward for their heroic fidelity, to be reaped at the
resurrection. One of them says to the tyrant by whose order he was
tortured, "As for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life."
Nicanor, bleeding from many horrible wounds, "plucked out his
bowels and cast them upon the throng, and, calling upon the Lord
of life and spirit to restore him those again, [at the day of
resurrection,] he thus died."9 Other passages in this book to the
same effect it is needless to quote. The details lying latent in
those we have quoted will soon be illuminated and filled out when
we come to treat of the opinions of the Pharisees. 10

7 Cap. viii. 20.

8 Cap. ii. 23, 24.

9 Cap. xiv. 46.

10 See a very able discussion of the relation between the ideas
concerning immortality, resurrection, judgment, and retribution,
contained in the Old Testament Apocrypha, and those in the New
Testament, by Frisch, inserted in Eichhorn's Allgemeine Bibliothek
der Biblischen Literatur, band iv. stuck iv.


There lived in Alexandria a very learned Jew named Philo, the
author of voluminous writings, a zealous Israelite, but deeply
imbued both with the doctrines and the spirit of Plato. He was
born about twenty years before Christ, and survived him about
thirty years. The weight of his character, the force of his
talents, the fascinating adaptation of his peculiar philosophical
speculations and of his bold and subtle allegorical expositions of
Scripture to the mind of his age and of the succeeding centuries,
together with the eminent literary position and renown early
secured for him by a concurrence of causes, have combined to make
him exert according to the expressed convictions of the best
judges, such as Lucke and Norton a greater influence on the
history of Christian opinions than any single man, with the
exception of the Apostle Paul, since the days of Christ. It is
important, and will be interesting, to see some explanation of his
views on the subject of a future life. A synopsis of them must
suffice.

Philo was a Platonic Alexandrian Jew, not a Zoroastrian
Palestinian Pharisee. It was a current saying among the Christian
Fathers, "Vel Plato Philonizat, vel Philo Platonizat." He has
little to say of the Messiah, nothing to say of the Messianic
eschatology. We speak of him in this connection because he was a
Jew, flourishing at the commencement of the Christian epoch, and
contributing much, by his cabalistic interpretations, to lead
Christians to imagine that the Old Testament contained the
doctrine of a spiritual immortality connected with a system of
rewards and punishments.

Three principal points include the substance of Philo's faith on
the subject in hand. He rejected the notion of a resurrection of
the body and held to the natural immortality of the soul. He
entertained the most profound and spiritual conceptions of the
intrinsically deadly nature and wretched fruits of all sin, and of
the self contained welfare and self rewarding results of every
element of virtue, in themselves, independent of time and place
and regardless of external bestowments of woe or joy. He also
believed at the same time in contrasted localities above and
below, appointed as the residences of the disembodied souls of
good and of wicked men. We will quote miscellaneously various
passages from him in proof and illustration of these statements:

"Man's bodily form is made from the ground, the soul from no
created thing, but from the Father of all; so that, although man
was mortal as to his body, he was immortal as to his mind."11
"Complete virtue is the tree of immortal life."12 "Vices and
crimes, rushing in through the gate of sensual pleasure, changed a
happy and immortal life for a wretched and mortal one."13
Referring to the allegory of the garden of Eden, he says, "The
death threatened for eating the fruit was not natural, the
separation of soul and body, but penal, the sinking of the soul in
the body."14 "Death is twofold, one of man, one of the soul. The
death of man is the separation of the soul from the body; the
death of the soul is the corruption of virtue

11 Mangey's edition of Philo's works, vol. i. p. 32.

12 Ibid. p. 38.

13 Ibid. p. 37.

14 Ibid. p. 65.


and the assumption of vice."15 "To me, death with the pious is
preferable to life with the impious. For those so dying, deathless
life delivers; but those so living, eternal death seizes."16 He
writes of three kinds of life, "one of which neither ascends nor
cares to ascend, groping in the secret recesses of Hades and
rejoicing in the most lifeless life."17 Commenting on the promise
of the Lord to Abram, that he should be buried in a good old age,
Philo observes that "A polished, purified soul does not die, but
emigrates: it is of an inextinguishable and deathless race, and
goes to heaven, escaping the dissolution and corruption which
death seems to introduce."18 "A vile life is the true Hades,
despicable and obnoxious to every sort of execration." 19
"Different regions are set apart for different things, heaven for
the good, the confines of the earth for the bad."20 He thinks the
ladder seen by Jacob in his dream "is a figure of the air, which,
reaching from earth to heaven, is the house of unembodied souls,
the image of a populous city having for citizens immortal souls,
some of whom descend into mortal bodies, but soon return aloft,
calling the body a sepulchre from which they hasten, and, on light
wings seeking the lofty ether, pass eternity in sublime
contemplations."21 "The wise inherit the Olympic and heavenly
region to dwell in, always studying to go above; the bad, the
innermost parts of Hades, always laboring to die."22 He literally
accredits the account, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, of the
swallowing of Korah and his company, saying, "The earth opened and
took them alive into Hades."23 "Ignorant men regard death as the
end of punishments, whereas in the Divine judgment it is scarcely
the beginning of them."24 He describes the meritorious man as
"fleeing to God and receiving the most intimate honor of a firm
place in heaven; but the reprobate man is dragged below, down to
the very lowest place, to Tartarus itself and profound
darkness."25 "He who is not firmly held by evil may by repentance
return to virtue, as to the native land from which he has
wandered. But he who suffers from incurable vice must endure its
dire penalties, banished into the place of the impious until the
whole of eternity."26

Such, then, was the substance of Philo's opinions on the theme
before us, as indeed many more passages, which we have omitted as
superfluous, might be cited from him to show. Man was made
originally a mortal body and an immortal soul. He should have been
happy and pure while in the body, and on leaving it have soared up
to the realm of light and bliss on high, to join the angels.
"Abraham, leaving his mortal part, was added to the people of God,

15 Ibid. p. 65.

16 Ibid. p. 233.

17 Ibid. p. 479.

18 Ibid. p. 513.

19 Ibid. p. 527.

20 Ibid. p. 555.

21 Ibid. p. 641, 642.

22 Ibid. p. 643.

23 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 178.

24 Ibid. p. 419.

25 Mangey's edition of Philo's Works, vol. ii. p. 433.

26 Ibid. vol. i. p. 139.


enjoying immortality and made similar to the angels. For the
angels are the army of God, bodiless and happy souls."27 But,
through the power of evil, all who yield to sin and vice lose that
estate of bright and blessed immortality, and become discordant,
wretched, despicable, and, after the dissolution of the body, are
thrust down to gloom and manifold just retribution in Hades. He
believed in the pre existence, and in a limited transmigration, of
souls. Here he leaves the subject, saying nothing of a
resurrection or final restoration, and not speculating as to any
other of the details. 28

We pass on to speak of the Jewish sects at the time of Christ.
There were three of these, cardinally differing from each other in
their theories of the future fate of man. First, there were the
skeptical, materialistic Sadducees, wealthy, proud, few. They
openly denied the existence of any disembodied souls, avowing that
men utterly perished in the grave. "The cloud faileth and passeth
away: so he that goeth down to the grave doth not return."29 We
read in the Acts of the Apostles, "The Sadducees say there is no
resurrection, neither angel nor spirit." At the same time they
accepted the Pentateuch, only rejecting or explaining away those
portions of it which relate to the separate existence of souls and
to their subterranean abode. They strove to confound their
opponents, the advocates of a future life, by such perplexing
questions as the one they addressed to Jesus, asking, in the case
of a woman who had had seven successive husbands, which one of
them should be her husband in the resurrection. All that we can
gather concerning the Sadducees from the New Testament is amply
confirmed by Josephus, who explicitly declares, "Their doctrine is
that souls die with the bodies."

The second sect was the ascetical and philosophical Essenes, of
whom the various information given by Philo in his celebrated
paper on the Therapeuta agrees with the account in Josephus and
with the scattered gleams in other sources. The doctrine of the
Essenes on the subject of our present inquiry was much like that
of Philo himself; and in some particulars it remarkably resembles
that of many Christians. They rejected the notion of the
resurrection of the body, and maintained the inherent immortality
of the soul. They said that "the souls of men, coming out of the
most subtle and pure air, are bound up in their bodies as in so
many prisons; but, being freed at death, they do rejoice, and are
borne aloft where a state of happy life forever is decreed for the
virtuous; but the vicious are assigned to eternal punishment in a
dark, cold place." 30 Such sentiments appear to have inspired the
heroic Eleazar, whose speech to his followers is reported by
Josephus, when they were besieged at Masada, urging them to rush
on the foe, "for death is better than life, is the only true life,
leading the soul to infinite freedom and joy above."31

27 Ibid. p. 164.

28 See, in the Analekten of Keil and Tzschirner, band i stuck
ii., an article by Dr. Schreiter, entitled Philo's Ideen uber
Unsterblichkeit, Auferstehung, und Vergeltung.

29 Lightfoot in Matt. xxii. 23.

30 Josephus, De Bell. lib. ii. cap. 8.

31 Ibid. lib. vii. cap. 8.


But by far the most numerous and powerful of the Jewish sects at
that time, and ever since, were the eclectic, traditional,
formalist Pharisees: eclectic, inasmuch as their faith was formed
by a partial combination of various systems; traditional, since
they allowed a more imperative sway to the authority of the
Fathers, and to oral legends and precepts, than to the plain
letter of Scripture; formalist, for they neglected the weightier
spiritual matters of the law in a scrupulous tithing of mint,
cumin, and anise seed, a pretentious wearing of broad
phylacteries, an uttering of long prayers in the streets, and the
various other hypocritical priestly paraphernalia of a severe
mechanical ritual.

From Josephus we learn that the Pharisees believed that the souls
of the faithful that is, of all who punctiliously observed the law
of Moses and the traditions of the elders would live again by
transmigration into new bodies; but that the souls of all others,
on leaving their bodies, were doomed to a place of confinement
beneath, where they must abide forever. These are his words: "The
Pharisees believe that souls have an immortal strength in them,
and that in the under world they will experience rewards or
punishments according as they have lived well or ill in this life.
The righteous shall have power to live again, but sinners shall be
detained in an everlasting prison."32 Again, he writes, "The
Pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but that only the
souls of good men are removed into other bodies."33 The fragment
entitled "Concerning Hades," formerly attributed to Josephus, is
now acknowledged on all sides to be a gross forgery. The Greek
culture and philosophical tincture with which he was imbued led
him to reject the doctrine of a bodily resurrection; and this is
probably the reason why he makes no allusion to that doctrine in
his account of the Pharisees. That such a doctrine was held among
them is plain from passages in the New Testament, passages which
also shed light upon the statement actually made by Josephus.
Jesus says to Martha, "Thy brother shall rise again." She replies,
"I know that he shall rise in the resurrection, at the last day."
Some of the Pharisees, furthermore, did not confine the privilege
or penalty of transmigration, and of the resurrection, to the
righteous. They once asked Jesus, "Who did sin, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?" Plainly, he could not have been
born blind for his own sins unless he had known a previous life.
Paul, too, says of them, in his speech at Casarea, "They
themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of the
dead, both of the just and of the unjust." This, however, is very
probably an exception to their prevailing belief. Their religious
intolerance, theocratic pride, hereditary national vanity, and
sectarian formalism, often led them to despise and overlook the
Gentile world, haughtily restricting the boon of a renewed life to
the legal children of Abraham.

But the grand source now open to us of knowledge concerning the
prevailing opinions of the Jews on our present subject at and
subsequent to the time of Christ is the Talmud. This is a
collection of the traditions of the oral law, (Mischna,) with the
copious precepts and comments (Gemara) of the most learned and
authoritative Rabbins. It is a wonderful monument of myths and
fancies, profound speculations and ridiculous puerilities, antique

32 Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1.33 De Bell. lib. ii. cap. 8.


legends and cabalistic subtleties, crowned and loaded with the
national peculiarities. The Jews reverence it extravagantly,
saying, "The Bible is salt, the Mischna pepper, the Gemara balmy
spice." Rabbi Solomon ben Joseph sings, in our poet's version,

"The Kabbala and Talmud hoar Than all the Prophets prize I more;
For water is all Bible lore, But Mischna is pure wine."

The rambling character and barbarous dialect of this work have
joined with various other causes to withhold from it far too much
of the attention of Christian critics. Saving by old Lightfoot and
Pocock, scarcely a contribution has ever been offered us in
English from this important field. The Germans have done far
better; and numerous huge volumes, the costly fruits of their
toils, are standing on neglected shelves. The eschatological views
derived from this source are authentically Jewish, however closely
they may resemble some portion of the popular Christian
conceptions upon the same subject. The correspondences between
some Jewish and some Christian theological dogmas betoken the
influx of an adulterated Judaism into a nascent Christianity, not
the reflex of a pure Christianity upon a receptive Judaism. It is
important to show this; and it appears from several
considerations. In the first place, it is demonstrable, it is
unquestioned, that at least the germs and outlines of the dogmas
referred to were in actual existence among the Pharisees before
the conflict between Christianity and Judaism arose.Secondly, in
the Rabbinical writings these dogmas are most fundamental, vital,
and pervading, in relation to the whole system; but in the
Christian they seem subordinate and incidental, have every
appearance of being ingrafts, not outgrowths. Thirdly, in the
apostolic age Judaism was a consolidated, petrified system,
defended from outward influence on all sides by an invulnerable
bigotry, a haughty exclusiveness; while Christianity was in a
young and vigorous, an assimilating and formative, state.
Fourthly, the overweening sectarian vanity and scorn of the Jews,
despising, hating, and fearing the Christians, would not permit
them to adopt peculiarities of belief from the latter; but the
Christians were undeniably Jews in almost every thing except in
asserting the Messiahship of Jesus: they claimed to be the genuine
Jews, children of the law and realizers of the promise. The Jewish
dogmas, therefore, descended to them as a natural lineal
inheritance. Finally, in the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of
Paul, and the progress of the Ebionites, (which sect included
nearly all the Christians of the first century,) we can trace step
by step the actual workings, in reliable history, of the process
that we affirm, namely, the assimilation of Jewish elements into
the popular Christianity.

CHAPTER IX.

RABBINICAL DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE starting point in the Talmud on this subject is with the
effects of sin upon the human race. Man was made radiant, pure,
immortal, in the image of God. By sin he was obscured, defiled,
burdened with mortal decay and judgment. In this representation
that misery and death were an after doom brought into the world by
sin, the Rabbinical authorities strikingly agree. The testimony is
irresistible. We need not quote confirmations of this statement,
as every scholar in this department will accept it at once. But as
to what is meant precisely by the term "death," as used in such a
connection, there is no little obscurity and diversity of opinion.
In all probability, some of the Pharisaical fathers perhaps the
majority of them conceived that, if Adam had not sinned, he and
his posterity would have been physically immortal, and would
either have lived forever on the earth, or have been successively
transferred to the home of Jehovah over the firmament. They call
the devil, who is the chief accuser in the heavenly court of
justice, the angel of death, by the name of "Sammael." Rabbi
Reuben says, "When Sammael saw Adam sin, he immediately sought to
slay him, and went to the heavenly council and clamored for
justice against him, pleading thus: 'God made this decree, "In the
day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt surely die." Therefore give
him to me, for he is mine, and I will kill him; to this end was I
created; and give me power over all his descendants.' When the
celestial Sanhedrim perceived that his petition was just, they
decreed that it should be granted."1 A great many expressions of
kindred tenor might easily be adduced, leaving it hardly possible
to doubt as indeed we are not aware that any one does doubt that
many of the Jews literally held that sin was the sole cause of
bodily dissolution. But, on the other hand, there were as
certainly others who did not entertain that idea, but understood
and explained the terms in which it was sometimes conveyed in a
different, a partially figurative, sense. Rabbi Samuel ben David
writes, "Although the first Adam had not sinned, yet death would
have been; for death was created on the first day." The reference
here is, as Rabbi Berechias explains, to the account in Genesis
where we read that "darkness was upon the face of the deep," "by
which is to be understood the angel of death, who has darkened the
face of man."2 The Talmudists generally believed also in the pre
existence of souls in heaven, and in a spiritual body investing
and fitting the soul for heaven, as the present carnal body
invests and fits it for the earth. Schoettgen has collected
numerous illustrations in point, of which the following may serve
as specimens.3 "When the first Adam had not sinned, he was every
way an angel of the Lord, perfect and spotless, and it was decreed
that he should live forever like one of the celestial ministers."
"The soul cannot ascend into Paradise except it be first invested
with a

1 Schoettgen, Dissertatio de Hierosolyma Coelesti, cap. iii. sect.
9.

2 Schoettgen, Hora Biblica et Talmudica, in Rom. v. 12, et in
Johan. iii. 19.

3 Ibid. in 2 Cor. v. 2.


clothing adapted to that world, as the present is for this world."
These notions do not harmonize with the thought that man was
originally destined for a physical eternity on this globe. All
this difficulty disappears, we think, and the true metaphorical
force often intended in the word "death" comes to view, through
the following conception, occupying the minds of a portion of the
Jewish Rabbins, as we are led to believe by the clews furnished in
the close connection between the Pharisaic and the Zoroastrian
eschatology, by similar hints in various parts of the New
Testament, and by some quite explicit declarations in the Talmud
itself, which we shall soon cite in a different connection. God at
first intended that man should live for a time in pure blessedness
on the earth, and then without pain should undergo a glorious
change making him a perfect peer of the angels, and be translated
to their lofty abode in his own presence; but, when he sinned, God
gave him over to manifold suffering, and on the destruction of his
body adjudged his naked soul to descend to a doleful imprisonment
below the grave. The immortality meant for man was a timely ascent
to heaven in a paradisal clothing, without dying. The doom brought
on him by sin was the alteration of that desirable change of
bodies and ascension to the supernal splendors, for a permanent
disembodiment and a dreaded descent to the subterranean glooms. It
is a Talmudical as much as it is a Pauline idea, that the
triumphant power of the Messiah would restore what the unfortunate
fall of Adam forfeited. Now, if we can show as we think we can,
and as we shall try to do in a later part of this article that the
later Jews expected the Messianic resurrection to be the prelude
to an ascent into heaven, and not the beginning of a gross earthly
immortality, it will powerfully confirm the theory which we have
just indicated. "When," says one of the old Rabbins, "the dead in
Israelitish earth are restored alive," their bodies will be "as
the body of the first Adam before he sinned, and they shall all
fly into the air like birds."4

At all events, whether the general Rabbinical belief was in the
primitive destination of man to a heavenly or to an earthly
immortality, whether the "death" decreed upon him in consequence
of sin was the dissolution of the body or the wretchedness of the
soul, they all agree that the banishment of souls into the realm
of blackness under the grave was a part of the penalty of sin.
Some of them maintained, as we think, that, had there been no sin,
souls would have passed to heaven in glorified bodies; others of
them maintained, as we think, that, had there been no sin, they
would have lived eternally upon earth in their present bodies; but
all of them agreed, it is undisputed, that in consequence of sin
souls were condemned to the under world. No man would have seen
the dismal realm of the sepulchre had there not been sin. The
earliest Hebrew conception was that all souls went down to a
common abode, to spend eternity in dark slumber or nerveless
groping. This view was first modified soon after the Persian
captivity, by the expectation that there would be discrimination
at the resurrection which the Jews had learned to look for, when
the just should rise but the wicked should be left.

The next alteration of their notions on this subject was the
subdivision of the underworld into Paradise and Gehenna, a
conception known among them probably as early as a century before
Christ, and very prominent with them in the apostolic age. "When
Rabbi

4 Schoettgen, in 1 Cor. xv. 44.


Jochanan was dying, his disciples asked him, 'Light of Israel,
main pillar of the right, thou strong hammer, why dost thou weep?'
He answered, 'Two paths open before me, the one leading to bliss,
the other to torments; and I know not which of them will be my
doom.'"5 "Paradise is separated from hell by a distance no greater
than the width of a thread."6 So, in Christ's parable of Dives and
Lazarus, Abraham's bosom and hell are two divisions. "There are
three doors into Gehenna: one in the wilderness, where Korah and
his company were swallowed; one in the sea, where Jonah descended
when he 'cried out of the belly of hell;' one in Jerusalem, for
the Lord says, 'My furnace is in Jerusalem.'"7 "The under world is
divided into palaces, each of which is so large that it would take
a man three hundred years to roam over it. There are distinct
apartments where the hell punishments are inflicted. One place is
so dark that its name is 'Night of Horrors."8 "In Paradise there
are certain mansions for the pious from the Gentile peoples, and
for those mundane kings who have done kindness to the
Israelites."9 "The fire of Gehenna was kindled on the evening of
the first Sabbath, and shall never be extinguished."10 The
Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, and Greeks, with all of whom the Jews
held relations of intercourse, had, in their popular
representations of the under world of the dead, regions of peace
and honor for the good, and regions of fire for the bad. The idea
may have been adopted from them by the Jews, or it may have been
at last developed among themselves, first by the imaginative
poetical, afterwards by the literally believing, transference
below of historical and local imagery and associations, such as
those connected with the ingulfing of Sodom and Gomorrah in fire
and sulphur, and with the loathed fires in the valley of Hinnom.

Many of the Rabbins believed in the transmigration or revolution
of souls, an immemorial doctrine of the Fast, and developed it
into the most ludicrous and marvellous details.11 But, with the
exception of those who adopted this Indian doctrine, the Rabbins
supposed all departed souls to be in the under world, some in the
division of Paradise, others in that of hell. Here they fancied
these souls to be longingly awaiting the advent of the Messiah.
"Messiah and the patriarchs weep together in Paradise over the
delay of the time of the kingdom."12 In this quotation the Messiah
is represented as being in the under world, for the Jews expected
that he would be a man, very likely some one who had already
lived. For a delegation was once sent to ask Jesus, "Art thou
Elias? art thou the Messiah? art thou that prophet?" Light is thus
thrown upon the Rabbinical saying that "it was doubted whether the
Messiah would come from the living, or the dead."13 Borrowing some
Persian modes of thinking, and adding them to their own inordinate
national pride, the Rabbins soon began

5 Talmud, tract. Berachoth.

6 Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, th. ii. cap. v. s. 315.

7 Lightfoot, in Matt. v. 22.

8 Schroder, Satzungen and Gebrauche des Talmudisch Rabbinischen
Judenthums, s. 408.

9 Schoettgen, in Johan. xiv. 2.

10 Nov. Test. ex Talmude, etc. illustratum a J. G. Menschen, p.
125.

11 Basnage, Hist. of Jews, lib. iv. cap. 30. Also, Traditions of
the Rabbins, in Blackwood for April, 1833.

12 Eisenmenger, th. ii. s. 304.

13 Lightfoot, in Matt. ii. 16.


to fancy that the observance or non observance of the Pharisaic
ritual, and kindred particulars, must exert a great effect in
determining the destination of souls and their condition in the
under world. Observe the following quotations from the Talmud.
"Abraham sits at the gate of hell to see that no Israelite
enters." "Circumcision is so agreeable to God, that he swore to
Abraham that no one who was circumcised should descend into
hell."14 "What does Abraham to those circumcised who have sinned
too much? He takes the foreskins from Gentile boys who died
without circumcision, and places them on those Jews who were
circumcised but have become godless, and then kicks them into
hell."15 Hell here denotes that division in the under world where
the condemned are punished. The younger Buxtorf, in a preface to
his father's "Synagoga Judaica," gives numerous specimens of
Jewish representations of "the efficacy of circumcision being so
great that no one who has undergone it shall go down into hell."
Children can help their deceased parents out of hell by their good
deeds, prayers, and offerings.16 "Beyond all doubt," says Gfrorer,
"the ancient Jewish synagogue inculcated the doctrine of
supererogatory good works, the merit of which went to benefit the
departed souls."17 Here all souls were, in the under world, either
in that part of it called Paradise, or in that named Gehenna,
according to certain conditions. But in whichever place they were,
and under whatever circumstances, they were all tarrying in
expectation of the advent of the Messiah.

How deeply rooted, how eagerly cherished, the Jewish belief in the
approaching appearance of the Messiah was, and what a splendid
group of ideas and imaginations they clustered around his reign,
are well known facts. He was to be a descendant of royal David, an
inspired prophet, priest, and king, was to subdue the whole earth
beneath his Jewish sceptre and establish from Jerusalem a
theocratic empire of unexampled glory, holiness, and delight. In
so much the consent was general and earnest; though in regard to
many further details there would seem to have been an incongruous
diversity of opinions. They supposed the coming of the Messiah
would be preceded by ten frightful woes,18 also by the appearance
of the prophet Elias as a forerunner.19 There are a few passages
in the Rabbinical writings which, unless they were forged and
interpolated by Christians at a late period, show that there were
in the Jewish mind anticipations of the personal descent of the
Messiah into the under world.20 "After this the Messiah, the son
of David, came to the gates of the underworld. But when the bound,
who are in Gehenna, saw the light of the Messiah, they began
rejoicing to receive him, saying, 'He shall lead us up from this
darkness.'" "The captives shall

14 Schroder, s. 332.

15 Eisenmenger, th. ii. kap. vi. s. 340.

16 Ibid. s. 358.

17 Geschichte des Urchristenthums, zweit. abth. s. 186. Maimonides
also asserts the doctrine of supererogatory works: see p. 237 of
H. H. Bernard's Selections from the Yad Hachazakah of Maimonides.

18 Surenhusius, Mischna, pars tertia, p. 308.

19 Lightfoot, in Matt. xvii. 10.

20 For a general view of the Jewish eschatology, see Gfrorer,
Geschichte des Urchristenthums, kap. x.; Eisenmenger, Entdecktes
Judenthum, th. ii. kap. xv. xvii.


ascend from the under world, Schechinah at their head."21 Gfrorer
derives the origin of the doctrine that Christ rescued souls out
of the under world, from a Jewish notion, preserved in the
Talmud,22 that the just patriarchs sometimes did it.23 Bertholdt
adduces Talmudical declarations to show that through the Messiah
"God would hereafter liberate the Israelites from the under world,
on account of the merit of circumcision"24 Schoettgen quotes this
statement from the Sohar: "Messia shall die, and shall remain in
the state of death a time, and shall rise."25 The so called Fourth
Book of Ezra says, in the seventh chapter, "My son, the Christ,
shall die: then follow the resurrection and the judgment."
Although it is clear, from various other sources, as well as from
the account in John xii. 34, that there was a prevalent
expectation among the Jews that "the Messiah would abide forever,"
it also seems quite certain that there were at the same time at
least obscure presentiments, based on prophecies and traditions,
that he must die, that an important part of his mission was
connected with his death. This appears from such passages as we
have cited above, found in early Rabbinical writers, who would
certainly be very unlikely to borrow and adapt a new idea of such
a character from the Christians; and from the manner in which
Jesus assumes his death to be a part of the Messianic fate and
interprets the Scriptures as necessarily pointing to that effect.
He charges his disciples with being "fools and blind" in not so
understanding the doctrine; thus seeming to imply that it was
plainly known to some. But this question the origin of the idea of
a suffering, atoning, dying Messiah is confessedly a very nice and
obscure one. The evidence, the silence, the inferences, the
presumptions and doubts on the subject are such, that some of the
most thorough and impartial students say they are unable to decide
either way.

However the foregoing question be decided, it is admitted by all
that the Jews earnestly looked for a resurrection of the dead as
an accompaniment of the Messiah's coming. Whether Christ was to go
down into the under world, or to sit enthroned on Mount Zion, in
either case the dead should come up and live again on earth at the
blast of his summoning trumpet. Rabbi Jeremiah commanded, "When
you bury me, put shoes on my feet, and give me a staff in my hand,
and lay me on one side, that when the Messiah comes I may be
ready."26 Most of the Rabbins made this resurrection partial.
"Whoever denies the resurrection of the dead shall have no part in
it, for the very reason that he denies it."27 "Rabbi Abbu says, "A
day of rain is greater than the resurrection of the dead; because
the rain is for all, while the resurrection is only for the
just."28 "Sodom and Gomorrah shall not rise in the resurrection of
the dead."29 Rabbi Chebbo says, "The patriarchs so vehemently
desired to be buried in

21 Schoettgen, De Messia, lib. vi. cap. v. sect. 1.

22 Eisenmenger, th. ii. ss. 343, 364.

23 Geschichte Urchrist. kap. viii. s. 184.

24 Christologia Judaorum Jesu Apostolorumque Atate, sect. 34, (De
Descensu Messia ad Inferos.)

25 De Messia, lib. vi. cap. v. sect. 2.

26 Lightfoot, in Matt. xxvii. 52.

27 Witsius, Dissertatio de Seculo, etc. sect. 9.

28 Nov. Test. Illustratum, etc. a Meuschen, p. 62.

29 Schoettgen, in Johan. vi. 39.


the land of Israel, because those who are dead in that land shall
be the first to revive and shall devour his years, [the years of
the Messiah.] But for those just who are interred beyond the holy
land, it is to be understood that God will make a passage in the
earth, through which they will be rolled until they reach the land
of Israel."30 Rabbi Jochanan says, "Moses died out of the holy
land, in order to show that in the same way that God will raise up
Moses, so he will raise all those who observe his law." The
national bigotry of the Jews reaches a pitch of extravagance in
some of their views that is amusing. For instance, they declare
that "one Israelitish soul is dearer and more important to God
than all the souls of a whole nation of the Gentiles!" Again, they
say, "When God judges the Israelites, he will stand, and make the
judgment brief and mild; when he judges the Gentiles, he will sit,
and make it long and severe!" They affirm that the resurrection
will be effected by means of a dew; and they quote to that effect
this verse from Canticles: "I sleep, but my heart waketh; my head
is filled with dew, and my locks with drops of the night." Some
assert that "the resurrection will be immediately caused by God,
who never gives to any one the three keys of birth, rain, and the
resurrection of the dead." Others say that the power to raise and
judge the dead will be delegated to the Messiah, and even go so
far as to assert that the trumpet whose formidable blasts will
then shake the universe is to be one of the horns of that ram
which Abraham offered up instead of his son Isaac! Some confine
the resurrection to faithful Jews, some extend it to the whole
Jewish nation, some think all the righteous of the earth will have
part in it, and some stretch its pale around all mankind alike.31
They seem to agree that the reprobate would either be left in the
wretched regions of Sheol when the just arose, or else be thrust
back after the judgment, to remain there forever. It was believed
that the righteous after their resurrection would never die again,
but ascend to heaven. The Jews after a time, when the increase of
geographical knowledge had annihilated from the earth their old
Eden whence the sinful Adam was expelled, changed its location
into the sky. Thither, as the later fables ran, Elijah was borne
in his chariot of fire by the horses thereof. Rabbi Pinchas says,
"Carefulness leads us to innocence, innocence to purity, purity to
sanctity, sanctity to humility, humility to fear of sins, fear of
sins to piety, piety to the holy spirit, the holy spirit to the
resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of the dead to the
prophet Elias."32 The writings of the early Christian Fathers
contain many allusions to this blessed habitation of saints above
the clouds. It is illustrated in the following quaint Rabbinical
narrative. Rabbi Jehosha ben Levi once besought the angel of death
to take him up, ere he died, to catch a glimpse of Paradise.
Standing on the wall, he suddenly snatched the angel's sword and
sprang over, swearing by Almighty God that he would not come out.
Death was not allowed to enter Paradise, and the son of Levi did
not restore his sword until he had promised to be more gentle
towards the dying.33 The righteous were never to return to the
dust, but "at the end

30 Schoettgen, De Messia, lib. vi. cap. vi. sect. 27.

31 See an able dissertation on Jewish Notions of the Resurrection
of the Dead, prefixed to Humphrey's Translation of Athenagoras on
the Resurrection.

32 Surenhusius, Mischna, pars tertia, p. 309.

33 Schroder, s. 419.


of the thousand years," the duration of the Messiah's earthly
reign, "when the Lord is lifted up, God shall fit wings to the
just, like the wings of eagles."34 In a word, the Messiah and his
redeemed ones would ascend into heaven to the right hand of God.
So Paul, who said, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee,"
declares that when the dead have risen "we shall be caught up in
the clouds to be forever with the Lord."

We forbear to notice a thousand curious details of speculation and
fancy in which individual Rabbins indulged; for instance, their
common notion concerning the bone luz, the single bone which,
withstanding dissolution, shall form the nucleus of the
resurrection body. It was a prevalent belief with them that the
resurrection would take place in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in
proof of which they quote this text from Joel: "Let the heathen be
wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I
sit to judge the nations around." To this day, wherever scattered
abroad, faithful Jews cling to the expectation of the Messiah's
coming, and associate with his day the resurrection of the dead.35
The statement in the Song of Solomon, "The king is held in the
galleries," means, says a Rabbinical book, "that the Messiah is
detained in Paradise, fettered by a woman's hair!" Every day,
throughout the world, every consistent Israelite repeats the words
of Moses Maimonides, the peerless Rabbi, of whom it is a proverb
that "from Moses to Moses there arose not a Moses:" "I believe
with a perfect faith that the Messiah will come, and though he
delays, nevertheless, I will always expect him till he come." Then
shall glory cover the living, and the risen, children of Israel,
and confusion fall on their Gentile foes. In almost every inch of
the beautiful valley of Jehoshaphat a Jew has been buried. All
over the slopes of the hill sides around lie the thick clustering
sepulchral slabs, showing how eagerly the chosen people seek to
sleep in the very spot where the first rising of the dead shall
be. Entranced and mute,

"In old Jehoshaphat's valley, they
Of Israel think the assembled world
Will stand upon that awful day,
When the Ark's light, aloft unfurl'd,
Among the opening clouds shall shine,
Divinity's own radiant shrine."

Any one familiar with the Persian theology36 will at once notice a
striking resemblance between many of its dogmas and those, first,
of Pharisaism, secondly, of the popular Christianity. Some
examination of this subject properly belongs here. There is, then,
as is well known, a circle or group of ideas, particularly
pertaining to eschatology, which appear in the later Jewish
writings, and remarkably correspond to those held by the Parsees,
the followers of Zoroaster. The same notions also reappear in the
early Christianity as popularly understood. We will specify some
of these correspondences. The doctrine of angels, received by the
Jews, their names, offices, rank, and destiny, was borrowed and
formed

34 Schoettgen, de Messia, lib. vi. cap. vi. sect. 23; cap. vii.
ss. 3, 4.

35 John Allen, Modern Judaism, ch. vi. and xv.

36 See Abriss der Religion Zoroasters nach den Zendbuchern, von
Abbe Foucher, in Kleuker's Zend Avesta, band i. zweit anhang, ss.
328-342.


by them during and just after the Babylonish captivity, and is
much like that which they found among their enslavers.37 The
guardian angels appointed over nations, spoken of by Daniel, are
Persian. The angels called in the Apocalypse "the seven spirits of
God sent forth into all the earth," in Zechariah "the seven eyes
of God which run to and fro through all the earth," are the
Amschaspands of the Persian faith. The wars of the angels are
described as minutely by the old Persians as by Milton. The Zend
Avesta pictures Ahriman pregnant with Death, (die alte
hollenschlange, todschwangere Ahriman,) as Milton describes the
womb of Sin bearing that fatal monster. The Gahs, or second order
of angels, the Persians supposed,38 were employed in preparing
clothing and laying it up in heaven to clothe the righteous after
the resurrection, a fancy frequent among the Rabbins and
repeatedly alluded to in the New Testament. With both the Persians
and the Jews, all our race both sexes sprang from one original
man. With both, the first pair were seduced and ruined by means of
fruit which the devil gave to them. With both, there was a belief
in demoniacal possessions, devils or bad spirits entering human
bodies. With both, there was the expectation of a great
Deliverer,  the Persian Sosiosch, the Jewish Messiah, whose coming
would be preceded by fearful woes, who would triumph over all
evil, raise the dead, judge the world, separate the righteous and
the wicked, purge the earth with fire, and install a reign of
glorious blessedness.39 "The conception of an under world," says
Dr. Roth, "was known centuries before Zoroaster; but probably he
was the first to add to the old belief the idea that the under
world was a place of purification, wherein souls were purged from
all traces of sin."40 Of this belief in a subterranean purgatory
there are numerous unmistakable evidences and examples in the
Rabbinical writings.41

These notions and others the Pharisees early adopted, and wrought
into the texture of what they called the "Oral Law," that body of
verbally transmitted legends, precepts, and dogmas, afterwards
written out and collected in the Mischna, to which Christ
repeatedly alluded with such severity, saying, "Ye by your
traditions make the commandments of God of none effect." To some
doctrines of kindred character and origin with these Paul refers
when he warns his readers against "the worshipping of angels,"
"endless genealogies," "philosophy falsely so called," and various
besetting heresies of the time. But others were so woven and
assimilated into the substance of the popular Judaism of the age,
as inculcated by the Rabbins, that Paul himself held them, the
lingering vestiges of his earnest Pharisaic education and
organized experience. They naturally found their way into the
Apostolic Church, principally composed of Ebionites, Christians
who had been Jews; and from it they were never separated, but have
come to us in seeming orthodox garb, and are generally

37 Schroder, p. 385.

38 Yacna, Ha 411. Kleuker, zweit. auf. s. 198.

39 Die Heiligen Schriften der Parsen, von Dr. F. Spiegel, kap. ii.
ss. 32-37. Studien and Kritiken, 1885, band i., "Ist die Lehre von
der Anferstehung des Leibes nicht ein alt Persische Lehre?" F.
Nork, Mythen der Alten Perser als Quellen Christlicher
Glaubenslehren und Ritualien.

40 Die Zoroastrischen Glaubenslehre, von Dr. Eduard Roth. s. 450.

41 See, In tom. i. Kabbala Denudata, Synopsis Dogmatum Libri Sohar
pp. 108, 109, 113.


retained now. Still, they were errors. They are incredible to the
thinking minds of to day. It is best to get rid of them by the
truth, that they are pagan growths introduced into Christianity,
but to be discriminated from it. By removing these antiquated and
incredible excrescences from the real religion of Christ, we shall
save the essential faith from the suspicion which their
association with it, their fancied identity with it, invites and
provokes.

The correspondences between the Persian and the Pharisaic faith,
in regard to doctrines, are of too arbitrary and peculiar a
character to allow us for a moment to suppose them to have been an
independent product spontaneously developed in the two nations;
though even in that case the doctrines in question have no
sanction of authority, not being Mosaic nor Prophetic, but only
Rabbinical. One must have received from the other. Which was the
bestower and which the recipient is quite plain.42 There is not a
whit of evidence to show, but, on the contrary, ample presumption
to disprove, that a certain cycle of notions were known among the
Jews previous to a period of most intimate and constant
intercourse between them and the Persians. But before that period
those notions were an integral part of the Persian theology. Even
Prideaux admits that the first Zoroaster lived and Magianism
flourished at least a thousand years before Christ. And the dogmas
we refer to are fundamental features of the religion. These dogmas
of the Persians, not derived from the Old Testament nor known
among the Jews before the captivity, soon after that time began to
show themselves in their literature, and before the opening of the
New Testament were prominent elements of the Pharisaic belief. The
inference is unavoidable that the confluence of Persian thought
and feeling with Hebrew thought and feeling, joined with the
materials and flowing in the channels of the subsequent experience
of the Jews, formed a mingled deposit about the age of Christ,
which deposit was Pharisaism. Again: the doctrines common to
Zoroastrianism and Pharisaism in the former seem to be prime
sources, in the latter to be late products. In the former, they
compose an organic, complete, inseparable system; in the latter,
they are disconnected, mixed piecemeal, and, to a considerable
extent, historically traceable to an origin beyond the native,
national mind. It is a significant fact that the abnormal symbolic
beasts described by several of the Jewish prophets, and in the
Apocalypse, were borrowed from Persian art. Sculptures
representing these have been brought to light by the recent
researches at Persepolis. Finally, all early ecclesiastical
history incontestably shows that Persian dogmas exerted on the
Christianity of the first centuries an enormous influence, a
pervasive and perverting power unspent yet, and which it is one of
the highest tasks of honest and laborious Christian students in
the present day to explain, define, and separate. What was that
Manichaanism which nearly filled Christendom for a hundred years,
what was it, in great part, but an influx of tradition,
speculation, imagination, and sentiment, from Persia? The Gnostic
Christians even had a scripture called "Zoroaster's Apocalypse."43
"The wise men from the east," who knelt before the infant Christ,
"and opened their treasures, and gave him gifts, gold,
frankincense, and myrrh," were Persian Magi. We may imaginatively
regard that sacred scene as an emblematical figure of the far
different tributes which

42 Lucke, Einleitung in die Offenbarung des Johannes, kap. 2,
sect. 8.

43 Kleuker, Zend Avesta, band ii. anhang i. s. 12.


a little later came from their country to his religion, the
unfortunate contributions that permeated and corrupted so much of
the form in which it thenceforth appeared and spread. In the pure
gospel's pristine day, ere it had hardened into theological dogmas
or become encumbered with speculations and comments, from the lips
of God's Anointed Son repeatedly fell the earnest warning, "Beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees." There is far more need to have
this warning intelligently heeded now, coming with redoubled
emphasis from the Master's own mouth, "Beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees." For, as the gospel is now generally set forth and
received, that leaven has leavened well nigh the whole lump of it.

CHAPTER X.

GREEK AND ROMAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE disembodied soul, as conceived by the Greeks, and after them
by the Romans, is material, but of so thin a contexture that it
cannot be felt with the hands. It is exhaled with the dying
breath, or issues through a warrior's wounds. The sword passes
through its uninjured form as through the air. It is to the body
what a dream is to waking action. Retaining the shape, lineaments,
and motion the man had in life, it is immediately recognised upon
appearing. It quits the body with much reluctance, leaving that
warm and vigorous investiture for a chill and forceless existence.
It glides along without noise and very swiftly, like a shadow. It
is unable to enter the lower kingdom and be at peace until its
deserted body has been buried with sacred rites: meanwhile, naked
and sad, it flits restlessly about the gates, uttering doleful
moans.

The early Greek authors describe the creation as a stupendous
hollow globe cut in the centre by the plane of the earth. The
upper hemisphere is lighted by beneficent luminaries; the lower
hemisphere is filled with unvarying blackness. The top of the
higher sphere is Heaven, the bright dwelling of the Olympian gods;
its bottom is the surface of the earth, the home of living men.
The top of the lower sphere is Hades, the abode of the ghosts of
the dead; its bottom is Tartarus, the prison of the Titans,
rebellious giants vanquished by Zeus. Earth lies half way from the
cope of Heaven to the floor of Tartarus. This distance is so great
that, according to Hesiod, it would take an anvil nine days to
fall from the centre to the nadir. Some of the ancients seem to
have surmised the sphericity of the earth, and to have thought
that Hades was simply its dark side, the dead being our antipodes.
In the Odyssey, Ulysses reaches Hades by sailing across the ocean
stream and passing the eternal night land of the Cimmerians,
whereupon he comes to the edge of Acheron, the moat of Pluto's
sombre house. Virgil also says, "One pole of the earth to us
always points aloft; but the other is seen by black Styx and the
infernal ghosts, where either dead night forever reigns or else
Aurora returns thither from us and brings them back the day."1 But
the prevalent notion evidently was that Hades was an immense
hollow region not far under the surface of the ground, and that it
was to be reached by descent through some cavern, like that at
Avernus.

This subterranean place is the destination of all alike, rapacious
Orcus sparing no one, good or bad. It is wrapped in obscurity, as
the etymology of its name implies, a place where one cannot see.

"No sun e'er gilds the gloomy horrors there; No cheerful gales
refresh the stagnant air."

The dead are disconsolate in this dismal realm, and the living
shrink from entering it, except as a refuge from intolerable
afflictions. The shade of the princeliest hero dwelling there the

1 Georg. lib. i. II. 242-250.


swift footed Achilles says, "I would wish, being on earth, to
serve for hire another man of poor estate, rather than rule over
all the dead." Souls carry there their physical peculiarities, the
fresh and ghastly likenesses of the wounds which have despatched
them thither, so that they are known at sight. Companies of
fellow countrymen, knots of friends, are together there,
preserving their remembrance ofearthly fortunes and beloved
relatives left behind, and eagerly questioning each newly arriving
soul for tidings from above. When the soul of Achilles is told of
the glorious deeds of Neoptolemus, "he goes away taking mighty
steps through the meadow of asphodel in joyfulness, because he had
heard that his son was very illustrious."2 Sophocles makes the
dying Antigone say, "Departing, I strongly cherish the hope that I
shall be fondly welcomed by my father, and by my mother, and by my
brother."3 It is important to notice that, according to the early
and popular view, this Hades, the "dark dwelling of the joyless
images of deceased mortals," is the destination of universal
humanity. In opposition to its dolorous gloom and repulsive
inanity are vividly pictured the glad light of day, the glory and
happiness of life. "Not worth so much to me as my life," says the
incomparable son of Peleus, "are all the treasures which populous
Troy possessed, nor all which the stony threshold of Phoebus
Apollo contains in rocky Pytho. Oxen, and fat sheep, and trophies,
and horses with golden manes, may be acquired by effort; but the
breath of man to return again is not to be obtained by plunder nor
by purchase, when once it has passed the barrier of his teeth."

It is not probable that all the ornamental details associated by
the poets with the fate and state of the dead as they are set
forth, for instance, by Virgil in the sixth book of the Aneid were
ever credited as literal truth. But there is no reason to doubt
that the essential features of this mythological scenery were
accepted in the vulgar belief. For instance, that the popular mind
honestly held that, in some vague sense or other, the ghost, on
leaving the body, flitted down to the dull banks of Acheron and
offered a shadowy obolus to Charon, the slovenly old ferryman, for
a passage in his boat, seems attested not only by a thousand
averments to that effect in the current literature of the time,
but also by the invariable custom of placing an obolus in the dead
man's mouth for that purpose when he was buried.

The Greeks did not view the banishment of souls in Hades as a
punishment for sin, or the result of any broken law in the plan of
things. It was to them merely the fulfilment of the inevitable
fate of creatures who must die, in the order of nature, like
successive growths of flowers, and whose souls were too feeble to
rank with gods and climb into Olympus. That man should cease from
his substantial life on the bright earth and subside into sunless
Hades, a vapid form, with nerveless limbs and faint voice, a
ghostly vision bemoaning his existence with idle lamentation, or
busying himself with the misty mockeries of his former pursuits,
was melancholy enough; but it was his natural destiny, and not an
avenging judgment.

But that powerful instinct in man which desires to see villany
punished and goodness rewarded could not fail, among so cultivated
a people as the Greeks, to develop a doctrine of future
compensation for the contrasted deserts of souls. The earliest
trace of the idea of

2 Odyssey, lib. xi. II. 538, 539.

3 Antigone, II. 872-874.


retribution which we find carried forward into the invisible world
is the punishment of the Titans, those monsters who tried by
piling up mountains to storm the heavenly abodes, and to wrest the
Thunderer's bolts from his hand. This germ is slowly expanded; and
next we read of a few specified criminals, who had been
excessively impious, personally offending Zeus, condemned by his
direct indignation to a severe expiation in Tartarus. The insulted
deity wreaks his vengeance on the tired Sisyphus, the mocked
Tantalus, the gnawed Tityus, and others. Afterwards we meet the
statement that condign retribution is always inflicted for the two
flagrant sins of perjury and blasphemy. Finally, we discern a
general prevalence of the belief that punishment is decreed, not
by vindictive caprice, but on the grounds of universal morality,
all souls being obliged in Hades to pass before Rhadamanthus,
Minos, or Aacus, three upright judges, to be dealt with, according
to their merits, with impartial accuracy. The distribution of
poetic justice in Hades at last became, in many authors, so
melodramatic as to furnish a fair subject for burlesque. Some
ludicrous examples of this may be seen in Lucian's Dialogues of
the Dead. A fine instance of it is also furnished in the Emperor
Julian's Symposium. The gods prepare for the Roman emperors a
banquet, in the air, below the moon. The good emperors are
admitted to the table with honors; but the bad ones are hurled
headlong down into Tartarus, amidst the derisive shouts of the
spectators.

As the notion that the wrath of the gods would pursue their
enemies in the future state gave rise to a belief in the
punishments of Tartarus, so the notion that the distinguishing
kindness of the gods would follow their favorites gave rise to the
myth of Elysium. The Elysian Fields were earliest portrayed lying
on the western margin of the earth, stretching from the verge of
Oceanus, where the sun set at eve. They were fringed with
perpetual green, perfumed with the fragrance of flowers, and
eternally fanned by refreshing breezes. They were represented
merely as the select abode of a small number of living men, who
were either the mortal relatives or the special favorites of the
gods, and who were transported thither without tasting death,
there to pass an immortality which was described, with great
inconsistency, sometimes as purely happy, sometimes as joyless and
wearisome. To all except a few chosen ones this region was utterly
inaccessible. Homer says, "But for you, O Menelaus, it is not
decreed by the gods to die; but the immortals will send you to the
Elysian plain, because you are the son in law of Zeus."4 Had the
inheritance of this clime been proclaimed as the reward of heroic
merit, had it been really believed attainable by virtue, it would
have been held up as a prize to be striven for. The whole account,
as it was at first, bears the impress of imaginative fiction as
legibly upon its front as the story of the dragon watched garden
of Hesperus's daughters, whose trees bore golden apples, or the
story of the enchanted isle in the Arabian tales.

The early location of Elysium, and the conditions of admission to
it, were gradually changed; and at length it reappeared, in the
under world, as the abode of the just. On one side of the
primitive Hades Tartarus had now been drawn up to admit the
condemned into its penal tortures, and on the other side Elysium
was lowered down to reward the justified by receiving them into
its peaceful and perennial happiness; while, between the two,
Erebus

4 Odyssey, lib. iv. II. 555-570.


remained as an intermediate state of negation and gloom for
unsentenced shades. The highly colored descriptions of this
subterranean heaven, frequently found thenceforth, it is to be
supposed were rarely accepted as solid verities. They were
scarcely ever used, to our knowledge, as motives in life,
incitement in difficulties, consolation in sorrow. They were
mostly set forth in poems, works even professedly fictitious. They
were often denied and ridiculed in speeches and writings received
with public applause. Still, they unquestionably exerted some
influence on the common modes of thought and feeling, had a
shadowy seat in the popular imagination and heart, helped men to
conceive of a blessed life hereafter and to long for it, and took
away something of the artificial horror with which, under the
power of rooted superstition, their departing ghosts hailed the
dusky limits of futurity:

"Umbra Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi Pallida regna
petunt."

First, then, from a study of the Greek mythology we find all the
dead a dull populace of ghosts fluttering through the neutral
melancholy of Hades without discrimination. And finally we discern
in the world of the dead a sad middle region, with a Paradise on
the right and a Hell on the left, the whole presided over by three
incorruptible judges, who appoint the new corners their places in
accordance with their deserts.

The question now arises, What did the Greeks think in relation to
the ascent of human souls into heaven among the gods? Did they
except none from the remediless doom of Hades? Was there no path
for the wisest and best souls to climb starry Olympus? To dispose
of this inquiry fairly, four distinct considerations must be
examined. First, Ulysses sees in the infernal regions the image of
Herakles shooting the shadows of the Stymphalian birds, while his
soul is said to be rejoicing with fair legged Hebe at the banquets
of the immortal gods in the skies. To explain this, we must
remember that Herakles was the son of Alcmene, a mortal woman, and
of Zeus, the king of the gods. Accordingly, in the flames on Mount
Oeta, the surviving ghost which he derived from his mother
descends to Hades, but the purified soul inherited from his father
has the proper nature and rank of a deity, and is received into
the Olympian synod.5 Of course no blessed life in heaven for the
generality of men is here implied. Herakles, being a son and
favorite of Zeus, has a corresponding destiny exceptional from
that of other men.

Secondly, another double representation, somewhat similar, but
having an entirely different interpretation, occurs in the case of
Orion, the handsome Hyrian hunter whom Artemis loved. At one time
he is described, like the spectre of the North American Indian,
chasing over the Stygian plain the disembodied animals he had in
his lifetime killed on the mountains:

"Swift through the gloom a giant hunter flies: A ponderous brazen
mace, with direful sway, Aloft he whirls to crush the savage prey;

5 Ovid, Met. lib. ix. II. 245-272.


Grim beasts in trains, that by his truncheon fell, Now, phantom
forms, shoot o'er the lawn of hell."

In the common belief this, without doubt, was received as actual
fact. But at another time Orion is deified and shown as one of the
grandest constellations of the sky,

"A belted giant, who, with arm uplift, Threatening the throne of
Zeus, forever stands, Sublimely impious."

This, obviously, is merely a poetic symbol, a beautiful artifice
employed by the poets to perpetuate a legend by associating it
with the imperishable hieroglyphs of the galaxy. It is not
credible that men imagined that group of stars only outlined in
such shape by the help of arbitrary fancy to be literally the
translated hunter himself. The meaning simply was that he was
immortalized through the eternal linking of his name and form with
a stellar cluster which would always shine upon men. "The
reverence and gratitude of a weak world for the heroes and
benefactors they could not comprehend, named them divinities, whom
they did star together to an idolatrous immortality which
nationalized the heavens" with the shining shapes of the great and
brave. These types of poetry, symbols lent to infant science, were
never meant to indicate a literal translation and metamorphosis of
human souls, but were honors paid to the memories of illustrious
men, emblems and pledged securities of their unfading fame. With
what glorious characters, with what forms of deathless beauty,
defiant of decay, the sky was written over! Go out this evening
beneath the old rolling dome, when the starry scroll is outspread,
and you may still read the reveries of the marvelling minds of the
antique world, as fresh in their magic loveliness as when the
bards and seers of Olympus and the Agean first stamped them in
heaven. There "the great snake binds in his bright coil half the
mighty host." There is Arion with his harp and the charmed
dolphin. The fair Andromeda, still chained to her eternal rock,
looks mournfully towards the delivering hero whose conquering hand
bears aloft the petrific visage of Medusa. Far off in the north
the gigantic Bootes is seen driving towards the Centaur and the
Scorpion. And yonder, smiling benignantly upon the crews of many a
home bound ship, are revealed the twin brothers, joined in the
embrace of an undying friendship.

Thirdly, it is asserted by several Latin authors, in general
terms, that the ghost goes to Hades but the soul ascends to
heaven; and it has been inferred most erroneously that this
statement contains the doctrine of an abode for men after death on
high with the gods. Ovid expresses the real thought in full,
thus:

"Terra tegit carnem; tumulum circumvolat umbra; Orcus habet manes;
spiritus astra petit."

"The earth conceals the flesh; the shade flits round the tomb; the
under world receives the image; the spirit seeks the stars." Those
conversant with the opinions then prevalent will scarcely doubt
that these words were meant to express the return of the composite
man to the primordial elements of which he was made. The
particulars of the dissolving individual are absorbed in the
general elements of the universe. Earth goes back to earth, ghost
to the realm of ghosts, breath to the air, fiery essence of soul
to the lofty ether in whose pure radiance the stars burn.
Euripides expressly says that when man dies each part goes whence
it came, "the body to the ground, the spirit to the ether."6
Therefore the often misunderstood phrase of the Roman writers,
"the soul seeks the stars," merely denotes the impersonal mingling
after death of the divine portion of man's being with the parent
Divinity, who was supposed indeed to pervade all things, but more
especially to reside beyond the empyrean.

Fourthly: what shall be said of the apotheosis of their celebrated
heroes and emperors by the Greeks and Romans, whereby these were
elevated to the dignity of deities, and seats were assigned them
in heaven? What was the meaning of this ceremony? It does not
signify that a celestial immortality awaits all good men; because
it appears as a thing attainable by very few, is only allotted by
vote of the Senate. Neither was it supposed actually to confer on
its recipients equality of attributes with the great gods, making
them peers of Zeus and Apollo. The homage received as gods by
Alexander and others during their lives, the deification of Julius
Casar during the most learned and skeptical age of Rome, with
other obvious considerations, render such a supposition
inadmissible. In view of all the direct evidence and collateral
probabilities, we conclude that the genuine import of an ancient
apotheosis was this: that the soul of the deceased person so
honored was admitted, in deference to his transcendent merits, or
as a special favor on the part of the gods, into heaven, into the
divine society. He was really a human soul still, but was called a
god because, instead of descending, like the multitude of human
souls, to Hades, he was taken into the abode and company of the
gods above the sky. This interpretation derives support from the
remarkable declaration of Aristotle, that "of two friends one must
be unwilling that the other should attain apotheosis, because in
such case they must be forever separated."7 One would be in
Olympus, the other in Hades. The belief that any, even a favored
few, could ever obtain this blessing, was of quite limited
development, and probably sprang from the esoteric recesses of the
Mysteries. To call a human soul a god is not so bold a speech as
it may seem. Plotinus says. "Whoever has wisdom and true virtue in
soul itself differs but little from superior beings, in this alone
being inferior to them, that he is in body. Such an one, dying,
may therefore properly say, with Empedocles, 'Farewell! a god
immortal now am I.'"

The expiring Vespasian exclaimed, "I shall soon be a god."8 Mure
says that the doctrine of apotheosis belonged to the Graco
Pelasgic race through all their history.9 Seneca severely
satirizes the ceremony, and the popular belief which upheld it, in
an elaborate lampoon called Apocolocyntosis, or the reception of
Claudius among the pumpkins. The broad travesty of

6 The Suppliants, l. 533.

7 Nicomachean Ethics, lib. viii. cap. 7.

8 Suetonius, cap. xxiii.

9 Hist. Greek Literature, vol. i. ch. 2, sect. 5.


Deification exhibited in Pumpkinification obviously measures the
distance from the honest credulity of one class and period to the
keen infidelity of another.

One of the most important passages in Greek literature, in
whatever aspect viewed, is composed of the writings of the great
Theban lyrist. Let us see what representation is there made of the
fate of man in the unseen world. The ethical perception, profound
feeling, and searching mind of Pindar could not allow him to
remain satisfied with the undiscriminating views of the future
state prevalent in his time. Upon such a man the problem of death
must weigh as a conscious burden, and his reflections would
naturally lead him to improved conclusions. Accordingly, we find
him representing the Blessed Isles not as the haven of a few
favorites of the gods, but as the reward of virtue; and the
punishments of the wicked, too, are not dependent on fickle
inclinations, but are decreed by immutable right. He does not
describe the common multitude of the dead, leading a dark sad
existence, like phantoms in a dream: his references to death and
Hades seem cheerful in comparison with those of many other ancient
Greek authors. Dionysius the Rhetorician, speaking of his
Threnes, dirges sung at funerals, says, "Simonides lamented the
dead pathetically, Pindar magnificently."

His conceptions of the life to come were inseparably connected
with certain definite locations. He believed Hades to be the
destination of all our mortal race, but conceived it subdivided
into a Tartarus for the impious and an Elysium for the righteous.
He thought that the starry firmament was the solid floor of a
world of splendor, bliss, and immortality, inhabited by the gods,
but fatally inaccessible to man. When he thinks of this place, it
is with a sigh, a sigh that man's aspirations towards it are vain
and his attempts to reach it irreverent. This latter thought he
enforces by an earnest allusion to the myth of Bellerophon, who,
daring to soar to the cerulean seat of the gods on the winged
steed Pegasus, was punished for his arrogance by being hurled down
headlong. These assertions are to be sustained by citations of his
own words. The references made are to Donaldson's edition.

In the second Pythian Ode10 Pindar repeats, and would appear to
endorse, the old monitory legend of Ixion, who for his outrageous
crimes was bound to an ever revolving wheel in Hades and made to
utter warnings against such offences as his own. In the first
Pythian we read, "Hundred headed Typhon, enemy of the gods, lies
in dreadful Tartarus."11 Among the preserved fragments of Pindar
the one numbered two hundred and twenty three reads thus: "The
bottom of Tartarus shall press thee down with solid necessities."
The following is from the first Isthmian Ode: "He who, laying up
private wealth, laughs at the poor, does not consider that he
shall close up his life for Hades without honor."12 The latter
part of the tenth Nemean Ode recounts, with every appearance of
devout belief, the history of Castor and Pollux, the god begotten
twins, who, reversing conditions with each other on successive
days and nights, spent their interchangeable immortality each
alternately in heaven and in Hades. The astronomical
interpretation of this account may be correct; but its
applicability to the wondering faith of the earlier poets is
extremely doubtful.

10 L. 39.

11 LI. 15, 16.

12 L. 68.


The seventh Isthmian contains this remarkable sentence: "Unequal
is the fate of man: he can think of great things, but is too
ephemeral a creature to reach the brazen floored seat of the
gods."13 A similar sentiment is expressed in the sixth Nemean:
"Men are a mere nothing; while to the gods the brazen heaven
remains a firm abode forever."14 The one hundred and second
fragment is supposed to be a part of the dirge composed by Pindar
on the death of the grandfather of Pericles. It runs in this way:
"Whoso by good fortune has seen the things in the hollow under the
earth knows indeed the end of life: he also knows the beginning
vouchsafed by Zeus." It refers to initiation in the Eleusinian
Mysteries, and means that the initiate understands the life which
follows death. It is well known that a clear doctrine of future
retribution was inculcated in the Mysteries long before it found
general publication. The ninety fifth fragment is all that remains
to us of a dirge which appears, from the allusion in the first
line, to have been sung at a funeral service performed at
midnight, or at least after sunset. "While it is night here with
us, to those below shines the might of the sun; and the red rosied
meadows of their suburbs are filled with the frankincense tree,
and with golden fruits. Some delight themselves there with steeds
and exercises, others with games, others with lyres; and among
them all fair blossoming fortune blooms, and a fragrance is
distilled through the lovely region, and they constantly mingle
all kinds of offerings with the far shining fire on the altars of
the gods." This evidently is a picture of the happy scenes in the
fields that stretch around the City of the Blessed in the under
world, and is introduced as a comfort to the mourners over the
dead body.

The ensuing passage the most important one on our subject is from
the second Olympic Ode.15 "An honorable, virtuous man may rest
assured as to his future fate. The souls of the lawless, departing
from this life, suffer punishment. One beneath the earth,
pronouncing sentence by a hateful necessity imposed upon him,
declares the doom for offences committed in this realm of Zeus.
But the good lead a life without a tear, among those honored by
the gods for having always delighted in virtue: the others endure
a life too dreadful to look upon. Whoever has had resolution
thrice in both worlds to stand firm, and to keep his soul pure
from evil, has found the path of Zeus to the tower of Kronos,
where the airs of the ocean breathe around the Isle of the
Blessed, and where some from resplendent trees, others from the
water glitter golden flowers, with garlandsofwhich they wreathe
their wrists and brows in the righteous assemblies of
Rhadamanthus, whom father Kronos has as his willing assistant."
The "path of Zeus," in the above quotation, means the path which
Zeus takes when he goes to visit his father Kronos, whom he
originally dethroned and banished, but with whom he is now
reconciled, and who has become the ruler of the departed spirits
of the just, in a peaceful and joyous region.

The following passage constitutes the ninety eighth fragment. "To
those who descend from a fruitless and ill starred life Persephone
[the Queen of the Dead] will grant a compensation for their former
misfortune, after eight years [the judicial period of atonement
and lustration for great crimes] granting them their lives again.
Then, illustrious kings, strong,

13 Ll. 42-44.

14 Ll. 4-6.

15 Ll. 55-78.


swift, wise, they shall become the mightiest leaders; and
afterwards they shall be invoked by men as sacred heroes." In this
piece, as in the preceding one where reference is made to the
thrice living man, is contained the doctrine, early brought from
the East, that souls may repeatedly return from the dead and in
new bodies lead new lives. One other fragment, the ninety sixth,
added to the foregoing, will make up all the important genuine
passages in Pindar relating to the future life. "By a beneficent
allotment, all travel to an end freeing from toil. The body indeed
is subject to the power of death; but the eternal image is left
alive, and this alone is allied to the gods. When we are asleep,
it shows in many dreams the approaching judgment concerning
happiness and misery." When our physical limbs are stretched in
insensible repose, the inward spirit, rallying its sleepless and
prophetic powers, foretells the balancing awards of another world.

We must not wholly confound with the mythological schemes of the
vulgar creed the belief of the nobler philosophers, many of whom,
as is well known, cherished an exalted faith in the survival of
the conscious soul and in a just retribution. "Strike!" one of
them said, with the dauntless courage of an immortal, to a tyrant
who had threatened to have him brayed in a mortar: "strike! you
may crush the shell of Anaxarchus: you cannot touch his life."
Than all the maze of fabulous fancies and physical rites in which
the dreams of the poets and the guesses of the people were
entangled, how much more

"Just was the prescience of the eternal goalThat gleamed, 'mid
Cyprian shades, on Zeno's soul, Or shone to Plato in the lonely
cave, God in all space, and life in every grave!"

An account of the Greek views on the subject of a future life
which should omit the doctrine of Plato would be defective indeed.
The influence of this sublime autocrat in the realms of intellect
has transcended calculation. However coldly his thoughts may have
been regarded by his contemporary countrymen, they soon obtained
cosmopolitan audience, and surviving the ravages of time and
ignorance, overleaping the bars of rival schools and sects,
appreciated and diffused by the loftiest spirits of succeeding
ages, closely blended with their own speculations by many
Christian theologians have held an almost unparalleled dominion
over the minds of millions of men for more than fifty generations.

In the various dialogues of Plato, written at different periods of
his life, there are numerous variations and inconsistencies of
doctrine. There are also many mythical passages obviously intended
as symbolic statements, poetic drapery, by no means to be handled
or looked at as the severe outlines of dialectic truth.
Furthermore, in these works there are a vast number of opinions
and expressions introduced by the interlocutors, who often belong
to antagonistic schools of philosophy, and for which, of course,
Plato is not to be held responsible. Making allowance for these
facts, and resolutely grappling with the many other difficulties
of the task, we shall now attempt to exhibit what we consider were
the real teachings of Plato in relation to the fate of the soul.
This exposition, sketchy as it is, and open to question as it may
be in some particulars, is the carefully weighed result of
earnest, patient, and repeated study of all the relevant passages.

In the first place, it is plain that Plato had a firm religious
and philosophical faith in the immortality of the soul, which was
continually attracting his thoughts, making it a favorite theme
with him and exerting no faint influence on his life. This faith
rested both on ancient traditions, to which he frequently refers
with invariable reverence, and on metaphysical reasonings, which
he over and over presents in forms of conscientious elaboration.
There are two tests of his sincerity of faith: first, that he
always treats the subject with profound seriousness; secondly,
that he always uses it as a practical motive. "I do not think,"
said Socrates, "that any one who should now hear us, even though
he were a comic poet, would say that I am talking idly."16 Again,
referring to Homer's description of the judgments in Hades, he
says, "I, therefore, Callicles, am persuaded by these accounts,
and consider how I may exhibit my soul before the judge in the
most healthy condition."17 "To a base man no man nor god is a
friend on earth while living, nor under it when dead," say the
souls of their ancestors to the living; "but live honorably, and
when your destined fate brings you below you shall come to us as
friends to friends."18 "We are plants, not of earth, but of
heaven."19 We start, then, with the affirmation that Plato
honestly and cordially believed in a future life.

Secondly, his ethical and spiritual beliefs, like those of nearly
all the ancients, were closely interwoven with physical theories
and local relations. The world to him consisted of two parts, the
celestial region of ideas, and the mundane region of material
phenomena,  corresponding pretty well, as Lewes suggests, to our
modern conception of heaven and earth. Near the close of the
Phado, Socrates says that the earth is not of the kind and
magnitude usually supposed. "We dwell in a decayed and corroded,
muddy and filthy region in the sediment and hollows of the earth,
and imagine that we inhabit its upper parts; just as if one
dwelling in the bottom of the sea should think that he dwelt on
the sea, and, beholding the sun through the water, should imagine
that the sea was the heavens. So, if we could fly up to the summit
of the air as fishes emerging from the sea to behold what is on
the earth here and emerge hence, we should know that the true
earth is there. The people there dwell with the gods, and see
things as they really are; and what the sea is to us the air is to
them, and what the air is to us the ether is to them." Again, in
the tenth book of the Republic, eleventh chapter, the soul is
metaphorically said in the sea of this corporeal life to get
stones and shell fish attached to it, and, fed on earth, to be
rendered to a great extent earthy, stony, and savage, like the
marine Glaucus, some parts of whose body were broken off and
others worn away by the waves, while such quantities of shells,
sea weed, and stones had grown to him that he more resembled a
beast than a man. In keeping with the whole tenor of the Platonic
teaching, this is a fine illustration of the fallen state of man
in his vile environment of flesh here below. The soul, in its
earthly sojourn, embodied here, is as much mutilated and degraded
from its equipped and pure condition in its lofty natal home, the
archetypal world of Truth above the base Babel of material
existence, as Glaucus was on

16 Phado, 40.

17 Gorgias, 173.

18 Menexenus, 19.

19 Timaus, 71.


descending from his human life on the sunny shore to his encrusted
shape and blind prowling in the monstrous deep.

At another time Plato contrasts the situation of the soul on earth
with its situation in heaven by the famous comparison of the dark
cave. He supposes men, unable to look upwards, dwelling in a
cavern which has an opening towards the light extending lengthwise
through the top of the cavern. A great many images, carrying
various objects and talking aloud, pass and repass along the edge
of the opening. Their shadows fall on the side of the cave below,
in front of the dwellers there; also the echoes of their talk
sound back from the wall. Now, the men, never having been or
looked out of the cave, would suppose these shadows to be the real
beings, these echoes the real voices. As respects this figure,
says Plato, we must compare ourselves with such persons. The
visible region around us is the cave, the sun is the light, and
the soul's ascent into the region of mind is the ascent out of the
cave and the contemplation of things above.20

Still again, Plato describes the ethereal paths and motions of the
gods, who, in their chariots, which are the planets and stars,
ride through the universe, accompanied by all pure souls, "the
family of true science, contemplating things as they really are."
"Reaching the summit, they proceed outside, and, standing on the
back of heaven, its revolution carries them round, and they behold
that supercelestial region which no poet here can ever sing of as
it deserves." In this archetypal world all souls of men have
dwelt, though "few have memory enough left," "after their fall
hither," "to call to mind former things from the present." "Now,
of justice and temperance, and whatever else souls deem precious,
there are here but faint resemblances, dull images; but beauty was
then splendid to look on when we, in company with the gods, beheld
that blissful spectacle, and were initiated into that most blessed
of all mysteries, which we celebrated when we were unaffected by
the evils that awaited us in time to come, and when we beheld, in
the pure light, perfect and calm visions, being ourselves pure and
as yet unmasked with this shell of a body to which we are now
fettered."21

To suppose all this employed by Plato as mere fancy and metaphor
is to commit an egregious error. In studying an ancient author, we
must forsake the modern stand point of analysis, and envelop
ourselves in the ancient atmosphere of thought, where poetry and
science were as indistinguishably blended in the personal beliefs
as oxygen and nitrogen are in the common air. We have not a doubt
that Plato means to teach, literally, that the soul was always
immortal, and that in its anterior states of existence, in the
realm of ideas on high, it was in the midst of those essential
realities whose shifting shadows alone it can behold in its lapsed
condition and bodily imprisonment here. That he closely
intertwisted ethical with physical theories, spiritual destinies
with insphering localities, the fortunes of men with the
revolutions of the earth and stars, is a fact which one can hardly
read the Timaus and fail to see; a fact which continually
reappears. It is strikingly shown in his idea of the consummation
of all things at regular epochs determined by the recurrence of a
grand

20 Republic, lib. vii. cap. 1 4.

21 Phadrus, 56-58, 63, 64.


revolution of the universe, a period vulgarly known under the name
of the "Platonic Year."22 The second point, therefore, in the
present explanation of Plato's doctrine of another life, is the
conception that there is in the empyrean a glorious world of
incorruptible truth, beauty, and goodness, the place of the gods,
the native haunt of souls; and that human souls, having yielded to
base attractions and sunk into bodies, are but banished sojourners
in this phenomenal world of evanescent shadows and illusions,
where they are "stung with resistless longings for the skies, and
only solaced by the vague and broken reminiscences of their former
state."

Thirdly, Plato taught that after death an unerring judgment and
compensation await all souls. Every soul bears in itself the plain
evidence of its quality and deeds, its vices and virtues; and in
the unseen state it will meet inevitable awards on its merits. "To
go to Hades with a soul full of crimes is the worst of all
evils."23 "When a man dies, he possesses in the other world a
destiny suited to the life which he has led in this."24 In the
second book of the Republic he says, "We shall in Hades suffer the
punishment of our misdeeds here;" and he argues at much length the
absolute impossibility of in any way escaping this. The fact of a
full reward for all wisdom and justice, a full retribution for all
folly and vice, is asserted unequivocally in scores of passages,
most of them expressly connecting the former with the notion of an
ascent to the bright region of truth and intellect, the latter
with a descent to the black penal realm of Hades. Let the citation
of a single further example suffice. "Some souls, being sentenced,
go to places of punishment beneath the earth; others are borne
upward to some region in heaven."25 He proves the genuineness of
his faith in this doctrine by continually urging it, in the most
earnest, unaffected manner, as an animating motive in the
formation of character and the conduct of life, saying, "He who
neglects his soul will pass lamely through existence, and again
pass into Hades, aimless and unserviceable."26

The fourth and last step in this exposition is to show the
particular form in which Plato held his doctrine of future
retribution, the way in which he supposed the consequences of
present good and evil would appear hereafter. He received the
Oriental theory of transmigration. Souls are born over and over.
The banishment of the wicked to Tartarus is provisional, a
preparation for their return to incarnate life. The residence of
the good in heaven is contingent, and will be lost the moment they
yield to carelessness or material solicitations. The circumstances
under which they are reborn, the happiness or misery of their
renewed existence, depend on their character and conduct in their
previous career; and thus a poetic justice is secured. At the
close of the Timaus, Plato describes the whole animal kingdom as
consisting of degraded human souls, from "the tribe of birds,
which were light minded souls, to the tribe of oysters, which have
received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their
extreme ignorance." "After this manner, then, both formerly and

22 Statesman, 14, 15.

23 Gorgias, 165.

24 Republic, lib. vi. cap. i.

25 Phadrus, 61.

26 Timaus, 18.


now, animals transmigrate, experiencing their changes through the
loss or acquisition of intellect and folly." The general doctrine
of metempsychosis is stated and implied very frequently in many of
the Platonic dialogues. Some recent writers have tried to explain
these representations as figures of speech, not intended to
portray the literal facts, but merely to hint their moral
equivalents. Such persons seem to us to hold Plato's pages in the
full glare of the nineteenth century and read them in the
philosophic spirit of Bacon and Comte, instead of holding them in
the old shades of the Academy and pondering them in the marvelling
spirit of Pythagoras and Empedocles.

We are led by the following considerations to think that Plato
really meant to accredit the transmigration of souls literally.
First, he often makes use of the current poetic imagery of Hades,
and of ancient traditions, avowedly in a loose metaphorical way,
as moral helps, calling them "fables." But the metempsychosis he
sets forth, without any such qualification or guard, with so much
earnestness and frequency, as a promise and a warning, that we are
forced, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, to
suppose that he meant the statements as sober fact and not as
mythical drapery. As with a parable, of course we need not
interpret all the ornamental details literally; but we must accept
the central idea. And in the present case the fundamental thought
is that of repeated births of the soul, each birth trailing
retributive effects from the foregone. For example, the last four
chapters of the tenth book of the Republic contain the account of
Erus, a Pamphylian, who, after lying dead on the battle field ten
days, revived, and told what he had seen in the other state. Plato
in the outset explicitly names this recital an "apologue." It
recounts a multitude of moral and physical particulars. These
details may fairly enough be considered in some degreeas mythical
drapery, or as the usual traditional painting; but the essential
conception running through the account, for the sake of which it
is told, we are not at liberty to explain away as empty metaphor.
Now, that essential conception is precisely this: that souls after
death are adjudged to Hades or to heaven as a recompense for their
sin or virtue, and that, after an appropriate sojourn in those
places, they are born again, the former ascending, squalid and
scarred, from beneath the earth, the latter descending, pure, from
the sky. In perfect consonance with this conclusion is the moral
drawn by Plato from the whole narrative. He simply says, "If the
company will be persuaded by me, considering the soul to be
immortal and able to bear all evil and good, we shall always
persevere in the road which leads upwards."

Secondly, the conception of the metempsychosis is thoroughly
coherent with Plato's whole philosophy. If he was in earnest about
any doctrine, it was the doctrine that all knowledge is
reminiscence. The following declarations are his. "Soul is older
than body." "Souls are continually born over again from Hades into
this life." "To search and learn is simply to revive the images of
what the soul saw in its pre existent state of being in the world
of realities."27 Why should we hesitate to attribute a sincere
belief in the metempsychosis to the acknowledged author of the
doctrine that the soul lived in another world before appearing
here, and that its knowledge is but reminiscence? If born from the
other world

27 Menexenus, 15.


once, we may be many times; and then all that is wanted to
complete the dogma of transmigration is the idea of a presiding
justice. Had not Plato that idea?

Thirdly, the doctrine of a judicial metempsychosis was most
profoundly rooted in the popular faith, as a strict verity,
throughout the great East, ages before the time of Plato, and was
familiarly known throughout Greece in his time. It had been
imported thither by Musaus and Orpheus at an early period, was
afterwards widely recommended and established by the Pythagoreans,
and was unquestionably held by many of Plato's contemporaries. He
refers once to those "who strongly believe that murderers who have
gone to Hades will be obliged to come back and end their next
lives by suffering the same fate which they had before inflicted
on others."28 It is also a remarkable fact that he states the
conditions of transmigration, and the means of securing exemption
from it, in the same way that the Hindus have from immemorial
time: "The soul which has beheld the essence of truth remains free
from harm until the next revolution; and if it can preserve the
vision of the truth it shall always remain free from harm," that
is, be exempt from birth; but "when it fails to behold the field
of truth it falls to the earth and is implanted in a body."29 This
statement and several others in the context corresponds precisely
with Hindu theology, which proclaims that the soul, upon attaining
real wisdom, that is, upon penetrating beneath illusions and
gazing on reality, is freed from the painful necessity of repeated
births. Now, since the Hindus and the Pythagoreans held the
doctrine as a severe truth, and Plato states it in the identical
forms which they employed, and never implies that he is merely
poetizing, we naturally conclude that he, too, veritably
inculcates it as fact.

Finally, we are the more confirmed in this supposition when we
find that his lineal disciples and most competent expounders, such
as Proclus, and nearly all his later commentators, such as Ritter,
have so understood him. The great chorus of his interpreters, from
Plotinus to Leroux, with scarcely a dissentient voice, approve the
opinion pronounced by the learned German historian of philosophy,
that "the conception of the metempsychosis is so closely
interwoven both with his physical system and with his ethical as
to justify the conviction that Plato looked upon it as legitimate
and valid, and not as a merely figurative exposition of the soul's
life after death." To sum up the whole in one sentence: Plato
taught with grave earnestness the immortality of the soul, subject
to a discriminating retribution, which opened for its temporary
residences three local regions, heaven, earth, and Hades, and
which sometimes led it through different grades of embodied being.
"O thou youth who thinkest that thou art neglected by the gods,
the person who has become more wicked departs to the more wicked
souls; but he who has become better departs to the better souls,
both in life and in all deaths."30

Whether Aristotle taught or denied the immortality of the soul has
been the subject of innumerable debates from his own time until
now. It is certainly a most ominous fact that his great name has
been cited as authority for rejecting the doctrine of a future
life by so many

28 The Laws, b. ix. ch. 10.

29 Phadrus, 60-62.

30 The Laws, lib. x. cap. 13.


of his keenest followers; for this has been true of weighty
representatives of every generation of his disciples. Antagonistic
advocates have collected from his works a large number of varying
statements, endeavoring to distinguish between the literal and the
figurative, the esoteric and the popular. It is not worth our
while here, either for their intrinsic interest or for their
historic importance, to quote the passages and examine the
arguments. All that is required for our purpose may be expressed
in the language of Ritter, who has carefully investigated the
whole subject: "No passage in his extant works is decisive; but,
from the general context of his doctrine, it is clear that he had
no conception of the immortality of any individual rational
entity."31

It would take a whole volume instead of a chapter to set forth the
multifarious contrasting tenets of individual Greek philosophers,
from the age of Pherecydes to that of Iamblichus, in relation to a
future life. Not a few held, with Empedocles, that human life is a
penal state, the doom of such immortal souls as for guilt have
been disgraced and expelled from heaven. "Man is a fallen god
condemned to wander on the earth, sky aspiring but sense clouded."
Purged by a sufficient penance, he returns to his former godlike
existence. "When, leaving this body, thou comest to the free
ether, thou shalt be no longer a mortal, but an undying god."
Notions of this sort fairly represent no small proportion of the
speculations upon the fate of the soul which often reappear
throughout the course of Greek literature. Another class of
philosophers are represented by such names as Marcus Antoninus,
who, comparing death to disembarkation at the close of a voyage,
says, "If you land upon another life, it will not be empty of
gods: if you land in nonentity, you will have done with pleasures,
pains, and drudgery."32 And again he writes, "If souls survive,
how has ethereal space made room for them all from eternity? How
has the earth found room for all the bodies buried in it? The
solution of the latter problem will solve the former. The corpse
turns to dust and makes space for another: so the spirit, let
loose into the air, after a while dissolves, and is either renewed
into another soul or absorbed into the universe. Thus room is made
for succession."33 These passages, it will be observed, leave the
survival of the soul at all entirely hypothetical, and, even
supposing it to survive, allow it but a temporary duration. Such
was the common view of the great sect of the Stoics. They all
agreed that there was no real immortality for the soul; but they
differed greatly as to the time of its dissolution. In the words
of Cicero, "Diu mansuros aiunt animos; semper, negant:" they say
souls endure for a long time, but not forever. Cleanthes taught
that the intensity of existence after death would depend on the
strength or weakness of the particular soul. Chrysippus held that
only the souls of the wise and good would survive at all.34
Panatius said the soul always died with the body, because it was
born with it, which he proved by the resemblances of children's
souls to those of their parents.35 Seneca has a great many
contradictory passages on this subject

31 Hist. Anc. Phil. p. iii. b. ix. ch. 4.

32 Meditations, lib. iii. cap. 3.

33 Ibid. lib. iv. cap. 21.

34 Plutarch, Plac. Phil. iv. 7.

35 Tusc. Quast. lib. i. cap. 32.


in his works; but his preponderant authority, upon the whole, is
that the soul and the body perish together.36 At one time he says,
"The day thou fearest as the last is the birthday of eternity."
"As an infant in the womb is preparing to dwell in this world, so
ought we to consider our present life as a preparation for the
life to come."37 At another time he says, with stunning bluntness,
"There is nothing after death, and death itself is nothing."

Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. 38

Besides the mystics, like Plotinus, who affirmed the strict
eternity of the soul, and the Stoics, like Poseidonius, who
believed that the soul, having had a beginning, must have an end,
although it might endure for a long period after leaving the body,
there were among the Greeks and Romans two other classes of
believers in a future life, namely, the ignorant body of the
people, who credited, more or less fully, the common fables
concerning Hades; and an educated body of select minds, who, while
casting off the popular superstitions, yet clung tenaciously to
the great fact of immortality in some form or other, without
attempting to define the precise mode of it.

There was among the illiterate populace, both Greek and Roman,
even from the age of Eumolpus to that of Augustus, a good deal of
firm faith in a future life, according to the gross scheme and
particulars preserved to us still in the classic mythology. A
thousand current allusions and statements in the general
literature of those times prove the actual existence of a common
and literal belief in Hades with all its accompaniments. This was
far from being, in the average apprehension, a mere myth. Plato
says, "Many, of their own accord, have wished to descend into
Hades, induced by the hope of there seeing and being with those
they have loved."39 He also says, "When a man is about to die, the
stories of future punishment which he had formerly ridiculed
trouble him with fears of their truth."40 And that frightful
accounts of hell really swayed and terrified the people, even so
late as the time of the Roman republic, appears from the earnest
and elaborate arguments employed by various writers to refute
them.

The same thing is shown by the religious ritual enacted at
funerals and festivals, the forms of public and private worship
observed till after the conversion of Constantine. The cake of
rice and honey borne in the dead hand for Cerberus, the periodical
offerings to the ghosts of the departed, as at the festivals
called Feralia and Parentalia,41 the pictures of the scenery of
the under world, hung in the temples, of which there was a famous
one by Polygnotus,42 all imply a literal crediting of the vulgar
doctrine. Altars were set up on the spots where Tiberius and Caius
Gracchus were murdered, and services were there performed in honor
of their manes. Festus, an old Roman lexicographer who lived in
the second or third century, tells us there was in the Comitium a
stone covered pit which was supposed to be the

36 Christoph Meiners, Vermischte Philosophische Schriften.
Commentarius quo Stoicorum Sententia; de Animorum post mortem
Statu satis illustrantur.

37 Epist. 102.

38 Troades, 1. 397.

39 Phado, 34.

40 Republic, lib. i. cap. 5.

41 Ovid, Fasti, lib. ii. II. 530-580.

42 Pausanias, lib. x. cap. 28.


mouth of Orcus, and was opened three days in the year for souls to
rise out into the upper world.43 Apuleius describes, in his
treatise on "the god of Socrates," the Roman conceptions of the
departed spirits of men. They called all disembodied human souls
"lemures." Those of good men were "lares," those of bad men
"larva." And when it was uncertain whether the specified soul was
a lar or a larva, it was named "manes." The lares were mild
household gods to their posterity. The larva were wandering,
frightful shapes, harmless to the pious, but destructive to the
reprobate.44

The belief in necromancy is well known to have prevailed
extensively among the Greeks and Romans. Aristophanes represents
the coward, Pisander, going to a necromancer and asking to "see
his own soul, which had long departed, leaving him a man with
breath alone."45 In Latin literature no popular terror is more
frequently alluded to or exemplified than the dread of seeing
ghosts. Every one will recall the story of the phantom that
appeared in the tent of Brutus before the battle of Philippi. It
pervades the "Haunted House" of Plautus. Callimachus wrote the
following couplet as an epitaph on the celebrated misanthrope:

"Timon, hat'st thou the world or Hades worse? Speak clear! Hades,
O fool, because there are more of us here!" 46

Pythagoras is said once to have explained an earthquake as being
caused by a synod of ghosts assembled under ground! It is one of
the best of the numerous jokes attributed to the great Samian; a
good nut for the spirit rappers to crack. There is an epigram by
Diogenes Laertius, on one Lycon, who died of the gout:

"He who before could not so much as walk alone, The whole long
road to Hades travell'd in one night!"

Philostratus declares that the shade of Apollonius appeared to a
skeptical disciple of his and said, "The soul is immortal."47 It
is unquestionable that the superstitious fables about the under
world and ghosts had a powerful hold, for a very long period, upon
the Greek and Roman imagination, and were widely accepted as
facts.

At the same time, there were many persons of more advanced culture
to whom such coarse and fanciful representations had become
incredible, but who still held loyally to the simple idea of the
survival of the soul. They cherished a strong expectation of
another life, although they rejected the revolting form and
drapery in which the doctrine was usually set forth. Xenophon puts
the following speech into the mouth of the expiring Cyrus: "I was
never able, my children, to persuade myself that the soul, as long
as it was in a mortal body, lived, but when it was removed from
this, that it died; neither could I believe that the soul ceased
to think when separated from the unthinking and senseless body;
but it seemed to me most probable that when pure and free from any
union with the body, then it became most

43 De Significatione Verborum, verbum "Manalis."

44 Lessing, Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet.

45 Ayes, I. 1485.

46 Epigram IV.

47 Vita Apollonii, lib. viii. cap. 31.


wise."48 Every one has read of the young man whose faith and
curiosity were so excited by Plato's writings that he committed
suicide to test the fact of futurity. Callimachus tells the story
neatly:

"Cleombrotus, the Ambracian, having said, 'Farewell, O sun!'
leap'd from a lofty wall into the world Of ghosts. No deadly ill
had chanced to him at all; But he had read in Plato's book upon
the soul." 49

The falling of Cato on his sword at Utica, after carefully
perusing the Phado, is equally familiar.

In the case of Cicero, too, notwithstanding his fluctuations of
feeling and the obvious contradictions of sentiment in some of his
letters and his more deliberate essays, it is, upon the whole,
plain enough that, while he always regarded the vulgar notions as
puerile falsehoods, the hope of a glorious life to come was
powerful in him. This may be stated as the result of a patient
investigation and balancing of all that he says on the subject,
and of the circumstances under which he says it. To cite and
criticize the passages here would occupy too much space to too
little profit.

At the siege of Jerusalem, Titus made a speech to his soldiers, in
the course of it saying to them, "Those souls which are severed
from their fleshly bodies by the sword in battle, are received by
the pure ether and joined to that company which are placed among
the stars."50 The beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche, that
loveliest of all the myths concerning the immortality of the soul,
was a creation by no means foreign to the prevalent ideas and
feelings of the time when it was written. The "Dissertations" of
Maximus Tyrius abound with sentences like the following. "This
very thing which the multitude call death is the birth of a new
life, and the beginning of immortality."51 "When Pherecydes lay
sick, conscious of spiritual energy, he cared not for bodily
disease, his soul standing erect and looking for release from its
cumbersome vestment. So a man in chains, seeing the walls of his
prison crumbling, waits for deliverance, that from the darkness in
which he has been buried he may soar to the ethereal regions and
be filled with glorious light."52

The conception of man as a member of the cosmic family of gods and
genii was known to all the classic philosophers, and was cherished
by the larger portion of them. Pindar affirms one origin for gods
and men. Plato makes wise souls accompany the gods in their
excursions about the sky. Cicero argues that heaven, and not
Hades, is the destination of the soul at death, because the soul,
being lighter than the earthly elements surrounding it here, would
rise aloft through the natural force of gravitation.53 Plutarch
says, "Demons are the spies and scouts of the gods, wandering and
circuiting around on their commands." Disembodied souls

48 Cyropadia, lib. viii. cap. 7.

49 Epigram XXIV.

50 Josephus, De Bell. lib. vi. cap. 1.

51 Diss. XXV.

52 Diss. XLI.

53 Tusc. Quest. lib i. cap. 17.


and demons were the same. The prevalence of such ideas as these
produced in the Greek and Roman imagination a profound sense of
invisible beings, a sense which was further intensified by the
popular personifications of all natural forces, as in fountains
and trees, full of lapsing naiads and rustling dryads. An
illustrative fact is furnished by an effect of the tradition that
Thetis, snatching the body of Achilles from the funeral pile,
conveyed him to Leuke, an island in the Black Sea. The mariners
sailing by often fancied they saw his mighty shade flitting along
the shore in the dusk of evening.54 But a passage in Hesiod yields
a more adequate illustration: "When the mortal remains of those
who flourished during the golden age were hidden beneath the
earth, their souls became beneficent demons, still hovering over
the world they once inhabited, and still watching, clothed in thin
air and gliding rapidly through every region of the earth, as
guardians over the affairs of men."55

But there were always some who denied the common doctrine of a
future life and scoffed at its physical features. Through the
absurd extravagances of poets and augurs, and through the growth
of critical thought, this unbelief went on increasing from the
days of Anaxagoras, when it was death to call the sun a ball of
fire, to the days of Catiline, when Julius Casar could be chosen
Pontifex Maximus, almost before the Senate had ceased to
reverberate his voice openly asserting that death was the utter
end of man. Plutarch dilates upon the wide skepticism of the
Greeks as to the infernal world, at the close of his essay on the
maxim, "Live concealed." The portentous growth of irreverent
unbelief, the immense change of feeling from awe to ribaldry, is
made obvious by a glance from the known gravity of Hesiod's
"Descent of Theseus and Pirithous into Hades," to Lucian's
"Kataplous," which represents the cobbler Mycillus leaping from
the banks of the Styx, swimming after Charon's boat, climbing into
it upon the shoulders of the tyrant Megapenthes and tormenting him
the whole way. Pliny, in his Natural History, affirms that death
is an everlasting sleep.56 The whole great sect of the Epicureans
united in supporting that belief by the combined force of ridicule
and argument. Their views are the most fully and ably defended by
the consummate Lucretius, in his masterly poem on the "Nature of
Things." Horace,57 Juvenal,58 Persius,59 concur in scouting at the
tales which once, when recited on the stage, had made vast
audiences perceptibly tremble.60 And Cicero asks, "What old woman
is so insane as to fear these things?"61

There were two classes of persons who sought differently to free
mankind from the terrors which had invested the whole prospect of
death and another world. The first were the materialists, who
endeavored to prove that death was to man the absolute end of
every thing. Secondly, there were the later Platonists, who
maintained that this world is the only Hades, that heaven is our
home, that all death is ascent to better life. "To remain on high
with the gods is life; to descend into this world is death, a
descent into Orcus," they said. The following couplet, of an
unknown date, is translated from the Greek Anthology:

"Diogenes, whose tub stood by the road, Now, being dead, has the
stars for his abode."

54 Muller, Greek Literature, ch. vi.

55 Works and Days, lib. i. II. 120-125.

56 Lib. ii. cap. 7.

57 Lib. i. epist. 16.

58 Sat. II.

59 Sat. II.

60 Tusc. Quest. lib. i. cap. 16.

61 Ibid. cap. 21.


Macrobius writes, in his commentary on the "Dream of Scipio,"
"Here, on earth, is the cavern of Dis, the infernal region. The
river of oblivion is the wandering of the mind forgetting the
majesty of its former life and thinking a residence in the body
the only life. Phlegethon is the fires of wrath and desire.
Acheron is retributive sadness. Cocytus is wailing tears. Styx is
the whirlpool of hatreds. The vulture eternally tearing the liver
is the torment of an evil conscience."62

To the ancient Greek in general, death was a sad doom. When he
lost a friend, he sighed a melancholy farewell after him to the
faded shore of ghosts. Summoned himself, he departed with a
lingering look at the sun, and a tearful adieu to the bright day
and the green earth. To the Roman, death was a grim reality. To
meet it himself he girded up his loins with artificial firmness.
But at its ravages among his friends he wailed in anguished
abandonment. To his dying vision there was indeed a future; but
shapes of distrust and shadow stood upon its disconsolate borders;
and, when the prospect had no horror, he still shrank from its
poppied gloom.

62 Lib. i. cap. 9, 10.


CHAPTER XI.

MOHAMMEDAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

ISLAM has been a mighty power in the earth since the middle of the
seventh century. A more energetic and trenchant faith than it was
for eight hundred years has not appeared among men. Finally
expelled from its startling encampments in Spain and the
Archipelago, it still rules with tenacious hold over Turkey, a
part of Tartary, Palestine, Persia, Arabia, and large portions of
Africa. At this moment, as to adherence and influence, it is
subordinate only to the two foremost religious systems in the
world, Buddhism and Christianity. The dogmatic structure of Islam
as a theology and its practical power as an experimental religion
offer a problem of the gravest interest. But we must hasten on to
give an exposition of merely those elements in it which are
connected with its doctrine of a future life.

It is a matter of entire notoriety that there is but the least
amount of originality in the tenets of the Mohammedan faith. The
blending together of those tenets was distinctive, the unifying
soul breathed into them was a new creation, and the great aim to
which the whole was subordinated was peculiar; but the component
doctrines themselves, with slight exception, existed before as
avowed principles in the various systems of belief and practice
that prevailed around. Mohammed adopted many of the notions and
customs of the pagan Arabs, the central dogma of the Jews as to
the unity of God, most of the traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures,
innumerable fanciful conceits of the Rabbins,1 whole doctrines of
the Magians with their details, some views of the Gnostics, and
extensive portions of a corrupted Christianity, grouping them
together with many modifications of his own, and such additions as
his genius afforded and his exigencies required. The motley
strangely results in a compact and systematic working faith.

The Islamites are divided into two great sects, the Sunnees and
the Sheeahs. The Arabs, Tartars, and Turks are Sunnees, are
dominant in numbers and authority, are strict literalists, and are
commonly considered the orthodox believers. The Persians are
Sheeahs, are inferior in point of numbers, are somewhat freer in
certain interpretations, placing a mass of tradition, like the
Jewish Mischna, on a level with the Koran,2 and are usually
regarded as heretical. To apply our own ecclesiastical phraseology
to them, the latter are the Moslem Protestants, the former the
Moslem Catholics. Yet in relation to almost every thing which
should seem at all fundamental or vital they agree in their
teachings. Their differences in general are upon trivial opinions,
or especially upon ritual particulars. For instance, the Sheeahs
send all the Sunnees to hell because in their ablutions they wash
from the elbow to the finger tips; the Sunnees return the
compliment to their rival sectarists because they wash from the
finger tips to the elbow. Within these two grand denominations of
Sheeah and

1 Rabbi Abraham Geiger, Prize Essay upon the question, proposed by
the University of Bonn, "Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum
aufgenommen?"

2 Merrick, Translation of the Sheeah Traditions of Mohammed in the
Hyat ul Kuloob, note x.


Sunnee are found a multitude of petty sects, separated from each
other on various questions of speculative faith and ceremonial
practice. Some take the Koran alone, and that in its plain literal
sense, as their authority. Others read the Koran in the
explanatory light of a vast collection of parables, proverbs,
legends, purporting to be from Mohammed. There is no less than a
score of mystic allegorizing sects3 who reduce almost every thing
in the Koran to symbol, or spiritual signification, and some of
whom as the Sufis are the most rapt and imaginative of all the
enthusiastic devotees in the world.

A cardinal point in the Mohammedan faith is the asserted existence
of angels, celestial and infernal. Eblis is Satan. He was an angel
of lofty rank; but when God created Adam and bade all the angels
worship him, Eblis refused, saying, "I was created of fire, he of
clay: I am more excellent and will not bow to him."4 Upon this God
condemned Eblis and expelled him from Paradise. He then became the
unappeasable foe and seducing destroyer of men. He is the father
of those swarms of jins, or evil spirits, who crowd all hearts and
space with temptations and pave the ten thousand paths to hell
with lures for men.

The next consideration preliminary to a clear exhibition of our
special subject, is the doctrine of predestination, the
unflinching fatalism which pervades and crowns this religion. The
breath of this appalling faith is saturated with fatality, and its
very name of Islam means "Submission." In heaven the prophet saw a
prodigious wax tablet, called the "Preserved Table," on which were
written the decrees of all events between the morning of creation
and the day of judgment. The burning core of Mohammed's preaching
was the proclamation of the one true God whose volition bears the
irresistible destiny of the universe; and inseparably associated
with this was an intense hatred of idolatry, fanned by the wings
of God's wrath and producing a fanatic sense of a divine
commission to avenge him on his insulters and vindicate for him
his rightful worship from every nation. There is an apparent
conflict between the Mohammedan representations of God's absolute
predestination of all things, and the abundant exhortations to all
men to accept the true faith and bring forth good works, and thus
make sure of an acceptable account in the day of judgment. The
former make God's irreversible will all in all. The latter seem to
place alternative conditions before men, and to imply in them a
power of choice. But this is a contradiction inseparable from the
discussion of God's infinite sovereignty and man's individual
freedom. The inconsistency is as gross in Augustine and Calvinism
as it is in the Arabian lawgiver and the creed of the Sunnees. The
Koran, instead of solving the difficulty, boldly cuts it, and does
that in exactly the same way as the thorough Calvinist. God has
respectively elected and reprobated all the destined inhabitants
of heaven and hell, unalterably, independently of their choice or
action. At the same time, reception of the true faith, and a life
conformed to it, are virtually necessary for salvation, because it
is decreed that all the elect shall profess and obey the true
faith. Their obedient reception of it proves them to be elected.
On the other hand, it is foreordained that none of the reprobate
shall become disciples and followers of the Prophet. Their
rejection of

3 Churchill, Mount Lebanon, vol. i. ch. xv.

4 Sale's Translation of the Koran, ch. vii.


him, their wicked misbelief, is the evidence of their original
reprobation. As the Koran itself expresses it, salvation is for
"all who are willing to be warned; but they shall not be warned
unless God please:"5 "all who shall be willing to walk uprightly;
but they shall not be willing unless God willeth."6

But such fine drawn distinctions are easily lost from sight or
spurned in the eager affray of affairs and the imminent straits of
the soul. While in dogma and theory the profession of an orthodox
belief, together with scrupulous prayer, fasting, alms, and the
pilgrimage to Mecca, or the absence of these things, simply
denotes the foregone determinations of God in regard to the given
individuals, in practice and feeling the contrasted beliefs and
courses of conduct are held to obtain heaven and hell. And we
find, accordingly, that Mohammed spoke as if God's primeval
ordination had fixed all things forever, whenever he wished to
awaken in his followers reckless valor and implicit submission.
"Whole armies cannot slay him who is fated to die in his bed." On
the contrary, when he sought to win converts, to move his hearers
by threatenings and persuasions, he spoke as if every thing
pertaining to human weal and woe, present and future, rested on
conditions within the choice of men. Say, "'There is but one God,
and Mohammed is his prophet,' and heaven shall be your portion;
but cling to your delusive errors, and you shall be companions of
the infernal fire." Practically speaking, the essence of
propagandist Islam was a sentiment like this. All men who do not
follow Mohammed are accursed misbelievers. We are God's chosen
avengers, the commissioned instruments for reducing his foes to
submission. Engaged in that work, the hilts of all our scimitars
are in his hand. He snatches his servant martyr from the battle
field to heaven. Thus the weapons of the unbelievers send their
slain to paradise, while the weapons of the believers send their
slain to hell. Up, then, with the crescent banner, and, dripping
with idolatrous gore, let it gleam over mountain and plain till
our sickles have reaped the earth! "The sword is the key of heaven
and the key of hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a
night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting
and prayer. Whoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven. In the
day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion and
odoriferous as musk."7 An infuriated zeal against idolaters and
unbelievers inflamed the Moslem heart, a fierce martial enthusiasm
filled the Moslem soul, and tangible visions of paradise and hell
floated, illuminate, throughtheMoslem imagination. And so from the
Persian Gulf to the Caucasus, from Sierra Leone to the Pyrenees,
the polity of Mohammed overran the nations, with the Koran in its
left hand, the exterminating blade in its right, one thunder shout
still breaking from its awful lips: "Profess Islam, and live, with
the clear prospect of eternal bliss beyond life; reject it, and
die, with the full certainty of eternal anguish beyond death."
When the crusading Christians and the Saracenic hosts met in
battle, the conflict was the very frenzy of fanaticism. "There the
question of salvation or damnation lay on the ground between the
marshalled armies, to be fought for and carried by the stronger."
Christ and Allah encountered, and the endless fate of their
opposed

5 Koran, ch. lxxiv.

6 Ibid. ch. lxxxi.

7 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of Rome, ch. 1.


followers hung on the swift turning issue. "Never have the
appalling ideas of the invisible world so much and so distinctly
mingled with the fury of mortal strife as in this instance. To the
eyes of Turk and Arab the smoke of the infernal pit appeared to
break up from the ground in the rear of the infidel lines. As the
squadrons of the faithful moved on to the charge, that pit yawned
to receive the miscreant host; and in chasing the foe the
prophet's champions believed they were driving their antagonists
down the very slopes of perdition. When at length steel clashed
upon steel and the yell of death shook the air, the strife was not
so much between arm and arm as between spirit and spirit, and each
deadly thrust was felt to pierce the life at once of the body and
of the soul."8

That terrible superstition prevails almost universally among the
Mussulmans, designated the "Beating in the Sepulchre," or the
examination and torture of the body in the grave. As soon as a
corpse is interred, two black and livid angels, called the
Examiners, whose names are Munkeer and Nakeer, appear, and order
the dead person to sit up and answer certain questions as to his
faith. If he give satisfactory replies, they suffer him to rest in
peace, refreshed by airs from paradise; but if he prove to have
been an unbeliever or heretic, they beat him on the temples with
iron maces till he roars aloud with pain and terror. They then
press the earth on the body, which remains gnawed and stung by
dragons and scorpions until the last day. Some sects give a
figurative explanation of these circumstances. The utter denial of
the whole representation is a schismatic peculiarity of the sect
of Motozallites. But all true believers, both Sunnee and Sheeah,
devoutly accept it literally. The commentators declare that it is
implied in the following verse of the Koran itself: "How,
therefore, will it be with them when they die and the angels shall
strike their faces and their backs?" 9

The intermediate state of souls from the time of death until the
resurrection has been the subject of extensive speculation and
argument with the Islamites. The souls of the prophets, it is
thought, are admitted directly to heaven. The souls of martyrs,
according to a tradition received from Mohammed, rest in heaven in
the crops of green birds who eat of the fruits and drink of the
rivers there. As to the location of the souls of the common crowd
of the faithful, the conclusions are various. Some maintain that
they and the souls of the impious alike sleep in the dust until
the end, when Israfil's blasts will stir them into life to be
judged. But the general and orthodox impression is that they tarry
in one of the heavens, enjoying a preparatory blessedness. The
souls of the wicked, it is commonly held, after being refused a
place in the tomb and also being repulsed from heaven, are carried
down to the lower abyss, and thrown into a dungeon under a green
rock, or into the jaw of Eblis, there to be treated with
foretastes of their final doom until summoned to the judgment.10

A very prominent doctrine in the Moslem creed is that of the
resurrection of the body. This is a central feature in the
orthodox faith. It is expounded in all the emphatic details of its
gross literality by their authoritative doctors, and is dwelt upon
with unwearied reiteration by the Koran. True, some minor
heretical sects give it a spiritual interpretation; but the great

8 Taylor, Hist. of Fanaticism, sect. vii.

9 Ch. xlvii.

10 Sale, Preliminary Discourse, sect. iv.


body of believers accept it unhesitatingly in its most physical
shape. The intrinsic unnaturalness and improbability of the dogma
were evidently felt by Mohammed and his expositors; and all the
more they strove to bolster it up and enforce its reception by
vehement affirmations and elaborate illustrations. In the second
chapter of the Koran it is related that, in order to remove the
skepticism of Abraham as to the resurrection, God wrought the
miracle of restoring four birds which had been cut in pieces and
scattered. In chapter seventh, God says, "We bring rain upon a
withered country and cause the fruits to spring forth. Thus will
we bring the dead from their graves." The prophet frequently
rebukes those who reject this belief. "What aileth them, that they
believe not the resurrection?"11 "Is not He who created man able
to quicken the dead?"12 "The scoffers say, 'Shall we be raised to
life, and our forefathers too, after we have become dust and
bones? This is nothing but sorcery.'"13 First, Israfil will blow
the blast of consternation. After an interval, he will blow the
blast of examination, at which all creatures will die and the
material universe will melt in horror. Thirdly, he will blow the
blast of resurrection. Upon that instant, the assembled souls of
mankind will issue from his trumpet, like a swarm of bees, and
fill the atmosphere, seeking to be reunited to their former
bodies, which will then be restored, even to their very hairs.

The day of judgment immediately follows. This is the dreadful day
for which all other days were made; and it will come with
blackness and consternation to unbelievers and evil doers, but
with peace and delight to the faithful. The total race of man will
be gathered in one place. Mohammed will first advance in front, to
the right hand, as intercessor for the professors of Islam. The
preceding prophets will appear with their followers. Gabriel will
hold suspended a balance so stupendous that one scale will cover
paradise, the other hell. "Hath the news of the overwhelming day
of judgment reached thee?"14 "Whoever hath wrought either good or
evil of the weight of an ant shall in that day behold the same."15
An infallible scrutiny shall search and weigh every man's deeds,
and exact justice shall be done, and no foreign help can avail any
one. "One soul shall not be able to obtain any thing in behalf of
another soul."16 "Every man of them on that day shall have
business enough of his own to employ his thoughts."17 In all the
Mohammedan representations of this great trial and of the
principles which determine its decisions, no reference is made to
the doctrine of predestination, but all turns on strict equity.
Reckoning a reception or rejection of the true faith as a crowning
merit or demerit, the only question is, Do his good works
outweigh, by so much as a hair, his evil works? If so, he goes to
the right; if not, he must take the left. The solitary trace of
fatalism or rather favoritism is this: that no idolater, once in
hell, can ever possibly be released, while no Islamite, however
wicked, can be damned eternally. The punishment of unbelievers is
everlasting, that of believers limited. The opposite of this
opinion is a great heresy with the generality of the Moslems. Some
say the judgment will require but the twinkling of an eye; others
that it will occupy fifty thousand years, during which time the
sun will be drawn from its sheath and burn insufferably, and the
wicked will stand looking up, their feet shod with shoes of fire,
and their skulls boiling like pots. At last,

11 Ch. lxxxiv.

12 Ch. lxxv.

13 Ch. xxxvii., lvi.

14 Koran, ch. lxxxviii.

15 Ibid. ch. xcix.

16 Ibid. ch. lxxxii.

17 Ibid. ch. lxxx.


when sentence has been passed on them, all souls are forced to try
the passage of al Sirat, a bridge thinner than a hair, sharper
than a razor, and hotter than flame, spanning in one frail arch
the immeasurable distance, directly over hell, from earth to
paradise. Some affect a metaphorical solution of this air severing
causeway, and take it merely as a symbol of the true Sirat, or
bridge of this world, namely, the true faith and obedience; but
every orthodox Mussulman firmly holds it as a physical fact to be
surmounted in the last day.18 Mohammed leading the way, the
faithful and righteous will traverse it with ease and as quickly
as a flash of lightning. The thin edge broadens beneath their
steps, the surrounding support of convoying angels' wings hides
the fire lake below from their sight, and they are swiftly
enveloped in paradise. But as the infidel with his evil deeds
essays to cross, thorns entangle his steps, the lurid glare
beneath blinds him, and he soon topples over and whirls into the
blazing abyss. In Dr. Frothingham's fine translation from
Ruckert,

"When the wicked o'er it goes, stands the bridge all sparkling;
And his mind bewilder'd grows, and his eye swims darkling.
Wakening, giddying, then comes in, with a deadly fright, Memory of
all his sin, rushing on his sight. But when forward steps the
just, he is safe e'en here: Round him gathers holy trust, and
drives back his fear. Each good deed's a mist, that wide, golden
borders gets; And for him the bridge, each side, shines with
parapets."

Between hell and paradise is an impassable wall, al Araf,
separating the tormented from the happy, and covered with those
souls whose good works exactly counterpoise their evil works, and
who are, consequently, fitted for neither place. The prophet and
his expounders have much to say of this narrow intermediate
abode.19 Its lukewarm denizens are contemptuously spoken of. It is
said that Araf seems hell to the blessed but paradise to the
damned; for does not every thing depend on the point of view?

The Mohammedan descriptions of the doom of the wicked, the
torments of hell, are constantly repeated and are copious and
vivid. Reference to chapter and verse would be superfluous, since
almost every page of the Koran abounds in such tints and tones as
the following. "The unbelievers shall be companions of hell fire
forever." "Those who disbelieve we will surely cast to be broiled
in hell fire: so often as their skins shall be well burned we will
give them other skins in exchange, that they may taste the sharper
torment." "I will fill hell entirely full of genii and men." "They
shall be dragged on their faces into hell, and it shall be said
unto them, 'Taste ye that torment of hell fire which ye rejected
as a falsehood.'" "The unbelievers shall be driven into hell by
troops." "They shall be taken by the forelocks and the feet and
flung into hell, where they shall drink scalding water." "Their
only entertainment shall be boiling water, and they shall be fuel
for hell." "The smoke of hell shall cast forth sparks as big as
towers, resembling yellow camels in color." "They who believe not
shall

18 W. C. Taylor, Mohammedanism and its Sects.

19 Koran, ch. viii. Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p. 125.


have garments of fire fitted on them, and they shall be beaten
with maces of red hot iron." "The true believers, lying on
couches, shall look down upon the infidels in hell and laugh them
to scorn."

There is a tradition that a door shall be shown the damned opening
into paradise, but when they approach it, it shall be suddenly
shut, and the believers within will laugh. Pitiless and horrible
as these expressions from the Koran are, they are merciful
compared with the pictures in the later traditions, of women
suspended by their hair, their brains boiling, suspended by their
tongues, molten copper poured down their throats, bound hands and
feet and devoured piecemeal by scorpions, hung up by their heels
in flaming furnaces and their flesh cut off on all sides with
scissors of fire. 20 Their popular teachings divide hell into
seven stories, sunk one under another. The first and mildest is
for the wicked among the true believers. The second is assigned to
the Jews. The third is the special apartment of the Christians.
They fourth is allotted to the Sabians, the fifth to the Magians,
and the sixth to the most abandoned idolaters; but the seventh the
deepest and worst belongs to the hypocrites of all religions. The
first hell shall finally be emptied and destroyed, on the release
of the wretched believers there; but all the other hells will
retain their victims eternally.

If the visions of hell which filled the fancies of the faithful
were material and glowing, equally so were their conceptions of
paradise. On this world of the blessed were lavished all the
charms so fascinating to the Oriental luxuriousness of sensual
languor, and which the poetic Oriental imagination knew so well
how to depict. As soon as the righteous have passed Sirat, they
obtain the first taste of their approaching felicity by a
refreshing draught from "Mohammed's Pond." This is a square lake,
a month's journey in circuit, its water whiter than milk or silver
and more fragrant than to be comparable to any thing known by
mortals. As many cups are set around it as there are stars in the
firmament; and whoever drinks from it will never thirst more. Then
comes paradise, an ecstatic dream of pleasure, filled with
sparkling streams, honeyed fountains, shady groves, precious
stones, all flowers and fruits, blooming youths, circulating
goblets, black eyed houris, incense, brilliant birds, delightsome
music, unbroken peace.21 A Sheeah tradition makes the prophet
promise to Ali twelve palaces in paradise, built of gold and
silver bricks laid in a cement of musk and amber. The pebbles
around them are diamonds and rubies, the earth saffron, its
hillocks camphor. Rivers of honey, wine, milk, and water flow
through the court of each palace, their banks adorned with various
resplendent trees, interspersed with bowers consisting each of one
hollow transparent pearl. In each of these bowers is an emerald
throne, with a houri upon it arrayed in seventy green robes and
seventy yellow robes of so fine a texture, and she herself so
transparent, that the marrow of her ankle, notwithstanding robes,
flesh, and bone, is as distinctly visible as a flame in a glass
vessel. Each houri has seventy locks of hair, every one under the
care of a maid, who perfumes it with a censer which God has made
to smoke with incense without the presence of fire; and no mortal
has ever breathed such fragrance as is there exhaled. 22

20 Hyat ul Kuloob, ch. x. p. 206.

21 Koran, ch. lv. ch. lvi.

22 Hyat ul Kuloob, ch. xvi. p. 286.


Such a doctrine of the future life as that here set forth, it is
plain, was strikingly adapted to win and work fervidly on the
minds of the imaginative, voluptuous, indolent, passionate races
of the Orient. It possesses a nucleus of just and natural moral
conviction and sentiment, around which is grouped a composite of a
score of superstitions afloat before the rise of Islam, set off
with the arbitrary drapery of a poetic fancy, colored by the
peculiar idiosyncrasies of Mohammed, emphasized to suit his
special ends, and all inflamed with a vindictive and propagandist
animus. Any word further in explanation of the origin, or in
refutation of the soundness, of this system of belief once so
imminently aggressive and still so widely established would seem
to be superfluous.

CHAPTER XII.

EXPLANATORY SURVEY OF THE FIELD AND ITS MYTHS.

SURVEYING the thought of mankind upon the subject of a future
life, as thus far examined, one can hardly fail to be struck by
the multitudinous variety of opinions and pictures it presents.
Whence and how arose this heterogeneous mass of notions?

In consequence of the endowments with which God has created man,
the doctrine of a future life arises as a normal fact in the
development of his experience. But the forms and accompaniments of
the doctrine, the immense diversity of dress and colors it appears
in, are subject to all the laws and accidents that mould and
clothe the products within any other department of thought and
literature. We must refer the ethnic conceptions of a future state
to the same sources to which other portions of poetry and
philosophy are referred, namely, to the action of sentiment,
fancy, and reason, first; then to the further action, reaction,
and interaction of the pictures, dogmas, and reasonings of
authoritative poets, priests, and philosophers on one side, and of
the feeling, faith, and thought of credulous multitudes and docile
pupils on the other. In the light of these great centres of
intellectual activity, parents of intellectual products, there is
nothing pertaining to the subject before us, however curious,
which may not be intelligibly explained, seen naturally to spring
out of certain conditions of man's mind and experience as related
with the life of society and the phenomena of the world.

So far as the views of the future life set forth in the religions
of the ancient nations constitute systematically developed and
arranged schemes of doctrine and symbol, the origin of them
therefore needs no further explanation than is furnished by a
contemplation of the regulated exercise of the speculative and
imaginative faculties. But so far as those representations contain
unique, grotesque, isolated particulars, their production is
accounted for by this general law: In the early stages of human
culture, when the natural sensibilities are intensely preponderant
in power, and the critical judgment is in abeyance, whatever
strongly moves the soul causes a poetical secretion on the part of
the imagination.1 Thus the rainbow is personified; a waterfall is
supposed to be haunted by spiritual beings; a volcano with fiery
crater is seen as a Cyclops with one flaming eye in the centre of
his forehead. This law holds not only in relation to impressive
objects or appearances in nature, but also in relation to
occurrences, traditions, usages. In this way innumerable myths
arise, explanatory or amplifying thoughts secreted by the
stimulated imagination and then narrated as events. Sometimes
these tales are given and received in good faith for truth, as
Grote abundantly proves in his volume on Legendary Greece;
sometimes they are clearly the gleeful play of the fancy, as when
it is said that the hated infant Herakles having been put to
Hera's breast as she lay asleep in heaven, she, upon waking,
thrust him away, and the lacteal fluid, streaming athwart the
firmament, originated the Milky Way! To apply this law to our
special subject:

1 Chambers's Papers for the People, vol. i.: The Myth, p. 1.


What would be likely to work more powerfully on the minds of a
crude, sensitive people, in an early stage of the world, with no
elaborate discipline of religious thought, than the facts and
phenomena of death? Plainly, around this centre there must be
deposited a vast quantity of ideas and fantasies. The task is to
discriminate them, trace their individual origin, and classify
them.

One of the most interesting and difficult questions connected with
the subject before us is this: What, in any given time and place,
were the limits of the popular belief? How much of the current
representations in relation to another life were held as strict
verity? What portions were regarded as fable or symbolism? It is
obvious enough that among the civilized nations of antiquity the
distinctions of literal statement, allegory, historic report,
embellished legend, satire, poetic creation, philosophical
hypothesis, religious myth, were more or less generally known. For
example, when Aschylus makes one of his characters say, "Yonder
comes a herald: so Dust, Clay's thirsty sister, tells me," the
personification, unquestionably, was as purposed and conscious as
it is when a poet in the nineteenth century says, "Thirst dived
from the brazen glare of the sky and clutched me by the throat."
So, too, when Homer describes the bag of Aolus, the winds, in
possession of the sailors on board Ulysses' ship, the half
humorous allegory cannot be mistaken for religious faith. It is
equally obvious that these distinctions were not always carefully
observed, but were often confounded. Therefore, in respect to the
faith of primitive times, it is impossible to draw any broad,
fixed lines and say conclusively that all on this side was
consciously considered as fanciful play or emblem, all on that
side as earnest fact. Each particular in each case must be
examined by itself and be decided on its own merits by the light
and weight of the moral probabilities. For example, if there was
any historic basis for the myth of Herakles dragging Cerberus out
of Hades, it was that this hero forcibly entered the Mysteries and
dragged out to light the enactor of the part of the three headed
dog. The aged North man, committing martial suicide rather than
die in his peaceful bed, undoubtedly accepted the ensanguined
picture of Valhalla as a truth. Virgil, dismissing Aneas from the
Tartarean realm through "the ivory gate by which false dreams and
fictitious visions are wont to issue," plainly wrought as a poet
on imaginative materials.

It should be recollected that most of the early peoples had no
rigid formularies of faith like the Christian creeds. The writings
preserved to us are often rather fragments of individual
speculations and hopes than rehearsals of public dogmas. Plato is
far from revealing the contemporaneous belief of Greece in the
sense in which Thomas Aquinas reveals the contemporaneous belief
of Christendom. In Egypt, Persia, Rome, among every cultured
people, there were different classes of minds, the philosophers,
the priests, the poets, the warriors, the common multitude, whose
modes of thinking were in contrast, whose methods of interpreting
their ancestral traditions and the phenomena of human destiny were
widely apart, whose respective beliefs had far different
boundaries. The openly skeptical Euripides and Lucian are to be
borne in mind as well as the apparently credulous Hesiod and
Homer. Of course the Fables of Asop were not literally credited.
Neither, as a general thing, were the Metamorphoses of Ovid. With
the ancients, while there was a general national cast of faith,
there were likewise varieties of individual and sectarian belief
and unbelief, skepticism and credulity, solemn reason and
recreative fancy.

The people of Lystra, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles,
actually thought Barnabas and Paul were Zeus and Hermes, and
brought oxen and garlands to offer them the sacrifices appropriate
to those deities. Peisistratus obtained rule over Athens by
dressing a stately woman, by the name of Phye, as Athene, and
passing off her commands as those of the tutelary goddess.
Herodotus ridicules the people for unsuspiciously accepting her.2
The incredibleness of a doctrine is no obstacle to a popular
belief in it. Whosoever thinks of the earnest reception of the
dogma of transubstantiation the conversion of a wheaten wafer into
the infinite God by nearly three quarters of Christendom at this
moment, must permit the paradox to pass unchallenged. Doubtless
the closing eye of many an expiring Greek reflected the pitiless
old oarsman plying his frost cold boat across the Stygian ferry,
and his failing ear caught the rush of the Phlegethonian surge. It
is equally certain that, at the same time, many another laughed at
these things as childish fictions, fitted only to scare "the baby
of a girl."

Stricken memory, yearning emotion, kindled fancy, a sensitive and
timorous observation of natural phenomena, rustling leaves,
wavering shadows, apparent effects of unknown causes, each is a
superstitious mother of beliefs. The Sonora Indians say that
departed souls dwell among the caves and rocks of the cliffs, and
that the echoes often heard there are their voices. Ruskin
suggests that the cause of the Greeks surrounding the lower world
residence of Persephone with poplar groves was that "the
frailness, fragility, and inconstancy of the leafage of the
poplar tree resembled the fancied ghost people." We can very
easily imagine how, in the breeze at the entrance to some
subterranean descent,

"A ghostly rank Of poplars, like a halted train of shades,
Trembled."

The operations of fierce passions, hate, fright, and rage, in a
brain boiling with blood and fire, make pictures which the savage
afterwards holds in remembrance as facts. He does not by
reflection consciously distinguish the internal acts and sights of
the mind from objective verities. Barbarians as travellers and
psychologists have repeatedly observed usually pay great attention
to the vagaries of madmen, the doings and utterances of the
insane. These persons are regarded as possessed by higher beings.
Their words are oracles: the horrible shapes, the grotesque
scenes, which their disordered and inflamed faculties conjure up,
are eagerly caught at, and such accounts of them as they are able
to make out are treasured up as revelations. This fact is of no
slight importance as an element in the hinting basis of the
beliefs of uncultivated tribes. Many a vision of delirium, many a
raving medley of insanity, has been accepted as truth.3 Another
phenomenon, closely allied to the former, has wrought in a similar
manner and still more widely. It has been a common superstition
with barbarous nations in every part of the world, from Timbuctoo
to Siberia, to suppose that dreams are real

2 Lib. i. cap. 60.

3 De Boismont, Rational History of Hallucinations, ch. 15:
Of Hallucinations considered in a Psychological, Historical,
and Religious Point of View.


adventures which the soul passes through, flying abroad while the
body lies, a dormant shell, wrapped in slumber. The power of this
influence in nourishing a copious credulity may easily be
imagined.

The origin of many notions touching a future state, found in
literature, is to be traced to those rambling thoughts and poetic
reveries with which even the most philosophical minds, in certain
moods, indulge themselves. For example, Sir Isaac Newton "doubts
whether there be not superior intelligencies who, subject to the
Supreme, oversee and control the revolutions of the heavenly
bodies." And Goethe, filled with sorrow by the death of Wieland,
musing on the fate of his departed friend, solemnly surmised that
he had become the soul of a world in some far realm of space. The
same mental exercises which supply the barbarian superstitions
reappear in disciplined minds, on a higher plane and in more
refined forms. Culture and science do not deliver us from all
illusion and secure us sober views conformed to fact. Still, what
we think amid the solid realities of waking life, fancy in her
sleep disjointedly reverberates from hollow fields of dream. The
metaphysician or theologian, instead of resting contented with
mere snatches and glimpses, sets himself deliberately to reason
out a complete theory. In these elaborate efforts many an opinion
and metaphor, plausible or absurd, sweet or direful, is born and
takes its place. There is in the human mind a natural passion for
congruity and completeness, a passion extremely fertile in
complementary products. For example, the early Jewish notion of
literally sitting down at table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,
in the resurrection, was gradually developed by accretion of
assisting particulars into all the details of a consummate
banquet, at which Leviathan was to be the fish, Behemoth the
roast, and so on.4 In the construction of doctrines or of
discourses, one thought suggests, one premise or conclusion
necessitates, another. This genetic application is sometimes
plainly to be seen even in parts of incoherent schemes. For
instance, the conception that man has returned into this life from
anterior experiences of it is met by the opposing fact that he
does not remember any preceding career. The explanatory idea is at
once hit upon of a fountain of oblivion a river Lethe from which
the disembodied soul drinks ere it reappears. Once establish in
the popular imagination the conception of the Olympian synod of
gods, and a thousand dramatic tales of action and adventure,
appropriate to the characters of the divine personages, will
inevitably follow.

The interest, cunning, and authority of priesthoods are another
source of prevailing opinions concerning a life to come. Many
nations, early and late, have been quite under the spiritual
direction of priests, and have believed almost every thing they
said. Numerous motives conspire to make the priest concoct
fictions and exert his power to gain credence for them. He must
have an alluringly colored elysium to reward his obedient
disciples. When his teachings are rejected and his authority
mocked, his class isolation and incensed pride find a natural
satisfaction in threatening the reprobate aliens that a rain of
fire will one day wash them down the smoking gulfs of sulphur. The
Maronites, a sect of Catholic Christians in Syria, purchase of
their priests a few yards of land in heaven, to secure a residence
there when

4 Corrodi, Gesch. des Chiliasmns, th. i. abschn. 15: Gastmahl des
Leviathan.

they die.5 The Siamese Buddhists accumulate silver and bury it in
secret, to supply the needs of the soul during its wandering in
the separate state. "This foolish opinion robs the state of
immense sums. The lords and rich men erect pyramids over these
treasures, and for their greater security place them in charge of
the talapoins!"6 When, for some reason or other,  either as a
matter of neatness and convenience, or as a preventive of mutual
clawing, or for some to us unimaginable end, the authoritative
Skald wished to induce the Northmen to keep their nails close cut,
he devised the awful myth of the ship Nagelfra, and made his raw
minded people swallow it as truth. The same process was followed
unquestionably in a thousand other cases, in different particulars
of thought and aim, in different parts of the world.

In a bird's eye survey of the broad field we have traversed, one
cannot help noticing the marked influence of the present scenery
and habits, history and associations, of a people in deciding the
character of their anticipations of the future. The Esquimaux
paradise is surrounded by great pots full of boiled walrus meat.
The Turk's heaven is a gorgeously idealized pleasure garden or
celestial harem. As the apparition of a man wanders into the next
state, a shadow of his present state floats over into the future
with him. The Hereafter is the image flung by the Now. Heaven and
hell are the upward and downward echoes of the earth. Like the
spectre of the Brocken on the Hartz Mountains, our ideas of
another life are a reflection of our present experience thrown in
colossal on the cloud curtains of futurity. Charles Lamb, pushing
this elucidating observation much further, says, "The shapings of
our heavens are the modifications of our constitutions." A tribe
of savages has been described who hoped to go after death to their
forefathers in an under ground elysium whose glory consisted in
eternal drunkenness, that being their highest conception of bliss
and glory. What can be more piteous than the contemplation of
those barbarians whose existence here is so wretched that even
their imagination and faith have lost all rebound, and who
conceive of the land of souls only as poorer and harder than this,
expecting to be tasked and beaten there by stronger spirits, and
to have nothing to eat? The relation of master and servant, the
tyranny of class, is reflected over into the other life in those
aristocratic notions which break out frequently in the history of
our subject. The Pharisees some of them, at least excluded the
rabble from the resurrection. The Peruvians confined their heaven
to the nobility. The New Zealanders said the souls of the Atuas,
the nobles, were immortal, but the Cookees perished entirely.
Meiners declares that the Russians, even so late as the times of
Peter the Great, believed that only the Czar and the boyars could
reach heaven. It was almost a universal custom among savage
nations when a chieftain died to slay his wives and servants, that
their ghosts might accompany his to paradise, to wait on him there
as here. Even among the Greeks, as Bulwer has well remarked, "the
Hades of the ancients was not for the many; and the dwellers of
Elysium are chiefly confined to the oligarchy of earth."

The coarse and selfish assumption on the part of man of
superiority over woman, based on his brawniness and tyranny, has
sometimes appeared in the form of an assertion that

5 Churchill, Mt. Lebanon, vol. iii. ch. 7.

6 Pallegoix, Description du Royaume de Siam, ch. xx. p. 113.


women have no souls, or at least cannot attain to the highest
heaven possible for man. The former statement has been vulgarly
attributed to the Moslem creed, but with utter falsity. A pious
and aged female disciple once asked Mohammed concerning her future
condition in heaven. The prophet replied, "There will not be any
old women in heaven." She wept and bewailed her fate, but was
comforted upon the gracious assurance from the prophet's lips,
"They will all be young again when there." The Buddhists relate
that Gotama once directed queen Prajapati, his foster mother, to
prove by a miracle the error of those who supposed it impossible
for a woman to attain Nirwana. She immediately made as many
repetitions of her own form as filled the skies of all the
sakwalas, and, after performing various wonders, died and rose
into Nirwana, leading after her five hundred virtuous princesses.7

How spontaneously the idiosyncrasies of men in the present are
flung across the abysm into the future state is exhibited
amusingly, and with a rough pathos, in an old tradition of a
dialogue between Saint Patrick and Ossian. The bard contrasts the
apostle's pitiful psalms with his own magnificent songs, and says
that the virtuous Fingal is enjoying the rewards of his valor in
the aerial existence. The saint rejoins, No matter for Fingal's
worth; being a pagan, assuredly he roasts in hell. In hot wrath
the honest Caledonian poet cries, "If the children of Morni and
the tribes of the clan Ovi were alive, we would force brave Fingal
out of hell, or the same habitation should be our own."8

Many of the most affecting facts and problems in human experience
and destiny have found expression, hypothetic solution, in
striking myths preserved in the popular traditions of nations. The
mutual resemblances in these legends in some cases, though among
far separated peoples, are very significant and impressive. They
denote that, moved by similar motives and exercised on the same
soliciting themes, human desire and thought naturally find vent in
similar theories, stories, and emblems. The imagination of man, as
Gfrorer says, runs in ruts which not itself but nature has beaten.

The instinctive shrinking from death felt by man would, sooner or
later, quite naturally suggest the idea that death was not an
original feature in the divine plan of the world, but a
retributive additional discord. Benignant nature meant her
children should live on in happy contentment here forever; but sin
and Satan came in, and death was the vengeance that followed their
doings. The Persians fully developed this speculation. The Hebrews
either also originated it, or borrowed it from the Persians; and
afterwards the Christians adopted it. Traces of the same
conception appear among the remotest and rudest nations. The
Caribbeans have a myth to the effect that the whole race of men
were doomed to be mortal because Carus, the first man, offended
the great god Tiri. The Cherokees ascribe to the Great Spirit the
intention of making men immortal on earth; but, they say, the sun
when he passed over told them there was not room enough, and that
people had better die! They also say that the Creator attempted to
make the first man and woman out of two stones, but failed, and
afterwards fashioned them of clay; and therefore it is that they
are perishable.9 The

7 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 314.

8 Logan, Scottish Gael, ch. xiv.

9 Squier, Serpent Symbol, p. 67, note c.


Indians of the Oronoco declare that the Great Spirit dwelt for a
while, at first, among men. As he was leaving them, he turned
around in his canoe and said, "Ye shall never die, but shall shed
your skins." An old woman would not believe what he said; he
therefore recalled his promise and vowed that they should die.

The thought of more than one death that the composite man is
simplified by a series of separating deaths has repeatedly found
place. The New Testament speaks of "the second death;" but that is
a metaphorical phrase, descriptive, as there employed, of
condemnation and suffering. It is a thought of Plato that the
Deity put intellect in soul, and soul in a material envelope.
Following this hint, Plutarch says, in his essay on the Face in
the Moon, that the earth furnishes the body, the moon the soul,
the sun the mind. The first death we die, he continues, makes us
two from three; the second makes us one from two. The Feejees tell
how one of their warriors, seeing the spectre of a recently
deceased enemy of his, threw his war club at it and killed it.
They believed the spirit itself was thus destroyed. There is
something pathetic in this accumulation of dissolution upon
dissolution, this pursuit of death after death. We seem to hear,
in this thin succession of the ghosts of ghosts, the fainter
growing echoes of the body fade away.

Many narratives reveal the fond hovering of the human mind over
the problem of avoiding death altogether. The Hebrew Scriptures
have made us familiar with the translation of Enoch and the
ascension of Elijah without tasting death. The Hindus tell of
Divadassa, who, as a reward for his exceeding virtue and piety,
was permitted to ascend to heaven alive.10 They also say that the
good Trisanku, having pleased a god, was elevated in his living
body to heaven.11 The Buddhists of Ceylon preserve a legend of the
elevation of one of the royal descendants of Maha Sammata to the
superior heavens without undergoing death.12 There are Buddhist
traditions, furthermore, of four other persons who were taken up
to Indra's heaven in their bodies without tasting death, namely,
the musician Gattila, and the kings Sadhina, Nirni, and
Mandhatu.13 A beautiful myth of the translation of Cyrus is found
in Firdousi's Shah Nameh:

"Ky Khosru bow'd himself before his God: In the bright water he
wash'd his head and his limbs; And he spake to himself the Zend
Avesta's prayers; And he turn'd to the friends of his life and
exclaim'd, 'Fare ye well, fare ye well for evermore! When to
morrow's sun lifts its blazing banner, And the sea is gold, and
the land is purple, This world and I shall be parted forever. Ye
will never see me again, save in Memory's dreams.'When the sun
uplifted his head from the mountain, The king had vanish'd from
the eyes of his nobles. They roam'd around in vain attempts to
find him;

10 Vans Kennedy, Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 431.

11 Vishnu Purana, p. 371.

12 Upham, Sacred Books of Ceylon, vol. i. Introduction, p. 17.

13 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 25, note.


And every one, as he came back to the place, Bade a long farewell
to the king of the world. Never hath any one seen such a marvel
No, though he live long in the world That a man should go alive
into the presence of God."

There is a Greek story that Empedocles, "after a sacred festival,
was drawn up to heaven in a splendor of celestial effulgence."14
Philostratus relates a tradition of the Cretans, affirming that,
Apollonius having entered a temple to worship, a sound was heard
as of a chorus of virgins singing, "Come from the earth; come into
heaven; come." And he was taken up, never having been seen
afterwards. Here may be cited also the exquisite fable of
Endymion. Zeus promised to grant what he should request. He begged
for immortality, eternal sleep, and never fading youth.
Accordingly, in all his surpassing beauty he slumbers on the
summit of Latmus, where every night the enamored moon stoops to
kiss his spotless forehead. One of the most remarkable fragments
in the traditions of the American aborigines is that concerning
the final departure of Tarenyawagon, a mythic chief of
supernatural knowledge and power, who instructed and united the
Iroquois. He sprang across vast chasms between the cliffs, and
shot over the lakes with incredible speed, in a spotless white
canoe. At last the Master of Breath summoned him. Suddenly the sky
was filled with melody. While all eyes were turned up,
Tarenyawagon was seen, seated in his snow white canoe, in mid air,
rising with every burst of the heavenly music, till he vanished
beyond the summer clouds, and all was still.15

Another mythological method of avoidingdeath is by bathing in some
immortal fountain. The Greeks tell of Glaucus, who by chance
discovered and plunged in a spring of this charmed virtue, but was
so chagrined at being unable to point it out to others that he
flung himself into the ocean. He could not die, and so became a
marine deity, and was annually seen off the headlands sporting
with whales. The search for the "Fountain of Youth" by the
Spaniards who landed in Florida is well known. How with a vain
eagerness did Ponce de Leon, the battered old warrior, seek after
the magic wave beneath which he should sink to emerge free from
scars and stains, as fresh and fair as when first he donned the
knightly harness! Khizer, the Wandering Jew of the East,
accompanied Iskander Zulkarnain (the Oriental name for Alexander
the Great) in his celebrated expedition to find the fountain of
life.16 Zulkarnain, coming to a place where there were three
hundred and sixty fountains, despatched three hundred and sixty
men, ordering each man to select one of the fountains in which to
wash a dry salted fish wherewith he was furnished. The instant
Khizer's fish touched the water of the fountain which he had
chosen, it sprang away, alive. Khizer leaped in after it and
drank. Therefore he cannot die till the last trump sounds.
Meanwhile, clad in a green garb, he roams through the world, a
personified spring of the year.

14 Lewes, Biographical History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 135, (1st
Eng. edit.)

15 Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, ch. ix.

16 Adventures of Hatim Tai, p. 125.


The same influences which have caused death to be interpreted as a
punitive after piece in the creation, and which have invented
cases wherein it was set aside, have also fabricated tales of
returns from its shrouded realm. The Thracian lover's harp,
"drawing iron tears down Pluto's cheek," won his mistress half way
to the upper light, and would have wholly redeemed her had he not
in impatience looked back. The grim king of Hades, yielding to
passionate entreaties, relented so far as to let the hapless
Protesilaus return to his mourning Laodameia for three hours. At
the swift end of this poor period he died again; and this time she
died with him. Erus, who was killed in battle, and Timarchus,
whose soul was rapt from him in the cave of Trophonius, both
returned, as we read in Plato and Plutarch, to relate with
circumstantial detail what they saw in the other world. Alcestis,
who so nobly died to save her husband's life, was brought back
from the region of the dead, by the interposition of Herakles, to
spend happy years with her grateful Admetus. The cunning Sisyphus,
who was so notorious for his treachery, by a shrewd plot obtained
leave, after his death, to visit the earth again. Safely up in the
light, he vowed he would stay; but old Hermes psychopompus
forcibly dragged him down.

When Columbus landed at San Salvador, the natives thought he had
descended from the sun, and by signs inquired if he had not. The
Hawaiians took Captain Cook for the god Lono, who was once their
king but was afterwards deified, and who had prophesied, as he was
dying, that he should in after times return. Te Wharewara, a New
Zealand youth, relates a long account of the return of his aunt
from the other world, with a minute description of her adventures
and observations there.17 Schoolcraft gives a picturesque
narrative of a journey made by a Wyandot brave to and from the
land of souls.18

There is a group of strangely pleasing myths, closely allied to
the two preceding classes, showing how the popular heart and
imagination glorify their heroes, and, fondly believing them too
godlike to die, fancy them only removed to some secret place,
where they still live, and whence in the time of need they will
come again to rescue or to bless their people. Greece dreamed that
her swift footed Achilles was yet alive in the White Island.
Denmark long saw king Holger lingering on the old warrior cairns
of his country. Portugal trusted that her beauteous prince
Sebastian had escaped from the fatal field to the East, and would
one day return to claim his usurped realm.19 So, too, of Roderick
the Goth, who fell in disastrous battle with the Arabs, the
Visiogothic traditions and faith of the people long insisted that
he would reappear. The Swiss herdsmen believe the founders of
their confederacy still sleep in a cavern on the shores of
Lucerne. When Switzerland is in peril, the Three Tells, slumbering
there in their antique garb, will wake to save her. Sweetly and
often, the ancient British lays allude to the puissant Arthur
borne away to the mystic vales of Avalon, and yet to be hailed in
his native kingdom, Excalibur once more gleaming in his hand. The
strains of the Troubadours swell and ring as they tell of
Charlemagne sleeping beneath

17 Shortland, Traditions of the New Zealanders, p. 128.

18 History, &c. of Indian Tribes, part ii. p. 235.

19 There is a fanatic sect of Sebastianists in Brazil now. See
"Brazil and the Brazilians," by Kidier and Fletcher, pp. 519-521.


the Untersberg, biding his appointed time to rise, resume his
unrivalled sceptre, and glorify the Frank race. And what grand and
weird ballads picture great Barbarossa seated in the vaults of
Kyffhauser, his beard grown through the stone table in front of
him, tarrying till he may come forth, with his minstrels and
knights around him, in the crisis hour of Germany's fortunes! The
Indians of Pecos, in New Mexico, still anxiously expect the return
of Montezuma; while in San Domingo, on the Rio Grande, a sentinel
every morning ascends to the top of the highest house, at sunrise,
and looks out eastward for the coming of the great chief.20 The
peasants of Brittany maintain as a recent traveller testifies that
Napoleon is still alive in concealment somewhere, and will one day
be heard of or seen in pomp and victory. One other dead man there
has been who was expected to return. the hated Nero, the popular
horror of whom shows itself in the shuddering belief expressed in
the Apocalypse and in the Sibylline Oracles that he was still
alive and would reappear.21

Alian, in his Various History, recounts the following singular
circumstances concerning the Meropes who inhabited the valley of
Anostan.22 It would seem to prove that no possible conceit of
speculation pertaining to our subject has been unthought of. A
river of grief and a river of pleasure, he says, lapsed through
the valley, their banks covered with trees. If one ate of the
fruit growing on the trees beside the former stream, he burst into
a flood of tears and wept till he died. But if he partook of that
hanging on the shore of the latter, his bliss was so great that he
forgot all desires; and, strangest of all, he returned over the
track of life to youth and infancy, and then gently expired. He
turned

"Into his yesterdays, and wander'd back To distant childhood, and
went out to God By the gate of birth, not death."

Mohammed, during his night journey, saw, in the lower heaven,
Adam, the father of mankind, a majestic old man, with all his
posterity who were destined for paradise on one side, and all who
were destined for hell on the other. When he looked on the right
he smiled and rejoiced, but as often as he looked on the left he
mourned and wept. How finely this reveals the stupendous pathos
there is in the theological conception of a Federal Head of
humanity!

The idea of a great terminal crisis is met with so often in
reviewing the history of human efforts to grasp and solve the
problem of the world's destiny, that we must consider it a normal
concomitant of such theorizings. The mind reels and loses itself
in trying to conceive of the everlasting continuance of the
present order, or of any one fixed course of things, but finds
relief in the notion of a revolution, an end, and a fresh start.
The Mexican Cataclysm or universal crash, the close of the Hindu
Calpa, the Persian Resurrection, the Stoic Conflagration, the
Scandinavian Ragnarokur, the Christian Day of Judgment, all embody
this one thought. The Drama of Humanity is played out, the curtain
falls, and when it rises again

20 Abbe Domenech's Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of
North America; Vol. I. ch. viii.

21 Stuart, Commentary on the Apocalypse: Excursus upon ch. xiii.
v. 18.

22 Lib. iii. cap. 18.


all is commenced afresh. The clock of creation runs down and has
to be wound up anew. The Brahmans are now expecting the tenth
avatar of Vishnu. The Parsees look for Sosiosch to come, to
consummate the triumph of good, and to raise the dead upon a
renewed earth. The Buddhists await the birth of Maitri Buddha, who
is tarrying in the dewa loka Tusita until the time of his advent
upon earth. The Jews are praying for the appearance of the
Messiah. And many Christians affirm that the second advent of
Jesus draws nigh.

One more fact, even in a hasty survey of some of the most peculiar
opinions current in bygone times as to a future life, can scarcely
fail to attract notice. It is the so constant linking of the
soul's fate with the skyey spaces and the stars, in fond
explorings and astrologic dreams. Nowhere are the kingly greatness
and the immortal aspiring of man more finely shown. The loadstone
of his destiny and the prophetic gravitation of his thoughts are
upward, into the eternal bosom of heaven's infinite hospitality.

"Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven,
That, in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star."

What an immeasurable contrast between the dying Cherokee, who
would leap into heaven with a war whoop on his tongue and a string
of scalps in his hand, and the dying Christian, who sublimely
murmurs, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" What a sweep
of thought, from the poor woman whose pious notion of heaven was
that it was a place where she could sit all day in a clean white
apron and sing psalms, to the far seeing and sympathetic natural
philosopher whose loving faith embraces all ranks of creatures and
who conceives of paradise as a spiritual concert of the combined
worlds with all their inhabitants in presence of their Creator!
Yet from the explanatory considerations which have been set forth
we can understand the derivation of the multifarious swarm of
notions afloat in the world, as the fifteen hundred varieties of
apple now known have all been derived from the solitary white
crab. Differences of fancy and opinion among men are as natural as
fancies and opinions are. The mind of a people grows from the
earth of its deposited history, but breathes in the air of its
living literature.23 By his philosophic learning and poetic
sympathy the cosmopolitan scholar wins the last victory of mind
over matter, frees himself from local conditions and temporal
tinges, and, under the light of universal truth, traces, through
the causal influences of soil and clime and history, and the
colored threads of great individualities, the formation of
peculiar national creeds. Through sense the barbarian mind feeds
on the raw pabulum furnished by the immediate phenomena of the
world and of its own life. Through culture the civilized mind
feeds on the elaborated substance of literature,

23 Schouw, Earth, Plants, and Man, ch. xxx.


science, and art. Plants eat inorganic, animals eat organized,
material. The ignorant man lives on sensations obtained directly
from nature; the educated man lives also on sensations obtained
from the symbols of other people's sensations. The illiterate
savage hunts for his mental living in the wild forest of
consciousness; the erudite philosopher lives also on the psychical
stores of foregone men.

NOTE. To the ten instances, stated on pages 210, 211, of
remarkable men who after their death were popularly imagined to be
still alive, and destined to appear again, an eleventh may be
added. The Indians of Pecos, in New Mexico, anxiously expect the
return of Montezuma. In San Domingo, on the Rio Grande, a sentinel
every morning ascends to the roof of the highest house at sunrise
and looks out eastward for the coming of the great chief. See the
Abbe Domenech's "Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of
North America," vol. ii. ch. viii.

PART THIRD.


NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS CONCERNING AFUTURE LIFE.


CHAPTER I.

PETER'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

IN entering upon an investigation of the thoughts of the New
Testament writers concerning the fate of man after his bodily
dissolution, we may commence by glancing at the various allusions
contained in the record to opinions on this subject prevalent at
the time of the Savior or immediately afterwards, but which formed
no part of his religion, or were mixed with mistakes.

There are several incidents recorded in the Gospels which show
that a belief in the transmigration of the soul was received among
the Jews. As Jesus was passing near Siloam with his disciples, he
saw a man who had been blind from his birth; and the disciples
said to him, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind?" The drift of this question is, Did the parents
of this man commit some great crime, for which they were punished
by having their child born blind, or did he come into the world
under this calamity in expiation of the iniquities of a previous
life? Jesus denies the doctrine involved in this interrogation, at
least, as far as his reply touches it at all; for he rarely enters
into any discussion or refutation of incidental errors. He says,
Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents as the cause of his
blindness; but the regular workings of the laws of God are made
manifest in him: moreover, it is a providential occasion offered
me that I should show the divinity of my mission by giving him
sight.

When Herod heard of the miracles and the fame of Jesus, he said,
This is John the Baptist, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the
dead; and therefore mighty works are wrought by him. This brief
statement plainly shows that the belief in the reappearance of a
departed spirit, in bodily form, to run another career, was extant
in Judea at that period. The Evangelists relate another
circumstance to the same effect. Jesus asked his disciples who the
people thought he was. And they replied, Some think that thou art
John the Baptist, some Elias, and some Jeremiah or some other of
the old prophets, a forerunner of the Messiah. Then Jesus asked,
But who think ye that I am? And Simon Peter said, Thou art the
promised Messiah himself. There was a prophetic tradition among
the Jews, drawn from the words of Malachi, that before the Messiah
was revealed Elias would appear and proclaim his coming.

Therefore, when the disciples of Christ recognised him as the
great Anointed, they were troubled about this prophecy, and said
to their Master, Why do the Scribes say that Elias must first
come? He replies to them, in substance, It is even so: the
prophet's words shall not fail: they are already fulfilled. But
you must interpret the prophecy aright. It does not mean that the
ancient prophet himself, in physical form, shall come upon earth,
but that one with his office, in his spirit and power, shall go
before me. If ye are able to understand the true import of the
promise, it has been realized. John the Baptist is the Elias which
was to come. The New Testament, therefore, has allusions to the
doctrine of transmigration, but gives it no warrant.

The Jewish expectations in regard to the Messiah, the nature of
his kingdom, and the events which they supposed would attend his
coming or transpire during his reign, were the source and
foundation of the phraseology of a great many passages in the
Christian Scriptures and of the sense of not a few. The national
ideas and hopes of the Jews at that time were singularly intense
and extensive. Their influence over the immediate disciples of
Jesus and the authors of the New Testament is often very evident
in the interpretations they put upon his teachings, and in their
own words. Still, their intellectual and spiritual obtuseness to
the true drift of their Master's thoughts was not so great, their
mistakes are neither so numerous nor so gross, as it is frequently
supposed they were. This is proved by the fact that when they use
the language of the Messianic expectations of the Jews in their
writings they often do it, not in the material, but in a spiritual
sense. When they first came under the instruction of Jesus, they
were fully imbued with the common notions of their nation and age.
By his influence their ideas were slowly and with great difficulty
spiritualized and made to approach his own in some degree. But it
is unquestionably true that they never not even after his death
arrived at a clear appreciation of the full sublimity, the pure
spirituality, the ultimate significance, of his mission and his
words. Still, they did cast off and rise above the grossly carnal
expectations of their countrymen. Partially instructed in the
spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, and partially biassed by
their Jewish prepossessions, they interpreted a part of his
language figuratively, according to his real meaning, and a part
of it literally, according to their own notions. The result of
this was several doctrines neither taught by Christ nor held by
the Jews, but formed by conjoining and elaborating a portion of
the conceptions of both. These doctrines are to be found in the
New Testament; but it should be distinctly understood that the
religion of Christ is not responsible for them, is to be separated
from them.

The fundamental and pervading aim of that epistle of Peter the
genuineness of which is unquestioned and the same is true in a
great degree of his speeches recorded in the Acts of the Apostles
is to exhort the Christians to whom it is written to purify
themselves by faith, love, and good works; to stand firmly amidst
all their tribulations, supported by the expectations and prepared
to meet the conditions of a glorious life in heaven at the close
of this life. Eschatology, the doctrine of the Last Things, with
its practical inferences, all inseparably interwoven with the
mission of Christ, forms the basis and scope of the whole
document.

Peter believed that when Christ had been put to death his spirit,
surviving, descended into the separate state of departed souls.
Having cited from the sixteenth Psalm the declaration, "Thou wilt
not leave my soul in the under world," he says it was a prophecy
concerning Christ, which was fulfilled in his resurrection. "The
soul of this Jesus was not left in the under world, but God hath
raised him up, whereof we all are witnesses." When it is written
that his soul was not left in the subterranean abode of
disembodied spirits, of course the inference cannot be avoided
that it was supposed to have been there for a time.

In the next place, we are warranted by several considerations in
asserting that Peter believed that down there, in the gloomy realm
of shades, were gathered and detained the souls of all the dead
generations. We attribute this view to Peter from the combined
force of the following reasons: because such was, notoriously, the
belief of his ancestral and contemporary countrymen; because he
speaks of the resurrection of Jesus as if it were a wonderful
prophecy or unparalleled miracle, a signal and most significant
exception to the universal law; because he says expressly of David
that "he is not yet ascended into the heavens," and if David was
still retained below, undoubtedly all were; because the same
doctrine is plainly inculcated by other of the New Testament
writers; and, finally, because Peter himself, in another part of
this epistle, declares, in unequivocal terms, that the soul of
Christ went and preached to the souls confined in the under
world, for such is the perspicuous meaning of the famous text,
"being put to death in the body, but kept alive in the soul, in
which also he went and preached [went as a herald] to the spirits
in prison." The meaning we have attributed to this celebrated
passage is the simple and consistent explanation of the words and
the context, and is what must have been conveyed to those familiar
with the received opinions of that time. Accordingly, we find
that, with the exception of Augustine, it was so understood and
interpreted by the whole body of the Fathers.1 It is likewise so
held now by an immense majority of the most authoritative modern
commentators. Rosenmuller says, in his commentary on this text,
"That by the spirits in prison is meant souls of men separated
from their bodies and detained as in custody in the under world,
which the Greeks call Hades, the Hebrews Sheol, can hardly be
doubted," (vix dubitari posse videtur.) Such has ever been and
still is the common conclusion of nearly all the best critical
theologians, as volumes of citations might easily be made to show.
The reasons which led Augustine to give a different exposition of
the text before us are such as should make, in this case, even his
great name have little or no weight. He firmly held, as revealed
and unquestionable truth,2 the whole doctrine which we maintain is
implied in the present passage; but he was so perplexed by certain
difficult queries3 as to locality and method and circumstance,
addressed to him with reference to this text, that he, waveringly,
and at last, gave it an allegorical interpretation. His exegesis
is not only arbitrary and opposed to the catholic doctrine of the
Church; it is also so far fetched and forced as to be destitute of

1 See, for example, Clem. Alex. Stromata, lib. vi.; Cyprian, Test.
adv. Judaos, lib. ii. cap. 27, Lactantius, Divin. Instit. lib.
vii. cap. 20.

2 Epist. XCIX.

3 Ibid.


plausibility. He says the spirits in prison may be the souls of
men confined in their bodies here in this life, to preach to whom
Christ came from heaven. But the careful reader will observe that
Peter speaks as if the spirits were collected and kept in one
common custody, refers to the spirits of a generation long ago
departed to the dead, and represents the preaching as taking place
in the interval between Christ's death and his resurrection. A
glance from the eighteenth to the twenty second verse inclusive
shows indisputably that the order of events narrated by the
apostle is this: First, Christ was put to death in the flesh,
suffering for sins, the just for the unjust; secondly, he was
quickened in the spirit; thirdly, he went and preached to the
spirits in prison; fourthly, he rose from the dead; fifthly, he
ascended into heaven. How is it possible for any one to doubt that
the text under consideration teaches his subterranean mission
during the period of his bodily burial?

In the exposition of the Apostles' Creed put forth by the Church
of England under Edward VI., this text in Peter was referred to as
an authoritative proof of the article on Christ's descent into the
under world; and when, some years later, thatreference was
stricken out, notoriously it was not because the Episcopal rulers
were convinced of a mistake, but because they had become afraid of
the associated Romish doctrine of purgatory.

If Peter believed as he undoubtedly did that Christ after his
crucifixion descended to the place of departed spirits, what did
he suppose was the object of that descent? Calvin's theory was
that he went into hell in order that he might there suffer
vicariously the accumulated agonies due to the LOST, thus
placating the just wrath of the Father and purchasing the release
of the elect. A sufficient refutation of that dogma, as to its
philosophical basis, is found in its immorality, its forensic
technicality. As a mode of explaining the Scriptures, it is
refuted by the fact that it is nowhere plainly stated in the New
Testament, but is arbitrarily constructed by forced and indirect
inferences from various obscure texts, which texts can be
perfectly explained without involving it at all. For what purpose,
then, was it thought that Jesus went to the imprisoned souls of
the under world? The most natural supposition the conception most
in harmony with the character and details of the rest of the
scheme and with the prevailing thought of the time would be that
he went there to rescue the captives from their sepulchral
bondage, to conquer death and the devil in their own domain, open
the doors, break the chains, proclaim good tidings of coming
redemption to the spirits in prison, and, rising thence, to ascend
to heaven, preparing the way for them to follow with him at his
expected return. This, indeed, is the doctrine of the Judaizing
apostles, the unbroken catholic doctrine of the Church. Paul
writes to the Colossians, and to the Ephesians, that, when Christ
"had spoiled the principalities and powers" of the world of the
dead, "he ascended up on high, leading a multitude of captives."
Peter himself declares, a little farther on in his epistle, "that
the glad tidings were preached to the dead, that, though they had
been persecuted and condemned in the flesh by the will of men,
they might be blessed in the spirit by the will of God."4 Christ
fulfilled the law of

4 See Rosenmuller's explanation in hoc loco.


death,5 descending to the place of separate spirits, that he might
declare deliverance to the quick and the dead by coming
triumphantly back and going into heaven, an evident token of the
removal of the penalty of sin which hitherto had fatally doomed
all men to the under world.6

Let us see if this will not enable us to explain Peter's language
satisfactorily. Death, with the lower residence succeeding it, let
it be remembered, was, according to the Jewish and apostolic
belief, the fruit of sin, the judgment pronounced on sin. But
Christ, Peter says, was sinless. "He was a lamb without blemish
and without spot." "He did no sin, neither was guile found in his
mouth." Therefore he was not exposed to death and the under world
on his own account. Consequently, when it is written that "he bore
our sins in his own body on the tree," that "he suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust," in order to give the words their clear,
full meaning it is not necessary to attribute to them the sense of
a vicarious sacrifice offered to quench the anger of God or to
furnish compensation for a broken commandment; but this sense,
namely, that although in his sinlessness he was exempt from death,
yet he "suffered for us," he voluntarily died, thus undergoing for
our sakes that which was to others the penalty of their sin. The
object of his dying was not to conciliate the alienated Father or
to adjust the unbalanced law: it was to descend into the realm of
the dead, heralding God's pardon to the captives, and to return
and rise into heaven, opening and showing to his disciples the way
thither. For, owing to his moral sinlessness, or to his delegated
omnipotence, if he were once in the abode of the dead, he must
return: nothing could keep him there. Epiphanius describes the
devil complaining, after Christ had burst through his nets and
dungeons, "Miserable me! what shall I do? I did not know God was
concealed in that body. The son of Mary has deceived me. I
imagined he was a mere man."7 In an apocryphal writing of very
early date, which shows some of the opinions abroad at that time,
one of the chief devils, after Christ had appeared in hell,
cleaving its grisly prisons from top to bottom and releasing the
captives, is represented upbraiding Satan in these terms: "O
prince of all evil, author of death, why didst thou crucify and
bring down to our regions a person righteous and sinless? Thereby
thou hast lost all the sinners of the world."8 Again, in an
ancient treatise on the Apostles' Creed, we read as follows: "In
the bait of Christ's flesh was secretly inserted the hook of his
divinity. This the devil knew not, but, supposing he must stay
when he was

5 See King's History of the Apostles' Creed, 3d ed., pp. 234-239.
"The purpose of Christ's descent was to undergo the laws of death,
pass through the whole experience of man, conquer the devil, break
the fetters of the captives, and fix a time for their
resurrection." To the same effect, old Hilary, Bishop of
Poictiers, in his commentary on Psalm cxxxviii., says, "It is a
law of human necessity that, the body being buried, the soul
should descend ad interos."

6 Ambrose, De Fide, etc., lib. iv. cap. 1, declares that "no one
ascended to heaven until Christ, by the pledge of his
resurrection, solved the chains of the under world and translated
the souls of the pious." Also Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, in his
fourth catechetical lecture, sect. 11, affirms "that Christ
descended into the under world to deliver those who, from Adam
downwards, had been imprisoned there."

7 In Assumptionem Christi.

8 Evan. Nicodemi, cap. xviii.


devoured, greedily swallowed the corpse, and the bolts of the
nether world were wrenched asunder, and the ensnared dragon
himself dragged from the abyss."9 Peter himself explicitly
declares, "It was not possible that he should be held by death."
Theodoret says, "Whoever denies the resurrection of Christ rejects
his death."10 If he died, he must needs rise again. And his
resurrection would demonstrate the forgiveness of sins, the
opening of heaven to men, showing that the bond which had bound in
despair the captives in the regions of death for so many voiceless
ages was at last broken. Accordingly, "God, having loosed the
chains of the under world, raised him up and set him at his own
right hand."11

And now the question, narrowed down to the smallest compass, is
this: What is the precise, real signification of the sacrificial
and other connected terms employed by Peter,  those phrases which
now, by the intense associations of a long time, convey so strong
a Calvinistic sense to most readers? Peter says, "Ye know that ye
were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ." If there were
not so much indeterminateness of thought, so much unthinking
reception of traditional, confused impressions of Scripture texts,
it would be superfluous to observe that by the word blood here,
and in all parallel passages, is meant simply and literally death:
the mere blood, the mere shedding of the blood, of Christ, of
course, could have no virtue, no moral efficacy, of any sort. When
the infuriated Jews cried, "His blood be on us, and on our
children!" they meant, Let the responsibility of his death rest on
us. When the English historian says, "Sidney gave his blood for
the cause of civil liberty," the meaning is, he died for it. So,
no one will deny, whenever the New Testament speaks in any way of
redemption by the blood of the crucified Son of Man, the
unquestionable meaning is, redemption by his death. What, then,
does the phrase "redemption by the death of Christ" mean? Let it
be noted here let it be particularly noticed that the New
Testament nowhere in explicit terms explains the meaning of this
and the kindred phrases: it simply uses the phrases without
interpreting them. They are rhetorical figures of speech,
necessarily, upon whatever theological system we regard them. No
sinner is literally washed from his transgressions and guilt in
the blood of the slaughtered Lamb. These expressions, then, are
poetic images, meant to convey a truth in the language of
association and feeling, the traditionary language of imagination.
The determination of their precise significance is wholly a matter
of fallible human construction and inference, and not a matter of
inspired statement or divine revelation. This is so, beyond a
question, because, we repeat, they are figures of speech, having
no direct explanation in the records where they occur. The
Calvinistic view of the atonement was a theory devised to explain
this scriptural language. It was devised without sufficient
consideration of the peculiar notions and spirit, the peculiar
grade of culture, and the time, from which that language sprang.
We freely admit the inadequacy of the Unitarian

9 Ruffinus, Expos. in Symb. Apost.

10 Comm. in 2 Tim. ii. 19.

11 By a mistake and a false reading, the common version has "the
pains of death," instead of "the chains of the under world." The
sense requires the latter. Besides, numerous manuscripts read
[non ASCII characters]. See, furthermore, Rosenmuller's thorough
criticism in loc. Likewise see Robinson's New Testament Greek
Lexicon, in [NAC].


doctrine of the atonement to explain the figures of speech in
which the apostles declare their doctrine. But, since the
Calvinistic scheme was devised by human thought to explain the New
Testament language, any scheme which explains that language as
well has equal Scripture claims to credence; any which better
explains it, with sharper, broader meaning and fewer difficulties,
has superior claims to be received.

We are now prepared to state what we believe was the meaning
originally associated with, and meant to be conveyed by, the
phrases equivalent to "redemption by the death of Christ." In
consequence of sin, the souls of all mankind, after leaving the
body, were shut up in the oblivious gloom of the under world.
Christ alone, by virtue of his perfect holiness, was not subject
to any part of this fate. But, in fulfilment of the Father's
gracious designs, he willingly submitted, upon leaving the body,
to go among the dead, that he might declare the good tidings to
them, and burst the bars of darkness, and return to life, and rise
into heaven as a pledge of the future translation of the faithful
to that celestial world, instead of their banishment into the
dismal bondage below, as hitherto. The death of Christ, then, was
the redemption of sinners, in that his death implied his ascent,
"because it was not possible that he should be holden of death;"
and his ascension visibly demonstrated the truth that God had
forgiven men their sins and would receive their souls to his own
abode on high.

Three very strong confirmations of the correctness of this
interpretation are afforded in the declarations of Peter. First,
he never even hints, in the faintest manner, that the death of
Christ was to have any effect on God, any power to change his
feeling or his government. It was not to make a purchasing
expiation for sins and thus to reconcile God to us; but it was, by
a revelation of the Father's freely pardoning love, to give us
penitence, purification, confidence, and a regenerating piety, and
so to reconcile us to God. He says in one place, in emphatic
words, that the express purpose of Christ's death was simply "that
he might lead us to God." In the same strain, in another place, he
defines the object of Christ's death to be "that we, being
delivered from sins, should live unto righteousness." It is plain
that in literal reality he refers our marvellous salvation to the
voluntary goodness of God, and not to any vicarious ransom paid in
the sacrifice of Christ, when he says, "The God of all grace hath
called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ." The death of
Christ was not, then, to appease the fierce justice of God by
rectifying the claims of his inexorable law, but it was to call
out and establish in men all moral virtues by the power of faith
in the sure gift of eternal life sealed to them through the
ascension of the Savior.

For, secondly, the practical inferences drawn by Peter from the
death of Christ, and the exhortations founded upon it, are
inconsistent with the prevailing theory of the atonement. Upon
that view the apostle would have said, "Christ has paid the debt
and secured a seat in heaven for you, elected ones: therefore
believe in the sufficiency of his offerings, and exult." But not
so. He calls on us in this wise: "Forasmuch as Christ hath
suffered for us, arm yourselves with the same mind." "Christ
suffered for you, leaving an example that ye should follow his
steps." The whole burden of his practical argument based on the
mission of Christ is, the obligation of a religious spirit and of
pure morals. He does not speak, as many modern sectarists have
spoken, of the "filthy rags of righteousness;" but he says, "Live
no longer in sins," "have a meek and quiet spirit, which is in
the sight of God of great price," "be ye holy in all manner of
conversation," "purify your souls by obedience to the truth,"
"be ye a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices," "have
a good conscience," "avoid evil and do good," "above all, have
fervent love, for love will cover a multitude of sins." No candid
person can peruse the epistle and not see that the great moral
deduced in it from the mission of Christ is this: Since heaven
is offered you, strive by personal virtue to be prepared for it
at the judgment which shall soon come. The disciple is not told
to trust in the merits of Jesus; but he is urged to "abstain
from evil," and "sanctify the Lord God in his heart," and
"love the brethren," and "obey the laws," and "do well,"
"girding up the loins of his mind in sobriety and hope."
This is not Calvinism.

The third fortification of this exposition is furnished by the
following fact. According to our view, the death of Christ is
emphasized, not on account of any importance in itself, but as the
necessary condition preliminary to his resurrection, the
humiliating prelude to his glorious ascent into heaven. The really
essential, significant thing is not his suffering, vicarious
death, but his triumphing, typical ascension. Now, the plain,
repeated statements of Peter strikingly coincide with this
representation. He says, "God raised Christ up from the dead, and
gave him glory, [that is, received him into heaven,] that your
faith and hope might be in God." Again he writes, "Blessed be God,
who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto
an incorruptible inheritance in heaven." Still again, he declares
that "the figure of baptism, signifying thereby the answer of a
good conscience toward God, saves us by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, who is gone into heaven." According to the commonly
received doctrine, instead of these last words the apostle ought
to have said, "saves us by the death of him who suffered in
expiation of our sins." He does not say so. Finally, in the
intrepid speech that Peter made before the Jewish council,
referring to their wicked crucifixion of Jesus, he says, "Him hath
God raised up to his own right hand, to be a Leader and a Savior,
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." How plainly
remission of sins is here predicated, not through Christ's
ignominious suffering, but through his heavenly exaltation! That
exaltation showed in dramatic proof that by God's grace the
dominion of the lower world was about to be broken and an access
to the celestial world to be vouchsafed.

If Christ bought off our merited punishment and earned our
acceptance, then salvation can no more be "reckoned of grace, but
of debt." But the whole New Testament doctrine is, "that sinners
are justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus." "The redemption that is in Christ"! Take these words
literally, and they yield no intelligible meaning. The sense
intended to be conveyed or suggested by them depends on
interpretation; and here disagreement arises. The Calvinist says
they mean the redemption undertaken, achieved, by Christ. We say
they mean the redemption proclaimed, brought to light, by Christ.
The latter explanation is as close to the language as the former.
Neither is unequivocally established by the statement itself. We
ought therefore to adopt the one which is at once most rational
and plausible in itself, and most in harmony with the peculiar
opinions and culture of the person by whom, and of the time when,
the document was written. All these considerations, historical,
philosophical, and moral, undeniably favor our interpretation,
leaving nothing to support the other save the popular theological
belief of modern Protestant Christendom, a belief which is the
gradual product of a few great, mistaken teachers like Augustine
and Calvin.

We do not find the slightest difficulty in explaining sharply and
broadly, with all its niceties of phraseology, each one of the
texts urged in behalf of the prevalent doctrine of the atonement,
without involving the essential features of that doctrine. Three
demonstrable assertions of fact afford us all the requisite
materials. First, it was a prevalent belief with the Jews, that,
since death was the penalty of sin, the suffering of death was in
itself expiatory of the sins of the dying man.12 Lightfoot says,
"It is a common and most known doctrine of the Talmudists, that
repentance and ritual sacrifice expiate some sins, death the rest.
Death wipes off all unexpiated sins."13 Tholuck says, "It was a
Jewish opinion that the death of the just atoned for the
people."14 He quotes from the Talmud an explicit assertion to that
effect, and refers to several learned authorities for further
citations and confirmations.

Secondly, the apostles conceived Christ to be sinless, and
consequently not on his own account exposed to death and subject
to Hades. If, then, death was an atonement for sins, and he was
sinless, his voluntary death was expiatory for the sins of the
world; not in an arbitrary and unheard of way, according to the
Calvinistic scheme, but in the common way, according to a
Pharisaic notion. And thirdly, it was partly a Jewish expectation
concerning the Messiah that he would,15 and partly an apostolic
conviction concerning Christ that he did, break the bolts of the
old Hadean prison and open the way for human ascent to heaven. As
Jerome says, "Before Christ Abraham was in hell, after Christ the
crucified thief was in paradise;"16 for "until the advent of
Christ all alike went down into the under world, heaven being shut
until Christ threw aside the flaming sword that turned every
way."17

These three thoughts that death is the expiatory penalty of sin,
that Christ was himself sinless, that he died as God's envoy to
release the prisoners of gloom and be their pioneer to bliss leave
nothing to be desired in explaining the sacrificial terms and
kindred phrases employed by the apostles in reference to his
mission.

Without question, Peter, like his companions, looked for the
speedy return of Christ from heaven to judge all, and to save the
worthy. Indications of this belief are numerously afforded in his
words. "The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober
and watch unto prayer." "You shall give account to him that is
ready to judge the quick and the dead." Here the common idea of
that time namely, that the resurrection of the captives of the

12 Witsius, Dissertatio de Seculo hoc et futuro, sect. 8.

13 Lightfoot on Matt. xii. 32.

14 Comm. on John i. 29.

15 "God shall liberate the Israelites from the under world."
Bertholdt's Christologia Judaorum, sect. xxxiv., (De descensu
Messia ad Inferos,) note 2. "The captives shall ascend from the
under world, Shechinah at their head." Schoettgen de Messia, lib.
vi. cap. 5, sect. 1.

16 See his Letter to Heliodorus, Epiat. XXXV., Benedict. ed.

17 Comm. in Eccles. cap. iii. 21, et cap. ix.


under world would occur at the return of Christ is undoubtedly
implied. "Salvation is now ready to be revealed in the last time."
"That your faith may be found unto praise and honor and glory at
the appearing of Jesus Christ." "Be sober, and hope to the end for
the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ." "Be ye examples to the flock, and when the chief
Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive an unfading crown of
glory." "God shall send Jesus Christ, . . . whom the heavens must
receive until the times of the restitution of all things." It is
evident that the author of these passages expected the second
coming of the Lord Jesus to consummate the affairs of his kingdom.

If the apostle had formed definite conclusions as to the final
fate of unbelieving, wicked, reprobate men, he has not stated
them. He undeniably implies certain general facts upon the
subject, but leaves all the details in obscurity. He adjures his
readers with exceeding earnestness he over and over again adjures
them to forsake every manner of sinful life, to strive for every
kind of righteous conversation, that by faith and goodness they
may receive the salvation of their souls. He must have supposed an
opposite fate in some sort to impend over those who did otherwise,
rejecting Christ, "revelling in lasciviousness and idolatry."
Everywhere he makes the distinction between the faithful and the
wicked prominent, and presents the idea that Christ shall come to
judge them both, and shall reward the former with gladness,
crowns, and glory; while it is just as clearly implied as if he
had said it that the latter shall be condemned and punished. When
a judge sits in trial on the good and the bad, and accepts those,
plainly the inference is that he rejects these, unless the
contrary be stated. What their doom is in its nature, what in its
duration, is neither declared, nor inferrible from what is
declared. All that the writer says on this point is substantially
repeated or contained in the fourth chapter of his epistle, from
verses 12 to 19. A slight explanatory paraphrase of it will make
the position clear so far as it can be made clear. "Christian
believers, in the fiery trials which are to try you, stand firm,
even rejoicing that you are fellow sufferers with Christ, a pledge
that when his glory is revealed you shall partake of it with him.
See to it that you are free from crime, free from sins for which
you ought to suffer; then, if persecuted and slain for your
Christian profession and virtues, falter not. The terrible time
preceding the second advent of your Master is at hand. The
sufferings of that time will begin with the Christian household;
but how much more dreadful will be the sufferings of the close of
that time among the disobedient that spurn the gospel of God! If
the righteous shall with great difficulty be snatched from the
perils and woes encompassing that time, surely it will happen very
much worse with ungodly sinners. Therefore let all who suffer in
obedience to God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well
doing."

The souls of men were confined in the under world for sin. Christ
came to turn men from sin and despair to holiness and a
reconciling faith in God. He went to the dead to declare to them
the good tidings of pardon and approaching deliverance through the
free grace of God. He rose into heaven to demonstrate and visibly
exhibit the redemption of men from the under world doom of
sinners. He was soon to return to the earth to complete the
unfinished work of his commissioned kingdom. His accepted ones
should then be taken to glory and reward. The rejected ones
should Their fate is left in gloom, without a definite clew.

CHAPTER II.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

THE Epistle to the Hebrews was written by some person who was
originally a Jew, afterwards a zealous Christian. He was
unquestionably a man of remarkable talent and eloquence and of
lofty religious views and feelings. He lived in the time of the
immediate followers of Jesus, and apparently was acquainted with
them. The individual authorship it is now impossible to determine
with certainty. Many of the most learned, unprejudiced, and able
critics have ascribed it to Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew, a compeer
of Paul and a fellow citizen of Philo. This opinion is more
probable than any other. Indeed, so numerous are the resemblances
of thoughts and words in the writings of Philo to those in this
epistle, that even the wild conjecture has been hazarded that
Philo himself at last became a Christian and wrote to his Hebrew
countrymen the essay which has since commonly passed for Paul's.
No one can examine the hundreds of illustrations of the epistle
gathered from Philo by Carpzov, in his learned but ill reasoned
work, without being greatly impressed. The supposition which has
repeatedly been accepted and urged, that this composition was
first written in Hebrew, and afterwards translated into Greek by
another person, is absurd, in view of the masterly skill and
eloquence, critical niceties, and felicities in the use of
language, displayed in it. We could easily fill a paragraph with
the names of those eminent in the Church such as Tertullian,
Hippolytus, Erasmus, Luther, Le Clerc, and Neander who have
concluded that, whoever the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
was, he was not Paul. The list of those names would reach from the
Egyptian Origen, whose candor and erudition were without parallel
in his age, to the German Bleek, whose masterly and exhaustive
work is a monument of united talent and toil, leaving little to be
desired. It is not within our present aim to argue this point: we
will therefore simply refer the reader to the thorough and
unanswerable discussion and settlement of it by Norton.1

The general object of the composition is, by showing the
superiority of the Christian system to the Hebrew, to arm the
converts from Judaism to whom it is addressed against the
temptations to desert the fulfilling faith of Christ and to return
to the emblematic faith of their fathers. This aim gives a
pervading cast and color to the entire treatment to the reasoning
and especially to the chosen imagery of the epistle. Omitting, for
the most part, whatever is not essentially interwoven with the
subject of death, the resurrection, and future existence, and with
the mission of Christ in relation to those subjects, we advance to
the consideration of the views which the epistle presents or
implies concerning those points. It is to be premised that we are
forced to construct from fragments and hints the theological
fabric that stood in the mind of the writer. The suggestion also
is quite obvious that, since the letter is addressed solely to the
Hebrews and describes Christianity as the completion of

1 Christian Examiner, vols. for 1827 29.


Judaism, an acquaintance with the characteristic Hebrew opinions
and hopes at that time may be indispensable for a full
comprehension of its contents.

The view of the intrinsic nature and rank of Christ on which the
epistle rests seems very plainly to be that great Logos doctrine
which floated in the philosophy of the apostolic age and is so
fully developed in the Gospel of John: "The Logos of God, alive,
energetic, irresistibly piercing, to whose eyes all things are
bare and open;" "first begotten of God;" "faithful to Him that
made him;" inferior to God, superior to all beside; "by whom God
made the worlds;" whose seat is at the right hand of God, the
angels looking up to him, and "the world to come put in subjection
to him." The author, thus assuming the immensely super human rank
and the pre existence of Christ, teaches that, by the good will of
God, he descended to the world in the form of a man, to save them
that were without faith and in fear, them that were lost through
sin. God "bringeth in the first begotten into the world." "When he
cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou
wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for me." "Jesus was
made a little while inferior to the angels." "Forasmuch, then, as
the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself
likewise partook of the same;" that is, in order to pass through
an experience like that of those whom he wished to deliver, he
assumed their nature. "He taketh not hold of angels, but he taketh
hold of the seed of Abraham:" in other words, he aimed not to
assist angels, but men. These passages, taken in connection with
the whole scope and drift of the document in which they are found,
declare that Jesus was a spirit in heaven, but came to the earth,
taking upon him a mortal frame of flesh and blood.

Why he did this is the question that naturally arises next. We do
not see how it is possible for any person to read the epistle
through intelligently, in the light of an adequate knowledge of
contemporary Hebrew opinions, and not perceive that the author's
answer to that inquiry is, that Christ assumed the guise and fate
of humanity in order to die; and died in order to rise from the
dead; and rose from the dead in order to ascend to heaven; and
ascended to heaven in order to reveal the grace of God opening the
way for the celestial exaltation and blessedness of the souls of
faithful men. We will commence the proof and illustration of these
statements by bringing together some of the principal passages in
the epistle which involve the objects of the mission of Christ,
and then stating the thought that chiefly underlies and explains
them.

"We see Jesus who was made a little while inferior to the angels,
in order that by the kindness of God he might taste death for
every man through the suffering of death crowned with glory and
honor." With the best critics, we have altered the arrangement of
the clauses in the foregoing verse, to make the sense clearer. The
exact meaning is, that the exaltation of Christ to heaven after
his death authenticated his mission, showed that his death had a
divine meaning for men; that is, showed that they also should rise
to heaven. "When he had by himself made a purification of our
sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." "For
this cause he is the Mediator of the new covenant, that, his death
having occurred, (for the redemption of the transgressions under
the first covenant,) they which are called might enter upon
possession of the promised eternal inheritance." The force of this
last passage, with its context, turns on the double sense of the
Greek word for covenant, which likewise means a will. Several
statements in the epistle show the author's belief that the
subjects of the old dispensation had the promise of immortal life
in heaven, but had never realized the thing itself.2 Now, he
maintains the purpose of the new dispensation to be the actual
revelation and bestowment of the reality which anciently was only
promised and typically foreshadowed; and in the passage before us
he figures Christ the author of the Christian covenant as the
maker of a will by which believers are appointed heirs of a
heavenly immortality. He then following the analogy of
testamentary legacies and legatees  describes those heirs as
"entering on possession of that eternal inheritance" "by the death
of the Testator." He was led to employ precisely this language by
two obvious reasons: first, for the sake of that paronomasia of
which he was evidently fond; secondly, by the fact that it really
was the death of Christ, with the succeeding resurrection and
ascension, which demonstrated both the reality of the thing
promised in the will and the authority of the Testator to bestow
it.

All the expressions thus far cited, and kindred ones scattered
through the work, convey a clear and consistent meaning, with
sharp outlines and coherent details, if we suppose their author
entertained the following general theory; and otherwise they
cannot be satisfactorily explained. A dreadful fear of death,
introduced by sin, was tyrannizing over men. In consequence of
conscious alienation from God through transgressions, they
shuddered at death. The writer does not say what there was in
death that made it so feared; but we know that the prevailing
Hebrew conception was, that death led the naked soul into the
silent, dark, and dreary region of the under world, a doleful
fate, from which they shrank with sadness at the best, guilt
converting that natural melancholy into dread foreboding. In the
absence of any evidence or presumption whatever to the contrary,
we are authorized, nay, rather forced, to conclude that such a
conception is implied in the passages we are considering. Now, the
mission of Jesus was to deliver men from that fear and bondage, by
assuring them that God would forgive sin and annul its
consequence. Instead of banishing their disembodied spirits into
the sepulchral Sheol, he would take them to himself into the glory
above the firmament. This aim Christ accomplished by literally
exemplifying the truths it implies; that is, by personally
assuming the lot of man, dying, rising from among the spirits of
the dead, and ascending beyond the veil into heaven. By his death
and victorious ascent "he purged our sins," "redeemed
transgressions," "overthrew him that has the power of death," in
the sense that he thereby, as the writer thought, swept away the
supposed train of evils caused by sin, namely, all the
concomitants of a banishment after death into the cheerless
subterranean empire.

It will be well now to notice more fully, in the author's scheme,
the idea that Christ did locally ascend into the heavens, "into
the presence of God," "where he ever liveth," and

2 xi. 13, 16, et al. See chap. x. 36,

where to receive the promise most plainly means to obtain the thing
promised, as it does several times in the epistle.

So Paul, in his speech at Antioch, (Acts xiii. 32, 33,) says,
"We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which
was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us
their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again" that by
this ascent he for the first time opened the way for others to
ascend to him where he is, avoiding the doom of Hades.

"We have a great High Priest, who has passed through the
heavens, Jesus, the Son of God." "Christ is not entered into the
most holy place, made with hands, the figure of the true, but into
heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."
Indeed, that Jesus, in a material and local sense, rose to heaven,
is a conception fundamental to the epistle and prominent on all
its face. It is much more necessary for us to show that the author
believed that the men who had previously died had not risen
thither, but that it was the Savior's mission to open the way for
their ascension.

It is extremely significant, in the outset, that Jesus is called
"the first leader and the bringer to the end of our faith;" for
the words in this clause which the common version renders "author"
and "finisher"3 mean, from their literal force and the latent
figure they contain, "a guide who runs through the course to the
goal so as to win and receive the prize, bringing us after him to
the same consummation." Still more striking is the passage we
shall next adduce. Having enumerated a long list of the choicest
worthies of the Old Testament, the writer adds, "These all, having
obtained testimony through faith, did not realize the promise,4
God having provided a better thing for us, that they without us
should not be perfected," should not be brought to the end, the
end of human destiny, that is, exaltation to heaven. Undoubtedly
the author here means to say that the faithful servants of God
under the Mosaic dispensation were reserved in the under world
until the ascension of the Messiah. Augustine so explains the text
in hand, declaring that Christ was the first that ever rose from
the under world.5 The same exposition is given by Origen,6 and
indeed by nearly every one of the Fathers who has undertaken to
give a critical interpretation of the passage. This doctrine
itself was held by Catholic Christendom for a thousand years; is
now held by the Roman, Greek, and English Churches; but is, for
the most part, rejected or forgotten by the dissenting sects, from
two causes. It has so generally sunk out of sight among us, first,
from ignorance, ignorance of the ancient learning and opinions on
which it rested and of which it was the necessary completion;
secondly, from rationalistic speculations, which, leading men to
discredit the truth of the doctrine, led them arbitrarily to deny
its existence in the Scripture, making them perversely force the
texts that state it and wilfully blink the texts that hint it.
Whether this be a proper and sound method of proceeding in
critical investigations any one may judge. To us it seems equally
unmanly and immoral. We know of but one justifiable course, and
that is, with patience, with earnestness, and with all possible
aids, to labor to discern the real and full meaning of the words
according to the understanding and intention of the author. We do
so elsewhere, regardless of consequences. No other method, in the
case of the Scriptures, is exempt from guilt.

The meaning (namely, to bring to the end) which we have above
attributed to the word [NAC](translated in the common version to
make perfect) is the first meaning and the

3 Robinson's Lexicon, first edition, under [NAC]; also see Philo,
cited there.

4 Ch. x. 36.

5 Epist. CLXIV. sect. ix., ed. Benedictina.

6 De Principiis, lib. ii. cap. 2.


etymological force of the word. That we do not refine upon it
over nicely in the present instance, the following examples from
various parts of the epistle unimpeachably witness. "For it was
proper that God, in bringing many sons unto glory, should make him
who was the first leader of their salvation perfect [reach the
end] through sufferings;" that is, should raise him to heaven
after he had passed through death, that he, having himself arrived
at the glorious heavenly goal of human destiny, might bring others
to it. "Christ, being made perfect," (brought through all the
intermediate steps to the end,) "became the cause of eternal
salvation to all them that obey him; called of God an high
priest." The context, and the after assertion of the writer that
the priesthood of Jesus is exercised in heaven, show that the word
"perfected," as employed here, signifies exalted to the right hand
of God. "Perfection" (bringing unto the end) "was not by the
Levitical priesthood." "The law perfected nothing, but it was the
additional introduction of a better hope by which we draw near
unto God." "The law maketh men high priests which have infirmity,
which are not suffered to continue, by reason of death; but the
word of the oath after the law maketh the Son perfect for
evermore," bringeth him to the end, namely, an everlasting
priesthood in the heavens. That Christian believers are not under
the first covenant, whereby, through sin, men commencing with the
blood of Abel, the first death were doomed to the lower world, but
are under the second covenant, whereby, through the gracious
purpose of God, taking effect in the blood of Christ, the first
resurrection, they are already by faith, in imagination,
translated to heaven, this is plainly what the author teaches in
the following words: "Ye are not come to the palpable mount that
burneth with fire, and to blackness and tempest, where so terrible
was the sight that Moses exceedingly trembled, but ye are come to
Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, and to God, and to the spirits of the perfected
just, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the
lustral blood which speaks better things than that of Abel." The
connection here demonstrates that the souls of the righteous are
called "perfected," as having arrived at the goal of their destiny
in heaven. Again, the author, when speaking of the sure and
steadfast hope of eternal life, distinguishes Jesus as a
[non-ASCII characters], one who runs before as a scout or leader:
"the Forerunner, who for us has entered within the veil," that is,
has passed beyond the firmament into the presence of God. The Jews
called the outward or lowermost heaven the veil.7 But the most
conclusive consideration upon the opinion we are arguing for and
it must be entirely convincing is to be drawn from the first half
of the ninth chapter. To appreciate it, it is requisite to
remember that the Rabbins with whose notions our author was
familiar and some of which he adopts in his reasoning were
accustomed to compare the Jewish temple and city with the temple
and city of Jehovah above the sky, considering the former as
miniature types of the latter. This mode of thought was originally
learned by philosophical Rabbins from the Platonic doctrine of
ideas, without doubt, and was entertained figuratively,
spiritually; but in the unreflecting, popular mind the Hebraic
views to which it gave rise were soon grossly materialized and
located. They also derived the same conception from God's command
to Moses when he was about to build the tabernacle:

7 Schoettgen, Hora Hebraica et Talmudica in 2 Cor. xii. 2.


"See thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee
in the mount." They refined upon these words with many conceits.
They compared the three divisions of the temple to the three
heavens: the outer Court of the Gentiles corresponded with the
first heaven, the Court of the Israelites with the second heaven,
and the Holy of Holies represented the third heaven or the very
abode of God. Josephus writes, "The temple has three compartments:
the first two for men, the third for God, because heaven is
inaccessible to men."8 Now, our author says, referring to this
triple symbolic arrangement of the temple, "The priests went
always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service, but
into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not
without blood; this, which was a figure for the time then present,
signifying that the way into the holiest of all9 was not yet laid
open; but Christ being come, an high priest of the future good
things, by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal deliverance." The points of the comparison
here instituted are these: On the great annual day of atonement,
after the death of the victim, the Hebrew high priest went into
the adytum of the earthly temple, but none could follow; Jesus,
the Christian high priest, went after his own death into the
adytum of the heavenly temple, and enabled the faithful to enter
there after him. Imagery like the fore going, which implies a
Sanctum Sanctorum above, the glorious prototype of that below, is
frequent in the Talmud.10 To remove all uncertainty from the
exposition thus presented, if any doubt linger, it is only
necessary to cite one more passage from the epistle. "We have,
therefore, brethren, by the blood of Jesus, leading into the
holiest, a free road, a new and blessed road, which he hath
inaugurated for us through the veil, that is to say, through his
flesh." As there was no entrance for the priest into the holiest
of the temple save by the removal of the veil, so Christ could not
enter heaven except by the removal of his body. The blood of Jesus
here, as in most cases in the New Testament, means the death of
Jesus, involving his ascension. Chrysostom, commenting on these
verses, says, in explanation of the word [non-ASCII characters],
"Christ laid out the road and was the first to go over it.
The first way was of death, leading [ad inferos] to the under
world; the other is of life," leading to heaven.

The interpretation we have given of these passages reconciles
and blends that part of the known contemporary opinions which
applies to them, and explains and justifies the natural force
of the imagery and words employed.

Its accuracy seems to us unquestionable by any candid person who is
competently acquainted with the subject. The substance of it is,
that Jesus came from God to the earth as a man, laid down his life
that he might rise from the dead into heaven again, into the real
Sanctum Sanctorum of the universe, thereby proving that faithful
believers also shall rise thither, being thus delivered, after the
pattern of his evident deliverance, from the imprisonment of the
realm of death below.

We now proceed to quote and unfold five distinct passages, not yet
brought forward, from the epistle, each of which proves that we
are not mistaken in attributing to the writer

8 Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 6, sect. 4; ibid. cap. 7, sect. 7.

9 Philo declares, "The whole universe is one temple of God, in
which the holiest of all is heaven." De Monarchia, p. 222, ed.
Mangey.

10 Schoettgen, Dissertatio de Hierosolyma Coelesti, cap. 2, sect.
9.


of it the above stated general theory. In the first verse which we
shall adduce it is certain that the word "death" includes the
entrance of the soul into the subterranean kingdom of ghosts. It
is written of Christ that, "in the days of his flesh, when he had
earnestly prayed to Him that was able to do it, to save him from
death, he was heard," and was advanced to be a high priest in the
heavens, "was made higher than the heavens." Now, obviously, God
did not rescue Christ from dying, but he raised him, [non-ASCII
characters], from the world of the dead.

So Chrysostom declares, referring to this very text, "Not to be
retained in the region of the dead, but to be delivered from it,
is virtually not to die."11 Moreover, the phrase above translated
"to save him from death" may be translated, with equal propriety,
"to bring him back safe from death."

The Greek verb [non-ASCII characters], to save, is often so used
to denote the safe restoration of a warrior from an incursion into
an enemy's domain. The same use made here by our author of the term
"death" we have also found made by Philo Judaus. "The wise," Philo
says, "inherit the Olympic and heavenly region to dwell in, always
studying to go above; the bad inherit the innermost parts of the
under world, always laboring to die."12 The antithesis between
going above and dying, and the mention of the under world in
connection with the latter, prove that to die here means, or at
least includes, going below after death.

The Septuagint version of the Old Testament twice translates Sheol
by the word "death."13 The Hebrew word for death, maveth, is
repeatedly used for the abode of the dead.14 And the nail of the
interpretation we are urging is clenched by this sentence from
Origen:  "The under world, in which souls are detained by death,
is called death."15 Bretschneider cites nearly a dozen passages
from the New Testament where, in his judgment, death is used to
denote Hades.

Again: we read that Christ took human nature upon him "in order
that by means of [his own] death he might render him that has the
power of death that is, the devil idle, and deliver those who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
It is apparent at once that the mere death of Christ, so far from
ending the sway of Death, would be giving the grim monster a new
victory, incomparably the most important he had ever achieved.
Therefore, the only way to make adequate sense of the passage is
to join with the Savior's death what followed it, namely, his
resurrection and ascension. It was the Hebrew belief that sin,
introduced by the fraud of the devil, was the cause of death, and
the doomer of the disembodied spirits of men to the lower caverns
of darkness and rest. They personified Death as king, tyrannizing
over mankind; and, unless in severe affliction, they dreaded the
hour when they must lie down under his sceptre and sink into his
voiceless kingdom of shadows. Christ broke the power of Satan,
closed his busy reign, rescued the captive souls, and relieved the
timorous hearts of the faithful, by rising triumphantly from

11 Homil. Epist. ad Heb. in hoc loc.

12 Quod a Deo mitt. Somn., p. 643, ed. Mangey.

13 2 Sam. xxii. 6; Prov. xxiii. 14.

14 Ps. ix. 13. Prov. vii, 27.

15 Comm. in Epist. ad Rom., lib. vi. cap. 6, sect. 6.: "Inferni
locus in quo anima detinebantur a morte mors appellatur."


the long bound dominion of the grave, and ascending in a new path
of light, pioneering the saints to immortal glory.

In another part of the epistle, the writer, having previously
explained that as the high priest after the death of the expiatory
goat entered the typical holy place in the temple, so Christ after
his own death entered the true holy place in the heavens, goes on
to guard against the analogy being forced any further to deny the
necessity of Christ's service being repeated, as the priest's was
annually repeated, saying, "For then he must have died many times
since the foundation of the world; but, on the contrary, [it
suffices that] once, at the close of the ages, through the
sacrifice of himself he hath appeared [in heaven] for the
abrogation of sin."16 The rendering and explanation we give of
this language are those adopted by the most distinguished
commentators, and must be justified by any one who examines the
proper punctuation of the clauses and studies the context. The
simple idea is, that, by the sacrifice of his body through death,
Christ rose and showed himself in the presence of God. The author
adds that this was done "unto the annulling of sin." It is with
reference to these last words principally that we have cited the
passage. What do they mean? In what sense can the passing of
Christ's soul into heaven after death be said to have done away
with sin? In the first place, the open manifestation of Christ's
disenthralled and risen soul in the supernal presence of God did
not in any sense abrogate sin itself, literally considered,
because all kinds of sin that ever were upon the earth among men
before have been ever since, and are now. In the second place,
that miraculous event did not annul and remove human guilt, the
consciousness of sin and responsibility for it, because, in fact,
men feel the sting and load of guilt now as badly as ever; and the
very epistle before us, as well as the whole New Testament,
addresses Christians as being exposed to constant and varied
danger of incurring guilt and woe. But, in the third place, the
ascension of Jesus did show very plainly to the apostles and first
Christians that what they supposed to be the great outward penalty
of sin was annulled; that it was no longer a necessity for the
spirit to descend to the lower world after death; that fatal doom,
entailed on the generations of humanity by sin, was now abrogated
for all who were worthy. Such, we have not a doubt, is the true
meaning of the declaration under review.

This exposition is powerfully confirmed by the two succeeding
verses, which we will next pass to examine. "As it is appointed
for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ,
having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a
second time, without sin, for salvation unto those expecting him."
Man dies once, and then passes into that state of separate
existence in the under world which is the legal judgment for sin.
Christ, taking upon himself, with the nature of man, the burden of
man's lot and doom, died once, and then rose from the dead by the
gracious power of the Father, bearing away the outward penalty of
sin. He will come again into the world, uninvolved, the next time,
with any of the accompaniments or consequences of sin, to save
them that look for him, and victoriously lead them into heaven
with him. In this instance, as all through the writings of the
apostles,

16 Griesbach in loc.; and Rosenmuller.


sin, death, and the under world are three segments of a circle,
each necessarily implying the others. The same remark is to be
made of the contrasted terms righteousness, grace, immortal life
above the sky; 17 the former being traced from the sinful and
fallen Adam, the latter from the righteous and risen Christ.

The author says, "If the blood of bulls and goats sanctifies unto
the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of
Christ, who having18 an eternal spirit offered himself faultless
to God, cleanse your consciousness!" The argument, fully
expressed, is, if the blood of perishable brutes cleanses the
body, the blood of the immortal Christ cleanses the soul. The
implied inference is, that as the former fitted the outward man
for the ritual privileges of the temple, so the latter fitted the
inward man for the spiritual privileges of heaven. This appears
clearly from what follows in the next chapter, where the writer
says, in effect, that "it is not possible for the blood of bulls
and of goats to take away sins, however often it is offered, but
that Christ, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever
sat down at the right hand of God." The reason given for the
efficacy of Christ's offering is that he sat down at the right
hand of God. When the chosen animals were sacrificed for sins,
they utterly perished, and there was an end. But when Christ was
offered, his soul survived and rose into heaven, an evident sign
that the penalty of sin, whereby men were doomed to the under
world after death, was abolished. This perfectly explains the
language; and nothing else, it seems to us, can perfectly explain
it.

That Christ would speedily reappear from heaven in triumph, to
judge his foes and save his disciples, was a fundamental article
in the primitive Church scheme of the last things. There are
unmistakable evidences of such a belief in our author. "For yet a
little while, and the coming one will come, and will not delay."
"Provoke one another unto love and good works, . . . so much the
more as ye see the day drawing near." There is another reference
to this approaching advent, which, though obscure, affords
important testimony. Jesus, when he had ascended, "sat down at the
right hand of God, henceforward waiting till his enemies be made
his footstool." That is to say, he is tarrying in heaven for the
appointed time to arrive when he shall come into the world again
to consummate the full and final purposes of his mission. We may
leave this division of the subject established beyond all
question, by citing a text which explicitly states the idea in so
many words: "Unto them that look for him he shall appear the
second time." That expectation of the speedy second coming of the
Messiah which haunted the early Christians, therefore,
unquestionably occupied the mind of the composer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews.

If the writer of this epistolary essay had a firm and detailed
opinion as to the exact fate to be allotted to wicked and
persistent unbelievers, his allusions to that opinion are too few
and vague for us to determine precisely what it was. We will
briefly quote the substance of what he says upon the subject, and
add a word in regard to the inferences it does, or it does not,
warrant. "If under the Mosaic dispensation every transgression
received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so
great a salvation, first proclaimed by the

17 Neander, Planting and Training of the Church, Ryland's trans.
p. 298.

18 [Non-ASCII characters] is often used in the sense of with,
or possessing. See Wahl's New Testament Lexicon.


Lord?" "As the Israelites that were led out of Egypt by Moses, on
account of their unbelief and provocations, were not permitted to
enter the promised land, but perished in the wilderness, so let us
fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any
of you should seem to come short of it." Christ "became the cause
of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." "He hath brought
unto the end forever them that are sanctified." It will be
observed that these last specifications are partial, and that
nothing is said of the fate of those not included under them. "It
is impossible for those who were once enlightened, . . . if they
shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance. . . . But,
beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, even things that
accompany salvation." "We are not of them who draw back unto the
destruction, but of them who believe unto the preservation, of the
soul." "If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of
the truth, there is no longer left a sacrifice for sins, but a
certain fearful looking for of judgment, and of fiery indignation
to devour the adversaries." "It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God." "If they escaped not who refused him
that spoke on earth, [Moses,] much more we shall not escape if we
turn away from him that speaks from heaven," (Christ.) In view of
the foregoing passages, which represent the entire teaching of the
epistle in relation to the ultimate destination of sinners, we
must assert as follows. First, the author gives no hint of the
doctrine of literal torments in a local hell. Secondly, he is
still further from favoring nay, he unequivocally denies the
doctrine of unconditional, universal salvation. Thirdly, he either
expected that the reprobate would be absolutely destroyed at the
second coming of Christ,  which does not seem to be declared; or
that they would be exiled forever from the kingdom of glory into
the sad and slumberous under world, which is not clearly implied;
or that they would be punished according to their evil, and then,
restored to Divine favor, be exalted into heaven with the original
elect, which is not written in the record; or, lastly, that they
would be disposed of in some way unknown to him, which he does not
avow. He makes no allusion to such a terrific conception as is
expressed by our modern use of the word hell: he emphatically
predicates conditionality of salvation, he threatens sinners in
general terms with severe judgment. Further than this he has
neglected to state his faith. If it reached any further, he has
preferred to leave the statement of it in vague and impressive
gloom.

Let us stop a moment and epitomize the steps we have taken. Jesus,
the Son of God, was a spirit in heaven. He came upon the earth in
the guise of humanity to undergo its whole experience and to be
its redeemer. He died, passed through the vanquished kingdom of
the grave, and rose into heaven again, to exemplify to men that
through the grace of God a way was opened to escape the under
world, the great external penalty of sin, and reach a better
country, even a heavenly. From his seat at God's right hand, he
should ere long descend to complete God's designs in his mission,
judge his enemies and lead his accepted followers to heaven. The
all important thought running through the length and breadth of
the treatise is the ascension of Christ from the midst of the dead
[non-ASCII characters]into the celestial presence, as the pledge of
our ascent. "Among the things of which we are speaking, this is the
capital consideration, [non-ASCII characters] the most essential
point, "that we have such a high priest, who hath sat down at the
right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." Neander
says, though apparently without perceiving the extent of its
ulterior significance, "The conception of the resurrection in
relation to the whole Christian system lies at the basis of this
epistle."

A brief sketch and exposition of the scope of the epistle in
general will cast light and confirmation upon the interpretation
we have given of its doctrine of a future life in particular. The
one comprehensive design of the writer, it is perfectly clear, is
to prove to the Christian converts from the Hebrews the
superiority of Christianity to Judaism, and thus to arm them
against apostasy from the new covenant to the ancient one. He
begins by showing that Christ, the bringer of the gospel, is
greater than the angels, by whom the law was given,19 and
consequently that his word is to be reverenced still more than
theirs.20 Next he argues that Jesus, the Christian Mediator, as
the Son of God, is crowned with more authority and is worthy of
more glory than Moses, the Jewish mediator, as the servant of God;
and that as Moses led his people towards the rest of Canaan, so
Christ leads his people towards the far better rest of heaven. He
then advances to demonstrate the superiority of Christ to the
Levitical priesthood. This he establishes by pointing out the
facts that the Levitical priest had a transient honor, being after
the law of a carnal commandment, his offerings referring to the
flesh, while Christ has an unchangeable priesthood, being after
the power of an endless life, his offering referring to the soul;
that the Levitical priest once a year went into the symbolic holy
place in the temple, unable to admit others, but Jesus rose into
the real holy place itself above, opening a way for all faithful
disciples to follow; and that the Hebrew temple and ceremonies
were but the small type and shadow of the grand archetypal temple
in heaven, where Christ is the immortal High Priest, fulfilling in
the presence of God the completed reality of what Judaism merely
miniatured, an emblematic pattern that could make nothing perfect.
"By him therefore let us continually offer to God the sacrifice of
praise." The author intersperses, and closes with, exhortations to
steadfast faith, pure morals, and fervent piety.

There is one point in this epistle which deserves, in its
essential connection with the doctrine of the future life, a
separate treatment. It is the subject of the Atonement. The
correspondence between the sacrifices in the Hebrew ritual and the
sufferings and death of Christ would, from the nature of the case,
irresistibly suggest the sacrificial terms and metaphors which our
author uses in a large part of his argument. Moreover, his precise
aim in writing compelled him to make these resemblances as
prominent, as significant, and as effective as possible. Griesbach
says well, in his learned and able essay, "When it was impossible
for the Jews, lately brought to the Christian faith, to tear away
the attractive associations of their ancestral religion, which
were twined among the very roots of their minds, and they were
consequently in danger of falling away from Christ, the most
ingenious author of this epistle met the case by a masterly
expedient. He instituted a careful comparison, showing the
superiority of Christianity to Judaism even in regard to the very
point where the latter seemed so much more glorious, namely, in
priesthoods, temples,

19 Heb. i. 4 14, ii. 2; Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii.

20 Heb. ii. 1 3.


altars, victims, lustrations, and kindred things."21 That these
comparisons are sometimes used by the writer analogically,
figuratively, imaginatively, for the sake of practical
illustration and impression, not literally as logical expressions
and proofs of a dogmatic theory of atonement, is made sufficiently
plain by the following quotations. "The bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest for
sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he
might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without
the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp,
bearing his reproach." Every one will at once perceive that these
sentences are not critical statements of theological truths, but
are imaginative expressions of practical lessons, spiritual
exhortations. Again, we read, "It was necessary that the patterns
of the heavenly things should be purified with sacrificed animals,
but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than
these." Certainly it is only by an exercise of the imagination,
for spiritual impression, not for philosophical argument, that
heaven can be said to be defiled by the sins of men on earth so as
to need cleansing by the lustral blood of Christ. The writer also
appeals to his readers in these terms: "To do good and to
communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well
pleased." The purely practical aim and rhetorical method with
which the sacrificial language is employed here are evident
enough. We believe it is used in the same way wherever it occurs
in the epistle.

The considerations which have convinced us, and which we think
ought to convince every unprejudiced mind, that the Calvinistic
scheme of a substitutional expiation for sin, a placation of
Divine wrath by the offering of Divine blood, was not in the mind
of the author, and does not inform his expressions when they are
rightly understood, may be briefly presented. First, the notion
that the suffering of Christ in itself ransomed lost souls, bought
the withheld grace and pardon of God for us, is confessedly
foreign and repulsive to the instinctive moral sense and to
natural reason, but is supposed to rest on the authority of
revelation. Secondly, that doctrine is nowhere specifically stated
in the epistle, but is assumed, or inferred, to explain language
which to a superficial look seems to imply it,  perhaps even seems
to be inexplicable without it;22 but in reality such a view is
inconsistent with that language when it is accurately studied. For
example, notice the following passage: "When Christ cometh into
the world," he is represented as saying, "I come to do thy will, O
God." "By the which will," the writer continues, "we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus." That is,
the death of Christ, involving his resurrection and ascension into
heaven, fulfils and exemplifies the gracious purpose of God, not
purchases for us an otherwise impossible benignity. The above
cited explicit declaration is irreconcilable

21 Opuscula: De Imaginibus Judaicis in Epist. ad Hebraos.

22 That these texts were not originally understood as implying any
vicarious efficacy in Christ's painful death, but as attributing a
typical power to his triumphant resurrection, his glorious return
from the world of the dead into heaven, appears very plainly in
the following instance, Theodoret, one of the earliest explanatory
writers on the New Testament, says, while expressly speaking of
Christ's death, the sufferings through which he was perfected,
"His resurrection certified a resurrection for us all." Comm. in
Epist. ad Heb. cap. 2, v. 10.


with the thought that Christ came into the world to die that he
might appease the flaming justice and anger of God, and by
vicarious agony buy the remission of human sins: it conveys the
idea, on the contrary, that God sent Christ to prove and
illustrate to men the free fulness of his forgiving love. Thirdly,
the idea, which we think was the idea of the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, that Christ, by his death, resurrection, and
ascent, demonstrated to the faith of men God's merciful removal of
the supposed outward penalty of sin, namely, the banishment of
souls after death to the under world, and led the way, as their
forerunner, into heaven, this idea, which is not shocking to the
moral sense nor plainly absurd to the moral reason, as the
Augustinian dogma is, not only yields a more sharply defined,
consistent, and satisfactory explanation of all the related
language of the epistle, but is also which cannot be said of the
other doctrine in harmony with the contemporary opinions of the
Hebrews, and would be the natural and almost inevitable
development from them and complement of them in the mind of a
Pharisee, who, convinced of the death and ascension of the sinless
Jesus, the appointed Messiah, had become a Christian.

In support of the last assertion, which is the only one that needs
further proof, we submit the following considerations. In the
first place, every one familiar with the eschatology of the
Hebrews knows that at the time of Christ the belief prevailed that
the sin of Adam was the cause of death among men. In the second
place, it is equally well known that they believed the destination
of souls upon leaving the body to be the under world. Therefore
does it not follow by all the necessities of logic? they believed
that sin was the cause of the descent of disembodied spirits to
the dreary lower realm. In the third place, it is notorious and
undoubted that the Jews of that age expected that, when the
Messiah should appear, the dead of their nation, or at least a
portion of them, would be raised from the under world and be
reclothed with bodies, and would reign with him for a period on
earth and then ascend to heaven. Now, what could be more natural
than that a person holding this creed, who should be brought to
believe that Jesus was the true Messiah and after his death had
risen from among the dead into heaven, should immediately conclude
that this was a pledge or illustration of the abrogation of the
gloomy penalty of sin, the deliverance of souls from the
subterranean prison, and their admission to the presence of God
beyond the sky? We deem this an impregnable position. Every
relevant text that we consider in its light additionally fortifies
it by the striking manner in which such a conception fits, fills,
and explains the words. To justify these interpretations, and to
sustain particular features of the doctrine which they express,
almost any amount of evidence may be summoned from the writings
both of the most authoritative and of the simplest Fathers of the
Church, beginning with Justin Martyr,23 philosopher of Neapolis,
at the close of the apostolic age, and ending with John Hobart,24
Bishop of New York, in the early part of the nineteenth century.
We refrain from adducing the throng of such authorities here,
because they will be more appropriately brought forward in future
chapters.

23 Dial. cum Tryph. cap. v. et cap. lxxx.24 State of the Departed.


The intelligent reader will observe that the essential point of
difference distinguishing our exposition of the fundamental
doctrine of the composition in review, on the one hand, from the
Calvinistic interpretation of it, and, on the other hand, from the
Unitarian explanation of it, is this. Calvinism says that Christ,
by his death, his vicarious pains, appeased the wrath of God,
satisfied the claims of justice, and purchased the salvation of
souls from an agonizing and endless hell. Unitarianism says that
Christ, by his teachings, spirit, life, and miracles, revealed the
character of the Father, set an example for man, gave certainty to
great truths, and exerted moral influences to regenerate men,
redeem them from sin, and fit them for the blessed kingdom of
immortality. We understand the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews really to say in subtraction from what the Calvinist, in
addition to what the Unitarian, says that Christ, by his
resurrection from the tyrannous realm of death, and ascent into
the unbarred heaven, demonstrated the fact that God, in his
sovereign grace, in his free and wondrous love, would forgive
mankind their sins, remove the ancient penalty of transgression,
no more dooming their disembodied spirits to the noiseless and
everlasting gloom of the under world, but admitting them to his
own presence, above the firmamental floor, where the beams of his
chambers are laid, and where he reigneth forever, covered with
light as with a garment.

CHAPTER III.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE APOCALYPSE.

BEFORE attempting to exhibit the doctrine of a future life
contained in the Apocalypse, we propose to give a brief account of
what is contained, relating to this subject, in the Epistle of
James, the Epistle of Jude, and the (so called) Second Epistle of
Peter.

The references made by James to the group of points included under
the general theme of the Future Life are so few and indirect, or
vague, that it is impossible to construct any thing like a
complete doctrine from them, save by somewhat arbitrary and
uncertain suppositions. His purpose in writing, evidently, was
practical exhortation, not dogmatic instruction. His epistle
contains no expository outline of a system; but it has allusions
and hints which plainly imply some partial views belonging to a
system, while the other parts of it are left obscure. He says that
"evil desire brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,
brings forth death." But whether he intended this text as a moral
metaphor to convey a spiritual meaning, or as a literal statement
of a physical fact, or as a comprehensive enunciation including
both these ideas, there is nothing in the context positively to
determine. He offers not the faintest clew to his conception of
the purpose of the death and resurrection of Christ. He uses the
word for the Jewish hell but once, and then, undeniably, in a
figurative sense, saying that a "curbless and defiling tongue is
set on fire of Gehenna." He appears to adopt the common notion of
his contemporary countrymen in regard to demoniacal existences,
when he declares that "the devils believe there is one God, and
tremble," and when he exclaims, "Resist the devil, and he will
flee from you." He insists on the necessity of a faith that
evinces itself in good works and in all the virtues, as the means
of acceptance with God. He compares life to a vanishing vapor,
denounces terribly the wicked and dissolute rich men who wanton in
crimes and oppress the poor. Then he calls on the suffering
brethren to be patient under their afflictions "until the coming
of the Lord;" to abstain from oaths, be fervent in prayer, and
establish their hearts, "for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
"Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned:
behold, the Judge standeth before the door." Here the return of
Christ, to finish his work, sit in judgment, accept some, and
reject others, is clearly implied. And if James held this element
of the general scheme of eschatology held by the other apostles as
shown in their epistles, it is altogether probable that he also
embraced the rest of that scheme. There are no means of definitely
ascertaining whether he did or did not; though, according to a
very learned and acute theologian, another fundamental part of
that general system of doctrine is to be found in the last verse
of the epistle, where James says that "he who converts a sinner
from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and hide a
multitude of sins." Bretschneider thinks that saving a soul from
death here means rescuing it from a descent into the under world,
the word death being often used in the New Testament as by the
Rabbins to denote the subterranean abode of the dead.1 This

1 Bretschneider, Religiose Glaubenslehre, sect. 59.


interpretation may seem forced to an unlearned reader, who
examines the text for personal profit, but will not seem at all
improbable to one who, to learn its historic meaning, reads the
text in the lighted foreground of a mind over whose background
lies a fitly arranged knowledge of all the materials requisite for
an adequate criticism. For such a man was Bretschneider himself.

The eschatological implications and references in the Epistle of
Jude are of pretty much the same character and extent as those
which we have just considered. A thorough study and analysis of
this brief document will show that it may be fairly divided into
three heads and be regarded as having three objects. First, the
writer exhorts his readers "to contend earnestly for the faith
once delivered to the saints," "to remember the words of Christ's
apostles," "to keep themselves in the love of God, looking for
eternal life." He desires to stir them up to diligence in efforts
to preserve their doctrinal purity and their personal virtue.
Secondly, he warns them of the fearful danger of depravity, pride,
and lasciviousness. This warning he enforces by several examples
of the terrible judgments of God on the rebellious and wicked in
other times. Among these instances is the case of the Cities of
the Plain, eternally destroyed by a storm of fire for their
uncleanness; also the example of the fallen angels, "who kept not
their first estate, but left their proper habitation, and are
reserved in everlasting chains and darkness unto the judgment of
the great day." The writer here adopts the doctrine of fallen
angels, and the connected views, as then commonly received among
the Jews. This doctrine is not of Christian origin, but was drawn
from Persian and other Oriental sources, as is abundantly shown,
with details, in almost every history of Jewish opinions, in
almost every Biblical commentary.2 In this connection Jude cites a
legend from an apocryphal book, called the "Ascension of Moses,"
of which Origen gives an account.3 The substance of the tradition
is, that, at the decease of Moses, Michael and Satan contended
whether the body should be given over to death or be taken up to
heaven. The appositeness of this allusion is, that, while in this
strife the archangel dared not rail against Satan, yet the wicked
men whom Jude is denouncing do not hesitate to blaspheme the
angels and to speak evil of the things which they know not. "Woe
unto such ungodly men: gluttonous spots, dewless clouds, fruitless
trees plucked up and twice dead, they are ordained to
condemnation." Thirdly, the epistle announces the second coming of
Christ, in the last time, to establish his tribunal. The Prophecy
of Enoch an apocryphal book, recovered during the present century
is quoted as saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh, with ten thousand
of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict the
ungodly of their ungodly deeds."4 Jude, then, anticipated the
return of the Lord, at "the judgment of the great day," to judge
the world; considered the under world, or abode of the dead, not
as a region of fire, but a place of imprisoning gloom, wherein "to
defiled and blaspheming dreamers is reserved the blackness of
darkness forever;"

2 E. g. Stuart's Dissertation on the Angelology of the Scriptures,
published in vol. i. of the Bibliotheca Sacra.

3 De Principiis, lib. iii. cap 2. See, also, in Michaelis's
Introduction to the New Testament, sect. 4 of the chapter on Jude.

4 Book of Enoch, translated by Dr. R. Laurence, cap. ii.


thought it imminently necessary for men to be diligent in striving
to secure their salvation, because "all sensual mockers, not
having the spirit, but walking after their own ungodly lusts,"
would be lost. He probably expected that, when all free
contingencies were past and Christ had pronounced sentence, the
condemned would be doomed eternally into the black abyss, and the
accepted would rise into the immortal glory of heaven. He closes
his letter with these significant words, which plainly imply much
of what we have just been setting forth: "Everlasting honor and
power, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be unto God, who is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the face
of his glory with exceeding joy."5

The first chapter of the so called Second Epistle of Peter is not
occupied with theological propositions, but with historical,
ethical, and practical statements and exhortations. These are,
indeed, of such a character, and so expressed, that they clearly
presuppose certain opinions in the mind of the writer. First, he
evidently believed that a merciful and holy message had been sent
from God to men by Jesus Christ, whereby are given unto us
exceeding great and precious promises." The substance of these
promises was "a call to escape the corruption of the world, and
enter into glory and be partakers of the Divine nature." By
partaking of the Divine nature, we understand the writer to mean
entering the Divine abode and condition, ascending into the safe
and eternal joy of the celestial prerogatives. That the author
here denotes heaven by the term glory, as the other New Testament
writers frequently do, appears distinctly from the seventeenth and
eighteenth verses of the chapter, where, referring to the incident
at the baptism of Jesus, he declares, "There came a voice from the
excellent glory, saying, 'This is my beloved Son;' and this voice,
which came from heaven, we heard." Secondly, our author regarded
this glorious promise as contingent on the fulfilment of certain
conditions. It was to be realized by means of "faith, courage,
knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, kindness, and love."
"He that hath these things shall never fall," "but an entrance
shall be ministered unto him abundantly into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." The writer
furnishes us no clew to his idea of the particular part performed
by Christ in our salvation. He says not a word concerning the
sufferings or death of the Savior; and the extremely scanty and
indefinite allusions made to the relation in which Christ was
supposed to stand between God and men, and the redemption and
reconciliation of men with God, do not enable us to draw any
dogmatic conclusions. He speaks of "false teachers, who shall
bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought
them." But whether by this last phrase he means to imply a ransom
of imprisoned souls from the under world by Christ's descent
thither and victory over its powers, or a purchased exemption of
sinners from their merited doom by the vicarious sufferings of
Christ's death, or a practical regenerative redemption of
disciples from their sins by the moral influences of his mission,
his teachings, example, and character, there is nothing in the
epistle clearly to decide; though, forming our judgment by the aid
of other sources of information, we should conclude in favor of
the first of these three conceptions as most probably expressing
the writer's thought.

5 Griesbuch's reading of the 25th verse of Jude.


The second chapter of the epistle is almost an exact parallel with
the Epistle of Jude: in many verses it is the same, word for word.
It threatens "unclean, self willed, unjust, and blaspheming men,"
that they shall "be reserved unto the day of judgment, to be
punished." It warns such persons by citing the example of the
rebellious "angels, who were thrust down into Tartarus, and
fastened in chains of darkness until the judgment." It speaks of
"cursed children, to whom is reserved the mist of darkness
forever." Herein, plainly enough, is betrayed the common notion of
the Jews of that time, the conception of a dismal under world,
containing the evil angels of the Persian theology, and where the
wicked were to be remanded after judgment and eternally
imprisoned.

The third and last chapter is taken up with the doctrine of the
second coming of Christ. "Be mindful of the words of the prophets
and apostles, knowing this first, that in the last days there
shall be scoffers, who will say, 'Where is the promise of his
coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as
from the beginning.'" The writer meets this skeptical assertion
with denial, and points to the Deluge, "whereby the world that
then was, being overflowed with water, perished." His argument is,
the world was thus destroyed once, therefore it may be destroyed
again. He then goes on to assert positively relying for authority
on old traditions and current dogmas that "the heavens and the
earth which are now are kept by the word of God in store to be
destroyed by fire in the day of judgment, when the perdition of
ungodly men shall be sealed." "The delay of the Lord to fulfil his
promise is not from procrastination, but from his long suffering
who is not willing that any should perish." He waits "that all may
come to repentance." But his patience will end, and "the day of
God come as a thief in the night, when the heavens, being on fire,
shall pass away with a crash, and the elements melt with fervent
heat." There are two ways in which these declarations may be
explained, though in either case the events they refer to are to
occur in connection with the physical reappearance of Christ.
First, they may be taken in a highly figurative sense, as meaning
the moral overthrow of evil and the establishment of righteousness
in the world. Similar expressions were often used thus by the
ancient Hebrew prophets, who describe the triumphs of Israel and
the destruction of their enemies, the Edomites or the Assyrians,
by the interposition of Jehovah's arm, in such phrases as these.
"The mountains melt, the valleys cleave asunder like wax before a
fire, like waters poured over a precipice." "The heavens shall be
rolled up like a scroll, all their hosts shall melt away and fall
down; for Jehovah holdeth a great slaughter in the land of Edom:
her streams shall be turned into pitch, and her dust into
brimstone, and her whole land shall become burning pitch." The
suppression of Satan's power and the setting up of the Messiah's
kingdom might, according to the prophetic idiom, be expressed in
awful images of fire and woe, the destruction of the old, and the
creation of a new, heaven and earth. But, secondly, this
phraseology, as used by the writer of the epistle before us, may
have a literal significance,  may have been intended to predict
strictly that the world shall be burned and purged by fire at the
second coming of the Lord. That such a catastrophe would take
place in the last day, or occurred periodically, was notoriously
the doctrine of the Persians and of the Stoics.6 For our own part,
we are convinced that the latter is the real meaning of the
writer. This seems to be shown alike by the connection of his
argument, by the prosaic literality of detail with which he
speaks, and by the earnest exhortations he immediately bases on
the declaration he has made. He reasons that, since the world was
destroyed once by water, it may be again by fire. The deluge he
certainly regarded as literal: was not, then, in his conception,
the fire, too, literal? He says, with calm, prosaic precision,
"The earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holiness, looking for a
new heaven and a new earth, and striving that ye may be found by
him in peace, without spot, and blameless!" We do not suppose this
writer expected the annihilation of the physical creation, but
only that the fire would destroy all unransomed creatures from its
surface, and thoroughly purify its frame, and make it clean and
fit for a new race of sinless and immortal men.

"Tears shall not break from their full source,
Nor Anguish stray from her Tartarean den,
The golden years maintain a course
Not undiversified, though smooth and even,
We not be mock'd with glimpse and shadow then,
Bright seraphs mix familiarly with men,
And earth and sky compose a universal heaven."

We have now arrived at the threshold of the last book in the New
Testament, that book which, in the words of Lucke, "lies like a
Sphinx at the lofty outgate of the Bible." There are three modes
of interpreting the Apocalypse, each of which has had numerous and
distinguished advocates. First, it may be regarded as a congeries
of inspired prophecies, a scenic unfolding, with infallible
foresight, of the chief events of Christian history from the first
century till now, and onwards. This view the combined effect of
the facts in the case and of all the just considerations
appropriate to the subject compels us to reject. There is no
evidence to support it; the application of it is crowded with
egregious follies and absurdities. We thus simply state the result
of our best investigation and judgment, for there is no space here
to discuss it in detail. Secondly, the book may be taken as a
symbolic exhibition of the transitional crises, exposures,
struggles, and triumphs of the individual soul, a description of
personal experience, a picture of the inner life of the Christian
in a hostile world. The contents of it can be made to answer to
such a characterization only by the determined exercise of an
unrestrained fancy, or by the theory of a double sense, as the
Swedenborgians expound it. This method of interpreting the
Revelation is adopted, not by scholarly thinkers, who, by the
light of learning and common sense, seek to discern what the
writer meant to express, but by those persons who go to the
obscure document, with traditional superstition and lawless
imaginations, to see what lessons they can find there for their
experimental guidance and edification. We suppose that every
intelligent and informed student who has

6 Cicero de Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. cap. 46. Also Ovid, Minucius
Felix, Seneca, and other authorities, as quoted by Rosenmuller on
2 Peter iii. 7.


examined the subject with candid independence holds it as an
exegetical axiom that the Apocalypse is neither a pure prophecy,
blazing full illumination from Patmos along the track of the
coming centuries, nor an exhaustive vision of the experience of
the faithful Christian disciple. We are thus brought to the third
and, as we think, the correct mode of considering this remarkable
work. It is an outburst from the commingled and seething mass of
opinions, persecutions, hopes, general experience, and expectation
of the time when it was written. This is the view which would
naturally arise in the mind of an impartial student from the
nature of the case, and from contemplating the fervid faith,
suffering, lowering elements, and thick coming events of the
apostolic age. It also strikingly corresponds with numerous
express statements and with the whole obvious spirit and plan of
the work; for its descriptions and appeals have the vivid colors,
the thrilling tones, the significantly detailed allusions to
experiences and opinions and anticipations notoriously existing at
the time, which belong to present or immediately impending scenes.
This way of considering the Apocalypse likewise enables one who is
acquainted with the early Jewish Christian doctrines, legends, and
hopes, to explain clearly a large number of passages in it whose
obscurity has puzzled many a commentator. We should be glad to
give various illustrations of this, if our limits did not confine
us strictly to the one class of texts belonging to the doctrine of
a future life. Furthermore, nearly all the most gifted critics,
such as Ewald, Bleek, Lucke, De Wette,  those whose words on such
matters as these are weightiest, now agree in concluding that the
Revelation of John was a product springing out of the intense
Jewish Christian belief and experience of the age, and referring,
in its dramatic scenery and predictions, to occurrences supposed
to be then transpiring or very close at hand. Finally, this view
in regard to the Apocalypse is strongly confirmed by a comparison
of that production with the several other works similar to it in
character and nearly contemporaneous in origin. These apocryphal
productions were written or compiled according to the pretty
general agreement of the great scholars who have criticized them
somewhere between the beginning of the first century before, and
the middle of the second century after, Christ. We merely propose
here, in the briefest manner, to indicate the doctrine of a future
life contained in them, as an introduction to an exposition of
that contained in the New Testament Apocalypse.

In the TESTAMENT OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS it is written that "the
under world shall be spoiled through the death of the Most
Exalted."7 Again, we read, "The Lord shall make battle against the
devil, and conquer him, and rescue from him the captive souls of
the righteous. The just shall rejoice in Jerusalem, where the Lord
shall reign himself, and every one that believes in him shall
reign in truth in the heavens."8 Farther on the writer says of the
Lord, after giving an account of his crucifixion, "He shall rise
up from the under world and ascend into heaven."9 These extracts
seem to imply the common doctrine of that time, that Christ
descended into the under world, freed the captive saints, and rose
into heaven, and would soon return to establish his throne in
Jerusalem, to reign there for a time with his accepted followers.

7 See this book in Fabricii Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris
Testamenti, Test. Lev. sect. iv.

8 Ibid. Test. Dan. sect. v.

9 Ibid. Test. Benj. sect. ix.


The FOURTH BOOK OF EZRA contains scattered declarations and hints
of the same nature.10 It describes a vision of the Messiah, on
Mount Zion, distributing crowns to those confessors of his name
who had died in their fidelity.11 The world is said to be full of
sorrows and oppressions; and as the souls of the just ask when the
harvest shall come,12 for the good to be rewarded and the wicked
to be punished, they are told that the day of liberation is not
far distant, though terrible trials and scourges must yet precede
it. "My Son Jesus shall be revealed." "My Son the Christ shall
die; and then a new age shall come, the earth shall give up the
dead, sinners shall be plunged into the bottomless abyss, and
Paradise shall appear in all its glory."13 The "Son of God will
come and consume his enemies with fire; but the elect will be
protected and made happy."14

The ASCENSION OF ISAIAH is principally occupied with an account of
the rapture of the soul of that prophet through the seven heavens,
and of what he there saw and learned. It describes the descent of
Christ, the beloved Son of God, through all the heavens, to the
earth; his death; his resurrection after three days; his victory
over Satan and his angels, who dwell in the welkin or higher
region of the air; and his return to the right hand of God.15 It
predicts great apostasy and sin among the disciples of the
apostles, and much dissension respecting the nearness of the
second advent of Christ.16 It emphatically declares that "Christ
shall come with his angels, and shall drag Satan and his powers
into Gehenna. Then all the saints shall descend from heaven in
their heavenly clothing, and dwell in this world; while the saints
who had not died shall be similarly clothed, and after a time
leave their bodies here, that they may assume their station in
heaven. The general resurrection and judgment will follow, when
the ungodly will be devoured by fire."17 The author as Gesenius,
with almost all the rest of the critics, says was unquestionably a
Jewish Christian, and his principal design was to set forth the
speedy second coming of Christ, and the glorious triumph of the
saints that would follow with the condign punishment of the
wicked.

The first book of the SIBYLLINE ORACLES contains a statement that
in the golden age the souls of all men passed peacefully into the
under world, to tarry there until the judgment; a prediction of a
future Messiah; and an account of his death, resurrection, and
ascension. The second book begins with a description of the
horrors that will precede the last time, threats against the
persecuting tyrants, and promises to the faithful, especially to
the martyrs, and closes with an account of the general judgment,
when Elijah shall come from heaven, consuming flames break out,
all souls be summoned to the tribunal of God at whose right hand
Christ will sit, the bodies of the dead be raised, the righteous
be purified, and the wicked be plunged into final ruin.

The fundamental thought and aim of the apocryphal BOOK OF ENOCH
are the second coming of Christ to judge the world, the
encouragement of the Christians, and the warning

10 See the abstract of it given in section vi. of Stuart's
Commentary on the Apocalypse.

11 Cap. ii. 12 Cap. iv. 13 Cap. v., vii. 14 Cap. xiii., xvi.

15 Ascensio Isaia Vatis, a Ricardo Laurence, cap. ix., x., xi.

16 Ibid. cap. ii., iii.

17 Ibid. cap. iv. 13-18.


of their oppressors by declarations of approaching deliverance to
those and vengeance to these. This is transparent at frequent
intervals through the whole book.18 "Ye righteous, wait with
patient hope: your cries have cried for judgment, and it shall
come, and the gates of heaven shall be opened to you." "Woe to
you, powerful oppressors, false witnesses! for you shall suddenly
perish." "The voices of slain saints accusing their murderers, the
oppressors of their brethren, reach to heaven with interceding
cries for swift justice."19 When that justice comes, "the horse
shall wade up to his breast, and the chariot shall sink to its
axle, in the blood of sinners."20 The author teaches that the
souls of men at death go into the under world, "a place deep and
dark, where all souls shall be collected;" "where they shall
remain in darkness till the day of judgment," the spirits of the
righteous being in peace and joy, separated from the tormented
spirits of the wicked, who have spurned the Messiah and persecuted
his disciples.21 A day of judgment is at hand. "Behold, he cometh,
with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment." Then the
righteous shall rise from the under world, be approved, become as
angels, and ascend to heaven. But the wicked shall not rise: they
remain imprisoned below forever.22 The angels descend to earth to
dwell with men, and the saints ascend to heaven to dwell with
angels.23 "From beginning to end, like the Apocalypse, the book is
filled," says Professor Stuart, (and the most careless reader must
remark it,) "with threats for the wicked persecutors and
consolations for the suffering pious." A great number of
remarkable correspondences between passages in this book and
passages in the Apocalypse solicit a notice which our present
single object will not allow us to give them here. An under world
divided into two parts, a happy for the good, a wretched for the
bad; temporary woes prevailing on the earth; the speedy advent of
Christ for a vindication of his power and his servants; the
resurrection of the dead; the final translation of the accepted
into heaven, and the hopeless dooming of the rejected into the
abyss, these are the features in the book before us which we are
now to remember.

There is one other extant apocryphal book whose contents are
strictly appropriate to the subject we have in hand, namely, the
APOCALYPSE OF JOHN.24 It claims to be the work of the Apostle John
himself. It represents John as going to Mount Tabor after the
ascension of Christ, and there praying that it may be revealed to
him when the second coming of Christ will occur, and what will be
the consequences of it. In answer to his request, a long and
minute disclosure is made. The substance of it is, that, after
famines and woes, Antichrist will appear and reign three years.
Then Enoch and Elijah will come to expose him; but they will die,
and all men with them. The earth will be purified with fire, the
dead will rise, Christ

18 Book of Enoch, translated into English by Dr. R. Laurence. See
particularly the following places: i. 1 5; lii. 7; liv. 12; lxi.
15; lxii. 14, 15; xciv.; xcv.; civ.

19 Ibid. cap. ix. 9 11; xxii. 5 8; xlvii. 1-4.

20 Ibid. cap. xcviii. 3.

21 Ibid. cap. x. 6 9, 15, 16; xxii. 2 5, 11 13; cii. 6; ciii. 5.

22 Ibid. cap. xxii. 14, 15; xlv. 2; xlvi. 4; 1. 1-4.

23 cap. xxxviii. xl.

24 See the abstract of it given in Lucke's Einleit. in die
Offenbar. Joh., cap. 2, sect. 17.


will descend in pomp, with myriads of angels, and the judgment
will follow. The spirits of Antichrist will be hurled into a gulf
of outer darkness, so deep that a heavy stone would not plunge to
the bottom in three years. Unbelievers, sinners, hypocrites, will
be cast into the under world; while true Christians are placed at
the right hand of Christ, all radiant with glory. The good and
accepted will then dwell in an earthly paradise, with angels, and
be free from all evils.

In addition to these still extant Apocalypses, we have references
in the works of the Fathers to a great many others long since
perished; especially the Apocalypses of Adam, Abraham, Moses,
Elijah, Hystaspes, Paul, Peter, Thomas, Cerinthus, and Stephen. So
far as we have any clew, by preserved quotations or otherwise, to
the contents of these lost productions, they seem to have been
much occupied with the topics of the avenging and redeeming advent
of the Messiah, the final judgment of mankind, the supernal and
subterranean localities, the resurrection of the dead, the
inauguration of an earthly paradise, the condemnation of the
reprobate to the abyss beneath, the translation of the elect to
the Angelic realm on high. These works, all taken together, were
plainly the offspring of the mingled mass of glowing faiths,
sufferings, fears, and hopes, of the age they belonged to. An
acquaintance with them will help us to appreciate and explain many
things in our somewhat kindred New Testament Apocalypse, by
placing us partially in the circumstances and mental attitude of
the writer and of those for whom it was written.

The Persian Jewish and Jewish Christian notions and
characteristics of the Book of Revelation are marked and
prevailing, as every prepared reader must perceive. The threefold
division of the universe into the upper world of the angels, the
middle world of men, and the under world of the dead; the keys of
the bottomless pit; the abode of Satan, the accuser, in heaven;
his revolt; the war in the sky between his seduced host and the
angelic army under Michael, and the thrusting down of the former;
the banquet of birds on the flesh of kings, mighty men, and
horses; the battle of Gog and Magog; the tarrying of souls under
the altar of God; the temple in heaven containing the ark of the
covenant, and the scene of a various ritual service; the twelve
gates of the celestial city bearing the names of the twelve tribes
of the children of Israel, and the twelve foundations of the walls
having the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb; the bodily
resurrection and general judgment, and the details of its sequel,
all these doctrines and specimens of imagery, with a hundred
others, carry us at once into the Zend Avesta, the Talmud, and the
Ebionitish documents of the earliest Christians, who mixed their
interpretations of the mission and teaching of Christ with the
poetic visions of Zoroaster and the cabalistic dogmatics of the
Pharisees. 25

It is astonishing that any intelligent person can peruse the
Apocalypse and still suppose that it is occupied with prophecies
of remote events, events to transpire successively in distant ages
and various lands. Immediateness, imminency, hazardous urgency,
swiftness, alarms, are written all over the book. A suspense,
frightfully thrilling, fills it, as if the world were holding its
breath in view of the universal crash that was coming with
electric velocity.

25 See, e. g., Corrodi, Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus, band
ii. th. 3 7; Gfrorer, Geschichte Urchristenthums, abth. ii. kap.
8 10; Schottgen in Apoc. xii. 6 9; ibid. in 2 Cor. v. 2.


Four words compose the key to the Apocalypse: Rescue, Reward,
Overthrow, Vengeance. The followers of Christ are now persecuted
and slain by the tyrannical rulers of the earth. Let them be of
good cheer: they shall speedily be delivered. Their tyrants shall
be trampled down in "blood flowing up to the horse bridles," and
they shall reign in glory. "Here is the faith and the patience of
the saints," trusting that, if "true unto death, they shall have a
crown of life," and "shall not be hurt of the second death," but
shall soon rejoice over the triumphant establishment of the
Messiah's kingdom and the condign punishment of his enemies who
are now "making themselves drunk with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus." The Beast, described in the thirteenth chapter, is
unquestionably Nero; and this fact shows the expected
immediateness of the events pictured in connection with the rise
and destruction of that monstrous despot.26 The truth of this
representation is sealed by the very first verses of the book,
indicating the nature of its contents and the period to which they
refer: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him,
to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass:
Blessed are they who hear the words of this prophecy and keep
them; for the time is at hand."

This rescue and reward of the faithful, this overthrow and
punishment of the wicked, were to be effected by the agency of a
unique and sublime personage, who was expected very soon to
appear, with an army of angels from heaven, for this purpose. The
conception of the nature, rank, and offices of Jesus Christ which
existed in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse is in some
respects but obscurely hinted in the words he employs; yet the
relationship of those words to other and fuller sources of
information in the contemporaneous notions of his countrymen is
such as to give us great help in arriving at his ideas. He
represents Christ as distinct from and subordinate to God. He
makes Christ say, "To him that overcometh I will give power over
the nations, even as I received of my Father." He characterizes
him as "the beginning of the creation of God," and describes him
as "mounted on a white horse, leading the heavenly armies to war,
and his name is called the Logos of God." These terms evidently
correspond to the phrases in the introduction to the Gospel of
John, and in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, where are unfolded
some portions of that great doctrine, so prevalent among the early
Fathers, which was borrowed and adapted by them from the Persian
Honover, the Hebrew Wisdom, and the Platonic Logos.27 "In the
beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and all
things were made by him;... and the Logos was made flesh and dwelt
among us."28 "God of our fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made
all things by thy Logos."29 "Thine almighty Logos leaped down from
heaven from his royal throne, a fierce warrior, into the midst of
a land of destruction."30 "Plainly enough, the Apocalyptic view of
Christ is based on that profound Logos doctrine so copiously

26 See the excursus by Stuart in his Commentary on the Apoc. xiii.
18, which conclusively shows that the Beast could be no other than
Nero.

27 Lucke, Einleitung in das Evang. Joh.

28 Evang. Joh. i. 1, 3, 14.

29 Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 1, 2.

30 Ibid. xviii. 15.


developed in the writings of Philo Judaus and so distinctly
endorsed in numerous passages of the New Testament. First, there
is the absolute God. Next, there is the Logos, the first begotten
Son and representative image of God, the instrumental cause of the
creation, the head of all created beings. This Logos, born into
our world as a man, is Christ. Around him are clustered all the
features and actions that compose the doctrine of the last things.
The vast work of redemption and judgment laid upon him has in part
been already executed, and in part remains yet to be done.

We are first to inquire, then, into the significance of what the
writer of the Apocalypse supposes has already been effected by
Christ in his official relations between God and men, so far as
regards the general subject of a life beyond the grave. A few
brief and vague but comprehensive expressions include all that he
has written which furnishes us a guide to his thoughts on this
particular. He describes Jesus, when advanced to his native
supereminent dignity in heaven, as the "Logos, clothed in a
vesture dipped in blood," and also as "the Lamb that was slain,"
to whom the celestial throng sing a new song, saying, "Thou hast
redeemed us unto God by thy blood." Christ, he says, "loved us,
and washed us from our sins in his own blood." He represents the
risen Savior as declaring, "I am he that liveth, and was dead,
and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of the
under world and of death." "Jesus Christ," again he writes, "is
the faithful witness, the first begotten from the dead." What,
now, is the real meaning of these pregnant phrases? What is the
complete doctrine to which fragmentary references are here made?
We are confident that it is this. Mankind, in consequence of sin,
were alienated from God, and banished, after death, to Hades, the
subterranean empire of shadows. Christ, leaving his exalted state
in heaven, was born into the world as a messenger, or "faithful
witness," of surprising grace to them from God, and died that he
might fulfil his mission as the agent of their redemption, by
descending into the great prison realm of the dead, and, exerting
his irresistible power, return thence to light and life, and
ascend into heaven as the forerunner and pledge of the deliverance
and ascension of others. Moses Stuart, commenting on the clause
"first begotten from the dead," says, "Christ was in fact the
first who enjoyed the privilege of a resurrection to eternal glory
and he was constituted the leader of all who should afterwards be
thus raised from the dead."31 All who had died, with the sole
exception of Christ, were yet in the under world. He, since his
triumphant subdual of its power and return to heaven, possessed
authority over it, and would ere long summon its hosts to
resurrection, as he declares: "I was dead, and, behold, I am alive
for ever more, and have the keys of the under world." The figure
is that of a conqueror, who, returning from a captured and subdued
city, bears the key of it with him, a trophy of his triumph and a
pledge of its submission. The text "Thou hast redeemed us unto God
by thy blood" is not received in an absolutely literal sense by
any theological sect whatever. The severest Calvinist does not
suppose that the physical blood shed on the cross is meant; but he
explains it as denoting the atoning efficacy of the vicarious
sufferings of Christ. But this interpretation is as forced and
constructive an exposition as the one we have given, and is not

31 Stuart, Comm. in Apoc. i. 5.


warranted by the theological opinions of the apostolic age, which
do, on the contrary, support and necessitate the other. The direct
statement is, that men were redeemed unto God by the blood of
Christ. All agree that in the word "blood" is wrapped up a
figurative meaning. The Calvinistic dogma makes it denote the
satisfaction of the law of retributive justice by a substitutional
anguish. We maintain that a true historical exegesis, with far
less violence to the use of language, and consistently with known
contemporaneous ideas, makes it denote the death of Christ, and
the events which were supposed to have followed his death, namely,
his appearance among the dead, and his ascent to heaven,
preparatory to their ascent, when they should no longer be exiled
in Hades, but should dwell with God. Out of an abundance of
illustrative authorities we will cite a few.

Augustine describes "the ancient saints" as being "in the under
world, in places most remote from the tortures of the impious,
waiting for Christ's blood and descent to deliver them."32
Epiphanius says, "Christ was the first that rose from the under
world to heaven from the time of the creation."33 Lactantius
affirms, "Christ's descent into the under world and ascent into
heaven were necessary to give man the hope of a heavenly
immortality."34 Hilary of Poictiers says, "Christ went down into
Hades for two reasons: first, to fulfil the law imposed on mankind
that every soul on leaving the body shall descend into the under
world, and, secondly, to preach the Christian religion to the
dead."35 Chrysostom writes, "When the Son of God cometh, the earth
shall burst open, and all the men that ever were born, from Adam's
birth up to that day, shall rise up out of the earth."36 Irenaus
testifies, "I have heard from a certain presbyter, who heard it
from those who had seen the apostles and received their
instructions, that Christ descended into the under world, and
preached the gospel and his own advent to the souls there, and
remitted the sins of those who believed on him."37 Eusebius
records that, "after the ascension of Jesus, Thomas sent Thaddeus,
one of the Seventy, to Abgarus, King of Edessa. This disciple told
the king how that Jesus, having been crucified, descended into the
under world, and burst the bars which had never before been
broken, and rose again, and also raised with himself the dead that
had slept for ages; and how he descended alone, but ascended with
a great multitude to his Father; and how he was about to come
again to judge the living and the dead."38 Finally, we cite the
following undeniable statement from Daille's famous work on the
"Right Use of the Fathers:" "That heaven shall not be opened till
the second coming of Christ and the day of judgment, that during
this time the souls of all men, with a few exceptions, are shut up
in the under world,  was held by Justin Martyr, Irenaus,
Tertullian, Augustine, Origen, Lactantius, Victorinus, Ambrose,
Chrysostom, Theodoret, OEcumenius, Aretas, Prudentius,
Theophylact, Bernard,

32 De Civitate Dei, lib. xx. cap. 15.

33 In Resurrectionem Christi.

34 Divin. Instit. lib. iv. cap. 19, 20.

35 Hilary in Ps. cxviii. et cxix.

36 Homil. in Rom. viii. 25.

37 Adv. Hares. lib. iv. sect. 45.

38 Ecc. Hist. lib. i. cap. 13.


and many others, as is confessed by all. This doctrine is
literally held by the whole Greek Church at the present day. Nor
did any of the Latins expressly deny any part of it until the
Council of Florence, in the year of our Lord 1439."39

In view of these quotations, and of volumes of similar ones which
might be adduced, we submit to the candid reader that the meaning
most probably in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse when he
wrote the words "redemption by the Blood of Christ" was this, the
rescue certified to men by the commissioned power and devoted
self sacrifice of Christ in dying, going down to the mighty
congregation of the dead, proclaiming good tidings, breaking the
hopeless bondage of death and Hades, and ascending as the pioneer
of a new way to God. If before his death all men were supposed to
go down to helpless confinement in the under world on account of
sin, but after his resurrection the promise of an ascension to
heaven was made to them through his gospel and exemplification,
then well might the grateful believers, fixing their hearts on his
willing martyrdom in their behalf, exclaim, "He loved us, and
washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings
and priests unto God." It is certainly far more natural, far more
reasonable, to suppose that the scriptural phrase "the blood of
Christ" means "the death of Christ," with its historical
consequences, than to imagine that it signifies a complicated and
mysterious scheme of sacerdotal or ethical expiation, especially
when that scheme is unrelated to contemporaneous opinion,
irreconcilable withmorality,and confessedly nowhere plainly stated
in Scripture, but a matter of late and laborious construction and
inference. We have not spoken of the strictly moral and subjective
mission and work of Christ, as conceived by the author of the
Apocalypse,  his influences to cleanse the springs of character,
purify and inspire the heart, rectify and elevate the motives,
regenerate and sanctify the soul and the life, because all this is
plain and unquestioned. But he also believed in something
additional to this, an objective function: and what that was we
think is correctly explained above.

We are next to inquire more immediately into the closing parts of
the doctrine of the last things. Christ has appeared, declared the
tidings of grace, died, visited the dead, risen victoriously, and
gone back to heaven, where he now tarries. But there remain many
things for him, as the eschatological King, yet to do. What are
they? and what details are connected with them? First of all, he
is soon to return from heaven, visiting the earth a second time.
The first chapter of the book begins by declaring that it is "a
revelation of things which must shortly come to pass," and
"blessed is he that readeth; for the time is at hand." The last
chapter is full of such repetitions as these: "things which must
shortly be done;" "Behold, I come quickly;" "The time is at hand;"
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is holy,
let him be holy still;" "Surely I come quickly;" "Even so, come,
Lord Jesus." Herder says, in his acute and eloquent work on the
Apocalypse, "There is but one voice in it, through all its
epistles, seals, trumpets, signs, and plagues, namely, THE LORD IS
COMING!" The souls of the martyrs, impatiently waiting, under the
altar, the completion of the great drama, cry, "How long, O Lord,
dost thou delay to avenge our blood?" and they are told that "they
shall

39 Lib. ii. cap. 4, pp. 272, 273 of the English translation.


rest only for a little season." Tertullian writes, without a trace
of doubt, "Is not Christ quickly to come from heaven with a
quaking of the whole universe, with a shuddering of the world,
amidst the wailings of all men save the Christians?" The
Apocalyptic seer makes Christ say, "Behold, I come as a thief in
the night: blessed is he that watcheth." Accordingly, "a sentinel
gazed wherever a Christian prayed, and, though all the watchmen
died without the sight," the expectation lingered for centuries.
The Christians of the New Testament time to borrow the words of
one of the most competent of living scholars "carried forward to
the account of Christ in years to come the visions which his stay,
as they supposed, was too short to realize, and assigned to him a
quick return to finish what was yet unfulfilled. The suffering,
the scorn, the rejection of men, the crown of thorns, were over
and gone; the diadem, the clarion, the flash of glory, the troop
of angels, were ready to burst upon the world, and might be looked
for at midnight or at noon."40

Secondly, when Christ returned, he was to avenge the sufferings
and reward the fidelity of his followers, tread the heathen
tyrants in the wine press of his wrath, and crown the persecuted
saints with a participation in his glory. When "the time of his
wrath is come, he shall give reward to the prophets, and to the
saints, and to them that fear his name, and shall destroy them
that destroy the earth." "The kings, captains, mighty men, rich
men, bondmen, and freemen, shall cry to the mountains and rocks,
Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb." "To him that
overcometh, and doeth my works, I will give power over the
Gentiles;" "I will give him the morning star;" "I will grant him
to sit with me on my throne." Independently, moreover, of these
distinct texts, the whole book is pervaded with the thought that,
at the speedy second advent of the Messiah, all his enemies shall
be fearfully punished, his servants eminently compensated and
glorified.41

Thirdly, the writer of the Apocalypse expected in accordance with
that Jewish anticipation of an earthly Messianic kingdom which was
adopted with some modifications by the earliest Christians that
Jesus, on his return, having subdued his foes, would reign for a
season, in great glory, on the earth, surrounded by the saints. "A
door was opened in heaven," and the seer looked in, and saw a
vision of the redeemed around the throne, and heard them "singing
a new song unto the Lamb that was slain," in the course of which,
particularizing the favors obtained for them by him, they say, "We
shall reign upon the earth." Again, the writer says that "the
worshippers of the beast and of his image shall be tormented with
fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the
presence of the Lamb." Now, the lake of sulphurous fire into which
the reprobate were to be thrust was located, not in the sky, but
under the surface of the earth. The foregoing statement,
therefore, implies that Christ and his angels would be tarrying on
the earth when the final woe of the condemned was inflicted. But
we need not rely on indirect arguments. The writer explicitly
declares

40 Martineau, Sermon, "The God of Revelation his own Interpreter."

41 It seems to have been a Jewish expectation that when the
Messiah should appear he would thrust his enemies into Hades. In a
passage of the Talmud Satan is represented as seeing the Messiah
under the Throne of Glory: he falls on his face at the sight,
exclaiming, "This is the Messiah, who will precipitate me and all
the Gentiles into the under world." Bertholdt, Christologia, sect.
36.


that, in his vision of what was to take place, the Christian
martyrs, "those who were slain for the witness of Jesus, lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years, while the rest of the dead
lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is
the first resurrection. Then Satan was loosed out of his prison,
and gathered the hosts of Gog and Magog to battle, and went up on
the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints
about, and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them." It
seems impossible to avoid seeing in this passage a plain statement
of the millennial reign of Christ on the earth with his risen
martyrs.

Fourthly, at the termination of the period just referred to, the
author of the Apocalypse thought all the dead would be raised and
the tribunal of the general judgment held. As Lactantius says,
"All souls are detained in custody in the under world until the
last day; then the just shall rise and reign; afterwards there
will be another resurrection of the wicked."42 "The time of the
dead is come, that they should be judged." "And I saw the dead,
small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, and
the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the
books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and the under world delivered up the
dead which were in them, and they were judged, every man according
to his works." "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and reign with him a
thousand years." This text, with its dark and tacit reference by
contrast to those who have no lot in the millennial kingdom,
brings us to the next step in our exposition.

For, fifthly, after the general resurrection and judgment at the
close of the thousand years, the sentence of a hopeless doom to
hell is to be executed on the condemned. "Whosoever was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." "The
fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall
have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;
which is the second death." The "second death" is a term used by
Onkelos in his Targum,43 and sometimes in the Talmud, and by the
Rabbins generally. It denotes, as employed by them, the return of
the wicked into hell after their summons thence for judgment.44 In
the Apocalypse, its relative meaning is this. The martyrs, who
were slain for their allegiance to the gospel, died once, and
descended into the under world, the common realm of death. At the
coming of Christ they were to rise and join him, and to die no
more. This was the first resurrection. At the close of the
millennium, all the rest of the dead were to rise and be judged,
and the rejected portion of them were to be thrust back again
below. This was a second death for them, a fate from which the
righteous were exempt. There was a difference, greatly for the
worse in the latter, between their condition in the two deaths. In
the former they descended to the dark under world, the silent and
temporary abode of the universal dead; but in the latter they went
down "into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the devil and the
beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and
night for

42 Divin. Instit. lib. vii. cap. 20, 21, 26.

43 on Deut. xxxiii. 6.

44 Gfrorer, Geschichte des Urchristenthums, kap. 10. s. 289.


ever and ever." For "Death and Hades, having delivered up the dead
which were in them, were cast into the lake of fire. This is the
second death." It is plain that here the common locality of
departed souls is personified as two demons, Death and Hades, and
the real thought meant to be conveyed is, that this region is to
be sunk beneath a "Tartarean drench," which shall henceforth roll
in burning billows over its victims there, "the smoke of their
torment ascending up for ever and ever." This awful imagery of a
lake of flaming sulphur, in which the damned were plunged, was of
comparatively late origin or adoption among the Jews, from whom
the Christians received it. The native Hebrew conception of the
state of the dead was that of the voiceless gloom and dismal
slumber of Sheol, whither all alike went. The notion of fiery
tortures inflicted there on the wicked was either conceived by the
Pharisees from the loathed horrors of the filth fire kept in the
vale of Hinnom, outside of Jerusalem, (which is the opinion of
most commentators,) or was imagined from the sea of burning
brimstone that showered from heaven and submerged Sodom and
Gomorrah in a vast fire pool, (which is maintained by
Bretschneider and others,) or was derived from the Egyptians, or
the Persians, or the Hindus, or the Greeks, all of whom had lakes
and rivers of fire in their theological hells, long before history
reveals the existence of such a belief among the Jews, (which is
the conclusion of many learned authors and critics.)

We have now reached the last feature in the scheme of eschatology
shadowed forth in the Apocalypse, the most obscure and difficult
point of all, namely, the locality and the principal elements of
the final felicity of the saved. The difficulty of clearly
settling this question is twofold, arising, first, from the swift
and partial glimpses which are all that the writer yields us on
the subject, and, secondly, from the impossibility of deciding
with precision how much of his language is to be regarded as
figurative and how much as literal, where the poetic presentation
of symbol ends and where the direct statement of fact begins. A
large part of the book is certainly written in prophetic figures
and images, spiritual visions, never meant to be accepted in a
prosaic sense with severe detail. And yet, at the same time, all
these imaginative emblems were, unquestionably, intended to
foreshadow, in various kinds and degrees, doctrinal conceptions,
hopes, fears, threats, promises, historical realities, past,
present, or future. But to separate sharply the dress and the
substance, the superimposed symbols and the underlying realities,
is always an arduous, often an impossible, achievement. The writer
of the Apocalypse plainly believed that the souls of all, except
the martyrs, at death descended to the under world, and would
remain there till after the second coming of Christ. But whether
he thought that the martyrs were excepted, and would at death
immediately rise into heaven and there await the fulfilment of
time, is a disputed point. For our own part, we think it extremely
doubtful, and should rather decide in the negative. In the first
place, his expressions on this subject seem essentially
figurative. He describes the prayers of the saints as being poured
out from golden vials and burned as incense on a golden altar in
heaven before the throne of God. "Under that altar," he says, "I
saw the souls of them that were slain for the word of God." If the
souls of the martyrs, in his belief, were really admitted into
heaven, would he have conceived of them as huddled under the altar
and not walking at liberty? Does not the whole idea appear rather
like a rhetorical image than like a sober theological doctrine?
True, the scene is pictured in heaven; but then it is a picture,
and not a conclusion. With De Wette, we regard it, not as a
dogmatic, but as a poetical and prophetic, representation. And
in regard to the seer's vision of the innumerable company of the
redeemed in heaven, surrounding the throne and celebrating the
praises of God and the Lamb, surely it is obvious enough that
this, like the other affiliated visions, is a vision, by
inspired insight, in the present tense, of what is yet to
occur in the successive unfolding of the rapid scenes in the
great drama of Christ's redemptive work, a prophetic vision of
the future, not of what already is. We know that in Tertullian's
time the idea was entertained by some that Christian martyrs, as
a special allotment, should pass at once from their sufferings to
heaven, without going, as all others must, into the under world;
but the evidence preponderates with us, upon the whole, that no
such doctrine is really implied in the Apocalypse. In the
fourteenth chapter, the author describes the hundred and forty
four thousand who were redeemed from among men, as standing with
the Lamb on Mount Zion and hearing a voice from heaven singing a
new song, which no man, save the hundred and forty four thousand,
could learn. The probabilities are certainly strongest that this
great company of the selected "first fruits unto God and the
Lamb," now standing on the earth, had not yet been in heaven; for
they only learn the heavenly song which is sung before the throne
by hearing it chanted down from heaven in a voice like
multitudinous thunders.

Finally, the most convincing proof that the writer did not suppose
that the martyrs entered heaven before the second advent of
Christ a proof which, taken by itself, would seem to leave no
doubt on the subject is this. In the famous scene detailed in the
twentieth chapter usually called by commentators the martyr scene
it is said that "the souls of them that were beheaded for the word
of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, lived and reigned
with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection."
Now, is it not certain that if the writer supposed these souls had
never been in the under world, but in heaven, he could not have
designated their preliminary descent from above as "the first
resurrection," the first rising up? That phrase implies, we think,
that all the dead were below: the faithful and chosen ones were to
rise first to reign a while with Jesus, and after that the rest
should rise to be judged. After that judgment, which was expected
to be on earth in presence of the descended Lamb and his angels,
the lost were to be plunged, as we have already seen, into the
subterranean pit of torture, the unquenchable lake of fire. But
what was to become of the righteous and redeemed? Whether, by the
Apocalyptic representation, they were to remain forever on earth,
or to ascend into heaven, is a question which has been zealously
debated for over sixteen hundred years, and in some theological
circles is still warmly discussed. Were the angels who came down
to the earth with Christ to the judgment never to return to their
native seats? Were they permanently to transfer their deathless
citizenship from the sky to Judea? Were the constitution of human
nature and the essence of human society to be abrogated, and the
members of the human family to cease enlarging, lest they should
overflow the borders of the world? Was God himself literally to
desert his ancient abode, and, with the celestial city and all its
angelic hierarchy, float from the desolated firmament to Mount
Zion, there to set up the central eternity of his throne. We
cannot believe that such is the meaning, which the seer of the
Apocalypse wished to convey by his symbolic visions and pictures,
any more than we can believe that he means literally to say that
he saw "a woman in heaven clothed with the sun, and the moon under
her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars," or that
there were actually "armies in heaven, seated on white horses
and clothed in fine linen, white and clean, which is the
righteousness of saints." Our conviction is that he expected
the Savior would ascend with his angels and the redeemed
into heaven, the glorious habitation of God above the sky. He
speaks in one place of the "temple of God in heaven, into which no
man could enter until the seven plagues were fulfilled," and in
another place says that the "great multitude of the redeemed are
before the throne of God in heaven, and serve him day and night in
his temple;" and in still another place he describes two prophets,
messengers of God, who had been slain, as coming to life, "and
hearing a great voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up
hither;' and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their
enemies beheld them." De Wette writes, "It is certain that an
abstract conception of heavenly blessedness with God duskily
hovers over the New Testament eschatology." We think this is true
of the Book of Revelation.

It was a Persian Jewish idea that the original destination of man,
had he not sinned, was heaven. The apostles thought it was a part
of the mission of Christ to restore that lost privilege. We think
the writer of the Apocalypse shared in that belief. His allusions
to a new heaven and a new earth, and to the descent of a New
Jerusalem from heaven, and other related particulars, are symbols
neither novel nor violent to Jewish minds, but both familiar and
expressive, to denote a purifying glorification of the world, the
installation of a divine kingdom, and the brilliant reign of
universal righteousness and happiness among men, as if under the
very eyes of the Messiah and the very sceptre of God. The
Christians shall reign in Jerusalem, which shall be adorned with
indescribable splendors and shall be the centre of a world wide
dominion, the saved nations of the earth surrounding it and
"walking in the light of it, their kings bringing their glory and
honor into it." "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,
and there shall be no more death." That is, upon the whole, as we
understand the scattered hints relevant to the subject to imply,
when Christ returns to the Father with his chosen, he will leave a
regenerated earth, with Jerusalem for its golden and peerless
capital, peopled, and to be peopled, with rejoicing and immortal
men, who will keep the commandments, be exempt from ancient evils,
hold intimate communion with God and the Lamb, and, from
generation to generation, pass up to heaven through that swift and
painless change, alluded to by Paul, whereby it was intended at
the first that sinless man, his corruptible and mortal putting on
incorruption and immortality, should be fitted for the
companionship of angels in the pure radiance of the celestial
world, and should be translated thither without tasting the
bitterness of death, which was supposed to be the subterranean
banishment of the disembodied ghost.

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE principal difficulty in arriving at the system of thought and
faith in the mind of Paul arises from the fragmentary character of
his extant writings. They are not complete treatises drawn out in
independent statements,butspecial letters full of latent
implications. They were written to meet particular emergencies, to
give advice, to convey or ask information and sympathy, to argue
or decide concerning various matters to a considerable extent of a
personal or local and temporal nature. Obviously their author
never suspected they would be the permanent and immensely
influential documents they have since become. They were not
composed as orderly developments or full presentations of a creed,
but rather as supplements to more adequate oral instruction
previously imparted. He says to the Thessalonians, "Brethren,
stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught,
whether by word or by our epistle." Several of his letters also
perhaps many have been lost. He exhorts the Colossians to "read
likewise the epistle from Laodicea." In his present First Epistle
to the Corinthians he intimates that he had previously
corresponded with them, in the words, "I wrote to you in a
letter." There are good reasons, too, for supposing that he
transmitted other epistles of which we have now no account. Owing,
therefore, to the facts that his principal instructions were given
by word of mouth, and that his surviving writings set forth no
systematic array of doctrines, we have no choice left, if we
desire to know what his opinions concerning the future life were,
when deduced and arranged, but to exercise our learning and our
faculties upon the imperfect discussions and the significant hints
and clews in his extant epistles. Bringing these together, in the
light of contemporary Pharisaic and Christian conceptions and
opinions, we may construct a system from them which will represent
his theory; somewhat as the naturalist from a few fragmentary
bones describes the entire skeleton to which they belonged. As we
proceed to follow this process, we must particularly remember the
leading notions in the doctrinal belief of the Jews at that
period, and the fact that Paul himself was "brought up at the feet
of Gamaliel," "after the most straitest order of the sect, a
Pharisee." When on trial at Jerusalem, he cried, "Men and
brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope of
the resurrection of the dead I am called in question." We can
hardly suppose that he would entirely throw off the influence and
form of the Pharisaic dogmas and grasp Christianity in its pure
spirituality. It is most reasonable to expect what we shall find
actually the fact that he would mix the doctrinal and emotional
results of his Pharisaic training with the teachings of Christ,
thus forming a composite system considerably modified from any
then existing. Indeed, a great many obscure texts in Paul may be
made perspicuous by citations from the old Talmudists. Considering
the value and the importance of this means of illustrating the New
Testament, it is neglected by modern commentators in a very
remarkable manner.

In common with his countrymen and the Gentiles, Paul undoubtedly
believed in a world of light and bliss situated over the sky,
where the Deity, surrounded by his angels, reigns in immortal
splendor. According to the Greeks, Zeus and the other gods,
with a few select heroes, there lived an imperishable life.
According to the Hebrews, there was "the house of Jehovah," "the
habitation of eternity," "the world of holy angels." The Old
Testament contains many sublime allusions to this place. Jacob in
his dream saw a ladder set up that reached unto heaven, and the
angels were ascending and descending upon it. Fixing his eyes upon
the summit, the patriarch exclaimed, not referring, as is commonly
supposed, to the ground on which he lay, but to the opening in the
sky through which the angels were passing and repassing, "Surely
this is the house of God and this the gate of heaven." Jehovah is
described as "riding over the heaven of heavens;" as "treading
upon the arch of the sky." The firmament is spoken of as the solid
floor of his abode, where "he layeth the beams of his chambers in
the waters," the "waters above," which the Book of Genesis says
were "divided from the waters beneath." Though this divine world
on high was in the early ages almost universally regarded as a
local reality, it was not conceived by Jews or Gentiles to be the
destined abode of human souls. It was thought to be exclusively
occupied by Jehovah and his angels, or by the gods and their
messengers. Only here and there were scattered a few dim
traditions, or poetic myths, of a prophet, a hero, a god descended
man, who, as a special favor, had been taken up to the supernal
mansions. The common destination of the disembodied spirits of men
was the dark,stupendous realms of the under world. As Augustine
observes, "Christ died after many; he rose before any: by dying he
suffered what many had suffered before; by rising he did what no
one had ever done before."1 These ideas of the celestial and the
infernal localities and of the fate of man were of course
entertained by Paul when he became a Christian. A few texts by way
of evidence of this fact will here suffice. "That at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on
earth, and those under the earth." "He that descended first into
the lower parts of the earth is the same also that ascended up far
above all heavens." The untenableness of that explanation which
makes the descent into the lower parts of the earth refer to
Christ's descent to earth from his pre existent state in heaven
must be evident, as it seems to us, to every mind. Irenaus,
discussing this very text from Ephesians, exposes the absurdity
and stigmatizes the heresy of those who say that the infernal
world is this earth, ("qui dicunt inferos quidem esse hunc
mundum.")2 "I knew a man caught up to the third heaven, . . .
caught up into paradise." The threefold heaven of the Jews, here
alluded to, was, first, the region of the air, supposed to be
inhabited by evil spirits. Paul repeatedly expresses this idea, as
when he speaks of "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that worketh in the children of disobedience," and when he says,
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness, against wicked spirits in heavenly places." The second
heaven comprised the region of the planetary bodies. The third lay
beyond the firmament, and was the actual residence of God and the
angelic hosts. These quotations, sustained as they are by the
well known previous opinions of the Jews, as well as by numerous
unequivocal texts in the writings of the other apostles and by
many additional ones in those

1 Enarratio in Psalmum XC.

2 Adv. Hares. lib. v. cap. 31.


of Paul, are conclusive evidence that he believed in the received
heaven above the blue ether and stellar dome, and in the received
Hadean abyss beneath the earth. In the absence of all evidence to
the contrary, every presumption justifies the supposition that he
also believed  as we know all his orthodox contemporaries did that
that under world was the abode of all men after death, and that
that over world was solely the dwelling place of God and the
angels. Nay, we are not left to conjecture; for he expressly
declares of God that he "dwelleth in the light which no man can
approach unto." This conclusion will be abundantly established in
the course of the following exposition.

With these preliminaries, we are prepared to see what was Paul's
doctrine of death and of salvation. There are two prevalent
theories on this subject, both of which we deem partly scriptural,
neither of them wholly so. On the one extreme, the consistent
disciple of Augustine the historic Calvinist attributes to the
apostle the belief that the sin of Adam was the sole cause of
literal death, that but for Adam's fall men would have lived on
the earth forever or else have been translated bodily to heaven
without any previous process of death. That such really was not
the view held by Paul we are convinced. Indeed, there is one
prominent feature in his faith which by itself proves that the
disengagement of the soul from the material frame did not seem to
him an abnormal event caused by the contingency of sin. We refer
to his doctrine of two bodies, the "outward man" and the "inward
man," the "earthly house" and the "heavenly house," the "natural
body" and the "spiritual body." Neander says this is "an express
assertion" of Paul's belief that man was not literally made mortal
by sin, but was naturally destined to emerge from the flesh into a
higher form of life.3 Paul thought that, in the original plan of
God, man was intended to drop his gross, corruptible body and put
on an incorruptible one, like the "glorious body" of the risen
Christ. He distinctly declares, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God." Therefore, we cannot interpret the word
"death" to mean merely the separation of the soul from its present
tabernacle, when he says, "By one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men." On the other
extreme, the fully developed Pelagian the common Unitarian holds
that the word "death" is always used in the arguments of Paul in a
spiritual or figurative sense, merely meaning moral alienation
from God in guilt, misery, and despair. Undoubtedly it is used
thus in many instances, as when it is written, "I was alive
without the law once; but, when the commandment came, sin rose to
life, and I died." But in still more numerous cases it means
something more than the consciousness of sin and the resulting
wretchedness in the breast, and implies something external,
mechanical, visible, as it were. For example, "Since by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Any one who
reads the context of this sentence may see that the terms "death"
and "resurrection" antithetically balance each other, and refer
not to an inward experience, but to an outward event, not to a
moral change, but to the physical descent and resurrection. It is
certain that here the words are not employed in a moral sense. The
phraseology Paul uses in stating the connection of the sin of Adam
with death, the connection of the resurrection of Christ with
immortal life, is too peculiar, emphatic, and extensive not to be
loaded with

3 Planting and Training, Ryland's trans. p. 240.


a more general and vivid significance than the simple unhappiness
of a sense of guilt, the simple peace and joy of a reconciled
conscience. The advocates, then, of both theories the Calvinist
asserting that Paul supposed sin to be the only reason why we do
not live eternally in the world with our present organization, and
the Rationalist asserting that the apostle never employs the word
"death" except with a purely interior signification are alike
beset by insuperable difficulties, perplexed by passages which
defy their fair analysis and force them either to use a violent
interpretation or to confess their ignorance.

We must therefore seek out some third view, which, rejecting the
errors, shall combine the truths and supply the defects of the two
former. We have now to present such a view, a theory of the
Pauline doctrine of the last things which obviously explains and
fills out all the related language of the epistles. We suppose he
unfolded it fully in his preaching, while in his supplementary and
personal letters he only alludes to such disconnected parts of it
as then rose upon his thoughts. A systematic development of it as
a whole, with copious allusions and labored defences, was not
needed then, as it might seem to us to have been. For the
fundamental notions on which it rested were the common belief of
the nation and age. Geology and astronomy had not disturbed the
credit of a definitely located Hades and heaven, nor had free
metaphysics sharpened the common mind to skeptical queries. The
view itself, as we conceive it occupied the mind of Paul, is this.
Death was a part of the creative plan for us from the first,
simply loosing the spirit from its corruptible body, clothing it
with an ethereal vehicle, and immediately translating it to
heaven. Sin marred this plan, alienated us from the Divine favor,
introduced all misery, physical and moral, and doomed the soul,
upon the fall of its earthly house, to descend into the slumberous
gloom of the under world. Thus death was changed from a pleasant
organic fulfilment and deliverance, spiritual investiture and
heavenly ascent, to a painful punishment condemning the naked
ghost to a residence below the grave. As Ewald says, through
Adam's sin "death acquired its significance as pain and
punishment."4 Herein is the explanation of the word "death" as
used by Paul in reference to the consequence of Adam's offence.
Christ came to reveal the free grace and gift of God in redeeming
us from our doom and restoring our heavenly destiny. This he
exemplified, in accordance with the Father's will, by dying,
descending into the dreary world of the dead, vanquishing the
forces there, rising thence, and ascending to the right hand of
the throne of heaven as our forerunner. On the very verge of the
theory just stated as Paul's, Neander hovers in his exposition of
the apostle's views, but fails to grasp its theological scope and
consequences. Krabbe declares that "death did not arise from the
native perishableness of the body, but from sin."5 This statement
Neander controverts, maintaining that "sin introduced no essential
change in the physical organization of man, but merely in the
manner in which his earthly existence terminates. Had it not been
for sin, death would have been only the form of a higher
development of life."6 Exactly so. With innocence, the soul at
death

4 Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus, s. 210.

5 Die Lehre von oer Sunde und vom Tode, cap. xi, s. 192.

6 Neander's Planting and Training, book vi. ch. 1.


would have ascended pleasantly, in a new body, to heaven; but sin
compelled it to descend painfully, without any body, to Hades. We
will cite a few of the principal texts from which this general
outline has been inferred and constructed.

The substance of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
may be thus stated. As by the offence of one, sin entered into the
world, and the judgment of the law came upon all men in a sentence
of condemnation unto death, so by the righteousness of one, the
free gift of God came upon all men in a sentence of justification
unto life; that as sin, by Adam's offence, hath reigned unto
death, so grace, by Christ's righteousness, might reign unto
eternal life. Now, we maintain that the words "death" and "life"
cannot in the present instance be entirely explained, in a
spiritual sense, as signifying disturbance and woe in the breast,
or peace and bliss there, because the whole connected discourse is
not upon the internal contingent experience of individuals, but
upon the common necessity of the race, an objective sentence
passed upon humanity, followed by a public gift of reversal and
annulment. So, too, we deny that the words can be justly taken, in
their strictly literal sense, as meaning cessation or continuance
of physical existence on the earth, because, in the first place,
that would be inconsistent with the doctrine of a spiritual body
within the fleshly one and of a glorious inheritance reserved in
heaven, a doctrine by which Paul plainly shows that he recognised
a natural organic provision, irrespective of sin, for a change in
the form and locality of human existence. Secondly, we submit that
death and life here cannot mean departure from the body or
continuance in it, because that is a matter with which Christ's
mission did in no way interfere, but left exactly as it was
before; whereas, in the thing really meant by Paul, Christ is
represented as standing, at least partially, in the same relation
between life and men that Adam stands in between death and men.
The reply to the question, What is that relation? will at once
define the genuine signification of the terms "death" and "life"
in the instance under review. And thus it is to be answered. The
death brought on mankind by Adam was not only internal
wretchedness, but also the condemnation of the disembodied soul to
the under world; the life they were assured of by Christ was not
only internal blessedness, but also the deliverance of the soul
from its subterranean prison and its reception into heaven in a
"body celestial," according to its original destiny had sin not
befallen. This interpretation is explicitly put forth by Theodoret
in his comments on this same passage, (Rom. v. 15-18.) He says,
"There must be a correspondence between the disease and the
remedy. Adam's sin subjected him to the power of death and the
tyranny of the devil. In the same manner that Adam was compelled
to descend into the under world, we all are associates in his
fate. Thus, when Christ rose, the whole humankind partook in his
vivification."7 Origen also and who, after the apostles
themselves, knew their thoughts and their use of language better
than he? emphatically declares in exposition of the expression of
Paul, "the wages of sin is death" that "the

7 Impatib., dialogue iii. pp. 132, 133, ed. Sirmondi.


under world in which souls are detained is called death."8

"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
These words cannot be explained, "As in Adam the necessity of
physical death came on all, so in Christ that necessity shall be
removed," because Christ's mission did not touch physical death,
which was still reigning as ever, before Paul's eyes. Neither can
the passage signify, "As through Adam wretchedness is the portion
of every heart of man, so through Christ blessedness shall be
given to every heart," because, while the language itself does not
hint that thought, the context demonstrates that the real
reference is not to an inward experience, but to an outward
event, not to the personal regeneration of the soul, but to a
general resurrection of the dead. The time referred to is the
second coming of Christ; and the force of the text must be this:
As by our bodily likeness to the first man and genetic connection
with him through sin we all die like him, that is, leave the body
and go into the under world, and remain there, so by our spiritual
likeness to the second man and redeeming connection with him
through the free grace of God we shall all rise thence like him,
revived and restored. Adam was the head of a condemned race,
doomed to Hades by the visible occurrence of death in lineal
descent from him; Christ is the head of a pardoned race, destined
for heaven in consonance with the plain token of his resurrection
and ascension. Again, the apostle writes, "In the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trump, the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we (who are then living) shall be changed; for this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality.
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death
is swallowed up in victory?" O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades,
where is thy victory?'" The writer evidently exults in the thought
that, at the second coming of Christ, death shall lose its
retributive character and the under world be baffled of its
expected prisoners, because the living shall instantly experience
the change of bodies fitting them to ascend to heaven with the
returning and triumphant Lord. Paul also announces that "Jesus
Christ hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light." The word "death" here cannot mean physical dissolution,
because Christ did not abolish that. It cannot denote personal sin
and unhappiness, because that would not correspond with and
sustain the obvious meaning of the contrasted member of the
sentence. Its adequate and consistent sense is this. God intended
that man should pass from a preliminary existence on earth to an
eternal life in heaven; but sin thwarted this glorious design and
altered our fate to a banishment into the cheerless under world.
But now, by the teachings and resurrection of Christ, we are
assured that God of his infinite goodness has determined freely to
forgive us and restore our original destination. Our descent and
abode below are abolished and our heavenly immortality made clear.
"We earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is
from heaven, if so be that, being clothed, we shall not be found
naked. Not that we desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that
mortality may be swallowed up of life."

8 Comm. in Epist. ad Rom. lib. vi. cap. 6, sect. 6. Also see
Jerome, Comm. in Ecc. iii. 21. Professor Mau, in his able treatise
"Von dem Tode dem Solde der Sunden, and der Aufhebung desselben
durch die Auferstehung Christi," cogently argues, against Krabbe,
that death as the punishment of sin is not bodily dissolution, but
wretchedness and condemnation to the under world, (amandatio
Orcum.) In Pelt's Theologische Mitarbeiten, 1838, heft ii. ss.
107-108.


In these remarkable words the apostle expresses several particulars
of what we have already presented as his general doctrine. He
states his conviction that, when his "earthly house of this
tabernacle" dissolves, there is a "divinely constructed, heavenly,
and eternal house" prepared for him. He expresses his desire at
the coming of the Lord not to be dead, but still living, and then
to be divested of his earthly body and invested with the heavenly
body, that thus, being fitted for translation to the incorruptible
kingdom of God, he might not be found a naked shadow or ghost in
the under world. Ruckert says, in his commentary, and the best
critics agree with him, "Paul herein desires to become immortal
without passing the gates of death." Language similar to the
foregoing in its peculiar phrases is found in the Jewish Cabbala.
The Zohar describes the ascent of the soul to heaven clothed with
splendor, and afterwards illustrates its meaning in these terms:
"As there is given to the soul a garment with which she is clothed
in order to establish her in this world, so there is given her a
garment of heavenly splendor in order to establish her in that
world."9 So in the "Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet" an apocryphal
book written by some Jewish Christian as early, without doubt, as
the close of the second century the following passages occur.
Speaking of what was revealed to him in heaven, the prophet says,
"There I saw all the saints, from Adam, without the clothing of
the flesh: I viewed them in their heavenly clothing like the
angels who stood there in great splendor." Again he says, "All the
saints from heaven in their heavenly clothing shall descend with
the Lord and dwell in this world, while the saints who have not
died shall be clothed like those who come from heaven. Then the
general resurrection will take place and they will ascend together
to heaven."10 Schoettgen, commenting on this text, (2 Cor. v. 2, )
likewise quotes a large number of examples of like phraseology
from Rabbinical writers. The statements thus far made and proofs
offered will be amply illustrated and confirmed as we go on to
consider the chief component parts of the Pauline scheme of the
last things. For, having presented the general outline, it will be
useful, in treating so complex and difficult a theme, to analyze
it by details.

We are met upon the threshold of our inquiry by the essential
question, What, according to Paul, was the mission of Christ? What
did he accomplish? A clear reply to this question comprises three
distinct propositions. First, the apostle plainly represents the
resurrection, and not the crucifixion, as the efficacious feature
in Christ's work of redemption. When we recollect the almost
universal prevalence of the opposite notion among existing sects,
it is astonishing how clear it is that Paul generally dwells upon
the dying of Christ solely as the necessary preliminary to his
rising. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and
your faith also is vain: ye are yet in your sins." These words are
irreconcilable with that doctrine which connects our
"justification" with the atoning death, and not with the typical
resurrection, of Christ. "That Christ died for our sins, and that
he was buried, and that he rose again the third day." To place a
vicarious stress upon the first clause of this text is as
arbitrary as it would be to place it upon the second; but
naturally emphasize the third clause,

9 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia Vatis, appendix, p. 168.

10 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia atis, cap. 9, v. 7, 9; cap. 4.


and all is clear. The inferences and exhortations drawn from the
mission of Christ are not usually connected in any essential
manner with his painful death, but directly with his glorious
resurrection out from among the dead unto the heavenly
blessedness. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."
Sinking into the water, when "buried by baptism into the death of
Christ," was, to those initiated into the Christian religion, a
symbol of the descent of Christ among the dead; rising out of the
water was a symbol of the ascent of Christ into heaven. "If ye
then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." When Paul cries,
exultingly, "Thanks be to God, who through Christ giveth us the
victory over the sting of death and the strength of sin," Jerome
says, "We cannot and dare not interpret this victory otherwise
than by the resurrection of the Lord."11 Commenting on the text
"To this end Christ both died and lived again, that he might reign
both over the dead and the living," Theodoret says that Christ,
going through all these events, "promised a resurrection to us
all." Paul makes no appeal to us to believe in the death of
Christ, to believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, but he
unequivocally affirms, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Paul
conceived that Christ died in order to rise again and convince men
that the Father would freely deliver them from the bondage of
death in the under world. All this took place on account of sin,
was only made requisite by sin, one of whose consequences was the
subterranean confinement of the soul, which otherwise, upon
deserting its clayey tent, would immediately have been clothed
with a spiritual body and have ascended to heaven. That is to say,
Christ "was delivered because of our offences and was raised again
because of our justification." In Romans viii. 10 the preposition
occurs twice in exactly the same construction as in the text
just quoted. In the latter case the authors of the common version
have rendered it "because of." They should have done so in the
other instance, in accordance with the natural force and
established usage of the word in this connection. The meaning is,
Our offences had been committed, therefore Christ was delivered
into Hades; our pardon had been decreed, therefore Christ was
raised into heaven. Such as we have now stated is the real
material which has been distorted and exaggerated into the
prevalent doctrine of the vicarious atonement, with all its dread
concomitants.12 The believers of that doctrine suppose themselves
obliged to accept it by the language of the epistles. But the view
above maintained as that of Paul solves every difficulty and gives
an intelligent and consistent meaning to all the phrases usually
thought to legitimate the Calvinistic scheme of redemption. While
we deny the correctness of the Calvinistic interpretation of those
passages in which occur such expressions as "Christ gave himself
for us," "died for our sins," we also affirm the inadequacy

11 Comm. in Osee, lib. iii. cap. 13.

12 Die Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt nach der Heil. Schrift, der
altesten Kirche, den Christlichen Symbolen, und nach ihrer
unendlichen Wichtigkeit und vielumfassenden Bedeutung dargestellt,
von Joh. Ludwig Konig. The author presents in this work an
irresistible array of citations and authorities. In an appendix he
gives a list of a hundred authors on the theme of Christ's descent
into hell.


of the explanations of them proposed by Unitarians, and assert
that their genuine force is this. Christ died and rose that we
might be freed through faith from the great entailed consequence
of sin, the bondage of the under world; beholding, through his
ascension, our heavenly destination restored. "God made him, who
knew no sin, to be sin on our account, that we might become the
righteousness of God in him," might through faith in him be
assured of salvation. In other words, Christ, who was not exposed
to the evils brought on men by sin, did not think his divine
estate a thing eagerly to be retained, but descended to the estate
of man, underwent the penalties of sin as if he were himself a
sinner, and then rose to the right hand of God, by this token to
assure men of God's gracious determination to forgive them and
reinstate them in their forfeited primal privileges. "If we be
reconciled by his death, much more shall we be saved by his life."
That is, if Christ's coming from heaven as an ambassador from God
to die convinces us of God's pardoning good will towards us, much
more does his rising again into heaven, where he now lives,
deliver us from the fear of the under world condemnation and
assure us of the heavenly salvation. Except in the light and with
the aid of the theory we have been urging, a large number of texts
like the foregoing cannot, as we think, be interpreted without
constructive violence, and even with that violence cannot convey
their full point and power.

Secondly, in Paul's doctrine of the redeeming work of Christ we
recognise something distinct from any subjective effect in
animating and purifying the hearts and lives of men. "Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law." "In Christ we have
redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."
Nothing but the most desperate exegesis can make these and many
similar texts signify simply the purging of individual breasts
from their offences and guilt. Seeking the genuine meaning of
Paul, we are forced to agree with the overwhelming majority of the
critics and believers of all Christendom, from the very times of
the apostles till now, and declare that these passages refer to an
outward deliverance of men by Christ, the removal by him of a
common doom resting on the race in consequence of sin. What Paul
supposed that doom was, and how he thought it was removed, let us
try to see. It is necessary to premise that in Paul's writings the
phrase "the righteousness of God" is often used by metonymy to
mean God's mode of accounting sinners righteous, and is equivalent
to "the Christian method of salvation." "By the deeds of the law
no flesh shall be justified; but the righteousness of God without
the law is manifested, freely justifying them through the
redemption that is in Christ." How evidently in this verse "the
righteousness of God" denotes God's method of justifying the
guilty by a free pardon proclaimed through Christ! The apostle
employs the word "faith" in a kindred technical manner, sometimes
meaning by it "promise," sometimes the whole evangelic apparatus
used to establish faith or prove the realization of the promise.
"What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith
of God without effect?" Evidently by "faith" is intended "promise"
or "purpose." "Is the law against the promises of God? God forbid!
But before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the
faith which should afterwards be revealed." Here "faith" plainly
means the object of faith, the manifested fulfilment of the
promises: it means the gospel. Again, "Whereof he hath offered
faith to all, in that he hath raised him from the dead." "Hath
offered faith" here signifies, unquestionably, as the common
version well expresses it, "hath given assurance," or hath
exemplified the proof. "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to
bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But
after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."
In this instance "faith" certainly means Christianity, in
contradistinction to Judaism, and "justification by faith" is
equivalent to "salvation by the grace of God, shown through the
mission of Christ." It is not so much internal and individual in
its reference as it is public and general. We believe that no man,
sacredly resolved to admit the truth, can study with a purposed
reference to this point all the passages in Paul's epistles where
the word "faith" occurs, without being convinced that for the most
part it is used in an objective sense, in contradistinction to the
law, as synonymous with the gospel, the new dispensation of grace.
Therefore "justification by faith" does not usually mean salvation
through personal belief, either in the merits of the Redeemer or
in any thing else, but it means salvation by the plan revealed in
the gospel, the free remission of sins by the forbearance of God.
In those instances where "faith" is used in a subjective sense for
personal belief, it is never described as the effectual cause of
salvation, but as the condition of personal assurance of
salvation. Grace has outwardly come to all; but only the believers
inwardly know it. This Pauline use of terms in technical senses
lies broadly on the face of the Epistles to the Romans and the
Galatians. New Testament lexicons and commentaries, by the best
scholars of every denomination, acknowledge it and illustrate it.
Mark now these texts. "And by him all that believe are justified
from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of
Moses." "To declare his righteousness, that he might be just and
the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." "What things were
gain to me [under Judaism] I counted loss in comparison with
Christ, that I may be found in him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is
of God through faith in Christ." "By the deeds of the law no man
can be justified," "but ye are saved through faith." We submit
that these passages, and many others in the epistles, find a
perfect explanation in the following outline of faith, commenced
in the mind of Paul while he was a Pharisee, completed when he was
a Christian. The righteousness of the law, the method of salvation
by keeping the law, is impossible. The sin of the first man broke
that whole plan and doomed all souls helplessly to the under
world. If a man now should keep every tittle of the law without
reservation, it would not release him from the bondage below and
secure for him an ascent to heaven. But what the law could not do
is done for us in Christ. Sin having destroyed the righteousness
of the law, that is, the fatal penalty of Hades having rendered
salvation by the law impossible, the righteousness of God, that
is, a new method of salvation, has been brought to light. God has
sent his Son to die, descend into the under world, rise again, and
return to heaven, to proclaim to men the glorious tidings of
justification by faith, that is, a dispensation of grace freely
annulling the great consequence of sin and inviting them to heaven
in the Redeemer's footsteps. Paul unequivocally declares that
Christ broke up the bondage of the under world by his irresistible
entrance and exit, in the following text: "When he had descended
first into the lower parts of the earth, he ascended up on high,
leading a multitude of captives." What can be plainer than that?
The same thought is also contained in another passage, a passage
which was the source of those tremendous pictures so frequent in
the cathedrals of the Middle Age,  Christus spoliat Infernum: "God
hath forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us, and took it away, nailing it to
Christ's cross; and, having spoiled principalities and powers, he
made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in Christ." The
entire theory which underlies the exposition we have just set
forth is stated in so many words in the passage we next cite. For
the word "righteousness" in order to make the meaning more
perspicuous we simply substitute "method of salvation," which is
unquestionably its signification here. "They [the Jews] being
ignorant of God's method of salvation, and going about to
establish their own method, have not submitted themselves unto
God's. For Christ is the end of the law for a way of salvation to
every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the method of
salvation which is of the law, that the man who doeth these things
shall be blessed in them. But the method of salvation which is of
faith ["faith" here means the gospel, Christianity] speaketh on
this wise: Say not in thy heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?'
that is, to bring Christ down; or, 'Who shall descend into the
under world?' that is, to bring up Christ again from among the
dead." This has been done already, once for all. "And if thou
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved." The apostle avows that his "heart's
desire and his prayer unto God for Israel is, that they may be
saved;" and he asserts that they cannot be saved by the law of
Moses, but only by the gospel of Christ; that is, "faith;" that
is, "the dispensation of grace."

Paul's conception of the foremost feature in Christ's mission is
precisely this. He came to deliver men from the stern law of
Judaism, which could not wipe away their transgressions nor save
them from Hades, and to establish them in the free grace of
Christianity, which justifies them from all past sin and seals
them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this
than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God
sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein
is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so
many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle
between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a
subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute
acquaintance with which a large part of the New Testament cannot
be understood. "Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might
deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of
God." Now, the Hebrew terms corresponding with the English terms
"present world" and "future world" were used by the Jews to denote
the Mosaic and the Messianic dispensations. We believe with
Schoettgen and other good authorities that such is the sense of
the phrase "present world" in the instance before us. Not only is
that interpretation sustained by the usus loquendi, it is also the
only defensible meaning; for the effect of the establishment of
the gospel was not to deliver men from the present world, though
it did deliver them from the hopeless bondage of Judaism, wherein
salvation was by Christians considered impossible. And that is
precisely the argument of the Epistle to the Galatians, in which
the text occurs. In a succeeding chapter, while speaking expressly
of the external forms of the Jewish law, Paul says, "By the cross
of Christ the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world;"
and he instantly adds, by way of explanation, "for in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision."
Undeniably, "world" here means "Judaism;" as Rosenmuller phrases
it, Judaica vanitas. In another epistle, while expostulating with
his readers on the folly of subjecting themselves to observances
"in meat and drink, and new moons and sabbaths," after "the
handwriting of ordinances that was against them had been blotted
out, taken away, nailed to the cross," Paul remonstrates with them
in these words: "Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye
subject to ordinances?" We should suppose that no intelligent
person could question that this means, "Now that by the gospel of
Christ ye are emancipated from the technical requisitions of
Judaism, why are ye subject to its ordinances, as if ye were still
living under its rule?" as many of the best commentators agree in
saying, "tanquam viventes adhuc in Judaismo." From these
collective passages, and from others like them, we draw the
conclusion, in Paul's own words, that, "When we were children, we
were in bondage under the rudiments of the world," "the weak and
beggarly elements" of Judaism; but, now that "the fulness of the
time has come, and God has sent forth his Son to redeem us," we
are called "to receive the adoption of sons" and "become heirs of
God," inheritors of a heavenly destiny.

We think that the intelligent and candid reader, who is familiar
with Paul's epistles, will recognise the following features in his
belief and teaching. First, all mankind alike were under sin and
condemnation. "Jews and Gentiles all are under sin." "All the
world is subject to the sentence of God." And we maintain that
that condemning sentence consisted, partly at least, in the
banishment of their disembodied souls to Hades. Secondly, "a
promise was given to Abraham," before the introduction of the
Mosaic dispensation, "that in his seed [that is, in Christ] all
the nations of the earth should be blessed." When Paul speaks, as
he does in numerous instances, of "the hope of eternal life which
God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began," "the
promise given before the foundation of the world," "the promise
made of God unto the fathers, that God would raise the dead," the
date referred to is not when the decree was formed in the eternal
counsels of God, previous to the origin of the earth, but when the
covenant was made with Abraham, before the establishment of the
Jewish dispensation. The thing promised plainly was, according to
Paul's idea, a redemption from Hades and an ascension to heaven;
for this is fully implied in his "expectation of the resurrection
of the dead" from the intermediate state, and their being "clothed
in celestial bodies." This promise made unto Abraham by God, to be
fulfilled by Christ, "the law, which was four hundred and thirty
years afterwards, could not disannul." That is, as any one may see
by the context, the law could not secure the inheritance of the
thing promised, but was only a temporary arrangement on account of
transgressions, "until the seed should come to whom the promise
was made." In other words, there was "no mode of salvation by the
law;" "the law could not give life;" for if it could it would have
"superseded the promise," made it without effect, whereas the
inviolable promise of God was, that in the one seed of Abraham
that is, in Christ alone should salvation be preached to all that
believed. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is
made useless, and the promise is made useless." In the mean time,
until Christ be come, all are shut up under sin. Thirdly, the
special "advantage of the Jews was, that unto them this promise of
God was committed," as the chosen covenant people.

The Gentiles, groaning under the universal sentence of sin,
were ignorant of the sure promise of a common salvation yet
to be brought. While the Jews indulged in glowing and exclusive
expectations of the Messiah who was gloriously to redeem them, the
Gentiles were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in
the world." Fourthly, in the fulness of time long after "the
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, had
preached the gospel beforehand unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed
shall all nations be blessed" "Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing promised
to Abraham might come upon the Gentiles." It was the precise
mission of Christ to realize and exemplify and publish to the
whole world the fulfilment of that promise. The promise itself
was, that men should be released from the under world through the
imputation of righteousness by grace that is, through free
forgiveness and rise to heaven as accredited sons and heirs of
God. This aim and purpose of Christ's coming were effected in his
resurrection. But how did the Gentiles enter into belief and
participation of the glad tidings? Thus, according to Paul: The
death, descent, resurrection, and ascent of Jesus, and his
residence in heaven in a spiritual form, divested him of his
nationality.13 He was "then to be known no more after the flesh."
He was no longer an earthly Jew, addressing Jews, but a heavenly
spirit and son of God, a glorified likeness of the spirits of all
who were adopted as sons of God, appealing to them all as joint
heirs with himself of heaven. He has risen into universality, and
is accessible to the soul of every one that believeth. "In him
there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." The experience resulting in a
heart raised into fellowship with him in heaven is the inward seal
assuring us that our faith is not vain. "Ye Gentiles, who formerly
were afar off, are now made nigh by the blood of Christ; for he
hath broken down the middle wall of partition between Jews and
Gentiles, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, namely, the
law of commandments in ordinances, in order to make in himself of
twain one new man. For through him we both have access by one
spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the
household of God." Circumcision was of the flesh; and the vain
hope of salvation by it was confined to the Jews. Grace was of the
spirit; and the revealed assurance of salvation by it was given to
the Gentiles too, when Christ died to the nationalizing flesh,
rose in the universalizing spirit, and from heaven impartially
exhibited himself, through the preaching of the gospel, to the
appropriating faith of all.

The foregoing positions might be further substantiated by applying
the general theory they contain to the explication of scores of
individual texts which it fits and unfolds, and which, we think,
cannot upon any other view be interpreted without forced
constructions unwarranted by a thorough acquaintance with the mind
of Paul and with the mind of his age. But we must be content with
one or two such applications as specimens. The word "mystery"
often occurs in the letters of Paul. Its current meaning in his
time was "something concealed," something into which one must be
initiated in order to understand it.

13 Martineau, Liverpool Controversy: Inconsistency of the Scheme
of Vicarious Redemption.


The Eleusinian Mysteries, for instance, were not necessarily any thing
intrinsically dark and hard to be comprehended, but things hidden
from public gaze and only to be known by initiation into them.
Paul uses the term in a similar way to denote the peculiar scheme
of grace, which "had been kept secret from the beginning of the
world," "hidden from ages and generations, but now made manifest."
No one denies that Paul means by "this mystery" the very heart and
essence of the gospel, precisely that which distinguishes it from
the law and makes it a universal method of salvation, a wondrous
system of grace. So much is irresistibly evident from the way and
the connection in which he uses the term. He writes thus in
explanation of the great mystery as it was dramatically revealed
through Christ: "Who was manifested in the flesh, [i. e. seen in
the body during his life on earth,] justified in the spirit,
[i. e. freed after death from the necessity of imprisonment in
Hades,] seen of angels, [i. e. in their fellowship after his
resurrection,] preached unto the Gentiles, [i. e. after the gift
of tongues on Pentecost day,] believed on in the world, [i. e. his
gospel widely accepted through the labors of his disciples,]
received up into glory, [i. e. taken into heaven to the presence
of God.]" "The revelation of the mystery" means, then, the visible
enactment and exhibition, through the resurrection of Christ, of
God's free forgiveness of men, redeeming them from the Hadean
gloom to the heavenly glory. The word "glory" in the New Testament
confessedly often signifies the illumination of heaven, the
defined abode of God and his angels. Robinson collects, in his
Lexicon, numerous examples wherein he says it means "that state
which is the portion of those who dwell with God in heaven." Now,
Paul repeatedly speaks of the calling of believers to glory as one
of the chief blessings and new prerogatives of the gospel. "Being
justified by faith, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." "Walk
worthy of God, who hath called you unto his glory." "We speak
wisdom to the initiates, the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery,
which before the world [the Jewish dispensation] God ordained for
our glory." "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God:
behold, I show you a mystery: we shall all be changed in a moment,
and put on immortality." In the first chapter of the letter to the
Colossians, Paul speaks of "the hope which is laid up for you in
heaven, whereof ye have heard in the gospel;" also of "the
inheritance of the saints in light:" then he says, "God would now
make known among the Gentiles the mystery, which is, Christ among
you, the hope of glory." In the light of what has gone before, how
significant and how clear is this declaration! "All have sinned,
and failed to attain unto the glory of God; but now, through the
faith of Jesus Christ, [through the dispensation brought to light
by Christ,] the righteousness of God [God's method of salvation]
is unto all that believe." That is, by the law all were shut up in
Hades, but by grace they are now ransomed and to be received to
heaven. The same thought or scheme is contained in that remarkable
passage in the Epistle to the Galatians where Paul says the free
Isaac and the bond woman Hagar were an allegory, teaching that
there were two covenants, one by Abraham, the other by Moses. The
Mosaic covenant of the law "answers to the Jerusalem which is on
earth, and is in bondage with her children," and belongs only to
the Jews. The Abrahamic covenant of promise answers to "the
Jerusalem which is above, and is free, and is the mother of us
all." In the former, we were "begotten unto bondage." In the
latter, "Christ hath made us free."

We will notice but one more text in passing: it is, of all the
proof texts of the doctrine of a substitutional expiation, the one
which has ever been regarded as the very Achilles. And yet it can
be made to support that doctrine only by the aid of arbitrary
assumptions and mistranslations, while by its very terms it
perfectly coincides with nay, expressly declares  the theory which
we have been advocating as the genuine interpretation of Paul. The
usual commentators, in their treatment of this passage, have
exhibited a long continued series of perversions and sophisms,
affording a strong example of unconscious prejudice. The correct
Greek reading of the text is justly rendered thus: "Whom God set
forth, a mercy seat through the faith in his blood, to exhibit his
righteousness through the remission of former sins by the
forbearance of God." For rendering [non-ASCII characters]
"mercy seat," the usus loquendi and the internal harmony of meaning
are in our favor, and also the weight of many orthodox authorities,
such as Theodoret, Origen, Theophylact, OEcumenius, Erasmus, Luther,
and from Pelagius to Bushnell. Still, we are willing to admit the
rendering of it by "sin offering." That makes no important
difference in the result. Christ was a sin offering, in the
conception of Paul, in this sense: that when he was not himself
subject to death, which was the penalty of sin, he yet died in
order to show God's purpose of removing that penalty of sin
through his resurrection. For rendering [non-ASCII characters]
"through," no defence is needed: the only wonder is, how it ever
could have been here translated "for." Now, let two or three facts
be noticed.

First, the New Testament phrase "the faith of Christ," "the faith of
Jesus," is very unfairly and unwarrantably made to mean an
internal affection towards Christ, a belief of men in him. Its
genuine meaning is the same as "the gospel of Christ," or the
religion of Christ, the system of grace which he brought.14 Who
can doubt that such is the meaning of the word in these instances?
"Contend for the faith once delivered to the saints;" "Greet them
that love us in the faith;" "Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus
Christ with respect of persons." So, in the text now under our
notice, "the faith which is in his blood" means the dispensation
of pardon and justification, the system of faith, which was
confirmed and exemplified to us in his death and resurrection.
Secondly, "the righteousness of God," which is here said to be
"pointed out" by Christ's death, denotes simply, in Professor
Stuart's words, "God's pardoning mercy," or "acquittal," or
"gratuitous justification," "in which sense," he says truly, "it
is almost always used in Paul's epistles."15 It signifies neither
more nor less than God's method of salvation by freely forgiving
sins and treating the sinner as if he were righteous, the method
of salvation now carried into effect and revealed in the gospel
brought by Christ, and dramatically enacted in his passion and
ascension. Furthermore, we ask attention to the fact that the
ordinary interpreter, hard pressed by his unscriptural creed,
interpolates a disjunctive conjunction in the opposing teeth of
Paul's plain statement. Paul says, as the common version has it,
God is "just, and [i. e. even] the justifier." The creed bound
commentators read it,

14 Robinson has gathered a great number of instances in his
Lexicon, under the word "Faith," wherein it can only mean, as he
says, "the system of Christian doctrines, the gospel."

15 Stuart's Romans i. 17, iii. 25, 26, &c.


"just and yet the justifier." We will now present the true meaning
of the whole passage, in our view of it, according to Paul's own
use of language. To establish a conviction of the correctness of
the exposition, we only ask the ingenuous reader carefully to
study the clauses of the Greek text and recollect the foregoing
data. "God has set Christ forth, to be to us a sure sign that we
have been forgiven and redeemed through the faith that was proved
by his triumphant return from death, the dispensation of grace
inaugurated by him. Herein God has exhibited his method of saving
sinners, which is by the free remission of their sins through his
kindness. Thus God is proved to be disposed to save, and to be
saving, by the system of grace shown through Jesus, him that
believeth." In consequence of sin, men were under sentence of
condemnation to the under world. In the fulness of time God
fulfilled his ancient promise to Abraham. He freely justified
men, that is, forgave them, redeemed them from their doom, and
would soon open the sky for their abode with him. This scheme of
redemption was carried out by Christ. That is to say, God
proclaimed it to men, and asked their belief in it, by "setting
forth Christ" to die, descend among the dead, rise thence, and
ascend into heaven, as an exemplifying certification of the truth
of the glad tidings.

Thirdly, Paul teaches that one aim of Christ's mission was to
purify, animate, and exalt the moral characters of men, and
rectify their conduct, to produce a subjective sanctification in
them, and so prepare them for judgment and fit them for heaven.
The establishment of this proposition will conclude the present
part of our subject. He writes, "Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, gave
himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and
purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." "Let
every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." In
various ways he often represents the fact that believers have been
saved by grace through Christ as the very reason, the intensified
motive, why they should scrupulously keep every tittle of the
moral law and abstain even from the appearance of evil, walking
worthy of their high vocation. "The grace of God that bringeth
salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that, denying all
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly,
righteously, and godly in this present world." Bad men, "that obey
not the gospel of Christ," such characters as "thieves,
extortioners, drunkards, adulterers, shall not inherit the kingdom
of God." He proclaims, in unmistakable terms, "God will render to
every man according to his deeds, wrath and tribulation to the
evil doer, honor and peace to the well doer, whether Jew or
Gentile." The conclusion to be drawn from these and other like
declarations is unavoidable. It is that "every one, Jew and
Gentile, shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ and
receive according to the deeds done in the body; for there is no
respect of persons." And one part of Christ's mission was to exert
a hallowing moral influence on men, to make them righteous, that
they might pass the bar with acquittal. But the reader who
recollects the class of texts adduced a little while since will
remember that an opposite conclusion was as unequivocally drawn
from them. Then Paul said, "By faith ye are justified, without the
deeds of the law." Now he says, "For not the hearers of the law
are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified
in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus
Christ." Is there a contradiction, then, in Paul? Only in
appearance. Let us distinguish and explain. In the two quotations
above, the apostle is referring to two different things.

First, he would say, By the faith of Christ, the free grace of God
declared in the gospel of Christ, ye are justified, gratuitously
delivered from that necessity of imprisonment in Hades which is
the penalty of sin doomed upon the whole race from Adam, and from
which no amount of personal virtue could avail to save men.
Secondly, when he exclaims, "Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" his thought is of a
spiritual qualification of character, indispensable for positive
admission among the blest in heaven. That is to say, the impartial
penalty of primeval sin consigned all men to Hades. They could not
by their own efforts escape thence and win heaven. That fated
inability God has removed, and through Christ revealed its
removal; but, that one should actually obtain the offered and
possible prize of heaven, personal purity, faith, obedience,
holiness, are necessary. In Paul's conception of the scheme of
Christian salvation, then, there were two distinct parts: one,
what God had done for all; the other, what each man was to do for
himself. And the two great classes of seemingly hostile texts
filling his epistles, which have puzzled so many readers, become
clear and harmonious when we perceive and remember that by
"righteousness" and its kindred terms he sometimes means the
external and fulfilled method of redeeming men from the
transmitted necessity of bondage in the under world, and sometimes
means the internal and contingent qualifications for actually
realizing that redemption. In the former instance he refers to the
objective mode of salvation and the revelation of it in Christ. In
the latter, he refers to the subjective fitness for that salvation
and the certitude of it in the believer. So, too, the words
"death" and "life," in Paul's writings, are generally charged, by
a constructio proegnans, with a double sense, one spiritual,
individual, contingent, the other mechanical, common, absolute.
Death, in its full Pauline force, includes inward guilt,
condemnation, and misery, and outward descent into the under
world. Life, in its full Pauline force, includes inward rectitude,
peace, and joy, and outward ascent into the upper world. Holiness
is necessary, "for without it no one can see the Lord;" yet by
itself it can secure only inward life: it is ineffectual to win
heaven. Grace by itself merely exempts from the fatality of the
condemnation to Hades: it offers eternal life in heaven only upon
condition of "patient continuance in well doing" by "faith,
obedience to the truth, and sanctification of the spirit." But
God's free grace and man's diligent fidelity, combined, give the
full fruition of blessedness in the heart and of glory and
immortality in the sky.

Such, as we have set forth in the foregoing three divisions, was
Paul's view of the mission of Christ and of the method of
salvation. It has been for centuries perverted and mutilated. The
toil now is by unprejudiced inspection to bring it forward in its
genuine completeness, as it stood in Paul's own mind and in the
minds of his contemporaries. The essential view, epitomized in a
single sentence, is this. The independent grace of God has
interfered, first, to save man from Hades, and secondly, to enable
him, by the co operation of his own virtue, to get to heaven. Here
are two separate means conjoined to effect the end, salvation.
Now, compare, in the light of this statement, the three great
theological theories of Christendom. The UNITARIAN, overlooking
the objective justification, or offered redemption from the death
realm to the sky home, which whether it be a truth or an error is
surely in the epistles, makes the subjective sanctification all in
all. The CALVINIST, in his theory, comparatively scorns the
subjective sanctification, which Paul insists on as a necessity
for entering the kingdom of God, and, having perverted the
objective justification from its real historic meaning,
exaggerates it into the all in all. The ROMAN CATHOLIC holds that
Christ simply removed the load of original sin and its entailed
doom, and left each person to stand or fall by his own merits, in
the helping communion of the Church. He also maintains that a part
of Christ's office was to exert an influence for the moral
improvement and consecration of human character. His error, as an
interpreter of Paul's thought, is, that he, like the Calvinist,
attributes to Christ's death a vicarious efficacy by suffering the
pangs of mankind's guilt to buy their ransom from the inexorable
justice of God; whereas the apostle really represents Christ's
redeeming mission as consisting simply in a dramatic
exemplification of the Father's spontaneous love and purpose to
pardon past offences, unbolt the gates of Hades, and receive the
worthy to heaven. Moreover, while Paul describes the heavenly
salvation as an undeserved gift from the grace of God, the
Catholic often seems to make it a prize to be earned, under the
Christian dispensation, by good works which may fairly challenge
that reward. However, we have little doubt that this apparent
opposition is rather in the practical mode of exhortation than in
any interior difference of dogma; for Paul himself makes personal
salvation hinge on personal conditions, the province of grace
being seen in the new extension to man of the opportunity and
invitation to secure his own acceptance. And so the Roman Catholic
exposition of Paul's doctrine is much more nearly correct than any
other interpretation now prevalent. We should expect, a priori,
that it would be, since that Church, containing two thirds of
Christendom, is the most intimately connected, by its scholars,
members, and traditions, with the apostolic age.

A prominent feature in the belief of Paul, and one deserving
distinct notice as necessarily involving a considerable part of
the theory which we have attributed to him, is the supposition
that Christ was the first person, clothed with humanity and
experiencing death, admitted into heaven. Of all the hosts who had
lived and died, every soul had gone down into the dusky under
world. There they all were held in durance, waiting for the Great
Deliverer. In the splendors of the realm over the sky, God and his
angels dwelt alone. That we do not err in ascribing this belief to
Paul we might summon the whole body of the Fathers to testify in
almost unbroken phalanx, from Polycarp to St. Bernard. The Roman,
Greek, and English Churches still maintain the same dogma. But the
apostle's own plain words will be sufficient for our purpose.
"That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that
should rise from among the dead." "Now is Christ risen from among
the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." "He is
the beginning, the first born from among the dead, that among all
he might have the pre eminence." "God raised Christ from among the
dead, and set him at his own right hand16 in the heavenly places,
far above every principality, and power, and might, and dominion."
The last words refer to different orders of spirits, supposed

16 Griesbach argues at length, and shows unanswerably, that this
passage cannot bear a moral interpretation, but necessarily has a
physical and local sense. Griesbachii Opuscula Academica, ed.
Gabler, vol. ii. pp. 145-149.


by the Jews to people the aerial region below the heaven of God.
"God hath" (already in our anticipating faith) "raised us up
together with Christ and made us sit in heavenly places with him."
These testimonies are enough to show that Paul believed Jesus to
have been raised up to the abode of God, the first man ever
exalted thither, and that this was done as a pledge and
illustration of the same exaltation awaiting those who believe.
"If we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with
him." And the apostle teaches that we are not only connected with
Christ's resurrection by the outward order and sequence of events,
but also by an inward gift of the spirit. He says that to every
obedient believer is given an experimental "knowledge of the power
of the resurrection of Christ," which is the seal of God within
him, the pledge of his own celestial destination. "After that ye
believed, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise which is
the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the
purchased possession." The office of this gift of the spirit is to
awaken in the believing Christian a vivid realization of the
things in store for him, and a perfect conviction that he shall
yet possess them in the unclouded presence of God, beyond the
canopy of azure and the stars. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man conceived, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But he hath revealed them unto us; for we
have received his spirit, that we might know them." "The spirit
beareth witness with our spirit that we are children and heirs of
God, even joint heirs with Christ, that we may be glorified [i. e.
advanced into heaven] with him."

We will leave this topic with a brief paraphrase of the celebrated
passage in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. "Not
only do the generality of mankind groan in pain in this decaying
state, under the bondage of perishable elements, travailing for
emancipation from the flesh into the liberty of the heavenly glory
appointed for the sons and heirs of God, but even we, who have the
first fruits of the spirit, [i. e. the assurance springing from
the resurrection of Christ,] we too wait, painfully longing for
the adoption, that is, our redemption from the body." By longing
for the adoption, or filiation, is meant impatient desire to be
received into heaven as children to the enjoyment of the
privileges of their Father's house. "God predetermined that those
called should be conformed to the image of his Son, [i. e. should
pass through the same course with Christ and reach the heavenly
goal,] that he might be the first born among many brethren." To
the securing of this end, "whom he called, them he also justified,
[i. e. ransomed from Hades;17] and whom he justified, them he also
glorified," (i. e. advanced to the glory of heaven.) It is evident
that Paul looked for the speedy second coming of the Lord in the
clouds of heaven, with angels and power and glory. He expected
that at that time all enemies would be overthrown and punished,
the dead would be raised, the living would be changed, and all
that were Christ's would be translated to heaven.18 "The Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from

17 That "justify" often means, in Paul's usage, to absolve from
Hades, we have concluded from a direct study of his doctrines and
language. We find that Bretschneider gives it the same definition
in his Lexicon of the New Testament. See [non ASCII characters]

18 "Every one shall rise in his own division" of the great army of
the dead, "Christ, the first fruits; afterwards, they that are
Christ's, at his coming."


heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance
on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of Christ." "We
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, at
the last trump." "We who are alive and remain until the coming of
the Lord shall not anticipate those that are asleep. For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God;19 and the dead in Christ
shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught
up with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we
shall always be with the Lord. Brethren, you need not that I
should specify the time to you; for yourselves are perfectly aware
that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." "The
time is short." "I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." "At
his appearing he shall judge the living and the dead." "The Lord
is at hand." The author of these sentences undeniably looked for
the great advent soon. Than Paul, indeed, no one more earnestly
believed (or did more to strengthen in others that belief) in that
speedy return of Christ, the anticipation of which thrilled all
early Christendom with hope and dread, and kept the disciples day
and night on the stretch and start of expectation to hear the
awful blast of the judgment trump and to see the glorious vision
of the Son of God descending amidst a convoy of angels. What
sublime emotions must have rushed through the apostle's soul when
he thought that he, as a survivor of death's reign on earth, might
behold the resurrection without himself entering the grave! Upon a
time when he should be perchance at home, or at Damascus, or, it
might be, at Jerusalem, the sun would become as blood, the moon as
sackcloth of hair, the last trump would swell the sky, and,

"Lo! the nations of the dead, Which do outnumber all earth's
races, rise, And high in sumless myriads overhead Sweep past him
in a cloud, as 'twere the skirts Of the Eternal passing by."

The resurrection which Paul thought would attend the second coming
of Christ was the rising of the summoned spirits of the deceased
from their rest in the under world. Most certainly it was not the
restoration of their decomposed bodies from their graves, although
that incredible surmise has been generally entertained. He says,
while answering the question, How are the dead raised up, and with
what body do they come? "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not
that body which shall be, but naked grain: God giveth it a body as
it hath pleased him." The comparison is, that so the naked soul is
sown in the under world, and God, when he raiseth it, giveth it a
fitting body. He does not hesitate to call the man "a fool" who
expects the restoration of the same body that was buried. His
whole argument is explicitly against that idea. "There are bodies
celestial, as well as bodies terrestrial: the first man was

19 Rabbi Akiba says, in the Talmud, "God shall take and blow a
trumpet a thousand godlike yards in length, whose echo shall sound
from end to end of the world. At the first blast the earth shall
tremble. At the second, the dust shall part. At the third, the
bones shall come together. At the fourth, the members shall grow
warm. At the fifth, they shall be crowned with the head. At the
sixth, the soul shall re enter the body. And at the seventh, they
shall stand erect." Corrodi, Geschichte des Chiliasmus, band i. s.
355.


of the earth, earthy; the second man was the Lord from heaven; and
as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God." In view of these declarations, it is astonishing
that any one can suppose that Paul believed in the resurrection of
these present bodies and in their transference into heaven. "In
this tabernacle we groan, being burdened," and, "Who shall deliver
me from this body of death?" he cries. If ever there was a man
whose goading experience, keen intellectual energies, and moral
sensibilities, made him weary of this slow, gross body, and
passionately to long for a more corresponding, swift, and pure
investiture, it was Paul. And in his theory of "the glorious body
of Christ, according to which our vile body shall be changed," he
relieved his impatience and fed his desire. What his conception of
that body was, definitely, we cannot tell; but doubtless it was
the idea of a vehicle adapted to his mounting and ardent soul, and
in many particulars very unlike this present groaning load of
clay. The epistles of Paul contain no clear implication of the
notion of a millennium, a thousand years' reign of Christ with his
saints on the earth after his second advent. On the contrary, in
many places, particularly in the fourth chapter of the First
Epistle to the Thessalonians, (supposing that letter to be his,)
he says that the Lord and they that are his will directly pass
into heaven after the consummation of his descent from heaven and
their resurrection from the dead. But the declaration "He must
reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet," taken with its
context, is thought, by Bertholdt, Billroth, De Wette, and others,
to imply that Christ would establish a millennial kingdom on
earth, and reign in it engaged in vanquishing all hostile forces.
Against this exegesis we have to say, first, that, so far as that
goes, the vast preponderance of critical authorities is opposed to
it. Secondly, if this conquest were to be secured on earth, there
is nothing to show that it need occupy much time: one hour might
answer for it as well as a thousand years. There is nothing here
to show that Paul means just what the Rabbins taught. Thirdly,
even if Paul supposed a considerable period must elapse before
"all enemies" would be subdued, during which period Christ must
reign, it does not follow that he believed that reign would be on
earth: it might be in heaven. The "enemies" referred to are, in
part at least, the wicked spirits occupying the regions of the
upper air; for he specifies these "principalities, authorities,
and powers."20 And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
represents God as saying to Jesus, "Sit thou on my right hand,
until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Fourthly, it seems
certain that, if in the apostle's thought a thousand years were
interpolated between Christ's second coming and the delivering of
his mediatorial sceptre to God, he would have said so, at least
somewhere in his writings. He would naturally have dwelt upon it a
little, as the Chiliasts did so much. Instead of that, he
repeatedly contradicts it. Upon the whole, then, with Ruckert, we
cannot

20 The apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah," already spoken of, gives
a detailed description of the upper air as occupied by Satan and
his angels, among whom fighting and evil deeds rage; but Christ in
his ascent conquers and spoils them all, and shows himself a
victor ever brightening as he rises successively through the whole
seven heavens to the feet of God. Ascensio Vatis Isaia, cap. vi x.


see any reason for not supposing that, according to Paul, "the
end" was immediately to succeed "the coming," as  [non-ASCII
characters] would properly indicate.

The doctrine of a long earthly reign of Christ is not deduced
from this passage, by candid interpretation, because it must be
there, but foisted into it, by Rabbinical information, because
it may be there.

Paul distinctly teaches that the believers who died before the
second coming of the Savior would remain in the under world until
that event, when they and the transformed living should ascend
"together with the Lord." All the relevant expressions in his
epistles, save two, are obviously in harmony with this conception
of a temporary subterranean sojourn, waiting for the appearance of
Jesus from heaven to usher in the resurrection. But in the fifth
chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he writes,
"Abiding in the body we are absent from the Lord." It is usually
inferred, from these words and those which follow them, that the
apostle expected whenever he died to be instantly with Christ.
Certainly they do mean pretty nearly that; but they mean it in
connection with the second advent and the accompanying
circumstances and events; for Paul believed that many of the
disciples  possibly himself would live until Christ's coming. All
through these two chapters (the fourth and fifth) it is obvious,
from the marked use of the terms "we" and "you," and from other
considerations, that "we" here refers solely to the writer, the
individual Paul. It is the plural of accommodation used by common
custom and consent. In the form of a slight paraphrase we may
unfold the genuine meaning of the passage in hand. "In this body I
am afflicted: not that I would merely be released from it, for
then I should be a naked spirit. But I earnestly desire,
unclothing myself of this earthly body, at the same time to clothe
myself with my heavenly body, that I may lose all my mortal part
and its woes in the full experience of heaven's eternal life. God
has determined that this result shall come to me sooner or later,
and has given me a pledge of it in the witnessing spirit. But it
cannot happen so long as I tarry in the flesh, the Lord delaying
his appearance. Having the infallible earnest of the spirit, I do
not dread the change, but desire to hasten it. Confident of
acceptance in that day at the judgment seat of Christ, before
which we must all then stand, I long for the crisis when, divested
of this body and invested with the immortal form wrought for me by
God, I shall be with the Lord. Still, knowing the terror which
shall environ the Lord at his coming to judgment, I plead with men
to be prepared." Whoever carefully examines the whole connected
passage, from iv. 6 to v. 16, will see, we think, that the above
paraphrase truly exposes its meaning.

The other text alluded to as an apparent exception to the doctrine
of a residence in the lower land of ghosts intervening between
death and the ascension, occurs in the Epistle to the
Philippians: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to
depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; but that I
should abide in the flesh is more needful for you." There are
three possible ways of regarding this passage. First, we may
suppose that Paul, seeing the advent of the Lord postponed longer
and longer, changed his idea of the intermediate state of deceased
Christians, and thought they would spend that period of waiting in
heaven, not in Hades. Neander advocates this view. But there is
little to sustain it, and it is loaded with fatal difficulties. A
change of faith so important and so bright in its view as this
must have seemed under the circumstances would have been clearly
and fully stated. Attention would have been earnestly invited to
so great a favor and comfort; exultation and gratitude would have
been expressed over so unheard of a boon. Moreover, what had
occurred to effect the alleged new belief? The unexpected delay of
Christ's coming might make the apostle wish that his departed
friends were tarrying above the sky instead of beneath the
sepulchre; but it could furnish no ground to warrant a sudden
faith in that wish as a fulfilled fact. Besides, the truth is that
Paul never ceased, even to the last, to expect the speedy arrival
of the Lord and to regard the interval as a comparative trifle. In
this very epistle he says, "The Lord is at hand: be careful for
nothing." Secondly, we may imagine that he expected himself, as a
divinely chosen and specially favored servant, to go to Christ in
heaven as soon as he died, if that should happen before the Lord's
appearance, while the great multitude of believers would abide in
the under world until the general resurrection. The death he was
in peril of and is referring to was that of martyrdom for the
gospel at the hands of Nero. And many of the Fathers maintained
that in the case of every worthy Christian martyr there was an
exception to the general doom, and that he was permitted to enter
heaven at once. Still, to argue such a thought in the text before
us requires an hypothesis far fetched and unsupported by a single
clear declaration of the apostle himself. Thirdly, we may assume
and it seems to us by far the least encumbered and the most
plausible theory that attempts to meet the case that Paul believed
there would be vouchsafed to the faithful Christian during his
transient abode in the under world a more intimate and blessed
spiritual fellowship with his Master than he could experience
while in the flesh. "For I am persuaded that neither death
[separation from the body] nor depth [the under world] shall be
able to separate us from God's love, which he has manifested
through Christ." He may refer, therefore, by his hopes of being
straightway with Christ on leaving the body, to a spiritual
communion with him in the disembodied state below, and not to his
physical presence in the supernal realm, the latter not being
attainable previous to the resurrection. Indeed, a little farther
on in this same epistle, he plainly shows that he did not
anticipate being received to heaven until after the second coming
of Christ. He says, "We look for the Savior from heaven, who shall
change our vile body and fashion it like unto his own glorious
body." This change is the preliminary preparation to ascent to
heaven, which change he repeatedly represents as indispensable.

What Paul believed would be the course and fate of things on earth
after the final consummation of Christ's mission is a matter of
inference from his brief and partial hints. The most probable and
consistent view which can be constructed from those hints is this.
He thought all mankind would become reconciled and obedient to
God, and that death, losing its punitive character, would become
what it was originally intended to be, the mere change of the
earthly for a heavenly body preparatory to a direct ascension.
"Then shall the Son himself be subject unto Him that put all
things under him, that God may be all in all." Then placid virtues
and innocent joys should fill the world, and human life be what it
was in Eden ere guilt forbade angelic visitants and converse with
heaven.21 "So when" without a

21 Neander thinks Paul's idea was that "the perfected kingdom of
God would then blend itself harmoniously throughout his unbounded
dominions." We believe his apprehension is correct. This globe
would become a part of the general paradise, an ante room or a l
ower story to the Temple of the Universe.


previous descent into Hades, as the context proves "this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying which is written, 'Death shall be swallowed up in victory.
O Death, thou last enemy, where is thy sting? O Hades, thou gloomy
prison, where is thy victory?'" The exposition just offered is
confirmed by its striking adaptedness to the whole Pauline scheme.
It is also the interpretation given by the earliest Fathers, and
by the Church in general until now. This idea of men being changed
and rising into heaven without at all entering the disembodied
state below was evidently in the mind of Milton when he wrote the
following lines:

"And from these corporeal nutriments, perhaps. Your bodies may at
last turn all to spirit, And, wing'd, ascend ethereal, may, at
choice, Here, or in heavenly paradise, dwell."

It now remains to see what Paul thought was to be the final
portion of the hardened and persevering sinner. One class of
passages in his writings, if taken by themselves, would lead us to
believe that on that point he had no fixed convictions in regard
to particulars, but, thinking these beyond the present reach of
reason, contented himself with the general assurance that all such
persons would meet their just deserts, and there left the subject
in obscurity. "God will render to every man to the Jew first, and
also to the Greek according to his deeds." "Whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap." "So then every one of us shall
give an account of himself to God." "At the judgment seat of
Christ every one shall receive the things done in his body,
according to that he hath done, whether it be good or whether it
be bad." From these and a few kindred texts we might infer that
the author, aware that he "knew but in part," simply held the
belief without attempting to pry into special methods, details,
and results that at the time of the judgment all should have exact
justice. He may, however, have unfolded in his preaching minutia
of faith not explained in his letters.

A second class of passages in the epistles of Paul would naturally
cause the common reader to conclude that he imagined that the
unregenerate those unfit for the presence of God were to be
annihilated when Christ, after his second coming, should return to
heaven with his saints. "Those who know not God and obey not the
gospel of Christ shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence and glory of the Lord when he shall come." "The
end of the enemies of the cross of Christ is destruction." "The
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." "As many as have sinned
without law shall perish without law." But it is to be observed
that the word here rendered "destruction" need not signify
annihilation. It often, even in Paul's epistles, plainly means
severe punishment, dreadful misery, moral ruin, and retribution.
For example, "foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
destruction and perdition," "piercing them through with many
sorrows." It may or may not have that sense in the instances above
cited. Their meaning is intrinsically uncertain: we must bring
other passages and distinct considerations to aid our
interpretation.

From a third selection of texts in Paul's epistles it is not
strange that some persons have deduced the doctrine of
unconditional, universal salvation. "As in Adam all die, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive." But the genuine explanation of
this sentence, we are constrained to believe, is as follows: "As,
following after the example of Adam, all souls descend below, so,
following after Christ, all shall be raised up," that is, at the
judgment, after which event some may be taken to heaven, others
banished again into Hades. "We trust in the living God, who is the
Savior of all men, especially of them that believe." This means
that all men have been saved now from the unconditional sentence
to Hades brought on them by the first sin, but not all know the
glad tidings: those who receive them into believing hearts are
already exulting over their deliverance and their hopes of heaven.
All are objectively saved from the unavoidable and universal
necessity of Hadean imprisonment; the obedient believers are also
subjectively saved from the contingent and personal risk of
incurring that doom. "God hath shut them all up together in
unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." "All" here means
both Jews and Gentiles; and the reference is to the universal
annulment of the universal fatality, and the impartial offer of
heaven to every one who sanctifies the truth in his heart. In some
cases the word "all" is used with rhetorical looseness, not with
logical rigidness, and denotes merely all Christians. Ruckert
shows this well in his commentary on the fifteenth chapter of
First Corinthians. In other instances the universality, which is
indeed plainly there, applies to the removal from the race of the
inherited doom; while a conditionality is unquestionably implied
as to the actual salvation of each person. We say Paul does
constantly represent personal salvation as depending on
conditions, as beset by perils and to be earnestly striven for.
"Lest that by any means I myself should be a castaway." "Deliver
such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." "Wherefore we
labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of the
lord." "To them that are saved we are a savor of life unto life;
to them that perish, a savor of death unto death." "Charge them
that are rich that they be humble and do good, laying up in store
a good foundation, that they may lay hold on eternal life." It is
clear, from these and many similar passages of Paul, that he did
not believe in the unconditional salvation, the positive
mechanical salvation, of all individuals, but held personal
salvation to be a contingent problem, to be worked out, through
the permitting grace of God, by Christian faith, works, and
character. How plainly this is contained, too, in his doctrine of
"a resurrection of the just and the unjust," and of a day of
judgment, from whose august tribunal Christ is to pronounce
sentence according to each man's deeds! At the same time, the
undeniable fact deserves particular remembrance that he says, and
apparently knows, nothing whatever of a hell, in the present
acceptation of that term, a prison house of fiery tortures. He
assigns the realm of Satan and the evil spirits to the air, the
vexed region between earth and heaven, according to the demonology
of his age and country. 22

Finally, there is a fourth class of passages, from which we might
infer that the apostle's faith merely excluded the reprobate from
participating in the ascent with Christ, just as some of the
Pharisees excluded the Gentiles from their resurrection, and there
left the subject in darkness.

22 A detailed and most curious account of this region, which he
calls Tartarus, is given by Angustine. De Gen. ad. lit. lib. iii.
cap. 14, 15, ed. Benedictina.


"They that are Christ's," "the dead in Christ, shall rise."
"No sensualist, extortioner, idolater, hath any inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and of God." "There is laid up a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord shall give in that day to all them
that love his appearing." In all these, and in many other cases,
there is a marked omission of any reference to the ultimate
positive disposal of the wicked. Still, against the supposition of
his holding the doctrine that all except good Christians would be
left below eternally, we have his repeated explicit avowals. "I
have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection both of
the just and the unjust." "We must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ." These last statements, however, prove only that
Paul thought the bad as well as the good would be raised up and
judged: they are not inconsistent with the belief that the
condemned would afterwards either be annihilated, or remanded
everlastingly to the under world. This very belief, we think, is
contained in that remarkable passage where Paul writes to the
Philippians that he strives "if by any means he may attain unto
the resurrection." Now, the common resurrection of the dead for
judgment needed not to be striven for: it would occur to all
unconditionally. But there is another resurrection, or another
part remaining to complete the resurrection, namely, after the
judgment, a rising of the accepted to heaven. All shall rise from
Hades upon the earth to judgment. This Paul calls simply the
resurrection, [Non ASCII Characters] After the judgment, the
accepted shall rise to heaven. This Paul calls, with distinctive
emphasis, [Non ASCII Characters] the pre eminent or complete
resurrection, the prefix being used as an intensive. This is what
the apostle considers uncertain and labors to secure, "stretching
forward and pressing towards the goal for the prize of that call
upwards," [Non ASCII Characters] (that invitation to heaven,)
"which God has extended through Christ." Those who are condemned
at the judgment can have no part in this completion of the
resurrection, cannot enter the heavenly kingdom, but must be
"punished with everlasting destruction from the presence and glory
of the Lord," that is, as we suppose is signified, be thrust into
the under world for evermore. As unessential to our object, we
have omitted an exposition of the Pauline doctrine of the natural
rank and proper or delegated offices of Christ in the universe;
also an examination of the validity of the doubts and arguments
brought against the genuineness of the lesser epistles ascribed to
Paul. In close, we will sum up in brief array the leading
conceptions in his view of the last things. First, there is a
world of immortal light and bliss over the sky, the exclusive
abode of God and the angels from of old; and there is a dreary
world of darkness and repose under the earth, the abode of all
departed human spirits. Secondly, death was originally meant to
lead souls into heaven, clothed in new and divine bodies,
immediately on the fall of the present tabernacle; but sin broke
that plan and doomed souls to pass disembodied into Hades.
Thirdly, the Mosaic dispensation of law could not deliver men from
that sentence; but God had promised Abraham that through one of
his posterity they should be delivered. To fulfil that promise
Christ came. He illustrated God's unpurchased love and forgiveness
and determination to restore the original plan, as if men had
never sinned. Christ effected this aim, in conjunction with his
teachings, by dying, descending into Hades, as if the doom of a
sinful man were upon him also, subduing the powers of that prison
house, rising again, and ascending into heaven, the first one ever
admitted there from among the dead, thus exemplifying the
fulfilled "expectation of the creature that was groaning and
travailing in pain" to be born into the freedom of the heavenly
glory of the sons of God. Fourthly, "justification by faith,"
therefore, means the redemption from Hades by acceptance of the
dispensation of free grace which is proclaimed in the gospel.
Fifthly, every sanctified believer receives a pledge or earnest of
the spirit sealing him as God's and assuring him of acceptance
with Christ and of advance to heaven. Sixthly, Christ is speedily
to come a second time, come in glory and power irresistible, to
consummate his mission, raise the dead, judge the world, establish
a new order of things, and return into heaven with his chosen
ones. Seventhly, the stubbornly wicked portion of mankind will be
returned eternally into the under world. Eighthly, after the
judgment the subterranean realm of death will be shut up, no more
souls going into it, but all men at their dissolution being
instantly invested with spiritual bodies and ascending to the
glories of the Lord. Finally, Jesus having put down all enemies
and restored the primeval paradise will yield up his mediatorial
throne, and God the Father be all in all.

The preparatory rudiments of this system of the last things
existed in the belief of the age, and it was itself composed by
the union of a theoretic interpretation of the life of Christ and
of the connected phenomena succeeding his death, with the elements
of Pharasaic Judaism, all mingled in the crucible of the soul of
Paul and fused by the fires of his experience. It illustrates a
great number of puzzling passages in the New Testament, without
the necessity of recourse to the unnatural, incredible,
unwarranted dogmas associated with them by the unique, isolated
peculiarities of Calvinism. The interpretation given above, moreover,
has this strong confirmation of its accuracy, namely, that it is
arrived at from the stand point of the thought and life of the
Apostle Paul in the first century, not from the stand point of the
theology and experience of the educated Christian of the
nineteenth century.

CHAPTER V.

JOHN'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

WE are now to see if we can determine and explain what were the
views of the Apostle John upon the subject of death and life,
condemnation and salvation, the resurrection and immortality. To
understand his opinions on these points, it is obviously necessary
to examine his general system of theological thought. John is
regarded as the writer of the proem to the fourth Gospel, also of
three brief epistles. There are such widely spread doubts of his
being the author of the Apocalypse that it has seemed better to
examine that production separately, leaving each one free to
attribute its doctrine of the last things to whatever person known
or unknown he believes wrote the book. It is true that the
authorship of the fourth Gospel itself is powerfully disputed; but
an investigation of that question would lead us too far and detain
us too long from our real aim, which is not to discuss the
genuineness or the authority of the New Testament documents, but
to show their meaning in what they actually contain and imply
concerning a future life. It is necessary to premise that we think
it certain that John wrote with some reference to the sprouting
philosophy of his time, the Platonic and Oriental speculations so
early engrafted upon the stock of Christian doctrine. For the
peculiar theories which were matured and systematized in the
second and third centuries by the Gnostic sects were floating
about, in crude and fragmentary forms, at the close of the first
century, when the apostle wrote. They immediately awakened
dissension and alarm, cries of heresy and orthodoxy, in the
Church. Some modern writers deny the presence in the New Testament
of any allusion to such views; but the weight of evidence on the
other side internal, from similarity of phrase, and external, from
the testimony of early Fathers is, when accumulated and
appreciated, overwhelming. Among these Gnostic notions the most
distinctive and prominent was the belief that the world was
created and the Jewish dispensation given, not by the true and
infinite God, but by a subordinate and imperfect deity, the
absolute God remaining separate from all created things, unknown
and afar, in the sufficiency of his aboriginal pleroma or fulness.
The Gnostics also maintained that Creative Power, Reason, Life,
Truth, Love, and other kindred realities, were individual beings,
who had emanated from God, and who by their own efficiency
constructed, illuminated, and carried on the various provinces of
creation and races of existence. Many other opinions, fanciful,
absurd, or recondite, which they held, it is not necessary here to
state. The evangelist, without alluding perhaps to any particular
teachers or systems of these doctrines, but only to their general
scope, traverses by his declarations partially the same ground of
thought which they cover, stating dogmatically the positive facts
as he apprehended them. He agrees with some of the Gnostic
doctrines and differs from others, not setting himself to follow
or to oppose them indiscriminately, but to do either as the truth
seemed to him to require.

There are two methods of seeking the meaning of the introduction
to the fourth Gospel where the Johannean doctrine of the Logos is
condensed. We may study it grammatically, or historically;
morally, or metaphysically; from the point of view of experimental
religious faith, or from that of contemporary speculative
philosophy. He who omits either of these ways of regarding the
subject must arrive at an interpretation essentially defective.
Both modes of investigation are indispensable for acquiring a full
comprehension of the expressions employed and the thoughts
intended. But to be fitted to understand the theme in its
historical aspect which, in this case, for purposes of criticism,
is by far the more important  one must be intelligently acquainted
with the Hebrew personification of the Wisdom, also of the Word,
of God; with the Platonic conception of archetypal ideas; with the
Alexandrian Jewish doctrine of the Divine Logos; and with the
relevant Gnostic and Christian speculation and phraseology of the
first two centuries. Especially must the student be familiar with
Philo, who was an eminent Platonic Jewish philosopher and a
celebrated writer, flourishing previous to the composition of the
fourth Gospel, in which, indeed, there is scarcely a single
superhuman predicate of Christ which may not be paralleled with
striking closeness from his extant works. In all these fields are
found, in imperfect proportions and fragments, the materials which
are developed in John's belief of the Logos become flesh. To
present all these materials here would be somewhat out of place
and would require too much room. We shall, therefore, simply
state, as briefly and clearly as possible, the final conclusions
to which a thorough study has led us, drawing such illustrations
as we do advance almost entirely from Philo.1

1 The reader who wishes to see in smallest compass and most lucid
order the facts requisite for the formation of a judgment is
referred to Lucke's "Dissertation on the Logos," to Norton's
"Statement of Reasons," and to Neander's exposition of the
Johannean theology in his "Planting and Training of the Church."
Nearly every thing important, both external and internal, is
collected in these three sources taken together, and set forth
with great candor, power, and skill. Differing in their conclusions,
they supply pretty adequate means for the independent student to
conclude for himself.


In the first place, what view of the Father himself, the absolute
Deity, do these writings present? John conceives of God no one can
well collate the relevant texts in his works without perceiving
this as the one perfect and eternal Spirit, in himself invisible
to mortal eyes, the Personal Love, Life, Truth, Light, "in whom is
no darkness at all." This corresponds entirely with the purest and
highest idea the human mind can form of the one untreated infinite
God. The apostle, then, going back to the period anterior to the
material creation, and soaring to the contemplation of the sole
God, does not conceive of him as being utterly alone, but as
having a Son with him, an "only begotten Son," a beloved companion
"before the foundation of the world." "In the beginning was the
Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and
without him was nothing made that was made." The true explanation
of these words, according to their undeniable historical and their
unforced grammatical. There is an English translation of it, by
Professor G. R. Noyes, in the numbers of the Christian Examiner
for March and May, 1849, meaning, is as follows. Before the
material creation, when God was yet the sole being, his first
production, the Logos, was a Son, at once the image of himself and
the idea of the yet uncreated world. By him this personal Idea,
Son, or Logos all things were afterward created; or, more exactly,
through him, by means of him, all things became, that is, were
brought, from their being in a state of conception in the mind of
God, into actual existence in space and time. Thus Philo says,
"God is the most generic; second is the Logos of God."2 "The Logos
is the first begotten Son."3 "The Logos of God is above the whole
world, and is the most ancient and generic of all that had a
beginning."4 "Nothing intervenes between the Logos and God on whom
he rests."5 "This sensible world is the junior son of God; the
Senior is the Idea,"6 or Logos. "The shadow and seeming portrait
of God is his Logos, by which, as by an assumed instrument, he
made the world. As God is the original of the image here called
shadow, so this image becomes the original of other things."7 "The
intelligible world, or world of archetypal ideas, is the Logos of
the world creating God; as an intelligible or ideal city is the
thought of the architect reflecting to build a sensible city."8
"Of the world, God is the cause by which, the four elements the
material from which, the Logos the instrument through which, the
goodness of the Creator the end for which, it was made."9 These
citations from Philo clearly show, in various stages of
development, that doctrine of the Logos which began first arguing
to the Divine Being from human analogies with separating the
conception of a plan in the mind of God from its execution in
fact; proceeded with personifying that plan, or sum of ideas, as a
mediating agent between motive and action, between impulse and
fulfilment; and ended with hypostatizing the arranging power of
the Divine thought as a separate being, his intellectual image or
Son, his first and perfect production. They unequivocally express
these thoughts: that God is the only being who was from eternity;
that the Logos was the first begotten, antemundane being, that he
was the likeness, image, immediate manifestation, of the Father;
that he was the medium of creation, the instrumental means in the
outward formation of the world. History shows us this doctrine
unfolded by minute steps, which it would be tedious to follow,
from the Book of Proverbs to Philo Judaus and John, from Plato to
Justin Martyr and Athanasius. But the rapid sketch just presented
may be sufficient now.

When it is written, "and the Logos was God," the meaning is not
strictly literal. To guard against its being so considered, the
author tautologically repeats what he had said immediately before,
"the same was in the beginning with God." Upon the supposition
that the Logos is strictly identical with God, the verses make
utter nonsense. "In the beginning was God, and God was with God,
and God was God. God was in the beginning with God." But suppose
the Logos to mean an ante mundane but subordinate being, who was a
perfect image or likeness of God, and the sense is both clear and
satisfactory, and no violence is done either to historical data or
to grammatical demands. "And the Logos was God," that is, was the
mirror or facsimile of God. So, employing the same idiom, we are
accustomed to say

2 Mangey's edition of Philo, vol. i. p. 82.

3 Ibid. p. 308.

4 Ibid. p. 121.

5 Ibid. p. 560.

6 Ibid. p. 277.

7 Ibid. p. 106.

8 Ibid. p. 5.

9 Ibid. p. 162.


of an accurate representation of a person, It is the very man
himself! Or, without the use of this idiom, we may explain the
expression "the Logos was God" thus: He stands in the place of God
to the lower creation: practically considered, he is as God to us.
As Philo writes, "To the wise and perfect the Most High is God;
but to us, imperfect beings, the Logos God's interpreter is
God."10

The inward significance of the Logos doctrine, in all its degrees
and phases, circumstantially and essentially, from first to last,
is the revelation of God. God himself, in himself, is conceived as
absolutely withdrawn beyond the apprehension of men, in boundless
immensity and inaccessible secrecy. His own nature is hidden, as a
thought is hidden in the mind; but he has the power of revealing
it, as a thought is revealed by speaking it in a word. That
uttered word is the Logos, and is afterwards conceived as a
person, and as creative, then as building and glorifying the
world. All of God that is sent forth from passive concealment into
active manifestation is the Logos. "The term Logos comprehends,"
Norton says, "all the attributes of God manifested in the creation
and government of the universe." The Logos is the hypostasis of
"the unfolded portion," "the revealing power," "the self showing
faculty," "the manifesting action," of God. The essential idea,
then, concerning the Logos is that he is the means through which
the hidden God comes to the cognizance of his creatures. In
harmony with this prevailing philosophy one who believed the Logos
to have been incarnated in Christ would suppose the purpose of his
incarnation to be the fuller revelation of God to men. And
Martineau says, "The view of revelation which is implicated in the
folds of the Logos doctrine that everywhere pervades the fourth
Gospel, is that it is the appearance to beings who have something
of a divine spirit within them, of a yet diviner without them,
leading them to the divinest of all, who embraces them both." This
is a fine statement of the practical religious aspect of John's
conception of the nature and office of the Savior.

Since he regarded God as personal love, life, truth, and light,
and Christ, the embodied Logos, as his only begotten Son, an exact
image of him in manifestation, it follows that John regarded
Christ, next in rank below God, as personal love, life, truth, and
light; and the belief that he was the necessary medium of
communicating these Divine blessings to men would naturally
result. Accordingly, we find that John repeats, as falling from
the lips of Christ, all the declarations required by and
supporting such an hypothesis. "I am the way, the truth, and the
life." "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." But Philo, too,
had written before in precisely the same strain. Witness the
correspondences between the following quotations respectively from
John and Philo. "I am the bread which came down from heaven to
give life to the world."11 Whoso eateth my body and drinketh my
blood hath eternal life."12 "Behold, I rain bread upon you from
heaven: the heavenly food of the soul is the word of God, and the
Divine Logos, from whom all eternal instructions and wisdoms
flow."13 "The bread the Lord gave us to eat was his word."14
"Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life

10 Mangey's edition of Philo, vol. ii. p. 128.

11 John vi. 33. 41.

12 Ibid. 54.

13 Quoted by G. Scheffer in his Treatise "De Usu
Philonis in Interpretatione Novi Testamenti," p. 82.

14 lbid. p. 81.


in you."15 "He alone can become the heir of incorporeal and divine
things whose whole soul is filled with the salubrious Word."16
"Every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him shall have
everlasting life."17 "He strains every nerve towards the highest
Divine Logos, who is the fountain of wisdom, in order that,
drawing from that spring, he may escape death and win everlasting
life."18 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if
any man eat of this bread he shall live forever."19 "Lifting up
his eyes to the ether, man receives manna, the Divine Logos,
heavenly and immortal nourishment for the right desiring soul."20
"God is the perennial fountain of life; God is the fountain of the
most ancient Logos."21 "As the living Father hath sent me, and I
live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by
me."22 Does it not seem perfectly plain that John's doctrine of
the Christ is at bottom identical with Philo's doctrine of the
Logos? The difference of development in the two doctrines, so far
as there is a difference, is that the latter view is
philosophical, abstract; the former, practical, historical. Philo
describes the Logos ideally, filling the supersensible sphere,
mediating between the world and God; John presents him really,
incarnated as a man, effecting the redemption of our race. The
same dignity, the same offices, are predicated of him by both.
John declares, "In him [the Divine Logos] was life, and the life
was the light of men."23 Philo asserts, "Nothing is more luminous
and irradiating than the Divine Logos, by the participation of
whom other things expel darkness and gloom, earnestly desiring to
partake of living light."24 John speaks of Christ as "the only
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father."25 Philo says,
"The Logos is the first begotten Son of God," "between whom and
God nothing intervenes."26 John writes, "The Son of man will give
you the food of everlasting life; for him hath God the Father
sealed."27 Philo writes, "The stamp of the seal of God is the
immortal Logos."28 We have this from John: "He was manifested to
take away our sins; and in him is no sin."29 And this from Philo:
"The Divine Logos is free from all sins, voluntary and
involuntary."30

The Johannean Christ is the Philonean Logos born into the world as
a man. "And the Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of
grace and truth." The substance of what has thus far been
established may now be concisely stated. The essential thought,
whether the subject be metaphysically or practically considered,
is this. God is the eternal, infinite personality of love and
truth, life and light. The Logos is his first born Son, his exact
image, the reproduction of his being, the next lower personality
of love and truth, life and light, the instrument for creating and
ruling the world, the revelation of God, the medium of
communication between God and his works. Christ is that Logos come
upon the earth as a man to save the perishing, proving his pre
existence and superhuman nature by his miraculous knowledge and
works. That the belief expressed in the last sentence is correctly
attributed to John will

15 John vi. 53.

16 Philo, vol. i. p. 482.

17 John vi. 40.

18 Philo, vol. i. p. 560.

19 John vi. 51.

20 Philo, vol. i. p. 498.

21 Ibid. pp. 575, 207.

22 John vi. 57.

23 John i. 4.

24 Philo, vol. i. p. 121.

25 John i. 18.

26 Philo, vol. i. pp. 427, 560.

27 John vi. 27.

28 Philo, vol. ii. p. 606.

29 1 John iii. 5.

30 Philo, vol. i. p. 562.


be repeatedly substantiated before the close of this chapter: in
regard to the statements in the preceding sentences no further
proof is thought necessary.

With the aid of a little repetition, we will now attempt to make a
step of progress. The tokens of energy, order, splendor,
beneficence, in the universe, are not, according to John, as we
have seen, the effects of angelic personages, emanating gods,
Gnostic aons, but are the workings of the self revealing power of
the one true and eternal God, this power being conceived by John,
according to the philosophy of his age, as a proper person, God's
instrument in creation. Reason, life, light, love, grace,
righteousness, kindred terms so thickly scattered over his pages,
are not to him, as they were to the Gnostics, separate beings, but
are the very working of the Logos, consubstantial manifestations
of God's nature and attributes. But mankind, fallen into folly and
vice, perversity and sin, lying in darkness, were ignorant that
these Divine qualities were in reality mediate exhibitions of God,
immediate exhibitions of the Logos. "The light was shining in
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Then, to reveal
to men the truth, to regenerate them and conjoin them through
himself with the Father in the experience of eternal life, the
hypostatized Logos left his transcendent glory in heaven and came
into the world in the person of Jesus. "No man hath seen God at
any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath revealed him." "I came down from heaven to do the will of
Him that sent me." This will is that all who see and believe on
the Son shall have everlasting life. "God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." "The bread of God
is He who cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world."
The doctrine of the pre existence of souls, and of their being
born into the world in the flesh, was rife in Judea when this
Gospel was written, and is repeatedly alluded to in it.31 That
John applies this doctrine to Christ in the following and in other
instances is obvious. "Before Abraham was, I am." "I came forth
from the Father and am come into the world." "Father, glorify thou
me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
"What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was
before?" As for ourselves, we do not see how it is possible for
any unprejudiced person, after studying the fourth Gospel
faithfully with the requisite helps, to doubt that the writer of
it believed that Jesus pre existed as the Divine Logos, and that
he became incarnate to reveal the Father and to bring men into the
experience of true eternal life. John declares this, in his first
epistle, in so many words, saying, "The living Logos, the eternal
life which was with the Father from the beginning, was manifested
unto us;" and, "God sent his only begotten Son into the world that
we might live through him." Whether the doctrine thus set forth
was really entertained and taught by Jesus himself, or whether it
is the interpretation put on his language by one whose mind was
full of the notions of the age, are distinct questions. With the
settlement of these questions we are not now concerned: such a
discussion would be more appropriate when examining the genuine
meaning of the words of Christ. All that is necessary here is the
suggestion that when we show the theological system of John it
does not necessarily follow that that is the true

31 John i. 21; ix. 2.


teaching of Christ. Having adopted the Logos doctrine, it might
tinge and turn his thoughts and words when reporting from memory,
after the lapse of many years, the discourses of his Master. He
might unconsciously, under such an influence, represent literally
what was figuratively intended, and reflect from his own mind
lights and shades, associations and meanings, over all or much of
what he wrote. There are philosophical and literary peculiarities
which have forced many of the best critics to make this
distinction between the intended meaning of Christ's declarations
as he uttered them, and their received meaning as this evangelist
reported them. Norton says, "Whether St. John did or did not adopt
the Platonic conception of the Logos is a question not important
to be settled in order to determine our own judgment concerning
its truth."32 Lucke has written to the same effect, but more
fully: "We are allowed to distinguish the sense in which John
understood the words of Christ, from the original sense in which
Christ used them."33

It is to be observed that in all that has been brought forward,
thus far, there is not the faintest hint of the now current notion
of the Trinity. The idea put forth by John is not at all allied
with the idea that the infinite God himself assumed a human shape
to walk the earth and undergo mortal sufferings. It is simply said
that that manifested and revealing portion of the Divine
attributes which constituted the hypostatized Logos was incarnated
and displayed in a perfect, sinless sample of man, thus exhibiting
to the world a finite image of God. We will illustrate this
doctrine with reference to the inferences to be drawn from it in
regard to human nature. John repeatedly says, in effect, "God is
truth," "God is light," "God is love," "God is life." He likewise
says of the Savior, "In him was life, and the life was the light
of men," and reports him as saying of himself, "I am the truth,"
"I am the life," "I am the light of the world." The fundamental
meaning of these declarations so numerous, striking, and varied in
the writings of John is, that all those qualities which the
consciousness of humanity has recognised as Divine are
consubstantial with the being of God; that all the reflections of
them in nature and man belong to the Logos, the eldest Son, the
first production, of God; and that in Jesus their personality, the
very Logos himself, was consciously embodied, to be brought nearer
to men, to be exemplified and recommended to them. Reason, power,
truth, light, love, blessedness, are not individual aons, members
of a hierarchy of deities, but are the revealing elements of the
one true God. The personality of the abstract and absolute fulness
of all these substantial qualities is God. The personality of the
discerpted portion of them shown in the universe is the Logos.
Now, that latter personality Christ was. Consequently, while he
was a man, he was not merely a man, but was also a supernatural
messenger from heaven, sent into the world to impersonate the
image of God under the condition of humanity, free from every
sinful defect and spot. Thus, being the manifesting representative
of the Father, he could say, "He that hath seen me hath
[virtually] seen the Father." Not that they were identical in
person, but that they were similar in nature and character, spirit
and design: both were eternal holiness, love, truth, and life. "I
and my Father are one thing," (in essence, not in personality.)
Nothing can be more

32 Statement of Reasons, 1st ed. p. 239.

33 Christian Examiner, May, 1849, p. 431.


unequivocally pronounced than the subordination of the Son to the
Father that the Father sent him, that he could do nothing without
the Father, that his Father was greater than he, that his
testimony was confirmed by the Father's in a hundred places by
John, both as author writing his own words and as interpreter
reporting Christ's. There is not a text in the record that implies
Christ's identity with God, but only his identity with the Logos.
The identity of the Logos with God is elementary, not personal.
From this view it follows that every man who possesses, knows, and
exhibits the elements of the Divine life, the characteristics of
God, is in that degree a son of God, Christ being pre eminently
the Son on account of his pre eminent likeness, his supernatural
divinity, as the incarnate Logos.

That the apostle held and taught this conclusion appears, first,
from the fact, otherwise inexplicable, that he records the same
sublime statements concerning all good Christians, with no other
qualification than that of degree, that he does concerning Christ
himself. Was Jesus the Son of God? "To as many as received him he
gave power to become the sons of God." There is in Philo a passage
corresponding remarkably with this one from John:  "Those who have
knowledge of the truth are properly called sons of God: he who is
still unfit to be named a son of God should endeavor to fashion
himself to the first born Logos of God."34 Was Jesus "from above,"
while wicked men were "from beneath"? "They are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world." Was Jesus sent among men with a
special commission? "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so
have I also sent them into the world." Was Jesus the subject of a
peculiar glory, bestowed upon him by the Father? "The glory which
thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we
are one." Had Jesus an inspiration and a knowledge not vouchsafed
to the princes of this world? "Ye have an unction from the Holy
One, and ye know all things." Did Jesus perform miraculous works?
"He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also."
In the light of the general principle laid down, that God is the
actual fulness of truth and love and light and blessedness; that
Christ, the Logos, is the manifested impersonation of them; and
that all men who receive him partake of their Divine substance and
enjoy their prerogative, the texts just cited, and numerous other
similar ones, are transparent. It is difficult to see how on any
other hypothesis they can be made to express an intelligible and
consistent meaning.

Secondly, we are brought to the same conclusion by the synonymous
use and frequent interchange of different terms in the Johannean
writings. Not only it is said, "Whoever is born of God cannot
sin," but it is also written, "Every one that doeth righteousness
is born of God;" and again, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the
Christ is born of God." In other words, having a good character
and leading a just life, heartily receiving and obeying the
revelation made by Christ, are identical phrases. "He that hath
the Son hath life." "Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in
the doctrine of Christ hath not God." "This is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith" in the doctrine of Christ.
"He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." "He
that keepeth the commandments dwelleth in God and God in him." "He
that confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God, God

34 Philo, vol. i. p. 427.


dwelleth in him and he in God." "He that doeth good is of God."
"God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."
"The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that
we may know the true God and eternal life." From these citations,
and from other passages which will readily occur, we gather the
following pregnant results. To "do the truth," "walk in the
truth," "walk in the light," "keep the commandments," "do
righteousness," "abide in the doctrine of Christ," "do the will of
God," "do good," "dwell in love," "abide in Christ," "abide in
God," "abide in life," all are expressions meaning precisely the
same thing. They all signify essentially the conscious possession
of goodness; in other words, the practical adoption of the life
and teachings of Jesus; or, in still other terms, the personal
assimilation of the spiritual realities of the Logos, which are
love, life, truth, light. Jesus having been sent into the world to
exemplify the characteristics and claims of the Father, and to
regenerate men from unbelief and sin to faith and righteousness,
those who were walking in darkness, believers of lies and doers of
unrighteousness, those who were abiding in alienation and death,
might by receiving and following him be restored to the favor of
God and pass from darkness and death into life and light. "This is
eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

The next chief point in the doctrine of John is his belief in an
evil being, the personality of wickedness, and the relation
between him and bad men. There have been, from the early
centuries, keen disputes on the question whether this apostle uses
the terms devil and evil one with literal belief or with
figurative accommodation. We have not a doubt that the former is
the true view. The popular denial of the existence of evil
spirits, with an arch demon over them, is the birth of a
philosophy much later than the apostolic age. The use of the term
"devil" merely as the poetic or ethical personification of the
seductive influences of the world is the fruit of theological
speculation neither originated nor adopted by the Jewish prophets
or by the Christian apostles. Whoso will remember the prevailing
faith of the Jews at that time, and the general state of
speculative opinion, and will recollect the education of John, and
notice the particular manner in which he alludes to the subject
throughout his epistles and in his reports of the discourses of
Jesus, we think will be convinced that the Johannean system
includes a belief in the actual existence of Satan according to
the current Pharisaic dogma of that age. It is not to be
disguised, either, that the investigations of the ablest critics
have led an overwhelming majority of them to this interpretation.
"I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the evil
one." "He that is begotten of God guardeth himself, and the evil
one toucheth him not." "He that committeth sin is of the devil,
for the devil sinneth from the beginning." "Whosoever is born of
God cannot sin. In this the children of God are manifest, and the
children of the devil." "Ye are of your father the devil, and his
lusts ye will do." There can be no doubt that these, and other
passages of a kindred and complementary nature, yield the
following view. Good men are allied to God, because their
characteristics are the same as his, truth, light, love, life,
righteousness. "As he is, so are we in this world." Bad men are
allied to the devil, because their characteristics are the same as
his, falsehood, darkness, hatred, death, sin. "Cain, who slew his
brother, was of the evil one." The facts, then, of the great moral
problem of the world, according to John, were these. God is the
infinite Father, whose nature and attributes comprehend all holy,
beautiful, desirable realities, and who would draw mankind to his
blessed embrace forever. The goodness, illumination, and joy of
holy souls reflect his holiness and display his reign. The devil
is the great spirit of wickedness, whose attributes comprehend all
evil, dark, fearful realities, and who entices mankind to sin. The
wickedness, gloom, and misery of corrupt souls reveal his likeness
and his kingdom.

The former manifests himself in the glories of the world and in
the divine qualities of the soul. The latter manifests himself in
the whole history of temptation and sin and in the vicious
tendencies of the heart. Good men, those possessing pre eminently
the moral qualities of God, are his children, are born of him,
that is, are inspired and led by him. Bad men, those possessing in
a ruling degree the qualities of the devil, are his children, are
born of him, that is, are animated and governed by his spirit.

Whether the evangelist gave to his own mind any philosophical
account of the origin and destiny of the devil or not is a
question concerning which his writings are not explicit enough for
us to determine. In the beginning he represents God as making, by
means of the Logos, all things that were made, and his light as
shining in darkness that comprehended it not. Now, he may have
conceived of matter as uncreated, eternally existing in formless
night, the ground of the devil's being, and may have limited the
work of creation to breaking up the sightless chaos, defining it
into orderly shapes, filling it with light and motion, and
peopling it with children of heaven. Such was the Persian faith,
familiar at that time to the Jews. Neander, with others, objects
to this view that it would destroy John's monotheism and make him
a dualist, a believer in two self existents, aboriginal and
everlasting antagonists. It only needs to be observed, in reply,
that John was not a philosopher of such thorough dialectic
training as to render it impossible for inconsistencies to coexist
in his thoughts. In fact, any one who will examine the beliefs of
even such men as Origen and Augustine will perceive that such an
objection is not valid. Some writers of ability and eminence have
tried to maintain that the Johannean conception of Satan was of
some exalted archangel who apostatized from the law of God and
fell from heaven into the abyss of night, sin, and woe. They could
have been led to such an hypothesis only by preconceived notions
and prejudices, because there is not in John's writings even the
obscurest intimation of such a doctrine. On the contrary, it is
written that the devil is a liar and the father of lies from the
beginning, the same phrase used to denote the primitive
companionship of God and his Logos anterior to the creation. The
devil is spoken of by John, with prominent consistency, as bearing
the same relation to darkness, falsehood, sin, and death that God
bears to light, truth, righteousness, and life, that is, as being
their original personality and source. Whether the belief itself
be true or not, be reconcilable with pure Christianity or not, in
our opinion John undoubtedly held the belief of the personality of
the source of wickedness, and supposed that the great body of
mankind had been seduced by him from the free service of heaven,
and had become infatuated in his bondage.

Just here in the scheme of Christianity arises the necessity,
appears the profound significance in the apostolic belief, of that
disinterested interference of God through his revelation in Christ
which aimed to break the reigning power of sin and redeem lost
men from the tyranny of Satan. "For this purpose the Son of God
was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."

That is to say, the revelation of the nature and will of God in
the works of the creation and in the human soul was not enough,
even when aided by the law of Moses, to preserve men in the
truth and the life. They had been seduced by the evil one into
sin, alienated from the Divine favor, and plunged in darkness
and death. A fuller, more powerful manifestation of the
character, claims, attractions of the Father was necessary to
recall the benighted wanderers from their lost state and restore
them to those right relations and to that conscious communion with
God in which alone true life consists. Then, and for that purpose,
Jesus Christ was commissioned to appear, a pre existent being of
most exalted rank, migrating from the super stellar sphere into
this world, to embody and mirror forth through the flesh those
characteristics which are the natural attributes of God the Father
and the essential conditions of heaven the home. In him the
glorious features of the Divinity were miniatured on a finite
scale and perfectly exhibited, "thus revealing," (as Neander says,
in his exposition of John's doctrine,) "for the first time, in a
comprehensible manner, what a being that God is whose holy
personality man was created to represent." So Philo says, "The
Logos is the image of God, and man is the image of the Logos."35
Therefore, according to this view, man is the image of the image
of God. The dimmed, imperfect reflection of the Father, originally
shining in nature and the soul, would enable all who had not
suppressed it and lost the knowledge of it, to recognise at once
and adore the illuminated image of Him manifested and moving
before them in the person of the Son; the faint gleams of Divine
qualities yet left within their souls would spontaneously blend
with the full splendors irradiating the form of the inspired and
immaculate Christ. Thus they would enter into a new and
intensified communion with God, and experience an unparalleled
depth of peace and joy, an inspired assurance of eternal life. But
those who, by worldliness and wickedness, had obscured and
destroyed all their natural knowledge of God and their affinities
to him, being without the inward preparation and susceptibility
for the Divine which the Savior embodied and manifested, would not
be able to receive it, and thus would pass an infallible sentence
upon themselves. "When the Comforter is come, he will convict the
world of sin, because they believe not on me." "He that believeth
on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not is
condemned already, in that he loveth darkness rather than light."
"Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error: he
that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not
us." "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?"
The idea is, that such a denial must be caused by inward
depravity, could only spring from an evil character.

In the ground thought just presented we may find the explanation
of the seemingly obscure and confused use of terms in the
following instances, and learn to understand more fully John's
idea of the effect of spiritual contact with Christ. "He that
doeth righteousness is born of God." "He that believeth Jesus to
be the Christ is born of God." "He that denieth the Son, the same
hath not the Father." "He that hath the Son hath life." These
passages all become perspicuous and concordant in view of John's
conception of the inward unity of

35 Philo, vol. i. p. 106.


truth, or the universal oneness of the Divine life, in God, in
Christ, in all souls that partake of it. A character in harmony
with the character of God will, by virtue of its inherent light
and affinity, recognise the kindred attributes or characteristics
of God, wherever manifested. He who perceives and embraces the
Divinity in the character of Christ proves thereby that he was
prepared to receive it by kindred qualities residing in himself,
proves that he was distinctively of God. He who fails to perceive
the peculiar glory of Christ proves thereby that he was alienated
and blinded by sin and darkness, distinctively of the evil one.
Varying the expression to illustrate the thought, if the light and
warmth of a living love of God were in a soul, it would
necessarily, when brought into contact with the concentrated
radiance of Divinity incarnated and beaming in Christ, effect a
more fervent, conscious, and abiding union with the Father than
could be known before he was thus revealed. But if iniquities,
sinful lusts, possessing the soul, had made it hard and cold, even
the blaze of spotless virtues and miraculous endowments in the
manifesting Messiah would be the radiation of light upon darkness
insensible to it. Therefore, the presentation of the Divine
contents of the soul or character of Jesus to different persons
was an unerring test of their previous moral state: the good would
apprehend him with a thrill of unison, the bad would not. To have
the Son, to have the Father, to have the truth, to have eternal
life, all are the same thing: hence, where one is predicated or
denied all are predicated or denied.

Continuing our investigation, we shall find the distinction drawn
of a sensual or perishing life and a spiritual or eternal life.
The term world (kosmos) is used by John apparently in two
different senses. First, it seems to signify all mankind, divided
sometimes into the unbelievers and the Christians. "Christ is the
propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the
sins of the whole world." "God sent not his Son to condemn the
world, but that the world through him might be saved." It is
undeniable that "world" here means not the earth, but the men on
the earth. Secondly, "world" in the dialect of John means all the
evil, all the vitiating power, of the material creation. "Now
shall the Prince of this world be cast out." It is not meant that
this is the devil's world, because John declares in the beginning
that God made it; but he means that all diabolic influence comes
from the darkness of matter fighting against the light of
Divinity, and by a figure he says "world," meaning the evils in
the world, meaning all the follies, vanities, sins, seductive
influences, of the dark and earthy, the temporal and sensual. In
this case the love of the world means almost precisely what is
expressed by the modern word worldliness. "Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him."

In a vein strikingly similar, Philo writes, "It is impossible for
the love of the world and the love of God to coexist, as it is
impossible for light and darkness to coexist."36 "For all that is
in the world," says John, "the lust of the flesh, and the greed of
the eyes, and the pomp of living, is not of the Father, but is of
the world. And the world passes away, with the lust thereof: but
he that does the will of God abides forever." He who is taken up
and absorbed in the gauds and pleasures of time and sense has no
deep spring of religious experience:

36 Philo, vol. ii. p. 649.


his enjoyments are of the decaying body; his heart and his thoughts
are set on things which soon fly away. But the earnest believer in
God pierces through all these superficial and transitory objects
and pursuits, and fastens his affections to imperishable verities:
he feels, far down in his soul, the living well of faith and
fruition, the cool fresh fountain of spiritual hope and joy, whose
stream of life flows unto eternity. The vain sensualist and hollow
worldling has no true life in him: his love reaches not beyond the
grave. The loyal servant of duty and devout worshipper of God has
a spirit of conscious superiority to death and oblivion: though
the sky fall, and the mountains melt, and the seas fade, he knows
he shall survive, because immaterial truth and love are deathless.
The whole thought contained in the texts we are considering is
embodied with singular force and beauty in the following passage
from one of the sacred books of the Hindus: "Who would have
immortal life must beware of outward things, and seek inward
truth, purity, and faith; for the treacherous and evanescent world
flies from its votaries, like the mirage, or devil car, which
moves so swiftly that one cannot ascend it." The mere negation of
real life or blessedness is predicated of the careless worldling;
positive death or miserable condemned unrest is predicated of the
bad hearted sinner. Both these classes of men, upon accepting
Christ, that is, upon owning the Divine characteristics incarnate
in him, enter upon a purified, exalted, and new experience. "He
that hates his brother is a murderer and abides in death." "We
know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren." This new experience is distinctively, emphatically,
life; it is spiritual peace, joy, trust, communion with God, and
therefore immortal. It brings with it its own sufficient evidence,
leaving its possessor free from misgiving doubts, conscious of his
eternity. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in
himself." "Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us,
because he hath given us of his spirit." "That ye may know that ye
have eternal life."

The objects of Christ's mission, so far as they refer to the
twofold purpose of revealing the Father by an impersonation of his
image, and giving new moral life to men by awakening within them a
conscious fellowship with Divine truth and goodness, have already
been unfolded. But this does not include the whole: all this might
have been accomplished by his appearance, authoritative teachings,
miracles, and return to heaven, without dying. Why, then, did he
die? What was the meaning or aim of his death and resurrection?
The apostle conceives that he came not only to reveal God and to
regenerate men, but also to be a "propitiation" for men's sins, to
redeem them from the penalty of their sins; and it was for this
end that he must suffer the doom of physical death. "Ye know that
he was manifested to take away our sins." It is the more difficult
to tell exactly what thoughts this language was intended by John
to convey, because his writings are so brief and miscellaneous, so
unsystematic and incomplete. He does not explain his own terms,
but writes as if addressing those who had previously received such
oral instruction as would make the obscurities clear, the hints
complete, and the fragments whole. We will first quote from John
all the important texts bearing on the point before us, and then
endeavor to discern and explain their sense. "If we walk in the
light as God is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son,
cleanseth us from all sin." "He is the propitiation for our sins."
"Your sins are forgiven through his name."

"The whole world is subject to the evil one." These texts, few and
vague as they are, comprise every thing directly said by John upon
the atonement and redemption: other relevant passages merely
repeat the same substance. Certainly these statements do not of
themselves teach any thing like the Augustinian doctrine of
expiatory sufferings to placate the Father's indignation at sin
and sinners, or to remove, by paying the awful debt of justice,
the insuperable bars to forgiveness. Nothing of that sort is
anywhere intimated in the Johannean documents, even in the
faintest manner. So far from saying that there was unwillingness
or inability in the Father to take the initiative for our ransom
and pardon, he expressly avows, "Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation
for our sins." Instead of exclaiming, with the majority of modern
theologians, "Believe in the atoning death, the substitutional
sufferings, of Christ, and your sins shall then all be washed
away, and you shall be saved," he explicitly says, "If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." And
again: "Whosoever believeth in him" not in his death, but in him
"shall have eternal life." The allusions in John to the doctrine
of redemption and reconciliation do not mean, it is plain enough,
the buying off of the victims of eternal condemnation by the
vicarious pains of Jesus. What, then, do they mean? They are too
few, short, and obscure for us to decide this question
conclusively by their own light alone. We must get assistance from
abroad.

The reader will remember that it was the Jewish belief, and the
retained belief of the converts to Christianity, at that time,
that men's souls, in consequence of sin, were doomed upon leaving
the body to descend into the under world. This was the objective
penalty of sin, inherited from Adam. Now, Christ in his
superangelic state in heaven was not involved in sin or in its
doom of death and subterranean banishment. Yet at the will of the
Father he became a man, went through our earthly experiences, died
like a sinner, and after death descended into the prison of
disembodied souls below, then rose again and ascended into heaven
to the Father, to show men that their sins were forgiven, the
penalty taken away, and the path opened for them too to rise to
eternal life in the celestial mansions with Christ "and be with
him where he is." Christ's death, then, cleanses men from sin, he
is a propitiation for their sins, in two ways. First, by his
resurrection from the power of death and his ascent to heaven he
showed men that God had removed the great penalty of sin: by his
death and ascension he was the medium of giving them this
knowledge. Secondly, the joy, gratitude, love to God, awakened in
them by such glorious tidings, would purify their natures, exalt
their souls into spiritual freedom and virtue, into a blessed and
Divine life. According to this view, Christ was a vicarious
sacrifice, not in the sense that he suffered instead of the
guilty, to purchase their redemption from the iron justice of God,
but in the sense that, when he was personally free from any need
to suffer, he died for the sake of others, to reveal to them the
mighty boon of God's free grace, assuring them of the wondrous
gift of a heavenly immortality. This representation perfectly
fills and explains the language, without violence or arbitrary
suppositions, does it in harmony with all the exegetical
considerations, historical and grammatical; which no other view
that we know of can do.

There are several independent facts which lend strong confirmation
to the correctness of the exposition now given. We know that we
have not directly proved the justice of that exposition, only
constructively, inferentially, established it; not shown it to be
true, only made it appear plausible. But that plausibility becomes
an extreme probability nay, shall we not say certainty? when we
weigh the following testimonies for it. First, this precise
doctrine is unquestionably contained in other parts of the New
Testament. We have in preceding chapters demonstrated its
existence in Paul's epistles, in Peter's, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and in the Apocalypse. Therefore, since John's
phraseology is better explained by it than by any other
hypothesis, it is altogether likely that his real meaning was the
same.

Secondly, the terms "light" and "darkness," so frequent in this
evangelist, were not originated by him, but adopted. They were
regarded by the Persian theology, by Plato, by Philo, by the
Gnostics, as having a physical basis as well as a spiritual
significance. In their conceptions, physical light, as well as
spiritual holiness, was an efflux or manifestation from the
supernal God; physical darkness, as well as spiritual depravity,
was an emanation or effect from the infernal Satan, or principle
of evil. Is it not so in the usage of John? He uses the terms, it
is true, prevailingly in a moral sense: still, there is much in
his statements that looks as if he supposed they had a physical
ground. If so, then how natural is this connection of thought! All
good comes from the dazzling world of God beyond the sky; all evil
comes from the nether world of his adversary, the prince of
darkness. That John believed in a local heaven on high, the
residence of God, is made certain by scores of texts too plain to
be evaded. Would he not, then, in all probability, believe in a
local hell? Believing, as he certainly did, in a devil, the author
and lord of darkness, falsehood, and death, would he not conceive
a kingdom for him? In the development of ideas reached at that
time, it is evident that the conception of God implied an upper
world, his resplendent abode, and that the conception of Satan
equally implied an under world, his gloomy realm. To the latter
human souls were doomed by sin. From the former Christ came, and
returned to it again, to show that the Father would forgive our
sins and take us there.

Thirdly, John expected that Christ, after death, would return to
the Father in heaven. This appears from clear and reiterated
statements in his reports of the Savior's words. But after the
resurrection he tells us that Jesus had not yet ascended to the
Father, but was just on the point of going. "Touch me not, for I
am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say
unto them, I ascend unto my Father." Where, then, did he suppose
the soul of his crucified Master had been during the interval
between his death and his resurrection? Dormant in the body, dead
with the body, laid in the tomb? That is opposed to the doctrine
of uninterrupted life which pervades his writings. Besides, such a
belief was held only by the Sadducees, whom the New Testament
stigmatizes. To assume that such was John's conception of the fact
is an arbitrary supposition, without the least warrant from any
source whatever. If he imagined the soul of Jesus during that time
to have been neither in heaven nor in the sepulchre, is it not
pretty sure that he supposed it was in the under world, the common
receptacle of souls, where, according to the belief of that age,
every man went after death?

Fourthly, it is to be observed, in favor of this general
interpretation, that the doctrine it unfolds is in harmony with
the contemporary opinions, a natural development from them, a
development which would be forced upon the mind of a Jewish
Christian accepting the resurrection of Christ as a fact. It was
the Jewish opinion that God dwelt with his holy angels in a world
of everlasting light above the firmament. It was the Jewish
opinion that the departed souls of men, on account of sin, were
confined beneath the earth in Satan's and death's dark and
slumberous cavern of shadows. It was the Jewish opinion that the
Messiah would raise the righteous dead and reign with them on
earth. Now, the first Christians clung to the Jewish creed and
expectations, with such modifications merely as the variation of
the actual Jesus and his deeds from the theoretical Messiah and
his anticipated achievements compelled. Then, when Christ having
been received as the bringer of glad tidings from the Father died,
and after three days rose from the dead and ascended to God,
promising his brethren that where he was they should come, must
they not have regarded it all as a dramatic exemplification of the
fact that the region of death was no longer a hopeless dungeon,
since one mighty enough to solve its chains and burst its gates
had returned from it? must they not have considered him as a
pledge that their sins were forgiven, their doom reversed, and
heaven attainable?

John, in common with all the first Christians, evidently expected
that the second advent of the Lord would soon take place, to
consummate the objects he had left unfinished, to raise the dead
and judge them, justifying the worthy and condemning the unworthy.
There was a well known Jewish tradition that the appearance of
Antichrist would immediately precede the triumphant coming of the
Messiah. John says, "Even now are there many Antichrists: thereby
we know that it is the last hour."37 "Abide in him, that, when he
shall appear, we may not be ashamed before him at his coming."
"That we may have boldness in the day of judgment." The
evangelist's outlook for the return of the Savior is also shown at
the end of his Gospel. "Jesus said not unto him, 'He shall not
die;' but, 'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to
thee?'" That the doctrine of a universal resurrection which the
Jews probably derived, through their communication with the
Persians, from the Zoroastrian system, and, with various
modifications, adopted is embodied in the following passage, who
can doubt? "The hour is coming when all that are in the graves
shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth." That
a general resurrection would literally occur under the auspices of
Jesus was surely the meaning of the writer of those words. Whether
that thought was intended to be conveyed by Christ in the exact
terms he really used or not is a separate question, with which we
are not now concerned, our object being simply to set forth John's
views. Some commentators, seizing the letter and neglecting the
spirit, have inferred from various texts that John expected that
the resurrection would be limited to faithful Christians, just as
the more rigid of the Pharisees confined it to the righteous Jews.
"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye
have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

37 See the able and impartial discussion of John's belief on this
subject contained in Lucke's Commentary on the First Epistle of
John, i. 18-28.


To force this figure into a literal meaning is a mistake; for in
the preceding chapter it is expressly said that "They that have
done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; they
that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation." Both
shall rise to be judged; but as we conceive the most probable
sense of the phrases the good shall be received to heaven, the bad
shall be remanded to the under world. "Has no life in him" of
course cannot mean is absolutely dead, annihilated, but means has
not faith and virtue, the elements of blessedness, the
qualifications for heaven. The particular figurative use of words
in these texts may be illustrated by parallel idioms from Philo,
who says, "Of the living some are dead; on the contrary, the dead
live. For those lost from the life of virtue are dead, though they
reach the extreme of old age; while the good, though they are
disjoined from the body, live immortally."38 Again he writes,
"Deathless life delivers the dying pious; but the dying impious
everlasting death seizes."39 And a great many passages plainly
show that one element of Philo's meaning, in such phrases as
these, is, that he believed that, upon their leaving the body, the
souls of the good would ascend to heaven, while the souls of the
bad would descend to Hades. These discriminated events he supposed
would follow death at once. His thorough Platonism had weaned him
from the Persian Pharisaic doctrine of a common intermediate state
detaining the dead below until the triumphant advent of a Redeemer
should usher in the great resurrection and final judgment.40

John declares salvation to be conditional. "The blood of Christ"
that is, his death and what followed "cleanses us from all sin, if
we walk in the light as he is in the light;" not otherwise. "He
that believeth not the Son shall not see eternal life, but the
wrath of God abideth on him." "If any man see his brother commit a
sin which is not unto death, he shall pray, and shall receive life
for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do
not say that he shall pray for it." "Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know
that when he [Christ] shall appear we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is. Every man that hath this hope in him
purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The heads of the doctrine
which seems to underlie these statements are as follow. Christ
shall come again. All the dead shall rise for judicial ordeal.
Those counted worthy shall be accepted, be transfigured into the
resemblance of the glorious Redeemer and enter into eternal
blessedness in heaven. The rest shall be doomed to the dark
kingdom of death in the under world, to remain there for aught
that is hinted to the contrary forever. From these premises two
practical inferences are drawn in exhortations. First, we should
earnestly strive to fit ourselves for acceptance by moral purity,
brotherly love, and pious faith. Secondly, we should seek pardon
for our sins by confession and prayer, and take heed lest by
aggravated sin we deprave our souls beyond recovery. There are
those who sin unto death, for whom it is hopeless to pray. Light,
truth, and the divine life of heaven can never receive them;
darkness, falsehood, and the deep realm of death irrevocably
swallow them.

And now we may sum up in a few words the essential results of this
whole inquiry into the principles of John's theology, especially
as composing and shown in his doctrine of a

38 Vol. i. p. 554.

39 Ibid. p. 233.

40 See vol. i. pp. 139, 416, 417, 555, 643, 648; vol. ii. pp. 178,
433.


future life. First, God is personal love, truth, light, holiness,
blessedness. These realities, as concentrated in their
incomprehensible absoluteness, are the elements of his infinite
being. Secondly, these spiritual substances, as diffused through
the worlds of the universe and experienced in the souls of moral
creatures, are the medium of God's revelation of himself, the
direct presence and working of his Logos. Thirdly, the persons who
prevailingly partake of these qualities are God's loyal subjects
and approved children, in peaceful communion with the Father,
through the Son, possessing eternal life. Fourthly, Satan is
personal hatred, falsehood, darkness, sin, misery. These
realities, in their abstract nature and source, are his being; in
their special manifestations they are his efflux and power.
Fifthly, the persons who partake rulingly of these qualities are
the devil's enslaved subjects and lineal children: in sinful
bondage to him, in depraved communion with him, they dwell in a
state of hostile banishment and unhappiness, which is moral death.
Sixthly, Christ was the Logos who, descending from his anterior
glory in heaven, and appearing in mortal flesh, embodied all the
Divine qualities in an unflawed model of humanity, gathered up and
exhibited all the spiritual characteristics of the Father in a
stainless and perfect soul supernaturally filled and illumined,
thus to bear into the world a more intelligible and effective
revelation of God the Father than nature or common humanity
yielded, to shine with regenerating radiance upon the deadly
darkness of those who were groping in lying sins, "that they might
have life and that they might have it more abundantly." Seventhly,
the fickle and perishing experience of unbelieving and wicked men,
the vagrant life of sensuality and worldliness, the shallow life
in vain and transitory things, gives place in the soul of a
Christian to a profoundly earnest, unchanging experience of truth
and love, a steady and everlasting life in Divine and everlasting
things. Eighthly, the experimental reception of the revealed grace
and verity by faith and discipleship in Jesus is accompanied by
internal convincing proofs and seals of their genuineness,
validity, and immortality. They awaken a new consciousness, a new
life, inherently Divine and self warranting. Ninthly, Christ, by
his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, was a
propitiation for our sins, a mercy seat pledging forgiveness; that
is, he was the medium of showing us that mercy of God which
annulled the penalty of sin, the descent of souls to the gloomy
under world, and opened the celestial domains for the ransomed
children of earth to join the sinless angels of heaven. Tenthly,
Christ was speedily to make a second advent. In that last day the
dead should come forth for judgment, the good be exalted to
unfading glory with the Father and the Son, and the bad be left in
the lower region of noiseless shadows and dreams. These ten points
of view, we believe, command all the principal features of the
theological landscape which occupied the mental vision of the
writer of the Gospel and epistles bearing the superscription,
John.

CHAPTER VI.

CHRIST'S TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE.

IN approaching the teachings of the Savior himself concerning the
future fate of man, we should throw off the weight of creeds and
prejudices, and, by the aid of all the appliances in our power,
endeavor to reach beneath the imagery and unessential particulars
of his instructions to learn their bare significance in truth.
This is made difficult by the singular perversions his religion
has undergone; by the loss of a complete knowledge of the
peculiarities of the Messianic age in the lapse of the ages since;
by the almost universal change in our associations, modes of
feeling and thought, and styles of speech; and by the gradual
accretion and hardening of false doctrines and sectarian biases
and wilfulness. As we examine the words of Christ to find their
real meaning, there are four prominent considerations to be
especially weighed and borne in mind.

First, we must not forget the poetic Eastern style common to the
Jewish prophets; their symbolic enunciations in bold figures of
speech: "I am the door;" "I am the bread of life;" "I am the
vine;" "My sheep hear my voice;" "If these should hold their
peace, the stones would immediately cry out." This daring
emblematic language was natural to the Oriental nations; and the
Bible is full of it. Is the overthrow of a country foretold? It is
not said, "Babylon shall be destroyed," but "The sun shall be
darkened at his going forth, the moon shall be as blood, the stars
shall fall from heaven, and the earth shall stagger to and fro as
a drunken man." If we would truly understand Christ's
declarations, we must not overlook the characteristics of
figurative language. For "he spake to the multitude in parables,
and without a parable spake he not unto them;" and a parable, of
course, is not to be taken literally, but holds a latent sense and
purpose which are to be sought out. The greatest injustice is done
to the teachings of Christ when his words are studied as those of
a dry scholastic, a metaphysical moralist, not as those of a
profound poet, a master in the spiritual realm.

Secondly, we must remember that we have but fragmentary reports of
a small part of the teachings of Christ. He was engaged in the
active prosecution of his mission probably about three years, at
the shortest over one year; while all the different words of his
recorded in the New Testament would not occupy more than five
hours. Only a little fraction of what he said has been transmitted
to us; and though this part may contain the essence of the whole,
yet it must naturally in some instances be obscure and difficult
of apprehension. We must therefore compare different passages with
each other, carefully probe them all, and explain, so far as
possible, those whose meaning is recondite by those whose meaning
is obvious. Some persons may be surprised to think that we have
but a small portion of the sayings of Jesus. The fact, however, is
unquestionable. And perhaps there is no more reason that we should
have a full report of his words than there is that we should have
a complete account of his doings; and the evangelist declares,
"There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if
they should every one be written, I suppose that even the world
itself could not contain the books."

Thirdly, when examining the instructions of Jesus, we should
recollect that he adopted, and applied to himself and to his
kingdom, the common Jewish phraseology concerning the Messiah and
the events that were expected to attend his advent and reign. But
he did not take up these phrases in the perverted sense held in
the corrupt opinions and earthly hopes of the Jews: he used them
spiritually, in the sense which accorded with the true Messianic
dispensation as it was arranged in the forecasting providence of
God. No investigation of the New Testament should be unaccompanied
by an observance of the fundamental rule of interpretation,
namely, that the strident of a book, especially of an ancient,
obscure, and fragmentary book, should imbue himself as thoroughly
as he can with the knowledge and spirit of the opinions, events,
influences, circumstances, of the time when the document was
written, and of the persons who wrote it. The inquirer must be
equipped for his task by a mastery of the Rabbinism of Gamaliel,
at whose feet Paul was brought up; for the Jewish mind of that age
was filled, and its religious language directed, by this
Rabbinism. Guided by this principle, furnished with the necessary
information, in the helpful light of the best results of modern
critical scholarship, we shall be able to explain many dark texts,
and to satisfy ourselves, at least in a degree, as to the genuine
substance of Christ's declarations touching the future destinies
of men.

Finally, he who studies the New Testament with patient
thoroughness and with honest sharpness will arrive at a
distinction most important to be made and to be kept in view,
namely, a distinction between the real meaning of Christ's words
in his own mind and the actual meaning understood in them by his
auditors and reporters.1 Here we approach a most delicate and
vital point, hitherto too little noticed, but destined yet to
become prominent and fruitful. A large number of religious phrases
were in common use among the Jews at the time of Jesus. He adopted
them, but infused into them a deeper, a correct meaning, as
Copernicus did into the old astronomic formulas. But the
bystanders who listened to his discourses, hearing the familiar
terms, seized the familiar meaning, and erroneously attributed it
to him. It is certain that the Savior was often misunderstood and
often not understood at all. When he declared himself the Messiah,
the people would have made him a king by force! Even the apostles
frequently grossly failed to appreciate his spirit and aims,
wrenched unwarrantable inferences from his words, and quarrelled
for the precedency in his coming kingdom and for seats at his
right hand. In numerous cases it is glaringly plain that his ideas
were far from their conceptions of them. We have no doubt the same
was true in many other instances where it is not so clear. He
repeatedly reproves them for folly and slowness because they did
not perceive the sense of his instructions. Perhaps there was a
slight impatience in his tones when he said, "How is it that ye do
not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that
ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees?" Jesus uttered in established phrases new and
profoundly spiritual thoughts. The apostles educated in, and full
of, as they evidently were, the dogmas, prejudices, and

1 See this distinction affirmed by De Wette, in the preface to his
Commentatio de Morte Jesus Christi Expiatoria. See also Thurn,
Jesus und seine Apostel in Widerspruch in Ansehung der Lehre von
der Ewigcn Verdamnniss. In Scherer's Schriftforsch. sect. i. nr.
4.


hopes of their age and land would naturally, to some extent,
misapprehend his meaning. Then, after a tumultuous interval,
writing out his instructions from memory, how perfectly natural
that their own convictions and sentiments would have a powerful
influence in modifying and shaping the animus and the verbal
expressions in their reports! Under the circumstances, that we
should now possess the very equivalents of his words with strict
literalness, and conveying his very intentions perfectly
translated from the Aramaan into the Greek tongue, would imply the
most sustained and amazing of all miracles. There is nothing
whatever that indicates any such miraculous intervention. There is
nothing to discredit the fair presumption that the writers were
left to their own abilities, under the inspiration of an earnest
consecrating love and truthfulness. And we must, with due
limitations, distinguish between the original words and conscious
meaning of the sublime Master, illustrated by the emphasis and
discrimination of his looks, tones, and gestures, and the
apprehended meaning recorded long afterwards, shaped and colored
by passing through the minds and pens of the sometimes dissentient
and always imperfect disciples. He once declared to them, "I have
many things to say unto you, but ye are not able to bear them."
Admitting his infallibility, as we may, yet asserting their
fallibility, as we must, and accompanied, too, as his words now
are by many very obscuring circumstances, it is extremely
difficult to lay the hand on discriminated texts and say,
"[non ASCII characters]"

The Messianic doctrine prevalent among the Jews in the time of
Jesus appears to have been built up little by little, by religious
faith, national pride, and priestly desire, out of literal
interpretations of figurative prophecy, and Cabalistic
interpretations of plain language, and Rabbinical traditions and
speculations, additionally corrupted in some particulars by
intercourse with the Persians. Under all this was a central
spiritual germ of a Divine promise and plan. A Messiah was really
to come. It was in answering the questions, what kind of a king he
was to be, and over what sort of a kingdom he was to reign, that
the errors crept in. The Messianic conceptions which have come
down to us through the Prophets, the Targums, incidental allusions
in the New Testament, the Talmud, and the few other traditions and
records yet in existence, are very diverse and sometimes
contradictory. They agreed in ardently looking for an earthly
sovereign in the Messiah, one who would rise up in the line of
David and by the power of Jehovah deliver his people, punish their
enemies, subdue the world to his sceptre, and reign with Divine
auspices of beneficence and splendor. They also expected that then
a portion of the dead would rise from the under world and assume
their bodies again, to participate in the triumphs and blessings
of his earthly kingdom. His personal reign in Judea was what they
usually meant by the phrases "the kingdom of heaven," "the kingdom
of God." The apostles cherished these ideas, and expressed them in
the terms common to their countrymen. But we cannot doubt that
Jesus employed this and kindred language in a purer and deeper
sense, which we must take pains to distinguish from the early and
lingering errors associated with it.

Upon the threshold of our subject we meet with predictions of a
second coming of Christ from heaven, with power and glory, to sit
on his throne and judge the world. The portentous imagery in which
these prophecies are clothed is taken from the old prophets; and
to them

we must turn to learn its usage and force. The Hebrews called any
signal manifestation of power especially any dreadful calamity a
coming of the Lord. It was a coming of Jehovah when his vengeance
strewed the ground with the corpses of Sennacherib's host; when
its storm swept Jerusalem as with fire, and bore Israel into
bondage; when its sword came down upon Idumea and was bathed in
blood upon Edom. "The day of the Lord" is another term of
precisely similar import. It occurs in the Old Testament about
fifteen times. In every instance it means some mighty
manifestation of God's power in calamity. These occasions are
pictured forth with the most astounding figures of speech. Isaiah
describes the approaching destruction of Babylon in these terms:
"The stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall give no
light; the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not shine, the
heavens shall shake, and the earth shall remove out of her place
and be as a frightened sheep that no man taketh up." The Jews
expected that the coming of the Messiah would be preceded by many
fearful woes, in the midst of which he would appear with peerless
pomp and might. The day of his coming they named emphatically the
day of the Lord. Jesus actually appeared, not, as they expected, a
warrior travelling in the greatness of his strength, with dyed
garments from Bozrah, staining his raiment with blood as he
trampled in the wine vat of vengeance, but the true Messiah, God's
foreordained and anointed Son, despised and rejected of men,
bringing good tidings, publishing peace. It must have been
impossible for the Jews to receive such a Messiah without
explanations. Those few who became converts apprehended his
Messianic language, at least to some extent, in the sense which
previously occupied their minds. He knew that often he was not
understood; and he frequently said to his followers, "Who hath
ears to hear, let him hear." His disciples once asked him, "What
shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" He
replied, substantially, "There shall be wars, famines, and
unheard of trials; and immediately after the sun shall be
darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall
from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Then
shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with
great power. And he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and
all nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate
them one from another." That this language was understood by the
evangelists and the early Christians, in accordance with their
Pharisaic notions, as teaching literally a physical reappearance
of Christ on the earth, a resurrection, and a general judgment, we
fully believe. Those ideas were prevalent at the time, are
expressed in scores of places in the New Testament, and are the
direct strong assertion of the words themselves. But that such was
the meaning of Christ himself we much more than doubt.

In the first place, in his own language in regard to his second
coming there is not the least hint of a resurrection of the dead:
the scene is confined to the living, and to the earth. Secondly,
the figures which he employs in this connection are the same as
those used by the Jewish prophets to denote great and signal
events on the earth, and may be so taken here without violence to
the idiom. Thirdly, he expressly fixed the date of the events he
referred to within that generation; and if, therefore, he spoke
literally, he was grossly in error, and his prophecies failed of
fulfilment, a conclusion which we cannot adopt. To suppose that he
partook in the false, mechanical dogmas of the carnal Jews would
be equally irreconcilable with the common idea of his Divine
inspiration, and with the profound penetration and spirituality
of his own mind.

He certainly used much of the phraseology of his contemporary
countrymen, metaphorically, to convey his own purer thoughts. We
have no doubt he did so in regard to the descriptions of his
second coming. Let us state in a form of paraphrase what his real
instructions on this point seem to us to have been: "You cannot
believe that I am the Messiah, because I do not deliver you from
your oppressors and trample on the Gentiles. Your minds are
clouded with errors. The Father hath sent me to found the kingdom
of peace and righteousness, and hath given me all power to reward
and punish. By my word shall the nations of the earth be honored
and blessed, or be overwhelmed with fire; and every man must stand
before my judgment seat. The end of the world is at the doors. The
Mosaic dispensation is about to be closed in the fearful
tribulations of the day of the Lord, and my dispensation to be set
up. When you see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, know that the
day is at hand, and flee to the mountains; for not one stone shall
be left upon another. Then the power of God will be shown on my
behalf, and the sign of the Son of Man be seen in heaven. My
truths shall prevail, and shall be owned as the criteria of Divine
judgment. According to them, all the righteous shall be
distinguished as my subjects, and all the iniquitous shall be
separated from my kingdom. Some of those standing here shall not
taste death till all these things be fulfilled. Then it will be
seen that I am the Messiah, and that through the eternal
principles of truth which I have proclaimed I shall sit upon a
throne of glory, not literally, in person, as you thought,
blessing the Jews and cursing the Gentiles, but spiritually, in
the truth, dispensing joy to good men and woe to bad men,
according to their deserts." Such we believe to be the meaning of
Christ's own predictions of his second coming. He figuratively
identifies himself with his religion according to that idiom by
which it is written, "Moses hath in every city them that read him,
being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." His figure of
himself as the universal judge is a bold personification; for he
elsewhere says, "He that believeth in me believeth not in me, but
in Him that sent me." And again, "He that rejecteth me, I judge
him not: the word that I have spoken, that shall judge him." His
coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory was
when, at the destruction of Jerusalem, the old age closed and the
new began, the obstacles to his religion were removed and his
throne established on the earth.2 The apostles undoubtedly
understood the doctrine differently; but that such was his own
thought we conclude, because he did sometimes undeniably use
figurative language in that way, and because the other meaning is
an error, not in harmony either with his character, his mind, or
his mission.

This interpretation is so important that it may need to be
illustrated and confirmed by further instances: "When the Son of
Man sits on the throne of his glory, and all nations are gathered
before him, his angels shall sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth." A few such picturesque phrases have led to
the general belief in a great world judgment at the end of the

2 Norton, Statement of Reasons, Appendix.


appointed time, after which the condemned are to be thrown into
the tortures of an unquenchable world of flame. How arbitrary and
violent a conclusion this is, how unwarranted and gross a
perversion of the language of Christ it is, we may easily see. The
fact that the old prophets often described fearful misfortunes and
woes in images of clouds and flame and falling stars, and other
portentous symbols, and that this style was therefore familiar to
the Jews, would make it very natural for Jesus, in foretelling
such an event as the coming destruction of Jerusalem, in
conflagration and massacre, with the irretrievable subversion of
the old dispensation, to picture it forth in a similar way. Fire
was to the Jews a common emblem of calamity and devastation; and
judgments incomparably less momentous than those gathered about
the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the self boasted
favorites of Jehovah were often described by the prophets in
appalling images of darkened planets, shaking heavens, clouds,
fire, and blackness. Joel, speaking of a "day of the Lord," when
there should be famine and drought, and a horrid army of
destroying insects, "before whom a fire devoureth, and behind them
a flame burneth," draws the scene in these terrific colors: "The
earth shall quake before them; the sun and moon shall be dark, and
the stars shall withdraw their shining; and the Lord shall utter
his voice before his terrible army of locusts, caterpillars, and
destroying worms:" Ezekiel represents God as saying, "The house of
Israel is to me become dross: therefore I will gather you into the
midst of Jerusalem: as they gather silver, brass, iron, tin, and
lead into the midst of the furnace to blow the fire upon it, so
will I gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and
ye shall be melted in the midst thereof." We read in Isaiah, "The
Assyrian shall flee, and his princes shall be afraid, saith the
Lord, whose fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem." Malachi
also says, "The day cometh that shall burn as a furnace, and all
that do wickedly shall be stubble, and shall be burned up root and
branch. They shall be trodden as ashes beneath the feet of the
righteous." The meaning of these passages, and of many other
similar ones, is, in every instance, some severe temporal
calamity, some dire example of Jehovah's retributions among the
nations of the earth. Their authors never dreamed of teaching that
there is a place of fire beyond the grave in which the wicked dead
shall be tormented, or that the natural creation is finally to be
devoured by flame. It is perfectly certain that not a single text
in the Old Testament was meant to teach any such doctrine as that.
The judgments shadowed forth in kindred metaphors by Christ are to
be understood in the light of this fact. Their meaning is, that
all unjust, cruel, false, impure men shall endure severe
punishments. This general thought is fearfully distinct; but every
thing beyond all details are left in utter obscurity.

In the august scene of the King in judgment, when the sentence has
been pronounced on those at the left hand, "Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his
angels," it is written, "and they shall go away into everlasting
punishment." It is obvious to remark that the imagery of a fiery
prison built for Satan and the fallen angels, and into which the
bad shall be finally doomed, is poetical language, or language of
accommodation to the current notions of the time. These startling
Oriental figures are used to wrap and convey the assertion that
the wicked shall be severely punished according to their deserts.
No literal reference seems to be made either to the particular
time, to the

special place, or to the distinctive character, of the punishment;
but the mere fact is stated in a manner to fill the conscience
with awe and to stamp the practical lesson vividly on the memory.
But admitting the clauses apparently descriptive of the nature of
this retribution to be metaphorical, yet what shall we think of
its duration? Is it absolutely unending? There is nothing in the
record to enable a candid inquirer to answer that question
decisively. So far as the letter of Scripture is concerned, there
are no data to give an indubitable solution to the problem. It is
true the word "everlasting" is repeated; but, when impartially
weighed, it seems a sudden rhetorical expression, of indefinite
force, used to heighten the impressiveness of a sublime dramatic
representation, rather than a cautious philosophical term employed
to convey an abstract conception. There is no reason whatever for
supposing that Christ's mind was particularly directed to the
metaphysical idea of endlessness, or to the much more metaphysical
idea of timelessness. The presumptive evidence is that he spoke
popularly. Had he been charged to reveal a doctrine so tremendous,
so awful, so unutterably momentous in its practical relations, as
that of the endless close of all probation at death, is it
conceivable that he would merely have couched it in a few
figurative expressions and left it as a matter of obscure
inference and uncertainty? No: in that case, he would have
iterated and reiterated it, defined, guarded, illustrated it, and
have left no possibility of honest mistake or doubt of it.

The Greek word [non-ASCII characters], and the same is true of the
corresponding Hebrew word, translated "everlasting" in the English
Bible, has not in its popular usage the rigid force of eternal
duration, but varies, is now applied to objects as evanescent as
man's earthly life, now to objects as lasting as eternity.3
Its power in any given case is to be sought from the context and
the reason of the thing.

Isaiah, having threatened the unrighteous nations that they
"should conceive chaff and bring forth stubble, that their own
breath should be fire to devour them, and that they should be
burnt like lime, like thorns cut up in the fire," makes the
terror smitten sinners and hypocrites cry, "Who among us can dwell
in devouring fire? Who among us can dwell in everlasting
burnings?" Yet his reference is solely to an outward, temporal
judgment in this world. The Greek adjective rendered "everlasting"
is etymologically, and by universal usage, a term of duration, but
indefinite, its extent of meaning depending on the subjects of
which it is predicated. Therefore, when Christ connects this word
with the punishment of the wicked, it is impossible to say with
any certainty, judging from the language itself, whether he
implies that those who die in their sins are hopelessly lost,
perfectly irredeemable forever, or not, though the probabilities
are very strongly in the latter direction. "Everlasting
punishment" may mean, in philosophical strictness, a punishment
absolutely eternal, or may be a popular expression denoting, with
general indefiniteness, a very long duration. Since in all Greek
literature, sacred and profane, [non-ASCII characters] is applied
to things that end, ten times as often as it is to things immortal,
no fair critic can assert positively that when it is connected
with future punishment it has the stringent meaning of
metaphysical endlessness. On the other hand, no one has any
critical

3 See Christian Examiner for March, 1854, pp. 280-297.


right to say positively that in such cases it has not that
meaning. The Master has not explained his words on this point, but
has left them veiled. We can settle the question itself concerning
the limitedness or the unlimitedness of future punishment only on
other grounds than those of textual criticism, even on grounds of
enlightened reason postulating the cardinal principles of
Christianity and of ethics. Will not the unimpeded Spirit of
Christ lead all free minds and loving hearts to one conclusion?
But that conclusion is to be held modestly as a trusted inference,
not dogmatically as a received revelation.

Another point in the Savior's teachings which it is of the utmost
importance to understand is the sense in which he used the Jewish
phrases "Resurrection of the Dead" and "Resurrection at the Last
Day." The Pharisees looked for a restoration of the righteous from
their graves to a bodily life. This event they supposed would take
place at the appearance of the Messiah; and the time of his coming
they called "the last day." So the Apostle John says, "Already are
there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time."
Now, Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, clothed in his functions,
though he interpreted those functions as carrying an interior and
moral, not an outward and physical, force. "This is the will of
Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth
on him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at
the last day." Again, when Martha told Jesus that "she knew her
brother Lazarus would rise again in the resurrection at the last
day," he replied, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." This
utterance is surely metaphorical; for belief in Jesus does not
prevent physical dissolution. The thoughts contained in the
various passages belonging to this subject, when drawn out,
compared, and stated in general terms, seem to us to be as
follows: "You suppose that in the last day your Messiah will
restore the dead to live again upon the earth. I am the Messiah,
and the last days have therefore arrived. I am commissioned by the
Father to bestow eternal life upon all who believe on me; but not
in the manner you have anticipated. The true resurrection is not
calling the body from the tomb, but opening the fountains of
eternal life in the soul. I am come to open the spiritual world to
your faith. He that believeth in me and keepeth my commandments
has passed from death unto life, become conscious that though
seemingly he passes into the grave, yet really he shall live with
God forever. The true resurrection is, to come into the experience
of the truth that 'God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living; for all live unto him.' Over the soul that is filled with
such an experience, death has no power. Verily, I say unto, you,
the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead, the ignorant and
guilty, buried in trespasses and sins, shall hear these truths
declared, and they that believe shall lay hold of the life thus
offered and be blessed. The Father hath given me authority to
execute judgment, that is, to lay down the principles by which men
shall be judged according to their deserts. All mankind shall be
judged in the spiritual state by the spirit and precepts of my
religion as veritably as if in their graves the generations of the
dead heard my voice and came forth, the good to blessedness, the
evil to misery. The judgment which is, as it were, committed unto
me, is not really committed unto me, but unto the truth which I
declare; for of mine own self I can do nothing." We believe this
paraphrase expresses the essential meaning of Christ's own
declarations concerning a resurrection and an associated judgment.
Coming to bring from the Father authenticated tidings of
immortality, and to reveal the laws of the Divine judgment,
he declared that those who believed and kept his words were
delivered from the terror of death, and, knowing that an endless
life of blessedness was awaiting them, immediately entered upon
its experience. He did not teach the doctrine of a bodily
restoration, but said, "In the resurrection," that is, in the
spiritual state succeeding death, "they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are as the angels of heaven."

He did not teach the doctrine of a temporary sleep in the grave,
but said to the penitent thief on the cross, "This day shalt thou
be with me in Paradise:" instantly upon leaving the body their
souls would be together in the state of the blessed.

It is often said that the words of Jesus in relation to the dead
hearing his voice and coming forth must be taken literally; for
the metaphor is of too extreme violence. But it is in keeping with
his usage. He says, "Let the dead bury their dead." It is far less
bold than "This is my body; this is my blood." It is not nearly so
strong as Paul's adjuration, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and rise
from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." It is not more
daringly imaginative than the assertion that "the heroes sleeping
in Marathon's gory bed stirred in their graves when Leonidas
fought at Thermopyla; or than Christ's own words, "If thou hadst
faith like a grain of mustard seed, thou couldst say to this
mountain, Be thou cast into yonder sea, and it should obey you."
So one might say,

"Where'er the gospel comes,
It spreads diviner light;
It calls dead sinners from their tombs
And gives the blind their sight."

And in the latter days, when it has done its work, and the
glorious measure of human redemption is full, liberty,
intelligence, and love shall stand hand in hand on the mountain
summits and raise up the long generations of the dead to behold
the completed fruits of their toils. In this figurative moral
sense Jesus probably spoke when he said, "Thou shalt be
recompensed at the resurrection of the just." He referred simply
to the rewards of the virtuous in the state beyond the grave. The
phraseology in which he clothed the thought he accommodatingly
adopted from the current speech of the Pharisees. They
unquestionably meant by it the group of notions contained in their
dogma of the destined physical restoration of the dead from their
sepulchres at the advent of the Messiah. And it seems perfectly
plain to us, on an impartial study of the record, that the
evangelist, in reporting his words, took the Pharisaic dogma, and
not merely the Christian truth, with them. But that Jesus himself
modified and spiritualized the meaning of the phrase when he
employed it, even as he did the other contemporaneous language
descriptive of the Messianic offices and times, we conclude for
two reasons. First, he certainly did often use language in that
spiritual way, dressing in bold metaphors moral thoughts of
inspired insight and truth. Secondly, the moral doctrine is the
only one that is true, or that is in keeping with his penetrative
thought. The notion of a physical resurrection is an error
borrowed most likely from the Persians by the Pharisees, and not
belonging to the essential elements of Christianity. The notion
being prevalent at the time in Judea, and being usually expressed
in certain appropriated phrases, when Christ used those phrases in
a true spiritual sense the apostles would naturally apprehend from
them the carnal meaning which already filled their minds in common
with the minds of their countrymen.

The word Hades, translated in the English New Testament by the
word "hell," a word of nearly the same etymological force, but now
conveying a quite different meaning, occurs in the discourses of
Jesus only three several times. The other instances of its use are
repetitions or parallels. First, "And thou, Capernaum, which art
exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to the under world;" that
is, the great and proud city shall become powerless, a heap of
ruins. Second, "Upon this rock I will found my Church, and the
gates of the under world shall not prevail against it;" that is,
the powers of darkness, the opposition of the wicked, the strength
of evil, shall not destroy my religion; in spite of them it shall
assert its organization and overcome all obstacles.

The remaining example of the Savior's use of this word is in the
parable of Dives and Lazarus. The rich man is described, after
death, as suffering in the under world. Seeing the beggar afar off
in Abraham's bosom, he cries, "Father Abraham, pity me, and send
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool
my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." Well known fancies
and opinions are here wrought up in scenic form to convey certain
moral impressions. It will be noticed that the implied division of
the under world into two parts, with a gulf between them,
corresponds to the common Gentile notion of an Elysian region of
delightful meadows for the good and a Tartarean region of
blackness and fire for the bad, both included in one subterranean
kingdom, but divided by an interval. 4

The dramatic details of the account Lazarus being borne into bliss
by angels, Dives asking to have a messenger sent from bale to warn
his surviving brothers rest on opinions afloat among the Jews of
that age, derived from the Persian theology. Zoroaster prays,
"When I shall die, let Aban and Bahman carry me to the bosom of
joy."5 And it was a common belief among the Persians that souls
were at seasons permitted to leave purgatory and visit their
relatives on earth.6 It is evident that the narrative before us is
not a history to be literally construed, but a parable to be
carefully analyzed. The imagery and the particulars are to be laid
aside, and the central thoughts to be drawn forth. Take the words
literally, that the rich man's immaterial soul, writhing in
flames, wished the tip of a finger dipped in water to cool his
tongue, and they are ridiculous. Take them figuratively, as a type
of unknown spiritual anguish, and they are awful. Besides, had
Christ intended to teach the doctrine of a local burning hell, he
surely would have enunciated it in plain words, with solemn
iteration and explanatory amplifications, instead of merely
insinuating it incidentally, in metaphorical

4 See copious illustrations by Rosenmuller, in Luc. cap. xvi. 22,
23.
"Hic locus est partes ubi se via findit in ambas:
Dextera, qua Ditis magni sub moenia tendit;
Hac iter Elysium nobis: at lava malorum
Exercet poenas, et ad impia Tartara mittit."

5 Rhode, Heilige Sage des Zendvolks, s. 408.

6 Ibid. s. 410.


terms, in a professed parable. The sense of the parable is, that
the formal distinctions of this world will have no influence in
the allotments of the future state, but will often be reversed
there; that a righteous Providence, knowing every thing here,
rules hereafter, and will dispense compensating justice to all;
that men should not wait for a herald to rise from the dead to
warn them, but should heed the instructions they already have, and
so live in the life that now is, as to avoid a miserable
condemnation, and secure a blessed acceptance, in the life that is
to come. By inculcating these truths in a striking manner, through
the aid of a parable based on the familiar poetical conceptions of
the future world and its scenery, Christ no more endorses those
conceptions than by using the Messianic phrases of the Jews he
approves the false carnal views which they joined with that
language. To interpret the parable literally, then, and suppose it
meant to teach the actual existence of a located hell of fire for
sinners after death, is to disregard the proprieties of criticism.

"Gehenna," or the equivalent phrase, "Gehenna of fire,"
unfortunately translated into our tongue by the word "hell," is to
be found in the teachings of Christ in only five independent
instances, each of which, after tracing the original Jewish usage
of the term, we will briefly examine. Gehenna, or the Vale of
Hinnom, is derived from two Hebrew words, the first meaning a
vale, the second being the name of its owner. The place thus
called was the eastern part of the beautiful valley that forms the
southern boundary of Jerusalem. Here Moloch, the horrid idol god
worshipped by the Ammonites, and by the Israelites during their
idolatrous lapses, was set up. This monstrous idol had the head of
an ox and the body of a man. It was hollow; and, being filled with
fire, children were laid in its arms and devoured alive by the
heat. This explains the terrific denunciations uttered by the
prophets against those who made their children pass through the
fire to Moloch. The spot was sometimes entitled Tophet, a place of
abhorrence; its name being derived, as some think, from a word
meaning to vomit with loathing, or, as others suppose, from a word
signifying drum, because drums were beaten to drown the shrieks of
the burning children. After these horrible rites were abolished by
Josiah, the place became an utter abomination. All filth, the
offal of the city, the carcasses of beasts, the bodies of executed
criminals, were cast indiscriminately into Gehenna. Fires were
kept constantly burning to prevent the infection of the atmosphere
from the putrifying mass. Worms were to be seen preying on the
relics. The primary meaning, then, of Gehenna, is a valley outside
of Jerusalem, a place of corruption and fire, only to be thought
of with execration and shuddering.

Now, it was not only in keeping with Oriental rhetoric, but also
natural in itself, that figures of speech should be taken from
these obvious and dreadful facts to symbolize any dire evil. For
example, how naturally might a Jew, speaking of some foul wretch,
and standing, perhaps, within sight of the place, exclaim, "He
deserves to be hurled into the fires of Gehenna!" So the term
would gradually become an accepted emblem of abominable
punishment. Such was the fact; and this gives a perspicuous
meaning to the word without supposing it to imply a fiery prison
house of anguish in the future world. Isaiah threatens the King of
Assyria with ruin in these terms: "Tophet is ordained of old, and
prepared for the king: it is made deep and large; the pile thereof
is fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of
brimstone, doth kindle it." The prophet thus portrays, with the
dread imagery of Gehenna, approaching disaster and overthrow. A
thorough study of the Old Testament shows that the Jews, during
the period which it covers, did not believe in future rewards and
punishments, but expected that all souls without discrimination
would pass their shadowy dream lives in the silence of Sheol.

Between the termination of the Old Testament history and the
commencement of the New, various forms of the doctrine of future
retribution had been introduced or developed among the Jews. But
during this period few, if any, decisive instances can be found in
which the image of penal fire is connected with the future state.
On the contrary, "darkness," "gloom," "blackness," "profound and
perpetual night," are the terms employed to characterize the abode
and fate of the wicked.

Josephus says that, in the faith of the Pharisees, "the worst
criminals were banished to the darkest part of the under world."
Philo represents the depraved and condemned as "groping in the
lowest and darkest part of the creation. The word Gehenna is
rarely found in the literature of this time, and when it is it
commonly seems to be used either simply to denote the detestable
Vale of Hinnom, or else plainly as a general symbol of calamity
and horror, as in the elder prophets.

But in some of the Targums, or Chaldee paraphrases of the Hebrew
Scriptures,  especially in the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, we
meet repeated applications of the word Gehenna to signify a
punishment by fire in the future state.7 This is a fact about
which there can be no question. And to the documents showing such
a usage of the word, the best scholars are pretty well agreed in
assigning a date as early as the days of Christ. The evidence
afforded by these Targums, together with the marked application of
the term by Jesus himself, and the similar general use of it
immediately after both by Christians and Jews, render it not
improbable that Gehenna was known to the contemporaries of the
Savior as the metaphorical name of hell, a region of fire, in the
under world, where the reprobate were supposed to be punished
after death. But admitting that, before Christ began to teach, the
Jews had modified their early conception of the under world as the
silent and sombre abode of all the dead in common, and had divided
it into two parts, one where the wicked suffer, called Gehenna,
one where the righteous rest, called Paradise, still, that
modification having been borrowed, as is historically evident,
from the Gentiles, or, if developed among themselves, at all
events unconnected with revelation, of course Christianity is not
involved with the truth or falsity of it, is not responsible for
it. It does not necessarily follow that Jesus gave precisely the
same meaning to the word Gehenna that his contemporaries or
successors did. He may have used it in a modified emblematic
sense, as he did many other current terms. In studying his
language, we should especially free our minds both from the
tyranny of pre Christian notions and dogmas and from the
associations and influences of modern creeds, and seek to
interpret it in the light of his own instructions and in the
spirit of his own mind.

We will now examine the cases in which Christ uses the term
Gehenna, and ask what it means.

First: "Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou vile wretch!
shall be in danger of the fiery Gehenna." Interpret this
literally, and it teaches that whosoever calls his brother a

7 Gesenius, Hebrew Thesaurus, Ge Hinnom.


wicked apostate is in danger of being thrown into the filthy
flames in the Vale of Hinnom. But no one supposes that such was
its meaning. Jesus would say, as we understand him, "I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfil, the law; to show how at the culmination
of the old dispensation a higher and stricter one opens. I say
unto you, that, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the
Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The conditions
of acceptance under the new order are far more profound and
difficult than under the old. That said, Whosoever commits murder
shall be exposed to legal punishment from the public tribunal.
This says, An invisible inward punishment, as much to be dreaded
as the judgments of the Sanhedrim, shall be inflicted upon those
who harbor the secret passions that lead to crime; whosoever, out
of an angry heart, insults his brother, shall be exposed to
spiritual retributions typified by the horrors of yon flaming
valley. They of old time took cognizance of outward crimes by
outward penalties. I take cognizance of inward sins by inward
returns more sure and more fearful."

Second: "If thy right eye be a source of temptation to thee, pluck
it out and fling it away; for it is better for thee that one of
thy members perish than that thy whole body should be cast into
Gehenna." Give these words a literal interpretation, and they
mean, "If your eyes or your hands are the occasions of crime, if
they tempt you to commit offences which will expose you to public
execution, to the ignominy and torture heaped upon felons put to a
shameful death and then flung among the burning filth of Gehenna,
pluck them out, cut them off betimes, and save yourself from such
a frightful end; for it is better to live even thus maimed than,
having a whole body, to be put to a violent death." No one can
suppose that Jesus meant to convey such an idea as that when he
uttered these words. We must, then, attribute a deeper, an
exclusively moral, significance to the passage. It means, "If you
have some bosom sin, to deny and root out which is like tearing
out an eye or cutting off a hand, pause not, but overcome and
destroy it immediately, at whatever cost of effort and suffering;
for it is better to endure the pain of fighting and smothering a
bad passion than to submit to it and allow it to rule until it
acquires complete control over you, pervades your whole nature
with its miserable unrest, and brings you at last into a state of
woe of which Gehenna and its dreadful associations are a fit
emblem." A verse spoken, according to Mark, in immediate
connection with the present passage, confirms the figurative sense
we have attributed to it: "Whosoever shall cause one of these
little ones that believe in me to fall, it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged around his neck and he were plunged
into the midst of the sea;" that is, in literal terms, a man had
better meet a great calamity, even the loss of life, than commit a
foul crime and thus bring the woe of guilt upon his soul.

The phrase, "their worm dieth not, and their fire is not
quenched," is a part of the imagery naturally suggested by the
scene in the Valley of Hinnom, and was used to give greater
vividness and force to the moral impression of the discourse. By
an interpretation resulting either from prejudice or ignorance, it
is generally held to teach the doctrine of literal fire torments
enduring forever. It is a direct quotation from a passage in
Isaiah which signifies that, in a glorious age to come, Jehovah
will cause his worshippers to go forth from new moon to new moon
and look upon the carcasses of the wicked, and see them devoured
by fire which shall not be quenched and gnawed by worms which
shall not die, until the last relics of them are destroyed.

Third: "Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill
the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and
body in Gehenna." A similar use of figurative language, in a still
bolder manner, is found in Isaiah. Intending to say nothing more
than that Assyria should be overthrown and crushed, the prophet
bursts out, "Under the glory of the King of Assyria Jehovah shall
kindle a burning like the burning of a fire; and it shall burn and
devour his thorns and his briers in one day, and shall consume the
glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both soul and
body." Reading the whole passage in Matthew with a single eye, its
meaning will be apparent. We may paraphrase it thus. Jesus says to
his disciples, "You are now going forth to preach the gospel. My
religion and its destinies are intrusted to your hands. As you go
from place to place, be on your guard; for they will persecute
you, and scourge you, and deliver you up to death. But fear them
not. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master; and
if they have done so unto me, how much more shall they unto you!
Do not, through fear of hostile men, who can only kill your bodies
and are not able in any wise to injure your souls, shrink from
danger and prove recreant to the momentous duties imposed upon
you; but be inspired to proclaim the principles of the heavenly
kingdom with earnestness and courage, in the face of all perils,
by fearing God, him who is able to plunge both your souls and your
bodies in abomination and agony, him who, if you prove unfaithful
and become slothful servants or wicked traitors, will leave your
bodies to a violent death and after that your souls to bitter
shame and anguish. Fear not the temporal, physical power of your
enemies, to be turned from your work by it; but rather fear the
eternal, spiritual power of your God, to be made faithful by it."

Fourth: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and, when he is made,
ye make him twofold more a child of Gehenna than yourselves." That
is, "Ye make him twice as bad as yourselves in hypocrisy, bigotry,
extortion, impurity, and malice, a subject of double guilt and of
double retribution."

Finally, Jesus exclaims to the children of those who killed the
prophets, "Serpents, brood of vipers! how can ye escape the
condemnation of Gehenna?" That is to say, "Venomous creatures, bad
men! you deserve the fate of the worst criminals; you are worthy
of the polluted fires of Gehenna; your vices will surely be
followed by condign punishment: how can such depravity escape the
severest retributions?"

These five are all the distinct instances in which Jesus uses the
word Gehenna. It is plain that he always uses the word
metaphorically. We therefore conclude that Christianity, correctly
understood, never implies that eternal fire awaits sinners in the
future world, but that moral retributions, according to their
deeds, are the portion of all men here and hereafter. There is no
more reason to suppose that essential Christianity contains the
doctrine of a fiery infernal world than there is to suppose that
it really means to declare that God is a glowing mass of flame,
when it says, "Our God is a consuming fire." We must remember the
metaphorical character of much scriptural language. Wickedness is
a fire, in that it preys upon men and draws down the displeasure
of the Almighty, and consumes them.

As Isaiah writes, "Wickedness burneth as the fire, the anger of
Jehovah darkens the land, and the people shall be the food of the
fire." And James declares to proud extortioners, "The rust of your
cankered gold and silver shall eat your flesh as it were fire."

When Jesus says, "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and
Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city" which will not
listen to the preaching of my kingdom, but drives my disciples
away, he uses a familiar figure to signify that Sodom and Gomorrah
would at such a call have repented in sackcloth and ashes. The
guilt of Chorazin and Bethsaida was, therefore, more hardened than
theirs, and should receive a severer punishment; or, making
allowance for the natural exaggeration of this kind of language,
he means, That city whose iniquities and scornful unbelief lead it
to reject my kingdom when it is proffered shall be brought to
judgment and be overwhelmed with avenging calamities. Two parallel
illustrations of this image are given us by the old prophets.
Isaiah says, "Babylon shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah." And Jeremiah complains, "The punishment of Jerusalem is
greater than the punishment of Sodom." It is certainly remarkable
that such passages should ever have been thought to teach the
doctrine of a final, universal judgment day breaking on the world
in fire.

The subject of our Lord's teachings in regard to the punishment of
the wicked is included in two classes of texts, and may be summed
up in a few words. One class of texts relate to the visible
establishment of Christianity as the true religion, the Divine
law, at the destruction of the Jewish power, and to the frightful
woes which should then fall upon the murderers of Christ, the
bitter enemies of his cause. All these things were to come upon
that generation,  were to happen before some of them then standing
there tasted death. The other class of texts and they are by far
the more numerous signify that the kingdom of Truth is now
revealed and set up; that all men are bound to accept and obey it
with reverence and love, and thus become its blessed subjects, the
happy and immortal children of God; that those who spurn its
offers, break its laws, and violate its pure spirit shall be
punished, inevitably and fearfully, by moral retributions
proportioned to the degrees of their guilt. Christ does not teach
that the good are immortal and that the bad shall be annihilated,
but that all alike, both the just and the unjust, enter the
spiritual world. He does not teach that the bad shall be eternally
miserable, cut off from all possibility of amendment, but simply
that they shall be justly judged. He makes no definitive reference
to duration, but leaves us at liberty, peering into the gloom as
best we can, to suppose, if we think it most reasonable, that the
conditions of our spiritual nature are the same in the future as
now, and therefore that the wicked may go on in evil hereafter,
or, if they will, all turn to righteousness, and the universe
finally become as one sea of holiness and as one flood of praise.

Another portion of Christ's doctrine of the future life hinges on
the phrase "the kingdom of heaven." Much is implied in this term
and its accompaniments, and may be drawn out by answering the
questions, What is heaven? Who are citizens of, and who are aliens
from, the kingdom of God? Let us first examine the subordinate
meanings and shades of meaning with which the Savior sometimes
uses these phrases.

"Ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man." No confirmation of the literal
sense of this that is afforded by any incident found in the
Gospels. There is every reason for supposing that he meant by it,
"There shall be open manifestations of supernatural power and
favor bestowed upon me by God, evident signs of direct
communications between us." His Divine works and instructions
justified the statement. The word "heaven" as here used, then,
does not mean any particular place, but means the approving
presence of God. The instincts and natural language of man prompt
us to consider objects of reverence as above us. We kneel below
them. The splendor, mystery, infinity, of the starry regions help
on the delusion. But surely no one possessing clear spiritual
perceptions will think the literal facts in the case must
correspond to this, that God must dwell in a place overhead called
heaven. He is an Omnipresence.

"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you for my
sake: rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven." This passage
probably means, "In the midst of tribulation be exceeding glad;
because you shall be abundantly rewarded in a future state for all
your present sufferings in my cause." In that case, heaven
signifies the spiritual world, and does not involve reference to
any precisely located spot. Or it may mean, "Be not disheartened
by insults and persecutions met in the cause of God; for you shall
be greatly blessed in your inward life: the approval of
conscience, the immortal love and pity of God, shall be yours: the
more you are hated and abused by men unjustly, the closer and
sweeter shall be your communion with God." In that case, heaven
signifies fellowship with the Father, and is independent of any
particular time or place.

"Our Father, who art in heaven." Jesus was not the author of this
sentence. It was a part of the Rabbinical synagogue service, and
was based upon the Hebrew conception of God as having his abode in
an especial sense over the firmament. The Savior uses it as the
language of accommodation, as is evident from his conversation
with the woman of Samaria; for he told her that no exclusive spot
was an acceptable place of worship, since "God is a Spirit; and
they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." No
one who comprehends the meaning of the words can suppose that the
Infinite Spirit occupies a confined local habitation, and that men
must literally journey there to be with him after death. Wherever
they may be now, they are away from him or with him, according to
their characters. After death they are more banished from him or
more immediately with him, instantly, wherever they are, according
to the spirit they are of.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but in heaven." In
other words, Be not absorbed in efforts to accumulate hoards of
gold and silver, and to get houses and lands, which will soon pass
away; but rather labor to acquire heavenly treasures, wisdom,
love, purity, and faith, which will never pass from your
possession nor cease from your enjoyment.

"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where
I am there ye may be also." To understand this text, we must
carefully study the whole four chapters of the connection in which
it stands. They abound in bold symbols. An instance of this is
seen where Jesus, having washed his disciples' feet, says to them,
"Ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him.
Therefore said he, Ye are not all clean." The actual meaning of
the passage before us may be illustrated by a short paraphrase of
it with the context: "Let not your hearts be troubled by the
thought that I must die and be removed from you; for there are
other states of being besides this earthly life. When they crucify
me, as I have said to you before, I shall not perish, but shall
pass into a higher state of existence with my Father. Whither I go
ye know, and the way ye know: my Father is the end, and the truths
that I have declared point out the way. If ye loved me, ye would
rejoice because I say that I go to the Father. And if I go to him,
if, when they have put me to death, I pass into an unseen state of
blessedness and glory (as I prophesy unto you that I shall,) I
will reveal myself unto you again, and tell you. I go before you
as a pioneer, and will surely come back and confirm, with
irresistible evidence, the reality of what I have already told
you. Therefore, trouble not your hearts, but be of good cheer."

"There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
that repenteth." The sentiment of this Divine declaration simply
implies that all good beings sympathize with every triumph of
goodness; that the living chain of mutual interest runs through
the spiritual universe, making one family of those on earth and
those in the invisible state.

"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father." "Cling not
to me, detain me not, for I have not yet left the world forever,
to be in the spiritual state with my Father; and ere I do this I
must seek my disciples, to convince them of my resurrection and to
give them my parting commission and blessing." He used the common
language, for it was the only language which she whom he addressed
would understand; and although, literally interpreted, it conveyed
the idea of a local heaven on high, yet at the same time it
conveyed, and in the only way intelligible to her, all the truth
that was important, namely, that when he disappeared he would
still be living, and be, furthermore, with God.

When Christ finally went from his disciples, he seemed to them to
rise and vanish towards the clouds. This would confirm their
previous material conceptions, and the old forms of speech would
be handed down, strengthened by these phenomena, misunderstood in
themselves and exaggerated in their importance. We generally speak
now of God's "throne," of "heaven," as situated far away in the
blue ether; we point upward to the world of bliss, and say, There
the celestial hosannas roll; there the happy ones, the unforgotten
ones of our love, wait to welcome us. These forms of speech are
entirely natural; they are harmless; they aid in giving
definiteness to our thoughts and feelings, and it is well to
continue their use; it would be difficult to express our thoughts
without them. However, we must understand that they are not
strictly and exclusively true. God is everywhere; and wherever he
is there is heaven to the spirits that are like him and,
consequently, see him and enjoy his ineffable blessedness.

Jesus sometimes uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven" as synonymous
with the Divine will, the spiritual principles or laws which he
was inspired to proclaim. Many of his parables were spoken to
illustrate the diffusive power and the incomparable value of the
truth he taught, as when he said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a
grain of mustard seed, which becomes a great tree;" it is "like
unto leaven, which a woman put in two measures of meal until the
whole was leavened;" it is "like a treasure hid in a field," or
"like a goodly pearl of great price, which, a man finding, he goes
and sells all that he has and buys it." In these examples "the
kingdom of heaven" is plainly a personification of the revealed
will of God, the true law of salvation and eternal life. In answer
to the question why he spoke so many things to the people in
parables, Jesus said to his disciples, "Because it is given unto
you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but unto them
it is not given;" that is, You are prepared to understand the
hitherto concealed truths of God's government, if set forth
plainly; but they are not prepared.

Here as also in the parables of the vineyard let out to
husbandmen, and of the man who sowed good seed in his field, and
in a few other cases "the kingdom of heaven" means God's
government, his mode of dealing with men, his method of
establishing his truths in the hearts of men. "The kingdom of
heaven" sometimes signifies personal purity and peace, freedom
from sensual solicitations. "There be eunuchs which have made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is
able to receive it, let him receive it."

Christ frequently uses the term "kingdom of heaven" in a somewhat
restricted, traditional sense, based in form but not in spirit
upon the Jewish expectations of the Messiah's kingdom. "Be ye sure
of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you;" "I must
preach the kingdom of God to other cities also;" "Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand." Christ was charged to bear to men a
new revelation from God of his government and laws, that he might
reign over them as a monarch over conscious and loyal subjects.
"Many shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the
children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness."
The sense of these texts is as follows. "God is now offering unto
you, through me, a spiritual dispensation, a new kingdom; but,
unless you faithfully heed it and fulfil its conditions, you shall
be rejected from it and lose the Divine favor. Although, by your
position as the chosen people, and in the line of revelation, you
are its natural heirs, yet, unless you rule your spirits and lives
by its commands, you shall see the despised Gentiles enjoying all
the privileges your faith allows to the revered patriarchs of your
nation, while yourselves are shut out from them and overwhelmed
with shame and anguish. Your pride of descent, haughtiness of
spirit, and reliance upon dead rites unfit you for the true
kingdom of God, the inward reign of humility and righteousness;
and the very publicans and harlots, repenting and humbling
themselves, shall go into it before you."

To be welcomed under this Messianic dispensation, to become a
citizen of this spiritual kingdom of God, the Savior declares that
there are certain indispensable conditions. A man must repent and
forsake his sins. This was the burden of John's preaching, that
the candidate for the kingdom of heaven must first be baptized
with water unto repentance, as a sign that he abjures and is
cleansed from all his old errors and iniquities. Then he must be
baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, that is, must learn
the positive principles of the coming kingdom, and apply them to
his own character, to purge away every corrupt thing. He must be
born again, born of water and of the Spirit: in other words, he
must be brought out from his impurity and wickedness into a new
and Divine life of holiness, awakened to a conscious experience of
purity, truth, and love, the great prime elements in the reign of
God. He must be guileless and lowly. "Whosoever will not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter
therein."

The kingdom of heaven, the better dispensation which Christ came
to establish, is the humility of contrite hearts, the innocence of
little children, the purity of undefiled consciences, the fruit of
good works, the truth of universal laws, the love of God, and the
conscious experience of an indestructible, blessed being. Those
who enter into these qualities in faith, in feeling, and in action
are full citizens of that eternal kingdom; all others are aliens
from it.

Heaven, then, according to Christ's use of the word, is not
distinctively a world situated somewhere in immensity, but a
purely spiritual experience, having nothing to do with any special
time or place. It is a state of the soul, or a state of society,
under the rule of truth, governed by God's will, either in this
life or in a future. He said to the young ruler who had walked
faithfully in the law, and whose good traits drew forth his love,
"Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." It is evident that
this does not mean a bounded place of abode, but a true state of
character, a virtuous mode of life "My kingdom is not of this
world." "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." That
is, "My kingdom is the realm of truth, the dominion of God's will,
and all true men are my subjects." Evidently this is not a
material but a moral reign and therefore unlimited by seasons or
places. Wherever purity, truth, love, obedience, prevail, there is
God, and that is heaven. It is not necessary to depart into some
distant sphere to meet the Infinite Holy One and dwell with him.
He is on the very dust we tread, he is the very centre of our
souls and breath of our lives, if we are only in a state that is
fitted to recognise and enjoy him. "He that hath sent me is with
me: the Father hath not left me alone, for I always do those
things which please him." It is a fair inference from such
statements as this that to do with conscious adoration and love
those things that please God is to be with him, without regard to
time or place; and that is heaven. "I speak that which I have seen
with my Father," God, "and ye do that which ye have seen with your
father, the devil." No one will suppose that Jesus meant to tell
the wicked men whom he was addressing that they committed their
iniquities in consequence of lessons learned in a previous state
of existence with an arch fiend, the parent of all evil. His
meaning, then, was, I bring forth in words and deeds the things
which I have learned in my secret soul from inspired communion
with infinite goodness and perfection; you bring forth the things
which you have learned from communion with the source of sin and
woe, that is, foul propensities, cruel passions, and evil
thoughts.

"I come forth from the Father and am come into the world; again I
leave the world and go unto the Father." "I go unto Him that sent
me." Since it is declared that God is an Omnipresent Spirit, and
that those who obey and love him see him and are with him
everywhere, these striking words must bear one of the two
following interpretations. First, they may imply in general that
man is created and sent into this state of being by the Father,
and that after the termination of the present life the soul is
admitted to a closer union with the Parent Spirit. This gives a
natural meaning to the language which represents dying as going to
the Father. Not that it is necessary to travel to reach God, but
that the spiritual verity is most adequately expressed under such
a metaphor. But, secondly, and more probably, the phraseology
under consideration may be meant as an assertion of the Divine
origin and authority of the special mission of Christ. "Neither
came I of myself, but He sent me;" "The words that I speak unto
you I speak not of myself;" "As the Father hath taught me, I speak
these things." These passages do not necessarily teach the pre
existence of Christ and his descent from heaven in the flesh. That
is a carnal interpretation which does great violence to the
genuine nature of the claims put forth by our Savior. They may
merely declare the supernatural commission of the Son of God, his
direct inspiration and authority. He did not voluntarily assume
his great work, but was Divinely ordered on that service. Compare
the following text: "The baptism of John, whence was it, from
Heaven, or of men?" That is to say, was it of human or of Divine
origin and authority? So when it is said that the Son of Man
descended from heaven, or was sent by the Father, the meaning in
Christ's mind probably was that he was raised up, did his works,
spoke his words, by the inspiration and with the sanction of God.
The accuracy of this interpretation is seen by the following
citation from the Savior's own words, when he is speaking in his
prayer at the last supper of sending his disciples out to preach
the gospel: "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I
also sent them into the world." The reference, evidently, is to a
Divine choice and sealing, not to a descent upon the earth from
another sphere.

That the author of the Fourth Gospel believed that Christ
descended from heaven literally we have not the shadow of a doubt.
He repeatedly speaks of him as the great super angelic Logos, the
first born Son and perfect image of God, the instrumental cause of
the creation. His mind was filled with the same views, the same
lofty Logos theory that is so abundantly set forth in the writings
of Philo Judaus. He reports and describes the Savior in conformity
with such a theological postulate. Possessed with the foregone
conclusion that Jesus was the Divine Logos, descended from the
celestial abode, and born into the world as a man, in endeavoring
to write out from memory, years after they were uttered, the
Savior's words, it is probable that he unconsciously
misapprehended and tinged them according to his theory. The
Delphic apothegm, "Know thyself," was said to have descended from
heaven:

"E coelo descendit [non ASCII characters]."

By a familiar Jewish idiom, "to ascend into heaven" meant to learn
the will of God.8 And whatever bore the direct sancion of God was
said to descend from heaven. When in these figurative terms Jesus
asserted his Divine commission, it seems that some understood him
literally, and concluded perhaps in consequence of his miracles,
joined with their own speculations that he was the Logos
incarnated. That such a conclusion was an unwarranted inference
from metaphorical language and from a foregone pagan dogma appears
from his own explanatory and justifying words spoken to the Jews.
For when they accused him of making himself God, he replies, "If
in your law they are called gods to whom the word of God came,
charge ye him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the
world with blasphemy, because he says he is the Son of God?"
Christ's language in the Fourth Gospel

8 Schoettgen, in John iii. 13.


may be fairly explained without implying his actual pre existence
or superhuman nature. But it does not seem to us that John's
possibly can be. His miracles, according to the common idea of
them, did not prove him to be the coequal fac simile, but merely
proved him to be the delegated envoy, of God.

We may sum up the consideration of this point in a few words.
Christ did not essentially mean by the term "heaven" the world of
light and glory located by the Hebrews, and by some other nations,
just above the visible firmament. His meaning, when he spoke of
the kingdom of God or heaven, was always, in some form, either the
reign of justice, purity, and love, or the invisible world of
spirits. If that world, heaven, be in fact, and were in his
conception, a sphere located in space, he never alluded to its
position, but left it perfectly in the dark, keeping his
instructions scrupulously free from any such commitment. He said,
"I go to Him that sent me;" "I will come again and receive you
unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." The references
to locality are vague and mysterious. The nature of his words, and
their scantiness, are as if he had said, We shall live hereafter;
we shall be with the Father; we shall be together. All the rest is
mystery, even to me: it is not important to be known, and the
Father hath concealed it. Such, almost, are his very words. "A
little while, and ye shall not see me; again, a little while, and
ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." "Father, I will that
they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." Whether
heaven be technically a material abode or a spiritual state it is
of little importance to us to know; and the teachings of Jesus
seem to have nothing to do with it. The important things for us to
know are that there is a heaven, and how we may prepare for it;
and on these points the revelation is explicit. To suppose the
Savior ignorant of some things is not inconsistent with his
endowments; for he himself avowed his ignorance, saying, "Of that
day knoweth no man; no, not even the angels which are in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father." And it adds an awful solemnity,
an indescribably exciting interest, to his departure from the
world, to conceive him hovering on the verge of the same mystery
which has enveloped every passing mortal,  hovering there with
chastened wonder and curiosity, inspired with an absolute trust
that in that fathomless obscurity the Father would be with him,
and would unveil new realms of life, and would enable him to come
back and assure his disciples. He certainly did not reveal the
details of the future state: whether he was acquainted with them
himself or not we cannot tell.

We next advance to the most important portion of the words of
Christ regarding the life and destiny of the soul, those parts of
his doctrine which are most of a personal, experimental character,
sounding the fountains of consciousness, piercing to the dividing
asunder of our being. It is often said that Jesus everywhere takes
for granted the fact of immortality, that it underlies and
permeates all he does and says. We should know at once that such a
being must be immortal; such a life could never be lived by an
ephemeral creature; of all possible proofs of immortality he is
himself the sublimest. This is true, but not the whole truth. The
resistless assurance, the Divine inspiration, the sublime repose,
with which he enunciates the various thoughts connected with the
theme of endless existence, are indeed marvellous. But he not only
authoritatively assumes the truth of a future life: he speaks
directly of it in many ways, often returns to it, continually
hovers about it, reasons for it, exhorts upon it, makes most of
his instructions hinge upon it, shows that it is a favorite
subject of his communion. We may put the justice of these
statements in a clear light by bringing together and explaining
some of his scattered utterances.

His express language teaches that man in this world is a twofold
being, leading a twofold life, physical and spiritual, the one
temporal, the other eternal, the one apt unduly to absorb his
affections, the other really deserving his profoundest care. This
separation of the body and the soul, and survival of the latter,
is brought to light in various striking forms and with various
piercing applications. In view of the dangers that beset his
disciples on their mission, he exhorted and warned them thus:
"Fear not them which have power to kill the body and afterwards
have no more that they can do; but rather fear Him who can kill
both soul and body;" "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it;
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it;" that
is, whosoever, for the sake of saving the life of his body,
shrinks from the duties of this dangerous time, shall lose the
highest welfare of the soul; but whosoever loveth his lower life
in the body less than he loves the virtues of a consecrated spirit
shall win the true blessedness of his soul. Both of these passages
show that the soul has a life and interest separate from the
material tabernacle. With what pathos and convincing power was the
same faith expressed in his ejaculation from the cross, "Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit!" an expression of trust which,
under such circumstances of desertion, horror, and agony, could
only have been prompted by that inspiration of God which he always
claimed to have.

Christ once reasoned with the Sadducees "as touching the dead,
that they rise;" in other words, that the souls of men upon the
decease of the body pass into another and an unending state of
existence: "Neither can they die any more; for they are equal with
the angels, and are children of God, being children of the
resurrection." His argument was, that "God is the God of the
living, not of the dead;" that is, the spiritual nature of man
involves such a relationship with God as pledges his attributes to
its perpetuity. The thought which supports this reasoning
penetrates far into the soul and grasps the moral relations
between man and God. It is most interesting viewed as the
unqualified affirmation by Jesus of the doctrine of a future life
which shall be deathless.

But the Savior usually stood in a more imposing attitude and spoke
in a more commanding tone than are indicated in the foregoing
sentences. The prevailing stand point from which he spoke was that
of an oracle giving responses from the inner shrine of the
Divinity. The words and sentiments he uttered were not his, but
the Father's; and he uttered them in the clear tones of knowledge
and authority, not in the whispering accents of speculation or
surmise. How these entrancing tidings came to him he knew not:
they were no creations of his; they rose spontaneously within him,
bearing the miraculous sign and seal of God, a recommendation he
could no more question or resist than he could deny his own
existence. He was set apart as a messenger to men. The tide of
inspiration welled up till it filled every nerve and crevice of
his being with conscious life and with an overmastering
recognition of its living relations with the Omnipresent and
Everlasting Life. Straightway he knew that the Father was in
him and he in the Father, and that he was commissioned to
reveal the mind of the Father to the world.

He knew, by the direct knowledge of inspiration and consciousness,
that he should live forever. Before his keen, full, spiritual
vitality the thought of death fled away, the thought of
annihilation could not come. So far removed was his soul from the
perception of interior sleep and decay, so broad and powerful was
his consciousness of indestructible life, that he saw quite
through the crumbling husks of time and sense to the crystal sea
of spirit and thought. So absorbing was his sense of eternal life
in himself that he even constructed an argument from his personal
feeling to prove the immortality of others, saying to his
disciples, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" "Ye believe in
God, believe also in me." Ye believe what God declares, for he
cannot be mistaken; believe what I declare for his inspiration
makes me infallible when I say there are many spheres of life for
us when this is ended.

It was from the fulness of this experience that Jesus addressed
his hearers. He spoke not so much as one who had faith that
immortal life would hereafter be revealed and certified, but
rather as one already in the insight and possession of it, as one
whose foot already trod the eternal floor and whose vision pierced
the immense horizon. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that
heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life." Being himself brought to this immovable
assurance of immortal life by the special inspiration of God, it
was his aim to bring others to the same blessed knowledge. His
efforts to effect this form a most constant feature in his
teachings. His own definition of his mission was, "I am come that
they might have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly." We see by the persistent drift of his words that he
strove to lead others to the same spiritual point he stood at,
that they might see the same prospect he saw, feel the same
certitude he felt, enjoy the same communion with God and sense of
immortality he enjoyed. "As the Father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will;" "For as
the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to have
life in himself;" "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
glorify thee; as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
might give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him: and
this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." In other words, the
mission of Christ was to awaken in men the experience of immortal
life; and that would be produced by imparting to them reproducing
in them the experience of his own soul. Let us notice what steps
he took to secure this end.

He begins by demanding the unreserved credence of men to what he
says, claiming to say it with express authority from God, and
giving miraculous credentials. "Whatsoever I speak, therefore, as
the Father said to me, so I speak." This claim to inspired
knowledge he advances so emphatically that it cannot be
overlooked. He then announces, as an unquestionable truth, the
supreme claim of man's spiritual interests upon his attention and
labor, alike from their inherent superiority and their enduring
subsistence. "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?" "Thou fool, this night thy soul
shall be required of thee: then whose shall be those things thou
hast gathered?" "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for
that meat which endureth unto everlasting life."

The inspiration which dictated these instructions evidently
based them upon the profoundest spiritual philosophy,  upon the
truth that man lives at once in a sphere of material objects which
is comparatively unimportant because he will soon leave it, and in
a sphere of moral realities which is all important because he will
live in it forever. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The body,
existing in the sphere of material relations, is supported by
material bread; but the soul, existing in the sphere of spiritual
relations, is supported by truth, the nourishing breath of God's
love. We are in the eternal world, then, at present. Its laws and
influences penetrate and rule us; its ethereal tides lave and bear
us on; our experience and destiny in it are decided every moment
by our characters. If we are pure in heart, have vital faith and
force, we shall see God and have new revelations made to us. Such
are among the fundamental principles of Christianity.

There is another class of texts, based upon a highly figurative
style of speech, striking Oriental idioms, the explanation of
which will cast further light upon the branch of the subject
immediately before us. "As the living Father hath sent me, and I
live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by
me;" that is, As the blessed Father hath inspired me with the
knowledge of him, and I am blessed with the consciousness of his
immortal love, so he that believes and assimilates these truths as
I proclaim them, he shall experience the same blessedness through
my instruction. The words. "I am the bread of life" are explained
by the words "I am the truth." The declaration "Whoso eateth my
flesh hath eternal life" is illustrated by the declaration
"Whosoever heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath
everlasting life." There is no difficulty in understanding what
Jesus meant when he said, "I have meat to eat ye know not of: my
meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." Why should we not
with the same ease, upon the same principles, interpret his
kindred expression, "This is the bread which cometh down from
heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die"? The idea to be
conveyed by all this phraseology is, that whosoever understands,
accepts, assimilates, and brings out in earnest experience, the
truths Christ taught, would realize the life of Christ, feel the
same assurance of Divine favor and eternal blessedness. "He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in
him;" that is, we have the same character, are fed by the same
nutriment, rest in the same experience. Fortunately, we are not
left to guess at the accuracy of this exegesis: it is demonstrated
from the lips of the Master himself. When he knew that the
disciples murmured at what he had said about eating his flesh, and
called it a hard saying, he said to them, "It is the spirit that
quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of
you that believe not." Any man who heartily believed what Christ
said that he was Divinely authorized to declare, and did declare,
the pervading goodness of the Father and the immortal blessedness
of the souls of his children, by the very terms was delivered from
the bondage of fear and commenced the consciousness of eternal
life. Of course, we are not to suppose that faith in Christ
obtains immortality itself for the believer: it only rectifies and
lights up the conditions of it, and awakens the consciousness of
it. "I am the resurrection and the life: whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die." We suppose this means, he shall
know that he is never to perish: it cannot refer to physical
dissolution, for the believer dies equally with the unbeliever; it
cannot refer to immortal existence in itself, for the unbeliever
is as immortal as the believer: it must refer to the blessed
nature of that immortality and to the personal assurance of it,
because these Christ does impart to the disciple, while the
unregenerate unbeliever in his doctrine, of course, has them not.
Coming from God to reveal his infinite love, exemplifying the
Divine elements of an immortal nature in his whole career, coming
back from the grave to show its sceptre broken and to point the
way to heaven, well may Christ proclaim, "Whosoever believes in
me" knows he "shall never perish."

Among the Savior's parables is an impressive one, which we cannot
help thinking  perhaps fancifully was intended to illustrate the
dealings of Providence in ordering the earthly destiny of
humanity. "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed
into the ground and the seed should grow up; but when the fruit is
ripe he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." Men
are seed sown in this world to ripen and be harvested in another.
The figure, taken on the scale of the human race and the whole
earth, is sublime. Whether such an image were originally suggested
by the parable or not, the conception is consistent with Christian
doctrine. The pious Sterling prays,

"Give thou the life which we require, That, rooted fast in thee,
From thee to thee we may aspire, And earth thy garden be."

The symbol shockingly perverted from its original beautiful
meaning by the mistaken belief that we sleep in our graves until a
distant resurrection day is often applied to burial grounds. Let
its appropriate significance be restored. Life is the field, death
the reaper, another sphere of being the immediate garner. An
enlightened Christian, instead of entitling a graveyard the garden
of the dead, and looking for its long buried forms to spring from
its cold embrace, will hear the angel saying again, "They are not
here: they are risen." The line which written on Klopstock's tomb
is a melancholy error, engraved on his cradle would have been an
inspiring truth:  "Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest."

Several fragmentary speeches, which we have not yet noticed, of
the most tremendous and even exhaustive import, are reported as
having fallen from the lips of Christ at different times. These
sentences, rapid and incomplete as they are in the form in which
they have reached us, do yet give us glimpses of the most
momentous character into the profoundest thoughts of his mind.
They are sufficient to enable us to generalize their fundamental
principles, and construct the outlines, if we may so speak, of his
theology, his inspired conception of God, the universe, and man,
and the resulting duties and destiny of man. We will briefly bring
together and interpret these passages, and deduce the system which
they seem to presuppose and rest upon.

Jesus told the woman of Samaria that God was to be worshipped
acceptably neither in that mountain nor at Jerusalem exclusively,
but anywhere, if it were worthily done. "God is a Spirit; and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." This
passage, with others, teaches the spirituality and omnipresence of
God. Christ conceived of God as an infinite Spirit. Again,
comforting his friends in view of his approaching departure, he
said, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so I
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." Here he
plainly figures the universe as a house containing many
apartments, all pervaded and ruled by the Father's presence. He
was about taking leave of this earth to proceed to another part of
the creation, and he promised to come back to his followers and
assure them there was another abode prepared for them. Christ
conceived of the universe, with its innumerable divisions, as the
house of God. Furthermore, he regarded truth or the essential laws
and right tendencies of things and the will of God as identical.
He said he came into the world to do the will of Him that sent
him; that is, as he at another time expressed it, he came into the
world to bear witness unto the truth. Thus he prayed, "Father,
sanctify them through the truth: thy word is truth." Christ
conceived of pure truth as the will of God. Finally, he taught
that all who obey the truth, or do the will of God, thereby
constitute one family of brethren, one family of the accepted
children of God, in all worlds forever. "He that doeth the truth
cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they
are wrought in God;" "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same
is my brother, and my sister, and mother;" "Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free. Whosoever committeth sin
is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house
forever; but the son abideth forever. If the Son, therefore, make
you free, ye shall be free indeed." That is to say, truth gives a
good man the freedom of the universe, makes him know himself an
heir, immortally and everywhere at home; sin gives the wicked man
over to bondage, makes him feel afraid of being an outcast, loads
him with hardships as a servant. Whoever will believe the
revelations of Christ, and assimilate his experience, shall lose
the wretched burdens of unbelief and fear and be no longer a
servant, but be made free indeed, being adopted as a son.

The whole conception, then, is this: The universe is one vast
house, comprising many subordinate mansions. All the moral beings
that dwell in it compose one immortal family. God is the universal
Father. His will the truth is the law of the household. Whoever
obeys it is a worthy son and has the Father's approbation; whoever
disobeys it is alienated and degraded into the condition of a
servant. We may roam from room to room, but can never get lost
outside the walls beyond the reach of the Paternal arms. Death is
variety of scenery and progress of life:

"We bow our heads At going out, we think, and enter straight
Another golden chamber of the King's, Larger than this we leave,
and lovelier."

Who can comprehend the idea, in its overwhelming magnificence and
in its touching beauty, its sweeping amplitude embracing all
mysteries, its delicate fitness meeting all wants, without being
impressed and stirred by it, even to the regeneration of his soul?
If there is any thing calculated to make man feel and live like a
child of God, it would surely seem to be this conception. Its
unrivalled simplicity and verisimilitude compel the assent of the
mind to its reality. It is the most adequate and sublime view of
things that ever entered the reason of man. It is worthy the
inspiration of God, worthy the preaching of the Son of God. All
the artificial and arbitrary schemes of fanciful theologians are
as ridiculous and impertinent before it as the offensive flaring
of torches in the face of one who sees the steady and solemn
splendors of the sun. To live in the harmony of the truth of
things, in the conscious love of God and enjoyment of immortality,
blessed children, everywhere at home in the hospitable mansions of
the everlasting Father, this is the experience to which Christ
calls his followers; and any eschatology inconsistent with such a
conception is not his.

There are two general methods of interpretation respectively
applied to the words of Christ, the literal, or mechanical, and
the spiritual, or vital. The former leads to a belief in his
second visible advent with an army of angels from heaven, a bodily
resurrection of the dead, a universal judgment, the burning up of
the world, eternal tortures of the wicked in an abyss of infernal
fire, a heaven located on the arch of the Hebrew firmament. The
latter gives us a group of the profoundest moral truths clustered
about the illuminating and emphasizing mission of Christ, sealed
with Divine sanctions, truths of universal obligation and of all
redeeming power. The former method is still adopted by the great
body of Christendom, who are landed by it in a system of doctrines
well nigh identical with those of the Pharisees, against which
Christ so emphatically warned his followers, a system of
traditional dogmas not having the slightest support in philosophy,
nor the least contact with the realities of experience, nor the
faintest color of inherent or historical probability. In this age
they are absolutely incredible to unhampered and studious minds.
On the other hand, the latter method is pursued by the growing
body of rational Christians, and it guides them to a consistent
array of indestructible moral truths, simple, fundamental, and
exhaustive, an array of spiritual principles commanding universal
and implicit homage, robed in their own brightness, accredited by
their own fitness, armed with the loveliness and terror of their
own rewarding and avenging divinity, flashing in mutual lights and
sounding in consonant echoes alike from the law of nature and from
the soul of man, as the Son of God, with miraculous voice, speaks
between.

CHAPTER VII.

RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

OF all the single events that ever were supposed to have occurred
in the world, perhaps the most august in its moral associations
and the most stupendous in its lineal effects, both on the outward
fortunes and on the inward experience of mankind, is the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If, therefore, there
is one theme in all the range of thought worthy of candid
consideration, it is this. There are two ways of examining it. We
may, as unquestioning Christians, inquire how the New Testament
writers represent it, what premises they assume, what statements
they make, and what inferences they draw. Thus, without
perversion, without mixture of our own notions, we should
construct the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection of the
Savior. Again as critical scholars and philosophical thinkers, we
may study that doctrine in all its parts, scrutinize it in all its
bearings, trace, as far as possible, the steps and processes of
its formation, discriminate as well as we can, by all fair tests,
whether it be entirely correct, or wholly erroneous, or partly
true and partly false. Both of these methods of investigation are
necessary to a full understanding of the subject. Both are
obligatory upon the earnest inquirer. Whoso would bravely face his
beliefs and intelligently comprehend them, with their grounds and
their issues, with a devout desire for the pure truth, whatsoever
it may be, putting his trust in the God who made him, will never
shrink from either of these courses of examination. Whoso does
shrink from these inquiries is either a moral coward, afraid of
the results of an honest search after that truth of things which
expresses the will of the Creator, or a spiritual sluggard,
frightened by a call to mental effort and torpidly clinging to
ease of mind. And whoso, accepting the personal challenge of
criticism, carries on the investigation with prejudice and
passion, holding errors because he thinks them safe and useful,
and rejecting realities because he fancies them dangerous and
evil, is an intellectual traitor, disloyal to the sacred laws by
which God hedges the holy fields and rules the responsible
subjects of the realm of truth. We shall combine the two modes of
inquiry, first singly asking what the Scriptures declare, then
critically seeking what the facts will warrant, it being
unimportant to us whether these lines exactly coincide or diverge
somewhat, the truth itself being all. We now pass to an
examination of Christ's resurrection from five points of view:
first, as a fact; second, as a fulfilment of prophecy; third, as a
pledge; fourth, as a symbol; and fifth, as a theory.

The writers of the New Testament speak of the resurrection of
Christ, in the first place, as a fact. "Jesus whom ye slew and
hanged on a tree, him hath God raised up." It could not have been
viewed by them in the light of a theory or a legend, nor, indeed,
as any thing else than a marvellous but literal fact. This appears
from their minute accounts of the scenes at the sepulchre and of
the disappearance of his body. Their declarations of this are most
unequivocal, emphatic, iterated, "The Lord is risen indeed." All
that was most important in their faith they based upon it, all
that was most precious to them in this life they staked upon it.
"Else why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" They held it before
their inner vision as a guiding star through the night of their
sufferings and dangers, and freely poured out their blood upon the
cruel shrines of martyrdom in testimony that it was a fact.
That they believed he literally rose from the grave in visible
form also appears, and still more forcibly, from their descriptions
of his frequent manifestations to them. These show that in their
faith he assumed at his resurrection the same body in which he had
lived before, which was crucified and buried. All attempts, whether
by Swedenborgians or others, to explain this Scripture language as
signifying that he rose in an immaterial body, are futile.1 He
appeared to their senses and was recognised by his identical
bodily form. He partook of physical food with them. "They gave him
a piece of broiled fish and of an honey comb; and he ate before
them." The marks in his hands and side were felt by the
incredulous Thomas, and convinced him. He said to them, "Handle
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me
have." To a candid mind there can hardly be a question that the
gospel records describe the resurrection of Christ as a literal
fact, that his soul reanimated the deceased body, and that in it
he showed himself to his disciples. Yet that there are a few texts
implying the immateriality of his resurrection body that there are
two accounts of it in the gospels we cannot deny.

We advance to see what is the historical evidence for the fact of
the resurrection of Christ. This argument, of course, turns
chiefly on one point, namely, the competency of the witnesses, and
the validity of their testimony.2 We will present the usually
exhibited scheme of proof as strongly as we can.3 In the first
place, those who testified to the resurrection were numerous
enough, so far as mere numbers go, to establish the fact beyond
question. Paul declares there were above five hundred who from
their personal knowledge could affirm of the Lord's resurrection.
But particularly there were the eleven apostles, the two Marys,
Cleopas, and the disciples from whom Joseph and Matthias the
candidates for Judas Iscariot's apostleship were selected,
consisting probably of most of the seventy. If the evidence of any
number of men ought to convince us of the alleged event, then,
under the existing circumstances, that of twelve ought. Important
matters of history are often unhesitatingly received on the
authority of a single historian. If the occurrences at the time
were sufficient to demonstrate to a reasonable mind the reality of
the resurrection, then the unanimous testimony of twelve men to
those occurrences should convince us. The oaths of a thousand
would be no stronger.

These men possessed sufficient abilities to be trusted, good
powers of judgment, and varied experience. The selection of them
by Him who "knew what was in man," the boldness and efficiency of
their lives, the fruits of their labors everywhere, amply prove
their

1 The opposite view is ably argued by Bush in his valuable
treatise on the Resurrection.

2 Sherlock, Trial of the Witnesses.

3 Ditton, Demonstration of the Resurrection of Christ. For a
sternly faithful estimate of the cogency of this argument, it must
be remembered that all the data, every fact and postulate in each
step of the reasoning, rest on the historical authority of the
four Gospels, documents whose authorship and date are lost in
obscurity. Even of "orthodox" theologians few, with any claims to
scholarship, now hold that these Gospels, as they stand, were
written by the persons whose names they bear. They wander and
waver in a thick fog. See Milman's "History of Christianity," vol.
i. ch. ii. appendix ii.


general intelligence and energy. And they had, too, the most
abundant opportunities of knowledge in regard to the facts to
which they bore witness. They were present in the places, at the
times, when and where the events occurred. Every motive would
conspire to make them scrutinize the subject and the attendant
circumstances. And it seems they did examine; for at first some
doubted, but afterwards believed. They had been close companions
of Jesus for more than a year at the least. They had studied his
every feature, look, gesture. They must have been able to
recognise him, or to detect an impostor, if the absurd idea of an
attempted imposition can be entertained. They saw him many times,
near at hand, in the broad light. Not only did they see him, but
they handled his wounded limbs and listened to his wondrous voice.
If these means of knowing the truth were not enough to make their
evidence valid, then no opportunities could be sufficient.

Whoso allows its full force to the argument thus far will admit
that the testimony of the witnesses to the resurrection is
conclusive, unless he suspects that by some cause they were either
incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to
stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have
ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were
either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud;
and no one has ever been able to support the position even with
moderate plausibility. Granting, in the first place,
hypothetically, that the disciples were ever so great enthusiasts
in their general character and conduct, still, they could not have
been at all so in relation to the resurrection, because, before it
occurred, they had no belief, expectations, nor thoughts about it.
By their own frank confessions, they did not understand Christ's
predictions, nor the ancient supposed prophecies of that event.
And without a strong faith, a burning hopeful desire, or something
of the kind, for it to spring from, and rest on, and be nourished
by, evidently no enthusiasm could exist. Accordingly, we find that
previous to the third day after Christ's death they said nothing,
thought nothing, about a resurrection; but from that time, as by
an inspiration from heaven, they were roused to both words and
deeds. The sudden astonishing change here alluded to is to be
accounted for only by supposing that in the mean time they had
been brought to a belief that the resurrection had occurred. But,
secondly, it is to be noticed that these witnesses were not
enthusiasts on other subjects. No one could be the subject of such
an overweening enthusiasm as the hypothesis supposes, without
betraying it in his conduct, without being overmastered and led by
it as an insane man is by his mania. The very opposite of all this
was actually the case with the apostles. The Gospels are
unpretending, dispassionate narratives, without rhapsody,
adulation, or vanity. Their whole conduct disproves the charge of
fanaticism. Their appeals were addressed more to reason than to
feeling; their deeds were more courageous than rash. They avoided
tumult, insult, and danger whenever they could honorably do so;
but, when duty called, their noble intrepidity shrank not. They
were firm as the trunks of oaks to meet the agony and horror of a
violent death when it came; yet they rather shunned than sought to
wear the glorious crown from beneath whose crimson circlet drops
of bloody sweat must drip from a martyr's brows. The number of the
witnesses for the resurrection, the abilities they possessed,
their opportunities for knowing the facts, prove the impossibility
of their being duped, unless we suppose them to have been blind
fanatics. This we have just shown they were not. Would it not,
moreover, be most marvellous if they were such heated fanatics,
all of them, so many men?

But there is one further foothold for the disbeliever in the
historic resurrection of Christ. He may say, "I confess the
witnesses were capable of knowing, and undoubtedly did know, the
truth; but, for some reason, they suppressed it, and proclaimed a
deception." As to this charge, we not only deny the actuality, but
even the possibility, of its truth. The narratives of the
evangelists contain the strongest evidences of their honesty. The
many little unaccountable circumstances they recount, which are so
many difficulties in the way of critical belief, the real and the
apparent inconsistencies, none of these would have been permitted
by fraudulent authors. They are the most natural things in the
world, supposing their writers unsuspiciously honest. They also
frankly confess their own and each others' errors, ignorance,
prejudices, and faults. Would they have done this save from
simple hearted truthfulness? Would a designing knave voluntarily
reveal to a suspicious scrutiny actions and traits naturally
subversive of confidence in him? The conduct of the disciples
under the circumstances, through all the scenes of their after
lives, proves their undivided and earnest honesty. The cause they
had espoused was, if we deny its truth, to the last degree
repulsive in itself and in its concomitants, and they were
surrounded with allurements to desert it. Yet how unyielding,
wonderful, was their disinterested devotedness to it, without
exception! Not one, overcome by terror or bowed by strong anguish,
shrank from his self imposed task and cried out, "I confess!" No;
but when they, and their first followers who knew what they knew,
were laid upon racks and torn, when they were mangled and devoured
alive by wild beasts, when they were manacled fast amidst the
flames till their souls rode forth into heaven in chariots of
fire, amidst all this, not one of them ever acknowledged fraud or
renounced his belief in the resurrection of Jesus. Were they not
honest? Others have died in support of theories and opinions with
which their convictions and passions had become interwoven: they
died rather than deny facts which were within the cognizance of
their senses. Could any man, however firm and dauntless, under the
circumstances, go through the trials they bore, without a feeling
of truth and of God to support him?

These remarks are particularly forcible in connection with the
career of Paul. Endowed with brilliant talents, learned, living at
the time and place, he must have been able to form a reliable
opinion. And yet, while all the motives that commonly actuate men
loudmouthed consistency, fame, wealth, pride, pleasure, the rooted
force of inveterate prejudices  all were beckoning to him from the
temples and palaces of the Pharisaic establishment, he spurned the
glowing visions of his ambition and dashed to earth the bright
dreams of his youth. He ranged himself among the Christians, the
feeble, despised, persecuted Christians; and, after having suffered
every thing humanity could bear, having preached the resurrection
everywhere with unflinching power, he was at last crucified, or
beheaded, by Nero; and there, expiring among the seven hills of
Rome, he gave the resistless testimony of his death to the
resurrection of Jesus, gasping, as it were, with his last breath,
"It is true." Granting the honesty of these men, we could not have
any greater proof of it than we have now.

But dishonesty in this matter was not merely untrue; it was also
impossible. If fraud is admitted, a conspiracy must have been
formed among the witnesses. But that a conspiracy of such a
character should have been entered into by such men is in itself
incredible, in the outset. And then, if it had been entered into,
it must infallibly have broken through, been found out, or been
betrayed, in the course of the disasters, perils, terrible trials,
to which it and its fabricators were afterwards exposed. Prove
that a body of from twelve to five hundred men could form a plan
to palm off a gross falsehood upon the world, and could then
adhere to it unfalteringly through the severest disappointments,
dangers, sufferings, differences of opinion, dissension of feeling
and action, without retiring from the undertaking, letting out the
secret, or betraying each other in a single instance in the course
of years, prove this, and you prove that men may do and dare, deny
and suffer, not only without motives, but in direct opposition to
their duty, interest, desire, prejudice, and passion. The
disciples could not have pretended the resurrection from
sensitiveness to the probable charge that they had been miserably
deceived; for they did not understand their Master to predict any
such event, nor had they the slightest expectation of it. They
could not have pretended it for the sake of establishing and
giving authority to the good precepts and doctrines Jesus taught;
because such a course would have been in the plainest antagonism
to all those principles themselves, and because, too, they must
have known both the utter wickedness and the desperate hazards and
forlornness of such an attempt to give a fictitious sanction to
moral truths. In such an enterprise there was before them not the
faintest probability of even the slightest success. Every selfish
motive would tend to deter them; for poverty, hatred, disgrace,
stripes, imprisonment, contempt, and death stared in their faces
from the first step that way. Dishonesty, deliberate fraud, then,
in this matter, was not merely untrue, but was impossible. The
conclusion from the whole view is, therefore, the conviction that
the evidence of the witnesses for the resurrection of Jesus is
worthy of credence.

There are three considerations, further, worthy of notice in
estimating the strength of the historic argument for the
resurrection. First, the conduct of the Savior himself in relation
to the subject. The charge of unbalanced enthusiasm is
inconsistent with the whole character and life of Jesus; but
suppose on this point he was an enthusiast, and really believed
that three days after his death he would rise again. In that case,
would not his mind have dwelt upon the wonderful anticipated
phenomenon? Would not his whole soul have been wrapped up in it,
and his speech have been almost incessantly about it? Yet he spoke
of it only three or four times, and then with obscurity. Again:
suppose he was an impostor. An impostor would hardly have risked
his reputation voluntarily on what he knew could never take place.
Had he done so, his only reliance must have been upon the
credulous enthusiasm of his followers. He would then have made it
the chief topic, would have striven strenuously to make it a
living and intense hope, an immovable, all controlling faith,
concentrating on it their desires and expectations, heart and
soul. But he really did not do this at all. He did not even make
them understand what his vaticinations of the resurrection meant.
And when they saw his untenanted body hanging on the cross, they
slunk away in confusion and despair. Admit, again, that Christ was
enthusiast, or impostor, or both: these qualities exist not in the
grave. Here was their end. They could neither raise him from the
dead nor move him from the tomb. No considerations in any way
connected with Christ himself, therefore, can account for the
occurrences that succeeded his death.

Secondly, if the resurrection did not take place, what became of
the Savior's body? We have already given reasons why the disciples
could not have falsely pretended the resurrection. It is also
impossible that they obtained, or surreptitiously disposed of, the
dead and interred body; because it was in a tomb of rock securely
sealed against them, and watched by a guard which they could
neither bribe nor overpower; because they were too much
disheartened and alarmed to try to get it; because they could not
possibly want it, since they expected a temporal Messiah, and had
no hope of a resurrection like that which they soon began
proclaiming to the world. And as for the story told by the watch,
or rather by the chief priests and Pharisees, it has not
consistency enough to hold together. Its foolish unlikelihood has
always been transparent. It is unreasonable to suppose that fresh
guards would slumber at a post where the penalty of slumbering was
death. And, if one or two did sleep, it is absurd to think all
would do so. Besides, if they slept, how knew they what transpired
in the mean time? Could they have dreamed it? Dreams are not taken
in legal depositions; and, furthermore, it would be an astounding,
gratuitous miracle if they all dreamed the same thing at the same
time.

Finally, a powerful collateral argument in proof of the
resurrection of Christ is furnished by the conduct of the Jews. It
might seem that if the guards told the chief priests, scribes, and
Pharisees, of the miracles which occurred at the sepulchre, they
must immediately have believed and proclaimed their belief in the
Messiahship and resurrection of the crucified Savior. But they had
previously remained invulnerable to as cogent proof as this would
afford. They had acknowledged the miracles wrought by him when he
was alive, but attributed them even his works of beneficence to
demoniacal power. They said, "He casteth out devils by the power
of Beelzebub, the prince of devils." So they acted in the present
case, and, notwithstanding the peerless miracle related by the
sentinels, still persisted in their alienation from the Christian
faith. Their intensely cherished preconceptions respecting the
Messiah, their persecution and crucifixion of Jesus, the glaring
inconsistency of his teachings and experience with most that they
expected, these things compelled their incredulity to every proof
of the Messiahship of the contemned and murdered Nazarene. For, if
they admitted the facts on which such proof was based, they would
misinterpret them and deny the inferences justly drawn from them.
This was plainly the case. It may be affirmed that the Jews
believed the resurrection, because they took no fair measures to
disprove it, but threatened those who declared it. Since they had
every inducement to demonstrate its falsity, and might, it seems,
have done so had it been false, and yet never made the feeblest
effort to unmask the alleged fraud, we must suspect that they were
themselves secretly convinced of its truth, but dared not let it
be known, for fear it would prevail, become mighty in the earth,
and push them from their seats. In the rage and blindness of their
prejudices, they cried, "His blood be on us and on our children!"
And from that generation to our own, their history has afforded a
living proof of the historic truth of the gospel, and of the
stability of its chief corner stone, the resurrection of Christ.
The triumphal progress of Christianity from conquering to
conquering, together with the baffled plans and complete
subjection of the Jews, show that their providential preparatory
mission has been fulfilled. If God is in history, guiding the
moral drift of human affairs, then the dazzling success of the
proclamation of the risen Redeemer is the Divine seal upon the
truth of his mission and the reality of his apotheosis. Planting
himself on this ground, surrounding himself with these evidences,
the reverential Christian will at least for a long time to come
cling firmly to the accepted fact of the resurrection of Christ,
regardless of whatever misgivings and perplexities may trouble the
mind of the iconoclastic and critical truth seeker.

The Christian Scriptures, assuming the resurrection of Christ as a
fact, describe it as a fulfilment of prophecy. Luke reports from
the risen Savior the words, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have
suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" "Thus it is
written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from
the dead the third day." Peter declares that the patriarch David
before "spake of the resurrection of Christ." And Paul also
affirms, "That the promise which was made unto the fathers, God
hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath
raised up Jesus again." One can scarcely hesitate in deciding the
meaning of these words as they were used by the apostles. The
unanimous opinion and interpretation of the Christians of the
first centuries, and of all the Church Fathers, leave no shadow of
a doubt that it was believed that the resurrection of Jesus was
repeatedly foretold in the Old Testament, expected by the
prophets, and fulfilled in the event as a seal of the inspired
prophecy. Furthermore, Jesus himself repeatedly prophesied his own
resurrection from the dead,  though his disciples did not
understand his meaning until the event put a clear comment on the
words. He charged those who saw his transfiguration on the mount,
"Tell it to no man until the Son of Man be risen again from the
dead." The chief priests told Pilate that they remembered that
Jesus said, while he was yet alive, "After three days I will rise
again." Standing in the temple at Jerusalem, Jesus said once,
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
"When, therefore, he was risen from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he had said this unto them;" and then they
understood that "he had spoken of the temple of his body." It is
perfectly plain that the New Testament represents the resurrection
of Christ as the fulfilment of prophecies, those prophecies having
been so expounded by him.

There are few problems presented to the candid Christian scholar
of to day more perplexing than the one involved in the subject of
these prophecies. Paul declares to King Agrippa, "I say none other
things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should
come: that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first
that should rise from the dead and should show light unto the
Gentiles." It is vain to attempt to disguise the fact that the
ingenuous student cannot find these prophecies in the Old
Testament as we now have it. He will search it through in vain,
unless his eyes create what they see. Let any man endeavor to
discover a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures which, taken with its
context, can fairly bear such a sense. There is not a shadow of
valid evidence of any kind to support the merely traditional
notions on this subject. The only way of discerning predictions of
a death, descent, and ascent, of the Messiah, in the law and the
prophets, is by the application of Cabalistic methods of
interpretation, theories of occult types, double senses, methods
which now are not tolerable to intelligent men. That Rabbinical
interpretation which made the story of Ishmael and Isaac, the two
children borne to Abraham by Hagar and Sarah, an allegory
referring to the two covenants of Judaism and Christianity, could
easily extract any desired meaning from any given text. Bearing in
mind the prevalence of this kind of exegesis among the Jews, and
remembering also that they possessed in the times of Jesus a vast
body of oral law, to which they attributed as great authority as
to the written, there are two possible ways of honestly meeting
the difficulty before us.

First: in God's counsels it was determined that a Messiah should
afterwards arise among the Jews. The revealed hope of this stirred
the prophets and the popular heart. It became variously and
vaguely hinted in their writings, still more variously and
copiously unfolded in their traditions. The conception of him
gradually took form; and they began to look for a warrior prophet,
a national deliverer, a theocratic king. Jesus, being the true
Messiah, though a very different personage from the one meant by
the writers and understood by the people, yet being the Messiah
foreordained by God, applied these Messianic passages to himself,
and explained them according to his experience and fate. This will
satisfactorily clear up the application of some texts. And others
may be truly explained as poetical illustrations, rhetorical
accommodations, as when he applies to Judas, at the Last Supper,
the words of the Psalm, "He that eateth with me lifteth up his
heel against me;" and when he refers to Jonah's tarry in the
whale's belly as a symbol of his own destined stay beneath the
grave for a similar length of time. Or, secondly, we may conclude
that the prophecies under consideration, referred to in the New
Testament, were not derived from any sacred documents now in our
possession, but either from perished writings, or from oral
sources, which we know were abundant then. Justin Martyr says
there was formerly a passage in Jeremiah to this effect: "The Lord
remembered the dead who were sleeping in the earth, and went down
to them to preach salvation to them." 4 There were floating in the
Jewish mind, at the time of Christ, at least some fragmentary
traditions, vague expectations, that the Messiah was to die,
descend to Sheol, rescue some of the captives, and triumphantly
ascend. It is true, this statement is denied by some; but the
weight of critical authorities seems to us to preponderate in its
favor, and the intrinsic historical probabilities leave hardly a
doubt of it in our own minds.5 Now, three alternatives are offered
us. Either Jesus interpreted Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets,
on the Rabbinical ground of a double sense, with mystic
applications; or he accepted the prophecies referred to, from oral
traditions held by his countrymen; or the apostles misunderstood,
and in consequence partially misreported, him. All we can
positively say is that these precise predictions are plainly not
in the Jewish Scriptures, undoubtedly were in the oral law, and
were certainly received by the apostles as authoritative.

Continuing our inquiry into the apostolic view of the resurrection
of Christ, we shall perceive that it is most prominently set forth
as the certificate of our redemption from the

4 Dial. cum Tryph. sect. lxxii.

5 Discussed, with full list of references, in Strauss's Life of
Jesus, part iii. cap. i. sect.
112.


kingdom of death to the same glorious destiny which awaited him
upon his ascension into heaven. The apostles regarded his
resurrection as a supernatural seal set on his mission, warranting
his claims as an inspired deliverer and teacher. Thereby, they
thought, God openly sanctioned and confirmed his promises.
Thereby, they considered, was shown to men God's blessed grace,
freely forgiving their sins, and securing to them, by this pledge,
a deliverance from the doom of sin as he had risen from it, and an
acceptance to a heavenly immortality as he had ascended to it. The
resurrection of Christ, then, and not his death, was to them the
point of vital interest, the hinge on which all hung. Does not the
record plainly show this to an impartial reader? Wherever the
apostles preach, whenever they write, they appeal not to the death
of a veiled Deity, but to the resurrection of an appointed
messenger; not to a vicarious atonement or purchase effected by
the mortal sufferings of Jesus, but to the confirmation of the
good tidings he brought, afforded by the Father's raising him from
the dead. "Whereof he hath given assurance unto all, in that he
hath raised him from the dead," Paul proclaimed on Mars Hill. In
the discourses of the apostles recorded in the Book of Acts, we
find that, when they preached the new religion to new audiences,
the great doctrine in all cases set forth as fundamental and
absorbing is the resurrection; not an atoning death, but a
justifying resurrection. "He died for our sins, and rose for our
justification." Some of the Athenians thought Paul "a setter forth
of two strange gods, Jesus and Resurrection." And when they desire
to characterize Christ, the distinguishing culminating phrase
which they invariably select shows on what their minds rested as
of chief import: they describe him as the one "whom God hath
raised from the dead." "If we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with
him." "That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of God's
power toward us who believe, according to the working of his
mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from
the dead and set him at his own right hand in heaven." It is plain
here that the dying of Christ is regarded merely as preliminary to
his rising, and that his resurrection and entrance into heaven are
received as an assurance that faithful disciples, too, shall
obtain admission into the heavenly kingdom.

The Calvinistic doctrine is that the unutterable vicarious agonies
of the death of Christ placated the wrath of God, satisfied his
justice, and ransomed the souls of the elect from the tortures of
hell, and that his resurrection was simply his victorious return
from a penal conflict with the powers of Satan. The Unitarian
doctrine is that the violent death of Christ was an expression of
self sacrificing love, to exert a moral power on the hearts of
men, and that his resurrection was a miraculous proof of the
authority and truth of his teachings, a demonstration of human
immortality. We maintain that neither of these views fully
contains the true representation of the New Testament. The
artificial horrors of the former cannot be forced into nor wrung
out of the written words; while the natural simplicity and
meagerness of the latter cannot be made to fill up the written
words with adequate significance. There is a medium doctrine,
based on the conceptions prevalent at the time the Christian
system was constructed and written; a doctrine which equally
avoids the credulous excess of the Calvinistic interpretation and
the skeptical poverty of the Unitarian; a doctrine which fully
explains all the relevant language of the New Testament without
violence; a doctrine which, for our own part, we feel sure
accurately represents the ideas meant to be conveyed by the
Scripture authors. We will state it, and then quote, for its
illustration and for their own explanation, the principal texts
relating to the resurrection of Jesus.

On account of sin, which had alienated man from God and unfitted
him for heaven, he was condemned after death to descend as a
disembodied soul into the dark kingdom of the grave, the under
world. In that cheerless realm of helpless shades and stillness
all departed human spirits were prisoners, and must be, until the
advent of the Messiah, when they, or a part of them, should rise.
This was the Jewish belief. Now, the apostles were Jews, who had
the ideas of their countrymen, to which, upon becoming Christians,
they added the new conceptions formed in their minds by the
teachings, character, deeds, death, resurrection, of Christ, mixed
with their own meditations and experience. Accepting, with these
previous notions, the resurrection of Christ as a fact and a
fulfilment of prophecy, they immediately supposed that his
triumphant exit from the prison of the dead and return to heaven
were the prefiguration of the similar deliverance of others and
their entrance into heaven. They considered him as "the first born
from the dead," "the first fruits of the dead." They emphatically
characterize his return to life as a "resurrection out from among
the dead," "[non-ASCII characters], plainly implying that the rest
of the dead still remained below.6 They received his experience in
this respect as the revealing type of that which was awaiting his
followers. So far as relates to the separate existence of the
soul, the restoration of the widow's son by Elijah, or the
resurrection of Lazarus, logically implies all that is implied in
the mere resurrection of Christ. But certain notions of
localities, of a redemptive ascent, and an opening of heaven for
the redeemed spirits of men to ascend thither, were associated
exclusively with the last. When, through the will of God, Christ
rose, "then first humanity triumphant passed the crystal ports of
light, and seized eternal youth!" Their view was not that Christ
effected all this by means of his own; but that the free grace of
God decreed it, and that Christ came to carry the plan into
execution. "God, for his great love to us, even when we were dead
in sins, has quickened us together with Christ." This was effected
as in dramatic show: Christ died, which was suffering the fate of
a sinner; he went in spirit to the subterranean abode of spirits,
which was bearing the penalty of sin; he rose again, which was
showing the penalty of sin removed by Divine forgiveness; he
ascended into heaven,  which was revealing the way for our ascent
thrown open. Such is the general scope of thought in close and
vital connection with which the doctrine of the resurrection of
Christ stands. We shall spare enlarging on those parts of it which
have been sufficiently proved and illustrated in preceding
chapters, and confine our attention as much as may be to those
portions which have direct relations with the resurrection of
Christ. It is our object, then, to show what we think will plainly
appear in the light of the above general statement that, to the
New Testament writers, the resurrection, and not the death, of
Christ is the fact of central moment, is the assuring seal of our
forgiveness, reconciliation, and heavenly adoption.

6 Wood, The Last Things, pp. 31-44.


They saw two antithetical starting points in the history of
mankind: a career of ruin, beginning with condemned Adam in the
garden of Eden at the foot of the forbidden tree, dragging a
fleshly race down into Sheol; a career of remedy, beginning with
victorious Christ in the garden of Joseph at the mouth of the rent
sepulchre, guiding a spiritual race up into heaven.

The Savior himself is reported as saying, "I lay down my life that
I may take it again:" the dying was not for the sake of
substitutional suffering, but for the sake of a resurrection.
"Except a corn of wheat die, it abideth alone; but, if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit." "A woman when she is in travail hath
sorrow; but as soon as she is delivered of the child she
remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into
the world." The context here shows the Savior's meaning to be that
the woe of his death would soon be lost in the weal of his
resurrection. The death was merely the necessary antecedent to the
significant resurrection. "Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, hath
begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead unto an inheritance, incorruptible,
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you
who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation
ready to be revealed." "Him hath God raised on high by his right
hand, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." How
clear it is here that not the vicarious death of Christ buys off
sinners, but his resurrection shows sins to be freely forgiven,
the penalty remitted! "Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from
the dead, according to my gospel: therefore I endure all things
for the elect's sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is
in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." "Be it known unto you,
therefore, men, brethren, that through Him whom God raised again
is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." The passage in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, ninth chapter, from the twenty third verse
to the twenty seventh, most emphatically connects the annulling of
sin through the sacrifice of Christ with his ascended appearance
in heaven. "Jesus who was delivered for our offences and was
raised again for our justification:" that is, Jesus died because
he had entered the condition of sinful humanity, the penalty of
which was death; he was raised to show that God had forgiven us
our sins and would receive us to heaven instead of banishing us to
the under world. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Belief in the resurrection of
Christ is here undeniably made the great condition of salvation.
No text can be found in which belief in the death, or blood, or
atoning merits, of Christ is made that condition. And yet nine
tenths of Christendom by their creeds are to day proclaiming,
"Believe in the vicarious sufferings of Christ, and thou shalt be
saved; believe not in them, and thou shalt be damned!" "God hath
both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us." "If Christ be
not raised, your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins." This
text cannot be explained upon the common Calvinistic or Unitarian
theories. Whether Christ was risen or not made no difference in
their justification before God if his death had atoned for them,
made no difference in their moral condition, which was as it was;
but if Christ had not risen, then they were mistaken in supposing
that heaven had been opened for them: they were yet held in the
necessity of descending to the under world, the penalty of their
sins. The careful reader will observe that, in many places in the
Scriptures where a burden and stress of importance seem laid upon
the death of Christ, there immediately follows a reference to his
resurrection, showing that the dying is only referred to as the
preparatory step to the rising, the resurrection being the
essential thing. "The Apostle Paul scarcely speaks of the death of
the Savior except in connection with his resurrection," Bleek
says, in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. "It is
Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again and is now at
the right hand of God."

"If we believe that Jesus died and rose again." "To this end
Christ both died, and rose and lived again." "He died for them and
rose again." We confidently avow, therefore, that the Christian
Scriptures concentrate the most essential significance and value
of the mission of Jesus in his resurrection, describing it as the
Divine seal of his claims, the visible proof and pledge of our
redemption, by God's freely forgiving grace, from the fatal
bondage of death's sepulchral domain to the blessed splendors of
heaven's immortal life.

There remain a class of passages to be particularly noticed, in
which an extraordinary emphasis seems to be laid on Christ's
sufferings, Christ's blood, Christ's death, three phrases that
mean virtually the same thing and are used interchangeably. The
peculiar prominence given to the idea of the sacrifice of Christ
in the instances now referred to is such as might lead one to
suppose that some mysterious efficacy was meant to be attributed
to it. But we think an accurate examination of the subject will
show that these texts are really in full harmony with the view we
have been maintaining. Admitting that the resurrection of Christ
was the sole circumstance of ultimate meaning and importance,
still, his violent and painful death would naturally be spoken of
as often and strongly as it is, for two reasons. First, the chief
ground of wonder and claim for gratitude to him was that he should
have left his pre existent state of undisturbed bliss and glory,
and submitted to such humiliation and anguish for others, for
sinners. Secondly, it was the prerequisite to his resurrection,
the same, in effect, with it, since the former must lead to the
latter; for, as the foremost apostle said, "It was not possible
that he should be holden in death."

The apostolical writers do not speak of salvation by the blood of
Christ any more plainly than they do of salvation by the name of
Christ, salvation by grace, and salvation by faith. If at one time
they identify him with the sacrificial "lamb," at another time
they as distinctively identify him with the "high priest offering
himself," and again with "the great Shepherd of the sheep," and
again with "the mediator of the new covenant," and again with "the
second Adam." These are all figures of speech, and, taken
superficially, they determine nothing as to doctrine. The
propriety and the genuine character and force of the metaphor are
in each case to be carefully sought with the lights of learning
and under the guidance of a docile candor. The thoughts that, in
consequence of transmitted sin, all departed souls of men were
confined in the under world that Christ, to carry out and
revealingly exemplify the free grace of the Father, came into the
world, died a cruel death, descended to the prison world of the
dead, declared there the glad tidings, rose thence and ascended
into heaven, the forerunner of the ransomed hosts to follow, these
thoughts enable us to explain, in a natural, forcible, and
satisfactory manner, the peculiar phraseology of the New Testament
in regard to the death of Christ, without having recourse to the
arbitrary conceptions and mystical horror usually associated with
it now.

For instance, consider the passage in the second chapter of the
Epistle to the Ephesians, from the eleventh verse to the
nineteenth. The writer here says that "the Gentiles, who formerly
were far off, strangers from the covenants of promise, are now
made nigh by the blood of Christ." This language he clearly
explains as meaning that through the death and resurrection of
Christ "the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles was
broken down" and a universal religion inaugurated, free from all
invidious distinctions and carnal ordinances. In his bodily death
and spiritual ascension the Jewish ritual law was abolished and
the world wide moral law alone installed. From his spirit, rising
into heaven, all national peculiarities fell away, and through him
Jews and Gentiles both had access, by communion with his ascended
and cosmopolitan soul, unto the Father. A careful study of all the
passages in the New Testament which speak of Christ as delivering
men from the wrath of God will lead, it seems to us, almost every
unprejudiced person to agree with one of the ablest German
critics, who says that "the technical phrase 'wrath of God' here
means, historically, banishment of souls into the under world, and
that the fact of Christ's triumph and ascent was a precious pledge
showing to the Christians that they too should ascend to eternal
life in heaven."7 The doctrine of the descent of Christ among the
dead and of his redemptive mission there has of late wellnigh
faded from notice; but if any one wishes to see the evidence of
its universal reception and unparalleled importance in the
Christian Church for fifteen hundred years, presented in
overwhelming quantity and irresistible array, let him read the
learned work devoted to this subject recently published in
Germany.8 He can hardly peruse this work and follow up its
references without seeing that, almost without an exception, from
the days of Peter and Paul to those of Martin Luther, it has been
held that "the death and resurrection of Christ are the two poles
between which," as Guder says, "his descent into the under world
lies." The phrase "blood of Christ" is often used in Scripture in
a pregnant sense, including the force of meaning that would be
expressed by his death, descent, resurrection, and ascension, with
all their concomitants. As a specimen of innumerable passages of
like import which might be cited, we will quote a single
expression from Epiphanius, showing that the orthodox teachers in
the fourth century attributed redeeming efficacy to Christ's
resurrection rather than to his death." As the pelican restores
its dead offspring by dropping its own blood upon their wounds, so
our Lord Jesus Christ dropped his blood upon Adam, Eve, and all
the dead, and gave them life by his burial and resurrection." 9

It was a part of the Mosaic ritual, laid down in the sixteenth
chapter of Leviticus, that on the great annual day of expiation
there should be two goats chosen by lot, one for the Lord and one
for Azazel. The former the high priest was to slay, and with his
blood sprinkle

7 Bretschneider, Religiose Glaubenslehre, sect. 59: Christus der
Erloser vom Tode.

8 Guder, Die Lehre von der Erscheinung Jesu Christi unter den
Todten: In ihrem Zusammenhange mit der Lehre von den Letzten
Dingen.

9 Physiol., cap. 8: De Pelecano.


the mercy seat. The latter, when the high priest's hands had been
laid on his head and all the iniquities of the children of Israel
confessed over him, was to be sent into the wilderness and loosed.
The former goat is called "a sin offering for the people." The
latter is called "a scape goat to make an atonement with the
Lord." The blood of the sin offering could not have been supposed
to be a substitute purchasing the pardon of men's offences,
because there is no hint of any such idea in the record, and
because it was offered to reconcile "houses," "tabernacles,"
"altars," as well as to reconcile men. It had simply a ceremonial
significance. Such rites were common in many of the early
religions. They were not the efficient cause of pardon, but were
the formal condition of reconciliation. And then, in regard to the
scapegoat, it was not sacrificed as an expiation for sinners; it
merely symbolically carried off the sins already freely forgiven.
All these forms and phrases were inwrought with the whole national
life and religious language of the Jews. Now, when Jesus appeared,
a messenger from God, to redeem men from their sins and to promise
them pardon and heaven, and when he died a martyr's death in the
fulfilment of his mission, how perfectly natural that this
sacrificial imagery these figures of blood, propitiation,
sprinkling the mercy seat should be applied to him, and to his
work and fate! The burden of sins forgiven by God's grace in the
old covenant the scape goat emblematically bore away, and the
people went free. So if the words must be supposed to have an
objective and not merely a moral sense when the Baptist cried,
"Behold the Lamb of God, that beareth off the sin of the world,"
his meaning was that Jesus was to bear off the penalty of sin that
is, the Hadean doom which God's free grace had annulled and open
heaven to the ranks of reconciled souls. There is not the least
shadow of proof that the sacrifices in the Mosaic ritual were
Divinely ordained as types pre figuring the great sacrifice of
Christ. There is no such pretence in the record, no such tradition
among the people, not the slightest foundation whatever of any
sort to warrant that arbitrary presumption. All such applications
of them are rhetorical; and their historical force and moral
meaning are clearly explicable on the views which we have
presented in the foregoing pages, but are most violently strained
and twisted by the Calvinistic theory to meet the severe
exigencies of a theoretical dogma.

If any one, granting that the central efficacy of the mission of
Christ, dogmatically and objectively considered, lay in his
descent into Hades and in his resurrection, maintains that still
certain passages in the New Testament do ascribe an expiatory
effect directly to his death as such, we reply that this
interpretation is quite likely to be correct. And we can easily
trace the conception to its origin beyond the pale of revelation.
It was an idea prevalent among the Jews in the time of the
apostles, and before, that death was an atonement for all sins,
and that the death of the righteous atoned for the sins of
others.10 Now, the apostles might adopt this view and apply it
pre eminently to the case of Christ. This is the very explanation
given by Origen.11 De Wette quotes the following sentence, and
many others of the same purport,

10 Gfrorer, Gesehichte des Urchristenthums, abth. ii. pp. 187
190.

11 Mosheim, Commentaries on Christianity in the First Three
Centuries, Eng. trans., vol. ii. pp. 162-163.

from the Talmud: "The death of the just is the redemption of
sinners."12 The blood of any righteous man was a little atonement;
that of Christ was a vast one. The former all Protestants call a
heathen error. So they should the latter, because it sprung from
the same source and is the same in principle. If, then, there are
any scriptural texts which imply that the mere death of Christ had
a vicarious, expiatory efficacy, they are, so far forth, the
reflection of heathen and Jewish errors yet lingering in the minds
of the writers, and not the inspired revelation of an isolated,
arbitrary after expedient contrived in the secret counsels of God
and wonderfully interpolated into the providential history of the
world. But, if there are any such passages, they are few and
unimportant. The great mass of the scriptural language on this
subject is fairly and fully explained by the historical theory
whose outlines we have sketched. The root of the matter is the
resurrection of Christ out from among the dead and his ascent into
heaven.

It has not been our purpose in this chapter, or in the preceding
chapters, to present the history of the Christian doctrine of the
atonement, either in its intrinsic significance or in its
relations to subjective religious experience. We have only sought
to explain it, according to the original understanding of it, in
its objective relations to the fate of men in the future life. The
importance of the subject, its difficulty, and the profound
prejudices connected with it, are so great as not only to excuse,
but even to require, much explanatory repetition to make the truth
clear and to recommend it, in many lights, with various methods,
and by accumulated authorities. Those who wish to see the whole
subject of the atonement treated with consummate fulness and
ability, leaving nothing to be desired from the historical point
of view, have only to read the masterly work of Baur.13

In leaving this part of our subject here, we would submit the
following considerations to the candid judgment of the reader.
Admitting the truth of the common doctrine of the atonement, why
did Christ die? It does not appear how there could be any
particular efficacy in mere death. The expiation of sin which he
had undertaken required only a certain amount of suffering. It did
not as far as we can see on the theory of satisfaction by an
equivalent substituted suffering require death. It seems as if
local and physical ideas must have been associated with the
thought of his death. And we find the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews thus replying to the question, Why did Christ die? "That
through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Now, plainly, this
end was accomplished by his resurrection bursting asunder the
bonds of Hades and showing that it was no longer the hopeless
prison of the dead. The justice of this explanation appears from
the logical necessity of the series of ideas, the internal
coherence and harmony of thought. It has been ably shown that
substantially this view is the accurate interpretation of the New
Testament doctrine by

12 Comm. de Morte Christi Expiatoria, cap. iii.: Qua Judaorum
Recentiorum Christologia de Passione ac Morte Messia docet.

13 Die Christliche Lehre von der Versohnung in ihrer
Geschichtlichen Entwicklung von der Alteaten Zeit bis auf die
Neueste.

Steinbart,14 Schott,15 Bretschneider,16 Klaiber,17 and others. The
gradual deviations from this early view can be historically
traced, step by step, through the refining speculations of
theologians. First, in ecclesiastical history, after the New
Testament times, it is thought the devil has a right over all
souls in consequence of sin. Christ is a ransom offered to the
devil to offset his claim. Sometimes this is represented as a fair
bargain, sometimes as a deception practised on the devil,
sometimes as a battle waged with him. Next, it is conceived that
the devil has no right over human souls, that it is God who has
doomed them to the infernal prison and holds them there for their
sin. Accordingly, the sacrifice of Christ for their ransom is
offered not to the tyrannical devil but to the offended God.
Finally, in the progress of culture, the satisfaction theory
appears; and now the suffering of Christ is neither to buy souls
from the devil nor to appease God and soften his anger into
forgiveness; but it is to meet the inexorable exigencies of the
abstract law of infinite justice and deliver sinners by bearing
for them the penalty of sin. The whole course of thought, once
commenced, is natural, inevitable; but the starting point is from
an error, and the pausing places are at false goals.

The view which we have asserted to be the scriptural view
prevailed as the orthodox doctrine of the Church throughout the
first three centuries, as Bahr has proved in his valuable treatise
on the subject.18 He shows that during that period Christ's death
was regarded as a revelation of God's love, a victory over the
devil, (through his resurrection,) a means of obtaining salvation
for men, but not as a punitive sacrifice, not as a vindication of
God's justice, not as a vicarious satisfaction of the law.19 If
the leading theologians of Christendom, such as Anselm, Calvin,
and Grotius, have so thoroughly repudiated the original Christian
and patristic doctrine of the atonement, and built another
doctrine upon their own uninspired speculations, why should our
modern sects defer so slavishly to them, and, instead of freely
investigating the subject for themselves from the first sources of
Scripture and spiritual philosophy, timidly cling to the results
reached by these biassed, morbid, and over sharp thinkers? In
proportion as scholarly, unfettered minds engage in such a
criticism, we believe the exposition given in the foregoing pages
will be recognised as scriptural. Without involving this whole
theory, how can any one explain the unquestionable fact that
during the first four centuries the entire orthodox Church
believed that Christ at his resurrection from the under world
delivered Adam from his imprisonment there?20 All acknowledge that
the phrase "redemption by the blood of Christ" is a metaphor. The
only question is, what meaning was it intended to convey? We
maintain its meaning to be that

14 System der Reinen Philosophie, oder Gluckseligkeitslehre des
Christenthums, u.s.f.

15 Epitome Theologia Christiana Dogmatica.

16 Die Lehren von Adam's Fall, der Erbsunde, und dem Opfer
Christi.

17 Studien der Evang. Geietlichkeit Wurtemburgs, viii. 1, 2.
Doederlein, Morus, Knapp, Schwarze, and Reinhard affirm that the
death of Christ was not the price of our pardon, but the
confirming declaration of free pardon from God. Hagenbach,
Dogmengeschichte, sect. 297, note 5.

18 Die Lehre der Kirche vom Tode Jesu in den Ersten Drei
Jahrhunderteu.

19 Die Lehre der Kirche vom Tode Jesu in den Ersten Drei
Jahrhunderten, ss. 176-180.

20 Augustine, Epist. ad Evodium 99. Op. Imp. vi. 22, 30. Epist.
164. Dante makes Adam say he had been 4302 years in Limbo when
Christ, at his descent, rescued him. Paradise, canto xxvi.


through all the events and forces associated with the death of
Christ, including his descent to Hades and his resurrection, men
are delivered from the doom of the under world. The common
theology explains it as teaching that there was an expiatory
efficacy in the unmerited sufferings of Christ. The system known
as Unitarianism says it denotes merely the exertion of a saving
spiritual power on the hearts of men. The first interpretation
charges the figure of speech with a dramatic revelation of the
love of God freely rescuing men from their inherited fate. The
second seems to make it a tank of gore, where Divine vengeance
legally laps to appease its otherwise insatiable appetite. The
third fills it with a regenerative moral influence to be
distributed upon the characters of believers. The two former also
include the last; but it excludes them. Now, as it seems to us,
the first is the form of mistake in which the early Church,
including the apostles, embodied the true significance of the
mission of Christ. Owing to the circle of ideas in which they
lived, this was the only possible form in which the disciples of
Jesus could receive the new doctrine of a blessed immortality
brought to light by Christianity.21 The second is the form of
false theory in which a few scholastic brains elaborated the cruel
results of their diseased metaphysical speculations. The third is
the dry, meager, inadequate statement of the most essential truth
in the case.

There is one more point of view in which the New Testament holds
up the resurrection of Christ. It is regarded as a summons to a
moral and spiritual resurrection within the breast of the
believer. As the great Forerunner had ascended to a spiritual and
immortal life in the heavens, so his followers should be inspired
with such a realizing sense of heavenly things, with such Divine
faith and fellowship, as would lift them above the world, with all
its evanescent cares, and fix their hearts with God. This high
communion with Christ, and intense assurance of a destined speedy
inheritance with him, should render the disciple insensible to the
clamorous distractions of earth, invulnerable to the open and
secret assaults of sin, as if in the body he were already dead,
and only alive in the spirit to the obligations of holiness, the
attractions of piety, and the promises of heaven. "When we were
dead in trespasses and sins, God loved us, and hath quickened us
together with Christ, and hath raised us up together and made us
sit together in heavenly places." "If ye, then, be risen with
Christ, set your affection on things above, not on earthly things;
for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." This
moral symbolic application of the resurrection is most beautiful
and effective. Christ has risen, immaculate and immortal, into the
pure and holy heaven: then live virtuously and piously, that you
may be found worthy to be received unto him. "He that hath this
hope purifieth himself, even as He is pure." Paul enforces this
thought through the striking figure that, since "we are freed from
the law through the death of Christ, we should be married to his
risen spirit and bring forth fruit unto God." And again, when he
speaks in these words, "Christ in you the hope of glory," we
suppose he refers to the spiritual image of the risen Redeemer
formed in the disciples' imagination and heart, the prefiguring
and witnessing pledge of their ascension also to heaven. The same
practical use is made of the doctrine through the rite and sign of
baptism. "Ye are buried with Christ in

21 Bretschneider forcibly illustrates this in his Handbuch der
Dogmatik der Evang.  Luther. Kirche, sects. 156-158, band ii.


baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through faith in the
working of God, who hath raised him from the dead." "Wherefore, if
ye be dead with Christ, why are ye subject to worldly ordinances?
and if ye be risen with him, seek those things which are above."
When the disciple sunk beneath the baptizing waters, he was
typically dead and buried, as Jesus was in the tomb; when he rose
from the waters into the air again, he figuratively represented
Christ rising from the dead into heaven. Henceforth, therefore, he
was to consider himself as dead to all worldly sins and lusts,
alive to all heavenly virtues and aspirations. "Therefore," the
apostle says, "we are buried with Christ by baptism unto death,
that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we should
walk in newness of life." "In that Christ died, he died unto sin
once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God." "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
This was strictly true to the immediate disciples of Jesus. When
he died, their hearts died within them; they shrank away in
hopeless confusion and gloom. When he returned to life and
ascended to heaven, in feeling and imagination they went with him.
Every moral power and motive started into new life and energy.

"The day when from the dead Our Lord arose, then everywhere, Out
of their darkness and despair, Triumphant over fears and foes, The
souls of his disciples rose."

An unheard of assurance of the Father's love and of their eternal
inheritance flooded their being with its regenerating, uplifting
power. To their absorbing anticipations the mighty consummation of
all was at hand. In reflective imagination it was already past,
and they, dead to the world, only lived to God. The material world
and the lust thereof had sunk beneath them and vanished. They were
moving in the universe of imperishable realities unseen by the
fleshly eye. To their faith already was unrolled over them that
new firmament in whose spanless welkin no cloudy tempests ever
gather and break, and the serene lights never fade nor go down.
This experience of a spiritual exaltation above the sins and
degrading turmoils of passion, above the perishing baubles of the
earth, into the religious principles which are independent and
assured, peace, and bliss, and eternity, is attainable by all who
with the earnestness of their souls assimilate the moral truths of
Christianity, pressing in pious trust after the steps of the risen
Master. And this, after all, is the vital essence of the doctrine
of the resurrection as it makes practical appeal to us. This will
stand, though gnawing time and hostile criticism should assail and
shake all the rest. It is something not to be mechanically wrought
upon us from without, but to be done within by our own voluntary
effort and prayer, by God's help. To rise from sloth, unbelief,
sin, from moral death, to earnestness, faith, beneficence, to
eternal life in the breast, is a real and most sublime
resurrection, the indispensable preparation for that other and
final one which shall raise us from the sepulchre to the sky.
When, on Easter morning, Christian disciples throughout the world
hear the joyous cry, "Christ is risen," and their own
hearts instinctively respond, with an unquenchable persuasion that
he is now alive somewhere in the heights of the universe, "Christ
is risen indeed," they should endeavor in spirit to rise too, rise
from the deadly bondage and corruption of vice and indifference.
While the earth remains, and men survive, and the evils which
alienate them from God and his blessedness retain any sway over
them, so oft as that hallowed day comes round, this is the
kindling message of Divine authority ever fresh, and of
transcendent import never old, that it bears through all the
borders of Christendom to every responsible soul: "Awake from your
sleep, arise from your death, lift up your eyes to heaven, and the
risen Redeemer will give you the light of immortal life!" Have
this awakening and deathless experience in the soul, and you will
be troubled by no doubts about an everlasting life succeeding the
close of the world. But so long as this spiritual resurrection in
the breast is unknown, you can have no knowledge of eternal life,
no experimental faith in a future entrance from the grave into
heaven, no, not though millions of resurrections had crowded the
interstellar space with ascending shapes. Rise, then, from your
moral graves, and already, by faith and imagination, sit in
heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

Before leaving this subject, it belongs to us to look at it as a
theory; that is, to consider with critical scrutiny the
conclusions which are supposed to flow from its central fact. We
must regard it from three distinct points of view, seeking its
meaning in sound logic, its force in past history, its value in
present experience. First, then, we are to inquire what really is
the logical significance of the resurrection of Christ. The
looseness and confusion of thought prevailing in relation to this
point are amazing. It seems as if mankind were contented with
investigations careless, reasonings incoherent, and inferences
arbitrary, in proportion to the momentousness of the matter in
hand. In regard to little details of sensible fact and daily
business their observation is sharp, their analysis careful, their
reflection patient; but when they approach the great problems of
morality, God, immortality, they shrink from commensurate efforts
to master those mighty questions with stern honesty, and remain
satisfied with fanciful methods and vague results. The
resurrection of Christ is generally regarded as a direct
demonstration of the immortality of man, an argument of
irrefragable validity. But this is an astonishing mistake. The
argument was not so constructed by Paul. He did not seek directly
to prove the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the
dead. He took for granted the Pharisaic doctrine that all souls on
leaving their bodies descended to Sheol, where they darkly
survived, waiting to be summoned forth at the arrival of the
Messianic epoch. Assuming the further premise that Christ after
death went down among these imprisoned souls, and then rose thence
again, Paul infers, by a logical process strictly valid and
irresistible to one holding those premises, that the general
doctrine of a resurrection from the dead is true, and that by this
visible pledge we may expect it soon, since the Messiah, who is to
usher in its execution, has already come and finished the
preliminary stages of his work. The apostle's own words plainly
show this to be his meaning. "If there be no resurrection of the
dead, then is Christ not risen. But now is Christ risen from the
dead, become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Every
man shall be made alive in his own order: Christ the first fruits;
then they that are Christ's, at his coming; then the last remnant,
when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God." The notions
of a universal imprisonment of souls in the intermediate state,
and of a universal raising of them thence at an appointed time,
having faded from a deep and vivid belief into a cold traditional
dogma, ridiculed by many, cared for at all by few, realizingly
held by almost none, Paul's argument has been perverted and
misinterpreted, until it is now commonly supposed to mean this:
Christ has risen from the dead: therefore the soul of man is
immortal. Whereas the argument really existed in his mind in the
reverse form, thus: The souls of men are immortal and are
hereafter to be raised up: therefore Christ has risen as an
example and illustration thereof. It is singular to notice that he
has himself clearly stated the argument in this form three times
within the space of four consecutive verses, as follows: "If there
be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:" "God
raised Christ not up, if so be that the dead rise not." "For if
the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised." The fact of the
resurrection of Christ, taken in connection with the related
notions previously held in the mind of Paul, formed the complement
of an irresistible argument to prove the impending resurrection of
the dead, But if it be now perceived that those other notions were
Pharisaic errors, the argument, as he employed it, falls to the
ground.

Taken by itself and analyzed by a severe logic, the resurrection
of Christ proves nothing conclusively in regard to our
immortality. If it did of itself prove any thing, the direct
logical inference from it would be that henceforth all men, three
days after death, would rise bodily from the dead, appear for a
season on earth as before, and then ascend visibly into the sky.
If at the present time a man who had been put to death and
entombed three days should openly come forth alive, considered as
an isolated fact, what would it prove? It would merely prove that
a wonderful event had occurred. It would show that either by some
mysterious means he had escaped death, or else that by some
apparently preternatural agency he had been restored to life from
the dead. Taken by itself, it could not prove whether the
occurrence was caused by a demoniacal or by a Divine power, or by
some occult force of nature developed by a peculiar combination of
conditions. The strange event would stand clear to our senses; but
all beyond that would be but an hypothesis of our own, and liable
to mistake. Consequently, we say, the resurrection, taken by
itself, proves no doctrine. But we may so suppose the case that
such an event would, from its relation to something else, acquire
logical meaning. For instance, if Christ had taught that he had
supernatural knowledge of truth, a Divine commission to reveal a
future life, and said that, after he should have been dead and
buried three days, God would restore him to life to authenticate
his words, and if, then, so stupendous a miracle occurred in
accordance with his prediction, it would prove that his claims and
doctrine were true, because God is no accomplice in deception.
Such was the case with Jesus as narrated; and thus his
resurrection appears, not as having doctrinal significance and
demonstrative validity in itself, but as a miraculous
authentication of his mission. That is to say, the Christian's
faith in immortality rests not directly on the resurrection of
Christ, but on his teachings, which were confirmed and sealed by
his resurrection. It is true that, even in this modified form,
some persons of dialectical minds will deny all validity to the
argument. What necessary connection is there, they will ask,
between the exhibition of mechanico chemical wonders, physical
feats, however abnormal and inexplicable, and the possession of
infallibility of intellectual insight and moral utterance? If a
man should say, God is falsehood and hatred, and in evidence of
his declaration should make a whole cemetery disembogue its dead
alive, or cause the sun suddenly to sink from its station at noon
and return again, would his wonderful performance prove his
horrible doctrine? Why, or how, then, would a similar feat prove
the opposite doctrine? Plainly, there is not, on rigid logical
principles, any connecting tie or evidencing coherence between a
physical miracle and a moral doctrine.22 We admit the correctness
of this, on philosophical grounds. But the validity of a miracle
as proof of a doctrine rests on the spontaneous assumption that no
man can work a miracle unless God specially delegate him the
power: thereby God becomes the voucher of his envoy. And when a
person claiming to be a messenger from God appears, saying, "The
Father hath commanded me to declare that in the many mansions of
his house there is a blessed life for men after the close of this
life," and when he promises that, in confirmation of his claim,
God will restore him to life after he shall have been three days
dead, and when he returns accordingly triumphant from the
sepulchre, the argument will be unquestioningly received as valid
by the instinctive common sense of all who are convinced of the
facts.

We next pass from the meaning of the resurrection in logic to its
force and working in history. When Jesus hung on the cross, and
the scornful shouts of the multitude murmured in his ears, the
disciples had fled away, disappointed, terror stricken,
despairing. His star seemed set in a hopeless night of shame and
defeat. The new religion appeared a failure. But in three days
affairs had taken a new aspect. He that was crucified had risen,
and the scattered disciples rallied from every quarter, and,
animated by faith and zeal, went forth to convert the world. As an
organic centre of thought and belief, as a fervid and enduring
incitement to action, in the apostolic times and all through the
early centuries, the received fact of the resurrection of Christ
wielded an incomparable influence and produced incalculable
results. Christianity indeed rose upon it, and, to a great extent,
flourished through it. The principal effect which the gospel has
had in bringing life and immortality to light throughout a large
part of the world is to be referred to the proclaimed resurrection
of Christ. For without the latter the former would not have been.
Its historical value has therefore been immense. More than nine
tenths of the dormant common faith of Christendom in a future life
now outwardly reposes on it from tradition and custom. The great
majority of Christians grow up, by education and habit, without
any sharp conscientious investigation of their own, to an
undisturbed belief in immortality, a belief passively resting on
the demonstration of the doctrine supposed to have been furnished
by the resurrection of Christ in Judea two thousand years ago. The
historical power of that fact has therefore been inexpressibly
important; and its vast and happy consequences as food and basis
of faith still remain. But this historic force is no longer what
it once was as a living and present cause. It now operates mostly
through traditional reception as an established doctrine to be
taken

22 J. Blanco White, Letter on Miracles, in appendix to Martineau's
Rationale of Religious Inquiry.


for granted, without fresh individual inquiry. Education and
custom use it as an unexamined but trusted foundation to build on
by common assumptions. And so the historic impetus is not yet
spent. But it certainly has diminished; and it will diminish more.
When faced with dauntless eyes and approached by skeptical
methods, it of course cannot have the silencing, all sufficient
authority, now that it is buried in the dim remoteness of nineteen
centuries and surrounded by obscuring accompaniments, that it had
when its light blazed close at hand. The historical force of the
alleged resurrection of Christ must evidently, other things being
equal, lessen to an unprejudiced inquirer in some proportion to
the lengthening distance of the event from him in time, and the
growing difficulties of ignorance, perplexity, doubt, manifold
uncertainty, deficiency, infidel suggestions, and naturalistic
possibilities, intervening between it and him. The shock of faith
given by the miracle is dissipated in coming through such an abyss
of time. The farther off and the longer ago it was, the more
chances for error and the more circumstances of obscurity there
are, and so much the worth and force of the historical belief in
it will naturally become fainter, till they will finally fade
away. An honest student may bow humbly before the august front of
Christian history and join with the millions around in
acknowledging the fact of the resurrection of Christ. But we
maintain that the essential fact in this historic act is not the
visible resuscitation of the dead body, but the celestial
reception of the deathless spirit. So Paul evidently thought; for
he had never seen Christ in the flesh, yet he places himself, as a
witness to the resurrection of Christ, in the same rank with those
who had seen him on his reappearance in the body: "Last of all he
was seen of me also." Paul had only seen him in vision as a
glorified spirit of heaven.

We know that our belief in the fleshly resurrection of Jesus rests
on education and habit, on cherished associations of reverence and
attachment, rather than on sifted testimony and convincing proof.
It is plain, too, that if a person takes the attitude, not of
piety and receptive trust, but of skeptical antagonism, it is
impossible, as the facts within our reach are to day, to convince
him of the asserted reality in question. An unprejudiced mind
competently taught and trained for the inquiry, but whose attitude
towards the declared fact is that of distrust, a mind which will
admit nothing but what is conclusively proved, cannot be driven
from its position by all the extant material of evidence.
Education, associations, hopes, affections, leaning that way, he
may be convinced; but leaning the other way, or poised in
indifference on a severe logical ground, he will honestly remain
in his unbelief despite of all the arguments that can be
presented. In the first place, he will say, "The only history we
have of the resurrection is in the New Testament; and the
testimony of witnesses in their own cause is always suspicious;
and it is wholly impossible now really to prove who wrote those
documents, or precisely when and how they originated: besides
that, the obvious discrepancies in the accounts, and the utterly
uncritical credulity and unscientific modes of investigation which
satisfied the writers, destroy their value as witnesses in any
severe court of reason." And in reply, although we may claim that
there is sufficient evidence to satisfy an humble Christian,
previously inclined to such a faith, that the New Testament
documents were written by the persons whose names they bear, and
that their accounts are true, yet we cannot pretend that there is
sufficient evidence effectually to convince a critical inquirer
that there is no possibility of ungenuineness and unauthenticity.
In the second place, such a person will say, "Many fabulous
miracles have been eagerly credited by contemporaries of their
professed authors, and handed down to the credulity of after
times; many actual events, honestly, interpreted as miracles,
without fraud in any party concerned, have been so accepted and
testified to.

Roman Catholic Christendom claims to this day the performance of
miracles within the Church; while all Protestant Christendom
scouts them as ridiculous tales: and this may be one of them. How
can we demonstrate that it does not fall within the same class on
the laws of evidence?" And although our own moral beliefs and
sympathies may force upon us the most profound conviction to the
contrary, it is plainly out of our power to disprove the
possibility of this hypothesis being true. In the third place, he
will say, "Of all who testify to the resurrection, there is
nothing in the record admitting its entire reliableness as an
ingenuous statement of the facts as apprehended by the authors to
show that any one of them knew that Jesus was actually dead, or
that any one of them made any real search into that point. He may
have revived from a long insensibility, wandered forth in his
grave clothes, mingled afterwards with his disciples, and at last
have died from his wounds and exhaustion, in solitude, as he was
used to spend seasons in lonely prayer by night. Then, with
perfectly good faith, his disciples, involving no collusion or
deceit anywhere, may have put a miraculous interpretation upon it
all, such additional particulars as his visible ascension into the
sky being a later mythical accretion." This view may well seem
offensive, even shocking, to the pious believer; but it is plainly
possible. It is intrinsically more easily conceivable than the
accredited miracle. It is impossible positively to refute it: the
available data do not exist. Upon the whole, then, we conclude
that the time is coming when the basis of faith in immortality, in
order to stand the tests of independent scrutiny, must be
historically as well as logically shifted from a blind dependence
on the miraculous resurrection of Christ to a wise reliance on
insight into the supernatural capacity and destiny of man, on the
deductions of moral reason and the prophecies of religious trust.

Finally, we pause a moment, in closing this discussion, to weigh
the practical value of the resurrection of Christ as acknowledged
in the experience of the present time. How does that event,
admitted as a fact, rest in the average personal experience of
Christians now? We shall provoke no intelligent contradiction when
we say that it certainly does not often rest on laborious research
and rigorous testing of evidence. We surely risk nothing in saying
that with the multitude of believers it rests on a docile
reception of tradition, an unquestioning conformity to the
established doctrine. And that reception and conformity in the
present instance depend, we shall find by going a step further
back, upon a deep a priori faith in God and immortality. When Paul
reasons that, if the dead are not to rise, Christ is not risen,
but that the dead are to rise, and therefore Christ is risen, his
argument reposes on a spontaneous practical method of moral
assumption, not on a judicial process of logical proof. So is it
with Christians now. The intense moral conviction that God is
good, and that there is another life, and that it would be
supremely worthy of God to send a messenger to teach that doctrine
and to rise from the dead in proof of it, it is this earnest
previous faith that gives plausibility, vitality, and power to the
preserved tradition of the actual event. If we trace the case home
to the last resort, as it really lies in the experience developed
in us by Christianity, we shall find that a deep faith in God is
the basis of our belief, first in general immortality, and
secondly in the special resurrection of Christ as related thereto.
But, by a confusion, or a want, of thought, the former is
mistakenly supposed to rest directly and solely on the latter. The
doctrinal inferences built up around the resurrection of Christ
fall within the province of faith, resting on moral grounds, not
within that of knowledge, resting on logical grounds. For example:
what direct proof is there that Christ, when he vanished from the
disciples, went to the presence of God in heaven, to die no more?
It was only seen that he disappeared: all beyond that except as it
rests on belief in the previous words of Christ himself is an
inference of faith, a faith kindled in the soul by God and not
created by the miracle of the resurrection.

That imagination, tradition, feeling, and faith, have much more to
do with the inferences commonly drawn from the resurrection of
Christ than any strict investigation of its logical contents has,
appears clearly enough from the universal neglect to draw any
inferences from, or to attribute any didactic importance to, the
other resurrections recorded in the New Testament. We refer
especially to the resurrection narrated in the twenty seventh
chapter of Matthew, "the most stupendous miracle ever wrought upon
earth," it has been termed; and yet hardly any one ever deigns to
notice it. Thus the evangelist writes: "And the graves were
opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came
out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy
city, and appeared unto many." Nothing is inferred from this
alleged event but the power of God. Yet logically what separates
it from the resurrection of Christ? In Greece there was the
accredited account of the resurrection of Er, in Persia that of
Viraf, in Judea that of Lazarus, in other nations those of other
persons. None of these ever produced great results. Yet the
resurrection of one individual from the dead logically contains
all that that of any other individual can. Why, then, has that of
Christ alone made such a change in the faith of the world?
Because, through a combination of causes, it has appealed to the
imagination and heart of the world and stirred their believing
activity, because the thought was here connected with a person, a
history, a moral force, and a providential interposition, fit for
the grandest deductions and equal to the mightiest effects. It is
not accurate philosophical criticism that has done this, but
humble love and faith.

In the experience of earnest Christians, a personal belief in the
resurrection of Christ, vividly conceived in the imagination and
taken home to the heart, is chiefly effective in its spiritual,
not in its argumentative, results. It stirs up the powers and
awakens the yearnings of the soul, opens heaven to the gaze,
locates there, as it were visibly, a glorious ideal, and thus
helps one to enter upon an inward realization of the immortal
world. The one essential thing is not that Jesus appeared alive in
the flesh after his physical death, the revealer of superhuman
power and possessor of infallibility, but that he divinely lives
now, the forerunner and type of our immortality.

CHAPTER VIII.

ESSENTIAL CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF DEATH AND LIFE.

LET US first notice the uncommon amount of meaning which Christ
and the apostolic writers usually put into the words "death,"
"life," and other kindred terms. These words are scarcely ever
used in their merely literal sense, but are charged with a vivid
fulness of significance not to be fathomed without especial
attention. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."
Obviously this means more than simple life; because those who
neglect the laws of virtue may live. It signifies, distinctively,
true life, the experience of inward peace and of Divine favor.
"Whosoever hateth his brother hath not eternal life abiding in
him, but abideth in death;" that is to say, a soul rankling with
bad passions is "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of
iniquity," but, when converted from hatred to love, it passes from
wretchedness to blessedness. "Let the dead bury their dead." No
one reading this passage with its context can fail to perceive
that it means, substantially, "Let those who are absorbed in the
affairs of this world, and indifferent to the revelation I have
brought from heaven, attend to the interment of the dead; but
delay not thou, who art kindled with a lively interest in the
truth, to proclaim the kingdom of God." When the returning
prodigal had been joyfully received, the father said, in reply to
the murmurs of the elder son, "Thy brother was dead and is alive
again;" he was lost in sin and misery, he is found in penitence
and happiness. Paul writes to the Romans, "Without the law sin was
dead, and I was alive; but when the law was made known, sin came
to life, and I died." In other words, when a man is ignorant of
the moral law, immoral conduct does not prevent him from feeling
innocent and being at peace; but when a knowledge of the law shows
the wickedness of that conduct, he becomes conscious of guilt, and
is unhappy. For instance, to state the thought a little
differently, to a child knowing nothing of the law, the law, or
its purposed violation, sin, does not exist, is dead: he therefore
enjoys peace of conscience; but when he becomes aware of the law
and its authority, if he then break it, sin is generated and
immediately stings, and spiritual happiness dies.

These passages are sufficient to show that Christianity uses the
words "death" and "life" in a spiritual sense, penetrating to the
hidden realities of the soul. To speak thus of the guilty,
unbelieving man as dead, and only of the virtuous, believing man
as truly alive, may seem at first a startling use of figurative
language. It will not appear so when we notice its appropriateness
to the case, or remember the imaginative nature of Oriental speech
and recollect how often we employ the same terms in the same way
at the present time. We will give a few examples of a similar use
of language outside of the Scriptures. That which threatens or
produces death is sometimes, by a figure, identified with death.
Orpheus, in the Argonautika, speaks of "a terrible serpent whose
yawning jaw is full of death." So Paul says he was "in deaths
oft." Ovid says, "The priests poured out a dog's hot life on the
altar of Hecate at the crossing of two roads." The Pythagoreans,
when one of their number became impious and abandoned, were
accustomed to consider him dead, and to erect a tomb to him, on
which his name and his age at the time of his moral decease were
engraved. The Roman law regarded an excommunicated citizen as
civilis mortuus, legally dead. Fenelon writes, "God has kindled a
flame at the bottom of every heart, which should always burn as a
lamp for him who hath lighted it; and all other life is as death."
Chaucer says, in one of his Canterbury Tales, referring to a man
enslaved by dissolute habits,

"But certes, he that haunteth swiche delices Is ded while that he
liveth in tho' vices."

And in a recent poem the following lines occur:

"From his great eyes The light has fled: When faith departs, when
honor dies, The man is dead."

To be subjected to the lower impulses of our nature by degraded
habits of vice and criminality is wretchedness and death. The true
life of man consists, the Great Teacher declared, "not in the
abundance of the things which he possesseth, but rather in his
being rich toward God," in conscious purity of heart, energy of
faith, and union with the Holy Spirit. "He that lives in sensual
pleasure is dead while he lives," Paul asserts; but he that lives
in spiritual righteousness has already risen from the dead. To sum
up the whole in a single sentence, the service and the fruits of
sin form an experience which Christianity calls death, because it
is a state of insensibility to the elements and results of true
life, in the adequate sense of that term, meaning the serene
activity and religious joy of the soul.

The second particular in the essential doctrine of Christianity
concerning the states of human experience which it entitles death
and life is their inherent, enduring nature, their independence on
the objects and changes of this world. The gospel teaches that the
elements of our being and experience are transferred from the life
that now is into the life that is to come, or, rather, that we
exist continuously forever, uninterrupted by the event of physical
dissolution. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him," Jesus declares, "shall never thirst; but the water that I
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life." John affirms, "The world passeth away, and the
lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."
Paul writes to the Christians at Rome, "In that Christ died, he
died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God." Numerous additional texts of kindred import might
be cited. They announce the immortality of man, the unending
continuance of the Christian consciousness, unless forfeited by
voluntary defection. They show that sin and woe are not
arbitrarily bounded by the limits of time and sense in the grave,
and that nothing can ever exhaust or destroy the satisfaction of
true life, faith in the love of God: it abides, blessed and
eternal, in the uninterrupted blessedness and eternity of its
Object. The revelation and offer of all this to the acceptance of
men, its conditions, claims, and alternative sanctions, were first
divinely made known and planted in the heart of the world, as the
Scriptures assert, by Jesus Christ, who promulgated them by his
preaching, illustrated them by his example, proved them by his
works, attested them by his blood, and crowned them by his
resurrection.

And now there is opened for all of us, through him, that is to
say, through belief and obedience of what he taught and
exemplified, an access unto the Father, an assurance of his
forgiveness of us and of our reconciliation with him. We thus
enter upon the experience of that true life which is "joy and
peace in believing," and which remains indestructible through all
the vanishing vagrancy of sin, misery, and the world. "This is
eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent:" that is, imperishable life is
to be obtained by union with God in faith and love, through a
hearty acceptance of the instructions of Christ.

The two points thus far considered are, first, that the sinful,
unbelieving, wretched man abides in virtual death, while the
righteous, happy believer in the gospel has the experience of
genuine life; and, secondly, that these essential elements of
human character and experience survive all events of time and
place in everlasting continuance.

The next consideration prominent in the Christian doctrine of
death and life is the distinction continually made between the
body and the soul. Man is regarded under a twofold aspect, as
flesh and spirit, the one a temporal accompaniment and dependent
medium, the other an immortal being in itself. The distinction is
a fundamental one, and runs through nearly all philosophy and
religion in their reference to man. In the Christian Scriptures it
is not sharply drawn, with logical precision, nor always
accurately maintained, but is loosely defined, with waving
outlines, is often employed carelessly, and sometimes, if strictly
taken, inconsistently. Let us first note a few examples of the
distinction itself in the instructions of the Savior and of the
different New Testament writers.

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the spirit is spirit." "Fear not them which kill the body but
are not able to kill the soul." "Though our outward man perish,
yet the inward man is renewed." "He that soweth to his flesh shall
reap corruption; he that soweth to the spirit shall reap life
everlasting." "Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in
the spirit." "Knowing that I must shortly put off this
tabernacle." "The body without the spirit is dead." It would be
useless to accumulate examples. It is plain that these authors
distinguish the body and the soul as two things conjoined for a
season, the latter of which will continue to live when the other
has mixed with the dust. The facts and phenomena of our being from
which this distinction springs are so numerous and so influential,
so profound and so obvious, that it is impossible they should
escape the knowledge of any thinking person. Indeed, the
distinction has found a recognition everywhere among men, from the
ignorant savage, whose instincts and imagination shadow forth a
dim world in which the impalpable images of the departed dwell, to
the philosopher of piercing intellect and universal culture,

"Whose lore detects beneath our crumbling clay A soul, exiled, and
journeying back to day."

"Labor not for the meat which perisheth," Jesus exhorts his
followers, "but labor for the meat which endureth unto everlasting
life." The body and the luxury that pampers it shall perish, but
the spirit and the love that feeds it shall abide forever.

We now pass to examine some metaphorical terms often erroneously
interpreted as conveying merely their literal force. Every one
familiar with the language of the New Testament must remember how
repeatedly the body and the soul, or the flesh and the spirit, are
set in direct opposition to each other, sin being referred to the
former, righteousness to the latter. "I know that in my flesh
there is no good thing; but with my mind I delight in the law of
God." "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
lusteth against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the
other." All this language and it is extensively used in the
epistles is quite generally understood in a fixed, literal sense;
whereas it was employed by its authors in a fluctuating,
figurative sense, as the critical student can hardly help
perceiving. We will state the real substance of Christian teaching
and phraseology on this point in two general formulas, and then
proceed to illustrate them. First, both the body and the soul may
be corrupt, lawless, empty of Divine belief, full of restlessness
and suffering, in a state of moral death; or both may be pure,
obedient, acceptable in the sight of God, full of faith, peace,
and joy, in a state of genuine life. Secondly, whatever tends in
any way to the former result to make man guilty, feeble, and
wretched, to deaden his spiritual sensibilities, to keep him from
union with God and from immortal reliances is variously
personified as "the Flesh," "Sin," "Death," "Mammon," "the World,"
"the Law of the Members," "the Law of Sin and Death;" whatever, on
the contrary, tends in any way to the latter result to purify man,
to intensify his moral powers, to exalt and quicken his
consciousness in the assurance of the favor of God and of eternal
being is personified as "the Spirit," "Life," "Righteousness,"
"the Law of God," "the Law of the Inward Man," "Christ," "the Law
of the Spirit of Life in Christ." Under the first class of terms
are included all the temptations and agencies by which man is led
to sin, and the results of misery they effect; under the second
class are included all the aspirations and influences by which he
is led to righteousness, and the results of happiness they insure.
For example, it is written, in the Epistle to the Galatians, that
"the manifest works of the flesh are excessive sensuality,
idolatry, hatred, emulations, quarrels, heresies, murders, and
such like." Certainly some of these evils are more closely
connected with the mind than with the body. The term "flesh" is
obviously used in a sense coextensive with the tendencies and
means by which we are exposed to guilt and degradation. These
personifications, it will therefore be seen, are employed with
general rhetorical looseness, not with definite logical exactness.

It is self evident that the mind is the actual agent and author of
all sins and virtues, and that the body in itself is unconscious,
irresponsible, incapable of guilt. "Every sin that man doeth is
without the body." In illustration of this point Chrysostom says,
"If a tyrant or robber were to seize some royal mansion, it would
not be the fault of the house." And how greatly they err who think
that any of the New Testament writers mean to represent the flesh
as necessarily sinful and the spirit as always pure, the following
cases to the contrary from Paul, whose speech seems most to lean
that way, will abundantly show. "Glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are his." "Know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost?" "Yield not your members as instruments
of unrighteousness unto sin, but as instruments of righteousness
unto God." "That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh." "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God." It is clear that the author of these
sentences did not regard the body, or literal flesh, as
necessarily unholy, but as capable of being used by the man
himself in fulfilling the will of God. Texts that appear to
contradict this must be held as figures, or as impassioned
rhetorical exclamations. We also read of "the lusts of the mind,"
the "fleshly mind," "filthiness of the spirit," "seducing
spirits," "corrupt minds," "mind and conscience defiled,"
"reprobate mind,"  showing plainly that the spirit was sometimes
regarded as guilty and morally dead. The apostle writes, "I pray
that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved
blameless." The scriptural declarations now cited teach explicitly
that both the body and the soul may be subjected to the perfect
law of God, or that both may abide in rebellion and wickedness,
the latter state being called, metaphorically, "walking after the
flesh," the former "walking after the spirit," that being sin and
death, this being righteousness and life.

An explanation of the origin of these metaphors will cast further
light upon the subject. The use of a portion of them arose from
the fact that many of the most easily besetting and pernicious
vices, conditions and allurements of sin, defilements and clogs of
the spirit, come through the body, which, while it is itself
evidently fated to perish, does by its earthly solicitations
entice, contaminate, and debase the soul that by itself is invited
to better things and seems destined to immortality. Not that these
evils originate in the body, of course, all the doings of a man
spring from the spirit of man which is in him, but that the body
is the occasion and the aggravating medium of their manifestation.
This thought is not contradicted, it is only omitted, in the words
of Peter: "I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from
fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." For such language
would be spontaneously suggested by the fact that to be in bondage
to the baser nature is hostile alike to spiritual dignity and
peace, and to physical health and strength. The principles of the
moral nature are at war with the passions of the animal nature;
the goading vices of the mind are at war with the organic
harmonies of the body; and on the issues of these conflicts hang
all the interests of life and death, in every sense the words can
be made to bear.

Another reason for the use of these figures of speech,
undoubtedly, was the philosophy of the ineradicable hostility of
matter and spirit, the doctrine, so prevalent in the East from the
earliest times, that matter is wholly corrupt and evil, the
essential root and source of all vileness. An old, unknown Greek
poet embodies the very soul of this faith in a few verses which we
find in the Anthology. Literally rendered, they run thus:

"The body is the torment, hell, fate, load, tyrant,
Dreadful pest, and punishing trial, of the soul
Which, when it quits the body, flies, as from the bonds
Of death, to immortal God."

It was this idea that produced the wild asceticism prevalent in
the Christian Church during the Middle Age and previously, the
fearful macerations, scourgings, crucifixions of the flesh. It
should be understood that, though some of the phraseology of the
Scriptures is tinged by the influence of this doctrine, the
doctrine itself is foreign to Christianity. Christ came eating and
drinking, not abjuring nature, but adopting its teachings, viewing
it as a Divine work through which the providence of God is
displayed and his glory gleams. He was no more of a Pharisee than
nature is. As corn grows on the Sabbath, so it may be plucked and
eaten on the Sabbath. The apostles never recommend self inflicted
torments. The ascetic expressions found in their letters grew
directly out of the perils besetting them and their expectation of
the speedy end of the world. Christianity, rightly understood,
renders even the body of a good man sacred and precious, through
the indwelling of the Infinite. "We have this treasure in earthen
vessels," and the poor, dying tenement of flesh is hallowed as
"A vase of earth, a trembling clod, Constrain'd to hold the breath
of God."

The chief secret, however, of the origin of the peculiar phrases
under consideration consisted in their striking fitness to the
nature and facts of the case, their adaptedness to express these
facts in a bold and vivid manner. The revelation of the
transcendent claims of holiness, of the pardoning love of God, of
the splendid boon of immortality, made by Christ and enforced by
the miraculous sanctions and the kindling motives presented in his
example, thrilled the souls of the first converts, shamed them of
their degrading sins, opened before their imaginations a vision
that paled the glories of the world, and regenerated them,
stirring up the depths of their religious sensibilities, and
flooding their whole being with a warmth, an energy, a
spirituality, that made their previous experience seem a gross
carnal slumber, a virtual death. "And you hath he quickened, who
were dead in trespasses and sins." They were animated and raised
to a new, pure, glad life, through the feeling of the hopes and
the practice of the virtues of the gospel of Christ. Unto those
who "were formerly in the flesh, the servants of sin, bringing
forth fruit unto death," but now obeying the new form of doctrine
delivered unto them, with renewed hearts and changed conduct, it
is written, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin;
but the spirit is life because of righteousness;" that is, If
Christian truth reign in you, the body may still be tormented, or
powerless, owing to your previous bad habits; but the soul will be
redeemed from its abandonment to error and vice, and be assured of
pardon and immortal life by the witnessing spirit of God.

The apostle likewise says unto them, "If the Spirit of God dwell
in you, it shall also quicken your mortal bodies." This remarkable
expression was meant to convey a thought which the observation of
common facts approves and explains. If the love of the pure
principles of the gospel was established in them, their bodies,
debilitated and deadened by former abandonment to their lusts,
should be freed and reanimated by its influence. The body to a
great extent reflects the permanent mind and life of a man. It is
an aphorism of Solomon that "a sound heart is the life of the
flesh." And Plotinus declares, "Temperance and justice are the
saviors of the body so far as they are received by it." Deficiency
of thought and knowledge, laziness of spirit, animality of habits,
betray themselves plainly enough in the state and expression of
the physical frame: they render it coarse, dim, and insensible;
the person verges towards the condition of a clod; spiritual
things are clouded, the beacon fire of his destiny wanes, the
possibilities of Christian faith lessen, "the external and the
insensate creep in on his organized clay," he feels the chain of
the brute earth more and more, and finally gives himself up to
utter death. On the other hand, the assimilation of Divine truth
and goodness by a man, the cherishing love of all high duties and
aspirations, exert a purifying, energizing power both on the flesh
and the mind, animate and strengthen them, like a heavenly flame
burn away the defiling entanglements and spiritual fogs that fill
and hang around the wicked and sensual, increasingly pervade his
consciousness with an inspired force and freedom, illuminate his
face, touch the magnetic springs of health and healthful sympathy,
make him completely alive, and bring him into living connection
with the Omnipresent Life, so that he perceives the full testimony
that he shall never die. For, when brought into such a state by
the experience of live spirits in live frames, "We feel through
all this fleshly dresse Bright shootes of everlastingnesse."

Spiritual sloth and sensual indulgence stupefy, blunt, and confuse
together in lifeless meshes, the vital tenant and the mortal
tenement; they grow incorporate, alike unclean, powerless, guilty,
and wretched. Then "Man lives a life half dead, a living death,
Himself his sepulchre, a moving grave." Active virtue, profound
love, and the earnest pursuit, in the daily duties of life, of
"Those lofty musings which within us sow The seeds of higher kind
and brighter being." Cleanse, vivify, and distinguish the body and
the soul, so that, when this tabernacle of clay crumbles from
around it, the unimprisoned spirit soars into the universe at
once, and, looking back upon the shadowy king bearing his pale
prey to the tomb, exclaims, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory?" The facts, then, of sin, guilt, weakness,
misery, unbelief, decay, insensibility, and death, joined with the
opposite corresponding class of facts, and considered in their
mutual spiritual and physical relations and results, originally
suggested, and now interpret and justify, that peculiar
phraseology of the New Testament which we have been investigating.
It has no recondite meaning drawn from arbitrary dogmas, but a
plain meaning drawn from natural truths.

It remains next to see what is the Christian doctrine concerning
literal, physical death,  concerning the actual origin and
significance of that solemn event. This point must be treated the
more at length on account of the erroneous notions prevailing upon
the subject. For that man's first disobedience was the procuring
cause of organic, as well as of moral, death, is a doctrine quite
generally believed. It is a fundamental article in the creeds of
all the principal denominations of Christendom, and is
traditionally held, from the neglect of investigation, by nearly
all Christians. By this theory the words of James who writes,
"Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" are interpreted
with strict literalness. It is conceived that, had not evil
entered the first man's heart and caused him to fall from his
native innocence, he would have roamed among the flowers of Eden
to this day. But he violated the commandment of his Maker, and
sentence of death was passed upon him and his posterity. We are
now to prove that this imaginative theory is far from the truth.

1. The language in which the original account of Adam's sin and
its punishment is stated shows conclusively that the penalty of
transgression was not literal death, but spiritual, that is,
degradation, suffering. God's warning in relation to the forbidden
tree was, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die." Of course, Jehovah's solemn declaration was fulfilled as he
had said. But in the day that man partook of the prohibited fruit
he did not die a physical death. He lived, driven from the
delights of Paradise, (according to the account,) upwards of eight
hundred years, earning his bread by the sweat of his brow.
Consequently, the death with which he had been threatened must
have been a moral death, loss of innocence and joy, experience of
guilt and woe.

2. The common usage of the words connected with this subject in
the New Testament still more clearly substantiates the view here
taken of it. There is a class of words, linked together by
similarity of meaning and closeness of mutual relation, often used
by the Christian writers loosely, figuratively, and sometimes
interchangeably, as has been shown already in another connection.
We mean the words "sin," "flesh," "misery," "death." The same
remark may be made of another class of words of precisely opposite
signification,  "righteousness," "faith," "life," "blessedness,"
"eternal life." These different words frequently stand to
represent the same idea. "As the law hath reigned through sin unto
death, so shall grace reign through righteousness unto life." In
other terms, as the recognition of the retributive law of God
through rebellion and guilt filled the consciences of men with
wretchedness, so the acceptance of the pardoning love of God
through faith and conformity will fill them with blessedness. Sin
includes conscious distrust, disobedience, and alienation;
righteousness includes conscious faith, obedience, and
reconciliation. Sin and death, it will be seen, are related just
as righteousness and life are. The fact that they are sometimes
represented in the relation of identity "the minding of the flesh
is death, but the minding of the spirit is life" and sometimes in
the relation of cause and effect "the fruit of sin is death, the
fruit of righteousness is life" proves that the words are used
metaphorically, and really mean conscious guilt and misery,
conscious virtue and blessedness. No other view is consistent. We
are urged to be "dead unto sin, but alive unto God;" that is, to
be in a state of moral perfection which turns a deaf and
invincible front to all the influences of evil, but is open and
joyfully sensitive to every thing good and holy. Paul also wrote,
in his letter to the Philippians, that he had "not yet attained
unto the resurrection," but was striving to attain unto it; that
is, he had not yet reached, but was striving to reach, that lofty
state of holiness and peace invulnerable to sin, which no change
can injure, with which the event of bodily dissolution cannot
interfere, because its elements faith, truth, justice, and love
are the immutable principles of everlasting life.

3. In confirmation of this conclusion, an argument amounting to
certainty is afforded by the way in which the disobedience of Adam
and its consequences, and the obedience of Christ and its
consequences, are spoken of together; by the way in which a sort
of antithetical parallel is drawn between the result of Adam's
fall and the result of Christ's mission. "As by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, so much more shall all receive the gift of God by one
man, Jesus Christ, and reign unto eternal life." This means, as
the writer himself afterwards explains, that "as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners" and suffered the consequences
of sin, figuratively expressed by the word "death," "so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous" and enjoy the
consequences of righteousness, figuratively expressed by the word
"life." Give the principal terms in this passage their literal
force, and no meaning which is not absolutely incompatible with
the plainest truths can be drawn from it. Surely literal death had
come equally and fully upon all men everywhere; literal life could
do no more. But render the idea in this way, the blessedness
offered to men in the revelation of grace made by Jesus outweighs
the wretchedness brought upon them through the sin introduced by
Adam, and the sense is satisfactory. That which Adam is
represented as having lost, that, the apostle affirms, Christ
restored; that which Adam is said to have incurred, that Christ is
said to have removed. But Christ did not restore to man a physical
immortality on the earth: therefore that is not what Adam
forfeited; but he lost peace of conscience and trust in the Divine
favor. Furthermore, Christ did not free his followers from natural
decay and death: therefore that is not what Adam's transgression
brought upon his children; but it entailed upon them proclivities
to evil, spiritual unrest, and woe. The basis of the comparison is
evidently this: Adam's fall showed that the consequences of sin,
through the stern operation of the law, were strife, despair, and
misery, all of which is implied in the New Testament usage of the
word "death;" Christ's mission showed that the consequences of
righteousness, through the free grace of God, were faith, peace,
and indestructible happiness, all of which is implied in the New
Testament usage of the word "life." In the mind of Paul there was
undoubtedly an additional thought, connecting the descent of the
soul to the under world with the death of the sinful Adam, and its
ascent to heaven with the resurrection of the immaculate Christ;
but this does not touch the argument just advanced, because it
does not refer to the cause of physical dissolution, but to what
followed that event.

4. It will not be out of place here to demonstrate that sin
actually was not the origin of natural decay, by the revelations
of science, which prove that death was a monarch on the earth for
ages before moral transgression was known. As the geologist
wanders, and studies the records of nature, where earthquake,
deluge, and volcano have exposed the structure of the globe and
its organic remains in strata piled on strata, upon these, as upon
so many pages of the earth's autobiography, he reads the history
of a hundred races of animals which lived and died, leaving their
bones layer above layer, in regular succession, centuries before
the existence of man. It is evident, then, that, independent of
human guilt, and from the very first, chemical laws were in force,
and death was a part of God's plan in the material creation. As
the previous animals perished without sin, so without sin the
animal part of man too would have died. It was made perishable
from the outset. The important point just here in the theology of
Paul was, as previously implied, that death was intended to lead
the soul directly to heaven in a new "spiritual body" or "heavenly
house;" but sin marred the plan, and doomed the soul to go into
the under world, a naked manes, when "unclothed" of "the natural
body" or "earthly house." The mission of Christ was to restore the
original plan; and it would be consummated at his second coming.

5. There is a gross absurdity involved in the supposition that an
earthly immortality was the intended destiny of man. That
supposition necessarily implies that the whole groundwork of God's
first design was a failure, that his great purpose was thwarted
and changed into one wholly different. And it is absurd to think
such a result possible in the providence of the Almighty. Besides,
had there been no sin, could not man have been drowned if he fell
into the water without knowing how to swim? If a building tumbled
upon him, would he not have been crushed? Nor is this theory free
from another still more palpable absurdity; for, had there been no
interference of death to remove one generation and make room for
another, the world could not support the multitudes with which it
would now swarm. Moreover, the time would arrive when the earth
could not only not afford sustenance to its so numerous
inhabitants, but could not even contain them. So that if this were
the original arrangement, unless certain other parts which were
indisputable portions of it were cancelled, the surplus myriads
would have to be removed to some other world. That is just what
death accomplishes. Consequently, death was a part of God's primal
plan, and not a contingence accidentally caused by sin.

6. If death be the result of sin, then, of course, it is a
punishment inflicted upon man for his wickedness. In fact, this is
an identical proposition. But death cannot be intended as a
punishment, because, viewed in that light, it is unjust. It comes
equally upon old and young, good and bad, joyous and wretched. It
does not permit the best man to live longest; it does not come
with the greatest terror and agony to the most guilty. All these
things depend on a thousand contingencies strung upon an iron law,
which inheres to the physical world of necessity, and has not its
basis and action in the spiritual sphere of freedom, character,
and experience. The innocent babe and the hardened criminal are
struck at the same instant and die the same death. Solomon knew
this when he said, "As dieth the fool, so the wise man dieth."
Death regarded as a retribution for sin is unjust, because it is
destitute of moral discrimination. It therefore is not a
consequence of transgression, but an era, incident, and step in
human existence, an established part of the visible order of
things from the beginning. When the New Testament speaks of death
as a punishment, it always uses the word in a symbolic sense,
meaning spiritual deadness and misery, which is a perfect
retribution, because it discriminates with unerring exactness.
This has been conclusively proved by Klaiber,1 who shows that the
peculiar language of Paul in regard to the trichotomist division
of man into spirit, soul, and body necessarily involves the
perception of physical death as a natural fact.

7. Finally, natural death cannot be the penalty of
unrighteousness, because it is not a curse and a woe, but a
blessing and a privilege. Epictetus wrote, "It would be a curse
upon ears of corn not to be reaped; and we ought to know that it
would be a curse upon man not to die." 2 It cannot be the effect
of man's sin, because it is the improvement of man's condition.
Who can believe it would be better for man to remain on earth
forever, under any

1 Die Neutestamentliche Lehre von der Sunde and Erlosung, ss. 22
45.

2 Dissert. ii. 6, 2.


circumstances, than it is for him to go to heaven to such an
experience as the faithful follower of Christ supposes is there
awaiting him? It is not to be thought by us that death is a
frowning enemy thrusting us into the gloom of eternal night or
into the flaming waves of irremediable torment, but rather a
smiling friend ushering us into the endless life of the spiritual
world and into the unveiled presence of God. According to the
arrangement and desire of God, for us to die is gain: every
personal exception to this if there be any exception is caused
through the marring interference of personal wickedness with the
Creator's intention and with natural order. Who has not sometimes
felt the bondage of the body and the trials of earth, and peered
with awful thrills of curiosity into the mysteries of the unseen
world, until he has longed for the hour of the soul's liberation,
that it might plume itself for an immortal flight? Who has not
experienced moments of serene faith, in which he could hardly help
exclaiming, "I would not live alway; I ask not to stay: Oh, who
would live alway away from his God?"

A favorite of Apollo prayed for the best gift Heaven could bestow
upon man. The god said, "At the end of seven days it shall be
granted: in the mean time, live happy." At the appointed hour he
fell into a sweet slumber, from which he never awoke.3 He who
regards death as upon the whole an evil does not take the
Christian's view of it, not even the enlightened pagan's view, but
the frightened sensualist's view, the superstitious atheist's
view. And if death be upon the whole normally a blessing, then
assuredly it cannot be a punishment brought upon man by sin. The
common hypothesis of our mortality namely, that sin, hereditarily
lodged in the centre of man's life, spreads its dynamic virus
thence until it appears as death in the periphery, expending its
final energy within the material sphere in the dissolution of the
physical frame is totally opposed to the spirit of philosophy and
to the most lucid results of science. Science announces death
universally as the initial point of new life.4

The New Testament does not teach that natural death, organic
separation, is the fruit of sin, that, if man had not sinned, he
would have lived forever on the earth. But it teaches that moral
death, misery, is the consequence of sin. The pains and
afflictions which sometimes come upon the good without fault of
theirs do yet spring from human faults somewhere, with those
exceptions alone that result from the necessary contingencies of
finite creatures, exposures outside the sphere of human
accountability. With this qualification, it would be easy to show
in detail that the sufferings of the private individual and of
mankind at large are, directly or indirectly, the products of
guilt, violated law. All the woes, for instance, of poverty are
the results of selfishness, pride, ignorance, and vice. And it is
the same with every other class of miseries.

"The world in Titanic immortality Writhes beneath the burning
mountain of its sins."

3 Herod. i. 31; Cic. Tusc. Quast. i. 47.

4 Klencke, Das Buch vom Tode. Entwurf einer Lehre vom Sterben in
der Natur und vom Tode des Mensehen insbesondere. Fur denkende
Freunde der Wissenschaft.


Had there been no sin, men's lives would have glided on like the
placid rivers that flow through the woodlands. They would have
lived without strife or sorrow, grown old without sadness or
satiety, and died without a pang or a sigh. But, alas! sin so
abounds in the world that "there is not a just man that lives and
sins not;" and it is a truth whose omnipresent jurisdiction can
neither be avoided nor resisted that every kind of sin, every
offence against Divine order, shall somewhere, at some time, be
judged as it deserves. He who denies this only betrays the
ignorance which conceals from him a pervading law of inevitable
application, only reveals the degradation and insensibility which
do not allow him to be conscious of his own experience. A
harmonious, happy existence depends on the practice of pure morals
and communion with the love of God. This great idea that the
conscientious culture of the spiritual nature is the sole method
of Divine life is equally a fundamental principle of the gospel
and a conclusion of observation and reason: upon the devout
observance of it hinge the possibilities of true blessedness. The
pursuit of an opposite course necessitates the opposite
experience, makes its votary a restless, wretched slave, wishing
for freedom but unable to obtain it.

The thought just stated, we maintain, strikes the key note of the
Christian Scriptures; and the voices of truth and nature accord
with it. That Christianity declares sin to be the cause of
spiritual death, in all the deep and wide meaning of the term, has
been fully shown; that this is also a fact in the great order of
things has been partially illustrated, but in justice to the
subject should be urged, in a more precise and adequate form. In
the first place, there is a positive punishment flowing evidently
from sin, consisting both in outward inflictions of suffering and
disgrace through human laws and social customs, and in the private
endurance of bodily and mental pains and of strange misgivings
that load the soul with fear and anguish. Subjection to the animal
nature in the obedience of unrighteousness sensibly tends to bring
upon its victim a woeful mass of positive ills, public and
personal, to put him under the vile tyranny of devouring lusts, to
induce deathlike enervation and disease in his whole being, to
pervade his consciousness with the wretched gnawings of remorse
and shame, and with the timorous, tormenting sense of guilt,
discord, alienation, and condemnation.

In the second place, there is a negative punishment for impurity
and wrong doing, less gross and visible than the former, but
equally real and much more to be dreaded. Sin snatches from a man
the prerogatives of eternal life, by brutalizing and deadening his
nature, sinking the spirit with its delicate delights in the body
and its coarse satisfactions, making him insensible to his highest
good and glory, lowering him in the scale of being away from God,
shutting the gates of heaven against him, and leaving him to
wallow in the mire. The wages of sin is misery, and its gift is a
degradation which prevents any elevation to true happiness. These
positive and negative retributions, however delayed or disguised,
will come where they are deserved, and will not fail. Do a wrong
deed from a bad motive, and, though you fled on the pinions of the
inconceivable lightning from one end of infinite space to the
other, the fated penalty would chase you through eternity but that
you should pay its debt; or, rather, the penalty is grappling with
you from within on the instant, is a part of you.

Thirdly, if, by the searing of his conscience and absorption in
the world, a sinner escapes for a season the penal consequences
threatened in the law, and does not know how miserable he is, and
thinks he is happy, yet let him remember that the remedial,
restorative process through which he must pass, either in this
life or in the next, involves a concentrated experience of
expiatory pangs, as is shown both by the reason of the thing and
by all relevant analogies. When the bad man awakes as some time or
other he will awake to the infinite perfections and unalterable
love of the Father whose holy commands he has trampled and whose
kind invitations he has spurned, he will suffer agonies of
remorseful sorrow but faintly shadowed in the bitterness of
Peter's tears when his forgiving Master looked on him. Such is the
common deadness of our consciences that the vices of our corrupt
characters are far from appearing to us as the terrific things
they really are. Angels, looking under the fleshly garment we
wear, and seeing a falsehood or a sin assimilated as a portion of
our being, turn away with such feeling as we should experience at
beholding a leprous sore beneath the lifted ermine of a king. A
well taught Christian will not fail to contemplate physical death
as a stupendous, awakening crisis, one of whose chief effects will
be the opening to personal consciousness, in the most vivid
manner, of all the realities of character, with their relations
towards things above and things below himself.

This thought leads us to a fourth and final consideration, more
important than the previous. The tremendous fact that all the
inwrought elements and workings of our being are self retributive,
their own exceeding great and sufficient good or evil, independent
of external circumstances and sequences, is rarely appreciated.
Men overlook it in their superficial search after associations,
accompaniments, and effects. When all tangible punishments and
rewards are wanting, all outward penalties and prizes fail, if we
go a little deeper into the mysterious facts of experience we
shall find that still goodness is rewarded and evil is punished,
because "the mind is its own place, and can itself," if virtuous,
"make a heaven of hell, if wicked, "a hell of heaven." It is a
truth, springing from the very nature of God and his irreversible
relations towards his creatures, that his united justice and love
shall follow both holiness and iniquity now and ever, pouring his
beneficence upon them to be converted by them into their food and
bliss or into their bane and misery. There is, then, no essential
need of adventitious accompaniments or results to justify and pay
the good, or to condemn and torture the bad, here or hereafter. To
be wise, and pure, and strong, and noble, is glory and blessedness
enough in itself. To be ignorant, and corrupt, and mean, and
feeble, is degradation and horror enough in itself. The one abides
in true life, the other in moral death; and that is sufficient.
Even now, in this world, therefore, the swift and diversified
retributions of men's characters and lives are in them and upon
them, in various ways, and to a much greater extent than they are
accustomed to think. History preaches this with all her revealing
voices. Philosophy lays it bare, and points every finger at the
flaming bond that binds innocence to peace, guilt to remorse. It
is the substance of the gospel, emphatically pronounced. And the
clear experience of every sensitive soul confirms its truth,
echoing through the silent corridors of the conscience the
declarations which fell in ancient Judea from the lips of Jesus
and the pen of Paul: "The pure in heart shall see God;" "The wages
of sin is death."

We will briefly sum up the principal positions of the ground we
have now traversed. To be enslaved by the senses in the violation
of the Divine laws, neglecting the mind and abusing the members,
is to be dead to the goodness of God, the joys of virtue, and the
hopes of heaven, and alive to guilt, anguish, and despair. To obey
the will of God in love, keeping the body under, and cherishing a
pure soul, is to be dead to the evil of the world, the goading of
passions, and the fears of punishment, and alive to innocence,
happiness, and faith. According to the natural plan of things from
the dawn of creation, the flesh was intended to fall into the
ground, but the spirit to rise into heaven. Suffering is the
retributive result and accumulated merit of iniquity; while
enjoyment is the gift of God and the fruit of conformity to his
law. To receive the instructions of Christ and obey them with the
whole heart, walking after his example, is to be quickened from
that deadly misery into this living blessedness. The inner life of
truth and goodness thus revealed and proposed to men, its personal
experience being once obtained, is an immortal possession, a
conscious fount springing up unto eternity through the beneficent
decree of the Father, to play forever in the light of his smile
and the shadow of his arm. Such are the great component elements
of the Christian doctrine of life and death, both present and
eternal.

The purely interior character of the genuine teachings of
Christianity on this subject is strikingly evident in the
foregoing epitome. The essential thing is simply that the hate
life of error and sin is inherent alienation from God, in slavery,
wretchedness, death; while the love life of truth and virtue is
inherent communion with God, in conscious freedom and blessedness.
Here pure Christianity leaves the subject, declaring this with
authority, but not pretending to clear up the mysteries or set
forth the details of the subject. Whatever in the New Testament
goes beyond this and meddles with minute external circumstances we
regard as a corrupt addition or mixture drawn from various Gentile
and Pharisaic sources and erroneously joined with the authentic
words of Christ. What we maintain in regard to the apostles and
the early Christians in general is not so much that they failed to
grasp the deep spiritual principles of the Master's teaching, not
that they were essentially in error, but that, while they held the
substance of the Savior's true thoughts, they also held additional
notions which were errors retained from their Pharisaic education
and only partially modified by their succeeding Christian culture,
a set of traditional and mechanical conceptions. These errors, we
repeat, concern not the heart and essence of ideas, but their form
and clothing. For instance, Christ teaches that there is a heaven
for the faithful; the apostles suppose that it is a located region
over the firmament. The dying Stephen said, "Behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of
God." Again: Christ teaches that there is a banishment for the
wicked; the apostles suppose that it is into a located region
under the earth. In accordance with the theological dogmas of
their time and countrymen, with such modification as the peculiar
character, teachings, and life of Jesus enforced, they believed
that sin sent through the black gates of Sheol those who would
otherwise have gone through the glorious doors of heaven; that
Christ would return from heaven soon, raise the dead from the
under world, judge them, rebanish the reprobate, establish his
perfect kingdom on earth, and reascend to heaven with his elect.
That these distinctive notions came into the New Testament
through the mistakes and imperfect knowledge of the apostles,
how can any candid and competent scholar doubt?5 In the
first place, the process whereby these conceptions were
transmitted and assimilated from Zoroastrian Persia to Pharisaic
Judea is historically traceable. Secondly, the brevity and
vagueness of the apostolic references to eschatology, and their
perfect harmony with known Pharisaic beliefs, prove their mutual
consonance and the derivation of the later from the earlier. If
the supposed Christian views had been unheard of before, their
promulgators would have taken pains to define them carefully and
give detailed expositions of them. Thirdly, it was natural almost
inevitable  that the apostles would retain at least some of their
original peculiarities of belief, and mix them with their new
ideas, unless they were prevented by an infallible inspiration. Of
the presence of any such infallibility there is not a shadow of
evidence; but, on the contrary, there is a demonstration of its
absence. For they differed among themselves, carried on violent
controversies on important points. Paul says of Peter, "I
withstood him to the face." The Gentile and Judaic dissensions
shook the very foundations of the Apostolic Church. Paul and
Barnabas "had a sharp controversy, insomuch that they parted
asunder." Almost every commentator and scholar worthy of notice
has been compelled to admit the error of the apostles in expecting
the visible return of Christ in their own day. And, if they erred
in that, they might in other matters. The progress of positive
science and the improvement of philosophical thought have rendered
the mechanical dogmas popularly associated with Christianity
incredible to enlightened minds. For this reason, as for many
others, it is the duty of the Christian teacher to show that those
dogmas are not an integral part of the gospel, but only an
adventitious element imported into it from an earlier and
unauthoritative system. Take away these incongruous and outgrown
errors, and the pure religion of Christ will be seen, and will be
seen to be the everlasting truth of God.

In attempting to estimate the actual influence of Christianity,
wherever it has spread, in establishing among men a faith in
immortality, we must specify six separate considerations. First,
the immediate reception of the resurrection and ascension of
Christ as a miraculous and typical fact, putting an infallible
seal on his teachings, and demonstrating, even to the senses of
men, the reality of a heavenly life, was an extremely potent
influence in giving form and vigor to faith, more potent for ages
than every thing else combined. The image of the victorious Christ
taken up to heaven and glorified there forever, this image,
pictured in every believer's mind, stimulated the imagination and
kept an ideal vision of heaven in constant remembrance as an
apprehended reality. "There is Jesus," they said, pointing up to
heaven; "and there one day we shall be with him."

Secondly, the obloquy and desertion experienced by the early
Christians threw them back upon a double strength of spiritual
faith, and opened to them an intensified communion with God. As
worldly goods and pleasures were sacrificed, the more powerful
became their

5 Eschatologie, oder die Lebre von den Letzten Dingen. Mit
besonderer Rucksicht anf die gangbare Irriehre vom Hades. Basel,
1840. De Wette interprets the doctrine of Christ's descent into
Hades as a myth derived from the idea that he was the Savior not
only of his living followers but also of the heathen and the dead.
Bibl. Dogmatik, s. 272.


perception of moral truths and their grasp of invisible treasures.
The more fiercely they were assailed, the dearer became the cause
for which they suffered, and the more profoundly the moral springs
of faith were stirred in their souls. The natural revulsion of
their souls was from destitution, contempt, peril, and pain on
earth to a more vivid and magnified trust in a great reward laid
up for them in heaven.

Thirdly, the unflinching zeal kindled in the early confessors of
Christianity, the sublime heroism shown by them amidst the awful
tortures inflicted on them by the persecuting Jews and Romans,
reacted on their brethren to give profounder firmness and new
intensity to their faith in a glorious life beyond the grave. The
Christians thrown into the amphitheatre to the lions calmly
kneeled in prayer, and to the superstitious bystanders a bright
nimbus seemed to play around their brows and heaven to be opened
above. As they perished at the stake, amidst brutal jeers and
shrivelling flames, serenely maintaining their profession, and
calling on Christ, over the lurid vista of smoke and fire broke on
their rapt vision the blessed splendors of Paradise; and their joy
seemed, to the enthusiastic believers around, no less than a
Divine inspiration, confirming their faith, and preaching, through
the unquestionable truthfulness of martyrdom, the certainty of
immortal life. The survivors celebrated the anniversaries of the
martyrs' deaths as their birthdays into the endless life.

Fourthly, another means by which Christianity operated to deepen
and spread a belief in the future life was, indirectly, through
its influence in calling out and cultivating the affections of the
heart. The essence of the gospel in theory, as taught by all its
teachers, in fact, as incarnated by Christ, and in practice, as
working in history is love. From the first it condemned and tended
to destroy all the coldness and hatred of human hearts; and it
strove to elicit and foster every kindly sentiment and generous
impulse, to draw its disciples together by those yearning ties of
sympathy and devotion which instinctively demand and divinely
prophesy an eternal union in a better world. The more mightily two
human hearts love each other, the stronger will be their
spontaneous longing for immortality. The unrivalled revelation of
the disinterested love of God made by Christianity, and its effect
in refining and increasing the love of men, have contributed in a
most important degree to sanction and diffuse the faith in a
blessed life reserved for men hereafter. One remarkable
specification may be noticed. The only pagan description of
children in the future life is that given by some of the classic
poets, who picture the infant shades lingering in groups around
the dismal gates of the under world, weeping and wailing because
they could never find admittance.

"Continuo audita voces, vagitus et ingens, Infantumque
animaflentes in limine primo."

Go the long round of the pagan heavens, you will find no trace of
a child. Children were withered blossoms blown to oblivion. The
soft breezes that fanned the Blessed Isles and played through the
perennial summer of Elysium blew upon no infant brows. The grave
held all the children very fast. By the memorable words, "Of such
is the kingdom of heaven," Christ unbarred the portals of the
future world and revealed therein hosts of angelic children. Ever
since then children have been seen in heaven. The poet has sung
that the angel child is first on the wing to welcome the parent
home. Painters have shown us, in their visions of the blessed
realms, crowds of cherubs, have shown us

"How at the Almighty Father's hand,
Nearest the throne of living light,
The choirs of infant seraphs stand,
And dazzling shine where all are bright."

Fifthly, the triumphant establishment of Christianity in the world
has thrown the prestige of public opinion, the imposing authority
of general affirmation and acceptance, around its component
doctrines chief among which is the doctrine of immortality and
secured in their behalf the resistless influences of current
custom and education. From the time the gospel was acknowledged by
a nation as the true religion, each generation grew up by habitual
tutelage to an implicit belief in the future life. It became a
dogma not to be questioned. And the reception of it was made more
reasonable and easy by the great superiority of its moral features
over those of the relative superstitions embodied in the ethnic
religions which Christianity displaced.

Finally, Christianity has exerted no small influence both in
expressing and imparting faith in immortality by means of the art
to which it has given birth. The Christian ritual and symbolism,
which culminated in the Middle Age, from the very first had their
vitality and significance in the truth of another life. Every
phase and article of them implied, and with mute or vocal
articulation proclaimed, the superiority and survival of mind and
heart, the truth of the gospel history, the reality of the opened
heaven. Who, in the excited atmosphere, amidst the dangers, living
traditions, and dramatic enactments of that time, could behold the
sacraments of the Church, listen to a mighty chant, kneel beside a
holy tomb, or gaze on a painting of a gospel scene, without
feeling that the story of Christ's ascent to God was true, being
assured that elsewhere than on earth there was a life for the
believer, and in rapt imagination seeing visions of the
supernatural kingdom unveiled?

The inmost thought or sentiment of mediaval art to adapt a
remarkable passage from Heine6 was the depression of the body and
the elevation of the soul. Statues of martyrs, pictures of
crucifixions, dying saints, pale, faint sufferers, drooping heads,
long, thin arms, meager bones, poor, awkwardly hung dresses,
emaciated features celestially illuminated by faith and love,
expressed the Christian self denial and unearthliness.
Architecture enforced the same lesson as sculpture and painting.
Entering a cathedral, we at once feel the soul exalted, the flesh
degraded. The inside of the dome is itself a hollow cross, and we
walk there within the very witness work of martyrdom. The gorgeous
windows fling their red and green lights upon us like drops of
blood and decay. Funereal music wails and fades away along the dim
arches. Under our feet are gravestones and corruption. With the
colossal columns the soul climbs aloft, loosing itself from the
body, which sinks to the floor as a weary weed. And when we look
on one of these vast Gothic structures from without, so airy,
graceful, tender, transparent, it seems cut out of one piece, or
may be taken for an ethereal lace work of marble.

6 Die Romantische Schule, buch i.


Then only do we feel the power of the inspiration which
could so subdue even stone that it shines spectrally possessed,
and make the most insensate of materials voice forth the grand
teaching of Christianity, the triumph of the spirit over the
flesh.

In these six ways, therefore, by placing a tangible image of it in
the imagination through the resurrection of Christ, by the
powerful stirring of the springs of moral faith through the
persecutions that attended its confession, by the apparent
inspiration of the martyrs who died in its strength, by calling
out the latent force of the heart's affections that crave it, by
the moulding power of establishment, custom, and education, by the
spiritualizing, vision conjuring effect of its worship and art,
has Christianity done a work of incalculable extent in
strengthening the world's belief in a life to come.7

A remarkable evidence of the impression Christianity carried
before it is furnished by an incident in the history of the
missionary Paulinus. He had preached before Edwin, King of
Northumbria. An old earl stood up and said, "The life of man
seems, when compared with what is hidden, like the sparrow, who,
as you sit in your hall, with your thanes and attendants, warmed
by the blazing fire, flies through. As he flies through from door
to door, he enjoys a brief escape from the chilling storms of rain
and snow without. Again he goes forth into the winter and
vanishes. So seems the short life of man. If this new doctrine
brings us something more certain, in my mind it is worthy of
adoption."8

The most glorious triumph of Christianity in regard to the
doctrine of a future life was in imparting a character of
impartialness and universality to the proud, oligarchic faith
which had previously excluded from it the great multitude of men.
The lofty conceptions of the fate of the soul cherished by the
illustrious philosophers of Greece and Rome were not shared by the
commonalty until the gospel its right hand touching the throne of
God, its left clasping humanity announced in one breath the
resurrection of Jesus and the brotherhood of man.

"Their highest lore was for the few conceived, By schools
discuss'd, but not by crowds believed. The angel ladder clomb the
heavenly steep, But at its foot the priesthoods lay, asleep. They
did not preach to nations, 'Lo, your God!' No thousands follow'd
where their footsteps trod: Not to the fishermen they said,
'Arise!' Not to the lowly offer'd they the skies. Wisdom was
theirs: alas! what men most need Is no sect's wisdom, but the
people's creed. Then, not for schools, but for the human kind, The
uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind, The poor, the oppress'd,
the laborer, and the slave, God said, 'Be light!' and light was on
the grave! No more alone to sage and hero given, For all wide oped
the impartial gates of heaven." 9

7 Compare Bengal's essay, Quid Doctrina de Animarum Immortalitate
Religioni Christiana debeat.

8 Venerable Bede, book ii. ch. xiv.

9 Bulwer, New Timon, part iv.


PART FOURTH


CHRISTIAN THOUGHTS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

PATRISTIC DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

WITH reference to the present subject, we shall consider the
period of the Church Fathers as including the nine centuries
succeeding the close of the apostolic age. It extends from
Clement, Barnabas, and Hermas to OEcumenius and Gerbert.

The principal components of the doctrine of the future life held
during this period, though showing some diversities and changes,
are in their prevailing features of one consistent type,
constituting the belief which would in any of those centuries have
been generally recognised by the Church as orthodox.

For reasons previously given, we believe that Jesus himself taught
a purely moral doctrine concerning the future life, a doctrine
free from arbitrary, mechanical, or sacerdotal peculiarities. With
experimental knowledge, with inspired insight, with fullest
authority, he set forth conclusions agreeing with the wisest
philosophy and confirmatory of our noblest hopes, namely, that a
conscious immortality awaits the soul in the many mansions of the
Father's house, which it enters on leaving the body, and where its
experience will depend upon ethical and spiritual conditions. To
this simple and sublime doctrine announced by Jesus, so rational
and satisfactory, we believe for reasons already explained that
the apostles joined various additional and modifying notions,
Judaic and Gentile, such as the local descent of Christ into the
prison world of the dead, his mission there, his visible second
coming, a bodily resurrection, a universal scenic judgment, and
other kindred views. The sum of results thus reached the Fathers
developed in greater detail, distinguishing and emphasizing them,
and also still further corrupting them with some additional
conceptions and fancies, Greek and Oriental, speculative and
imaginative. The peculiar theological work of the apostles in
regard to this subject was the organizing of the Persian Jewish
doctrine of the Pharisees, with a Christian complement and
modifications, around the person of Christ, and fixing so near in
the immediate future the period when it was to be consummated that
it might be looked for at any time. The peculiar theological work
of the Fathers in regard to the doctrine thus formed by the
apostles was twofold. First, being disappointed of the expected
speedy second coming of Christ, they developed the intermediate
state of the dead more fully, and made it more prominent.
Secondly, in the course of the long and vehement controversies
which sprang up, they were led to complete and systematize their
theology, to define their terms, to explain and defend their
doctrines, comparing them together and attempting to harmonize
them with history, reason, and ethics, as well as with Scripture
and tradition. In this way the patristic mind became familiar with
many processes of thought, with many special details, and with
some general principles, quite foreign to the apostolic mind.
Meanwhile, defining and systematizing went on, loose notions
hardened into rigid dogmas, free thought was hampered by
authority, the scheme generally received assumed the title of
orthodox, anathematizing all who dared to dissent, and the
fundamental outlines of the patristic eschatology were firmly
established.1

In seeking to understand and to give an exposition of this scheme
of faith, we have, besides various collateral aids, three chief
guidances. First, we possess the symbols or confessions of faith
put forth by several of the leading theologians of those times, or
by general councils, and openly adopted as authority in many of
the churches, the creed falsely called the Apostles', extant as
early as the close of the third century, the creed of Arius, that
of Cyril, the Nicene creed, the creed falsely named the
Athanasian, and others. Secondly, we have the valuable assistance
afforded by the treatises of Irenaus, Tertullian, Epiphanius,
Augustine, and others still later, on the heresies that had arisen
in the Church, treatises which make it easy to infer, by contrast
and construction, what was considered orthodox from the statement
of what was acknowledged heretical. And, thirdly, abundant
resources are afforded us in the extant theological dissertations,
and historical documents of the principal ecclesiastical authors
of the time in review, a cycle of well known names, sweeping from
Theophilus of Antioch to Photius of Byzantium, from Cyprian of
Carthage to Maurus of Mentz. We think that any candid person,
mastering these sources of information in the illustrating and
discriminating light of a sufficient knowledge of the previous and
the succeeding related opinions, will recognise in the following
abstract a fair representation of the doctrine of a future life as
it was held by the orthodox Fathers of the Christian Church in the
period extending from the first to the tenth century.

Before proceeding to set forth the common patristic scheme, a few
preliminary remarks are necessary in relation to some of the
peculiar, prominent features of Origen's theology, and in relation
to the rival systems of Augustine and Pelagius. Origen was a man
of vast learning, passionately fond of philosophy; and he
modifyingly mingled a great many Oriental and Platonic notions
with his theology. He imagined that innumerable worlds like this
had existed and perished before it, and that innumerable others
will do so after it in endless succession.2 He held that all souls
whether devils, men, angels, or of whatever rank were of the same
nature; that all who exist in material bodies are imprisoned in
them as a punishment for sins committed in a previous state; the
fig leaves in which Adam and Eve were dressed after their sin were
the fleshly bodies they were compelled to assume on being expelled
from the Paradise of their previous existence; that in proportion
to their sins they are confined in subtile or gross bodies of
adjusted grades until by penance and wisdom they slowly win their

1 Bretschneider, Was lehren die altesten Kirchenvater uber die
Entstehung der Sude und des Todes, Adam's Vergehen und die
Versohnung durch Christum. Oppositionsschrift, band viii. hft. 3,
ss. 380-407.

2 De Principiis, lib. lit. cap. 5.


deliverance, this gradual descent and ascent of souls being
figuratively represented by Jacob's ladder; that all punishments
and rewards are exactly fitted to the degree of sin or merit,
without possibility of failure; that all suffering even that in
the lowest hell is benevolent and remedial, so that even the worst
spirits, including Satan himself, shall after a time be restored
to heaven; that this alternation of fall and restoration shall be
continued so often as the cloy and satiety of heavenly bliss, or
the preponderant power of temptation, pervert free will into sin.3
He declared that it was impossible to explain the phenomena and
experience of human life, or to justify the ways of God, except by
admitting that souls sinned in a pre existent state. He was
ignorant of the modern doctrine of vicarious atonement, considered
as placation or satisfaction, and regarded Christ's suffering not
as a substitute for ours, but as having merely the same efficacy
in kind as the death of any innocent person, only more eminent in
degree. He represents the mission of Christ to be to show men that
God can forgive and recall them from sin, banishment, and hell,
and to furnish them, in various ways, helps and incitements to win
salvation. The foregoing assertions, and other kindred points, are
well established by Mosheim, in his exposition of the characteristic
views of Origen.4

The famous controversy between Augustine and Pelagius shook
Christendom for a century and a half, and has rolled its echoing
results even to the theological shores of to day. Augustine was
more Calvinistic in his doctrines than the Fathers before him, and
even than most of those after him. In a few particulars perhaps a
majority of the Fathers really agreed more nearly with Pelagius
than with him. But his system prevailed, and was publicly adopted
for all Christendom by the third general council at Ephesus in the
year 431. Yet some of its principles, in their full force, were
actually not accepted. For instance, his dogma of unconditional
election that some were absolutely predestinated to eternal
salvation, others to eternal damnation has never been taught by
the Roman Catholic Church. When Gottschalk urged it in the ninth
century, it was condemned as a heresy;5 and among the Protestants
in the sixteenth century Calvin was obliged to fight for it
against odds. Augustine's belief must therefore be taken as a
representation of the general patristic belief only with caution
and with qualifications. The distinctive views of Augustine as
contrasted with those of Pelagius were as follow.6 Augustine held
that, by Adam's fault, a burden of sin was entailed on all souls,
dooming them, without exception, to an eternal banishment in the
infernal world. Pelagius denied the doctrine of "original sin,"
and made each one responsible only for his own personal sins.
Augustine taught that baptism was necessary to free its subject
from the power which the devil had over the soul on account of
original sin, and that all would infallibly be doomed to hell who
were not baptized, except, first, the ancient saints, who foreknew
the evangelic doctrines and believed, and, secondly, the martyrs,
whose blood was their baptism. Pelagius claimed that Christian
baptism was only necessary to secure an

3 Ibid. lib. ii. cap. 9, 10.

4 Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians in the First Three
Centuries: Third Century sects. 27-29.

5 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 183.

6 Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, trans. from the German by
R. Emerson, ch. xix.; also pp. 62, 68, 75, 79.


entrance into heaven: infants and good men, if unbaptized; would
enjoy a happy immortality in Paradise, but they never could enter
the kingdom of heaven. Augustine affirmed that Adam's sin
destroyed the freedom of the will in the whole human race.
Pelagius asserted the freedom of the individual will. Augustine
declared that a few were arbitrarily elected to salvation from
eternity, and that Christ died only for them. Pelagius taught that
salvation or reprobation depended on personal deserts, and that
the Divine election was merely through prescience of merits.
Augustine said that saving grace was supernatural, irresistible,
unattainable by human effort. Pelagius said it might be won or
resisted by conformity to certain conditions in each person's
power. Augustine believed that bodily death was inflicted as a
punishment for sin;7 Pelagius, that it was the result of a natural
law. The extensive, various learning, massive, penetrating mind,
and remorseless logical consistency, of Augustine, enabled him to
gather up the loose, floating theological elements and notions of
the time, and generalize them into a complete system, in striking
harmony, indeed, with the general character and drift of patristic
thought, but carried out more fully in its details and applied
more unflinchingly in its principles than had been done before,
and therefore in some of its dogmas outstripping the current
convictions of his contemporaries. His dogma of election was too
revolting and immoral ever to win universal assent; and few could
have the heart to unite with him in stigmatizing the whole human
race in their natural state as "one damned batch and mass of
perdition!" (conspersio damnata, massa perditionis.) With these
hints, we are ready to advance to the general patristic scheme of
eschatology. The exceptional variations and heresies will be
referred to afterwards.

First, in regard to the natural state of men under the law, from
the time of Adam's sin to the time of Christ's suffering, their
moral condition and destination, no one can deny that the Fathers
commonly supposed that the dissolution of the body and the descent
of the soul to the under world were a penalty brought on all men
through the sin of the first man. Wherever the lengthening line of
human generations wandered, the trail of the serpent, stamp of
depravity, was on them, sealing them as Death's and marking them
for the Hadean prison. This was the indiscriminate and the
inevitable doom. There is no need of citing proofs of this
statement, as it is well known that the writings of the Fathers
are thronged both with indirect implications and with explicit
avowals of it.

Secondly, they thought that Christ came from heaven to redeem men
from their lost state and subterranean bondage and to guide them
to heaven. Augustine, and perhaps some others, maintained that he
came merely to effectuate the salvation of a foreordained few; but
undoubtedly the common belief was that he came to redeem all who
would conform to certain conditions which he proposed and made
feasible. The important question here is, What did the Fathers
suppose the essence of Christ's redemptive work to be? and how, in
their estimation, did he achieve that work? Was it the renewal and
sanctification of human character by the melting power of a
proclamation of mercy and love from God, by the regenerating
influences and motives of the truths and appeals spoken by his
lips, illustrated

7 In Gen. lib. ix. cap. 10, 11: "Parents would have yielded to
children not by death, but by translation, and would have become
as the angels."

in his life, and brought to a focus in his martyr death? Certainly
this was too plainly and prominently a part of the mission of
Christ ever to be wholly overlooked. And yet one acquainted with
the writings of the Fathers can hardly mistake so widely as to
think that they esteemed this the principal element in Christ's
redemptive work. Was the essence of that work, then, the making of
a vicarious atonement, according to the Calvinistic interpretation
of that phrase, the offering of a substitutional anguish
sufficient to satisfy the claims of inexorable justice, so that
the guilty might be pardoned? No. The modern doctrine of the
atonement the satisfaction theory, as it is called was unknown to
the Fathers. It was developed, step by step, after many
centuries.8 It did not receive its acknowledged form until it came
from the mind of the great Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, as
late as the twelfth century. No scholar will question this
confessed fact. What, then, were the essence and method of
Christ's redemptive mission according to the Fathers? In brief,
they were these. He was, as they believed, a superangelic being,
the only begotten Son of God, possessing a nature, powers, and
credentials transcending those delegated to any other being below
God himself. He became flesh, to seek and to save the lost. This
saving work was done not by his mortal sufferings alone, but by
the totality of labors extending through the whole period of his
incarnation. The subjective or moral part of his redemptive
mission was to regenerate the characters of men and fit them for
heaven by his teachings and example; the objective or physical
part was to deliver their souls from the fatal confinement of the
under world and secure for them the gracious freedom of the sky,
by descending himself as the suppressing conqueror of death and
then ascending as the beckoning pioneer of his followers. The
Fathers did not select the one point or act of Christ's death as
the pivot of human redemption; but they regarded that redemption
as wrought out by the whole of his humiliation, instruction,
example, suffering, and triumph, as the resultant of all the
combined acts of his incarnate drama. Run over the relevant
writings of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius,
Cyril, Ambrose, Augustine himself, Jerome, Chrysostom, and the
rest of the prominent authors of the first ten centuries, and you
cannot fail to be struck with the fact that they invariably speak
of redemption, not in connection with Christ's death alone, but
emphatically in connection with the group of ideas, his
incarnation, death, descent, resurrection, and ascension! For the
most part, they received it by tradition as a fact, without much
philosophizing, that, in consequence of the sin of Adam, all men
were doomed to die, that is, to leave their bodies and descend
into the shadowy realm of death. They also accepted it as a fact,
without much attempt at theoretical explanation, that when Christ,
the sinless and resistless Son of God, died and went thither,
before his immaculate Divinity the walls fell, the devils fled,
the prisoners' chains snapped, and the power of Satan was broken.
They received it as a fact that through the mediation of Christ
the original boon forfeited by Adam was to be restored, and that
men, instead of undergoing death and banishment to Hades, should
be translated to heaven. So far as they had a theory about the
cause, it turned on two simple points: first, the free grace and
love of God; second, the self sacrifice and sufficient power of

8 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 68.


Christ. In the progressive course of dogmatic controversy,
metaphysical speculation, and desire for system, explanations have
been devised in a hundred different forms, from that of Aquinas to
that of Calvin; from that of Anselm to that of Grotius; from that
of Socinus to that of Bushnell. Tertullian describes the profound
abyss beneath the grave, in the bowels of the earth, where, he
says, all the dead are detained unto the day of judgment, and
where Christ in his descent made the patriarchs and prophets his
companions.9 Augustine says that nearly the whole Church agreed in
believing that Christ delivered Adam from the under world when he
rose thence himself.10 One must be very ignorant on the subject to
doubt that the Fathers attributed unrivalled importance to the
literal descent of Christ into the abode of the departed.11

Thirdly, after the advent of Christ, what were the conditions
proposed for the actual attainment of personal salvation? It was
the orthodox belief that Christ led up into Paradise with him the
ancient saints who were awaiting his appearance in the under
world:12 but with this exception it was not supposed that he saved
any outright: he only put it in their power to save themselves,
removing the previously insuperable obstacles. In the faith of
those who accepted the dogma of predestination, of course, the
presupposed condition of actual personal salvation was that the
given individual should become one of the elect number. But it
seems to have been usually believed that baptism was indispensable
to give final efficacy to the decree of election in each
individual case.13 Augustine says, "All are born under the power
of the devil, held in chains by him as a jailer: baptism alone,
through the force of Christ's redemptive work, breaks these chains
and secures heaven." In regard to this necessity of baptism
Pelagius agreed with his great adversary, saving an unessential
modification, as we have seen before. The same may be said of
Cyprian, Tertullian, and many other leading Fathers. Again, the so
called Athanasian Creed, which shows the prevalent opinion of the
Church in the fifth and sixth centuries, asserts that whoso
believes not in the Trinity and kindred dogmas as therein laid
down "without doubt shall perish everlastingly." In other words,
assent of mind to the established creed of the Church is a vital
condition of salvation. Finally, in the writings of nearly all of
the Fathers we find frequent declarations of the necessity of
moral virtue, righteous conduct, and piety, as a condition of
admission into the kingdom of heaven. For example, Augustine says,
"Such as have been baptized, partaken of the sacraments, and
remained always in the catholic faith, but have led wicked lives,
can have no hope of escaping eternal damnation." 14 These points
were not sharply defined, authoritatively established, and
consistently adhered to; and yet there was a pretty general
agreement among the body of the Fathers that for actual salvation
there were three practical necessary conditions, baptism, a sound
faith, a good life.

9 De Anima, sects. 7 et 55.

10 Epist. CLXIV.

11 Huidekoper, Belief of the First Three Centuries concerning
Christ's Mission to the Under World.

12 Augustine, De Civ. Del. lib. xx. cap. xv. Wiedenfeld, De
Exorcismi Origine, Mutatione, deque hujus Actus peragendi Ratione
Neander, Church History, vol. i. p. 3

13 Torrey's trans.

14 De Civ. Dei., lib. xxi. cap. xxv.


Fourthly, the Fathers believed that none of the righteous dead
could be admitted into heaven itself, the abode of God and his
angels, until after the second coming of Christ and the holding of
the general judgment; neither were any of the reprobate dead,
according to their view, to be thrust into hell itself until after
those events; but meanwhile all were detained in an intermediate
state, the justified in a peaceful region of the under world
enjoying some foretaste of their future blessedness, the condemned
in a dismal region of the same under world suffering some
foretaste of their future torment.15 After the numerous evidences
given in previous chapters of the prevalence of this view among
the Fathers, it would be superfluous to cite further authorities
here. We will only reply to an objection which may be urged. It
may be said, the Fathers believed that Enoch and Elijah were
translated to heaven, also that the patriarchs, whom Christ
rescued on his descent to Hades, were admitted thither, and,
furthermore, that the martyrs by special privilege were granted
entrance there. The point is an important one. The reply turns on
the broad distinction made by the Fathers between heaven and
Paradise. Some of the Fathers regarded Paradise as one division of
the under world; some located it in a remote and blessed region of
the earth; others thought it was high in the air, but below the
dwelling place of God.16 Now, it was to "Paradise," not to heaven,
that the dying thief, penitent on the cross, was promised
admission. It was of "Paradise," not of heaven, that Tertullian
said "the blood of the martyrs is the perfect key." So, too, when
Jerome, Chrysostom, and others speak of a few favored ones
delivered from the common fate before the day of judgment, it is
"Paradise," and not heaven, that is represented as being thrown
open to them. Irenaus says, "Those who were translated were
translated to the Paradise whence disobedient Adam was driven into
the world."17

A notable attempt has been repeatedly made for example, by the
famous Dr. Coward, by Dodwell, and by some other more obscure
writers to prove that the Fathers of the Greek Church, in
opposition to the Latin Fathers, denied the consciousness of the
soul during the interval from death to the resurrection, and
maintained that the soul died with the body and would be restored
with it at the last day. But this is an error arising from the
misinterpretation of the figurative terms in which the Greek
Fathers express themselves. Tatian, Justin, Theophilus, and
Irenaus do not differ from the others in reality, but only in
words. The opinion that the soul is literally mortal is
erroneously attributed to those Greek Fathers, who in truth no
more held it than Tertullian did. "The death" they mean is, to
borrow their own language, "deprived of the rays of Divine light,
to bear a deathly immortality," (in immortalitate mortem
tolerantes,) an eternal existence in the ghostly under world.18
The con

15 They feel, as Novatian says, (De Trinitate, 1,) a prajudicium
futuri judicii. See also Ernesti, Excurs. de Veter. Patrum
Opinione de Statu Medio Animor. a Corpore sejunctorum. In his
Lect. Acad. in Ep. ad Hebr.

16 E. g., see Ambrose, De Paradiso.

17 Adv. Hares., lib. v. cap. v.

18 See this point ably argued in an academic dissertation
published at Konigsberg, 1827, bearing the title "Antiquissimorum
Ecclesia Grsecte Patrum de Immortalitate Anima Sententia
Recensentur."


They held that the inner man was originally a spirit [non-ASCII
characters omitted] and a soul [non-ASCII characters omitted]
blended and immortal, that is, indestructibly united and blessed.
But by sin the soul loses the spirit and becomes subject to death.
that is, to ignorance of its Divine origin, alienation from God,
darkness, and an abode in Hades. By the influences flowing from the
mission of Christ, man is elevated again to conscious communion with
God, and the spirit is restored to the soul. "Si restituitur, manet
[non-ASCII characters omitted] fit autem [non-ASCII characters
omitted]; si non restituitur, manet [non-ASCII characters omitted],
fit autem [non-ASCII characters omitted], quod haud differt a morte."
cordant doctrine of the Fathers as to the intermediate state of the
dead was that, with the exception of a few admitted to Paradise,
they were in the under world waiting the fulness of time, when the
world should be judged and their final destination be assigned to them.
As Tertullian says, "constituimus omnem animam apud inferos
seguestrari in diem Domini."

Finally, the Fathers expected that Christ would return from
heaven, hold a general day of judgment, and consummate all things.
The earliest disciples seem to have looked anxiously, almost from
hour to hour, for that awful crisis. But, as years rolled on and
the last apostle died, and it came not, the date was fixed more
remotely; and, as other years passed away, and still no clear
signs of its arrival appeared, the date grew more and more
indefinite. Some still looked for the solemn dawn speedily to
break; others assigned it to the year 1000; others left the time
utterly vague; but none gave up the doctrine. All agreed that
sooner or later a time would come when the deep sky would open,
and Christ, clothed in terrors and surrounded by pomp of angels,
would alight on the globe, when:

"The angel of the trumpet Shall split the charnel earth With his
blast so clear and brave, And quicken the charnel birth At the
roots of the grave, Till the dead all stand erect."

Augustine, representing the catholic faith, says, "The coming of
Elias, the conversion of the Jews, Antichrist's persecution, the
setting up of Christ's tribunal, the raising of the dead, the
severing of the good and the bad, the burning of the world, and
its renovation, this is the destined order of events."19 The saved
were to be transported bodily to the eternal bliss of heaven; the
damned, in like manner, were to be banished forever to a fiery
hell in the centre of the earth, there to endure uncomprehended
agonies, both physical and spiritual, without any respite, without
any end. There were important, and for a considerable period quite
extensive, exceptions, to the belief in this last dogma:
nevertheless, such was undeniably the prevailing view, the
orthodox doctrine, of the patristic Church. The strict literality
with which these doctrines were held is strikingly shown in
Jerome's artless question: "If the dead be not raised with flesh
and bones, how can the damned, after the judgment, gnash their
teeth in hell?"

During the period now under consideration there were great
fluctuations, growths, changes, of opinion on three subjects in
regard to which the public creeds did not prevent all freedom of
thought by laying down definite propositions. We refer to baptism,
the millennium, and purgatory. Christian baptism was first simply
a rite of initiation into the Christian religion. Then it became
more distinctly a symbol of faith in Christ and in his gospel, and
an emblem of a new birth. Next it was imagined to be literally
efficacious to

19 De Civ. Del, lib. xx. cap. 30, sect. 5.


personal salvation, solving the chains of the devil, washing off
original sin, and opening the door of heaven.20 To trace the
doctrine through its historical variations and its logical
windings would require a large volume, and is not requisite for
our present purpose.

Almost all the early Fathers believingly looked for a millennium,
a reign of Christ on earth with his saints for a thousand years.
Daille has shown that this belief was generally held, though with
great diversities of conception as to the form and features of the
doctrine.21 It was a Jewish notion which crept among the
Christians of the first century and has been transmitted even to
the present day. Some supposed the millennium would precede the
destruction of the world, others that it would follow that
terrible event, after a general renovation. None but the faithful
would have part in it; and at its close they would pass up to
heaven. Irenaus quotes a tradition, delivered by Papias, that "in
the millennium each vine will bear ten thousand branches, each
branch ten thousand twigs, each twig ten thousand clusters, each
cluster ten thousand grapes, each grape yielding a hogshead of
wine; and if any one plucks a grape its neighbors will cry, Take
me: I am better!" This, of course, was a metaphor to show what the
plenty and the joy of those times would be. According to the
heretics Cerinthus and Marcion, the millennium was to consist in
an abundance of all sorts of sensual riches and delights. Many of
the orthodox Fathers held the same view, but less grossly; while
others made its splendors and its pleasures mental and moral.22
Origen attacked the whole doctrine with vehemence and cogency. His
admirers continued the warfare after him, and the belief in this
celestial Cocaigne suffered much damage and sank into comparative
neglect. The subject rose into importance again at the approaching
close of the first chiliad of Christianity, but soon died away as
the excitement of that ominous epoch passed with equal
disappointment to the hopes and the fears of the believers. A
galvanized controversy has been carried on about it again in the
present century, chiefly excited by the modern sect of Second
Adventists. Large volumes have recently appeared, principally
aiming to decide whether the millennium is to precede or to follow
the second coming of Christ! 23 The doctrine itself is a Jewish
Christian figment supported only by a shadowy basis of fancy. The
truth contained in it, though mutilated and disguised, is that
when the religion of Christ is truly enthroned over the earth,
when his real teachings and life are followed, the kingdom of God
will indeed cover the world, and not for a thousand years only,
but unimaginable glory and happiness shall fill the dwellings of
the successive generations of men forever.24

The doctrine of a purgatory a place intermediate between Paradise
and hell, where souls not too sinful were temporarily punished,
and where their condition and stay were in the power of the Church
on earth, a doctrine which in the Middle Age became practically

20 Neander, Planting and Training, Eng. trans. p. 102.

21 De Usu Patrum, lib. ii. cap. 4.

22 Munscher, Entwickelung der Lehre vom Tausendjahrigen Reiche in
den Drei Ersten Jahrhunderten. In Henke's Magaz. b. vi. ss. 233
254.

23 See e. g. The End, by Dr. Cumming. The Second Advent, by D.
Brown.

24 Bush, On the Millennium. Bishop Russell, Discourses on the
Millennium. Carroll, Geschichte des Chiliasmus.


the foremost instrument of ecclesiastical influence and income was
through the age of the Fathers gradually assuming shape and
firmness. It seems to have been first openly avowed as a Church
dogma and effectively organized as a working power by Pope Gregory
the Great, in the latter part of the sixth century.25 No more
needs to be said here, as the subject more properly belongs to the
next chapter.

It but remains in close to notice those opinions relating to the
future life which were generally condemned as heresies by the
Fathers. One of the earliest of these was the destruction of the
intermediate state and the denial of the general judgment by the
assertion, which Paul charges so early as in his day upon Hymeneus
and Philetus, "that the resurrection has passed already;" that is,
that the soul, when it leaves the body, passes immediately to its
final destination. This opinion reappeared faintly at intervals,
but obtained very little prevalence in the early ages of the
Church. Hierax, an author who lived at Leontopolis in Egypt early
in the fourth century, denied the resurrection of the body, and
excluded from the kingdom of heaven all who were married and all
who died before becoming moral agents.

Another heretical notion which attracted some attention was the
opposite extreme from the foregoing, namely, that the soul totally
dies with the body, and will be restored to life with it in the
general resurrection at the end of the world; an opinion held by
an Arabian sect of Christians, who were vanquished in debate upon
it by Origen, and renounced it.26

Still another doctrine known among the Fathers was the belief that
Christ, when he descended into the under world, saved and led away
in triumph all who were there, Jews, pagans, good, bad, all,
indiscriminately. This is number seventy nine in Augustine's list
of the heresies. And there is now extant among the writings of
Pope Boniface VI, of the ninth century, a letter furiously
assailing a man who had recently maintained this "damnable
doctrine."

The numerous Gnostic sects represented by Valentinus, Cerinthus,
Marcion, Basilides, and other less prominent names, held a system
of speculation copious, complex, and of intensely Oriental
character. That portion of it directly connected with our subject
may be stated in few words. They taught that all souls pre existed
in a world of pure light, but, sinning through the instigation and
craft of demons, they fell, were mixed with darkness and matter,
and bound in bodies. Through sensual lusts and ignorance, they
were doomed to suffer after death in hell for various periods, and
then to be born again. Jehovah was the enemy of the true God, and
was the builder of this world and of hell, wherein he contrives to
keep his victims imprisoned by deceiving them to worship him and
to live in errors and indulgences. Christ came, they said, to
reveal the true God, unmask the infernal character and wiles of
Jehovah, rescue those whom he had cruelly shut up in hell, and
teach men the real way of salvation. Accordingly, Marcion declared
that when Christ descended into the under world he released and
took into his own kingdom Cain, and the Sodomites, and all the

25 Flugge, Geschichte der Lehre vom Zustande des Menschen nach dem
Tode in der Christlichen Kirche, absch. v. ss. 320-352.

26 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 37.

Gentiles who had refused to obey the demon worshipped by the Jews,
but left there, unsaved, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the other
patriarchs, together with all the prophets.27 The Gnostics agreed
in attributing evil to matter, and made the means of redemption to
consist in fastings and scourgings of the flesh, with denial of
all its cravings, and in lofty spiritual contemplations. Of
course, with one accord they vehemently assailed the dogma of the
resurrection of the flesh. Their views, too, were inconsistent
with the strict eternity of future hell punishments. The
fundamental basis of their system was the same as that of nearly
all the Oriental philosophies and religions, requiring an ascetic
war against the world of sense. The notion that the body is evil,
and the cause of evil, was rife even among the orthodox Fathers;
but they stopped guardedly far short of the extreme to which the
Gnostics carried it, and indignantly rejected all the strange
imaginations which those heretics had devised to explain the
subject of evil in a systematic manner.28 Augustine said, "If we
say all sin comes from the flesh, we make the fleshless devil
sinless!" Hermogenes, some of whose views at least were tinged
with Gnosticism, believed the abyss of hell was formed by the
confluence of matter, and that the devil and all his demons would
at last be utterly resolved into matter.29

The theological system of the Manichaan sect was in some of its
cardinal principles almost identical with those of the Gnostics,
but it was still more imaginative and elaborate.30 It started with
the Persian doctrine of two antagonist deities, one dwelling with
good spirits in a world of light and love, the other with demons
in a realm of darkness and horror. Upon a time the latter,
sallying forth, discovered, far away in the vastness of space, the
world of light. They immediately assailed it. They were conquered
after a terrible struggle and driven back; but they bore with them
captive a multitude of the celestial souls, whom they instantly
mixed with darkness and gross matter. The good God built this
world of mingled light and darkness to afford these imprisoned
souls an opportunity to purge themselves and be restored to him.
In arranging the material substances to form the earth, a mass of
evil fire, with no particle of good in it, was found. It had been
left in their flight by the vanquished princes of darkness. This
was cast out of the world and shut up somewhere in the dark air,
and is the Manichaan hell, presided over by the king of the
demons. If a soul, while in the body, mortify the flesh, observe a
severe ascetic moral discipline, fix its thoughts, affections, and
prayers on God and its native home, it will on leaving the body
return to the celestial light. But if it neglect these duties and
become more deeply entangled in the toils of depraved matter, it
is cast into the awful fire of hell, where the cleansing flames of
torture partially purify it; and then it is born again and put on
a new trial. If after ten successive births twice in each of five
different forms the soul be still unreclaimed, then it is
permanently remanded to the furnace of hell. At last, when all the
celestial souls seized by the princes of darkness have returned to
God, save those just mentioned, this world will be burned. Then
the children

27 Irenaus, Adv. Herres., lib. i. cap. 22.

28 Account of the Gnostic Sects, in Moshelm's Comm., II. Century,
sect. 65.

29 Lardner, Hist. of Heretics, ch. xviii. sect. 9.

30 Baur, Das Manichaische Religionssystem.


of God will lead a life of everlasting blessedness with him in
their native land of light; the prince of evil, with his fiends,
will exist wretchedly in their original realm of darkness. Then
all those souls whose salvation is hopeless shall be drawn out of
hell and be placed as a cordon of watchmen and a phalanx of
soldiers entirely around the world of darkness, to guard its
frontiers forever and to see that its miserable inhabitants never
again come forth to invade the kingdom of light.31

The Christian after Christ's own pattern, trusting that when the
soul left the body it would find a home in some other realm of
God's universe where its experience would be according to its
deserts, capacity, and fittedness, sought to do the Father's will
in the present, and for the future committed himself in faith and
love to the Father's disposal. The apostolic Christian, conceiving
that Christ would soon return to raise the dead and reward his
own, eagerly looked for the arrival of that day, and strove that
he might be among the saints who, delivered or exempt from the
Hadean imprisonment, should reign with the triumphant Messiah on
earth and accompany him back to heaven. The patristic Christian,
looking forward to the divided under world where all the dead must
spend the interval from their decease to the general resurrection,
shuddered at the thought of Gehenna, and wrestled and prayed that
his tarrying might be in Paradise until Christ should summon his
chosen ones, justified from the great tribunal, to the Father's
presence. The Manichaan Christian, believing the soul to be
imprisoned in matter by demons who fought against God in a
previous life, struggled, by fasting, thought, prayer, and
penance, to rescue the spirit from its fleshly entanglements, from
all worldly snares and illusions, that it might be freed from the
necessity of any further abode in a material body, and, on the
dissolution of its present tabernacle, might soar to its native
light in the blissful pleroma of eternal being.

31 Mosheim, Comm., III. Century, sects. 44-52.


CHAPTER II.

MEDIAVAL DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE period of time covered by the present chapter reaches from the
close of the tenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, from
the first full establishment of the Roman Catholic theology and
the last general expectation of the immediate end of the world to
the commencing decline of mediaval faith and the successful
inauguration of the Protestant Reformation. The principal mental
characteristic of that age, especially in regard to the subject of
the future life, was fear. "Never," says Michelet, "can we know in
what terrors the Middle Age lived." There was all abroad a living
fear of men, fear of the State, fear of the Church, fear of God,
fear of the devil, fear of hell, fear of death. Preaching
consisted very much in the invitation, "Submit to the guidance of
the Church while you live," enforced by the threat, "or you shall
go to hell when you die." Christianity was practically reduced to
some cruel metaphysical dogmas, a mechanical device for rescuing
the devil's captives from him, and a system of ritual magic in the
hands of a priesthood who wielded an authority of supernatural
terrors over a credulous and shuddering laity. It is true that the
genuine spirit and contents of Christianity were never wholly
suppressed. The love of God, the blessed mediation of the
benignant Jesus, the lowly delights of the Beatitudes, the
redeeming assurance of pardon, the consoling, triumphant
expectation of heaven, were never utterly banished even from the
believers of the Dark Age. Undoubtedly many a guilty but repentant
soul found forgiveness and rest, many a meek and spotless breast
was filled with pious rapture, many a dying disciple was comforted
and inspired, by the good tidings proclaimed from priestly lips
even then. No doubt the sacred awe and guarded peace surrounding
their precincts, the divine lessons inculcated within their walls,
the pathetic prayers breathed before their altars, the traditions
of saintly men and women who had drawn angelic visitants down to
their cells and had risen long ago to be angels themselves, the
strains of unearthly melody bearing the hearts of the kneeling
crowd into eternity, no doubt these often made cathedral and
convent seem "islands of sanctity amidst the wild, roaring,
godless sea of the world." Still, the chief general feeling of the
time in relation to the future life was unquestionably fear
springing from belief, the wedlock of superstitious faith and
horror.

During the six centuries now under review the Roman Catholic
Church and theology were the only Christianity publicly
recognised. The heretics were few and powerless, and the papal
system had full sway. Since the early part of the period
specified, the working theology of the Roman Church has undergone
but few, and, as pertaining to our subject, unimportant, changes
or developments. Previous to that time her doctrinal scheme was
inchoate, gradually assimilating foreign elements and developing
itself step by step. The principal changes now concerning us to
notice in the passage from patristic eschatology as deducible, for
instance, from the works of Chrysostom, or as seen in the
"Apostles' Creed" to mediaval eschatology  as displayed in the
"Summa" of Thomas Aquinas or in the Catechism of Trent are these.
The supposititious details of the under world have been definitely
arranged in greater subdivision; heaven has been opened for the
regular admission of certain souls; the loose notions about
purgatory have been completed and consolidated; and the whole
combined scheme has been organized as a working instrument of
ecclesiastical power and profit.

These changes seem to have been wrought out, first, by
continual assimilations of Christianity to paganism,1 both in
doctrine and ceremony, to win over the heathen; and, secondly, by
modifications and growths to meet the exigencies of doctrinal
consistency and practical efficiency, exigencies repeatedly
arising from philosophical discussion and political opposition.

The degree in which papal Christianity was conformed to the
prejudices and customs of the heathen believers, whose allegiance
was sought, is astonishing. It extended to hundreds of
particulars, from the most fundamental principles of theological
speculation to the most trivial details of ritual service. We
shall mention only a few instances of this kind immediately
belonging to the subject we are treating. In the first place, the
hierophant in the pagan Mysteries, and the initiatory rites, were
the prototypes of the Roman Catholic bishop and the ceremonies
under his direction.2 Christian baptism was made to be the same as
the pagan initiation: both were supposed to cleanse from sin and
to secure for their subject a better fate in the future life: they
were both, therefore, sometimes delayed until just before death.3
The custom of initiating children into the Mysteries was also
common, as infant baptism became.4 When the public treasury was
low, the magistrates sometimes raised a fund by recourse to the
initiating fees of the Mysteries, as the Christian popes
afterwards collected money from the sale of pardons.

In the second place, the Roman Catholic canonization was the same
as the pagan apotheosis. Among the Gentiles, the mass of mankind
were supposed to descend to Hades at death; but a few favored ones
were raised to the sky, deified, and a sort of worship paid to
them. So the Roman Church taught that nearly all souls passed to
the subterranean abodes, but that martyrs and saints were admitted
to heaven and might lawfully be prayed to.5

Thirdly, the heathen under world was subdivided into several
regions, wherein different persons were disposed according to
their deserts. The worst criminals were in the everlasting penal
fire of Tartarus; the best heroes and sages were in the calm
meadows of Elysium; the hapless children were detained in the
dusky borders outside the grim realm of torture; and there was a
purgatorial place where those not too guilty were cleansed from
their stains. In like manner, the Romanist theologians divided the
under world into four parts: hell for the final abode of the
stubbornly wicked; one limbo for the painless, contented tarrying
of the good patriarchs who died before the advent of Christ had
made salvation possible, and another limbo for the sad and pallid
resting place of those children who died unbaptized; purgatory, in
which expiation is offered in agony for sins committed on earth
and unatoned for.6

1 Middleton, Letter from Rome, showing an exact conformity between
Popery and Paganism.

2 Lobeck, Aglaophamus, lib. i. sect. 6. Mosheim's Comm., ch. i.
sect. 13.

3 Warburton, Div. Leg., book ii. sect. 4.

4 Terence, Phormio, act i scene 1.

5 Council of Trent, sess. vi. can. xxx. Sess. xxv.: Decree on
Invocation of Saints.

6 See Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, book xiv. ch. ii.


Before proceeding further, we must trace the prevalence and
progress of the doctrine of purgatory a little as it was known
before its embodiment in mediaval mythology, and then as it was
embodied there. The fundamental doctrine of the Hindu hell was
that a certain amount of suffering undergone there would expiate a
certain amount of guilt incurred here. When the disembodied soul
had endured a sufficient quantity of retributive and purifying
pain, it was loosed, and sent on earth in a new body. It was
likewise a Hindu belief that the souls of deceased parents might
be assisted out of this purgatorial woe by the prayers and
offerings of their surviving children.7 The same doctrine was held
by the Persians. They believed souls could be released from
purgatory by the prayers, sacrifices, and good deeds of righteous
surviving descendants and friends. "Zoroaster said he could, by
prayer, send any one he chose to heaven or to hell." 8 Such
representations are found obscurely in the Vendidad and more fully
in the Bundehesh. The Persian doctrine that the living had power
to affect the condition of the dead is further indicated in the
fact that, from a belief that married persons were peculiarly
happy in the future state, they often hired persons to be espoused
to such of their relatives as had died in celibacy.9 The doctrine
of purgatory was known and accepted among the Jews too. In the
Second Book of Maccabees we read the following account:  "Judas
sent two thousand pieces of silver to Jerusalem to defray the
expense of a sin offering to be offered for the sins of those who
were slain, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was
mindful of the resurrection. For if he had not hoped that they who
were slain should rise again, it had been superfluous and vain to
pray for the dead. Whereupon he made an atonement for the dead,
that they might be delivered from sin."10 The Rabbins taught that
children by sin offerings could help their parents out of their
misery in the infernal world.11 They taught, furthermore, that all
souls except holy ones, like those of Rabbi Akiba and his
disciples, must lave themselves in the fire river of Gehenna; that
therein they shall be like salamanders; that the just shall soon
be cleansed in the fire river, but the wicked shall be lastingly
burned.12 Again, we find this doctrine prevailing among the
Romans. In the great Forum was a stone called "Lapis Manalis,"
described by Festus, which was supposed to cover the entrance to
hell. This was solemnly lifted three times a year, in order to let
those souls flow up whose sins had been purged away by their
tortures or had been remitted in consideration of the offerings
and services paid for them by the living. Virgil describes how
souls are purified by the action of wind, water, and fire.13 The
feast day of purgatory observed by papal Rome corresponds to the
Lemuria celebrated by pagan Rome, and rests on the same doctrinal
basis. In the Catholic countries of Europe at the present time, on
All Saints' Day, festoons of sweet smelling flowers are hung on
the tomb stones, and the people kneeling there repeat the prayer
prescribed for releasing the souls of their relatives and friends
from the plagues of purgatory. There is a notable coincidence
between the Buddhist

7 See references to "Sraddha" in index to Vishnu Purana.

8 Atkinson's trans. of the Shah Nameh, p. 386.

9 Richardson, Dissertation on the Language, Literature, and
Manners of the Eastern Nations, p. 347.

10 Cap. xii. 42-45.

11 Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, th. ii. kap. vi. s. 357.

12 Kabbala Denudata, tom ii. pars. i. pp. 108, 109, 113.

13 Aneid, lib. vi. 1. 739.


and the Romanist usages. Throughout the Chinese Empire, during the
seventh moon of every year, prayers are offered up accompanied by
illuminations and other rites for the release of souls in
purgatory. At these times the Buddhist priests hang up large
pictures, showing forth the frightful scenes in the other world,
to induce the people to pay them money for prayers in behalf of
their suffering relatives and friends in purgatory.14

Traces of belief in a purgatory early appear among the Christians.
Many of the gravest Fathers of the first five centuries naturally
conceived and taught, as is indeed intrinsically reasonable, that
after death some souls will be punished for their sins until they
are cleansed, and then will be released from pain. The Manichaans
imagined that all souls, before returning to their native heaven,
must be borne first to the moon, where with good waters they would
be washed pure from outward filth, and then to the sun, where they
would be purged by good fires from every inward stain.15 After
these lunar and solar lustrations, they were fit for the eternal
world of light. But the conception of purgatory as it was held by
the early Christians, whether orthodox Fathers or heretical sects,
was merely the just and necessary result of applying to the
subject of future punishment the two ethical ideas that punishment
should partake of degrees proportioned to guilt, and that it
should be restorative. Jeremy Taylor conclusively argues that the
prayers for the dead used by the early Christians do not imply any
belief in the Papal purgatory.16 The severity and duration of the
sufferings of the dead were not supposed to be in the power of the
living, either their relatives or the clergy, but to depend on the
moral and physical facts of the case according to justice and
necessity, qualified only by the mercy of God.

Pope Gregory the Great, in the sixth century, either borrowing
some of the more objectionable features of the purgatory doctrine
previously held by the heathen, or else devising the same things
himself from a perception of the striking adaptedness of such
notions to secure an enviable power to the Church, constructed,
established, and gave working efficiency to the dogmatic scheme of
purgatory ever since firmly defended by the papal adherents as an
integral part of the Roman Catholic system.17 The doctrine as
matured and promulgated by Gregory, giving to the representatives
of the Church an almost unlimited power over purgatory, rapidly
grew into favor with the clergy and sank with general conviction
into the hopes and fears of the laity. Venerable Bede, in the
eighth century, gives a long account of the fully developed
doctrine concerning purgatory, hell, paradise, and heaven. It is
narrated in the form of a vision seen by Drithelm, who, in a
trance, visits the regions which, on his return, he describes. The
whole thing is gross, literal, horrible, closely resembling
several well known descriptions given under similar circumstances
and preserved in ancient heathen writers.18 The Church, seeing how
admirably this instrument was calculated to promote her interest
and deepen her power, left hardly any means untried to enlarge its
sweep and intensify its operation. Accordingly, from the ninth to
the sixteenth century, no doctrine was so central, prominent, and
effective in the common teaching and

14 Asiatic Journal, 1840, p. 210, note.

15 Mosheim, Comm., III. Century, sect. 49, note 3.

16 Dissuasive from Popery, part ii. book ii. sect. 2.

17 Edgar, Variations of Popery, ch. xvi.

18 Hist. Ecc., lib. v. cap. xii. See also lib. iii. cap. xix.


practice of the Church, no fear was so widely spread and vividly
felt in the bosom of Christendom, as the doctrine and the fear of
purgatory.

The Romanist theory of man's condition in the future life is this,
in brief. By the sin of Adam, heaven was closed against him and
all his posterity, and the devil acquired a right to shut up their
disembodied souls in the under world. In consequence of the
"original sin" transmitted from Adam, every human being, besides
suffering the other woes flowing from sin, was helplessly doomed
to the under world after death. In addition to this penalty, each
one must also answer for his own personal sins. Christ died to
"deliver mankind from sin," "discharge the punishment due them,"
and "rescue them from the tyranny of the devil." He "descended
into the under world," "subdued the devil," "despoiled the
depths," "rescued the Fathers and just souls," and "opened
heaven."19 "Until he rose, heaven was shut against every child of
Adam, as it still is to those who die indebted." "The price paid
by the Son of God far exceeded our debts." The surplus balance of
merits, together with the merits accruing from the supererogatory
good works of the saints and from the Divine sacrifice continually
offered anew by the sacrament of the mass, constituted a reserved
treasure upon which the Church was authorized to draw in behalf of
any one she chose to favor. The localities of the future life were
these:20 Limbus Patrum, or Abraham's Bosom, a place of peace and
waiting, where the good went who died before Christ; Limbus
Infantum, a mild, palliated hell, where the children go who, since
Christ, have died unbaptized; Purgatory, where all sinners suffer
until they are purified, or are redeemed by the Church, or until
the last day; Hell, or Gehenna, whither the hopelessly wicked have
always been condemned; and Heaven, whither the spotlessly good
have been admitted since the ascension of Jesus. At the day of
judgment the few human souls who have reached Paradise, together
with the multitudes that crowd the regions of Gehenna, Purgatory,
and Limbo, will reassume their bodies: the intermediate states
will then be destroyed, and when their final sentence is
pronounced all will depart forever,  the acquitted into heaven,
the condemned into hell. In the mean time, the poor victims of
purgatory, by the prayers of the living for them, by the transfer
of good works to their account, above all, by the celebration of
masses in their behalf, may be relieved, rescued, translated to
paradise. The words breathed by the spirit of the murdered King of
Denmark in the ears of the horror stricken Hamlet paint the
popular belief of that age in regard to the grisly realm where
guilty souls were plied with horrors whereof, but that they were
forbidden:

"To tell the secrets of their prison house, They could a tale
unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy
young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their
spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each
particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful
porcupine."

19 Catechism of the Council of Trent.

20 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, pars Suppl. Quast. 69.


A few specimens of the stories embodying the ideas and
superstitions current in the Middle Age may better illustrate the
characteristic belief of the time than much abstract description.
An unquestioning faith in the personality, visibility, and
extensive agency of the devil was almost universal. Ascetics,
saints, bishops, peasants, philosophers, kings, Gregory the Great,
Martin Luther, all testified that they had often seen him. The
mediaval conception of the devil was sometimes comical, sometimes
awful. Grimm says, "He was Jewish, heathenish, Christian,
idolatrous, elfish, titanic, spectral, all at once." He was "a
soul snatching wolf," a "hell hound," a "whirlwind hammer;" now an
infernal "parody of God" with "a mother who mimics the Virgin
Mary," and now the "impersonated soul of evil."21 The well known
story of Faust and the Devil, which in so many forms spread
through Christendom, is so deeply significant of the faith and
life of the age in which it arose that a volume would be required
to unfold all its import. There was an old tradition that the
students of necromancy or the black art, on reaching a certain
pitch of proficiency, were obliged to run through a subterranean
hall, where the devil literally caught the hindmost unless he sped
so swiftly that the arch enemy could only seize his shadow, and in
that case, a veritable Peter Schlemihl, he never cast a shadow
afterwards! A man stood by his furnace one day casting eyes for
buttons. The devil came up and asked what he was doing. "Casting
eyes," replied the man. "Can you cast a pair for me?" quoth the
devil. "That I can," says the man: "will you have them large or
small?" "Oh, very large," answered the devil. He then ties the
fiend on a bench and pours the molten lead into his eyes. Up jumps
the devil, with the bench on his back, flees howling, and has
never been seen since! There was also in wide circulation a wild
legend to the effect that a man made a compact with the devil on
the condition that he should secure a new victim for hell once in
a century. As long as he did this he should enjoy life, riches,
power, and a limited ubiquity; but failing a fresh victim at the
end of each hundred years his own soul should be the forfeit. He
lived four or five centuries, and then, in spite of his most
desperate efforts, was disappointed of his expected victim on the
last night of the century; and when the clock struck twelve the
devil burst into his castle on a black steed and bore him off in a
storm of lightning amidst the crash of thunders and the shrieks of
fiends. St. Britius once during mass saw the devil in church
taking account of the sins the congregation were committing. He
covered the parchment all over, and, afraid of forgetting some of
the offences, seized the scroll in his teeth and claws to stretch
it out. It snapped, and his head was smartly bumped against the
wall. St. Britius laughed aloud. The officiating priest rebuked
him, but, on being told what had happened, improved the accident
for the edification of his hearers.22 On the bursting of a certain
glacier on the Alps, it is said the devil was seen swimming down
the Rhone, a drawn sword in one hand, a golden ball in the other:
opposite the town of Martigny, he cried, "Rise," and instantly the
obedient river swelled above its banks and destroyed the town.

Ignes fatui, hovering about marshes and misty places, were thought
to be the spirits of unbaptized children endeavoring to guide
travellers to the nearest water. A kindred fancy

21 Deutsche Mythologie, cap. xxxiii.: Teufel.

22 Quarterly Review, Jan. 1820: Pop. Myth. of the Middle Ages.


also heard a spectral pack, called "yell hounds," afterwards
corrupted to "hell hounds," composed of the souls of unbaptized
children, which could not rest, but roamed and howled through the
woods all night.23 A touching popular myth said, the robin's
breast is so red because it flies into hell with drops of water in
its bill to relieve the children there, and gets scorched.

In 1171, Silo, a philosopher, implored a dying pupil of his to
come back and reveal his state in the other world. A few days
after his death the scholar appeared in a cowl of flames covered
with logical propositions. He told Silo that he was from
purgatory, that the cowl weighed on him worse than a tower, and
said he was doomed to wear it for the pride he took in sophisms.
As he thus spoke he let fall a drop of sweat on his master's hand,
piercing it through. The next day Silo said to his scholars, "I
leave croaking to frogs, cawing to crows, and vain things to the
vain, and hie me to the logic which fears not death."

"Linquo coax ranis, cras corvis, vanaque vanis, Ad logicen pergo
qua mortis non timet ergo." 24

In the long, quaint poem, "Vision of William concerning Piers
Ploughman," written probably by Robert Langland about the year
1362, there are many things illustrative of our subject. "I,
Trojanus, a true knight, after death was condemned to hell for
dying unbaptized. But, on account of my mercy and truth in
administering the laws, the pope wished me to be saved; and God
mercifully heard him and saved me without the help of masses."25
"Ever since the fall of Adam, Age has shaken the Tree of Human
Life, and the devil has gathered the fruit into hell."26 The
author gives a most spirited account of Christ's descent into the
under world after his death, his battle with the devils there, his
triumph over them, his rescue of Adam, and other particulars.27 In
this poem, as in nearly all the extant productions of that period,
there are copious evidences of the extent and power of the popular
faith in the devil and in purgatory, and in their close connection
with the present life, a faith nourishingly embodied in thousands
of singular tales. Thomas Wright has collected many of these in
his antiquarian works. He relates an amusing incident that once
befell a minstrel who had been borne into hell by a devil. The
devils went forth in a troop to ensnare souls on earth. Lucifer
left the minstrel in charge of the infernal regions, promising, if
he let no souls escape, to treat him on the return with a fat monk
roasted, or a usurer dressed with hot sauce. But while the fiends
were away St. Peter came, in disguise, and allured the minstrel to
play at dice, and to stake the souls which were in torture under
his care. Peter won, and carried them off in triumph. The devils,
coming back and finding the fires all out and hell empty, kicked
the hapless minstrel out, and Lucifer swore a big oath that no
minstrel should ever darken the door of hell again!

The mediaval belief in a future life was practically concentrated,
for the most part, around the ideas of Satan, purgatory, the last
judgment, hell. The faith in Christ, God,

23 Allies, Antiquities of Worcestershire, 2d ed. p. 256.

24 Michelet, Hist. de France, livre iv. chap. ix.

25 Vision of Dowell, part iii.

26 Vision of Dobet, part ii.

27 Ibid., part iv.


heaven, was much rarer and less influential. Neander says, "The
inmost distinction of mediaval experience was an awful sense of
another life and an invisible world." A most piteous illustration
of the conjoined faith and fear of that age is furnished by an old
dialogue between the "Soul and the Body" recently edited by
Halliwell, an expression of humble trust and crouching horror
irresistibly pathetic in its simplicity.28 A flood of revealing
light is given as to the energy with which the doctrine of
purgatory impressed itself on the popular mind, by the two facts,
first, that the Council of Auxerre, in 1578, prohibited the
administration of the eucharist to the dead; and, secondly, that
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries "crosses of absolution" that
is, crosses cut out of sheet lead, with the formula of absolution
engraved on them were quite commonly buried with the dead.29 The
eager sincerity of the mediaval belief in another life is
attested, too, by the correspondence of the representations of the
dead in their legends to the appearance, disposition, and pursuits
they had in life. No oblivious draught, no pure spiritualization,
had freed the departed souls from earthly bonds and associations.
Light pretexts drew them back to their wonted haunts. A buried
treasure allowed them no rest till they had led some one to raise
it. An unfinished task, an uncancelled obligation, forced them
again to the upper world. In ruined castles the ghosts of knights,
in their accustomed habiliments, held tournaments and carousals.
The priest read mass; the hunter pursued his game; the spectre
robber fell on the benighted traveller.30 It is hard for us now to
reproduce, even in imagination, the fervid and frightful
earnestness of the popular faith of the Middle Age in the
ramifying agency of the devil and in the horrors of purgatory. We
will try to do it, in some degree, by a series of illustrations
aiming to show at once how prevalent such a belief and fear were,
and how they became so prevalent.

First, we may specify the teaching of the Church whose authority
in spiritual concerns bore almost unquestioned sway over the minds
of more than eighteen generations. By the logical subtleties of
her scholastic theologians, by the persuasive eloquence of her
popular preachers, by the frantic ravings of her fanatic devotees,
by the parading proclamation of her innumerable pretended
miracles, by the imposing ceremonies of her dramatic ritual,
almost visibly opening heaven and hell to the over awed
congregation, by her wonder working use of the relics of martyrs
and saints to exorcise demons from the possessed and to heal the
sick, and by her anathemas against all who were supposed to be
hostile to her formulas, she infused the ideas of her doctrinal
system into the intellect, heart, and fancy of the common people,
and nourished the collateral horrors, until every wave of her wand
convulsed the world. In a pastoral letter addressed to the
Carlovingian prince Louis, the grandson of Charlemagne,  a letter
probably composed by the famous Hincmar, bearing date 858, and
signed by the Bishops of Rheims and Rouen, a Gallic synod
authoritatively declared that Charles Martel was damned; "that on
the opening of his tomb the spectators were affrighted by a smell
of fire and the aspect of a horrid dragon, and that a saint of the
times was indulged with a pleasant vision of the soul and body of
this great hero burning to all eternity in the abyss of hell."

28 Early English Miscellanies, No. 2.

29 London Antiquaries' Archaologis, vol. xxxv. art. 22.

30 Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i., appendix.


A tremendous impulse, vivifying and emphasizing the eschatological
notions of the time, an impulse whose effects did not cease when
it died, was imparted by that frightful epidemic expectation of
the impending end of the world which wellnigh universally
prevailed in Christendom about the year 1000. Many of the charters
given at that time commence with the words, "As the world is now
drawing to a close." 31 This expectation drew additional strength
from the unutterable sufferings famine, oppression, pestilence,
war, superstition  then weighing on the people. "The idea of the
end of the world," we quote from Michelet, "sad as that world was,
was at once the hope and the terror of the Middle Age. Look at
those antique statues of the tenth and eleventh centuries, mute,
meager, their pinched and stiffened lineaments grinning with a
look of living suffering allied to the repulsiveness of death. See
how they implore, with clasped hands, that desired yet dreaded
moment when the resurrection shall redeem them from their
unspeakable sorrows and raise them from nothingness into existence
and from the grave to God."

Furthermore, this superstitious character of the mediaval belief
in the future life acquired breadth and intensity from the
profound general ignorance and trembling credulousness of that
whole period on all subjects. It was an age of marvels, romances,
fears, when every landscape of life "wore a strange hue, as if
seen through the sombre medium of a stained casement." While
congregations knelt in awe beneath the lifted Host, and the image
of the dying Savior stretched on the rood glimmered through clouds
of incense, perhaps an army of Flagellants would march by the
cathedral, shouting, "The end of the world is at hand!" filling
the streets with the echoes of their torture as they lashed their
naked backs with knotted cords wet with blood; and no soul but
must shudder with the infection of horror as the dreadful notes of
the "Dies Iioe" went sounding through the air. The narratives of
the desert Fathers, the miracles wrought in convent cells, the
visions of pillar saints, the thrilling accompaniments of the
Crusades, and other kindred influences, made the world a perpetual
mirage. The belching of a volcano was the vomit of uneasy hell.
The devil stood before every tempted man, Ghosts walked in every
nightly dell. Ghastly armies were seen contending where the aurora
borealis hung out its bloody banners. The Huns under Attila,
ravaging Southern Europe, were thought to be literal demons who
had made an irruption from the pit. The metaphysician was in peril
of the stake as a heretic, the natural philosopher as a magician.
A belief in witchcraft and a trust in ordeals were universal, even
from Pope Eugenius, who introduced the trial by cold water, and
King James, who wrote volumes on magic, to the humblest monk who
shuddered when passing the church crypt, and the simplest peasant
who quaked in his homeward path at seeing a will o' the wisp.
"Denounced by the preacher and consigned to the flames by the
judge, the wizard received secret service money from the Cabinet
to induce him to destroy the hostile armament as it sailed before
the wind." As a vivid writer has well said, "A gloomy mist of
credulity enwrapped the cathedral and the hall of justice, the
cottage and the throne. In the dank shadows of the universal
ignorance a thousand superstitions, like foul animals of night,
were propagated and nourished."

31 Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. ix.


The beliefs and excitements of the mediaval period partook of a
sort of epidemic character, diffusing and working like a
contagion.32 There were numberless throngs of pilgrims to famous
shrines, immense crowds about the localities of popular legends,
relics, or special grace. In the magnetic sphere of such a fervid
and credulous multitude, filled with the kindling interaction of
enthusiasm, of course prodigies would abound, fables would
flourish, and faith would be doubly generated and fortified. In
commemoration of a miraculous act of virtue performed by St.
Francis, the pope offered to all who should enter the church at
Assisi between the eve of the 1st and the eve of the 2d of August
each year that being the anniversary of the saint's achievement a
free pardon for all the sins committed by them since their
baptism. More than sixty thousand pilgrims sometimes flocked
thither on that day. Every year some were crushed to death in the
suffocating pressure at the entrance of the church. Nearly two
thousand friars walked in procession; and for a series of years
the pilgrimage to Portiuncula might have vied with that to the
temple of Juggernaut.33

Nothing tends more to strengthen any given belief than to see it
everywhere carried into practice and to act in accordance with it.
Thus was it with the mediaval doctrine of the future life. Its
applications and results were constantly and universally thrust
into notice by the sale of indulgences and the launching of
excommunications. Early in the ninth century, Charlemagne
complained that the bishops and abbots forced property from
foolish people by promises and threats: "Suadendo de coelestis
regni beatitudine, comminando de oeterno supplicio inferni."34 The
rival mendicant orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans,
acquired great riches and power by the traffic in indulgences.
They even had the impudence to affirm that the members of their
orders were privileged above all other men in the next world.
Milton alludes to those who credited these monstrous assumptions:
"And they who, to be sure of Paradise, Dying, put on the weeds of
Dominic, Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised."

The Council of Basle censured the claim of the Franciscan monks
that their founder annually descended to purgatory and led thence
to heaven the souls of all those who had belonged to his order.
The Carmelites also asserted that the Virgin Mary appeared to
Simon Stockius, the general of their order, and gave him a solemn
promise that the souls of such as left the world with the
Carmelite scapulary upon their shoulders should be infallibly
preserved from eternal damnation. Mosheim says that Pope Benedict
XIV. was an open defender of this ridiculous fiction.35

If any one would appreciate the full mediaval doctrine of the
future life, whether with respect to the hair drawn scholastic
metaphysics by which it was defended, or with respect to the
concrete forms in which the popular apprehension held it, let him
read the Divina Commedia of Dante; for it is all there. Whoso with
adequate insight and sympathy peruses

32 Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages.

33 Quarterly Review, July, 1819: article on Monachism.

34 Perry, History of the Franks, p. 467.

35 Eccl. Hist., XIII. Century, part ii. ch. 2, sect. 29.


the pages of the immortal Florentine at whom the people pointed as
he walked the streets, and said, "There goes the man who has been
in hell" will not fail to perceive with what a profound sincerity
the popular breast shuddered responsive to ecclesiastical threats
and purgatorial woes.

The tremendous moral power of this solitary work lies in the fact
that it is a series of terrific and fascinating tableaux,
embodying the idea of inflexible poetic justice impartially
administered upon king and varlet, pope and beggar, oppressor and
victim, projected amidst the unalterable necessities of eternity,
and moving athwart the lurid abyss and the azure cope with an
intense distinctness that sears the gazer's eyeballs. The Divina
Commedia, with a wonderful truth, also reflects the feeling of the
age when it was written in this respect, that there is a grappling
force of attraction, a compelling realism, about its "Purgatory"
and "Hell" which are to be sought in vain in the delineations of
its "Paradise." The mediaval belief in a future life had for its
central thought the day of judgment, for its foremost emotion
terror.36

The roots of this faith were unquestionably fertilized, and the
development of this fear quickened, to a very great extent, by
deliberate and systematic delusions. One of the most celebrated of
these organized frauds was the gigantic one perpetrated under the
auspices of the Dominican monks at Berne in 1509, the chief actors
in which were unmasked and executed. Bishop Burnet has given an
extremely interesting account of this affair in his volume of
travels. Suffice it to say, the monks appeared at midnight in the
cells of various persons, now impersonating devils, in horrid
attire, breathing flames and brimstone, now claiming to be the
souls of certain sufferers escaped from purgatory, and again
pretending to be celebrated saints, with the Virgin Mary at their
head. By the aid of mechanical and chemical arrangements, they
wrought miracles, and played on the terror and credulity of the
spectators in a frightful manner.37 There is every reason to
suppose that such deceptions  miracles in which secret speaking
tubes, asbestos, and phosphorus were indispensable38 were most
frequent in those ages, and were as effective as the actors were
unscrupulous and the dupes unsuspicious. Here is revealed one of
the foremost of the causes which made the belief of the Dark Age
in the numerous appearances of ghosts and devils so common and so
intense that it gave currency to the notion that the swarming
spirits of purgatory were disembogued from dusk till dawn. So the
Danish monarch, revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon, says to
Hamlet, "I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain time to walk the
night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul
crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away."

36 If any one would see in how many forms the faith in hell and in
the devil appeared, let him look over the pages of the
"Dictionnaire Infernal," by J. Collin de Plancy.

37 Maclaine's trans, of Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., vol. ii. p. 10,
note.

38 Manufactures of the Ancients, pub. by Harper and Brothers,
1845, part iv. ch. 3.


When the shadows began to fall thick behind the sunken sun, these
poor creatures were thought to spring from their beds of torture,
to wander amidst the scenes of their sins or to haunt the living;
but at the earliest scent of morn, the first note of the cock,
they must hie to their fire again. Midnight was the high noon of
ghostly and demoniac revelry on the earth. As the hour fell with
brazen clang from the tower, the belated traveller, afraid of the
rustle of his own dress, the echo of his own footfall, the
wavering of his own shadow, afraid of his own thoughts, would
breathe the suppressed invocation, "Angels and ministers of grace
defend us!" as the idea crept curdling over his brain and through
his veins, "It is the very witching time of night, When
churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this
world."

Working in alliance with the foregoing forces of superstition was
the powerful influence of the various forms of insanity which
remarkably abounded in the Middle Age. The insane person, it was
believed, was possessed by a demon. His ravings, his narratives,
were eagerly credited; and they were usually full of infernal
visions, diabolical interviews, encounters with apparitions, and
every thing that would naturally arise in a deranged and
preternaturally sensitive mind from the chief conceptions then
current concerning the invisible world.39

The principal works of art exposed to the people were such as
served to impress upon their imaginations the Church doctrine of
the future life in all its fearfulness, with its vigorous dramatic
points. In the cathedral at Antwerp there is a representation of
hell carved in wood, whose marvellous elaborateness astonishes,
and whose painful expressiveness oppresses, every beholder. With
what excruciating emotions the pious crowds must have contemplated
the harrowingly vivid paintings of the Inferno, by Orcagna, still
to be seen in the Campo Santo of Pisa! In the cathedral at
Canterbury there was a window on which was painted a detailed
picture of Christ vanquishing the devils in their own domain; but
we believe it has been removed. However, the visitor still sees on
the fine east window of York Cathedral the final doom of the
wicked, hell being painted as an enormous mouth; also in the west
front of Lincoln Cathedral an ancient bas relief representing hell
as a monstrous mouth vomiting flame and serpents, with two human
beings walking into it. The minster at Freyburg has a grotesque
bas relief over its main portal, representing the Judgment. St.
Nicholas stands in the centre, and the Savior is seated above him.
On the left, an angel weighs mankind in a huge pair of scales, and
a couple of malicious imps try to make the human scale kick the
beam. Underneath, St. Peter is ushering the good into Paradise. On
the right is shown a devil, with a pig's head, dragging after him
a throng of the wicked. He also has a basket on his back filled
with figures whom he is in the act of flinging into a reeking
caldron stirred by several imps. Hell is typified, on one side, by
the jaws of a monster crammed to the teeth with reprobates, and
Satan is seen sitting on his throne above them. A recent traveller
writes from

39 De Boismont, Rational Hist. of Hallucivatious, ch. xiv.


Naples, "The favorite device on the church walls here is a
vermilion picture of a male and a female soul, respectively up to
the waist [the waist of a soul!] in fire, with an angel over each
watering them from a water pot. This is meant to get money from
the compassionate to pay for the saying of masses in behalf of
souls in purgatory." Ruskin has described some of the church
paintings of the Last Judgment by the old masters as possessing a
power even now sufficient to stir every sensibility to its depths.
Such works, gazed on day after day, while multitudes were kneeling
beneath in the shadowy aisles, and clouds of incense were floating
above, and the organ was pealing and the choir chanting in full
accord, must produce lasting effects on the imagination, and thus
contribute in return to the faith and fear which inspired them.

Villani as also Sismondi gives a description of a horrible
representation of hell shown at Florence in 1304 by the
inhabitants of San Priano, on the river Arno. The glare of flames,
the shrieks of men disguised as devils, scenes of infernal
torture, filled the night. Unfortunately, the scaffolding broke
beneath the crowd, and many spectators were burned or drowned, and
that which began as an entertaining spectacle ended as a direful
reality. The whole affair is a forcible illustration of the
literality with which the popular mind and faith apprehended the
notion of the infernal world.

Another means by which the views we have been considering were
both expressed and recommended to the senses and belief of the
people was those miracle plays that formed one of the most
peculiar features of the Middle Age. These plays, founded on, and
meant to illustrate, Scripture narratives and theological
doctrines, were at first enacted by the priests in the churches,
afterwards by the various trading companies or guilds of
mechanics. In 1210, Pope Gregory "forbade the clergy to take any
part in the plays in churches or in the mummings at festivals." A
similar prohibition was published by the Council of Treves, in
1227. The Bishop of Worms, in 1316, issued a proclamation against
the abuses which had crept into the festivities of Easter, and
gives a long and curious description of them.40 There were two
popular festivals, of which Michelet gives a full and amusing
description, one called the "Fete of the Tipsy Priests," when they
elected a Bishop of Unreason, offered him incense of burned
leather, sang obscene songs in the choir, and turned the altar
into a dice table; the other called the "Fete of the Cuckolds,"
when the laymen crowned each other with leaves, the priests wore
their surplices wrong side out and threw bran in each others'
eyes, and the bell ringers pelted each other with biscuits. There
is a religious play by Calderon, entitled "The Divine Orpheus," in
which the entire Church scheme of man's fall the devil's empire,
Christ's descent there, and the victorious sequel is embodied in a
most effective manner. In the priestly theology and in the popular
heart of those times there was no other single particular one
tenth part so prominent and vivid as that of Christ's entrance
after his death into hell to rescue the old saints and break down
Satan's power.41

40 Early Mysteries and Latin Poems of the XII. and XIII.
Centuries, edited by Thomas Wright. See the eloquent sermon on
this subject preached by Luis de Granada in the sixteenth century.
Ticknor's Hist. Spanish Lit., vol. iii. pp. 123-127.


Peter Lombard says, "What did the Redeemer do to the despot who
had us in his bonds? He offered him the cross as a mouse trap, and
put his blood on it as bait." 42 About that scene there was an
incomparable fascination for every believer. Christ laid aside his
Godhead and died. The devil thought he had secured a new victim,
and humanity swooned in grief and despair. But, lo! the Crucified,
descending to the inexorable dungeons, puts on all his Divinity,
and suddenly "The captive world awakt, and founde The pris'ner
loose, the jailer bounde!" 43

A large proportion of the miracle plays, or Mysteries, turned on
this event. In the "Mystery of the Resurrection of Christ" occurs
the following couplet: "This day the angelic King has risen,
Leading the pious from their prison." 44

The title of one of the principal plays in the Towneley Mysteries
is "Extractio Animarum ab Inferno." It describes Christ descending
to the gates of hell to claim his own. Adam sees afar the gleam of
his coming, and with his companions begins to sing for joy. The
infernal porter shouts to the other demons, in alarm, "Since first
that hell was made and I was put therein, Such sorrow never ere I
had, nor heard I such a din. My heart begins to start; my wit it
waxes thin; I am afraid we can't rejoice, these souls must from
us go. Ho, Beelzebub! bind these boys: such noise was never heard
in hell."

Satan vows he will dash Beelzebub's brains out for frightening him
so. Meanwhile, Christ draws near, and says, "Lift up your gates,
ye princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the
King of glory shall come in." The portals fly asunder. Satan
shouts up to his friends, "Dyng the dastard down;" but Beelzebub
replies, "That is easily said." Jesus and the devil soon meet,
face to face. A long colloquy ensues, in the course of which the
latter tells the former that he knew his Father well by sight! At
last Jesus frees Adam, Eve, the prophets, and others, and ascends,
leaving the devil in the lowest pit, resolving that hell shall
soon be fuller than before; for he will walk east and he will walk
west, and he will seduce thousands from their allegiance. Another
play, similar to the foregoing, but much more extensively known
and acted, was called the "Harrowing of Hell." Christ and Satan
appear on the stage and argue in the most approved scholastic
style for the right of possession in the human race. Satan says,
"Whoever purchases any thing, It belongs to him and to his
children. Adam, hungry, came to me;

42 Sententia, lib. iii. distinctio 19.

43 Hone, Ancient Mysteries.

44 "Resurrexit hodie Rex angelorum Ducitur de tenebris turba
piorum."


I made him do me homage: For an apple, which I gave him, He and
all his race belong to me." But Christ instantly puts a different
aspect on the argument, by replying, "Satan! it was mine, The
apple thou gavest him. The apple and the apple tree Both were made
by me. As he was purchased with my goods, With reason will I have
him." 45

In a religious Mystery exhibited at Lisbon as late as the close of
the eighteenth century, the following scene occurs. Cain kicks his
brother Abel badly and kills him. A figure like a Chinese
mandarin, seated in a chair, condemns Cain and is drawn up into
the clouds. The mouth of hell then appears, like the jaws of a
great dragon: amid smoke and lightning it casts up three devils,
one of them having a wooden leg. These take a dance around Cain,
and are very jocose, one of them inviting him to hell to take a
cup of brimstone coffee, and another asking him to make up a party
at whist. Cain snarls, and they tumble him and themselves headlong
into the squib vomiting mouth.

Various books of accounts kept by the trading companies who
celebrated these Mysteries of the expenses incurred have been
published, and are exceedingly amusing. "Item: payd for kepyng of
fyer at hellmothe, four pence." "For a new hoke to hang Judas, six
pence." "Item: payd for mendyng and payntyng hellmouthe, two
pence." "Girdle for God, nine pence." "Axe for Pilatte's son, one
shilling." "A staff for the demon, one penny." "God's coat of
white leather, three shillings." The stage usually consisted of
three platforms. On the highest sat God, surrounded by his angels.
On the next were the saints in Paradise, the intermediate state of
the good after death. On the third were mere men yet living in the
world. On one side of the lowest stage, in the rear, was a fearful
cave or yawning mouth filled with smoke and flames, and denoting
hell. From this ever and anon would issue the howls and shrieks of
the damned. Amidst hideous yellings, devils would rush forth and
caper about and snatch hapless souls into this pit to their
doom.46 The actors, in their mock rage, sometimes leaped from the
pageant into the midst of the laughing, screaming, trembling
crowd. The dramatis personoe included many queer characters, such
as a "Worm of Conscience," "Deadman," (representing a soul
delivered from hell at the descent of Christ,) numerous "Damned
Souls," dressed in flame colored garments, "Theft," "Lying,"
"Gluttony." But the devil himself was the favorite character; and
often, when his personified vices jumped on him and pinched and
cudgelled him till he roared, the mirth of the honest audience
knew no bounds. For there were in the Middle Age two sides to the
popular idea of the devil and of all appertaining to him. He was a
soul harrowing bugbear or a rib shaking jest according to the hour
and one's

45 Halliwell's edition of the Harrowing of Hell, p. 18.

46 Sharp, Essay on the Dramatic Mysteries, p. 24.


humor. Rabelais's Pantagruel is filled with irresistible
burlesques of the doctrine of purgatory. The ludicrous side of
this subject may be seen by reading Tarlton's "Jests" and his
"Newes out of Purgatorie." 47 Glimpses of it are also to be caught
through many of the humorous passages in Shakspeare. Dromio says
of an excessively fat and greasy kitchen wench, "If she lives till
doomsday she'll burn a week longer than the whole world!" And
Falstaff, cracking a kindred joke on Bardolph's carbuncled nose,
avows his opinion that it will serve as a flaming beacon to light
lost souls the way to purgatory! Again, seeing a flea on the same
flaming proboscis, the doughty knight affirmed it was "a black
soul burning in hell fire." In this element of mediaval life, this
feature of mediaval literature, a terrible belief lay under the
gay raillery. Here is betrayed, on a wide scale, that natural
reaction of the faculties from excessive oppression to sportive
wit, from deep repugnance to superficial jesting, which has often
been pointed out by philosophical observers as a striking fact in
the psychological history of man.

One more active and mighty cause of the dreadful faith and fear
with which the Middle Age contemplated the future life was the
innumerable and frightful woes, crimes, tyrannies, instruments of
torture, engines of persecution, insane superstitions, which then
existed, making its actual life a hell. The wretchedness and
cruelty of the present world were enough to generate frightful
beliefs and cast appalling shadows over the future. If the earth
was full of devils and phantoms, surely hell must swarm worse with
them. The Inquisition sat shrouded and enthroned in supernatural
obscurity of cunning and awfulness of power, and thrust its
invisible daggers everywhere. The facts men knew here around them
gave credibility to the imagery in which the hereafter was
depicted. The flaming stakes of an Auto da Fe around which the
victims of ecclesiastical hatred writhed were but faint emblems of
what awaited their souls in the realm of demons whereto the tender
mercies of the Church consigned them. Indeed, the fate of myriads
of heretics and traitors could not fail to project the lurid
vision of hell with all its paraphernalia into the imaginations of
the people of the Dark Age. The glowing lava of purgatory heated
the soil they trod, and a smell of its sulphur surcharged the air.
A stupendous revelation of terror, bearing whole volumes of
direful meaning, is given in the single fact that it was a common
belief of that period that the holy Inquisitors would sit with
Christ in the judgment at the last day.48 If king or noble took
offence at some uneasy retainer or bold serf, he ordered him to be
secretly buried in the cell of some secluded fortress, and he was
never heard of more. So, if pope or priest hated or feared some
stubborn thinker, he straightway, "Would banish him to wear a
burning chain In the great dungeons of the unforgiven, Beneath
the space deep castle walls of heaven."

It was an age of cruelty, never to be restored, when the world was
boiling in tempest and men rode on the crests of fear.

47 Recently edited by Halliwell and published by the Shakspeare
Society.

48 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 205.


Researches made within the last century among the remains of
famous mediaval edifices, both ecclesiastic and state, have
brought to light the dismal records of forgotten horrors. In many
a royal palace, priestly building, and baronial castle, there were
secret chambers full of infernal machinery contrived for
inflicting tortures, and under them concealed trap doors opening
into rayless dungeons with no outlet and whose floors were covered
with the mouldering bones of unfortunate wretches who had
mysteriously disappeared long ago and tracelessly perished there.
Sometimes these trap doors were directly above profound pits of
water, in which the victim would drown as he dropped from the
mangling hooks, racks, and pincers of the torture chamber. There
were horrible rumors current in the Middle Age of a machine called
the "Virgin," used for putting men to death; but little was known
about it, and it was generally supposed to be a fable, until, some
years ago one of the identical machines was discovered in an old
Austrian castle. It was a tall wooden woman, with a painted face,
which the victim was ordered to kiss. As he approached to offer
the salute, he trod on a spring, causing the machine to fly open,
stretch out a pair of iron arms, and draw him to its breast
covered with a hundred sharp spikes, which pierced him to death.49

Ignorance and alarm, in a suffering and benighted age, surrounded
by sounds of superstition and sights of cruelty, must needs breed
and foster a horrid faith in regard to the invisible world.
Accordingly, the common doctrine of the future life prevailing in
Christendom from the ninth century till the sixteenth was as we
have portrayed it. Of course there are exceptions to be admitted
and qualifications to be made; but, upon the whole, the picture is
faithful. Fortunately, intellect and soul could not slumber
forever, nor the mediaval nightmares always keep their torturing
seat on the bosom of humanity. Noble men arose to vindicate the
rights of reason and the divinity of conscience. The world was
circumnavigated, and its revolution around the sun was
demonstrated. A thousand truths were discovered, a thousand
inventions introduced. Papacy tottered, its prestige waned, its
infallibility sunk. The light of knowledge shone, the simplicity
of nature was seen, and the benignity of God was surmised.
Thought, throwing off many restrictions and accumulating much
material, began to grow free, and began to grow wise. And so,
before the calm, steady gaze of enlightened and cheerful reason,
the live and crawling smoke of hell, which had so long enwreathed
the mind of the time with its pendent and breathing horrors,
gradually broke up and dissolved, "Like a great superstitious
snake, uncurled From the pale temples of the awakening world."

49 The Kiss of the Virgin, in the Archaologia published by the
Antiquaries of London, vol. xxviii.


CHAPTER III.

MODERN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE folly and paganism of some of the Church dogmas, the rapacious
haughtiness of its spirit, the tyranny of its rule, and the
immoral character of many of its practices, had often awakened the
indignant protests and the determined opposition of men of
enlightened minds, vigorous consciences, and generous hearts, both
in its bosom and out of it. Many such men, vainly struggling to
purify the Church from its iniquitous errors or to relieve mankind
from its outrageous burdens, had been silenced and crushed by its
relentless might. Arnold, Wickliffe, Wessel, Savonarola, and a
host of others, are to be gratefully remembered forever as the
heroic though unsuccessful forerunners of the mighty monk of
Wittenberg.1 The corruption of the mediaval Church grew worse, and
became so great as to stir a very extensive disgust and revulsion.
Wholesale pardons for all their sins were granted indiscriminately
to those who accepted the terms of the papal officials; while
every independent thinker, however evangelical his faith and
exemplary his character, was hopelessly doomed to hell. Especially
were these pardons given to pilgrims and to the Crusaders. Bernard
of Clairvaux, exhorting the people to undertake a new Crusade,
tells them that "God condescends to invite into his service
murderers, robbers, adulterers, perjurers, and those sunk in other
crimes; and whosoever falls in this cause shall secure pardon for
the sins which he has never confessed with contrite heart."2 At
the opening of "Piers the Ploughman's Crede" a person is
introduced saying, "I saw a company of pilgrims on their way to
Rome, who came home with leave to lie all the rest of their
lives!" Nash, in his "Lenten Stuff," speaks of a proclamation
which caused "three hundred thousand people to roam to Rome for
purgatorie pills." Ecclesiasticism devoured ethics. Allegiance to
morality was lowered into devotion to a ritual. The sale of
indulgences at length became too impudent and blasphemous to be
any longer endured, when John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, travelled
over Europe, and, setting up his auction block in the churches,
offered for sale those famous indulgences of Leo X. which
promised, to every one rich enough to pay the requisite price,
remission of all sins, however enormous, and whether past,
present, or future!3 This brazen but authorized charlatan boasted
that "he had saved more souls from hell by the sale of indulgences
than St. Peter had converted to Christianity by his preaching." He
also said that "even if any one had ravished the Mother of God he
could sell him a pardon for it!" The soul of Martin Luther took
fire. The consequence to which a hundred combining causes
contributed was the Protestant Reformation. This great movement
produced, in relation to our subject, three important results. It
noticeably modified the practice and the popular preaching of the
Roman Catholic Church.

1 Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation.

2 Epist. CCCLXIII. ad Orientalis Francia Clerum et Populum.

3 D'Aubigne, Hist. Reformation, book iii.


The dogmas of the Romanist theology remained as they were before.
But a marked change took place in the public conduct of the papal
functionaries. Morality was made more prominent, and mere
ritualism less obtrusive. Comparatively speaking, an emphasis was
taken from ecclesiastic confession and indulgence, and laid upon
ethical obedience and piety. The Council of Trent, held at this
time, says, in its decree concerning indulgences, "In granting
indulgences, the Church desires that moderation be observed, lest,
by excessive facility, ecclesiastical discipline be enervated."
Imposture became more cautious, threats less frequent and less
terrible; the teeth of persecution were somewhat blunted; miracles
grew rarer; the insufferable glare of purgatory and hell faded,
and the open traffic in forgiveness of sins, or the compounding
for deficiencies, diminished. But among the more ignorant papal
multitudes the mediaval superstition holds its place still in all
its virulence and grossness. "Heaven and hell are as much a part
of the Italian's geography as the Adriatic and the Apennines; the
Queen of Heaven looks on the streets as clear as the morning star;
and the souls in purgatory are more readily present to conception
than the political prisoners immured in the dungeons of Venice."

A second consequence of the Reformation is seen in the numerous
dissenting sects to which its issues gave rise. The chief
peculiarities of the Protestant doctrines of the future life are
embodied in the four leading denominations commonly known as
Lutheran, Calvinistic, Unitarian, and Universalist. Each of these
includes a number of subordinate parties bearing distinctive
names, (such as Arminian, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist,
Restorationist, and many others;) but these minor differences are
too trivial to deserve distinctive characterization here. The
Lutheran formula is that, through the sacrifice of Christ,
salvation is offered to all who will accept it by a sincere faith.
Some will comply with these terms and secure heaven; others will
not, and so will be lost forever. Luther's views were not firmly
defined and consistent throughout his career; they were often
obscure, and they fluctuated much. It is true he always insisted
that there was no salvation without faith, and that all who had
faith should be saved. But, while he generally seems to believe in
the current doctrine of eternal damnation, he sometimes appears to
encourage the hope that all will finally be saved. In a remarkable
letter to Hansen von Rechenberg, dated 1522, he says, in effect,
"Whoso hath faith in Christ shall be saved. God forbid that I
should limit the time for acquiring this faith to the present
life! In the depths of the Divine mercy, there may be opportunity
to win it in the future state."

The Calvinistic formula is that heaven is attainable only for
those whom the arbitrary predestination of God has elected; all
others are irretrievably damned. Calvin was the first Christian
theologian who succeeded in giving the fearful doctrine of
unconditional election and reprobation a lodgment in the popular
breast. The Roman Catholic Church had earnestly repudiated it.
Gotteschalk was condemned and died in prison for advocating it, in
the ninth century. But Calvin's character enabled him to believe
it, and his talents and position gave great weight to his advocacy
of it, and it has since been widely received. Catholicism,
Lutheranism, Calvinism, all agreed in the general proposition that
by sin physical death came into the world, heaven was shut against
man, and all men utterly lost. They differed only in some
unessential details concerning the condition of that lost state.
They also agreed in the general proposition that Christ came, by
his incarnation, death, descent to hell, resurrection, and
ascension, to redeem men from their lost state. They only differed
in regard to the precise grounds and extent of that redemption.
The Catholic said, Christ's atonement wiped off the whole score of
original sin, and thus enabled man to win heaven by moral fidelity
and the help of the Church. The Lutheran said, Christ's atonement
made all the sins of those who have faith, pardonable; and all may
have faith. The Calvinist said, God foresaw that man would fall
and incur damnation, and he decreed that a few should be snatched
as brands from the burning, while the mass should be left to
eternal torture; and Christ's atonement purchased the predestined
salvation of the chosen few. Furthermore, Lutherans and
Calvinists, in all their varieties, agree with the Romanist in
asserting that Christ shall come again, the dead be raised bodily,
a universal judgment be held, and that then the condemned shall
sink into the everlasting fire of hell, and the accepted rise into
the endless bliss of heaven.

The Socinian doctrine relative to the future fate of man differed
from the foregoing in the following particulars. First, it limited
the redeeming mission of Christ to the enlightening influences of
the truths which he proclaimed with Divine authority, the moral
power of his perfect example, and the touching motives exhibited
in his death. Secondly, it asserted a natural ability in every man
to live a life conformed to right reason and sound morality, and
promised heaven to all who did this in obedience to the
instructions and after the pattern of Christ. Thirdly, it declared
that the wicked, after suffering excruciating agonies, would be
annihilated. Respecting the second coming of Christ, a physical
resurrection of the dead, and a day of judgment, the Socinians
believed with the other sects.4 Their doctrine scarcely
corresponds with that of the present Unitarians in any thing. The
dissent of the Unitarian from the popular theology is much more
fundamental, detailed, and consistent than that of the Socinian
was, and approaches much closer to the Rationalism of the present
day.

The Universalist formula every soul created by God shall sooner or
later be saved from sin and woe and inherit everlasting happiness
has been publicly defended in every age of the Christian Church.5
It was first publicly condemned as a heresy at the very close of
the fourth century. It ranks among its defenders the names of
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of
Nyssa, and several other prominent Fathers. Universalism has been
held in four forms, on four grounds. First, it has been supposed
that Christ died for all, and that, by the infinite efficacy of
his redeeming merits, all sins shall be cancelled and every soul
be saved. This was the scheme of those early Universalist
Christians whom Epiphanius condemns as heretics; also of a few in
more modern times. Secondly, it has been thought that each person
would be punished in the future state according to the deeds done
in the body, each sin be expiated by a proportionate amount of
suffering, the retribution of some souls being severe and long,
that of others light and brief; but, every penalty being at

4 Flugge gives a full exposition of these points with references
to the authorities. Lehre vom Zustande, u. s. f., abth. ii. ss.
243-260.

5 Dietelmaier, Commenti Fanatici [non-ASCII characters omitted] Hist.
Antiquar.


length exhausted, the last victim would be restored. This was the
notion of Origen, the basis of the doctrine of purgatory, and the
view of most of the Restorationists. Thirdly, it has been imagined
that, by the good pleasure and fixed laws of God, all men are
destined to an impartial, absolute, and instant salvation beyond
the grave: all sins are justly punished, all moral distinctions
equitably compensated, in this life; in the future an equal glory
awaits all men, by the gracious and eternal election of God, as
revealed to us in the benignant mission of Christ. This is the
peculiar conception distinguishing some members of the
denomination now known as Universalists. Finally, it has been
believed that the freedom and probation granted here extend into
the life to come; that the aim of all future punishment will be
remedial, beneficent, not revengeful; that stronger motives will
be applied for producing repentance, and grander attractions to
holiness be felt; and that thus, at some time or other, even the
most sunken and hardened souls will be regenerated and raised up
to heaven in the image of God. Almost all Universalists, most
Unitarians, and large number of individual Christians outwardly
affiliated with other denominations, now accept and cherish this
theory.

One important variation from the doctrine of the dominant sects,
in connection with the present subject, is worthy of special
notice. We refer to the celebrated controversy waged in England,
in the first part of the eighteenth century, in regard to the
intermediate state of the dead. The famous Dr. Coward and a few
supporters labored, with much zeal, skill, and show of learning,
to prove the natural mortality of the soul. They asserted this to
be both a philosophical truth proved by scientific facts and a
Christian doctrine declared in Scripture and taught by the
Fathers. They argued that the soul is not an independent entity,
but is merely the life of the body. Proceeding thus far on the
principles of a materialistic science, they professed to complete
their theory from Scripture, without doing violence to any
doctrine of the acknowledged religion.6 The finished scheme was
this. Man was naturally mortal; but, by the pleasure and will of
God, he would have been immortally preserved alive had he not
sinned. Death is the consequence of sin, and man utterly perishes
in the grave. But God will restore the dead, through Christ, at
the day of the general resurrection which he has foretold in the
gospel.7 Some of the writers in this copious controversy
maintained that previous to the advent of Christ death was eternal
annihilation to all except a few who enjoyed an inspired
anticipatory faith in him, but that all who died after his coming
would be restored in the resurrection, the faithful to be advanced
to heaven, the wicked to be the victims of unending torture.8
Clarke and Baxter both wrote with extreme ability in support of
the natural immortality and separate existence of the soul. On the
other hand, the learned Henry Dodwell cited, from the lore of
three thousand years, a plausible body of authorities to show that
the soul is in itself but a mortal breath. He also contended, by a
singular perversion of figurative phrases from the New Testament
and from some of the Fathers, that,

6 Coward, Search after Souls.

7 Hallet, No Resurrection, no Future State.

8 Coward, Defence of the Search after Souls. Dodwell, Epistolary
Discourse. Peckard, Observations. Fleming, Survey of the Search
after Souls. Law, State of Separate Spirits. Layton, Treatise of
Departed Souls.


in counteraction of man's natural mortality, all who undergo
baptism at the hands of the ordained ministers of the Church of
England the only true priesthood in apostolic succession thereby
receive an immortalizing spirit brought into the world by Christ
and committed to his successors. This immortalizing spirit
conveyed by baptism would secure their resurrection at the last
day. Those destitute of this spirit would never awake from the
oblivious sleep of death, unless as he maintained will actually be
the case with a large part of the dead they are arbitrarily
immortalized by the pleasure of God, in order to suffer eternal
misery in hell! Absurd and shocking as this fancy was, it obtained
quite a number of converts, and made no slight impression at the
time. One of the writers in this controversy asserted that Luther
himself had been a believer in the death or sleep of the soul
until the day of judgment.9 Certain it is that such a belief had
at one period a considerable prevalence. Its advocates were called
Psychopannychians. Calvin wrote a vehement assault on them. The
opinion has sunk into general disrepute and neglect, and it would
be hard to find many avowed disciples of it. The nearly universal
sentiment of Christendom would now exclaim, in the quaint words of
Henry More,

"What! has old Adam snorted all this time Under some senselesse
clod, with sleep ydead?" 10

John Asgill printed, in the year 1700, a tract called "An argument
to prove that by the new covenant man may be translated into
eternal life without tasting death." He argues that the law of
death was a consequence of Adam's sin and was annulled by Christ's
sacrifice. Since that time men have died only because of an
obstinate habit of dying formed for many generations. For his
part, he has the independence and resolution to withstand the
universal pusillanimity and to refuse to die. He has discovered
"an engine in Divinity to convey man from earth to heaven." He
will "play a trump on death and show himself a match for the
devil!"

While treating of the various Protestant views of the future life,
it would be a glaring defect to overlook the remarkable doctrine
on that subject published by Emanuel Swedenborg and now held by
the intelligent, growing body of believers called after his name.
It would be impossible to exhibit this system adequately in its
scientific bases and its complicated details without occupying
more space than can be afforded here. Nor is this necessary, now
that his own works have been translated and are easily accessible
everywhere. His "Heaven and Hell," "Heavenly Arcana," "Doctrine of
Influx," and "True Christian

9 Blackburne, View of the Controversy Concerning an Intermediate
State: appendix. It is probable that the great Reformer's opinion
on this point was not always the same. For he says, distinctly,
"The first man who died, when he awakes at the last day, will
think he has been asleep but an hour" Beste, Dr. M. Luther's
Glaubenslehre, cap. iv.: Die Lehre von den Letzen Dingen. Yet. J.
S. Muller seems conclusively to prove the truth of the proposition
which forms the title of his book, "Dass Luther die Lehre vom
Seelenschlafe nie geglaubt habe."

10 The controversy concerning the natural immortality of the soul
has within a few years raged afresh. The principal combatants were
Dobney, Storrs, White, Morris, and Hinton. See Athanasia, by J. H.
Hinton, London, 1849.


Religion," contain manifold statements and abundant illustrations
of every thing important bearing on his views of the theme before
us. We shall merely attempt to present a brief synopsis of the
essential principles, accompanied by two or three suggestions of
criticism.

Swedenborg conceives man to be an organized receptacle of truth
and love from God. He is an imperishable spiritual body placed for
a season of probation in a perishable material body. Every moment
receiving the essence of his being afresh from God, and returning
it through the fruition of its uses devoutly rendered in conscious
obedience and joyous worship, he is at once a subject of personal,
and a medium of the Divine, happiness. The will is the power of
man's life, and the understanding is its form. When the will is
disinterested love and the understanding is celestial truth, then
man fulfils the end of his being, and his home is heaven; he is a
spirit frame into which the goodness of God perpetually flows, is
humbly acknowledged, gratefully enjoyed, and piously returned. But
when his will is hatred or selfishness and his understanding is
falsehood or evil, then his powers are abused, his destiny
inverted, and his fate hell. While in the body in this world he is
placed in freedom, on probation, between these two alternatives.

The Swedenborgian universe is divided into four orders of abodes.
In the highest or celestial world are the heavens of the angels.
In the lowest or infernal world are the hells of the demons. In
the intermediate or spiritual world are the earths inhabited by
men, and surrounded by the transition state through which souls,
escaping from their bodies, after a while soar to heaven or sink
to hell, according to their fitness and attraction. In this life
man is free, because he is an energy in equilibrium between the
influences of heaven and hell. The middle state surrounding man is
full of spirits, some good and some bad. Every man is accompanied
by swarms of both sorts of spirits, striving to make him like
themselves. Now, there are two kinds of influx into man. Mediate
influx is when the spirits in the middle state flow into man's
thoughts and affections. The good spirits are in communication
with heaven, and they carry what is good and true; the evil
spirits are in communication with hell, and they carry what is
evil and false. Between these opposed and reacting agencies man is
in an equilibrium whose essence is freedom. Deciding for himself,
if he turns with embracing welcome to the good spirits, he is
thereby placed and lives in conjunction with heaven; but if he
turns, on the contrary, with predominant love to the bad spirits,
he is placed in conjunction with hell and draws his life thence.
From heaven, therefore, through the good spirits, all the elements
of saving goodness flow sweetly down and are appropriated by the
freedom of the good man; while from hell, through the bad spirits,
all the elements of damning evil flow foully up and are
appropriated by the freedom of the bad man.

The other kind of influx is called immediate. This is when the
Lord himself, the pure substance of truth and good, flows into
every organ and faculty of man. This influx is perpetual, but is
received as truth and good only by the true and good. It is
rejected, suffocated, or perverted by those who are in love with
falsities and evils. So the light of the sun produces colors
varying with the substances it falls on, and water takes forms
corresponding to the vessels it is poured into.

The whole invisible world heaven, hell, and the middle state is
peopled solely from the different families of the human race
occupying the numerous material globes of the universe. The good,
on leaving the fleshly body, are angels, the bad, demons. There is
no angel nor demon who was created such at first. Satan is not a
personality, but is a figurative term standing for the whole
complex of hell. In the invisible world, time and space in one
sense cease to be; in another sense they remain unchanged. They
virtually cease because all our present measures of them are
annihilated;11 they virtually remain because exact correspondences
to them are left. To spirits, time is no longer measured by the
revolution of planets, but by the succession of inward states;
space is measured not by way marks and the traversing of
distances, but by inward similitudes and dissimilitudes. Those who
are unlike are sundered by gulfs of difference. Those who are
alike are together in their interiors. Thought and love,
forgetfulness and hate, are not hampered by temporal and spatial
boundaries. Spiritual forces and beings spurn material
impediments, and are united or separate, reciprocally visible or
invisible, mutually conscious or unconscious, according to their
own laws of kindred or alien adaptedness.

The soul the true man is its own organized and deathless body, and
when it leaves its earthly house of flesh it knows the only
resurrection, and the cast off frame returns to the dust forever.
Swedenborg repeatedly affirms with emphasis that no one is born
for hell, but that all are born for heaven, and that when any one
comes into hell it is from his own free fault. He asserts that
every infant, wheresoever born, whether within the Church or out
of it, whether of pious parents or of impious, when he dies is
received by the Lord, and educated in heaven, and becomes an
angel. A central principle of which he never loses sight is that
"a life of charity, which consists in acting sincerely and justly
in every function, in every engagement, and in every work, from a
heavenly motive, according to the Divine laws, is possible to
every one, and infallibly leads to heaven." It does not matter
whether the person leading such a life be a Christian or a
Gentile. The only essential is that his ruling motive be divine
and his life be in truth and good.

The Swedenborgian doctrine concerning Christ and his mission is
that he was the infinite God incarnate, not incarnate for the
purpose of expiating human sin and purchasing a ransom for the
lost by vicarious sufferings, but for the sake of suppressing the
rampant power of the hells, weakening the influx of the infernal
spirits, setting an example to men, and revealing many important
truths. The advantage of the Christian over the pagan is that the
former is enlightened by the celestial knowledge contained in the
Bible, and animated by the affecting motives presented in the
drama of the Divine incarnation. There is no probation after this
life. Just as one is on leaving the earth he goes into the
spiritual world. There his

11 Philo the Jew says, (vol. i. p. 277, ed. Mangey,) "God is the
Father of the world: the world is the father of time, begetting it
by its own motion: time, therefore, holds the place of grandchild
to God." But the world is only one measure of time; another, and a
more important one, is the inward succession of the spirit's
states of consciousness. Between Philo and Swedenborg, it may be
remarked here, there are many remarkable correspondences both of
thought and language. For example, Philo says, (vol. i. p. 494,)
"Man is a small kosmos, the kosmos is a grand man."


ruling affection determines his destiny, and that affection can
never be extirpated or changed to all eternity. After death, evil
life cannot in any manner or degree be altered to good life, nor
infernal love be transmuted to angelic love, inasmuch as every
spirit from head to foot is in quality such as his love is, and
thence such as his life is, so that to transmute this life into
the opposite is altogether to destroy the spirit. It were easier,
says Swedenborg, to change a night bird into a dove, an owl into a
bird of paradise, than to change a subject of hell into a subject
of heaven after the line of death has been crossed. But why the
crossing of that line should make such an infinite difference he
does not explain; nor does he prove it as a fact.

The moral reason and charitable heart of Swedenborg vehemently
revolted from the Calvinistic doctrines of predestination and
vicarious atonement, and the group of thoughts that cluster around
them. He always protests against these dogmas, refutes them with
varied power and consistency; and the leading principles of his
own system are creditable to human nature, and attribute no
unworthiness to the character of God. A debt of eternal gratitude
is due to Swedenborg that his influence, certainly destined to be
powerful and lasting, is so clearly calculated to advance the
interests at once of philosophic intelligence, social affection,
and true piety. The superiorities of his view of the future life
over those which it seeks to supplant are weighty and numerous.
The following may be reckoned among the most prominent.

First, without predicating of God any aggravated severity or
casting the faintest shadow on his benevolence, it gives us the
most appalling realization of the horribleness of sin and of its
consequences. God is commonly represented in effect, at least as
flaming with anger against sinners, and forcibly flinging them
into the unappeasable fury of Tophet, where his infinite vengeance
may forever satiate itself on them. But, Swedenborg says, God is
incapable of hatred or wrath: he casts no one into hell; but the
wicked go where they belong by their own election, from the
inherent fitness and preference of their ruling love. The evil man
desires to be in hell because there he finds his food, employment,
and home; in heaven he would suffer unutterable agonies from every
circumstance. The wicked go into hell by the necessary and
benignant love of God, not by his indignation; and their
retributions are in their own characters, not in their prison
house. This does not flout and trample all magnanimity, nor shock
the heart of piety; and yet, showing us men compelled to prefer
wallowing in the filth and iniquities of hell, clinging to the
very evils whose pangs transfix them, it gives us the direst of
all the impressions of sin, and beneath the lowest deep of the
popular hell opens to our shuddering conceptions a deep of
loathsomeness immeasurably lower still.

Secondly, the Swedenborgian doctrine of the conditions of
salvation or reprobation, when compared with the popular doctrine,
is marked by striking depth of insight, justice, and liberality.
Every man is free. Every man has power to receive the influx of
truth and good from the Lord and convert it to its blessed and
saving uses, piety towards God, good will towards the neighbor,
and all kinds of right works. Who does this, no matter in what
land or age he lives, becomes an heir of heaven. Who perverts
those Divine gifts to selfishness and unrighteous deeds becomes a
subject of hell. No mere opinion, no mere profession, no mere
ritual services, no mere external obedience, not all these things
together, can save a man, nor their absence condemn him; but the
controlling motive of his life, the central and ruling love which
constitutes the substance of his being, this decides every man's
doom. The view is simple, reasonable, just, necessary. And so is
the doctrine of degrees accompanying it; namely, that there are in
heaven different grades and qualities of exaltation and delight,
and in hell of degradation and woe, for different men according to
their capacities and deserts. A profoundly ethical character
pervades the scheme, and the great stamp of law is over it all.

Thirdly, a manifest advantage of Swedenborg's doctrine over the
popular doctrine is the intimate connection it establishes between
the present and the future, the visible and the invisible, God and
man. Heaven and hell are not distant localities, entrance into
which is to be won or avoided by moral artifices or sacramental
subterfuges, but they are states of being depending on personal
goodness or evil. God is not throned at the heart or on the apex
of the universe, where at some remote epoch we hope to go and see
him, but he is the Life feeding our lives freshly every instant.
The spiritual world, with all its hosts, sustains and arches,
fills and envelops us. Death is the dropping of the outer body,
the lifting of an opaque veil, and we are among the spirits,
unchanged, as we were before. Judgment is not a tribunal dawning
on the close of the world's weary centuries, but the momentary
assimilation of a celestial or an infernal love leading to states
and acts, rewards and retributions, corresponding. Before this
view the dead universe becomes a live transparency overwritten
with the will, tremulous with the breath, and irradiate with the
illumination of God.

We cannot but regret that the Swedenborgian view of the future
life should be burdened and darkened with the terrible error of
the dogma of eternal damnation, spreading over the state of all
the subjects of the hells the pall of immitigable hopelessness,
denying that they can ever make the slightest ameliorating
progress. We have never been able to see force enough in any of
the arguments or assertions advanced in support of this tremendous
horror to warrant the least hesitation in rejecting it. For
ourselves, we must regard it as incredible, and think that God
cannot permit it. Instruction, reformation, progress, are the
final aims of punishment. Aspiration is the concomitant of
consciousness, and the authentic voice of God. Surely, sooner or
later, in the boonful eternities of being, every creature capable
of intelligence, allied to the moral law, drawing life from the
Infinite, must begin to travel the ascending path of virtue and
blessedness, and never retrograde again.

Neither can we admit in general the claim made by Swedenborg and
by his disciples that the way in which he arrived at his system of
theology elevates it to the rank of a Divine revelation. It is
asserted that God opened his interior vision, so that he saw what
had hitherto been concealed from the eyes of men in the flesh,
namely, the inhabitants, laws, contents, and experiences of the
spiritual world, and thus that his statements are not speculations
or arguments, but records of unerring knowledge, his descriptions
not fanciful pictures of the imagination, but literal transcripts
of the truth he saw. This, in view of the great range of known
experience, is not intrinsically probable, and we have seen no
proof of it. Judging from what we know of psychological and
religious history, it is far more likely that a man should
confound his intangible reveries with solid fact than that he
should be inspired by God to reveal a world of mysterious truths.
Furthermore, while we are impressed with the reasonableness,
probability, and consistency of most of the general principles of
Swedenborg's exposition of the future life, we cannot but shrink
from many of the details and forms in which he carries them out.
Notwithstanding the earnest avowals of able disciples of his
school that all his details are strictly necessitated by his
premises, and that all his premises are laws of truth, we are
compelled to regard a great many of his assertions as purely
arbitrary and a great many of his descriptions as purely fanciful.
But, denying that his scheme of eschatology is a scientific
representation of the reality, and looking at it as a poetic
structure reared by co working knowledge and imagination on the
ground of reason, nature, and morality,  whose foundation walls,
columns, and grand outlines are truth, while many of its details,
ornaments, and images are fancy, it must be acknowledged to be one
of the most wonderful examples of creative power extant in the
literature of the world. No one who has mastered it with
appreciative mind will question this. There are, expressed and
latent, in the totality of Swedenborg's accounts of hell and
heaven, more variety of imagery, power of moral truth and appeal,
exhibition of dramatic justice, transcendent delights of holiness
and love, curdling terrors of evil and woe, strength of
philosophical grasp, and sublimity of emblematic conception, than
are to be found in Dante's earth renowned poem. We say this of the
substance of his ideas, not of the shape and clothing in which
they are represented. Swedenborg was no poet in language and form,
only in conception.

Take this picture. In the topmost height of the celestial world
the Lord appears as a sun, and all the infinite multitudes of
angels, swarming up through the innumerable heavens, wherever they
are, continually turn their faces towards him in love and joy. But
at the bottom of the infernal world is a vast ball of blackness,
towards which all the hosts of demons, crowding down through the
successive hells, forever turn their eager faces away from God. Or
consider this. Every thing consists of a great number of perfect
leasts like itself: every heart is an aggregation of little
hearts, every lung an aggregation of little lungs, every eye an
aggregation of little eyes. Following out the principle, every
society in the spiritual world is a group of spirits arranged in
the form of a man, every heaven is a gigantic man composed of an
immense number of individuals, and all the heavens together
constitute one Grand Man, a countless number of the most
intelligent angels forming the head, a stupendous organization of
the most affectionate making the heart, the most humble going to
the feet, the most useful attracted to the hands, and so on
through every part.

With exceptions, then, we regard Swedenborg's doctrine of the
future life as a free poetic presentment, not as a severe
scientific statement, of views true in moral principle, not of
facts real in literal detail. His imagination and sentiment are
mathematical and ethical instead of asthetic and passionate. Milk
seems to run in his veins instead of blood, but he is of
truthfulness and charity all compact. We think it most probable
that the secret of his supposed inspiration was the abnormal
frequent or chronic turning of his mind into what is called the
ecstatic or clairvoyant state. This condition being spontaneously
induced, while he yet, in some unexplained manner, retained
conscious possession and control of his usual faculties, he
treated his subjective conceptions as objective realities,
believed his interior contemplations were accurate visions of
facts, and took the strange procession of systematic reveries
through his teeming brain for a scenic revelation of the
exhaustive mysteries of heaven and hell. "Each wondrous guess
beheld the truth it sought, And inspiration flash'd from what was
thought."

This hypothesis, taken in conjunction with the comprehensiveness
of his mind, the vastness of his learning, the integral
correctness of his conscience, and his disciplined habits of
thought, will go far towards explaining the unparalleled
phenomenon of his theological works; and, though it leaves many
things unaccounted for, it seems to us more credible than any
other which has yet been suggested.

The last of the three prominent phenomena which as before said
followed the Protestant Reformation was rationalism, an attempt to
try all religious questions at the tribunal of reason and by the
tests of conscience. The great movement led by Luther was but one
element in a numerous train of influences and events all yielding
their different contributions to that resolute rationalistic
tendency which afterwards broke out so powerfully in England,
France, and Germany, and, spreading thence into every country in
Christendom, has been, in secret and in public, with slow, sure
steps, irresistibly advancing ever since. In the history of
scholasticism there were three distinct epochs. The first period
was characterized by the servile submission and conformity of
philosophy to the theology dictated by the Church. The second
period was marked by the formal alliance and attempted
reconciliation of philosophy and theology. The third period saw an
ever increasing jealousy and separation between the philosophers
and the theologians.12 Many an adventurous thinker pushed his
speculations beyond the limits of the established theology, and
deliberately dissented from the orthodox standards in his
conclusions. Perhaps Abelard, who openly strove to put all the
Church dogmas in forms acceptable to philosophy, and who did not
hesitate to reject in many instances what seemed to him
unreasonable, deserves to be called the father of rationalism. The
works of Des Cartes, Leibnitz, Wolf, Kant's "Religion within the
Bounds of Pure Reason," together with the influence and the
writings of many other eminent philosophers, gradually gave
momentum to the impulse and popularity to the habits of free
thought and criticism even in the realm of theology. The dogmatic
scheme of the dominant Church was firmly seized, many errors
shaken out to the light and exposed, and many long received
opinions questioned and flung into doubt.13 The authenticity of
many of the popular doctrines regarding the future life could not
fail to be denied as soon as it was attempted as was extensively
done about the middle of the eighteenth century to demonstrate
them by mathematical methods, with all the array of axioms,
theorems, lemmas, doubts, and solutions. Flugge has historically
illustrated the employment of this method at considerable
length.14

12 Cousin, Hist. Mod. Phil., lect. ix.

13 Staudlin, Geschichte des Rationalismus. Saintes, Histoire
Critique du Rationalisme en Allemagne, Eng. trans. by Dr. Beard.

14 Geschichte des Glaubens an Unsterblichkeit, u. s. f., th. iii.
abth. ii. ss. 281-289.


The essence of rationalism is the affirmation that neither the
Fathers, nor the Church, nor the Scriptures, nor all of them
together, can rightfully establish any proposition opposed to the
logic of sound philosophy, the principles of reason, and the
evident truth of nature. Around this thesis the battle has been
fought and the victory won; and it will stand with spreading favor
as long as there are unenslaved and cultivated minds in the world.
This position is, in logical necessity, and as a general thing in
fact, that of the large though loosely cohering body of believers
known as "Liberal Christians;" and it is tacitly held by still
larger and ever growing numbers nominally connected with sects
that officially eschew it with horror. The result of the studies
and discussions associated with this principle, so far as it
relates to the subject before us, has been the rejection of the
following popular doctrines:  the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures as an ultimate authority in matters of belief;
unconditional predestination; the satisfaction theory of the
vicarious atonement; the visible second coming of Christ, in
person, to burn up the world and to hold a general judgment; the
intermediate state of souls; the resurrection of the body; a local
hell of material fire in the bowels of the earth; the eternal
damnation of the wicked. These old dogmas,15 scarcely changed,
still remain in the stereotyped creeds of all the prominent
denominations; but they slumber there to an astonishing extent
unrealized, unnoticed, unthought of, by the great multitude of
common believers, while every consciously rational investigator
vehemently repudiates them. To every candid mind that has really
studied their nature and proofs their absurdity is now transparent
on all the grounds alike of history, metaphysics, morals, and
science.

The changes of the popular Christian belief in regard to three
salient points have been especially striking. First, respecting
the immediate fate of the dead, an intermediate state. The
predominant Jewish doctrine was that all souls went indiscriminately
into a sombre under world, where they awaited a resurrection.

The earliest Christian view prevalent was the same, with the
exception that it divided that place of departed spirits
into two parts, a painful for the bad, a pleasant for the good.
The next opinion that prevailed the Roman Catholic was the same as
the foregoing, with two exceptions: it established a purgatory in
addition to the previous paradise and hell, and it opened heaven
itself for the immediate entrance of a few spotless souls. Pope
John XXII., as Gieseler shows, was accused of heresy by the
theological doctors of Paris because he declared that no soul
could enter heaven and enjoy the beatific vision until after the
resurrection. Pope Benedict XII. drew up a list of one hundred and
seventeen heretical opinions held by the Armenian Christians. One
of these notions was that the souls of all deceased adults wander
in the air until the Day of Judgment, neither hell, paradise, nor
heaven being open to them until after that day. Thomas Aquinas
says, "Each soul at death immediately flies to its appointed
place, whether in hell or in heaven, being without the body until
the resurrection, with it afterwards."16 Then came the

15 They are defended in all their literal grossness in the two
following works, both recent publications. The World to Come; by
the Rev. James Cochrane. Der Tod, das Todtenreich, und der Zustand
der abgeschiedenen Seelen; von P. A. Maywahlen.

16 Summa iii. in Suppl. 69. 2.

dogma of the orthodox Protestants, slightly varying in the
different sects, but generally agreeing that at death all redeemed
souls pass instantly to heaven and all unredeemed souls to hell.17
The principal variation from this among believers within the
Protestant fellowship has been the notion that the souls of all
men die or sleep with the body until the Day of Judgment, a notion
which peeps out here and there in superstitious spots along the
pages of ecclesiastical history, and which has found now and then
an advocate during the last century and a half. The Council of
Elvin, in Spain, forbade the lighting of tapers in churchyards,
lest it should disturb the souls of the deceased buried there. At
this day, in prayers and addresses at funerals, no phrases are
more common than those alluding to death as a sleep, and implying
that the departed one is to slumber peacefully in his grave until
the resurrection. And yet, at the same time, by the same persons
contrary ideas are frequently expressed. The truth is, the
subject, owing to the contradictions between their creed and their
reason, is left by most persons in hopeless confusion and
uncertainty. They have no determinately reconciled and conscious
views of their own. Rationalism sweeps away all the foregoing
incongruous medley at once, denying that we know any thing about
the precise localities of heaven and hell, or the destined order
of events in the hidden future of separate souls; affirming that
all we should dare to say is simply that the souls whether of good
or of bad men, on leaving the body, go at once into a spiritual
state of being, where they will live immortally, as God decrees,
never returning to be reinvested with the vanished charnel houses
of clay they once inhabited.

Secondly, the thought that Christ after his death descended into
the under world to ransom mankind, or a part of mankind, from the
doom there, is in the foundation of the apostolic theology. It was
a central element in the belief of the Fathers, and of the Church
for fourteen hundred years. None of the prominent Protestant
reformers thought of denying it. Calvin lays great stress on it.18
Apinus and others, at Hamburg, maintained that Christ's descent
was a part of his humiliation, and that in it he suffered
unutterable pains for us. On the other hand, Melancthon and the
Wittenbergers held that the descent was a part of Christ's
triumph, since by it he won a glorious victory over the powers of
hell.19 But gradually the importance and the redeeming effects
attached to Christ's descent into hell were transferred to his
death on the cross. Slowly the primitive dogma dwindled away, and
finally sunk out of sight, through an ever encroaching disbelief
in the physical conditions on which it rested and in the pictorial
environments by which it was recommended. And now it is scarcely
ever heard of, save when brought out from old scholastic tomes by
some theological delver. Baumgarten Crusius has learnedly
illustrated the important place long held by this notion, and well
shown its gradual retreat into the unnoticed background.20

17 Confession of Faith of the Church of Scotland, ch. xxxii.
Calvin, Institutes, lib. iii. cap. xxv.; and his Psychopannychia.
Quenstedt also affirms it. Likewise the Confession of Faith of the
Westminster Divines, art. xxxii., says, "Souls neither die nor
sleep, but go immediately to heaven or hell."

18 Institutes, lib. ii. cap. 16, sects. 16, 19.

19 Ledderhose, Life of Melancthon, Eng. trans. by Krotel, ch. xxx.

20 Compendium der Christliche Dogmengeschichte, thl. ii. sects.
100-109.


The other particular doctrine which we said had undergone
remarkable change is in regard to the number of the saved. A
blessed improvement has come over the popular Christian feeling
and teaching in respect to this momentous subject. The Jews
excluded from salvation all but their own strict ritualists. The
apostles, it is true, excluded none but the stubbornly wicked. But
the majority of the Fathers virtually allowed the possibility of
salvation to few indeed. Chrysostom doubted if out of the hundred
thousand souls constituting the Christian population of Antioch in
his day one hundred would be saved! 21 And when we read, with
shuddering soul, the calculations of Cornelius a Lapide, or the
celebrated sermon of Massillon on the "Small Number of the Saved,"
we are compelled to confess that they fairly represent the almost
universal sentiment and conviction of Christendom for more than
seventeen hundred years. A quarto volume published in London in
1680, by Du Moulin, called "Moral Reflections upon the Number of
the Elect," affirmed that not one in a million, from Adam down to
our times, shall be saved. A flaming execration blasted the whole
heathen world, 22 and a metaphysical quibble doomed ninety nine of
every hundred in Christian lands. Collect the whole relevant
theological literature of the Christian ages, from the birth of
Tertullian to the death of Jonathan Edwards, strike the average
pitch of its doctrinal temper, and you will get this result: that
in the field of human souls Satan is the harvester, God the
gleaner; hell receives the whole vintage in its wine press of
damnation, heaven obtains only a few straggling clusters plucked
for salvation. The crowded wains roll staggering into the iron
doorways of Satan's fire and brimstone barns; the redeemed
vestiges of the world crop of men are easily borne to heaven in
the arms of a few weeping angels. How different is the prevailing
tone of preaching and belief now! What a cheerful ascent of views
from the mournful passage of the dead over the river of oblivion
fancied by the Greeks, or the excruciating passage of the river of
fire painted by the Catholics, to the happy passage of the river
of balm, healing every weary bruise and sorrow, promised by the
Universalists! It is true, the old harsh exclusiveness is still
organically imbedded in the established creeds, all of which deny
the possibility of salvation beyond the little circle who vitally
appropriate the vicarious atonement of Christ; but then this is,
for the most part, a dead letter in the creeds. In the hearts and
in the candid confessions of all but one in a thousand it is
discredited and sincerely repelled as an abomination to human
nature, a reflection against God, an outrage upon the substance of
ethics. Remorseless bigots may gloat and exult over the thought
that those who reject their dogmas shall be thrust into the
roaring fire gorges of hell; but a better spirit is the spirit of
the age we live in; and, doubtless, a vast majority of the men we
daily meet really believe that all who try to the best of their
ability, according to their light and circumstances, to do what is
right, in the love of God and man, shall be saved. In that moving
scene of the great dramatist where the burial of the innocent and
hapless Ophelia is represented, and Lacrtes vainly seeks to win
from the Church official

21 In Acta Apostolorum, homil. xxiv.

22 Gotze, Ueber die Neue Meinung von der Seligkeit der angeblich
guten und redlichen Seelen unter Juden, Heiden, und Turken durch
Christum, ohne dass sie an ihn glauben.


the full funeral rites of religion over her grave, the priest may
stand for the false and cruel ritual spirit, the brother for the
just and native sentiment of the human heart. Says the priest,
"We should profane the service of the dead To sing a requiem and
such rest to her As to peace parted souls." And Laertes replies,
"Lay her in the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
Shall violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering
angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling."

Indeed, who that has a heart in his bosom would not be ashamed not
to sympathize with the gentle hearted Burns when he expresses even
to the devil himself the quaint and kindly wish, "Oh wad ye tak' a
thought and mend!"

The creeds and the priests, in congenial alliance with many evil
things, may strive to counteract this progressive self
emancipation from cruel falsehoods and superstitions, but in vain.
The terms of salvation are seen lying in the righteous will of a
gracious God, not in the heartless caprice of a priesthood nor in
the iron gripe of a set of dogmas. The old priestly monopoly over
the way to heaven has been taken off in the knowledge of the
enlightened present, and, for all who have unfettered feet to walk
with, the passage to God is now across a free bridge. The ancient
exactors may still sit in their toll house creeds and confessionals;
but their authority is gone, and the virtuous traveller, stepping
from the ground of time upon the planks that lead over into eternity,
smiles as he passes scot free by their former taxing terrors.

The reign of sacramentalists and dogmatists rapidly declines.
Reason, common sentiment, the liberal air, the best and
strongest tendencies of the people, are against them to
day, and will be more against them in every coming day. Every
successive explosion of the Second Adventist fanaticism will leave
less of that element behind. Its rage in America, under the
auspices of Miller, in the nineteenth century, was tame and feeble
when compared with the terror awakened in Europe in the fifteenth
century by Stofler's prediction of an approaching comet.23 Every
new discovery of the harmonies of science, and of the perfections
of nature, and of the developments of the linear logic of God
consistently unfolding in implicated sequences of peaceful order
unperturbed by shocks of failure and epochs of remedy, will
increase and popularize an intelligent faith in the original
ordination and the intended permanence of the present constitution
of things. Finally men will cease to be looking up to see the blue
dome cleave open for the descent of angelic squadrons headed by
the majestic Son of God, the angry breath of his mouth consuming
the world, cease to

23 Bayle, Historical Dictionary, art. Stofler, note B.


expect salvation by any other method than that of earnest and
devout truthfulness, love, good works, and pious submissiveness to
God, cease to fancy that their souls, after waiting through the
long sleep or separation of death, will return and take on their
old bodies again. Recognizing the Divine plan for training souls
in this lower and transient state for a higher and immortal state,
they will endeavor, in natural piety and mutual love, while they
live, to exhaust the genuine uses of the world that now is, and
thus prepare themselves to enter with happiest auspices, when they
die, the world prepared for them beyond these mortal shores.

These cheerful prophecies must be verified in the natural course
of things. The rapid spread of the doctrine of a future life
taught by the "Spirit rappers" is a remarkable revelation of the
great extent to which the minds of the common people have at last
become free from the long domination of the ecclesiastical dogmas
on that subject. The leading representatives of the "Spiritualists"
affirm, with much unanimity, the most comforting conclusions
as to the condition of the departed. They exclude all wrath
and favoritism from the disposition of the Deity. They have
little in fact, they often have nothing whatever to say of hell.
They emphatically repudiate the ordinarily taught terms of
salvation, and deny the doctrine of hopeless reprobation. All
death is beautiful and progressive. "Every form and thing is
constantly growing lovelier and every sphere purer." The abode of
each soul in the future state is determined, not by decrees or
dogmas or forms of any kind, but by qualities of character,
degrees of love, purity, and wisdom. There are seven ascending
spheres, each more abounding than the one below it in beauties,
glories, and happiness. "The first sphere is the natural; the
second, the spiritual; the third, the celestial; the fourth, the
supernatural; the fifth, the superspiritual; the sixth, the
supercelestial; the seventh, the Infinite Vortex of Love and
Wisdom."24 Whatever be thought of the pretensions of this doctrine
to be a Divine revelation, whatever be thought of its various
psychological, cosmological, and theological characteristics, its
ethics are those of natural reason. It is wholly irreconcilable
with the popular ecclesiastical system of doctrines. Its epidemic
diffusion until now burdened as it is with such nauseating
accompaniments of crudity and absurdity, it reckons its adherents
by millions is a tremendous evidence of the looseness with which
the old, cruel dogmas sit on the minds of the masses of the
people, and of their eager readiness to welcome more humane views.

In science the erroneous doctrines of the Middle Age are now
generally discarded. The mention of them but provokes a smile or
awakens surprise. Yet, as compared with the historic annals of our
race, it is but recently that the true order of the solar system
has been unveiled, the weight of the air discovered, the
circulation of the blood made known, the phenomena of insanity
intelligently studied, the results of physiological chemistry
brought to light, the symmetric domain and sway of calculable law
pushed far out in every direction of nature and experience. It
used to be supposed that digestion was effected by means of a
mechanical power equal to many tons. Borelli asserted that the
muscular force of the heart was one hundred and eighty thousand
pounds. These absurd estimates only disappeared when the

24 Andrew Jackson Davis, Nature's Divine Revelations, sects. 192
203.


properties of the gastric juice were discerned. The method in
which we distinguish the forms and distances of objects was not
understood until Berkeley published his "New Theory of Vision."
Few persons are aware of the opposition of bigotry, stolidity, and
authority against which the brilliant advances of scientific
discovery and mechanical invention and social improvement have
been forced to contend, and in despite of which they have slowly
won their way. Excommunications, dungeons, fires, sneers, polite
persecution, bitter neglect, tell the story, from the time the
Athenians banned Anaxagoras for calling the sun a mass of fire, to
the day an English mob burned the warehouses of Arkwright because
he had invented the spinning jenny. But, despite all the hostile
energies of establishment, prejudice, and scorn, the earnest
votaries of philosophical truth have studied and toiled with ever
accumulating victories, until now a hundred sciences are ripe with
emancipating fruits and perfect freedom to be taught. Railroads
gird the lands with ribs of trade, telegraphs thread the airs with
electric tidings of events, and steamships crease the seas with
channels of foam and fire. There is no longer danger of any one
being put to death, or even being excluded from the "best
society," for saying that the earth moves. An eclipse cannot be
regarded as the frown of God when it is regularly foretold with
certainty. The measurement of the atmosphere exterminated the
wiseacre proverb, "Nature abhors a vacuum," by the burlesque
addition, "but only for the first thirty two feet." The madman
cannot be looked on as divinely inspired, his words to be caught
as oracles, or as possessed by a devil, to be chained and
scourged, since Pinel's great work has brought insanity within the
range of organic disease. When Franklin's kite drew electricity
from the cloud to his knuckle, the superstitious theory of thunder
died a natural death.

The vast progress effected in all departments of physical science
during the last four centuries has not been made in any kindred
degree in the prevailing theology. Most of the harsh, unreasonable
tenets of the elaborately morbid and distorted mediaval
theologyare still retained in the creeds of the great majority of
Christendom. The causes of this difference are plain. The
establishment of newly discovered truths in material science being
less intimately connected with the prerogatives of the ruling
classes, less clearly hostile to the permanence of their power,
they have not offered so pertinacious an opposition to progress in
this province: they have yielded a much larger freedom to
physicists than to moralists, to discoverers of mathematical,
chemical, and mechanical law than to reformers of political and
religious thought. Livy tells us that, in the five hundred and
seventy third year of Rome, some concealed books of Numa were
found, which, on examination by the priests, being thought
injurious to the established religion, were ordered to be
burned.25 The charge was not that they were ungenuine, nor that
their contents were false; but they were dangerous. In the second
century, an imperial decree forbade the reading of the Sibylline
Oracles, because they contained prophecies of Christ and doctrines
of Christianity. By an act of the English Parliament, in the
middle of the seventeenth century, every copy of the Racovian
Catechism (an exposition of the Socinian doctrine) that could be
obtained was burned in the streets.

25 Lib. xl. cap. xxix.


The Index Expurgatorius for Catholic countries is still freshly
filled every year. And in Protestant countries a more subtle and a
more effectual influence prevents, on the part of the majority,
the candid perusal of all theological discussions which are not
pitched in the orthodox key. Certain dogmas are the absorbed
thought of the sects which defend them: no fresh and independent
thinking is to be expected on those subjects, no matter how purely
fictitious these secretions of the brain of the denomination or of
some ancient leader may be, no matter how glaringly out of keeping
with the intelligence and liberty which reign in other realms of
faith and feeling. There is nowhere else in the world a tyranny so
pervasive and despotic as that which rules in the department of
theological opinion. The prevalent slothful and slavish surrender
of the grand privileges and duties of individual thought,
independent personal conviction and action in religious matters,
is at once astonishing, pernicious, and disgraceful. The effect of
entrenched tradition, priestly directors, a bigoted, overawing,
and persecuting sectarianism, is nowhere else a hundredth part so
powerful or so extensive.

In addition to the bitter determination by interested persons to
suppress reforming investigations of the doctrines which hold
their private prejudices in supremacy, and to the tremendous
social prestige of old establishment, another cause has been
active to keep theology stationary while science has been making
such rapid conquests. Science deals with tangible quantities,
theology with abstract qualities. The cultivation of the former
yields visible practical results of material comfort; the
cultivation of the latter yields only inward spiritual results of
mental welfare. Accordingly, science has a thousand resolute
votaries where theology has one unshackled disciple. At this
moment, a countless multitude, furnished with complex apparatus,
are ransacking every nook of nature, and plucking trophies, and
the world with honoring attention reads their reports. But how few
with competent preparation and equipment, with fearless
consecration to truth, unhampered, with fresh free vigor, are
scrutinizing the problems of theology, enthusiastically bent upon
refuting errors and proving verities! And what reception do the
conclusions of those few meet at the hands of the public? Surely
not prompt recognition, frank criticism, and grateful acknowledgment
or courteous refutation. No; but studied exclusion from notice,
or sophistical evasions and insulting vituperation.

What a striking and painful contrast is afforded by the generous
encouragement given to the students of science by the annual
bestowment of rewards by the scientific societies such as the
Cuvier Prize, the Royal Medal, the Rumford Medal and the jealous
contempt and assaults visited by the sectarian authorities upon
those earnest students of theology who venture to propose any
innovating improvement! Suppose there were annually awarded an
Aquinas Prize, a Fenelon Medal, a Calvin Medal, a Luther Medal, a
Channing Medal, not to the one who should present the most
ingenious defence of any peculiar tenet of one of those masters,
but to him who should offer the most valuable fresh contribution
to theological truth! What should we think if the French Institute
offered a gold medal every year to the astronomer who presented
the ablest essay in support of the Ptolemaic system, or if the
Royal Society voted a diploma for the best method of casting
nativities? Such is the course pursued in regard to dogmatic
theology. The consequence has been that while elsewhere the
ultimate standard by which to try a doctrine is, What do the
most competent judges say? What does unprejudiced reason dictate?
What does the great harmony of truth require? in theology it is,
What do the committed priests say? How does it comport with the
old traditions?

We read in the Hak ul Yakeen that the envoy of Herk, Emperor of
Rum, once said to the prophet, "You summon people to a Paradise
whose extent includes heaven and earth: where, then, is hell?"
Mohammed replied, "When day comes, where is night?" That is to
say, according to the traditionary glosses, as day and night are
opposite, so Paradise is at the zenith and hell at the nadir. Yes;
but if Paradise be above the heavens, and hell below the seventh
earth, then how can Sirat be extended over hell for people to pass
to Paradise? "We reply," say the authors of the Hak ul Yakeen,
"that speculation on this subject is not necessary, nor to be
regarded. Implicit faith in what the prophets have revealed must
be had; and explanatory surmises, which are the occasion of
Satanic doubts, must not be indulged."26 Certainly this exclusion
of reason cannot always be suffered. It is fast giving way
already. And it is inevitable that, when reason secures its right
and bears its rightful fruits in moral subjects as it now does in
physical subjects, the mediaval theology must be rejected as
mediaval science has been. It is the common doctrine of the Church
that Christ now sits in heaven in a human body of flesh and blood.
Calvin separated the Divine nature of Christ from this human body;
but Luther made the two natures inseparable and attributed
ubiquity to the body in which they reside, thus asserting the
omnipresence of a material human body, a bulk of a hundred and
fifty pounds' weight more or less. He furiously assailed Zwingle's
objection to this monstrous nonsense, as "a devil's mask and
grandchild of that old witch, mistress Reason." 27 The Roman
Church teaches, and her adherents devoutly believe, that the house
of the Virgin Mary was conveyed on the wings of angels from
Nazareth to the eastern slope of the Apennines above the Adriatic
Gulf.28 The English Church, consistently interpreted, teaches that
there is no salvation without baptism by priests in the line of
apostolic succession. These are but ordinary specimens of
teachings still humbly received by the mass of Christians. The
common distrust with which the natural operations of reason are
regarded in the Church, the extreme reluctance to accept the
conclusions of mere reason, seem to us discreditable to the
theological leaders who represent the current creeds of the
approved sects. Many an influential theologian could learn
invaluable lessons from the great guides in the realm of science.
The folly which acute learned wise men will be guilty of the
moment they turn to theological subjects, where they do not allow
reason to act, is both ludicrous and melancholy. The victim of
lycanthropy used to be burned alive; he is now placed under the
careful treatment of skilful and humane physicians. But the
heretic or infidel is still thought to be inspired by the devil, a
fit subject for discipline here and hell hereafter. The light shed
abroad by the rising spirit of rational investigation must
gradually dispel the delusions which lurk in the vales of
theology, as it already has dispelled those that formerly haunted
the hills of science. The spectres which have so long terrified a
childish world will successively vanish

26 Merrick, Hyat ul Kuloob, note 74.

27 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 265, note 2.

28 Christian Remembrancer, April, 1855. A full and able history of
the "Holy House of Loretto."


from the path of man as advancing reason, in the name of the God
of truth, utters its imperial "Avaunt!"

Henry More wrote a book on the "Immortality of the Soul," printed
in London in 1659, just two hundred years ago. It is full of
beauty, acumen, and power. He was one of the first men of the
time. Yet he seriously elaborates an argument like this: "The scum
and spots that lie on the sun are as great an Argument that there
is no Divinity in him as the dung of Owls and Sparrows that is
found on the faces and shoulders of Idols in Temples are clear
evidences that they are no true Deities."29 He also in good faith
tells a story like this: "That a Woman with child, seeing a
Butcher divide a Swine's head with a Cleaver, brought forth her
Child with its face cloven in the upper jaw, the palate, and upper
lip to the very nose."30 The progress marked by the contrast of
the scientific spirit of the present time with the ravenous
credulity of even two centuries back must continue and spread into
every province. Some may vilify it; but in vain. Some may
sophisticate against it; but in vain. Some may invoke authority
and social persecution to stop it; but in vain. Some may appeal to
the prejudices and fears of the timid; but in vain. Some may close
their own eyes, and hold their hands before their neighbors' eyes,
and attempt to shut out the light; but in vain. It will go on. It
is the interest of the world that it should go on. It is the manly
and the religious course to help this progress with prudence and
reverence. Truth is the will of God, the way he has made things to
be and to act, the way he wishes free beings to exist and to act.
He has ordained the gradual discovery of truth. And despite the
struggles of selfish tyranny, and the complacence of luxurious
ease, and the terror of ignorant cowardice, truth will be more and
more brought to universal acceptance. Some men have fancied their
bodies composed of butter or of glass; but when compelled to move
out into the sunlight or the crowd they did not melt nor break.31
Esquirol had a patient who did not dare to bend her thumb, lest
the world should come to an end. When forced to bend it, she was
surprised that the crack of doom did not follow.

The mechanico theatrical character of the popular theology is
enough to reveal its origin and its fundamental falsity. The
difference between its lurid and phantasmal details and the calm
eternal verities in the divinely constituted order of nature is as
great as the difference between those stars which one sees in
consequence of a blow on the forehead and those he sees by turning
his gaze to the nightly sky. To every competent thinker, the bare
appreciation of such a passage as that which closes
Chateaubriand's chapter on the Last Judgment, with the huge bathos
of its incongruous mixture of sublime and absurd, is its
sufficient refutation: "The globe trembles on its axis; the moon
is covered with a bloody veil; the threatening stars hang half
detached from the vault of heaven, and the agony of the world
commences. Now resounds the trump of the angel. The sepulchres
burst: the human race issues all at once, and fills the Valley of
Jehoshaphat! The Son of Man appears in the clouds; the powers of
hell ascend from the infernal depths; the goats are separated from
the sheep; the wicked are plunged into the gulf; the just ascend
to heaven; God returns to his repose,

29 Preface, p. 10.

30 Ibid. p. 392.

31 Bucknill and Tuke, Psychological Medicine, ch. ix.


and the reign of eternity begins."32 Nothing saves this whole
scheme of doctrine from instant rejection except neglect of
thought, or incompetence of thought, on the part of those who
contemplate it. The peculiar dogmas of the exclusive sects are the
products of mental and social disease, psychological growths in
pathological moulds. The naked shapes of beautiful women floating
around St. Anthony in full display of their maddening charms are
interpreted by the Romanist Church as a visible work of the devil.
An intelligent physician accounts for them by the laws of
physiology, the morbid action of morbid nerves. There is no doubt
whatever as to which of these explanations is correct. The
absolute prevalence of that explanation is merely a question of
time. Meanwhile, it is the part of every wise and devout man,
without bigotry, without hatred for any, with strict fidelity to
his own convictions, with entire tolerance and kindness for all
who differ from him, sacredly to seek after verity himself and
earnestly to endeavor to impart it to others. To such men forms of
opinion, instead of being prisons, fetters, and barriers, will be
but as tents of a night while they march through life, the burning
and cloudy column of inquiry their guide, the eternal temple of
truth their goal.

The actual relation, the becoming attitude, the appropriate
feeling, of man towards the future state, the concealed segment of
his destiny, are impressively shown in the dying scene of one of
the wisest and most gifted of men, one of the fittest representatives
of the modern mind. In a good old age, on a pleasant spring day,
with a vast expanse of experience behind him, with an immensity of
hope before him, he lay calmly expiring.

"More light!" he cried, with departing breath; and Death, solemn
warder of eternity, led him, blinded, before the immemorial veil
of awe and secrets. It uprolled as the flesh bandage fell from his
spirit, and he walked at large, triumphant or appalled, amidst the
unimagined revelations of God.

And now, recalling the varied studies we have passed through, and
seeking for the conclusion or root of the matter, what shall we
say? This much we will say. First, the fearless Christian, fully
acquainted with the results of a criticism unsparing as the
requisitions of truth and candor, can scarcely, with intelligent
honesty, do more than place his hand on the beating of his heart,
and fix his eye on the riven tomb of Jesus, and exclaim, "Feeling
here the inspired promise of immortality, and seeing there the
sign of God's authentic seal, I gratefully believe that Christ has
risen, and that my soul is deathless!" Secondly, the trusting
philosopher, fairly weighing the history of the world's belief in
a future life, and the evidences on which it rests, can scarcely,
with justifying warrant, do less than lay his hand on his body,
and turn his gaze aloft, and exclaim, "Though death shatters this
shell, the soul may survive, and I confidently hope to live
forever." Meanwhile, the believer and the speculator, combining to
form a Christian philosophy wherein doubt and faith, thought and
freedom, reason and sentiment, nature and revelation, all embrace,
even as the truth of things and the experience of life demand, may
both adopt for their own the expression wrought for himself by a
pure and fervent poet in these freighted lines of pathetic beauty:

32 Genius of Christianity, part ii. book vi. ch. vii.


"I gather up the scattered rays Of wisdom in the early days, Faint
gleams and broken, like the light Of meteors in a Northern night,
Betraying to the darkling earth The unseen sun which gave them
birth; I listen to the sibyl's chant, The voice of priest and
hierophant; I know what Indian Kreeshna saith, And what of life
and what of death The demon taught to Socrates, And what, beneath
his garden trees Slow pacing, with a dream like tread, The solemn
thoughted Plato said; Nor Lack I tokens, great or small, Of God's
clear light in each and all, While holding with more dear regard
Than scroll of heathen seer and bard The starry pages, promise
lit, With Christ's evangel overwrit, Thy miracle of life and
death, O Holy One of Nazareth!" 33

33 Whittier, Questions of Life.


PART FIFTH.


HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL DISSERTATIONS CONCERNING A FUTURE LIFE.


CHAPTER I.

DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.

THE power of the old religions was for centuries concentrated in
the Mysteries. These were recondite institutions, sometimes
wielded by the state, sometimes by a priesthood, sometimes by a
ramifying private society. None could be admitted into them save
with the permission of the hierarchs, by rites of initiation, and
under solemn seals of secrecy. These mysterious institutions,
charged with strange attractions, shrouded in awful wonder, were
numerous, and, agreeing in some of their fundamental features,
were spread nearly all over the world. The writings of the
ancients abound with references to them, mostly eulogistic. The
mighty part played by these veiled bodies in the life of the
periods when they flourished, the pregnant hints and alluring
obscurities amid which they stand in relation to the learning of
modern times, have repeatedly obtained wide attention, elicited
opposite opinions, provoked fierce debates, and led different
inquirers to various conclusions as to their true origin,
character, scope, meaning, and results.

One of the principal points in discussion by scholars concerning
the Mysteries has been whether they inculcated an esoteric
doctrine of philosophy, opposed to the popular religion. Some
writers have maintained that in their symbols and rites was
contained a pure system of monotheistic ethics and religion. Our
own opinion is that in some of these institutions, at one period,
higher theological views and scientific speculations were
unfolded, but in others never. Still, it is extremely difficult to
prove any thing on this part of the general subject: there is much
that is plausible to be said on both sides of the question.
Another query to be noticed in passing is in regard to the degree
of exclusiveness and concealment really attached to the form of
initiation. Lobeck, in his celebrated work, "Aglaophamus," borne
away by a theory, assumes the extravagant position that the
Eleusinian Mysteries were almost freely open to all.1 His error
seems to lie in not distinguishing sufficiently between the Lesser
and the Greater Mysteries, and in not separating the noisy shows
of the public festal days from the initiatory and explanatory
rites of personal admission within the mystic pale. The notorious

1 Lib. i. sects. 4, 5.


facts that strict inquiry was made into the character and fitness
of the applicant before his admission, and that many were openly
rejected, that instant death was inflicted on all who intruded
unprepared within the sacred circuits, and that death was the
penalty of divulging what happened during the celebrations, all
are inconsistent with the notion of Lobeck, and prove that the
Mysteries were hedged about with dread. Aschylus narrowly escaped
being torn in pieces upon the stage by the people on suspicion
that in his play he had given a hint of something in the
Mysteries. He delivered himself by appealing to the Areopagus, and
proving that he had never been initiated. Andocides also, a Greek
orator who lived about four hundred years before Christ, was
somewhat similarly accused, and only escaped by a strenuous
defence of himself in an oration, still extant, entitled
"Concerning the Mysteries."

A third preliminary matter is as to the moral character of the
services performed by these companies. Some held that their
characteristics were divinely pure, intellectual, exalting; others
that in abandoned pleasures they were fouler than the Stygian pit.
The Church Fathers, Clement, Irenaus, Tertullian, and the rest,
influenced by a mixture of prejudice, hatred, and horror, against
every thing connected with paganism, declared, in round terms,
that the Mysteries were unmitigated sinks of iniquity and shame,
lust, murder, and all promiscuous deviltry. Without pausing to
except or qualify, or to be thoroughly informed and just, they
included the ancient stern generations and their own degraded
contemporaries, the vile rites of the Corinthian Aphrodite and the
solemn service of Demeter, the furious revels of the Bacchanalians
and the harmonious mental worship of Apollo, all in one
indiscriminate charge of insane beastliness and idolatry. Their
view of the Mysteries has been most circulated among the moderns
by Leland's learned but bigoted work on the "Use and Necessity of
a Divine Revelation." He would have us regard each one as a vortex
of atheistic sensuality and crime. There should be discrimination.
The facts are undoubtedly these, as we might abundantly
demonstrate were it in the province of the present essay. The
original Mysteries, the authoritative institutions co ordinated
with the state or administered by the poets and philosophers, were
pure: their purpose was to purify the lives and characters of
their disciples. Their means were a complicated apparatus of
sensible and symbolic revelations and instructions admirably
calculated to impress the most salutary moral and religious
lessons. In the first place, is it credible that the state would
fling its auspices over societies whose function was to organize
lawlessness and debauchery, to make a business of vice and filth?
Among the laws of Solon is a regulation decreeing that the Senate
shall convene in the Eleusinian temple, the day after the
festival, to inquire whether every thing had been done with
reverence and propriety. Secondly, if such was the character of
these secrets, why was inquisition always made into the moral
habits of the candidate, that he might be refused admittance if
they were bad? This inquiry was severe, and the decision
unrelenting. Alcibiades was rejected, as we learn from Plutarch's
life of him, on account of his dissoluteness and insubordination
in the city. Nero dared not attend the Eleusinian Mysteries,
"because to the murder of his mother he had joined the slaughter
of his paternal aunt."2 All accepted candidates were scrupulously
purified in thought and body, and clad in white robes, for nine
days previous to their reception. Thirdly, it is intrinsically
absurd to suppose that an institution of gross immorality and
cruelty could have flourished in the most polite and refined Greek
nation, as the Eleusinian Mysteries did for over eighteen hundred
years, ranking among its members a vast majority of both sexes, of
all classes, of all ages, and constantly celebrating its rites
before immense audiences of them all. Finally, a host of men like
Plato, Sophocles, Cimon, Lycurgus, Cicero, were members of these
bodies, partook in their transactions, and have left on record
eulogies of them and of their influence. The concurrent testimony
of antiquity is that in the Great Mysteries the desires were
chastened, the heart purified, the mind calmed, the soul inspired,
all the virtues of morality and hopes of religion taught and
enforced with sublime solemnities. There is no just ground for
suspecting this to be false.

But there remains something more and different to be said also.
While the authorized Mysteries were what we have asserted, there
did afterwards arise spurious Mysteries, in names, forms, and
pretensions partially resembling the genuine ones, under the
control of the most unprincipled persons, and in which
unquestionably the excesses of unbelief, drunkenness, and
prostitution held riot. These depraved societies were foreign
grafts from the sensual pantheism ever nourished in the voluptuous
climes of the remote East. They established themselves late in
Greece, but were developed at Rome in such unbridled enormities as
compelled the Senate to suppress them. Livy gives a detailed and
vivid account of the whole affair in his history.3 But the
gladiators, scoundrels, rakes, bawds, who swarmed in these stews
of rotting Rome, are hardly to be confounded with the noble men
and matrons of the earlier time who openly joined in the pure
Mysteries with the approving example of the holiest bards, the
gravest statesmen, and the profoundest sages, men like Pindar,
Pericles, and Pythagoras. Ample facilities are afforded in the
numerous works to which we shall refer for unmasking the different
organizations that travelled over the earth in the guise of the
Mysteries, and of seeing what deceptive arts were practised in
some, what superhuman terrors paraded in others, what horrible
cruelties perpetrated in others, what leading objects sought in
each.

The Mysteries have many bearings on several distinct subjects; but
in those aspects we have not space here to examine them. We
purpose to consider them solely in their relation to the doctrine
of a future life. We are convinced that the very heart of their
secret, the essence of their meaning in their origin and their
end, was no other than the doctrine of an immortality succeeding a
death. Gessner published a book at Gottingen, so long ago as the
year 1755, maintaining this very assertion. His work, which is
quite scarce now, bears the title "Dogma de perenni Animoruin
Natura per Sacra pracipue Eleusinia Propagata." The consenting
testimony of more than forty of the most authoritative ancient
writers comes down to us in their surviving works to the effect
that those who were admitted into the Mysteries were thereby
purified, led to holy lives, joined in communion with the gods,
and

2 Suetonius, Vita Neronis, cap. xxxiv.

3 Lib. xxxix. cap. viii xvi.


assured of a better fate than otherwise could be expected in the
future state. Two or three specimens from these witnesses will
suffice. Aristophanes, in the second act of the Frogs, describes
an elysium of the initiates after death, where he says they bound
"in sportive dances on rose enamelled meadows; for the light is
cheerful only to those who have been initiated."4 Pausanias
describes the uninitiated as being compelled in Hades to carry
water in buckets bored full of holes.5 Isocrates says, in his
Panegyric, "Demeter, the goddess of the Eleusinian Mysteries,
fortifies those who have been initiated against the fear of death,
and teaches them to have sweet hopes concerning eternity." The old
Orphic verses cited by Thomas Taylor in his Treatise on the
Mysteries run thus: "The soul that uninitiated dies Plunged in the
blackest mire in Hades lies." 6

The same statement is likewise found in Plato, who, in another
place, also explicitly declares that a doctrine of future
retribution was taught in the Mysteries and believed by the
serious.7 Cicero says, "Initiation makes us both live more
honorably and die with better hopes." 8 In seasons of imminent
danger as in a shipwreck it was customary for a man to ask his
companion, Hast thou been initiated? The implication is that
initiation removed fear of death by promising a happy life to
follow.9 A fragment preserved from a very ancient author is plain
on this subject. "The soul is affected in death just as it is in
the initiation into the great Mysteries: thing answers to thing.
At first it passes through darkness, horrors, and toils. Then are
disclosed a wondrous light, pure places, flowery meads, replete
with mystic sounds, dances, and sacred doctrines, and holy
visions. Then, perfectly enlightened, they are free: crowned, they
walk about worshipping the gods and conversing with good men."10
The principal part of the hymn to Ceres, attributed to Homer, is
occupied with a narrative of her labors to endow the young
Demophoon, mortal child of Metaneira, with immortality. Now, Ceres
was the goddess of the Mysteries; and the last part of this very
hymn recounts how Persephone was snatched from the light of life
into Hades and restored again. Thus we see that the implications
of the indirect evidence, the leanings and guidings of all the
incidental clews now left us to the real aim and purport of the
Mysteries, combine to assure us that their chief teaching was a
doctrine of a future life in which there should be rewards and
punishments. All this we shall more fully establish, both by
direct proofs and by collateral supports.

It is a well known fact, intimately connected with the different
religions of Greece and Asia Minor, that during the time of
harvest in the autumn, and again at the season of sowing in the
spring, the shepherds, the vintagers, and the people in general,
were accustomed to observe certain sacred festivals, the autumnal
sad, the vernal joyous. These undoubtedly grew out of the deep
sympathy between man and nature over the decay and disappearance,
the revival and return, of vegetation. When the hot season had
withered the verdure of the

4 Scene iii.

5 Lib. x. cap. xxxi.

6 Phadon, sect. xxxviii.

7 Leg., lib. ix. cap. x.

8 De Leg., lib. ii. cap. xiv.

9 St. John, Hellenes, ch. xi.

10 Sentences of Stobaus, Sermo CXIX.


fields, plaintive songs were sung, their wild melancholy notes and
snatches borne abroad by the breeze and their echoes dying at last
in the distance. In every instance, these mournful strains were
the annual lamentation of the people over the death of some
mythical boy of extraordinary beauty and promise, who, in the
flower of youth, was suddenly drowned, or torn in pieces by wild
beasts, "Some Hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break and April
bloom."

Among the Argives it was Linus. With the Arcadians it was
Scephrus. In Phrygia it was Lityerses. On the shore of the Black
Sea it was Bormus. In the country of the Bithynians it was Hylas.
At Pelusium it was Maneros. And in Syria it was Adonis. The
untimely death of these beautiful boys, carried off in their
morning of life, was yearly bewailed, their names re echoing over
the plains, the fountains, and among the hills. It is obvious that
these cannot have been real persons whose death excited a sympathy
so general, so recurrent. "The real object of lamentation," says
Muller, "was the tender beauty of spring destroyed by the raging
heat, and other similar phenomena, which the imagination of those
early times invested with a personal form."11 All this was woven
into the Mysteries, whose great legend and drama were that every
autumn Persephone was carried down to the dark realm of the King
of Shadows, but that she was to return each spring to her mother's
arms. Thus were described the withdrawal and reappearance of
vegetable life in the alternations of the seasons. But these
changes of nature typified the changes in the human lot; else
Persephone would have been merely a symbol of the buried grain and
would not have become the Queen of the Dead.12 Her return to the
world of light, by natural analogy, denoted a new birth to men.
Accordingly, "all the testimony of antiquity concurs in saying
that these Mysteries inspired the most animating hopes with regard
to the condition of the soul after death."13 That the fate of man
should by imagination and sentiment have been so connected with
the phenomena of nature in myths and symbols embodied in pathetic
religious ceremonies was a spontaneous product. For how "Her fresh
benignant look Nature changes at that lorn season when, With
tresses drooping o'er her sable stole, She yearly mourns the
mortal doom of man, Her noblest work! So Israel's virgins erst
With annual moan upon the mountains wept Their fairest gone!"

And soon again the birds begin to warble, the leaves and blossoms
put forth, and all is new life once more. In every age the gentle
heart and meditative mind have been impressed by the mournful
correspondence and the animating prophecy.

11 History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. iii. sects. 2
3.

12 For the connection of the Eleusinian goddesses with
agriculture, the seasons, the under world, death, resurrection,
etc., see "Demeter and Persephone," von Dr. Ludwig Preller, kap.
i. sects. 9 11.

13 Muller, Hist. Gr. Lit., ch. xvi. sect. 2.


But not only was the changing recurrence of dreary winter and
gladsome summer joined by affecting analogies with the human doom
of death and hope of another life. The phenomena of the skies, the
impressive succession of day and night, also were early seized
upon and made to blend their shadows and lights, by means of
imaginative suggestions, into an image of the decease and
resurrection of man. Among the Mystical Hymns of Orpheus, so
called, there is a hymn to Adonis, in which that personage is
identified with the sun alternately sinking to Tartarus and
soaring to heaven. It was customary with the ancients to speak of
the setting of a constellation as its death, its reascension in
the horizon being its return to life.14 The black abysm under the
earth was the realm of the dead. The bright expanse above the
earth was the realm of the living. While the daily sun rises
royally through the latter, all things rejoice in the warmth and
splendor of his smile. When he sinks nightly, shorn of his
ambrosial beams, into the former, sky and earth wrap themselves in
mourning for their departed monarch, the dead god of light muffled
in his bier and borne along the darkening heavens to his burial.
How naturally the phenomena of human fate would be symbolically
interwoven with all this! Especially alike are the exuberant joy
and activity of full life and of day, the melancholy stillness and
sad repose of midnight and of death.

The sun insists on gladness; but at night, When he is gone, poor
Nature loves to weep."

Through her yearly and her diurnal round alike, therefore, does
mother Nature sympathize with man, and picture forth his fate, in
type of autumnal decay, and wintry darkness, and night buried
seed, in sign of vernal bud, and summer light, and day bursting
fruit.

These facts and phenomena of nature and man, together with
explanatory theories to which they gave rise, were, by the
peculiar imaginative processes so powerfully operative among the
earliest nations, personified in mythic beings and set forth as
literal history. Their doctrine was inculcated as truth once
historically exemplified by some traditional personage. It was
dramatically impersonated and enacted in the process of initiation
into the Mysteries. A striking instance of this kind of theatrical
representation is afforded by the celebration, every eight years,
of the mythus of Apollo's fight with the Pythian dragon, his
flight and expiatory service to Admetus, the subterranean king of
the dead. In mimic order, a boy slew a monster at Delphi, ran
along the road to Tempe, represented on the way the bondage of the
god in Hades, and returned, purified, bringing a branch of laurel
from the sacred valley.15 The doctrine of a future life connected
with the legend of some hero who had died, descended into the
under world, and again risen to life, this doctrine, dramatically
represented in the personal experience of the initiate, was the
heart of every one of the secret religious societies of antiquity.

"Here rests the secret, here the keys, Of the old death bolted
Mysteries."

14 Leitch's Eng. trans. of K. O. Muller's Introduction to a
Scientific System of Mythology, Appendix, pp. 339-342.

15 Muller, Introduction to Mythology, pp. 97 and 241. Also his
Dorian, lib. ii. cap. vii. sect. 8.


Perhaps this great system of esoteric rites and instructions grew
up naturally, little by little. Perhaps it was constructed at
once, either as poetry, by a company of poets, or as a theology,
by a society of priests, or as a fair method of moral and
religious teaching, by a company of philosophers. Or perhaps it
was gradually formed by a mixture of all these means and motives.
Many have regarded it as the bedimmed relic of a brilliant
primeval revelation. This question of the origination, the first
causes and purposes, of the Mysteries is now sunk in hopeless
obscurity, even were it of any importance to be known. One thing
we know, namely, that at an early age these societies formed
organizations of formidable extent and power, and were vitally
connected with the prevailing religions of the principal nations
of the earth.

In Egypt the legend of initiation was this.16 Typhon, a wicked,
destroying personage, once formed a conspiracy against his
brother, the good king Osiris. Having prepared a costly chest,
inlaid with gold, he offered to give it to any one whose body
would fit it. Osiris unsuspiciously lay down in it. Typhon
instantly fastened the cover and threw the fatal chest into the
river. This was called the loss or burial of Osiris, and was
annually celebrated with all sorts of melancholy rites. But the
winds and waves drove the funereal vessel ashore, where Isis, the
inconsolable wife of Osiris, wandering in search of her husband's
remains, at last found it, and restored the corpse to life. This
part of the drama was called the discovery or resurrection of
Osiris, and was also enacted yearly, but with every manifestation
of excessive joy. "In the losing of Osiris, and then in the
finding him again," Augustine writes, "first their lamentation,
then their extravagant delight, are a mere play and fiction; yet
the fond people, though they neither lose nor find any thing, weep
and rejoice truly."17 Plutarch speaks of the death, regeneration,
and resurrection of Osiris represented in the great religious
festivals of Egypt. He explains the rites in commemoration of
Typhon's murder of Osiris as symbols referring to four things, the
subsidence of the Nile into his channel, the cessation of the
delicious Etesian winds before the hot blasts of the South, the
encroachment of the lengthening night on the shortening day, the
disappearance of the bloom of summer before the barrenness of
winter.18 But the real interest and power of the whole subject
probably lay in the direct relation of all these phenomena,
traditions, and ceremonies to the doctrine of death and a future
life for man.

In the Mithraic Mysteries of Persia, the legend, ritual, and
doctrine were virtually the same as the foregoing. They are
credulously said to have been established by Zoroaster himself,
who fitted up a vast grotto in the mountains of Bokhara, where
thousands thronged to be initiated by him.19 This Mithraic cave
was an emblem of the universe, its roof painted with the
constellations of the zodiac, its depths full of the black and
fiery terrors of grisly hell, its summit illuminated with the blue
and starry splendors of heaven, its passages lined with dangers
and instructions, now quaking with infernal shrieks, now breathing
celestial music. In the Persian Mysteries, the initiate, in
dramatic show, died, was laid in a coffin, and

16 Wilkinson, Egyptian Antiquities, series i. vol. i. ch. 3.

17 De Civitate Dei, lib. vi. cap. 10.

18 De Is. et Osir.

19 Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum. Tertullian, Prescript. ad Her.,
cap. xl., where he refers the mimic death and resurrection in the
Mithraic Mysteries to the teaching of Satan.


afterwards rose unto a new life, all of which was a type of the
natural fate of man.20 The descent of the soul from heaven and its
return thither were denoted by a torch borne alternately reversed
and upright, and by the descriptions of the passage of spirits, in
the round of the metempsychosis, through the planetary gates of
the zodiac. The sun and moon and the morning and evening star were
depicted in brilliant gold or blackly muffled, according to their
journeying in the upper or in the lower hemisphere.21

The hero of the Syrian Mysteries was Adonis or Thammuz, the
beautiful favorite of Aphrodite, untimely slain by a wild boar.
His death was sadly, his resurrection joyously, celebrated every
year at Byblus with great pomp and universal interest. The
festival lasted two days. On the first, all things were clad in
mourning, sorrow was depicted in every face, and wails and weeping
resounded. Coffins were exposed at every door and borne in
numerous processions. Frail stalks of young corn and flowers were
thrown into the river to perish, as types of the premature death
of blooming Adonis, cut off like a plant in the bud of his age.22
The second day the whole aspect of things was changed, and the
greatest exultation prevailed, because it was said Adonis had
returned from the dead.23 Venus, having found him dead, deposited
his body on a bed of lettuce and mourned bitterly over him. From
his blood sprang the adonium, from her tears the anemone.24 The
Jews were captivated by the religious rites connected with this
touching myth, and even enacted them in the gates of their holy
temple. Ezekiel says, "Behold, at the gate of the Lord's house
which was towards the north [the direction of night and winter]
there sat women weeping for Tammuz." It was said that Aphrodite
prevailed on Persephone to let Adonis dwell one half the year with
her on earth, and only the rest among the shades, a plain
reference to vegetable life in summer and winter.25 Lucian, in his
little treatise on the Syrian Goddess, says that "the river
Adonis, rising out of Mount Libanus, at certain seasons flows red
in its channel: some say it is miraculously stained by the blood
of the fresh wounded youth; others say that the spring rains,
washing in a red ore from the soil of the country, discolor the
stream." Dupuis remarks that this redness was probably an artifice
of the priests.26 Milton's beautiful allusion to this fable is
familiar to most persons. Next came he "Whose annual wound in
Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous
ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native
rock Ran purple to the sea with Thammuz' blood."

20 Julius Firmicus, De Errore Prof. Relig.

21 Mithraica, Memoire Academique sur le Culte Solaire de Mithra,
par Joseph de Hammer, pp: 66-68, 125-127. Tertullian, Prescript.
ad Her., cap. xl. Porphyry, De Abstinentia, lib. iv. sect. 16.
Hyde. Hist. Vet. Pers. Relig., p. 254.

22 Hist. du Culte d'Adonis, Mem. Acad. des Inscript., vol. iv. p.
136.

23 Theocritus, Idyl XV.

24 Bion, Epitaph Adon., l. 66.

25 See references in Anthon's Class. Dict., art. Adonis.

26 Dupuis, Orig. de Cultes, vol. iv. p. 121, ed. 1822.


There is no end to the discussions concerning the secret purport
of this fascinating story. But, after all is said, it seems to us
that there are in it essentially two significations, one relating
to the phenomena of the sun and the earth, the other to the mutual
changes of nature and the fate of humanity. Aphrodite bewailing
Adonis is surviving Nature mourning for departed Man.

In India the story was told of Mahadeva searching for his lost
consort Sita, and, after discovering her lifeless form, bearing it
around the world with dismal lamentations. Sometimes it was the
death of Camadeva, the Hindu Cupid, that was mourned with solemn
dirges.27 He, like Osiris, was slain, enclosed in a chest, and
committed to the waves. He was afterwards recovered and
resuscitated. Each initiate passed through the emblematic
ceremonies corresponding to the points of this pretended history.
The Phrygians associated the same great doctrine with the persons
of Atys and Cybele. Atys was a lovely shepherd youth passionately
loved by the mother of the gods.28 He suddenly died; and she, in
frantic grief, wandered over the earth in search of him, teaching
the people where she went the arts of agriculture. He was at
length restored to her. Annually the whole drama was performed by
the assembled nation with sobs of woe succeeded by ecstasies of
joy.29 Similar to this, in the essential features, was the
Eleusinian myth. Aidoneus snatched the maiden Kore down to his
gloomy empire. Her mother, Demeter, set off in search of her,
scattering the blessings of agriculture, and finally discovered
her, and obtained the promise of her society for half of every
year. These adventures were dramatized and explained in the
mysteries which she, according to tradition, instituted at
Eleusis.

The form of the legend was somewhat differently incorporated with
the Bacchic Mysteries. It was elaborately wrought up by the Orphic
poets. The distinctive name they gave to Bacchus or Dionysus was
Zagreus. He was the son of Zeus, and was chosen by him to sit on
the throne of heaven. Zeus gave him Apollo and the Curetes as
guards; but the brutal Titans, instigated by jealous Hera,
disguised themselves and fell on the unfortunate youth while his
attention was fixed on a splendid mirror, and, after a fearful
conflict, overcame him and tore him into seven pieces. Pallas,
however, saved his palpitating heart, and Zeus swallowed it.
Zagreus was then begotten again.30 He was destined to restore the
golden age. His devotees looked to him for the liberation of their
souls through the purifying rites of his Mysteries. The initiation
shadowed out an esoteric doctrine of death and a future life, in
the mock murder and new birth of the aspirant, who impersonated
Zagreus.31

The Northmen constructed the same drama of death around the young
Balder, their god of gentleness and beauty. This legend, as Dr.
Oliver has shown, constituted the secret of the Gothic
Mysteries.32 Obscure and dread prophecies having crept among the
gods that the death of the beloved Balder was at hand, portending
universal ruin, a consultation was held to devise means for
averting the calamity. At the suggestion of Balder's mother,
Freya, the Scandinavian Venus, an oath that they would not be
instrumental in causing his death was

27 Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 187.

28 See article Atys in Smith's Class. Dict. with references.

29 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, lib. ii. 11. 605-655.

30 Muller, Hist. Greek Lit., ch. xvi.

31 Lobeck, Aglaophamus, lib. iii. cap. 5, sect. 13.

32 History of Initiation, Lect. X.


exacted from all things in nature except the mistletoe, which, on
account of its frailty and insignificance, was scornfully
neglected. Asa Loke, the evil principle of the Norse faith, taking
advantage of this fatal exception, had a spear made of mistletoe,
and with it armed Hodur, a strong but blind god. Freya, rejoicing
in fancied security, to convince Balder of his charmed exemption
from wounds, persuaded him to be the mark for the weapons of the
gods. But, alas! when Hodur tilted at him, the devoted victim was
transpierced and fell lifeless to the ground. Darkness settled
over the world, and bitter was the grief of men and gods over the
innocent and lovely Balder. A deputation imploring his release was
sent to the queen of the dead. Hela so far relented as to promise
his liberation to the upper world on condition that every thing on
earth wept for him. Straightway there was a universal mourning.
Men, beasts, trees, metals, stones, wept. But an old withered
giantess Asa Loke in disguise shed no tears; and so Hela kept her
beauteous and lamented prey. But he is to rise again to eternal
life and joy when the twilight of the gods has passed.33 This
entire fable has been explained by the commentators, in all its
details, as a poetic embodiment of the natural phenomena of the
seasons. But it is not improbable that, in addition, it bore a
profound doctrinal reference to the fate of man which was
interpreted to the initiates.

A great deal has been written concerning the ceremonies and
meaning of the celebrated Celtic Mysteries established so long at
Samothrace, and under the administration of the Druids throughout
ancient Gaul and Britain. The aspirant was led through a series of
scenic representations, "without the aid of words," mystically
shadowing forth in symbolic forms the doctrine of the transmigration
of souls. He assumed successively the shapes of a rabbit, a hen,
a grain of wheat, a horse, a tree, and so on through a wide range
of metamorphoses enacted by the aid of secret dramatic machinery.

He died, was buried, was born anew, rising from his dark confinement
to life again. The hierophant enclosed him in a little boat and
set him adrift, pointing him to a distant rock, which he calls
"the harbor of life." Across the black and stormy waters he strives
to gain the beaconing refuge.

In these scenes and rites a recondite doctrine of the physical
and moral relations and destiny of man was shrouded, to be unveiled
by degrees to their docile disciples by the Druidic mystagogues.34

It may appear strange that there should be in connection with so
many of the old religions of the earth these arcana only to be
approached by secret initiation at the hands of hierophants. But
it will seem natural when we remember that those religions were in
the exclusive keeping of priesthoods, which, organized with
wondrous cunning and perpetuated through ages, absorbed the
science, art, and philosophy of the world, and, concealing their
wisdom in the mystic signs of an esoteric language, wielded the
mighty enginery of superstition over the people at will. The
scenes and instructions through which the priests led the
unenlightened candidate were the hiding of their power. Thus,
wherever was a priesthood we should expect to find mysteries and
initiations. Historic fact justifies the

33 Pigott, Manual of Scandinavian Mythology, pp. 288-300.

34 Davies, Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 207-257;
390-392; 420, 555, 572. The accuracy of many of Davies's
translations has been called in question. His statements, even on
the matters affirmed above, must be received with some reservation
of faith.


supposition; learning unveils the obscure places of antiquity, and
shows us the templed or cavernous rites of the religious world,
from Hindostan to Gaul, from Egypt to Norway, from Athens to
Mexico. And this brings us to the Mysteries of Vitzliputzli,
established in South America. Dr. Oliver, in the twelfth lecture
of his History of Initiation, gathering his materials from various
sources, gives a terrific account of the dramatic ritual here
employed. The walls, floor, images, were smeared and caked with
human blood. Fresh slaughters of victims were perpetrated at
frequent intervals. The candidate descended to the grim caverns
excavated under the foundations of the temple. This course was
denominated "the path of the dead." Phantoms flitted before him,
shrieks appalled him, pitfalls and sacrificial knives threatened
him. At last, after many frightful adventures, the aspirant
arrived at a narrow stone fissure terminating the range of
caverns, through which he was thrust, and was received in the open
air, as a person born again, and welcomed with frantic shouts by
the multitudes who had been waiting for him without during the
process of his initiation.

Even among the savage tribes of North America striking traces have
been found of an initiation into a secret society by a mystic
death and resurrection. Captain Jonathan Carver, who spent the
winter of 1776 with the Naudowessie Indians, was an eye witness of
the admission of a young brave into a body which they entitled
Wakou Kitchewah, or Friendly Society of the Spirit. "This singular
initiation," he says, "took place within a railed enclosure in the
centre of the camp at the time of the new moon." First came the
chiefs, clad in trailing furs. Then came the members of the
society, dressed and painted in the gayest manner. When all were
seated, one of the principal chiefs arose, and, leading the young
man forward, informed the meeting of his desire to be admitted
into their circle. No objection being offered, the various
preliminary arrangements were made; after which the director began
to speak to the kneeling candidate, telling him that he was about
to receive a communication of the spirit. This spirit would
instantly strike him dead; but he was told not to be terrified,
because he should immediately be restored to life again, and this
experience was a necessary introduction to the advantages of the
community he was on the point of entering. Then violent agitation
distorted the face and convulsed the frame of the old chief. He
threw something looking like a small bean at the young man. It
entered his mouth, and he fell lifeless as suddenly as if he had
been shot. Several assistants received him, rubbed his limbs, beat
his back, stripped him of his garments and put a new dress on him,
and finally presented him to the society in full consciousness as
a member.36

All the Mysteries were funereal. This is the most striking single
phenomenon connected with them. They invariably began in darkness
with groans and tears, but as invariably ended in festive triumph
with shouts and smiles. In them all were a symbolic death, a
mournful entombment, and a glad resurrection. We know this from
the abundant direct testimony of unimpeachable ancient writers,
and also from their indirect descriptions of the ceremonies and
allusions to them. For example, Apuleius says, "The delivery of
the Mysteries is celebrated as a thing resembling a voluntary
death: the initiate, being, after a manner, born

36 Travels in the Interior of North America, ch. vii.


again, is restored to a new life." 36 Indeed, all who describe the
course of initiation agree in declaring that the aspirant was
buried for a time within some narrow space, a typical coffin or
grave. This testimony is confirmed by the evidence of the ruins of
the chief temples and sacred places of the pagan world. These
abound with spacious caverns, labyrinthine passages, and curious
recesses; and in connection with them is always found some
excavation evidently fitted to enclose a human form. Such hollow
beds, covered with flat stones easily removed, are still to be
seen amidst the Druidic remains of Britain and Gaul, as well as in
nearly every spot where tradition has located the celebration of
the Mysteries, in Greece, India, Persia, Egypt.37

It becomes a most interesting question whence these symbols and
rites had their origin, and what they were really meant to shadow
forth. Bryant, Davies, Faber, Oliver, and several other well known
mythologists, have labored, with no slight learning and ingenuity,
to show that all these ceremonies sprang from traditions of the
Deluge and of Noah's adventures at that time. The mystic death,
burial, and resurrection of the initiate, they say, are a
representation of the entrance of the patriarch into the ark, his
dark and lonesome sojourn in it, and his final departure out of
it. The melancholy wailings with which the Mysteries invariably
began, typified the mourning of the patriarchal family over their
confinement within the gloomy and sepulchral ark; the triumphant
rejoicings with which the initiations always ended, referred to
the glad exit of the patriarchal family from their floating prison
into the blooming world. The advocates of this theory have
laboriously collected all the materials that favor it, and
skilfully striven by their means to elucidate the whole subject of
ancient paganism, especially of the Mysteries. But, after reading
all that they have written, and considering it in the light of
impartial researches, one is constrained to say that they have by
no means made out their case. It is somewhat doubtful if there be
any ground whatever for believing that traditions concerning
Noah's deluge and the ark, and his doings in connection with them,
in any way entered into the public doctrines and forms, or into
the secret initiations, of the heathen religions. At all events,
there can be no doubt that the Arkite theorists have exaggerated
the importance and extent of these views beyond all tolerable
bounds, and even to absurdity. But our business with them now is
only so far as they relate to the Mysteries. Our own conviction is
that the real meaning of the rites in the Mysteries was based upon
the affecting phenomena of human life and death and the hope of
another life. We hold the Arkite theory to be arbitrary in
general, unsupported by proofs, and inconsistent in detail, unable
to meet the points presented.

In the first place, a fundamental part of the ancient belief was
that below the surface of the earth was a vast, sombre under
world, the destination of the ghosts of men, the Greek Hades, the
Roman Orcus, the Gothic Hell. A part of the service of initiation
was a symbolic descent into this realm. Apuleius, describing his
initiation, says, "I approached to the confines

36 Golden Ass, Eng. trans., by Thomas Taylor, p. 280.

37 Copious instances are given in Oliver's History of Initiation,
in Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry, and in Maurice's Indian
Antiquities.


of death and trod on the threshold of Proserpine." 38 Orpheus, to
whom the introduction of the Mysteries into Greece from the East
was ascribed, wrote a poem, now lost, called the "Descent into
Hades." Such a descent was attributed to Hercules, Theseus,
Rhampsinitus, and many others.39 It is painted in detail by Homer
in the adventure of his hero Ulysses, also by Virgil much more
minutely through the journey of Aneas. Warburton labors with great
learning and plausibility, and, as it seems to us, with
irresistible cogency, to show that these descents are no more nor
less than exoteric accounts of what was dramatically enacted in
the esoteric recesses of the Mysteries.40 Any person must be
invincibly prejudiced who can doubt that the Greek Hades meant a
capacious subterranean world of shades. Now, to assert, as Bryant
and his disciples do,41 that "Hades means the interior of Noah's
ark," or "the abyss of waters on which the ark floated, as a
coffin bearing the relics of dead Nature," is a purely arbitrary
step taken from undue attachment to a mere theory. Hades means the
under world of the dead, and not the interior of Noah's ark.
Indeed, in the second place, Faber admits that in the Mysteries
"the ark itself was supposed to be in Hades, the vast central
abyss of the earth." But such was not the location of Noah's
vessel and voyage. They were on the face of the flood, above the
tops of the mountains. It is beyond comparison the most reasonable
supposition in itself, and the one best supported by historic
facts, that the representations of a mystic burial and voyage in a
ship or boat shown in the ancient religions were symbolic rites
drawn from imagination and theory as applied to the impressive
phenomena of nature and the lot of man. The Egyptians and some
other early nations, we know, figured the starry worlds in the sky
as ships sailing over a celestial sea. The earth itself was
sometimes emblematized in the same way. Then, too, there was the
sepulchral barge in which the Egyptian corpses were borne over the
Acherusian lake to be entombed. Also the "dark blue punt" in which
Charon ferried souls across the river of death. In these surely
there was no reference to Noah's ark. It seems altogether likely
that what Bryant and his coadjutors have constructed into the
Arkite system of interpretation was really but an emblematic
showing forth of a natural doctrine of human life and death and
future fate. A wavering boat floating on the deep might, with
striking fitness, typify the frail condition of humanity in life,
as when Hercules is depicted sailing over the ocean in a golden
cup; and that boat, safely riding the flood, might also represent
the cheerful faith of the initiate in a future life, bearing him
fearlessly through all dangers and through death to the welcoming
society of Elysium, as when Danae and her babe, tossed over the
tempestuous sea in a fragile chest, were securely wafted to the
sheltering shore of Seriphus. No emblem of our human state and
lot, with their mysteries, perils, threats, and promises, could be
either more natural or more impressive than that of a vessel
launched on the deep. The dying Socrates said "that he should
trust his soul on the hope of a future life as upon a raft, and
launch away into the unknown." Thus the imagination broods over
and explores the shows and secrets, presageful warnings and
alluring

38 Golden Ass, Taylor's trans., p. 283.

39 Herodotus, lib. il. cap. cxxii.

40 Divine Legation of Moses, book ii. sect. iv.

41 Faber, Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. v.: On the Connection of
the Fabulous Hades with the Mysteries.


invitations, storms and calms, island homes and unknown havens, of
the dim seas of nature and of man, of time and of eternity.42

Thirdly, the defenders of the Arkite theory are driven into gross
inconsistencies with themselves by the falsity of their views. The
dilaceration of Zagreus into fragments, the mangling of Osiris and
scattering of his limbs abroad, they say, refer to the throwing
open of the ark and the going forth of the inmates to populate the
earth. They usually make Osiris, Zagreus, Adonis, and the other
heroes of the legends enacted in the Mysteries, representatives of
the diluvian patriarch himself; but here, with no reason whatever
save the exigencies of their theory, they make these mythic
personages representatives of the ark, a view which is utterly
unfounded and glaringly wanting in analogy. When Zagreus is torn
in pieces, his heart is preserved alive by Zeus and born again
into the world within a human form. After the body of Osiris had
been strewn piecemeal, the fragments were fondly gathered by Isis,
and he was restored to life. There is no plausible correspondence
between these cases and the sending out from the ark of the
patriarchal family to repeople the world. Their real purpose would
seem plainly to be to symbolize the thought that, however the body
of man crumbles in pieces, there is life for him still, he does
not hopelessly die. They likewise say that the egg which was
consecrated in the Mysteries, at the beginning of the rites, was
intended as an emblem of the ark resting on the abyss of waters,
and that its latent hatching was meant to suggest the opening of
the ark to let the imprisoned patriarch forth. This hypothesis has
no proof, and is needless. It is much more plausible to suppose
that the egg was meant as a symbol of a new life about to burst
upon the candidate, a symbol of his resurrection from the mystic
tomb wherein he was buried during one stage of initiation; for we
know that the initiation was often regarded as the commencement of
a fresh life, as a new birth. Apuleius says, "I celebrated the
most joyful day of my initiation as my natal day."

Faber argues, from the very close similarity of all the
differently named Mysteries, that they were all Arkite, all
derived from one mass of traditions reaching from Noah and
embodying his history.43 The asserted fact of general resemblance
among the instituted Mysteries is unquestionable; but the
inference above drawn from it is unwarrantable, even if no better
explanation could be offered. But there is another explanation
ready, more natural in conception, more consistent in detail, and
better sustained by evidence. The various Mysteries celebrated in
the ancient nations were so much alike not because they were all
founded on one world wide tradition about the Noachian deluge, but
because they all grew out of the great common facts of human
destiny in connection with natural phenomena. The Mysteries were
funereal and festive, began in sorrow and ended in joy, not
because they represented first Noah's sad entrance into the ark
and then his glad exit from it, but because they began with
showing the initiate that he must die, and ended with showing him
that he should live again in a happier state. Even the most
prejudiced advocates of the Arkite theory

42 Procopius, in his History of the Gothic War, mentions a curious
popular British superstition concerning the ferriage of souls among
the neighboring islands at midnight. See Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie,
kap. xxvi. zweite ausgabe.

43 Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. 10: Comparison of the Various
Mysteries.


are forced to admit, on the explicit testimony of the ancients,
that the initiates passed from the darkness and horrors of
Tartarus to the bliss and splendors of Elysium by a dramatic
resurrection from burial in the black caverns of probation to
admission within the illuminated hall or dome of perfection.44
That the idea of death and of another life runs through all the
Mysteries as their cardinal tenet is well shown in connection with
the rites of the celebrated Cave of Trophonius at Lebadea in
Boeotia. Whoso sought this oracle must descend head foremost over
an inclined plane, bearing a honey cake in his hand. Aristophanes
speaks of this descent with a shudder of fear.45 The adventurer
was suddenly bereft of his senses, and after a while returned to
the upper air. What he could then remember composed the Divine
revelation which had been communicated to him in his unnatural
state below. Plutarch has given a full account of this experience
from one Timarchus, who had himself passed through it.46 The
substance of it is this. When Timarchus reached the bottom of the
cave, his soul passed from his body, visited the under world of
the departed, saw the sphere of generation where souls were reborn
into the upper world, received some explanation of all these
things: then, returning into the body, he was taken up out of the
cave. Here is no allusion to any traditions of the Deluge or the
ark; but the great purpose is evidently a doctrine of the destiny
of man after death.

Before the eyes and upon the heart of all mankind in every age has
passed in common vision the revolution of the seasons, with its
beautiful and sombre changes, phenomena having a power of
suggestion irresistible to stir some of the most profound
sentiments of the human breast. The day rolls overhead full of
light and life and activity; then the night settles upon the scene
with silent gloom and repose. So man runs his busy round of toil
and pleasure through the day of existence; then, fading, following
the sinking sun, he goes down in death's night to the pallid
populations of shade. Again: the fruitful bloom of summer is
succeeded by the bleak nakedness of winter. So the streams of
enterprise and joy that flowed full and free along their banks in
maturity, overhung by blossoming trees, are shrivelled and frozen
in the channels of age, and above their sepulchral beds the
leafless branches creak in answer to the shrieks of the funereal
blast. The flush of childish gayety, the bloom of youthful
promise, when a new comer is growing up sporting about the hearth
of home, are like the approach of the maiden and starry Spring,
"Who comes sublime, as when, from Pluto free, Came, through the
flash of Zeus, Persephone." And then draw hastily on the long,
lamenting autumnal days, when "Above man's grave the sad winds
wail and rain drops fall, And Nature sheds her leaves in yearly
funeral."

44 Faber, Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. 10, pp. 331-356. Dion
Chrysostom describes this scene: Oration XII.

45 The Clouds, 1. 507.

46 Essay on the Demon of Socrates. See also Pansanias, lib. ix.
cap. xxxix.


The flowers are gone, the birds are gone, the gentle breezes are
gone; and man too must go, go mingle with the pale people of
dreams. But not wholly and forever shall he die. The sun soars
into new day from the embrace of night; summer restored hastens on
the heels of retreating winter; vegetation but retires and surely
returns, and the familiar song of the birds shall sweeten the
renewing woods afresh for a million springs. Apollo weeping over
the beauteous and darling boy, his slain and drooped Hyacinthus,
is the sun shorn of his fierce beams and mourning over the annual
wintry desolation: it is also Nature bewailing the remediless loss
of man, her favorite companion. It was these general analogies and
suggestions, striking the imagination, affecting the heart,
enlisting the reason, wrought out, personified, and dramatized by
poets, taken up with a mass of other associated matter by priestly
societies and organized in a scheme of legendary doctrine and an
imposing ritual, that constituted the basis and the central
meaning of the old Mysteries; and not a vapid tradition about Noah
and his ark.

The aim of these institutions as they were wielded was threefold;
and in each particular they exerted tremendous power. The first
object was to stretch over the wicked the restraining influence of
a doctrine of future punishment, to fill them with a fearful
looking for judgment in the invisible world. And a considerable
proportion of this kind of fear among the ancients is to be traced
to the secret influence of the Mysteries, the revelations and
terrors there applied. The second desire was to encourage the good
and obedient with inspiring hopes of a happy fate and glorious
rewards beyond the grave. Plutarch writes to his wife, (near the
close of his letter of consolation to her,) "Some say the soul
will be entirely insensible after death; but you are too well
acquainted with the doctrines delivered in the Mysteries of
Bacchus, and with the symbols of our fraternity, to harbor such an
error." The third purpose was, by the wonders and splendors, the
secret awe, the mysterious authority and venerable sanctions,
thrown around the society and its ceremonies, to establish its
doctrines in the reverential acceptance of the people, and thus to
increase the power of the priesthood and the state. To compass
these ends, the hidden science, the public force, the vague
superstition, the treasured wealth, and all the varied resources
available by the ancient world, were marshalled and brought to
bear in the Mysteries. By chemical and mechanical secrets then in
their exclusive possession, the mystagogues worked miracles before
the astonished novices.47 They had the powers of electricity,
gunpowder, hydrostatic pressure, at their command.48 Their rites
were carried out on the most magnificent scale. The temple at
Eleusis could hold thirty thousand persons. Imagine what effect
might be produced, under such imposing and prepared circumstances,
on an ignorant multitude, by a set of men holding all the
scientific secrets and mechanical inventions till then discovered,
illumination flashing after darkness successively before their
smitten eyes, the floors seeming to heave and the walls to crack,
thunders bellowing through the mighty dome; now yawning revealed
beneath them the ghostly chimera of Tartarus, with all the
shrieking and horrid scenery gathered there; now

47 Anthon's Class. Dict., art. "Elicius."

48 Salverte, Des Sciences Occultes, ou Essai sur la Magie. See
also editor's introduction to Thomson's Eng. trans. of Salverte's
work.


the mild beauties of Elysium dawning on their ravished vision,
amid strains of celestial music, through fading clouds of glory,
while nymphs, heroes, and gods walked apparent. Clement of
Alexandria tells us that one feature of the initiation was a
display of the grisly secrets of Hades.49 Apuleius, in his account
of his own initiation, says, "At midnight I saw the sun shining
with a resplendent light; and I manifestly drew near to the lower
and to the upper gods and adored them in immediate presence." 50
Lobeck says that, on the lifting of the veil exposing the adytum
to the gaze of the initiates, apparitions of the gods appeared to
them.51 Christie, in his little work on the Greek Mysteries, says
that the doctrines of the Eleusinian shows were explained by means
of transparent scenes, many of which were faithfully copied upon
the painted Greek vases; and these vase accordingly, were
deposited in tombs to evidence the faith of the deceased in a
future life. The foregoing conceptions may be illustrated by the
dramatic representations, scenic shadows behind transparent
curtains, in Java, alluded to by Sir Stamford Raffles.52

It is remarkable how far the Mysteries spread over the earth, and
what popularity they attained. They penetrated into almost every
nation under the sun. They admitted, in some degree, nearly the
whole people. Herodotus informs us that there were collected in
Egypt, at one celebration, seven hundred thousand men and women,
besides children.53 The greatest warriors and kings Philip,
Alexander, Sulla, Antony esteemed it an honor to be welcomed
within the mystic pale. "Men," says Cicero, "came from the most
distant shores to be initiated at Eleusis." Sophocles declares, as
quoted by Warburton, "True life is to be found only among the
initiates: all other places are full of evil." At the rise of the
Christian religion, all the life and power left in the national
religion of Greece and Rome were in the Mysteries. Accordingly,
here was the most formidable foe of the new faith. Standing in its
old entrenchments, with all its popular prestige around it, it
fought with desperate determination for every inch it was
successively forced to yield. The brilliant effort of Julian to
roll back the tide of Christianity and restore the pagan religion
to more than its pristine splendor an effort beneath which the
scales of the world's fortunes poised, tremulous, for a while was
chiefly an endeavor to revive and enlarge the Mysteries. Such was
the attachment of the people to these old rites even in the middle
of the fourth century of the Christian era, that a murderous riot
broke out at Alexandria, in which Bishop George and others were
slain, on occasion of the profanation by Christians of a secret
adytum in which the Mysteries of Mithra were celebrated.54 And
when, a little later, the Emperor Valentinian had determined to
suppress all nocturnal rites, he was induced to withdraw his
resolution by Pretextatus, proconsul in Greece, "a man endowed
with every virtue, who represented to him that the

49 Stromata, lib. iii., cited by a writer on the Mysteries in
Blackwood, Feb. 1853, pp. 201-203.

50 Taylor's trans. of Golden Ass, p. 283. In a note to p. 275 of
this work, the translator describes (with a citation of his
authorities) "the breathing resemblances of the gods used in the
Mysteries, statues fabricated by the telesta, so as to be
illuminated and to appear animated."

51 Aglaophamus, lib. i. sect. 7.

52 Discourse to the Lit. and Sci. Soc. of Java, 1815, pub. in
Valpy's Pamphleteer, No. 15.

53 Lib. ii. cap. ix.

54 Socrates, Ecc. Inst., lib. iii. cap. 2.


Greeks would consider life insupportable if they were forbidden to
celebrate those most sacred Mysteries which bind together the
human race."55 Upon the whole, we cannot fail to see that the
Mysteries must have exerted a most extensive and profound
influence alike in fostering the good hopes of human nature
touching a life to come, and in giving credit and diffusion to the
popular fables of the poets concerning the details of the future
state. Much of that belief which seems to us so absurd we can
easily suppose they sincerely embraced, when we recollect what
they thought they had seen under supernatural auspices in their
initiations.

In the Greek and Roman faith there was gradually developed in
connection chiefly with the Mysteries, as we believe an
aristocratic doctrine which allotted to a select class of souls an
abode in the sky as their distinguished destination after death,
while the common multitude were still sentenced to the shadow
region below the grave. As Virgil writes, "The descent to Avernus
is easy. The gate of dark Dis is open day and night. But to rise
into the upper world is most arduous. Only the few heroes whom
favoring Jove loves or shining virtue exalts thither can effect
it." 56 Numerous scattered, significant traces of a belief in this
change of the destination of some souls from the pit of Hades to
the hall of heaven are to be found in the classic authors. Virgil,
celebrating the death of some person under the fictitious name of
Daphnis, exclaims, "Robed in white, he admires the strange court
of heaven, and sees the clouds and the stars beneath his feet. He
is a god now." 57 Porphyry ascribes to Pythagoras the declaration
that the souls of departed men are gathered in the zodiac.58 Plato
earnestly describes a region of brightness and unfading realities
above this lower world, among the stars, where the gods live, and
whither, he says, the virtuous and wise may ascend, while the
corrupt and ignorant must sink into the Tartarean realm.59 A
similar conception of the attainableness of heaven seems to be
suggested in the old popular myths, first, of Hercules coming back
in triumph from his visit to Pluto's seat, and, on dying, rising
to the assembly of immortals and taking his equal place among
them; secondly, of Dionysus going into the under world, rescuing
his mother, the hapless Semele, and soaring with her to heaven,
where she henceforth resides, a peeress of the eldest goddesses.
Cicero expresses the same thought when he affirms that "a life of
justice and piety is the path to heaven, where patriots, exemplary
souls, released from their bodies, enjoy endless happiness amidst
the brilliant orbs of the galaxy." 60 The same author also speaks
of certain philosophers who flourished before his time, "whose
opinions encouraged the belief that souls departing from bodies
would arrive at heaven as their proper dwelling place." 61 He
afterwards stigmatizes the notion that the life succeeding death
is subterranean as an error,62 and in his own name addresses his
auditor thus: "I see you gazing upward and wishing to migrate into
heaven." 63 It was the common belief of the Romans for ages that
Romulus was taken up into heaven, where he would remain forever,
claiming Divine honors.64 The Emperor Julian says, in his Letter
on the

55 Essay on Mysteries, by M. Ouvaroff, Eng. trans. by J. D. Price,
p. 55.

56 Aneid, lib. vi. 11. 125-130.

57 Ecl. v. 11. 57, 58, 64.

58 De Antro Nympharum.

59 Phado sects. 136-138.

60 Soma. Scipionis.

61 Tusc. Quast., lib. i. cap. xi.

62 Ibid. cap. xvi.

63 Ibid. cap. xxxiv.

64 Ennius, e. g., sings, "Romulus in coelo cum diis agit avum"


Duties of a Priest, "God will raise from darkness and Tartarus the
souls of all of us who worship him sincerely: to the pious,
instead of Tartarus he promises Olympus." "It is lawful," writes
Plato, "only for the true lover of wisdom to pass into the rank of
gods." 65 The privilege here confined to philosophers we believe
was promised to the initiates in the Mysteries, as the special
prerogative secured to them by their initiation. "To pass into the
rank of the gods" is a phrase which, as here employed, means to
ascend into heaven and have a seat with the immortals, instead of
being banished, with the souls of common mortals, to the under
world.

In early times the Greek worship was most earnestly directed to
that set of deities who resided at the gloomy centre of the earth,
and who were called the chthonian gods.66 The hope of immortality
first sprung up and was nourished in connection with this worship.
But in the progress of time and culture the supernal circle of
divinities who kept state on bright Olympus acquired a greater
share of attention, and at last received a degree of worship far
surpassing that paid to their swarthy compeers below. The
adoration of these bright beings, with a growing trust in their
benignity, the fables of the poets telling how they had sometimes
elevated human favorites to their presence, for instance,
receiving a Ganymede to the joys of their sublime society, the
encouraging thoughts of the more religious and cheerful of the
philosophers, these facts, together with a natural shrinking from
the dismal gloom of the life of shades around the Styx, and a
native longing for admission to the serene pleasures of the
unfading life led by the radiant lords of heaven, in conjunction,
perhaps, with still other causes, effected an improvement of the
old faith, altering and brightening it, little by little, until
the hope came in many quarters to be entertained that the faithful
soul would after death rise into the assemblage and splendor of
the celestial gods. The Emperor Julian, at the close of his
seventh Oration, represents the gods of Olympus addressing him in
this strain:  "Remember that your soul is immortal, and that if
you follow us you will be a god and with us will behold our
Father." Several learned writers have strenuously labored to prove
that the ground secret of the Mysteries, the grand thing revealed
in them, was the doctrine of apotheosis, shaking the established
theology by unmasking the historic fact that all the gods were
merely deified men. We believe the real significance of the
various collective testimony, hints, and inferences by which these
writers have been brought to such a conclusion is this; the
genuine point of the Mysteries lay not in teaching that the gods
were once men, but in the idea that men may become gods. To teach
that Zeus, the universal Father, causing the creation to tremble
at the motion of his brow, was formerly an obscure king of Crete,
whose tomb was yet visible in that island, would have been utterly
absurd. But to assert that the soul of man, the free, intelligent
image of the gods, on leaving the body, would ascend to live
eternally in the kingdom of its Divine prototypes, would have been
a brilliant step of progress in harmony both with reason and the
heart. Such was probably the fact. Observe the following citation
from Plutarch: "There is no occasion against nature to send the
bodies of good men to heaven; but we are to conclude that virtuous
souls, by nature and the Divine justice, rise from men to heroes,
from heroes to genii; and if, as in the Mysteries, they are

65 Phado, sect. lxxi.

66 Muller, Mist. Greek Lit., cap. ii. sect. 5; cap. xvi. sect. 2.


purified, shaking off the remains of mortality and the power of
the passions, they then attain the highest happiness, and ascend
from genii to gods, not by the vote of the people, but by the just
and established order of nature." 67

The reference in the last clause is to the decrees of the Senate
whereby apotheosis was conferred on various persons, placing them
among the gods. This ceremony has often been made to appear
unnecessarily ridiculous, through a perversion of its actual
meaning. When the ancients applied the term "god" to a human soul
departed from the body, it was not used as the moderns
prevailingly employ that word. It expressed a great deal less with
them than with us. It merely meant to affirm similarity of
essence, qualities, and residence, but by no means equal dignity
and power of attributes between the one and the others. It meant
that the soul had gone to the heavenly habitation of the gods and
was thenceforth a participant in the heavenly life.68 Heraclitus
was accustomed to say, "Men are mortal gods; gods are immortal
men." Macrobius says, "The soul is not only immortal, but a god."
69 And Cicero declares, "The soul of man is a Divine thing, as
Euripides dares to say, a god." 70 Milton uses language precisely
parallel, speaking of those who are "unmindful of the crown true
Virtue gives her servants, after their mortal change, among the
enthroned gods on sainted seats." Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch in
the second century, says that "to become a god means to ascend
into heaven." 71 The Roman Catholic ceremony of beatification and
canonization of saints, offering them incense and prayers
thereafter, means exactly what was meant by the ancient
apotheosis, namely, that while the multitudes of the dead abide
below, in the intermediate state, these favored souls have been
advanced into heaven. The papal functionaries borrowed this rite,
with most of its details, from their immediate pagan predecessors,
who themselves probably adopted it from the East, whence the
Mysteries came. It is well known that the Brahmans and Buddhists
believed, centuries before the Christian era, in the contrasted
fate of good men after death to enjoy the successive heavens above
the clouds, and of bad men to suffer the successive hells beneath
the earth. A knowledge of this attractive Oriental doctrine may
have united with the advance of their own speculations to win the
partial acceptance obtained among the Greeks and Romans for the
faith which broke the universal doom to Hades and opened heaven to
their hopeful aspirations. In a tragedy of Euripides the following
passage occurs, addressed to the bereaved Admetus: "Let not the
tomb of thy wife be looked on as the mound of the ordinary dead.
Some wayfarer, as he treads the sloping road, shall say, 'This
woman once died for her husband; but now she is a saint in
heaven.'" 72

When the meaning of the cheerful promises given to the initiates
of a more favored fate in the future life than awaited others
namely, as we think, that their spirits on leaving the body should
scale Olympus instead of plunging to Tartarus had been concealed
within the

67 Lives, Romulus, sect. xxviii.

68 See a valuable discussion of the ancient use of the terms theos
and deus in note D vol. iii. of Norton's Genuineness of the
Gospels.

69 Somn. Scip., lib. ii. cap. 12.

70 Tusc. Quest., lib. i. cap. 26.

71 We omit several other authorities, as the reader would probably
deem any further evidence superfluous.

72 Alcestis, ll. 1015-1025, ed. Glasg.


Mysteries for a long time, it at length broke into public view in
the national apotheosis of ancient heroes, kings, and renowned
worthies, the instances of which became so numerous that Cicero
cries, "Is not nearly all heaven peopled with the human race?" 73
Over the heads of the devout heathen, as they gazed up through the
clear night air, twinkled the beams of innumerable stars, each
chosen to designate the cerulean seat where some soul was
rejoicing with the gods in heaven over the glorious issue of the
toils and sufferings in which he once painfully trod this earthly
scene.

Herodian, a Greek historian of some of the Roman emperors, has
left a detailed account of the rite of apotheosis.74 An image of
the person to be deified was made in wax, looking all sick and
pale, laid in state on a lofty bed of ivory covered with cloth of
gold, surrounded on one side by choirs of noble lords, on the
other side by their ladies stripped of their jewels and clad in
mourning, visited often for several days by a physician, who still
reports his patient worse, and finally announces his decease. Then
the Senators and haughtiest patricians bear the couch through the
via sacra to the Forum. Bands of noble boys and of proud women
ranged opposite each other chant hymns and lauds over the dead in
solemn melody. The bier is next borne to the Campus Martius, where
it is placed upon a high wooden altar, a large, thin structure
with a tower like a lighthouse. Heaps of fragrant gums, herbs,
fruits, and spices are poured out and piled upon it. Then the
Roman knights, mounted on horseback, prance before it in beautiful
bravery, wheeling to and fro in the dizzy measures of the Pyrrhic
dance. Also, in a stately manner, purple clothed charioteers,
wearing masks which picture forth the features of the most famous
worthies of other days to the reverential recognition of the
silent hosts assembled, ride around the form of their descendant.
Suddenly a torch is set to the pile, and it is wrapped in flames.
From the turret, amidst the aromatic fumes, an eagle is let loose.
Phoenix like symbol of the departed soul, he soars into the sky,
and the seven hilled city throbs with pride, reverberating the
shouts of her people. Thus into the residence of the gods "Sic
itur ad astra" was borne the divinely favored mortal; "And thus we
see how man's prophetic creeds Made gods of men when godlike were
their deeds."

For it was only in times of degradation and by a violent
perversion that the honor was allowed to the unworthy; and even in
such cases it was usually nullified as soon as the people
recovered their senses and their freedom. There is extant among
the works of Seneca a little treatise called Apocolocuntosis, that
is, pumpkinification, or the metamorphosis into a gourd, a sharp
satire levelled against the apotheosis of the Emperor Claudius.
The deification of mortals among the ancients has long been
laughed at. When the great Macedonian monarch applied for a decree
for his apotheosis while he was yet alive, the Lacedemonian
Senate, with bitter sarcasm, voted, "If Alexander desires to be a
god, let him be a god." The doctrine is often referred to among us
in terms of mockery. But this is principally because it is not
understood. It simply signifies the ascent of the soul after death
into the Olympian halls instead of descending into the Acheronian
gulfs. And whether we

73 Tusc. Quast., lib. i. cap. 12.

74 Lib. iv.


consider the symbolic justice and beauty of the conception as a
poetic image applied to the deathless heroes of humanity ensphered
above us forever in historic fame and natural worship, or regard
its comparative probability as the literal location of the
residence of departed spirits, it must recommend itself to us as a
decided improvement on the ideas previously prevalent, and as a
sort of anticipation, in part, of that bright faith in a heavenly
home for faithfuls souls, afterwards established in the world by
Him of whom it was written, "No man hath ascended up to heaven but
he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is now in
heaven." Indeed, so forcible and close is the correspondence
between the course of the aspirant in his initiation dramatically
dying, descending into Hades, rising again to life, and ascending
into heaven with the apostolic presentation of the redemptive
career of Christ, our great Forerunner, that some writers Nork,
for instance have suggested that the latter was but the exoteric
publication to all the world of what in the former was
esoterically taught to the initiates alone.

There was a striking naturalness, a profound propriety, in the
obscurities of secrecy and awe with which the ancient Mysteries
shrouded from a rash curiosity their instructions concerning the
future life and only unfolded them by careful degrees to the
prepared candidate. It is so with the reality itself in the nature
of things. It is the great mystery of mysteries, darkly hinted in
types, faintly gleaming in analogies, softly whispered in hopes,
passionately asked in desires, patiently confirmed in arguments,
suddenly blazed and thundered in revelation. Man from the very
beginning of his race on earth has been thickly encompassed by
mysteries, hung around by the muffling curtains of ignorance and
superstition. Through one after another of these he has forced his
way and gazed on their successive secrets laid bare. Once the
Ocean was an alluring and terrible mystery, weltering before him
with its endless wash of waves, into which the weary sun, in the
west, plunged at evening, and out of which, in the east, it
bounded refreshed in the morning. But the daring prows of his
ships, guided by pioneering thought and skill, passed its islands
and touched its ultimate shores. Once the Polar Circle was a
frightful and frozen mystery, enthroned on mountains of eternal
ice and wearing upon its snowy brow the flaming crown of the
aurora borealis. But his hardy navigators, inspired by enterprise
and philanthropy, armed with science, and supplied by art, have
driven the awful phantom back, league by league, until but a small
expanse of its wonders remains untracked by his steps. Once the
crowded Sky was a boundless mystery, a maze of motions, a field
where ghastly comets played their antics and shook down terrors on
the nations. But the theories of his reason, based on the gigantic
grasp of his calculus and aided by the instruments of his
invention, have solved perplexity after perplexity, blended
discords into harmony, and shown to his delighted vision the calm
perfection of the stellar system. So, too, in the moral world he
has lifted the shrouds from many a dark problem, and extended the
empire of light and love far out over the ancient realm of
darkness and terror. But the secret of Death, the mystery of the
Future, remains yet, as of old, unfathomed and inscrutable to his
inquiries. Still, as of old, he kneels before that unlifted veil
and beseeches the oracles for a response to faith.

The ancient Mysteries in their principal ceremony but copied the
ordination and followed the overawing spirit of Nature herself.
The religious reserve and awe about the entrance into the adytum
of their traditions were like those about the entrance into the
invisible scenes beyond the veils of time and mortality. Their
initiation was but a miniature symbol of the great initiation
through which, and that upon impartial terms, every mortal, from
King Solomon to the idiot pauper, must sooner or later pass to
immortality. When a fit applicant, after the preliminary
probation, kneels with fainting sense and pallid brow before the
veil of the unutterable Unknown, and the last pulsations of his
heart tap at the door of eternity, and he reverentially asks
admission to partake in the secrets shrouded from profane vision,
the infinite Hierophant directs the call to be answered by Death,
the speechless and solemn steward of the celestial Mysteries. He
comes, pushes the curtain aside, leads the awe struck initiate in,
takes the blinding bandage of the body from his soul; and
straightway the trembling neophyte receives light in the midst of
that innumerable Fraternity of Immortals over whom the Supreme
Author of the Universe presides.

CHAPTER II.

METEMPSYCHOSIS; OR, TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.

NO other doctrine has exerted so extensive, controlling, and
permanent an influence upon mankind as that of the metempsychosis,
the notion that when the soul leaves the body it is born anew in
another body, its rank, character, circumstances, and experience
in each successive existence depending on its qualities, deeds,
and attainments in its preceding lives. Such a theory, well
matured, bore unresisted sway through the great Eastern world,
long before Moses slept in his little ark of bulrushes on the
shore of the Egyptian river; Alexander the Great gazed with
amazement on the self immolation by fire to which it inspired the
Gymnosophists; Casar found its tenets propagated among the Gauls
beyond the Rubicon; and at this hour it reigns despotic, as the
learned and travelled Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford tells us,
"without any sign of decrepitude or decay, over the Burman,
Chinese, Tartar, Tibetan, and Indian nations, including at least
six hundred and fifty millions of mankind."1 There is abundant
evidence to prove that this scheme of thought prevailed at a very
early period among the Egyptians, all classes and sects of the
Hindus, the Persian disciples of the Magi, and the Druids, and, in
a later age, among the Greeks and Romans as represented by Musaus,
Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Macrobius, Ovid, and many others. It
was generally adopted by the Jews from the time of the Babylonian
captivity. Traces of it have been discovered among the ancient
Scythians, the African tribes, some of the Pacific Islanders, and
various aboriginal nations both of North and of South America.
Charlevoix says some tribes of Canadian Indians believed in a
transmigration of souls; but, with a curious mixture of fancy and
reflection, they limited it to the souls of little children, who,
being balked of this life in its beginning, they thought would try
it again. Their bodies, accordingly, were buried at the sides of
roads, that their spirits might pass into pregnant women
travelling by. A belief in the metempsychosis limited in the same
way to the souls of children also prevailed among the Mexicans.2
The Maricopas, by the Gila, believe when they die they shall
transmigrate into birds, beasts, and reptiles, and shall return to
the banks of the Colorado, whence they were driven by the Yumas.
They will live there in caves and woods, as wolves, rats, and
snakes; so will their enemies the Yumas; and they will fight
together.3 On the western border of the United States, only three
or four years ago, two Indians having been sentenced to be hung
for murder, the chiefs of their tribe came in and begged that they
might be shot or burned instead, as they looked upon hanging with
the utmost horror, believing that the spirit of a person who is
thus strangled to death goes into the next world in a foul manner,
and that it assumes a beastly form. The Sandwich Islanders
sometimes threw their dead into the sea to be devoured by sharks,
supposing their souls would animate these monsters and cause them

1 Wilson, Two Lectures on the Religious Opinions of the Hindus, p.
64.

2 Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, vol. viii. p. 220.

3 Bartlett, Personal Narrative of Explorations in Texas, New
Mexico, &c., ch. xxx.


to spare the living whom accident should throw within their
reach.4 Similar superstitions, but more elaborately developed, are
rife among many tribes of African negroes.5 It was inculcated in
the early Christian centuries by the Gnostics and the Manichaans;
also by Origen and several other influential Fathers. In the
Middle Ages the sect of the Cathari, the Bogomiles, the famous
scholastics Scotus Erigena and Bonaventura, as well as numerous
less distinguished authors, advocated it. And in modern times it
has been earnestly received by Lessing and Fourier, and is not
without its open defenders to day, as we can attest from our own
knowledge, even in the prosaic and enlightened circles of European
and American society.

There have been two methods of explaining the origin of the dogma
of transmigration. First, it has been regarded as a retribution,
the sequel to sin in a pre existent state:

"All that flesh doth cover,
Souls of source sublime,
Are but slaves sold over
To the Master Time
To work out their ransom
For the ancient crime."

With the ancient Egyptians the doctrine was developed in
connection with the conception of a revolt and battle among the
gods in some dim and disastrous epoch of the past eternity, when
the defeated deities were thrust out of heaven and shut up in
fleshly prison bodies. So man is a fallen spirit, heaven his
fatherland, this life a penance, sometimes necessarily repeated in
order to be effectual.6 The pre existence of the soul, whether
taught by Pythagoras, sung by Empedocles, dreamed by Fludd, or
contended for by Beecher, is the principal foundation of the
belief in the metempsychosis. But, secondly, the transmigration of
souls has been considered as the means of their progressive
ascent. The soul begins its conscious course at the bottom of the
scale of being, and, gradually rising through birth after birth,
climbs along a discriminated series of improvements in endless
aspiration. Here the scientific adaptation and moral intent are
thought to lead only upwards, insect travelling to man, man
soaring to God; but by sin the natural order and working of means
are inverted, and the series of births lead downward, until
expiation and merit restore the primal adjustment and direction.

The idea of a metempsychosis, or soul wandering, as the Germans
call it, has been broached in various forms widely differing in
the extent of their application. Among the Jews the writings of
Philo, the Talmud, and other documents, are full of it. They seem,
for the most part, to have confined the mortal residence of souls
to human bodies. They say that God created all souls on the first
day, the only day in which he made aught out of nothing; and they
imply, in their doctrine of the revolution of souls, that these
are born over and over, and will continue wandering thus until the
Messiah comes and the resurrection occurs. The

4 Jarves, Hist. Sandwich Islands, p. 82.

5 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 210.

6 Dr. Roth, Agyptische Glaubenslehre.


Rabbins distinguish two kinds of metempsychosis; namely, "Gilgul,"
which is a series of single transmigrations, each lasting till
death; and "Ibbur," which is where one soul occupies several
bodies, changing its residence at pleasure, or where several souls
occupy one body.7 The latter kind is illustrated by examples of
demoniacal possession in the New Testament. The demons were
supposed to be the souls of deceased wicked men. Sometimes they
are represented as solitary and flitting from one victim to
another; sometimes they swarm together in the same person, as
seven were at once cast out of Mary Magdalene.

More frequently, however, the range of the soul's travels in its
repeated births has been so extended as to include all animal
bodies, beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects. In this extent
the doctrine was held by the Pythagoreans and Platonists, and in
fact by a majority of its believers. Shakspeare's wit is not
without historical warrant when he makes the clown say to
Malvolio, "Thou shalt fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou
dispossess the soul of thy grandam." Many the Manichaans, for
instance taught that human souls transmigrated not only through
the lowest animal bodies but even through all forms of vegetable
life. Souls inhabit ears of corn, figs, shrubs. "Whoso plucks the
fruit or the leaves from trees, or pulls up plants or herbs, is
guilty of homicide," say they; "for in each case he expels a soul
from its body." 8 And some have even gone so far as to believe
that the soul, by a course of ignorance, cruelty, and uncleanness
pursued through many lives, will at length arrive at an inanimate
body, and be doomed to exist for unutterable ages as a stone or as
a particle of dust. The adherents of this hypothesis regard the
whole world as a deposition of materialized souls. At every step
they tread on hosts of degraded souls, destined yet, though now by
sin sunk thus low, to find their way back as redeemed and blessed
spirits to the bosom of the Godhead.

Upon the whole, the metempsychosis may be understood, as to its
inmost meaning and its final issue, to be either a Development, a
Revolution, or a Retribution, a Divine system of development
eternally leading creatures in a graduated ascension from the base
towards the apex of the creation, a perpetual cycle in the order
of nature fixedly recurring by the necessities of a physical fate
unalterable, unavoidable, eternal, a scheme of punishment and
reward exactly fitted to the exigencies of every case, presided
over by a moral Nemesis, and issuing at last in the emancipation
of every purified soul into infinite bliss, when, by the upward
gravitation of spirit, they shall all have been strained through
the successively finer growing filters of the worlds, from the
coarse grained foundation of matter to the lower shore of the
Divine essence.

In seeking to account for the extent and the tenacious grasp of
this antique and stupendous belief, in looking about for the
various suggestions or confirmations of such a dogma, we would
call attention to several considerations, each claiming some
degree of importance. First, among the earliest notions of a
reflecting man is that of the separate existence of the soul after
the dissolution of the body. He instinctively distinguishes the

7 Basnage, Hist. Jews, lib. iv. cap. xxx.: Schroder, Judenthum,
buch ii. kap. iii. Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum. th. ii. kap.
i.

8 Augustine, De Morlb. Manicha., lib. ii. cap. xvii.: De Hares..
cap. xlvi.: Contra Faustum, lib. xvi. cap. xxviii.


thinking substance he is from the material vestment he wears.
Conscious of an unchanged personal identity beneath the changes
and decays everywhere visible around him, he naturally imagines
that "As billows on the undulating main, That swelling fall and
falling swell again, So on the tide of time inconstant roll The
dying body and the deathless soul."

To one thus meditating, and desiring, as he surely would, to
perceive or devise some explanation of the soul's posthumous
fortunes, the idea could hardly fail to occur that the destiny of
the soul might be to undergo a renewed birth, or a series of
births in new bodies. Such a conception, appearing in a rude state
of culture, before the lines between science, religion, and poetry
had been sharply drawn, recommending itself alike by its
simplicity and by its adaptedness to gratify curiosity and
speculation in the formation of a thousand quaint and engaging
hypotheses, would seem plausible, would be highly attractive,
would very easily secure acceptance as a true doctrine.

Secondly, the strange resemblances and sympathies between men and
animals would often powerfully suggest to a contemplative observer
the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.9 Looking over those
volumes of singular caricatures wherein certain artists have made
all the most distinctive physiognomies of men and beasts mutually
to approximate and mingle, one cannot avoid the fancy that the
bodies of brutes are the masks of degraded men. Notice an ox
reclining in the shade of a tree, patiently ruminating as if sadly
conscious of many things and helplessly bound in some obscure
penance, a mute world of dreamy experiences, a sombre mystery: how
easy to imagine him an enchanted and transformed man! See how
certain animals are allied in their prominent traits to humanity,
the stricken deer, weeping big, piteous tears, the fawning
affection and noble fidelity of the dog, the architectural skill
of the beaver, the wise aspect of the owl, the sweet plaint of the
nightingale, the shrieks of some fierce beasts, and the howls of
others startlingly like the cries of children and the moans of
pain, the sparkling orbs and tortuous stealthiness of the snake;
and the hints at metempsychosis are obvious. Standing face to face
with a tiger, an anaconda, a wild cat, a monkey, a gazelle, a
parrot, a dove, we alternately shudder with horror and yearn with
sympathy, now expecting to see the latent devils throw off their
disguise and start forth in their own demoniac figures, now
waiting for the metamorphosing charm to be reversed, and for the
enchanted children of humanity to stand erect, restored to their
former shapes. Pervading all the grades and forms of distinct
animal life there seems to be a rudimentary unity. The fundamental
elements and primordial germs of consciousness, intellect, will,
passion, appear the same, and the different classes of being seem
capable of passing into one another by improvement or deterioration.

Spontaneously, then, might a primitive observer, unhampered by
prejudices, think that the soul of man on leaving its present body
would find or construct another according to its chief intrinsic
qualities and

9 Scholz, Beweis, dass es eine Seelenwanderung bei den Thieren
giebt.


forces, whether those were a leonine magnanimity of courage, a
vulpine subtlety of cunning, or a pavonine strut of vanity. The
spirit, freed from its fallen cell, "Fills with fresh energy
another form, And towers an elephant, or glides a worm, Swims as
an eagle in the eye of noon, Or wails, a screech owl, to the deaf,
cold moon, Or haunts the brakes where serpents hiss and glare,
Or hums, a glittering insect, in the air."

The hypothesis is equally forced on our thoughts by regarding the
human attributes of some brutes and the brutal attributes of some
men. Thus Gratiano, enraged at the obstinate malignity of Shylock,
cries to the hyena hearted Jew, "Thou almost mak'st me waver in my
faith, To hold opinion, with Pythagoras, That souls of animals
infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the
gallows did his fell soul fleet, And, whilst thou lay'st in thine
unhallow'd dam, Infused itself in thee; for thy desires Are
wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous."

Thirdly, there is a figurative metempsychosis, which may sometimes
the history of mythology abounds in examples of the same sort of
thing have been turned from an abstract metaphor into a concrete
belief, or from a fanciful supposition have hardened into a
received fact. There is a poetic animation of objects whereby the
imaginative person puts himself into other persons, into trees,
clouds, whirlwinds, or what not, and works them for the time in
ideal realization. The same result is put in speech sometimes as
humorous play: for example, a celebrated English author says,
"Nature meant me for a salamander, and that is the reason I have
always been discontented as a man: I shall be a salamander in the
next world!" Such imagery stated to a mind of a literal order
solidifies into a meaning of prosaic fact. It is a common mode of
speech to say of an enthusiastic disciple that the spirit of his
master possesses him. A receptive student enters into the soul of
Plato, or is full of Goethe. We say that Apelles lived again in
Titian. Augustine reappeared in Calvin, and Pelagius in Arminius,
to fight over the old battle of election and freedom. Luther rose
in Ronge. Take these figures literally, construct what they imply
into a dogma, and the product is the transmigration of souls. The
result thus arrived at finds effective support in the striking
physical resemblance, spiritual likeness, and similarity of
mission frequently seen between persons in one age and those in a
former age. Columbus was the modern Jason sailing after the Golden
Fleece of a New World. Glancing along the portrait gallery of some
ancient family, one is sometimes startled to observe a face,
extinct for several generations, suddenly confronting him again
with all its features in some distant descendant. A peculiarity of
conformation, a remarkable trait of character, suppressed for a
century, all at once starts into vivid prominence in a remote
branch of the lineage, and men say, pointing back to the ancestor,
"He has revived once more." Seeing Elisha do the same things that
his departed master had done before him, the people exclaimed,
"The spirit of Elijah is upon him." Beholding in John the Baptist
one going before him in the spirit of that expected prophet, Jesus
said, "If ye are able to receive it, this is he." Some of the
later Rabbins assert many entertaining things concerning the
repeated births of the most distinguished personages in their
national history. Abel was born again in Seth; Cain, in that
Egyptian whom Moses slew; Abiram, in Ahithophel; and Adam, having
already reappeared once in David, will live again in the Messiah.
The performance by an eminent man of some great labor which had
been done in an earlier age in like manner by a kindred spirit
evokes in the imagination an apparition of the return of the dead
to repeat his old work.

Fourthly, there are certain familiar psychological experiences
which serve to suggest and to support the theory of transmigration,
and which are themselves in return explained by such a surmise.

Thinking upon some unwonted subject, often a dim impression
arises in the mind, fastens upon us, and we cannot help
feeling, that somewhere, long ago, we have had these reflections
before. Learning a fact, meeting a face, for the first time, we
are puzzled with an obscure assurance that it is not the first
time. Travelling in foreign lands, we are ever and anon haunted by
a sense of familiarity with the views, urging us to conclude that
surely we have more than once trodden those fields and gazed on
those scenes; and from hoary mountain, trickling rill, and vesper
bell, meanwhile, mystic tones of strange memorial music seem to
sigh, in remembered accents, through the soul's plaintive echoing
halls, "'Twas auld lang syne, my dear, 'Twas auld lang syne."

Plato's doctrine of reminiscence here finds its basis. We have
lived before, perchance many times, and through the clouds of
sense and imagination now and then float the veiled visions of
things that were. Efforts of thought reveal the half effaced
inscriptions and pictures on the tablets of memory. Snatches of
dialogues once held are recalled, faint recollections of old
friendships return, and fragments of landscapes beheld and deeds
performed long ago pass in weird procession before the mind's half
opened eye. We know a professional gentleman of unimpeachable
veracity, of distinguished talents and attainments, who is a firm
believer in his own existence on the earth previously to his
present life. He testifies that on innumerable occasions he has
experienced remembrances of events and recognitions of places,
accompanied by a flash of irresistible conviction that he had
known them in a former state. Nearly every one has felt instances
of this, more or less numerous and vivid. The doctrine at which
such things hint that "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in
utter nakedness," but trailing vague traces and enigmas from a
bygone history, "do we come" yields the secret of many a mood and
dream, the spell of inexplicable hours, the key and clew to
baffling labyrinths of mystery. The belief in the doctrine of the
metempsychosis, among a fanciful people and in an unscientific
age, need be no wonder to any cultivated man acquainted with the
marvels of experience and aware that every one may say,

"Full oft my feelings make me start,
Like footprints on some desert shore,
As if the chambers of my heart
Had heard their shadowy step before."

Fifthly, the theory of the transmigration of souls is marvellously
adapted to explain the seeming chaos of moral inequality,
injustice, and manifold evil presented in the world of human life.
No other conceivable view so admirably accounts for the
heterogeneousness of our present existence, refutes the charge of
a groundless favoritism urged against Providence, and completely
justifies the ways of God to man. The loss of remembrance between
the states is no valid objection to the theory; because such a
loss is the necessary condition of a fresh and fair probation.
Besides, there is a parallel fact of deep significance in our
unquestionable experience; "For is not our first year forgot? The
haunts of memory echo not."

Once admit the theory to be true, and all difficulties in regard
to moral justice vanish. If a man be born blind, deaf, a cripple,
a slave, an idiot, it is because in a previous life he abused his
privileges and heaped on his soul a load of guilt which he is now
expiating. If a sudden calamity overwhelm a good man with
unmerited ruin and anguish, it is the penalty of some crime
committed in a state of responsible being beyond the confines of
his present memory. Does a surprising piece of good fortune accrue
to any one, splendid riches, a commanding position, a peerless
friendship? It is the reward of virtuous deeds done in an earlier
life. Every flower blighted or diseased, every shrub gnarled,
awry, and blasted, every brute ugly and maimed, every man
deformed, wretched, or despised, is reaping in these hard
conditions of being, as contrasted with the fate of the favored
and perfect specimens of the kind, the fruit of sin in a foregone
existence. When the Hindu looks on a man beautiful, learned,
noble, fortunate, and happy, he exclaims, "How wise and good must
this man have been in his former lives!" In his philosophy, or
religion, the proof of the necessary consequences of virtue and
vice is deduced from the metempsychosis, every particular of the
outward man being a result of some corresponding quality of his
soul, and every event of his experience depending as effect on his
previous merit as cause.10 Thus the principal physical and moral
phenomena of life are strikingly explained; and, as we gaze around
the world, its material conditions and spiritual elements combine
in one vast scheme of unrivalled order, and the total experience
of humanity forms a magnificent picture of perfect poetic justice.
We may easily account for the rise and spread of a theory whose
sole difficulty is a lack of positive proof, but whose
applications are so consistent and fascinating alike to
imagination and to conscience. Hierocles said, and distinguished
philosophers both before and since have said, "Without the
doctrine of metempsychosis it is not possible to justify the ways
of Providence."

10 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 286.


Finally, this doctrine, having been suggested by the various
foregoing considerations, and having been developed into a
practical system of conceptions and motives by certain leading
thinkers, was adopted by the principal philosophers and
priesthoods of antiquity, and taught to the common people with
authority. The popular beliefs of four thousand years ago depended
for their prevalence, not so much on cogent arguments or intrinsic
probability, as upon the sanctions thrown around them by renowned
teachers, priests, and mystagogues. Now, the doctrine of the
transmigration of souls was inculcated by the ancient teachers,
not as a mere hypothesis resting on loose surmises, but as an
unquestionable fact supported by the experimental knowledge of
many individuals and by infallible revelation from God. The sacred
books of the Hindus abound in detailed histories of transmigrations.
Kapila is said to have written out the Vedas from his remembrance
 of them in a former state of being.

The Vishnu Purana gives some very entertaining examples of
the retention of memory through several successive lives.11
Pythagoras pretended to recollect his adventures in previous lives;
and on one occasion, as we read in Ovid, going into the temple of
Juno, he recognised the shield he had worn as Euphorbus at the
siege of Troy.

Diogenes Laertius also relates of him, that one day meeting a man
who was cruelly beating a dog, the Samian sage instantly detected
in the piteous howls of the poor beast the cries of a dear friend
of his long since deceased, and earnestly and successfully
interceded for his rescue.

In the life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus, numerous
extraordinary instances are told of his recognitions of
persons he had known in preceding lives. Such examples as these
exactly met the weakest point in the metempsychosis theory, and
must have had vast influence in fostering the common faith.
Plotinus said, "Body is the true river of Lethe; for souls plunged
in it forget all." Pierre Leroux, an enthusiastic living defender
of the idea of repeated births, attempts to reply to the objection
drawn from the absence of memory; but his reply is an appeal
rather to authority and fancy than to reason, and leaves the
doubts unsolved.12 His supposition is that in each spirit life we
remember all the bygone lives, both spiritual and earthly, but in
each earth life we forget all that has gone before; just as, here,
every night we lose in sleep all memory of the past, but recover
it each day again as we awake. Throughout the East this general
doctrine is no mere superstition of the masses of ignorant people:
it is the main principle of all Hindu metaphysics, the foundation
of all their philosophy, and inwrought with the intellectual
texture of their inspired books. It is upheld by the venerable
authority of ages, by an intense general conviction of it, and by
multitudes of subtle conceits and apparent arguments. It was also
impressed upon the initiates in the old Mysteries, by being there
dramatically shadowed forth through masks, and quaint symbolic
ceremonies enacted at the time of initiation.13

This, then, is what we must say of the ancient and widely spread
doctrine of transmigration. As a suggestion or theory naturally
arising from empirical observation and confirmed by a variety of
phenomena, it is plausible, attractive, and, in some stages of

11 Professor Wilson's translation, p. 343.

12 De l'Humanite, livre v. chap. xlii.

13 Porphyry, De Abstinentis, lib. iv. sect. 16. Davies, Rites of
the Druids.


knowledge, not only easy to be believed, but hard to be resisted.
As an ethical scheme clearing up on principles of poetic justice
the most perplexed and awful problems in the world, it throws
streams of light through the abysses of evil, gives dramatic
solution to many a puzzle, and, abstractly considered, charms the
understanding and the conscience. As a philosophical dogma
answering to some strange, vague passages in human nature and
experience, it echoes with dreamy sweetness through the deep
mystic chambers of our being. As the undisputed creed which has
inspired and spell bound hundreds of millions of our race for
perhaps over a hundred and fifty generations, it commands
deference and deserves study. But, viewing it as a thesis in the
light of to day, challenging intelligent scrutiny and sober
belief, we scarcely need to say that, based on shadows and on
arbitrary interpretations of superficial appearances, built of
reveries and occult experiences, fortified by unreliable
inferences, destitute of any substantial evidence, it is unable to
face the severity of science.

A real investigation of its validity by the modern methods
dissipates it as the sun scatters fog. First, the mutual
correspondences between men and animals are explained by the fact
that they are all living beings are the products of the same God
and the same nature, and built according to one plan. They thus
partake, in different degrees and on different planes, of many of
the same elements and characteristics. Lucretius, with his usual
mixture of acuteness and sophistry, objects to the doctrine that,
if it were true, when the soul of a lion passed into the body of a
stag, or the soul of a man into the body of a horse, we should see
a stag with the courage of a lion, a horse with the intelligence
of a man. But of course the manifestations of soul depend on the
organs of manifestation. Secondly, the singular psychological
experiences referred to are explicable so far as we can expect
with our present limited data and powers to solve the dense
mysteries of the soul by various considerations not involving the
doctrine in question. Herder has shown this with no little acumen
in three "Dialogues on the Metempsychosis," beautifully translated
by the Rev. Dr. Hedge in his "Prose Writers of Germany." The sense
of pre existence the confused idea that these occurrences have
thus happened to us before which is so often and strongly felt, is
explicable partly by the supposition of some sudden and obscure
mixture of associations, some discordant stroke on the keys of
recollection, jumbling together echoes of bygone scenes, snatches
of unremembered dreams, and other hints and colors in a weird and
uncommanded manner. The phenomenon is accounted for still more
decisively by Dr. Wigand's theory of the "Duality of the Mind."
The mental organs are double, one on each side of the brain. They
usually act with perfect simultaneity. When one gets a slight
start of the other, as the thought reaches the slow side a
bewildered sense of a previous apprehension of it arises in the
soul. And then, the fact that the supposition of a great system of
adjusting transmigrations justifies the ways of Providence is no
proof that the supposition is a true one. The difficulty is, that
there is no evidence of the objective truth of the assumption,
however well the theory applies; and the justice and goodness of
God may as well be defended on the ground of a single life here
and a discriminating retribution hereafter, as on the ground of an
unlimited series of earthly births.

The doctrine evidently possesses two points of moral truth and
power, and, if not tenable as strict science, is yet instructive
as symbolic poetry. First, it embodies, in concrete shapes the
most vivid and unmistakable, the fact that beastly and demoniac
qualities of character lead men down towards the brutes and
fiends. Rage makes man a tiger; low cunning, a fox; coarseness and
ferocity, a bear; selfish envy and malice, a devil. On the
contrary, the attainment of better degrees of intellectual and
ethical qualities elevates man towards the angelic and the Divine.
There are three kinds of lives, corresponding to the three kinds
of metempsychosis, ascending, circular, descending: the aspiring
life of progress in wisdom and goodness; the monotonous life of
routine in mechanical habits and indifference; the deteriorating
life of abandonment in ignorance and vice. Timaus the Locrian, and
some other ancient Pythagoreans, gave the whole doctrine a purely
symbolic meaning. Secondly, the theory of transmigrating souls
typifies the truth that, however it may fare with persons now,
however ill their fortunes may seem to accord with their deserts
here, justice reigns irresistibly in the universe, and sooner or
later every soul shall be strictly compensated for every tittle of
its merits in good or evil. There is no escaping the chain of acts
and consequences.

This entire scheme of thought has always allured the Mystics to
adopt it. In every age, from Indian Vyasa to Teutonic Boehme, we
find them contending for it. Boehme held that all material
existence was composed by King Satan out of the physical substance
of his fallen followers.

The conception of the metempsychosis is strikingly fitted for the
purposes of humor, satire, and ethical hortation; and literature
abounds with such applications of it. In Plutarch's account of
what Thespesius saw when his soul was ravished away into hell for
a time, we are told that he saw the soul of Nero dreadfully
tortured, transfixed with iron nails. The workmen forged it into
the form of a viper; when a voice was heard out of an exceeding
light ordering it to be transfigured into a milder being; and they
made it one of those creatures that sing and croak in the sides of
ponds and marshes.14 When Rosalind finds the verses with which her
enamored Orlando had hung the trees, she exclaimed, "I was never
so berhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which
I can hardly remember." One of the earliest popular introductions
of this Oriental figment to the English public was by Addison,
whose Will Honeycomb tells an amusing story of his friend, Jack
Freelove, how that, finding his mistress's pet monkey alone one
day, he wrote an autobiography of his monkeyship's surprising
adventures in the course of his many transmigrations. Leaving this
precious document in the monkey's hands, his mistress found it on
her return, and was vastly bewildered by its pathetic and
laughable contents.15 The fifth number of the "Adventurer" gives a
very entertaining account of the "Transmigrations of a Flea."
There is also a poem on this subject by Dr. Donne, full of
strength and wit. It traces a soul through ten or twelve births,
giving the salient points of its history in each. First, the soul
animates the apple our hapless mother Eve ate, bringing "death
into the world and all our woe." Then it appeared

14 Sera Numinis Vindicta: near the close.

15 Spectator, No. 343.


successively as a mandrake, a cock, a herring, a whale, "Who spouted
rivers up as if he meant o join our seas with seas above
the firmament." Next, as a mouse, it crept up an elephant's sinewy
proboscis to the soul's bedchamber, the brain, and, gnawing the
life cords there, died, crushed in the ruins of the gigantic
beast. Afterwards it became a wolf, a dog, an ape, and finally a
woman, where the quaint tale closes. Fielding is the author of a
racy literary performance called "A Journey from this World to the
Next." The Emperor Julian is depicted in it, recounting in Elysium
the adventures he had passed through, living successively in the
character of a slave, a Jew, a general, an heir, a carpenter, a
beau, a monk, a fiddler, a wise man, a king, a fool, a beggar, a
prince, a statesman, a soldier, a tailor, an alderman, a poet, a
knight, a dancing master, and a bishop. Whoever would see how
vividly, with what an honest and vigorous verisimilitude, the
doctrine can be embodied, should read "The Modern Pythagorean," by
Dr. Macnish. But perhaps the most humorous passage of this sort is
the following description from a remarkable writer of the present
day:

"In the mean while all the shore rang with the trump of bull
frogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine bibbers and wassailers,
still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake;
who would fain keep up the hilarious rules of their old festal
tables, though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave,
mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor. The most
aldermanic, with his chin upon a heart leaf, which serves for a
napkin to his drooling chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a
deep draught of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup
with the ejaculation tr r r oonk, tr r r oonk! and straightway
comes over the water from some distant cove the same password
repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to
his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the
shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with
satisfaction, tr r r conk! and each in his turn, down to the
flabbiest paunched, repeats the same, that there be no mistake;
and then the bowl goes round again and again, until the sun
disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under
the pond, but vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, and
pausing for a reply." 16

The doctrine of the metempsychosis, which was the priest's threat
against sin, was the poet's interpretation of life. The former
gave by it a terrible emphasis to the moral law; the latter
imparted by it an unequalled tenderness of interest to the
contemplation of the world. To the believer in it in its fullest
development, the mountains piled towering to the sky and the
plains stretching into trackless distance were the conscious dust
of souls; the ocean, heaving in tempest or sleeping in moonlight,
was a sea of spirits, every drop once a man. Each animated form
that caught his attention might be the dwelling of some ancestor,
or of some once cherished companion of his own. Hence the Hindu's
so sensitive kindness towards animals:

16 Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods, p. 137.


"Crush not the feeble, inoffensive worm: Thy sister's spirit wears
that humble form. Why should thy cruel arrow smite yon bird? In
him thy brother's plaintive song is beard. Let not thine anger on
thy dog descend: That faithful animal was once thy friend."

There is a strange grandeur, an affecting mystery, in the view of
the creation from the stand point of the metempsychosis. It is an
awful dream palace all aswarm with falling and climbing creatures
clothed in ever shifting disguises. The races and changes of being
constitute a boundless masquerade of souls, whose bodies are
vizards and whose fortunes poetic retribution. The motive
furnished by the doctrine to self denial and toil has a peerless
sublimity. In our Western world, the hope of acquiring large
possessions, or of attaining an exalted office, often stimulates
men to heroic efforts of labor and endurance. What, then, should
we not expect from the application to the imaginative minds of the
Eastern world of a motive which, transcending all set limits,
offers unheard of prizes, to be plucked in life after life, and at
the end unveils, for the occupancy of the patient aspirant, the
Throne of Immensity? No wonder that, under the propulsion of a
motive so exhaustless, a motive not remote nor abstract, but
concrete, and organized in indissoluble connection with the
visible chain of eternal causes and effects, no wonder we see such
tremendous exhibitions of superstition, voluntary sufferings,
superhuman deeds. Here is the secret fountain of that irresistible
force which enables the devotee to measure journeys of a thousand
miles by prostrations of his body, to hold up his arm until it
withers and remains immovably erect as a stick, or to swing
himself by red hot hooks through his flesh. The poorest wretch of
a soul that has wandered down to the lowest grade of animate
existence can turn his resolute and longing gaze up the
resplendent ranks of being, and, conscious of the god head's germ
within, feel that, though now unspeakably sunken, he shall one day
spurn every vile integument and vault into seats of heavenly
dominion. Crawling as an almost invisible bug in a heap of
carrion, he can still think within himself, holding fast to the
law of righteousness and love, "This is the infinite ladder of
redemption, over whose rounds of purity, penance, charity, and
contemplation I may ascend, through births innumerable, till I
reach a height of wisdom, power, and bliss that will cast into
utter contempt the combined glory of countless millions of worlds,
ay, till I sit enthroned above the topmost summit of the universe
as omnipotent Buddha." 17

17 Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find the
following references useful: Hardy, "Manual of Buddhism," ch. v.
Upham, "History of Buddhism," ch. iii. Beausobre, "Histoire du
Manicheisme," livre vi. ch. iv. Helmont, "De Revolution Animarum."
Richter, "Das Christenthum und die Kitesten Religionen des
Orients," sects. 54-65. Sinner, "Essai sur les Dogmes de la
Metempsychose et du Purgatoire." Conz, "Schicksale der
Seelenwanderungshypothese unter verschiedenen Volkern und in
verschiedenen Zeiten." Dubois, "People of India," part iii. ch.
vii. Werner, "Commentatio Psychologica contra Metempsychosin."


CHAPTER III.

RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.

A DOCTRINE widely prevalent asserts that, at the termination of
this probationary epoch, Christ will appear with an army of angels
in the clouds of heaven, descend, and set up his tribunal on the
earth. The light of his advancing countenance will be the long
waited Aurora of the Grave. All the souls of men will be summoned
from their tarrying places, whether in heaven, or hell, or
purgatory, or the sepulchre; the fleshly tabernacles they formerly
inhabited will be re created, a strong necromancy making the rooty
and grave floored earth give up its dust of ruined humanity, and
moulding it to the identical shapes it formerly composed; each
soul will enter its familiar old house in company with which its
sins were once committed; the books will be opened and judgment
will be passed; then the accepted will be removed to heaven, and
the rejected to hell, both to remain clothed with those same
material bodies forever, the former in celestial bliss, the latter
in infernal torture.

In the present dissertation we propose to exhibit the sources,
trace the developments, explain the variations, and discuss the
merits, of this doctrine.

The first appearance of this notion of a bodily restoration which
occurs in the history of opinions is among the ancient Hindus.
With them it appears as a part of a vast conception, embracing the
whole universe in an endless series of total growths, decays, and
exact restorations. In the beginning the Supreme Being is one and
alone. He thinks to himself, "I will become many." Straightway the
multiform creation germinates forth, and all beings live. Then for
an inconceivable period a length of time commensurate with the
existence of Brahma, the Demiurgus the successive generations
flourish and sink. At the end of this period all forms of matter,
all creatures, sages, and gods, fall back into the Universal
Source whence they arose. Again the Supreme Being is one and
alone. After an interval the same causes produce the same effects,
and all things recur exactly as they were before.1

We find this theory sung by some of the Oriental poets:
"Every external form of things, and every object which
disappear'd, Remains stored up in the storehouse of fate: When the
system of the heavens returns to its former order, God, the All
Just, will bring them forth from the veil of mystery." 2

The same general conception, in a modified form, was held by the
Stoics of later Greece, who doubtless borrowed it from the East,
and who carried it out in greater detail. "God is an artistic
fire, out of which the cosmopoeia issues." This fire proceeds in a
certain fixed course, in obedience to a fixed law, passing through
certain intermediate gradations and established periods, until it
ultimately returns into itself and closes with a universal
conflagration. It is to this catastrophe that reference is made in
the following passage of Epictetus: "Some say that when Zeus is
left alone at the time of the conflagration, he is solitary, and
bewails himself

1 Wilson, Lectures on the Hindus, pp. 53-56.

2 The Dabistan, vol. iii. p. 169.


that he has no company."3 The Stoics supposed each succeeding
formation to be perfectly like the preceding. Every particular
that happens now has happened exactly so a thousand times before,
and will happen a thousand times again. This view they connected
with astronomical calculations, making the burning and re creating
of the world coincide with the same position of the stars as that
at which it previously occurred.4 This they called the restoration
of all things. The idea of these enormous revolving identical
epochs Day of Brahm, Cycle of the Stoics, or Great Year of Plato
is a physical fatalism, effecting a universal resurrection of the
past, by reproducing it over and over forever.

Humboldt seems more than inclined to adopt the same thought. "In
submitting," he says, "physical phenomena and historical events to
the exercise of the reflective faculty, and in ascending to their
causes by reasoning, we become more and more penetrated by that
ancient belief, that the forces inherent in matter, and those
regulating the moral world, exert their action under the presence
of a primordial necessity and according to movements periodically
renewed." The wise man of old said, "The thing that hath been, it
is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall
be done, and there is no new thing under the sun." The conception
of the destinies of the universe as a circle returning forever
into itself is an artifice on which the thinking mind early
seizes, to evade the problem that is too mighty for its feeble
powers. It concludes that the final aim of Nature is but the
infinite perfecting of her material in infinite transformations
ever repeating the same old series. We cannot comprehend and
master satisfactorily the eternal duration of one visible order,
the incessant rolling on of races and stars:

"And doth creation's tide forever flow, Nor ebb with like
destruction? World on world Are they forever heaping up, and still
The mighty measure never, never full?"

And so, when the contemplation of the staggering infinity
threatens to crush the brain, we turn away and find relief in the
view of a periodical revolution, wherein all comes to an end from
time to time and takes a fresh start. It would be wiser for us
simply to resign the problem as too great. For the conception to
which we have recourse is evidently a mere conceit of imagination,
without scientific basis or philosophical confirmation.

The doctrine of a bodily resurrection, resting on a wholly
different ground, again emerges upon our attention in the
Zoroastrian faith of Persia. The good Ormuzd created men to be
pure and happy and to pass to a heavenly immortality. The evil
Ahriman insinuated his corruptions among them, broke their primal
destiny, and brought death upon them, dooming their material
frames to loathsome dissolution, their unclothed spirits to a
painful abode in hell. Meanwhile, the war between the Light God
and the Gloom Fiend rages fluctuatingly. But at last the Good One
shall prevail, and the Bad One sink in discomfiture, and all evil
deeds be neutralized, and the benignant arrangements decreed at
first be restored. Then all

3 Epictetus, lib. iii. cap. 13. Sonntag, De Palingenesia
Stoicorum.

4 Ritter's Hist. of An. Phil., lib. xi. cap. 4.


souls shall be redeemed from hell and their bodies be rebuilt from
their scattered atoms and clothed upon them again.5 This
resurrection is not the consequence of any fixed laws or fate, nor
is it an arbitrary miracle. It is simply the restoration by Ormuzd
of the original intention which Ahriman had temporarily marred and
defeated. This is the great bodily resurrection, as it is still
understood and looked for by the Parsees.

The whole system of views out of which it springs, and with which
it is interwrought, is a fanciful mythology, based on gratuitous
assumptions, or at most on a crude glance at mere appearances. The
hypothesis that the creation is the scene of a drawn battle
between two hostile beings, a Deity and a Devil, can face neither
the scrutiny of science, nor the test of morals, nor the logic of
reason; and it has long since been driven from the arena of
earnest thought. On this theory it follows that death is a violent
curse and discord, maliciously forced in afterwards to deform and
spoil the beauty and melody of a perfect original creation. Now,
as Bretschneider well says, "the belief that death is an evil, a
punishment for sin, can arise only in a dualistic system." It is
unreasonable to suppose that the Infinite God would deliberately
lay a plan and allow it to be thwarted and ruined by a demon. And
it is unscientific to imagine that death is an accident, or an
after result foisted into the system of the world. Death that is,
a succession of generations is surely an essential part of the
very constitution of nature, plainly stamped on all those "medals
of the creation" which bear the features of their respective ages
and which are laid up in the archives of geological epochs.
Successive growth and decay is a central part of God's original
plan, as appears from the very structure of living bodies and the
whole order of the globe. Death, therefore, which furthermore
actually reigned on earth unknown ages before the existence of
man, could not have been a fortuitous after clap of human sin. And
so the foregoing theory of a general resurrection as the
restoration of God's broken plan to its completeness falls to the
ground.

The Jews, in the course of their frequent and long continued
intercourse with the Persians, did not fail to be much impressed
with the vivid melodramatic outlines of the Zoroastrian doctrine
of the resurrection. They finally adopted it themselves, and
joined it, with such modifications as it naturally underwent from
the union, with the great dogmas of their own faith. A few faint
references to it are found in the Old Testament. Some explicit
declarations and boasts of it are in the Apocrypha. In the
Targums, the Talmud, and the associated sources, abundant
statements of it in copious forms are preserved. The Jews rested
their doctrine of the resurrection on the same general ground as
the Persians did, from whom they borrowed it. Man was meant to be
immortal, either on earth or in heaven; but Satan seduced him to
sin, and thus wrested from him his privilege of immortality, made
him die and descend into a dark nether realm which was to be
filled with the disembodied souls of his descendants. The
resurrection was to annul all this and restore men to their
original footing.

We need not labor any disproof of the truth or authority of this
doctrine as the Pharisees held it, because, admitting that they
had the record of a revelation from God, this doctrine was not a
part of it. It is only to be found in their canonic scriptures by
way of vague and hasty allusion, and is historically traceable to
its derivation from the pagan oracles of Persia.

5 Frazer, History of Persia, chap. iv. Baur, Symbolik und
Mythologice thl. ii. absch. ii. cap. ss. 394-404.


Of course it is possible that the doctrine of the resurrection, as
the Hebrews held it, was developed by themselves, from imaginative
contemplations on the phenomena of burials and graves; spectres
seen in dreams; conceptions of the dead as shadowy shapes in the
under world; ideas of God as the deliverer of living men from the
open gates of the under world when they experienced narrow escapes
from destruction; vast and fanatical national hopes. Before
advancing another step, it is necessary only to premise that some
of the Jews appear to have expected that the souls on rising from
the under world would be clothed with new, spiritualized,
incorruptible bodies, others plainly expected that the identical
bodies they formerly wore would be literally restored.

Now, when Christianity, after the death of its Founder, arose and
spread, it was in the guise of a new and progressive Jewish sect.
Its apostles and its converts for the first hundred years were
Christian Jews. Christianity ran its career through the apostolic
age virtually as a more liberal Jewish sect. Most natural was it,
then, that infant Christianity should retain all the salient
dogmas of Judaism, except those of exclusive nationality and
bigoted formalism in the throwing off of which the mission of
Christianity partly consisted. Among these Jewish dogmas retained
by early Christianity was that of the bodily resurrection. In the
New Testament itself there are seeming references to this
doctrine. We shall soon recur to these. The phrase "resurrection
of the body" does not occur in the Scriptures. Neither is it found
in any public creed whatever among Christians until the fourth
century.6 But these admissions by no means prove that the doctrine
was not believed from the earliest days of Christianity. The fact
is, it was the same with this doctrine as with the doctrine of the
descent of Christ into Hades: it was not for a long time called in
question at all. It was not defined, discriminated, lifted up on
the symbols of the Church, because that was not called for. As
soon as the doctrine came into dispute, it was vehemently and all
but unanimously affirmed, and found an emphatic place in every
creed. Whenever the doctrine of a bodily resurrection has been
denied, that denial has been instantly stigmatized as heresy and
schism, even from the days of "Hymeneus and Philetas, who
concerning the truth erred, saying that the resurrection was past
already." The uniform orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church
has always been that in the last day the identical fleshly bodies
formerly inhabited by men shall be raised from the earth, sea, and
air, and given to them again to be everlastingly assumed. The
scattered exceptions to the believers in this doctrine have been
few, and have ever been styled heretics by their contemporaries.

Any one who will glance over the writings of the Fathers with
reference to this subject will find the foregoing statements amply
confirmed.7 Justin Martyr wrote a treatise on the resurrection, a
fragment of which is still extant. Athenagoras has left us an
extremely elaborate and able discussion of the whole doctrine, in
a separate work. Tertullian is author of a famous book on the
subject, entitled "Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh," in
which he says, "The teeth are providentially made eternal to serve
as the seeds of the

6 Dr. Sykes, Inquiry when the Article of the Resurrection of the
Body or Flesh was first introduced into the Public Creeds.

7 Mosheim, De Resurrectione Mortuorum.


resurrection." Chrysostom has written fully upon it in two of his
eloquent homilies. All these, in company indeed with the common
body of their contemporaries, unequivocally teach a carnal
resurrection with the grossest details. Augustine says, "Every
man's body, howsoever dispersed here, shall be restored perfect in
the resurrection. Every body shall be complete in quantity and
quality. As many hairs as have been shaved off, or nails cut,
shall not return in such enormous quantities to deform their
original places; but neither shall they perish: they shall return
into the body into that substance from which they grew." 8 As if
that would not cause any deformity! 9 Some of the later Origenists
held that the resurrection bodies would be in the shape of a ball,
the mere heads of cherubs! 10

In the seventh century Mohammed flourished. His doctrinal system,
it is well known, was drawn indiscriminately from many sources,
and mixed with additions and colors of his own. Finding the dogma
of a general bodily resurrection already prevailing among the
Parsees, the Jews, and the Christians, and perceiving, too, how
well adapted for purposes of vivid representation and practical
effect it was, or perhaps believing it himself, the Arabian
prophet ingrafted this article into the creed of his followers. It
has ever been with them, and is still, a foremost and controlling
article of faith, an article for the most part held in its literal
sense, although there is a powerful sect which spiritualizes the
whole conception, turning all its details into allegories and
images. But this view is not the original nor the orthodox view.

The subject of the resurrection was a prominent theme in the
theology of the Middle Age. Only here and there a dissenting voice
was raised against the doctrine in its strict physical form. The
great body of the Scholastics stood stanchly by it. In defence and
support of the Church thesis they brought all the quirks and
quiddities of their subtle dialectics. As we take down their
ponderous tomes from their neglected shelves, and turn over the
dusty, faded old leaves, we find chapter after chapter in many a
formidable folio occupied with grave discussions, carried on in
acute logical terminology, of questions like these: "Will the
resurrection be natural or miraculous?" "Will each one's hairs and
nails all be restored to him in the resurrection?" "When bodies
are raised, will each soul spontaneously know its own and enter
it? or will the power of God distribute them as they belong?"
"Will the deformities and scars of our present bodies be retained
in the resurrection?" "Will all rise of the same age?" "Will all
have one size and one sex?" 11 And so on with hundreds of kindred
questions. For instance, Thomas Aquinas contended "that no other
substance would rise from the grave except that which belonged to
the individual in the moment of death."12 What dire prospects this
proposition must conjure up before many minds! If one chance to
grow prodigiously obese before death, he must lug that enormous
corporeity wearily about forever; but if he happen to die when
wasted, he must then flit through eternity as thin as a lath.

8 De Civ. Dei, lib. xxii. cap. 19, 20.

9 See the strange speculations of Opitz in his work "De Statura et
Atate Resurgentium.

10 Redepenning, Origenes, b. ii. s. 463.

11 Summa Theologia, Thoma Aquinatis, tertia pars, Supplementum,
Quastiones 79-87.

12 Hagenbuch, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 204.


Those who have had the misfortune to be amputated of legs or arms
must appear on the resurrection stage without those very
convenient appendages. There will still be need of hospitals for
the battered veterans of Chelsea and Greenwich, mutilated heroes,
pensioned relics of deck and field. Then in the resurrection the
renowned "Mynheer von Clam, Richest merchant in Rotterdam,"
will again have occasion for the services of the "patent cork leg
manufacturer," though it is hardly to be presumed he will accept
another unrestrainable one like that which led him so fearful a
race through the poet's verses.

The Manichaans denied a bodily resurrection. In this all the sects
theologically allied to them, who have appeared in ecclesiastical
history, for instance, the Cathari, have agreed. There have also
been a few individual Christian teachers in every century who have
assailed the doctrine. But, as already declared, it has uniformly
been the firm doctrine of the Church and of all who acknowledged
her authority. The old dogma still remains in the creeds of the
recognised Churches, Papal, Greek, and Protestant. It has been
terribly shattered by the attacks of reason and of progressive
science. It lingers in the minds of most people only as a dead
letter. But all the earnest conservative theologians yet cling to
it in its unmitigated grossness, with unrelaxing severity. We hear
it in practical discourses from the pulpit, and read it in
doctrinal treatises, as offensively proclaimed now as ever.
Indeed, it is an essential part of the compact system of the
ruling theology, and cannot be taken out without loosening the
whole dogmatic fabric into fragments. Thus writes to day a
distinguished American divine, Dr. Spring: "Whether buried in the
earth, or floating in the sea, or consumed by the flames, or
enriching the battle field, or evaporate in the atmosphere, all,
from Adam to the latest born, shall wend their way to the great
arena of the judgment. Every perished bone and every secret
particle of dust shall obey the summons and come forth. If one
could then look upon the earth, he would see it as one mighty
excavated globe, and wonder how such countless generations could
have found a dwelling beneath its surface." 13 This is the way the
recognised authorities in theology still talk. To venture any
other opinion is a heresy all over Christendom at this hour.

We will next bring forward and criticize the arguments for and
against the doctrine before us. It is contended that the doctrine
is demonstrated in the example of Christ's own resurrection. "The
resurrection of the flesh was formerly regarded as incredible,"
says Augustine; "but now we see the whole world believing that
Christ's earthly body was borne into heaven." 14 It is the faith
of the Church that "Christ rose into heaven with his body of flesh
and blood, and wears it there now, and will forever." "Had he been
there in body before, it would have been no such wonder that he
should have returned with it; but that the flesh of our flesh and
bone of our bone should be seated at the right hand of God is
worthy of the greatest admiration." 15 That is to say, Christ was
from eternity God, the Infinite Spirit, in

13 The Glory of Christ, vol. ii. p. 237.

14 De Civ. Dei, lib. xxii. cap. 5.

15 Pearson on the Creed, 12th ed., pp. 272-275.


heaven; he came to earth and lived in a human body; on returning
to heaven, instead of resuming his proper form, he bears with him,
and will eternally retain, the body of flesh he had worn on earth!
Paul says, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."
The Church, hastily following the senses, led by a carnal,
illogical philosophy, has deeply misinterpreted and violently
abused the significance of Christ's ascension. The drama of his
resurrection, with all its connected parts, was not meant
throughout as a strict representation of our destiny. It was a
seal upon his commission and teachings, not an exemplification of
what should happen to others. It was outwardly a miracle, not a
type, an exceptional instance of super natural power, not a
significant exhibition of the regular course of things. The same
logic which says, "Christ rose and ascended with his fleshly body:
therefore we shall," must also say, "Christ rose visibly on the
third day: therefore we shall." Christ's resurrection was a
miracle; and therefore we cannot reason from it to ourselves. The
common conception of a miracle is that it is the suspension, not
the manifestation, of ordinary laws. We have just as much logical
right to say that the physical appearance in Christ's resurrection
was merely an accommodation to the senses of the witnesses, and
that on his ascension the body was annihilated, and only his soul
entered heaven, as we have to surmise that the theory embodied in
the common belief is true. The record is according to mere
sensible appearances. The reality is beyond our knowledge. The
record gives no explanation. It is wiser in this dilemma to follow
the light of reason than to follow the blind spirit of tradition.
The point in our reasoning is this. If Christ, on rising from the
world of the dead, assumed again his former body, he assumed it by
a miracle, and for some special purpose of revealing himself to
his disciples and of finishing his earthly work; and it does not
follow either that he bore that body into heaven, or that any
others will ever, even temporarily, reassume their cast off forms.

The Christian Scriptures do not in a single passage teach the
popular doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Every text in
the New Testament finds its full and satisfactory explanation
without implying that dogma at all. In the first place, it is
undeniably implied throughout the New Testament that the soul does
not perish with the body. It also appears, in the next place, from
numerous explicit passages, that the New Testament authors, in
common with their countrymen, supposed the souls of the departed
to be gathered and tarrying in what the Church calls the
intermediate state, the obscure under world. In this subterranean
realm they were imagined to be awaiting the advent of the Messiah
to release them. Now, we submit that every requirement of the
doctrine of the resurrection as it is stated or hinted in the New
Testament is fully met by the simple ascension of this
congregation of souls from the vaults of Sheol to the light of the
upper earth, there to be judged, and then some to be sent up to
heaven, some sent back to their prison. For, let it be carefully
observed, there is not one text in the New Testament, as before
stated, which speaks of the resurrection of the "body" or of the
"flesh." The expression is simply the resurrection of "the dead,"
or of "them that slept." If by "the dead" was meant "the bodies,"
why are we not told so? Locke, in the Third Letter of his
controversy with the Bishop of Worcester on this subject, very
pointedly shows the absurdity of a literal interpretation of the
words "All that are in their graves shall hear my voice and shall
come forth." Nothing can come out of the grave except what is in
it. And there are no souls in the grave: they are in the separate
state. And there are no bodies in millions of graves: they long
ago, even to the last grain of dust, entered into the circulations
of the material system. "Coming forth from their graves unto the
resurrection" either denotes the rising of souls from the under
world, or else its meaning is something incredible. At all events,
nothing is said about any resurrection of the body: that is a
matter of arbitrary inference. The angels are not thought to have
material bodies; and Christ declares, "In the resurrection ye
shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the
angels of heaven." It seems clear to us that the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews also looked for no restoration of the
fleshly body; for he not only studiously omits even the faintest
allusion to any such notion, but positively describes "the spirits
of just men made perfect in the heavenly Jerusalem, with an
innumerable company of angels, and with the general assembly and
church of the first born." The Jews and early Christians who
believed in a bodily resurrection did not suppose the departed
could enter heaven until after that great consummation.

The most cogent proof that the New Testament does not teach the
resurrection of the same body that is buried in the grave is
furnished by the celebrated passage in Paul's Epistle to the
Corinthians. The apostle's premises, reasoning, and conclusion are
as follows: "Christ is risen from the dead, become the first
fruits of them that slept." That is to say, all who have died,
except Christ, are still tarrying in the great receptacle of souls
under the earth. As the first fruits go before the harvest, so the
solitary risen Christ is the forerunner to the general
resurrection to follow. "But some one will say, How are the dead
raised up? and with what body do they come?" Mark the apostle's
reply, and it will appear inexplicable how any one can consider
him as arguing for the resurrection of the identical body that was
laid in the grave, particle for particle. "Thou fool! that which
thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but naked
grain, and God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." "There
are celestial bodies, and terrestrial bodies;" "there is a natural
body, and there is a spiritual body;" "the first man is of the
earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven;" "flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;" "we shall all be
changed," and "bear the image of the heavenly, as we have borne
the image of the earthy." The analogy which has been so strangely
perverted by most commentators is used by Paul thus. The germ
which was to spring up to a new life, clothed with a new body, was
not any part of the fleshly body buried in the grave, but was the
soul itself, once contained in the old body, but released from its
hull in the grave and preserved in the under world until Christ
shall call it forth to be invested with a "glorious," "powerful,"
"spiritual," "incorruptible" body. When a grain of wheat is sown,
that is not the body that shall be; but the mysterious principle
of life, latent in the germ of the seed, springs up and puts on
its body fashioned appropriately for it. So, according to Paul's
conception, when a man is buried, the material corpse is not the
resurrection body that shall be; but the living soul which
occupied it is the germ that shall put on a new body of
immortality when the spring tide of Christ's coming draws the
buried treasures of Hades up to the light of heaven.

A species of proof which has been much used by the advocates of
the dogma of a bodily resurrection is the argument from analogy.
The intimate connection of human feeling and fancy with the
changing phenomena of Nature's seasons would naturally suggest to
a pensive mind the idea, Why, since she has her annual
resurrection, may not humanity some time have one? And what first
arose as a poetic conceit or stray thought, and was expressed in
glowing metaphors, might by an easy process pass abroad and harden
into a prosaic proposition or dogmatic formula.

"O soul of the spring time, now let us behold The stone from the
mouth of the sepulchre roll'd, And Nature rise up from her death's
damp mould; Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has
lain, Revive with the warmth and the brightness again, And in
blooming of flower and budding of tree The symbols and types of
our destiny see."

Standing by the graves of our loved and lost ones, our inmost
souls yearn over the very dust in which their hallowed forms
repose. We feel that they must come back, we must be restored to
each other as we were before. Listening to the returned birds
whose warble fills the woods once more, gazing around on the
verdant and flowery forms of renewed life that clothe the
landscape over again, we eagerly snatch at every apparent emblem
or prophetic analogy that answers to our fond imagination and
desiring dream. Sentiment and fancy, especially when stimulated by
love and grief, and roving in the realms of reverie, free from the
cold guidance and sharp check of literal fact and severe logic,
are poor analysts, and then we easily confuse things distinct and
wander to conclusions philosophy will not warrant. Before building
a dogmatic doctrine on analogies, we must study those analogies
with careful discrimination, must see what they really are, and to
what they really lead. There is often an immense difference
between the first appearance to a hasty observer and the final
reality to a profound student. Let us, then, scrutinize a little
more closely those seeming analogies which, to borrow a happy
expression from Flugge, have made "Resurrection a younger sister
of Immortality."

Nature, the old, eternal snake, comes out afresh every year in a
new shining skin. What then? Of course this emblem is no proof of
any doctrine concerning the fate of man. But, waiving that, what
would the legitimate correspondence to it be for man? Why, that
humanity should exhibit the fresh specimens of her living
handiwork in every new generation. And that is done. Nature does
not reproduce before us each spring the very flowers that perished
the previous winter: she makes new ones like them. It is not a
resurrection of the old: it is a growth of the new. The passage of
the worm from its slug to its chrysalis state is surely no symbol
of a bodily resurrection, but rather of a bodily emancipation, not
resuming a deserted dead body, but assuming a new live one. Does
the butterfly ever come back to put on the exuvia that have
perished in the ground? The law of all life is progress, not
return, ascent through future developments, not descent through
the stages already traversed. "The herb is born anew out of a
seed, Not raised out of a bony skeleton. What tree is man the seed
of? Of a soul."

Sir Thomas Browne, after others, argues for the restoration of
man's body from the grave, from the fancied analogy of the
palingenesis or resurrection of vegetables which the magicians of
the antique East and the mystic chemists of the Middle Age boasted
of effecting. He having asserted in his "Religion of a Physician"
that "experience can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant,
and from its cinders recall it into its stalk and leaves again,"
Dr. Henry Power wrote beseeching "an experimental eviction of so
high and noble a piece of chemistry, the reindividuality of an
incinerated plant." We are not informed that Sir Thomas ever
granted him the sight. Of this beautiful error, this exquisite
superstition, which undoubtedly arose from the crystallizations of
certain salts in arborescent forms which suddenly surprised the
early alchemists in some of their experiments, we have the
following account in Disraeli's "Curiosities of Literature:" "The
semina of resurrection are concealed in extinct bodies, as in the
blood of man. The ashes of roses will again revive into roses,
though smaller and paler than if they had been planted
unsubstantial and unodoriferous, they are not roses which grew on
rose trees, but their delicate apparitions; and, like apparitions,
they are seen but for a moment. This magical phoenix lies thus
concealed in its cold ashes till the presence of a certain
chemical heat produces its resurrection." Any refutation of this
now would be considered childish. Upon the whole, then, while
recurrent spring, bringing in the great Easter of the year,
typifies to us indeed abundantly the development of new life, the
growth of new bodies out of the old and decayed, but nowhere hints
at the gathering up and wearing again of the dusty sloughs and
rotted foliage of the past, let men cease to talk of there being
any natural analogies to the ecclesiastical dogma of the
resurrection of the flesh. The teaching of nature finds a truer
utterance in the words of Aschylus: "There is no resurrection for
him who is once dead." 16

The next argument is that based on considerations of reason and of
ethics. The supporters of the doctrine of the resurrection of the
body have often disingenuously evaded the burden of proof thrown
upon them by retreating beneath loud assertions of God's power.
From the earliest dawn of the hypothesis to the present time,
every perplexity arising from it, every objection brought against
it, every absurdity shown to be involved in it, has been met and
confidently rebutted with declarations of God's abundant power to
effect a physical resurrection, or to do any thing else he
pleases, however impossible it may appear to us. Now, it is true
the power of God is competent to innumerable things utterly beyond
our skill, knowledge, or conception. Nevertheless, there is a
province within which our reason can judge of probabilities, and
can, if not absolutely grasp infallible truth, at least reach
satisfactory convictions. God is able to restore the vast coal
deposits of the earth, and the ashes of all the fuel ever burned,
to their original condition when they covered the world with

16 Eumenides, 1. 648, Oxford edition.


dense forests of ferns; but we have no reason to believe he will
do it. The truth or falsity of the popular theory of the
resurrection is not a question of God's power; it is simply a
question of God's will. A Jewish Rabbin relates the following
conversation, as exultingly as if the quibbling evasion on which
it turns positively settled the question itself, which in fact it
does not approach. A Sadducee says, "The resurrection of the dead
is a fable: the dry, scattered dust cannot live again." A by
standing Pharisee makes this reply: "There were in a city two
artists: one made vases of water, the other made them of clay:
which was the more wondrous artist?" The Sadducee answered, "The
former." The Pharisee rejoins, "Cannot God, then, who formed man
of water, (gutta seminis humida,) much more re form him of clay?"
Such a method of reasoning is an irrelevant impertinence. God can
call Nebuchadnezzar from his long rest, and seat him on his old
throne again to morrow. What an absurdity to infer that therefore
he will do it! God can give us wings upon our bodies, and enable
us to fly on an exploring trip among the planets. Will he do it?
The question, we repeat, is not whether God has the power to raise
our dead bodies, but whether he has the will. To that question
since, as we have already seen, he has sent us no miraculous
revelation replying to it we can only find an answer by tracing
the indications of his intentions contained in reason, morals, and
nature.

One of the foremost arguments urged by the Fathers for the
resurrection was its supposed necessity for a just and complete
judgment. The body was involved and instrumental in all the sins
of the man: it must therefore bear part in his punishment. The
Rabbins tell this allegory: "In the day of judgment the body will
say, The soul alone is to blame: since it left me, I have lain
like a stone in the grave. The soul will retort, The body alone is
sinful: since released from it, I fly through the air like a bird.
The Judge will interpose with this myth: A king once had a
beautiful garden full of early fruits. A lame man and a blind man
were in it. Said the lame man to the blind man, Let me mount upon
your shoulders and pluck the fruit, and we will divide it. The
king accused them of theft; but they severally replied, the lame
man, How could I reach it? the blind man, How could I see it? The
king ordered the lame man to be placed upon the back of the blind
man, and in this position had them both scourged. So God in the
day of judgment will replace the soul in the body, and hurl them
both into hell together." There is a queer tradition among the
Mohammedans implying, singularly enough, the same general thought.
The Prophet's uncle, Hamzah, having been slain by Hind, daughter
of Atabah, the cursed woman cut out his liver and gnawed it with
fiendish joy; but, lest any of it should become incorporated with
her system and go to hell, the Most High made it as hard as a
stone; and when she threw it on the ground, an angel restored it
to its original nature and place in the body of the martyred hero,
that lion of God.

The Roman Catholic Church endorses the representation that the
body must be raised to be punished. In the Catechism of the
Council of Trent, which is an authoritative exposition of Romanist
theology, we read that the "identical body" shall be restored,
though "without deformities or superfluities;" restored that "as
it was a partner in the man's deeds, so it may be a partner in his
punishments." The same Catechism also gives in this connection the
reason why a general judgment is necessary after each individual
has been judged at his death, namely, this: that they may be
punished for the evil which has resulted in the world since they
died from the evil they did in the world while they lived! Is it
not astonishing how these theologians find out so much? A living
Presbyterian divine of note says, "The bodies of the damned in the
resurrection shall be fit dwellings for their vile minds. With all
those fearful and horrid expressions which every base and
malignant passion wakes up in the human countenance stamped upon
it for eternity and burned in by the flaming fury of their own
terrific wickedness, they will be condemned to look upon their own
deformity and to feel their fitting doom." It is therefore urged
that the body must be raised to suffer the just penalty of the
sins man committed while occupying it. Is it not an absurdity to
affirm that nerves and blood, flesh and bones, are responsible,
guilty, must be punished? Tucker, in his "Light of Nature
Pursued," says, "The vulgar notion of a resurrection in the same
form and substance we carry about at present, because the body
being partaker in the deed ought to share in the reward, as well
requires a resurrection of the sword a man murders with, or the
bank note he gives to charitable uses." We suppose an intelligent
personality, a free will, indispensable to responsibleness and
alone amenable to retributions. Besides, if the body must be
raised to undergo chastisement for the offences done in it and by
means of it, this insurmountable difficulty by the same logic
confronts us. The material of our bodies is in a constant change,
the particles becoming totally transferred every few years. Now,
when a man is punished after the general judgment for a certain
crime, he must be in the very body he occupied when that crime was
perpetrated. Since he was a sinner all his days, his resurrection
body must comprise all the matter that ever formed a part of his
corporeity, and each sinner may hereafter be as huge as the
writhing Titan, Tityus, whose body, it was fabled, covered nine
acres. God is able to preserve the integral soul in being, and to
punish it according to justice, without clothing it in flesh. This
fact by itself utterly vacates and makes gratuitous the hypothesis
of a physical resurrection from punitive considerations, an
hypothesis which is also refuted by the truth contained in Locke's
remark to Stillingfleet, "that the soul hath no greater congruity
with the particles of matter which were once united to it, but are
so no longer, than it hath with any other particles of matter."
When the soul leaves the body, it would seem to have done with
that stage of its existence, and to enter upon another and higher
one, leaving the dust to mix with dust forever. The body wants not
the soul again; for it is a senseless clod and wants nothing. The
soul wants not its old body again: it prefers to have the freedom
of the universe, a spirit. Philip the Solitary wrote, in the
twelfth century, a book called "Dioptra," presenting the
controversy between the soul and the body very quaintly and at
length. The same thing was done by Henry Nicholson in a
"Conference between the Soul and Body concerning the Present and
Future State." William Crashaw, an old English poet, translated
from the Latin a poem entitled "The Complaint: a Dialogue between
the Body and the Soul of a Damned Man."17 But any one who will
peruse with intelligent heed the works that have been written on
this whole subject must be amazed to see how exclusively the
doctrine which we are opposing has rested on pure grounds of
tradition and fancy, alike destitute of authority and reason. Some
authors have indeed attempted to support the doctrine with
arguments: for

17 Also see Dialogue inter Corpus et Animam, p. 95 of Latin Poems
attributed to Walter Mapes.


instance, there are two German works, one by Bertram, one by
Pflug, entitled "The Resurrection of the Dead on Grounds of
Reason," in which recourse is had to every possible expedient to
make out a case, not even neglecting the factitious assistance of
Leibnitz's scheme of "Pre established Harmony." But it may be
deliberately affirmed that not one of their arguments is worthy of
respect. Apparently, they do not seek to reach truth, but to
bolster up a foregone conclusion held merely from motives of
tradition.

The Jews had a favorite tradition, developed by their Rabbins in
many passages, that there was one small, almond shaped bone,
(supposed now to have been the bone called by anatomists the os
coccygis,) which was indestructible, and would form the nucleus
around which the rest of the body would gather at the time of the
resurrection. This bone, named Luz, was miraculously preserved
from demolition or decay. Pound it furiously on anvils with heavy
hammers of steel, burn it for ages in the fiercest furnaces, soak
it for centuries in the strongest solvents, all in vain: its magic
structure still remained. So the Talmud tells. "Even as there is a
round dry grain In a plant's skeleton, which, being buried, Can
raise the herb's green body up again; So is there such in man, a
seed shaped bone, Aldabaron, call'd by the Hebrews Luz, Which,
being laid into the ground, will bear, After three thousand years,
the grass of flesh, The bloody, soul possessed weed called man."

The Jews did not, as these singular lines represent, suppose this
bone was a germ which after long burial would fructify by a
natural process and bear a perfect body: they regarded it only as
a nucleus around which the Messiah would by a miracle compel the
decomposed flesh to return as in its pristine life. All that the
Jews say of Luz the Mohammedans repeat of the bone Al Ajib.

This conceit of superstition has been developed by a Christian
author of considerable reputation into a theory of a natural
resurrection. The work of Mr. Samuel Drew on the "Identity and
General Resurrection of the Human Body" has been quite a standard
work on the subject of which it treats. Mr. Drew believes there is
a germ in the body which slowly ripens and prepares the
resurrection body in the grave. As a seed must be buried for a
season in order to spring up in perfect life, so must the human
body be buried till the day of judgment. During this period it is
not idle, but is busily getting ready for its consummation. He
says, "There are four distinct stages through which those parts
constituting the identity of the body must necessarily pass in
order to their attainment of complete perfection beyond the grave.
The first of these stages is that of its elementary principles;
the second is that of an embryo in the womb; the third is that of
its union with an immaterial spirit, and with the fluctuating
portions of flesh and blood in our present state; and the fourth
stage is that of its residence in the grave. All these stages are
undoubtedly necessary to the full perfection of the body: they are
alembics through which its parts must necessarily move to attain
that vigor which shall continue forever."18 To state this figment
is enough. It would be folly to attempt any refutation of a fancy
so obviously a pure contrivance to fortify a preconceived opinion,
a fancy, too, so preposterous, so utterly without countenance,
either from experience, observation, science, reason, or
Scripture. The egg of man's divinity is not laid in the nest of
the grave.

Another motive for believing the resurrection of the body has been
created by the exigencies of a materialistic philosophy. There was
in the early Church an Arabian sect of heretics who were reclaimed
from their errors by the powerful reasonings and eloquence of
Origen.19 Their heresy consisted in maintaining that the soul dies
with the body being indeed only its vital breath and will be
restored with it at the last day. In the course of the Christian
centuries there have arisen occasionally a few defenders of this
opinion. Priestley, as is well known, was an earnest supporter of
it. Let us scan the ground on which he held this belief. In the
first place, he firmly believed that the fact of an eternal life
to come had been supernaturally revealed to men by God through
Christ. Secondly, as a philosopher he was intensely a materialist,
holding with unwavering conviction to the conclusion that life,
mind, or soul, was a concomitant or result of our physical
organism, and wholly incapable of being without it. Death to him
was the total destruction of man for the time. There was therefore
plainly no alternative for him but either to abandon one of his
fundamental convictions as a Christian and a philosopher, or else
to accept the doctrine of a future resurrection of the body into
an immortal life. He chose the latter, and zealously taught always
that death is an annihilation lasting till the day of judgment,
when all are to be summoned from their graves. To this whole
course of thought there are several replies to be made. In the
first place, we submit that the philosophy of materialism is
false: standing in the province of science and reason, it may be
affirmed that the soul is not dependent for its existence on the
body, but will survive it. We will not argue this point, but
merely state it. Secondly, it is certain that the doctrine which
makes soul perish with body finds no countenance in the New
Testament. It is inconsistent with the belief in angelic spirits,
in demoniac possessions, in Christ's descent as a spirit to preach
to the spirits of departed men imprisoned in the under world, and
with other conceptions underlying the Gospels and the Epistles.
But, thirdly, admitting it to be true, then, we affirm, the
legitimate deduction from all the arrayed facts of science and all
the presumptive evidence of appearances is not that a future
resurrection will restore the dead man to life, but that all is
over with him, he has hopelessly perished forever. When the breath
ceases, if nothing survives, if the total man is blotted out, then
we challenge the production of a shadow of proof that he will ever
live again. The seeming injustice and blank awfulness of the fate
may make one turn for relief to the hypothesis of a future
arbitrary miraculous resurrection; but that is an artificial
expedient, without a shadow of justification. Once admit that the
body is all, its dissolution a total death, and you are gone
forever. One intuition of the spirit, seizing the conscious
supports of eternal ideas, casts contempt on "The doubtful
prospects of our painted dust,"

18 Drew on Resurrection, ch. vi. sect. vii. pp. 326-332.

19 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. lib. vi. cap. xxxvii.


and outvalues all the gross hopes of materialism. Between
nonentity and being yawns the untraversable gulf of infinity. No:
the body of flesh falls, turns to dust and air; the soul,
emancipated, rejoices, and soars heavenwards, and is its own
incorruptible frame, mocking at death, a celestial house, whose
maker and builder is God.

Finally, there remain to be weighed the bearings of the argument
from chemical and physiological science on the resurrection. Here
is the chief stumbling block in the way of the popular doctrine.
The scientific absurdities connected with that doctrine have been
marshalled against it by Celsus, the Platonist philosopher, by
Avicenna, the Arabian physician, and by hundreds more, and have
never been answered, and cannot be answered. As long as man lives,
his bodily substance is incessantly changing; the processes of
secretion and absorption are rapidly going forward. Every few
years he is, as to material, a totally new man. Dying at the age
of seventy, he has had at least ten different bodies. He is one
identical soul, but has lived in ten separate houses. With which
shall he be raised? with the first? or the fifth? or the last? or
with all? But, further, the body after death decays, enters into
combination with water, air, earth, gas, vegetables, animals,
other human bodies. In this way the same matter comes to have
belonged to a thousand persons. In the resurrection, whose shall
it be? We reply, nearly in the language of Christ to the
Sadducees, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the will of
God: in the resurrection they have not bodies of earthly flesh,
but are spirits, as the angels of God."

The argument against the common theory of a material resurrection,
on account of numerous claimants for the same substance, has of
late derived a greatly increased force from the brilliant
discoveries in chemistry. It is now found that only a small number
of substances ever enter into the composition of animal bodies.20
The food of man consists of nitrogenized and non nitrogenized
substances. The latter are the elements of respiration; the former
alone compose the plastic elements of nutrition, and they are few
in number and comparatively limited in extent. "All life depends
on a relatively small quantity of matter. Over and over again, as
the modeller fashions his clay, are plant and animal formed out of
the same material." The particles that composed Adam's frame may
before the end of the world have run the circuit of ten thousand
bodies of his descendants: "'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been
slave to thousands." To proclaim the resurrection of the flesh as
is usually done, seems a flat contradiction of clear knowledge.21
A late writer on this subject, Dr. Hitchcock, evades the
insuperable difficulty by saying, "It is not necessary that the
resurrection body should contain a single particle of the body
laid in the grave, if it only contain particles of the same kind,
united in the same proportion, and the compound be made to assume
the same form and structure as the natural body." 22 Then two men
who look exactly alike may in the resurrection exchange bodies
without any harm! Here the theory of punishment clashes. Does not
the esteemed author see that this would not be a resurrection of
the old bodies, but a creation of new ones

20 Liebig, Animal Chemistry, sect. xix.

21 The Circulation of Matter, Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1853.

22 The Resurrection of Spring, p. 26.


just like them? And is not this a desertion of the orthodox
doctrine of the Church? If he varies so far from the established
formularies out of a regard for philosophy, he may as well be
consistent and give up the physical doctrine wholly, because it
rests solely on the tradition which he leaves and is every whit
irreconcilable with philosophy. This device is as wilful an
attempt to escape the scientific difficulty as that employed by
Candlish to avoid the scriptural difficulty put in the way of the
doctrine by the apostolic words "Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God." The eminent Scottish divine affirms that
"flesh and bones"  that is, these present bodies made
incorruptible can inherit the kingdom of God; although "flesh and
blood" that is, these present bodies subject to decay cannot.23 It
is surely hard to believe that the New Testament writers had such
a distinction in their minds. It is but a forlorn resource
conjured up to meet a desperate exigency.

At the appearing of Christ in glory,

"When the Day of Fire shall have dawn'd, and sent Its deadly
breath into the firmament," as it is supposed, the great earth
cemetery will burst open and its innumerable millions swarm forth
before him. Unto the tremendous act of habeas corpus, then
proclaimed, every grave will yield its prisoner. Ever since the
ascension of Jesus his mistaken followers have been anxiously
expecting that awful advent of his person and his power in the
clouds; but in vain. "All things remain as they were: where is the
promise of his appearing?" As the lookers out hitherto have been
disappointed, so they ever will be. Say not, Lo here! or, Lo
there! for, behold, he is within you. The reason why this carnal
error, Jewish conceit, retains a hold, is that men accept it
without any honest scrutiny of its foundations or any earnest
thought of their own about it. They passively receive the
tradition. They do not realize the immensity of the thing, nor the
ludicrousness of its details. To their imaginations the awful
blast of the trumpet calling the world to judgment, seems no more,
as Feuerbach says, than a tone from the tin horn of a postillion,
who, at the post station of the Future, orders fresh horses for
the Curriculum Vita! President Hitchcock tells us that, "when the
last trumpet sounds, the whole surface of the earth will become
instinct with life, from the charnels of battle fields alone more
than a thousand millions of human beings starting forth and
crowding upwards to the judgment seat." On the resurrection
morning, at the first tip of light over acres of opening monument
and heaving turf, "Each member jogs the other, And whispers, Live
you, brother?"

And how will it be with us then? Will Daniel Lambert, the mammoth
of men, appear weighing half a ton? Will the Siamese twins then be
again joined by the living ligament of their congenital band?
Shall "infants be not raised in the smallness of body in which
they died, but increase by the wondrous and most swift work of
God"? 24

23 Candlish, Life in a Risen Savior: Discourse XV.

24 Augustine, De Civ. Dei, lib. xxii. cap. xiv.


Young sings, "Now charnels rattle; scatter'd limbs, and all The
various bones, obsequious to the call, Self moved, advance; the
neck perhaps to meet The distant head; the distant head the feet.
Dreadful to view! see, through the dusky sky Fragments of bodies
in confusion fly, To distant regions journeying, there to claim
Deserted members and complete the frame."

The glaring melodramatic character, the startling mechanico
theatrical effects, of this whole doctrine, are in perfect keeping
with the raw imagination of the childhood of the human mind, but
in profound opposition to the working philosophy of nature and the
sublime simplicity of God.

Many persons have never distinctly defined their views upon the
subject before us. In the minds even of many preachers and
writers, several different and irreconcilable theories would seem
to exist together in confused mixture. Now they speak as if the
soul were sleeping with the body in the grave; again they appear
to imply that it is detained in an intermediate state; and a
moment afterwards they say it has already entered upon its final
reward or doom. Jocelyn relates, in his Life of St. Patrick, that
"as the saint one day was passing the graves of two men recently
buried, observing that one of the graves had a cross over it, he
stopped his chariot and asked the dead man below of what religion
he had been. The reply was, 'A pagan.' 'Then why was this cross
put over you?' inquired St. Patrick. The dead man answered, 'He
who is buried near me is a Christian; and one of your faith,
coming hither, placed the cross at my head.' The saint stepped out
of his chariot, rectified the mistake, and went his way." Calvin,
in the famous treatise designated "Psychopannychia," which he
levelled against those who taught the sleep of souls until the day
of judgment, maintained that the souls of the elect go immediately
to heaven, the souls of the reprobate to hell. Here they tarry in
bliss and bale until the resurrection; then, coming to the earth,
they assume their bodies and return to their respective places.
But if the souls live so long in heaven and hell without their
flesh, why need they ever resume it? The cumbrous machinery of the
scheme seems superfluous and unmeaning. As a still further
specimen of the arbitrary thinking the unscientific and
unphilosophical thinking carried into this department of thought
by most who have cultivated it, reference may be made to Bishop
Burnet's work "De Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium," which teaches
that at the first resurrection the bodies of the risen will be the
same as the present, but at the second resurrection, after the
millennium, from the rudiments of the present body a new spiritual
body will be developed.

The true idea of man's future destiny appears to be that no
resurrection of the flesh is needed, because the real man never
dies, but lives continuously forever. There are two reasonable
ways of conceiving what the vehicle of his life is when he leaves
his present frame. It may be that within his material system lurks
an exquisite spiritual organization, invisibly pervading it and
constituting its vital power. This ethereal structure is
disengaged at last from its gross envelope, and, unfettered, soars
to the Divine realms of ether and light. This theory of an "inner
body" is elaborately wrought out and sustained in Bonnet's
"Palingenesie Philosophique." Or it may be that there is in each
one a primal germ, a deathless monad, which is the organic
identity of man, root of his inmost stable being, triumphant,
unchanging ruler of his flowing, perishable organism. This spirit
germ, born into the present life, assimilates and holds the
present body around it, out of the materials of this world; born
into the future life, it will assimilate and hold around it a
different body, out of the materials of the future world.25 Thus
there are bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial: the glory of
the terrestrial is one, fitted to this scene of things; the glory
of the celestial is another, fitted to the scene of things
hereafter to dawn. Each spirit will be clothed from the material
furnished by the world in which it resides. Not forever shall we
bear about this slow load of weary clay, this corruptible mass,
heir to a thousand ills. Our body shall rather be such  "If
lightning were the gross corporeal frame Of some angelic essence,
whose bright thoughts As far surpass'd in keen rapidity The
lagging action of his limbs as doth Man's mind his clay; with like
excess of speed To animated thought of lightning flies That spirit
body o'er life's deeps divine, Far past the golden isles of
memory."

What man knows constitutes his present world. All beyond that
constitutes another world. He can imagine two modes in which his
desire for a life after death may be gratified, a removal into the
Unknown World, or a return into the Known World. With the latter
supposition the restoration of the flesh is involved.

Upon the whole, our conclusion is, that in the original plan of
the world it was fixed that man should not live here forever, but
that the essence of his life should escape from the flesh and
depart to some other sphere of being, there either to fashion
itself a new form, or to remain disembodied. If those who hold the
common doctrine of a carnal resurrection should carry it out with
philosophical consistency, by extending the scheme it involves to
all existing planetary races as well as to their own, should they
cause that process of imagination which produced this doctrine to
go on to its legitimate completion, they would see in the final
consummation the sundered earths approach each other, and
firmaments conglobe, till at last the whole universe concentred in
one orb. On the surface of that world all the risen races of being
would be distributed, the inhabitants of a present solar system
making a nation, the sum of gigantic nationalities constituting
one prodigious, death exempted empire, its solitary sovereign GOD.
But this is pure poetry, and not science nor philosophy.

25 Lange on the Resurrection of the Body, Studien und Kritiken, 1836.


CHAPTER IV.

DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT; OR, CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF
A HELL.

A HELL of fire and brimstone has been, perhaps still is, the most
terrible of the superstitions of the world. We propose to give a
historic sketch of the popular representations on this subject,
trace them to their origin, and discuss the merits of the question
itself. To follow the doctrine through all its variations,
illustrating the practical and controversial writings upon it,
would require a large volume; but, by a judicious arrangement, all
that is necessary to a fair understanding of the subject, or
really interesting, may be presented within the compass of an
essay. Any one who should read the literature of this subject
would be astonished at the almost universal prevalence of the
doctrine and at the immense diversity of appalling descriptions of
it, and would ask, Whence arises all this? How have these horrors
obtained such a seated hold in the world?

In the first place, it is to be replied, as soon as reason is in
fair possession of the idea of a continued individual existence
beyond the grave, the moral sense, discriminating the deeds,
tempers, and characters of men, would teach that there must be
different allotments and experiences for them after death. It is
not right, say reason and conscience, for the coward, the idler,
fool, knave, sot, murderer, to enter into the same realm and have
the same bliss with heroes, sages, and saints; neither are they
able to do it. The spontaneous thought and sentiment of humanity
would declare, if the soul survives the body, passing into the
invisible world, its fortunes there must depend somewhat upon its
fitness and deserts, its contained treasures and acquired habits.
Reason, judging the facts of observation according to the
principles of ethics and the working of experienced spiritual
laws, at once decides that there is a difference hereafter between
the fate of the good heart and the bad one, the great soul and the
mean one: in a word, there is, in some sense or other, a heaven
and a hell.

Again: the same belief would be necessitated by the conception, so
deeply entertained by the primitive people of the earth, of
overruling and inspecting gods. They supposed these gods to be in
a great degree like themselves, partial, fickle, jealous,
revengeful. Such beings, of course, would caress their favorites
and torture their offenders. The calamities and blessings of this
life were regarded as tokens, revengeful or loving, of the ruling
deities, now pleased, now enraged. And when their votaries or
victims had passed into the eternal state, how natural to suppose
them still favored or cursed by the passionate wills of these
irresponsible gods! Plainly enough, they who believe in gods that
launch thunderbolts and upheave the sea in their rage and take
vengeance for an insult by sending forth a pestilence, must also
believe in a hell where Ixion may be affixed to the wheel and
Tantalus be tortured with maddening mockeries. These two
conceptions of discriminating justice and of vengeful gods both
lead to the theoretic construction of a hell, and to the growth of
doctrines and parables about it, though in a different sort, the
former illustrating a pervasive law which distributes men
according to their deserts, the latter speaking of beings with
human passions, who inflict outward arbitrary penalties according
to their pleasure.

Thirdly, when the general idea of a hell has once obtained
lodgment, it is rapidly nourished, developed, and ornamented,
carried out into particulars by poets, rhetoricians, and popular
teachers, whose fancies are stimulated and whose figurative views
and pictures act and react both upon the sources and the products
of faith. Representations based only on moral facts, emblems
addressing the imagination, after a while are received in a
literal sense, become physically located and clothed with the
power of horror. A Hindu poet says, "The ungrateful shall remain
in hell as long as the sun hangs in heaven." An old Jewish Rabbi
says that after the general judgment "God shall lead all the
blessed through hell and all the damned through paradise, and show
to each one the place that was prepared for him in each region, so
that they shall not be able to say, 'We are not to be blamed or
praised; for our doom was unalterably fixed beforehand.' Such
utterances are originally moral symbols, not dogmatic assertions;
and yet in a rude age they very easily pass into the popular mind
as declaring facts literally to be believed. A Talmudic writer
says, "There are in hell seven abodes, in each abode seven
thousand caverns, in each cavern seven thousand clefts, in each
cleft seven thousand scorpions; each scorpion has seven limbs, and
on each limb are seven thousand barrels of gall. There are also in
hell seven rivers of rankest poison, so deadly that if one touches
it he bursts." Hesiod, Homer, Virgil, have given minute
descriptions of hell and its agonies, descriptions which have
unquestionably had a tremendous influence in cherishing and
fashioning the world's faith in that awful empire. The poems of
Dante, Milton, and Pollok revel in the most vivid and terrific
pictures of the infernal kingdom and its imagined horrors; and the
popular doctrine of future punishment in Christendom is far more
closely conformed to their revelations than to the declarations of
the New Testament. The English poet's "Paradise Lost" has
undoubtedly exerted an influence on the popular faith comparable
with that of the Genevan theologian's "Institutes of the Christian
Religion." There is a horrid fiction, widely believed once by the
Jewish Rabbins and by the Mohammedans, that two gigantic fiends
called the Searchers, as soon as a deceased person is buried, make
him sit up in the grave, examine the moral condition of his soul,
and, if he is very guilty, beat in his temples with heavy iron
maces. It is obvious to observe that such conceptions are purely
arbitrary, the work of fancy, not based on any intrinsic fitness
or probability; but they are received because unthinking ignorance
and hungry superstition will greedily believe any thing they hear.
Joseph Trapp, an English clergyman, in a long poem thus sets forth
the scene of damnation: "Doom'd to live death and never to expire,
In floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire The damn'd shall
groan, fire of all kinds and forms, In rain and hail, in
hurricanes and storms, Liquid and solid, livid, red, and pale, A
flaming mountain here, and there a flaming vale; The liquid fire
makes seas, the solid, shores; Arch'd o'er with flames, the horrid
concave roars. In bubbling eddies rolls the fiery tide, And
sulphurous surges on each other ride. The hollow winding vaults,
and dens, and caves, Bellow like furnaces with flaming waves.
Pillars of flame in spiral volumes rise, Like fiery snakes, and
lick the infernal skies. Sulphur, the eternal fuel, unconsumed,
Vomits redounding smoke, thick, unillumed."

But all other paintings of the fear and anguish of hell are vapid
and pale before the preternatural frightfulness of those given at
unmerciful length and in sickening specialty in some of the Hindu
and Persian sacred books.1 Here worlds of nauseating disgusts, of
loathsome agonies, of intolerable terrors, pass before us. Some
are hung up by their tongues, or by their eyes, and slowly
devoured by fiery vermin; some scourged with whips of serpents
whose poisonous fangs lacerate their flesh at every blow; some
forced to swallow bowls of gore, hair, and corruption, freshly
filled as fast as drained; some packed immovably in red hot iron
chests and laid in raging furnaces for unutterable millions of
ages. One who is familiar with the imagery of the Buddhist hells
will think the pencils of Dante and Pollok, of Jeremy Taylor and
Jonathan Edwards, were dipped in water. There is just as much
ground for believing the accounts of the former to be true as
there is for crediting those of the latter: the two are
fundamentally the same, and the pagan had earlier possession of
the field.

Furthermore, in the early ages, and among people where castes were
prominent, when the learning, culture, and power were confined to
one class at the expense of others, it is unquestionable that
copious and fearful descriptions of the future state were spread
abroad by those who were interested in establishing such a dogma.
The haughtiness and selfishness of the hierarchic spirit, the
exclusiveness, cruelty, and cunning tyranny of many of the ancient
priesthoods, are well known. Despising, hating, and fearing the
people, whom they held in abject spiritual bondage, they sought to
devise, diffuse, and organize such opinions as would concentrate
power in their own hands and rivet their authority. Accordingly,
in the lower immensity they painted and shadowed forth the lurid
and dusky image of hell, gathering around it all that was most
abominated and awful. Then they set up certain fanciful
conditions, without the strict observance of which no one could
avoid damnation. The animus of a priesthood in the structure of
this doctrine is shown by the glaring fact that in the old
religions the woes of hell were denounced not so much upon bad men
who committed crimes out of a wicked heart, as upon careless men
who neglected priestly guidance and violated the ritual. The
omission of a prayer or an ablution, the neglect of baptism or
confession, a slight thrown upon a priest, a mental conception
differing from the decree of the "Church," would condemn a man far
more surely and deeply into the Egyptian, Hindu, Persian,
Pharisaic, Papal, or Calvinistic hell than any amount of moral
culpability according to the standard of natural ethics.

1 See Pope's translation of the Viraf Nameh. Also the Dabistan,
vol. i. pp. 295-304, of the translation by Shea and Troyer; and
Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, chapter on the hells.


The popular hells have ever been built on hierarchic selfishness,
dogmatic pride, and personal cruelty, and have been walled around
with arbitrary and traditional rituals. Through the breaches made
in these rituals by neglect, souls have been plunged in. The
Parsee priest describes a woman in hell "beaten with stone clubs
by two demons twelve miles in size, and compelled to continue
eating a basin of putridity, because once some of her hair, as she
combed it, fell into the sacred fire." The Brahmanic priest tells
of a man who, for "neglecting to meditate on the mystic
monosyllable Om before praying, was thrown down in hell on an iron
floor and cleaved with an axe, then stirred in a caldron of molten
lead till covered all over with the sweated foam of torture like a
grain of rice in an oven, and then fastened, with head downwards
and feet upwards, to a chariot of fire and urged onwards with a
red hot goad." The Papal priest declares that the schismatic,
though the kindest and justest man, at death drops hopelessly into
hell, while the devotee, though scandalously corrupt in heart and
life, who confesses and receives extreme unction, treads the
primrose path to paradise. The Episcopalian priest dooms the
dissenter to everlasting woe in spite of every virtue, because he
has not known sacramental baptism in the apostolic line. The
Arminian priest turns the rationalist over to the penal fires of
eternity, because he is in mental error as to the explanation of
the Trinity and the Atonement. In every age it has been the
priestly spirit, acting on ritual considerations, that has
deepened the foundations, enlarged the borders, and apportioned
the victims, of hell. The perversions and excesses of the doctrine
have grown out of cruel ambition and cunning on one side, and been
received by docile ignorance and superstition on the other, and
been mutually fed by traditions and fables between. The excessive
vanity and theocratic pride of the Jews led them to exclude all
the Gentiles, whom they stigmatized as "uncircumcised dogs," from
the Jewish salvation. The same spirit, aggravated if possible,
passed lineally into Christendom, causing the Orthodox Church to
exclude all the heathen, all heretics, and the unbaptized, from
the Christian salvation.

A fifth explanation of the wholesale severity and multiplied
details of horror, which came to be incorporated with the doctrine
of hell, is to be found in the gloomy theories of certain
philosophers whose relentless speculations were tinged and moulded
by their own recluse misanthropy and the prevailing superstitions
of their time. Out of the old asceticism of the East the false
spiritualism which regarded matter as the source of evil and this
life as a penance arose the dogma of metempsychosis. The
consequence of this theory, rigidly carried out, created a
descending congeries of hells, reaching from centre to nadir, in
correspondence to an ascending congeries of heavens, reaching from
centre to zenith. Out of the myth of the Fall sprang the dogma of
total depravity, dooming our whole race to hell forever, except
those saved by the subsequent artifice of the atonement. Theories
conjured up and elaborated by fanciful and bloodless metaphysicians,
in an age when the milk of public human kindness was thinned,
soured, poisoned, by narrow and tyrannical prejudices, might
easily legitimate and establish any conclusions, however
unreasonable and monstrous. The history of philosophy is
the broad demonstration of this. The Church philosophers, (with
exceptions, of course,) receiving the traditions of the common
faith, partaking in the superstitions of their age, banished from
the bosoms of men by their monastic position, and inflamed with
hierarchic pride, with but a faint connection or intercourse
between conscience and intellect or between heart and fancy,
strove to spin out theories which would explain and justify the
orthodox dogmas.

Working with metaphysical tools of abstract reason, not with the
practical faculties of life, dealing with the fanciful materials
of priestly tradition, not with the solid facts of ethical
observation, they would naturally be troubled with but few qualms
and make but few reservations, however overwhelming the results of
horror at which they might arrive. Habituated for years to hair
drawn analyses and superstitious broodings upon the subject,
overshadowed by the supernatural hierarchy in which they lived,
surrounded by a thick night of ignorance, persecution, and
slaughter, it was no wonder they could believe the system they
preached, although in reality it was only a traditional
abstraction metaphysically wrought up and vivified by themselves.
Being thus wrought out and animated by them, who were the sole
depositaries of learning and the undisputed lords of thought, the
mass of the people, lying abjectly in the fetters of authority,
could not help accepting it. Ample illustrations of these
assertions will occur to all who are familiar with the theological
schemes and the dialectic subtleties of the early Church Fathers
and of the later Church Scholastics.

Finally, by the combined power, first, of natural conscience
affirming a future distinction between the good and the bad;
secondly, of imperfect conceptions of God as a passionate avenger;
thirdly, of the licentious fancies of poets drawing awful
imaginative pictures of future woe; fourthly, of the cruel spirit
and the ambitious plans of selfish priesthoods; and fifthly, of
the harsh and relentless theories of conforming metaphysicians,
the doctrine of hell, as a located place of manifold terrific
physical tortures drawing in vast majorities of the human race,
became established in the ruling creeds and enthroned as an
orthodox dogma. In some heathen nations the descriptions of the
poets, in others the accounts of the priestly books, were held to
be inspired revelations. To call them in question was blasphemous.
In Christendom the scriptural representations of the subject,
which were general moral adaptations, incidentally made, of
representations already existing, obtained a literal interpretation,
had the stamp of infallibility put on them and immense perverted
additions joined to them. Thus everywhere the dogma became
associated with the established authority. To deny it was heresy.
Heretics were excommunicated, loaded with pains and penalties,
and, for many centuries, often put to death with excruciating
tortures. From that moment the doctrine was taken out of
the province of natural reason, out of the realm of ethical
truth. The absurdities, wrongs, and barbarities deducible from it
were a part and parcel of it, and not to be considered as any
objection to it. No free thought and honest criticism were
allowed. Because taught by authority, it must be submissively
taken for granted. Henceforth we are not to wonder at the
revolting inhumanity of spirit and horribleness of gloating hatred
shown in connection with the doctrine; for it was not the
independent thought and proper moral spirit of individuals, but
the petrified dogma and irresponsible corporate spirit of that
towering hierarchy, the Church.

The Church set forth certain conditional offers of salvation. When
those offers were spurned or neglected, the Church felt personally
insulted and aggrieved. Her servants hurled on the hated heretics
and heathen the denunciations of bigotry and the threats of rage.
Rugged old Tertullian, in whose torrid veins the fire of his
African deserts seems infused, revels with infernal glee over the
contemplation of the sure damnation of the heathen. "At that
greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment," he
says, "how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when
I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of
darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than
they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage
philosophers blushing in red hot fires with their deluded pupils;
so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own
sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish than
ever before from applause."2 Hundreds of the most accredited
Christian writers have shown the same fiendish spirit. Drexel the
Jesuit, preaching of Dives, exclaims, "Instead of a lofty bed of
down on which he was wont to repose himself, he now lies frying in
the flames; his sparkling wine and delicious dainties are taken
from him; he is burnt up with thirst, and has nothing for his food
but smoke and sulphur." Jeremy Taylor3 says, in that discourse on
the "Pains of Hell" where he has lavished all the stores of his
matchless learning and all the wealth of his gorgeous imagination
in multiplying and adorning the paraphernalia of torture with
infinite accompaniments of unendurable pangs and insufferable
abominations, "We are amazed at the inhumanity of Phalaris, who
roasted men in his brazen bull: this was joy in respect of that
fire of hell which penetrates the very entrails without consuming
them;" "husbands shall see their wives, parents shall see their
children, tormented before their eyes;" "the bodies of the damned
shall be crowded together in hell like grapes in a wine press,
which press one another till they burst;" "every distinct sense
and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most
exquisite sufferings." Christopher Love belying his name says of
the damned, "Their cursings are their hymns, howlings their tunes,
and blasphemies their ditties." Calvin writes, "Forever harassed
with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder
by an angry God, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings,
terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of
his hand, so that to sink into any gulfs would be more tolerable
than to stand for a moment in these terrors." A living divine, Dr.
Gardiner Spring, declares, "When the omnipotent and angry God, who
has access to all the avenues of distress in the corporeal frame
and all the inlets to agony in the intellectual constitution,
undertakes to punish, he will convince the universe that he does
not gird himself for the work of retribution in vain;" "it will be
a glorious deed when He who hung on Calvary shall cast those who
have trodden his blood under their feet, into the furnace of fire,
where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Thousands of passages like these, and even worse, might easily be
collected from Christian authors, dating their utterance from the
days of St. Irenaus, Bishop of Lyons, who flamed against the
heretics, to the days of Nehemiah Adams, Congregational preacher
of Boston, who says, "It is to be feared the forty two children
that mocked Elisha are now in hell." 4 There is an unmerciful
animus in them, a vindictiveness of thought and feeling, far oh,
how far! removed from the meek and loving

2 De Spectaculis, cap. xxx., Gibbon's trans.

3 Contemplations of the State of Man, ch. 6 8.

4 Friends of Christ, p. 149.


soul of Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem, and loved the
"unevangelical" young lawyer who was "not far from the kingdom of
heaven," and yearned towards the penitent Peter, and from the
tenderness of his immaculate purity said to the adulteress,
"Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." There are some
sectarians in whom the arbitrary narrowness, fierceness, and
rigidity of their received creeds have so demoralized and hardened
conscience and sensibility in their native healthy directions, and
artificially inflamed them in diseased channels, that we verily
believe, if the decision of the eternal destiny of the human race
were placed in their hands, they would with scarcely a twinge of
pain perhaps some of them even with a horrid satisfaction and
triumph doom all except their own dogmatic coterie to hell. They
are bound to do so. They profess to know infallibly that God will
do so: if, therefore, the case being in their arbitration, they
would decide differently, they thereby impeach the action of God,
confess his decrees irreconcilable with reason and justice, and
set up their own goodness as superior to his. Burnet has preserved
the plea of Bloody Mary, which was in these words: "As the souls
of heretics are hereafter to be eternally burning in hell, there
can be nothing more proper than for me to imitate the Divine
vengeance by burning them on earth." Thanks be to the infinite
Father that our fate is in his hands, and not in the hands of men
who are bigots,

"Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God,
Who write down judgments with a pen hard nibb'd:
Ushers of Beelzebub's black rod,
Commending sinners, not to ice thick ribb'd,
But endless flames to scorch them up like flax,
Yet sure of heaven themselves, as if they'd cribb'd
The impression of St. Peter's keys in wax!"

It may be thought that this doctrine and its awful concomitants,
though once promulgated, are now nearly obsolete. It is true that,
in thinking minds and generous hearts, they are getting to be
repudiated. But by no means is it so in the recognised formularies
of the established Churches and in the teachings of the popular
clergy. All through the Gentile world, wherever there is a
prevailing religion, the threats and horrors of a fearful doctrine
of hell are still brandished over the trembling or careless
multitudes. In Christendom, the authoritative announcement of the
Roman and Greek Churches, and the public creeds confessed by every
communicant of all the denominations, save two or three which are
comparatively insignificant in numbers, show that the doctrine is
yet held without mitigation. The Bishop of Toronto, only a year or
two ago, published the authoritative declaration that "every child
of humanity, except the Virgin Mary, is from the first moment of
conception a child of wrath, hated by the blessed Trinity,
belonging to Satan, and doomed to hell!" Indeed, the doctrine, in
its whole naked and frightful extent, is necessarily, in strict
logic, an integral part of the great system of the popular
Christianity, that is, Christianity as falsely interpreted,
paganized, and scholasticized. For if by the sin of Adam the
entire race were totally depraved and condemned to a hopeless
hell, and only those can be saved who personally appropriate by a
realizing faith the benefits of the subsequent artifice carried
out in the atoning blood of the incarnate God, certainly the
extremist advocate of the doctrine concerning hell has not
exceeded the truth, and cannot exceed it. All the necessities of
logic rebuke the tame hearted theologians, and great Augustine's,
great Calvin's, ghost walks unapproached among them, crying out
that they are slow and inefficient in describing the enormous
sweep of the inherited penalty! Many persons who have not taken
pains to examine the subject suppose that the horrifying
descriptions given by Christian authors of the state and
sufferings of the lost were not intended to be literally received,
but were meant as figures of speech, highly wrought metaphors
calculated to alarm and impress with physical emblems corresponding
only to moral and spiritual realities. The progress of
thought and refinement has made it natural that recourse should
often be had to such an explanation; but unquestionably it is a
mistake. The annals of theology, both dogmatic and homiletic, from
the time of the earliest Fathers till now, abound in detailed
accounts of the future punishment of the wicked, whereof the
context, the train of thought, and all the intrinsic characteristics
of style and coherence, do not leave a shadow of doubt that they
were written as faithful, though inadequate, accounts of facts.
The Church, the immense bulk of Christendom, has in theory always
regarded hell and its dire concomitants as material facts,
and not as merely spiritual experiences.

Tertullian says, "The damned burn eternally without consuming, as
the volcanoes, which are vents from the stored subterranean fire
of hell, burn forever without wasting." 5 Cyprian declares that
"the wretched bodies of the condemned shall simmer and blaze in
those living fires." Augustine argues at great length and with
ingenious varieties of reasoning to show how the material bodies
of the damned may withstand annihilation in everlasting fire.6
Similar assertions, which cannot be figuratively explained, are
made by Irenaus, Jerome, Athanasius, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura,
Gerson, Bernard, and indeed by almost all the Christian writers.
Origen, who was a Platonist, and a heretic on many points, was
severely condemned for saying that the fire of hell was inward and
of the conscience, rather than outward and of the body. For the
strict materiality of the fire of hell we might adduce volumes of
authorities from nearly every province of the Church. Dr. Barrow
asserts that "our bodies will be afflicted continually by a
sulphurous flame, piercing the inmost sinews." John Whitaker
thinks "the bodies of the damned will be all salted with fire, so
tempered and prepared as to burn the more fiercely and yet never
consume." Jeremy Taylor teaches that "this temporal fire is but a
painted fire in respect of that penetrating and real fire in
hell." Jonathan Edwards soberly and believingly writes thus: "The
world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe
of fire, a vast ocean of fire, in which the wicked shall be
overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall
be tost to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves or
billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which
they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without:
their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet,
their loins, and their vitals shall forever be full of a glowing,
melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements;
and also they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively
sense

5 Apol. cap. 47-48.

6 De Civ. Dei, lib. xxi. cap. 2 4.


to feel the torments; not for one minute, nor for one day, nor for
one age, nor for two ages, nor for a hundred ages, nor for ten
thousands of millions of ages one after another, but for ever and
ever, without any end at all, and never, never be delivered." 7
Calvin says, "Iterum quaro, unde factum est, ut tot gentes una cum
liberis eorum infantibus aterna morti involveret lapsus Ada absque
remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visum est? Decretum horribile fateor."
8 Outraged humanity before the contemplation cries, "O God, horror
hath overwhelmed me, for thou art represented as an omnipotent
Fiend." It is not the Father of Christ, but his Antagonist, whose
face glares down over such a scene as that! The above diabolical
passage at the recital of which from the pulpit, Edwards's
biographers tell us, "whole congregations shuddered and
simultaneously rose to their feet, smiting their breasts, weeping
and groaning" is not the arbitrary exaggeration of an individual,
but a fair representation of the actual tenets and vividly held
faith of the Puritans. It is also, in all its uncompromising
literality, a direct and inevitable part of the system of doctrine
which, with insignificant exceptions, professedly prevails
throughout Christendom at this hour. We know most persons will
hesitate at this statement; but let them look at the logic of the
case in the light of its history, and they must admit the
correctness of the assertion. Weigh the following propositions,
the accuracy of which no one, we suppose, will question, and it
will appear at once that there is no possibility of avoiding the
conclusion.

First, it is the established doctrine of Christendom that no one
can be saved without a supernatural regeneration, or sincere faith
in the vicarious atonement, or valid reception of sacramental
grace at the hands of a priest, conditions which it is not
possible that one in a hundred thousand of the whole human race
has fulfilled. Secondly, it is the established doctrine of
Christendom that there will be a general day of judgment, when all
men will be raised in the same bodies which they originally
occupied on earth, when Christ and his angels will visibly descend
from heaven, separate the elect from the reprobate, summon the
sheep to the blissful pastures on the right hand, but "Proclaim
The flocks of goats to folds of flame."

The world is to be burnt up, and the damned, restored to their
bodies, are to be driven into the everlasting fire prepared for
them. The resurrection of the body, still held in all Christendom,
taken in connection with the rest of the associated scheme,
necessitates the belief in the materiality of the torments of
hell. That eminent living divine, Dr. Gardiner Spring, says, "The
souls of all who have died in their sins are in hell; and there
their bodies too will be after the resurrection." 9 Mr. Spurgeon
also, in his graphic and fearful sermon on the "Resurrection of
the Dead," uses the following language: "When thou diest, thy soul
will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it: but at the
day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt
have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body
suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on
earth thy body will lie,

7 Edwards's Works, vol. viii. p. 166.

8 Instit., lib. iii. cap. xxiii. sect. 7.

9 The Glory of Christ, vol. ii. p. 258.


asbestos like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the
feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil
shall forever play his diabolical tune of Hell's Unutterable
Lament!" And, if this doctrine be true, no ingenuity, however
fertile in expedients and however fiendish in cruelty, can
possibly devise emblems and paint pictures half terrific enough to
present in imagination and equal in moral impression what the
reality will be to the sufferers. It is easy to speak or hear the
word "hell;" but to analyze its significance and realize it in a
sensitive fancy is difficult; and whenever it is done the fruit is
madness, as the bedlams of the world are shrieking in testimony at
this instant. The Revivalist preachers, so far from exaggerating
the frightful contents latent in the prevalent dogma concerning
hell, have never been able and no man is able to do any thing like
justice to its legitimate deductions. Edwards is right in
declaring, "After we have said our utmost and thought our utmost,
all that we have said and thought is but a faint shadow of the
reality." Think of yourselves, seized, just as you are now, and
flung into the roaring, glowing furnace of eternity; think of such
torture for an instant, multiply it by infinity, and then say if
any words can convey the proper force of impression. It is true
these intolerable details are merely latent and unappreciated by
the multitude of believers; and when one, roused to fanaticism by
earnest contemplation of his creed, dares to proclaim its logical
consequences and to exhort men accordingly, they shrink, and
charge him with excess. But they should beware ere they repudiate
the literal horrors of the historic orthodox doctrine for any
figurative and moral views accommodated to the advanced reason and
refinement of the times, beware how such an abandonment of a part
of their system affects the rest.

Give up the material fire, and you lose the bodily resurrection.
Renounce the bodily resurrection, and away goes the visible coming
of Christ to a general judgment. Abandon the general judgment, and
the climacteric completion of the Church scheme of redemption is
wanting. Mar the wholeness of the redemption plan, and farewell to
the incarnation and vicarious atonement. Neglect the vicarious
atonement, and down crumbles the hollow and broken shell of the
popular theology helplessly into its grave. The old literal
doctrine of a material hell, however awful its idea, as it has
been set forth in flaming views and threats by all the accredited
representatives of the Church, must be uncompromisingly clung to,
else the whole popular system of theology will be mutilated,
shattered, and lost from sight. The theological leaders understand
this perfectly well, and for the most part they act accordingly.
We have now under our hand numerous extracts, from writings
published within the last five years by highly influential
dignitaries in the different denominations, which for frightfulness
of outline and coloring, and for unshrinking assertions of
literality, will compare with those already quoted.

Especially read the following description of this kind from John
Henry Newman: "Oh, terrible moment for the soul, when it suddenly
finds itself at the judgment seat of Christ, when the Judge speaks
and consigns it to the jailers till it shall pay the endless debt
which lies against it! 'Impossible! I a lost soul? I separated
from hope and from peace forever? It is not I of whom the Judge so
spake! There is a mistake somewhere; Christ, Savior, hold thy
hand: one minute to explain it! My name is Demas: I am but Demas,
not Judas, or Nicholas, or Alexander, or Philetus, or Diotrephes.
What! eternal pain for me? Impossible! it shall not be!' And the
poor soul struggles and wrestles in the grasp of the mighty demon
which has hold of it, and whose every touch is torment. 'Oh,
atrocious!' it shrieks, in agony, and in anger too, as if the
very keenness of the infliction were a proof of its injustice.
'A second! and a third! I can bear no more! Stop, horrible fiend!
give over: I am a man, and not such as thou! I am not food for
thee, or sport for thee! I have been taught religion; I have had
a conscience; I have a cultivated mind; I am well versed in science
and art; I am a philosopher, or a poet, or a shrewd observer of men,
or a hero, or a statesman, or an orator, or a man of wit and humor.
Nay, I have received the grace of the Redeemer; I have attended the
sacraments for years; I have been a Catholic from a child; I died
in communion with the Church: nothing, nothing which I have ever
been, which I have ever seen, bears any resemblance to thee, and
to the flame and stench which exhale from thee: so I defy thee,
and abjure thee, O enemy of man!'

"Alas! poor soul! and, whilst it thus fights with that destiny
which it has brought upon itself and those companions whom it has
chosen, the man's name perhaps is solemnly chanted forth, and his
memory decently cherished, among his friends on earth. Men talk of
him from time to time; they appeal to his authority; they quote
his words; perhaps they even raise a monument to his name, or
write his history. 'So comprehensive a mind! such a power of
throwing light on a perplexed subject and bringing conflicting
ideas or facts into harmony!' 'Such a speech it was that he made
on such and such an occasion: I happened to be present, and never
shall forget it;' or, 'A great personage, whom some of us knew;'
or, 'It was a rule with a very worthy and excellent friend of
mine, now no more;' or, 'Never was his equal in society, so just
in his remarks, so lively, so versatile, so unobtrusive;' or, 'So
great a benefactor to his country and to his kind;' or, 'His
philosophy so profound.' 'Oh, vanity! vanity of vanities! all is
vanity! What profiteth it? What profiteth it? His soul is in hell,
O ye children of men! While thus ye speak, his soul is in the
beginning of those torments in which his body will soon have part,
and which will never die!" 10

Some theologians do not hesitate, even now, to say that "in hell
the bodies of the damned shall be nealed, as we speak of glass, so
as to endure the fire without being annihilated thereby." "Made of
the nature of salamanders," they shall be "immortal kept to feel
immortal fire." Well may we take up the words of the Psalmist and
cry out of the bottomless depths of disgust and anguish, "I am
overwhelmed with horror!"

Holding this abhorrent mass of representations, so grossly carnal
and fearful, up in the free light of to day, it cannot stand the
test of honest and resolute inquiry. It exists only by timid,
unthinking sufferance. It is kept alive, among the superstitious
vestiges of the outworn and out grown past, only by the power of
tradition, authority, and custom. In refutation of it we shall not
present here a prolonged detail of learned researches and logical
processes; for that would be useless to those who are enslaved to
the foregone conclusions of a creed and possessed by invulnerable
prejudices, while those who are thoughtful and candid can make

10 Sermon on "Neglect of Divine Calls and warnings."


such investigations themselves. We shall merely state, in a few
clear and brief propositions, the results in which we suppose all
free and enlightened minds who have adequately studied the subject
now agree, leaving the reader to weigh these propositions for
himself, with such further examination as inclination and
opportunity may cause him to bestow upon the matter.

We reject the common belief of Christians in a hell which is a
local prison of fire where the wicked are to be tortured by
material instruments, on the following grounds, appealing to God
for the reverential sincerity of our convictions, and appealing to
reason for their truth. First, the supposition that hell is an
enormous region in the hollow of the earth is a remnant of ancient
ignorance, a fancy of poets who magnified the grave into Hades, a
thought of geographers who supposed the earth to be flat and
surrounded by a brazen expanse bright above and black beneath.
Secondly, the soul, on leaving the body, is a spiritual substance,
if it be any substance at all, eluding our senses and all the
instruments of science. Therefore, in the nature of things, it
cannot be chained in a dungeon, nor be cognizant of suffering from
material fire or other physical infliction, but its woes must be
moral and inward; and the figment that its former fleshly body is
to be restored to it is utterly incredible, being an absurdity in
science, and not affirmed, as we believe, in Scripture. Thirdly,
the imagery of a subterranean hell of fire, brimstone, and undying
worms, as used in the Scriptures of the New Testament, is the same
as that drawn from heathen sources with modifications and employed
by the Pharisees before the time of Christ and his disciples; and
we must therefore, since neither Persians nor Pharisees were
inspired, either suppose that this imagery was adopted by the
apostles figuratively to convey moral truths, or else that they
were left, in common with their countrymen, at least partially
under the dominion of the errors of their time. Thus in every
alternative we deny that the interior of the earth is, or ever
will be, an abode of souls, full of fire, a hell in which the
damned are to be confined and physically tormented.

The elements of the popular doctrine of future punishment which we
thus reject are the falsities contributed by superstition and the
priestly spirit. The truths remaining in the doctrine, furnished
by conscience, reason, and Scripture, we will next exhibit, in
order not to dismiss this head, on the nature of future
punishment, with negations. What is the real character of the
retributions in the future state? We do not think they are
necessarily connected with any peculiar locality or essentially
dependent on any external circumstances. As Milton says, when
speaking of the best theologians, "To banish forever into a local
hell, whether in the air, or in the centre, or in that uttermost
and bottomless gulf of chaos deeper from holy bliss than the
world's diameter multiplied, they thought not a punishment so
proper and proportionate for God to inflict as to punish sin with
sin."

God does not arbitrarily stretch forth his arm, like an enraged
and vindictive man, and take direct vengeance on offenders; but by
his immutable laws, permeating all beings and governing all
worlds, evil is, and brings, its own punishment. The intrinsic
substances and forces of character and their organized
correlations with the realities of eternity, the ruling
principles, habits, and love of the soul, as they stand affected
towards the world to which they go, these are the conditions on
which experience depends, herein is the hiding of retribution.
"Each one," as Origen says, "kindles the flame of his own
appropriate fire." Superior spirits must look on a corrupted human
soul with a sorrow similar, though infinitely profounder, to that
with which the lapidary contemplates a splendid pearl with a dark
flaw in its centre. The Koran says, "Men sleep while they live,
and when they die they wake." The sudden infliction of pain in the
future state comes from the sudden unveiling of secrets,
quickening of the moral consciousness, and exposure of the naked
soul's fitnesses to the spiritual correspondences of its deserts.
It is said,  "Death does Away disguise: souls see each other
clear, At one glance, as two drops of rain in air Might look into
each other had they life."

The quality of the soul's character decides the elements of the
soul's life; and, as this becomes known on crossing the death
drawn line of futurity, conscious retribution then arises in the
guilty. This is a retribution which is reasonable, moral,
unavoidable, before which we may well pause and tremble. The great
moral of it is that we should not so much dread being thrust into
an eternal hell as we should fear carrying a hell with us when we
go into eternity. It is not so bad to be in hell as to be forced
truly to say, "Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell."

If these general ideas are correct, it follows even as all common
sense and reflection affirm that every real preparation for death
and for what is to succeed must be an ingrained characteristic,
and cannot consist in a mere opinion, mood, or act. Here we strike
at one of the shallowest errors, one of the most extensive and
rooted superstitions, of the world. Throughout the immense
kingdoms of the East, where the Brahmanic and Buddhist religions
hold sway over six hundred millions of men, the notion of
yadasanna that is, the merit instantaneously obtained when at the
point of death fully prevails. They suppose that in that moment,
regardless of their former lives and of their present characters,
by bringing the mind and the heart into certain momentary states
of thought and feeling, and meditating on certain objects or
repeating certain sacred words, they can suddenly obtain exemption
from punishment in their next life.11 The notion likewise obtains
almost universally among Christians, incredible as it may seem.
With the Romanists, who are three fourths of the Christian world,
it is a most prominent doctrine, everywhere vehemently proclaimed
and acted on: that is the meaning of the sacrament of extreme
unction, whereby, on submission to the Church and confession to a
priest, the venal sins of the dying man are forgiven, purgatory
avoided or lessened, and heaven made sure. The ghost of the King
of Denmark complains most of the unwarned suddenness of his
murder, not of the murder itself, but of its suddenness, which
left him no opportunity to save his soul: "Sleeping, was I by a
brother's hand Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

11 Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 489.


Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to
my account With all my imperfections on my head."

Hamlet, urged by supernatural solicitings to vengeance, finds his
murderous uncle on his knees at prayer. Stealing behind him with
drawn sword, he is about to strike the fatal blow, when the
thought occurs to him that the guilty man, if killed when at his
devotions, would surely go to heaven; and so he refrains until a
different opportunity. For to send to heaven the villain who had
slain his father,

"That would be hire and salary, not revenge. He took my father
grossly full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush
as May; And how his audit stands who knows save Heaven? But, in
our circumstance and course of thought, 'Tie heavy with him. And
am I then revenged To take him in the purging of his soul, When he
is fit and season'd for his passage? No; but when he is drunk,
asleep, enraged, Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed, At
gaming, swearing, or about some act That has no relish of
salvation in't: Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black As hell, whereto it
goes."

This, though poetry, is a fair representation of the mediaval
faith held by all Christendom in sober prose. The same train of
thought latently underlies the feelings of most Protestants too,
though it is true any one would now shrink from expressing it with
such frankness and horrible gusto. But what else means the minute
morbid anatomy of death beds, the prurient curiosity to know how
the dying one bore himself in the solemn passage? How commonly, if
one dies without physical anguish, and with the artificial
exultations of a fanatic, rejoiceful auguries are drawn! if he
dies in physical suffering, and with apparent regret, a gloomy
verdict is rendered! It is superstition, absurdity, and injustice,
all. Not the accidental physical conditions, not the transient
emotions, with which one passes from the earth, can decide his
fate, but the real good or evil of his soul, the genuine fitness
or unfitness of his soul, his soul's inherent merits of bliss or
bale. There is no time nor power in the instant of death, by any
magical legerdemain, to turn away the impending retributions of
wickedness and guilt. What is right, within the conditions of
Infinite wisdom and goodness, will be done in spite of all
traditional juggles and spasmodic spiritual attitudinizations.
What can it avail that a most vile and hardened wretch, when
dying, convulsed with fright and possessed with superstition,
compels, or strives to compel, a certain sentiment into his soul,
conjures, or tries to conjure, his mind into the relation of
belief towards a certain ancient and abstract dogma?

"Yet I've seen men who meant not ill, Compelling doctrine out of
death, With hell and heaven acutely poised Upon the turning of a
breath."

Cruelly racking the soul with useless probes of theological
questions and statements, they stand by the dying to catch the
words of his last breath, and, in perfect consistence with their
faith, they pronounce sentence accordingly. If, as the pallid lips
faintly close, they hear the magic words, "I put my trust in the
atoning blood of Christ," up goes the soul to heaven. If they hear
the less stereotyped words, "I have tried to do as well as I
could: I hope God will be merciful towards me and receive me,"
down goes the soul to hell. Strange and cruel superstition, that
imagines God to act towards men only according to the evanescent
temper and technical phrase with which they leave the world! The
most popular English preacher of the present day, the Rev. Mr.
Spurgeon, after referring to the fable that those before whom
Perseus held the head of Medusa were turned into stone in the very
act and posture of the moment when they saw it, says, "Death is
such a power. What I am when death is held before me, that I must
be forever. When my spirit goes, if God finds me hymning his
praise, I shall hymn it in heaven: doth he find me breathing out
oaths, I shall follow up those oaths in hell. As I die, so shall I
live eternally!" 12

No: the true preparation for death and the invisible realm of
souls is not the eager adoption of an opinion, the hurried
assumption of a mood, or the frightened performance of an outward
act: it is the patient culture of the mind with truth, the pious
purification of the heart with disinterested love, the consecrated
training of the life in holiness, the growth of the soul in habits
of righteousness, faith, and charity, the organization of divine
principles into character. Every real preparation of the soul for
death must be a characteristic rightly related to the immortal
realities to which death is the introduction of the soul. An evil
soul is not thrust into a physical and fiery hell, fenced in and
roofed over from the universal common; but it is revealed to
itself, and consciously enters on retributive relations. In the
spiritual world, whither all go at death, we suppose that like
perceives like, and thus are they saved or damned, having, by the
natural attraction and elective seeing of their virtues or vices,
the beatific vision of God, or the horrid vision of iniquity and
terror.

It cannot be supposed that God is a bounded shape so vast as to
fill the entire circuits of the creation. Spirit transcends the
categories of body, and it is absurd to apply the language of
finite things to the illimitable One, except symbolically. When we
die, we do not sink or soar to the realm of spirits, but are in
it, at once, everywhere; and the resulting experience will depend
on the prevailing elements of our moral being. If we are bad, our
badness is our banishment from God; if we are good, our goodness
is our union with God. In every world the true nature and law of
retribution lie in the recoil of conduct on character, and the
assimilated results ensuing. Take a soul that is saturated with
the rottenness of depravity into the core of heaven, and it is in
the heart of hell still. Take a soul that is compacted of divine

12 Sermons, 3d Series. Sermon XIV., Thoughts on the Last Battle.


realities to the very bottom of hell, and heaven is with it there.

We are treading on eternity, and infinitude is all around us. Now,
as well as hereafter, to us, the universe is action, the soul is
reaction, experience is the resultant. Death but unveils the
facts. Pass that great crisis, in the passage becoming conscious
of universal realities and of individual relations to them, and
the Father will say to the discordant soul, "Alienated one,
incapable of my embrace, change and come to me;" to the harmonious
soul, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine."

Having thus considered the question as to the nature of future
punishments, it now remains to discuss the question concerning
their duration. The fact of a just and varied punishment for souls
we firmly believe in. The particulars of it in the future, or the
degrees of its continuance, we think, are concealed from the
present knowledge of man. These details we do not profess to be
able to settle much about. We have but three general convictions
on the subject. First, that these punishments will be experienced
in accordance with those righteous and inmost laws which
indestructibly express the mind of God and rule the universe, and
will not be vindictively inflicted through arbitrary external
penalties. Secondly, that they will be accurately tempered to the
just deserts and qualifications of the individual sufferers. And
thirdly, that they will be alleviated, remedial, and limited, not
unmitigated, hopeless, and endless.

Upon the first of these thoughts perhaps enough has already been
said, and the second and third may be discussed together. Our
business, therefore, in the remainder of this dissertation, is to
disprove, if truth in the hands of reason and conscience will
enable us to disprove, the popular dogma which asserts that the
state of the condemned departed is a state of complete damnation
absolutely eternal. Against that form of representing future
punishment which makes it unlimited by conceiving the destiny of
the soul to be an eternal progress, in which their initiative
steps of good or evil in this life place different souls under
advantages or disadvantages never relatively to be lost, we have
nothing to object. It is reasonable, in unison with natural law,
and not frightful.13 But we are to deal, if we fairly can, a
refutation against the doctrine of an intense endless misery for
the wicked, as that doctrine is prevailingly taught and received.

The advocates of eternal damnation primarily plant themselves upon
the Christian Scriptures, and say that there the voice of an
infallible inspiration from heaven asserts it. First of all, let
us examine this ground, and see if they do not stand there only
upon erroneous premises sustained by prejudices. In the beginning,
then, we submit to candid minds that, if the literal eternity of
future torment be proclaimed in the New Testament, it is not a
part of the revelation contained in that volume; it is not a truth
revealed by inspiration; and that we maintain for this reason. The
same representations of the everlasting duration of future
punishment in hell, the same expressions for an unlimited
duration, which occur in the New Testament, were previously
employed by the Hindus, Greeks, and Pharisees, who were not
inspired, but must have drawn the doctrine from fallible sources.
Now, to say the least, it is as reasonable to suppose that these
expressions, when found in the New Testament, were

13 Lessing, Ueber Leibnitz von den Ewigen Strafen.


employed by the Saviour and the evangelists in conformity with the
prevailing thought and customary phraseology of their time, as to
conclude that they were derived from an unerring inspiration. The
former is a natural and reasonable inference; the latter is a
gratuitous hypothesis for which we have never heard of any
evidence. If its advocates will honestly attempt really to prove
it, we are convinced they will be forced to renounce it. The only
way they continue to hold it is by taking it for granted. If,
therefore, the strict eternity of future woe be declared in the
New Testament, we regard it not as a part of the inspired
utterance of Jesus, but as an error which crept in among others
from the surrounding notions of a benighted pagan age.

But, in the next place, we do not admit by any means that the
literal eternity of future damnation is taught in the Scriptures.
On the contrary, we deny such an assertion, for several reasons.
First, we argue from the usage of language before the New
Testament was written. The Egyptians, Hindus, Greeks, often make
most emphatic use of phrases declaring the eternal sufferings of
the wicked in hell; but they must have meant by "eternal" only a
very long time, because a fundamental portion of the great system
of thought on which their religions rested was the idea of
recurring epochs, sundered by immense periods statedly arriving,
when all things were restored, the hells and heavens vanished
away, and God was all in all. If the representations of the
eternal punishment of the wicked, made before the New Testament
was written, were not significant, with metaphysical severity, of
an eternity of duration, but only, with popular looseness, of an
extremely long period, the same may be true of the similar
expressions found in that record.

Secondly, we argue from the usage of language in and after the New
Testament age. The critics have collected, as any one desirous may
easily find, and as every theological scholar well knows, scores
of instances from the writings of authors contemporary with Christ
and his apostles, and succeeding them, where the Greek word for
"eternal" is used popularly, not strictly, in a rhetorical, not in
a philosophical, sense, not denoting a duration literally endless,
but one very prolonged. In all Greek literature the word is
undoubtedly used in a careless and qualified sense at least a
hundred times where it is used once with its close etymological
force. And the same is true of the corresponding Hebrew term. The
writer of the "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs," at the close
of every chapter, describing the respective patriarch's death,
says, "he slept the eternal sleep," though by "eternal" he can
only mean a duration reaching to the time of the resurrection, as
plainly appears from the context. Iamblichus speaks of "an eternal
eternity of eternities."14 Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, and
others, the fact of whose belief in final universal salvation no
one pretends to deny, do not hesitate with earnestness and
frequency to affirm the "eternal" punishment of the wicked in
hell. Now, if the contemporaries of the evangelists, and their
successors, often used the word "eternal" popularly, in a
figurative, limited sense, then it may be so employed when it
occurs in the New Testament in connection with the future pains of
the bad.

Thirdly, we argue from the phraseology and other peculiarities of
the representation of the future woe of the condemned, given in
the New Testament itself, that its authors

14 De Mysteriis Egyptiorum, cap. viii. sect. 10.


did not consciously intend to proclaim the rigid endlessness of
that woe.15 "These shall go away into everlasting punishment."
Since the word "everlasting" was often used simply to denote a
long period, what right has any one to declare that here it must
mean an absolutely unending duration? How does any one know that
the mind of Jesus dialectically grasped the metaphysical notion of
eternity and deliberately intended to express it? Certainly the
intrinsic probabilities are all the other way. Such a conclusion
is hardly compatible with the highly tropical style of speech
employed throughout the discourse. Besides, had he wished to
convey the overwhelming idea that the doom of the guilty would be
strictly irremediable, their anguish literally infinite, would he
not have taken pains to say so in definite, guarded, explained,
unmistakable terms? He might easily, by a precise prosaic
utterance, by explanatory circumlocutions, have placed that
thought beyond possibility of mistake.

Fourthly, we have an intense conviction not only that the leaving
of such a doctrine by the Savior in impenetrable obscurity and
uncertainty is irreconcilable with the supposition of his
deliberately holding it in his belief, but also that a belief in
the doctrine itself is utterly irreconcilable with the very
essentials of his teachings and spirit, his inmost convictions and
life. He taught the infinite and unchangeable goodness of God:
confront the doctrine of endless misery with the parable of the
prodigal son. He taught the doctrine of unconquerable forgiveness,
without apparent qualification: bring together the doctrine of
never relenting punishment and his petition on the cross, "Father,
forgive them." He taught that at the great judgment heaven or hell
would be allotted to men according to their lives; and the notion
of endless torment does not rest on the demerit of sinful deeds,
which is the standard of judgment that he holds up, but on
conceptions concerning a totally depraved nature, a God inflamed
with wrath, a vicarious atonement rejected, or some other ethnic
tradition or ritual consideration equally foreign to his mind and
hostile to his heart.

Fifthly, if we reason on the popular belief that the letter of
Scripture teaches only unerring truth, we have the strongest
argument of all against the eternal hopelessness of future
punishment. The doctrine of Christ's descent to hell underlies the
New Testament. We are told that after his death "he went and
preached to the spirits in prison." And again we read that "the
gospel was preached also to them that are dead." This New
Testament idea was unquestionably a vital and important feature in
the apostolic and in the early Christian belief. It necessarily
implies that there is probation, and that there may be salvation,
after death. It is fatal to the horrid dogma which commands all
who enter hell to abandon every gleam of hope, utterly and
forever. The symbolic force of the doctrine of Christ's descent
and preaching in hell is this, as Guder says in his "Appearance of
Christ among the Dead,"  that the deepest and most horrible depth
of damnation is not too deep and horrible for the pitying love
which wishes to save the lost: even into the veriest depth of hell
reaches down the love of God, and his beatific call sounds to the
most distant distances. There is no outermost darkness to which
his heavenly and all conquering light cannot shine. The book which
teaches that Christ went even into hell itself, to seek and to
save that which was lost,

15 Corrodi, Ueber die Ewigkeit der Hollenetrafen. In den Beitragen
zur Beforderung des Vernunft. Denk. n. s. w. heft vii. ss. 41-72.


does not teach that from the instant of death the fate of the
wicked is irredeemably fixed.

Upon the whole, then, we reach the clear conclusion that the
Christian Scriptures do not really declare the hopeless eternity
of future punishment.16 They speak popularly, not scientifically,
speak in metaphors which cannot be analyzed and reduced to
metaphysical precision. The subject is left with fearful warnings
in an impressive obscurity. There we must either leave it, in awe
and faith, undecided; or, if not content to do that, we must
examine and decide it on other grounds than those of traditional
authority, and with other instruments than those of textual
interpretation.

Let us next sift and weigh the arguments from reason by which the
dogma of the eternity of future misery is respectively defended
and assailed. The advocates of it have sought to support it by
four positions, which are such entire assumptions that only a word
will be requisite to expose each of them to logical rejection.
First, it is said that sin is infinite and deserves an infinite
penalty because it is an outrage against an infinite being.17 A
more absurd perversion of logic than this, a more glaring
violation of common sense, was never perpetrated. It directly
reverses the facts and subverts the legitimate inference. Is the
sin measured by the dignity of the lawgiver, or by the
responsibility of the law breaker? Does justice heed the wrath of
the offended, or the guilt of the offender? As well say that the
eye of man is infinite because it looks out into infinite space,
as affirm that his sin is infinite because committed against an
infinite God. That man is finite, and all his acts finite, and
consequently not in justice to be punished infinitely, is a plain
statement of fact which compels assent. All else is empty
quibbling, scholastic jugglery. The ridiculousness of the argument
is amusingly apparent as presented thus in an old Miracle Play,
wherein Justice is made to tell Mercy "That man, havinge offended
God who is endlesse, His endlesse punchement therefore may nevyr
seese."

The second device brought forward to sustain the doctrine in
question is more ingenious, but equally arbitrary. It is based on
the foreknowledge of God. He foresaw that the wicked, if allowed
to live on earth immortally in freedom, would go on forever in a
course of constant sin. They were therefore constructively guilty
of all the sin which they would have committed; but he saved the
world the ravages of their actual crimes by hurling them into hell
beneath the endless penalty of their latent infinite guilt. In
reply to those who argue thus, it is obvious to ask, whence did
they learn all this? There is no such scheme drawn up or hinted in
Scripture; and surely it is not within the possible discoveries of
reason. Plainly, it is not a known premise legitimating a result,
not a sound argument proving a conclusion: it is merely a conceit,
devised to explain and fortify a theory already embraced from
other considerations. It is an imaginative hypothesis without
confirmation.

16 Bretschneider, in his Systematische Entwickelung aller in der
Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe, gives the literature of this
subject in a list of thirty six distinct works. Sect. 139, Ewig
keit der Hollenstrafen.

17 Thomas Aquinas, Summa, pars iii. suppl. qu. 99, art. 1.


Thirdly, it has been said that future punishment will be endless
because sin will be so. The evil soul, growing ever more evil,
getting its habits of vice and passions of iniquity more deeply
infixed, and surrounded in the infernal realm with all the
incentives to wickedness, will become confirmed in depravity
beyond all power of cure, and, sinning forever, be necessarily
damned and tortured forever. The same objection holds to this
argument as to the former. Its premises are daring assumptions
beyond the province of our knowledge. They are assumptions, too,
contrary to analogy, probability, the highest laws of humanity,
and the goodness of God. Without freedom of will there cannot be
sin; and those who retain moral freedom may reform, cease to do
evil and learn to do good. There are invitations and opportunities
to change from evil to good here: why not hereafter? The will is
free now: what shall suddenly paralyze or annihilate that freedom
when the soul leaves the body? Why may not such amazing
revelations be made, such regenerating motives be brought to bear,
in the spiritual world, as will soften the hardest, convince the
stubbornest, and, sooner or later, transform and redeem the worst?
It is true the law of sinful habit is dark and fearful; but it is
frequently neutralized. The argument as the support of a positive
dogma is void because itself only hypothetical.

Some have tried to prove eternal condemnation by an assumed
necessity of moral gravitation. There is a great deal of loose and
hasty talk afloat about the law of affinities distributing souls
hereafter in fitted companies. Similar characters will
spontaneously come together. The same qualities and grades of
sympathy will coalesce, the unlike will fly apart. And so all
future existence will be arranged in circles of dead equality on
stagnant levels of everlasting hopelessness of change. The law of
spiritual attraction is no such force as that, produces no such
results. It is broken up by contrasts, changes, multiplicity of
other interacting forces. We are not only drawn by affinity to
those like ourselves, but often still more powerfully, with
rebuking and redeeming effect, to those above us that we may
become like them, to those beneath us that we may pity and help
them. The law of affinity is not in moral beings a simple force
necessitating an endless uniformity of state, but a complex of
forces, sometimes mingling the unlike by stimulants of wedded
similarity and contrast to bless and advance all, now punishing,
now rewarding, but ever finally intended to redeem. Reasoning by
sound analogy, the heavens and hells of the future state are not
monotonous circles each filled with mutually reflecting
personalities, but one fenceless spiritual world of distinctive,
ever varying degrees, sympathetic and contrasted life, circulating
freshness, variety of attractions and repulsions, divine
advancement.

Finally, it is maintained by many that endless misery is the fate
of the reprobate because such is the sovereign pleasure of God.
This is no argument, but a desperate assertion. It virtually
confesses that the doctrine cannot be defended by reason, but is
to be thrown into the province of wilful faith. A host of gloomy
theologians have taken this ground as the forlorn hope of their
belief. The damned are eternally lost because that is the
arbitrary decree of God. Those who thus abandon reason for
dogmatic authority and trample on logic with mere reiterated
assertion can only be met with the flat denial, such is not the
arbitrary pleasure of God. Then, as far as argument is concerned,
the controversy ends where it began.

These four hypotheses include all the attempted justifications of
the doctrine of eternal misery that we have ever seen offered from
the stand point of independent thought. We submit that, considered
as proofs, they are utterly sophistical.

There are three great arguments in refutation of the endlessness
of future punishment, as that doctrine is commonly held. The first
argument is ethical, drawn from the laws of right; the second is
theological, drawn from the attributes of God; the third is
experimental, drawn from the principles of human nature. We shall
subdivide these and consider them successively.

In the first place, we maintain that the popular doctrine of
eternal punishment is unjust, because it overlooks the differences
in the sins of men, launching on all whom it embraces one infinite
penalty of undiscriminating damnation. The consistent advocates of
the doctrine, the boldest creeds, unflinchingly avow this, and
defend it by the plea that every sin, however trivial, is equally
an offence against the law of the infinite God with the most
terrible crime, and equally merits an infinite punishment. Thus,
by a metaphysical quibble, the very basis of morals is overturned,
and the child guilty of an equivocation through fear is put on a
level with the pirate guilty of robbery and murder through cold
blooded avarice and hate. In a hell where all are plunged in
physical fire for eternity there are no degrees of retribution,
though the degrees of evil and demerit are as numerous and various
as the individuals. The Scriptures say, "Every man shall receive
according to the deeds done in the body:" some "shall be beaten
with many stripes," others "with few stripes."

The first principle of justice exact discrimination of judgment
according to deeds and character is monstrously violated and all
differences blotted out by the common dogma of hell. A better
thought is shown in the old Persian legend which tells that God
once permitted Zoroaster to accompany him on a visit to hell. The
prophet saw many in grievous torments. Among the rest, he saw one
who was deprived of his right foot. Asking the meaning of this,
God replied, "Yonder sufferer was a king who in his whole life did
but one kind action. Passing once near a dromedary which, tied up
in a state of starvation, was vainly striving to reach some
provender placed just beyond its utmost effort, the king with his
right foot compassionately kicked the fodder within the poor
beast's reach. That foot I placed in heaven: the rest of him is
here." 18

Again: there is the grossest injustice in the first assumption or
fundamental ground on which the theory we are opposing rests. That
theory does not teach that men are actually damned eternally on
account of their own personal sins, but on account of original
sin: the eternal tortures of hell are the transmitted penalty
hurled on all the descendants of Adam, save those who in some way
avoid it, in consequence of his primal transgression. Language
cannot characterize with too much severity, as it seems to us, the
injustice, the immorality, involved in this scheme. The belief in
a sin, called "original," entailed by one act of one person upon a
whole immortal race of countless millions, dooming vast majorities
of them helplessly to a hopeless torture prison, can rest only on
a sleep of reason and a delirium of

18 Wilson's ed. of Mill's Hist. of British India, vol. i. p. 429,
note.


conscience. Such a "sin" is no sin at all; and any penalty
inflicted on it would not be the necessary severity of a holy God,
but a species of gratuitous vengeance. For sin, by the very
essence of ethics, is the free, intelligent, wilful violation of a
law known to be right; and every punishment, in order to be just,
must be the suffering deserved by the intentional fault, the
personal evil, of the culprit himself. The doctrine before us
reverses all this, and sends untold myriads to hell forever for no
other sin than that of simply having been born children of
humanity. Born totally depraved, hateful to God, helpless through
an irresistible proclivity to sin and an ineradicable aversion to
evangelical truth, and asked to save themselves, asked by a
mockery like that of fettering men hand and foot, clothing them in
leaden straitjackets, and then flinging them overboard, telling
them not to drown! What justice, what justice, is here in this?

Thirdly, the profound injustice of this doctrine is seen in its
making the alternative of so unutterably awful a doom hinge upon
such trivial particulars and upon merely fortuitous circumstances.
One is born of pious, orthodox parents, another of heretics or
infidels: with no difference of merit due to them, one goes to
heaven, the other goes to hell. One happens to form a friendship
with an evangelical believer, another is influenced by a
rationalist companion: the same fearful diversity of fate ensues.
One is converted by a single sermon: if he had been ill that day,
or had been detained from church by any other cause, his fated bed
would have been made in hell, heaven closed against him forever.
One says, "I believe in the Trinity of God, in the Deity of
Christ;" and, dying, he goes to heaven. Another says, "I believe
in the Unity of God and in the humanity of Christ:" he, dying,
goes to hell. Of two children snatched away by disease when twenty
four hours old, one has been baptized, the other not: the angels
of heaven welcome that, the demons of hell clutch this. The
doctrine of infant damnation, intolerably painful as it is, has
been proclaimed thousands of times by authoritative teachers and
by large parties in the Church, and is a logical sequence from the
popular theology. It is not a great many years since people heard,
it is said, the celebrated statement that "hell is paved with the
skulls of infants not a span long!" Think of the everlasting bliss
or misery of a helpless infant depending on the petty accident of
whether it was baptized or not! There are hypothetical cases like
the following: If one man had died a year earlier, when he was a
saint, he would not have fallen from grace, and renounced his
faith, and rolled in crimes, and sunk to hell. If another had
lived a year later, he would have been smitten with conviction,
and would have repented, and made his peace, and gone to heaven.
To the everlasting loss of each, an eternity of bliss against an
eternity of woe hung fatally poised on the time appointed for him
to die. Oh how the bigoted pride, the exclusive dogmatism of self
styled saints, self flatterers equally satisfied of their own
election and of the rejection of almost everybody else, ought to
sink and fade when they reflect on the slight chances, mere
chances of time and place, by which the infinite contingency has
been, or is to be, decided! They should heed the impregnable good
sense and logic conveyed in the humane hearted poet's satirical
humor when he advises such persons to

"Consider well, before, like Hurlothrumbo,
They aim their clubs at any creed on earth,
That by the simple accident of birth
They might have been high priests to Mumbo Jumbo."

It is evidently but the rankest mockery of justice to suspend an
infinite woe upon an accident out of the power of the party
concerned.

Still further: there is a tremendous injustice even in that form
of the doctrine of endless punishment, the most favorable of all,
which says that no one is absolutely foreordained to hell, but
that all are free, and that life is a fixed season of probation
wherein the means of salvation are offered to all, and if they
neglect or spurn them the fault is their own, and eternal pain
their merited portion. The perfectly apparent inconsistency of
this theory with known facts is fatal to it, since out of every
generation there are millions on millions of infants, idiots,
maniacs, heathen, within whose hearing or power the means of
salvation by a personal appropriation of the atoning merit of
Christ's blood were never brought; so that life to them is no
scene of Christian probation. But, waiving that, the probation is
not a fair one to anybody. If the indescribable horror of an
eternal damnation be the consequence that follows a certain course
while we are on trial in this life, then a knowledge of that fact
in all its bearings ought to be given us, clear, explicit, beyond
any possibility of mistake or doubt. Otherwise the probation is
not fair. To place men in the world, as millions are constantly
placed, beset by allurements of every sort within and without, led
astray by false teachings and evil examples, exposed in ignorance,
bewildered with uncertainties of conflicting doubts and surmises,
either never hearing of the way of salvation at all, or hearing of
it only in terms that seem absurd in themselves and unaccompanied
by sufficient, if by any, proof, and then, if under these fearful
hazards they waver from strict purity of heart, rectitude of
conduct, or orthodoxy of belief, to condemn them to a world of
everlasting agony, would be the very climax of cruelty, with no
touch of mercy or color of right.

Beneath such a rule the universe should be shrouded in the
blackness of despair, and God be thought of with a convulsive
shudder. Such a "probation" would be only like that on which the
Inquisitors put their victims who were studiously kept ignorant in
their dungeons, waiting for the rack and the flame to be made
ready. Few persons will deny that, as the facts now are, a good,
intelligent, candid man may doubt the reality of an endless
punishment awaiting men in hell. But if the doctrine be true, and
he is on probation under it, is it fair that he should be left
honestly in ignorance or doubt about it? No: if it be true, it
ought to be burned into his brain and crushed into his soul with
such terrific vividness and abiding constancy of impression as
would deter him ever from the wrong path, keep him in the right. A
distinguished writer has represented a condemned delinquent,
suffering on, and still interminably on, in hell, thus complaining
of the unfairness of his probation: "Oh, had it been possible for
me to conceive even the most diminutive part of the weight and
horror of this doom, I should have shrunk from every temptation to
sin, with the most violent recoil."19

19 John Foster, Letter on the Eternity of Future Punishments.

If an endless hell is to be the lot of the sinner, he ought to
have an infallible certainty of it, with all possible helps and
incentives to avoid it. Such is not the case; and therefore, since
God is just and generous, the doctrine is not true.

Finally, the injustice of the dogma of everlasting punishment is
most emphatically shown by the fact that there is no sort of
correspondence or possible proportion between the offence and the
penalty, between the moment of sinning life and the eternity of
suffering death. If a child were told to hold its breath thirty
seconds, and, failing to do it, should be confined in a dark
solitary dungeon for seventy years amidst loathsome horrors and
speechless afflictions, and be frightfully scourged six times a
day for that entire period, there would be just proportion nay, an
inexpressibly merciful proportion between the offence and the
punishment, in comparison with that which, being an absolutely
infinite disproportion, does not really admit of any comparison,
the sentence to an eternal abode in hell as a penalty for the
worst kind and the greatest amount of crime a man could possibly
crowd into a life of a thousand years. Think, then, of passing
such a sentence on one who has struggled hard against temptation,
and yielded but rarely, and suffered much, and striven to do as
well as he could, and borne up courageously, with generous
resolves and affections, and died commending his soul to God in
hope.

"Fearfully fleet is this life," says one, "and yet in it eternal
life is lost or won: profoundly wretched is this life, yet in it
eternal bliss is lost or won." Weigh the words adequately, and say
how improbable is the thought, and how terribly unjust. Perhaps
there have already lived upon this earth, and died, and passed
into the invisible world, two hundred thousand millions of men,
the everlasting doom of every one of whom, it is imagined, was
fixed unalterably during the momentary period of his mortal
transit from cradle to grave. In respect of eternity, six thousand
years and this duration must be reduced to threescore years and
ten, since that is all that each generation enjoyed is the same as
one hour. Suppose, now, that all these two hundred thousand
millions of men were called into being at once; that they were
placed on probation for one hour; that the result of their choice
and action in that hour was to decide their irrevocable fate,
actually forever, to ecstatic bliss or to ecstatic woe; that
during that hour they were left, as far as clear and stable
conviction goes, in utter ignorance and uncertainty as to the
great realities of their condition, courted by opposing theories
and modes of action; and that, when the clock of time knelled the
close of that awful, that most evanescent hour, the roaring gulf
of torture yawned, and its jaws of flame and blackness closed over
ninety nine hundredths of them for eternity! That is a fair
picture of the popular doctrine of temporal probation and eternal
punishment, when examined in the light of the facts of human life.
Of course, no man at this day, who is in his senses and thinks
honestly upon the subject, can credit such a doctrine, unless
indeed he believes that a lawless fiend sits on the throne of the
universe and guides the helm of destiny. And lives there a man of
unperverted soul who would not decidedly prefer to have no God
rather than to have such a one? Ay, "Rather than so, come FATE
into the list And champion us to the utterance."

Let us be atheists, and bow to mortal Chance, believe there is no
pilot at all at the rudder of Creation's vessel, no channel before
the prow, but the roaring breakers of despair to right and left,
and the granite bluff of annihilation full in front!

In the next place, then, we argue against the doctrine of eternal
damnation that it is incompatible with any worthy idea of the
character of God. God is love; and love cannot consent to the
useless torture of millions of helpless souls for eternity. The
gross contradiction of the common doctrine of hell to the spirit
of love is so obvious that its advocates, unable to deny or
conceal it, have often positively proclaimed it, avowing that, in
respect to the wicked, God is changed into a consuming fire full
of hatred and vengeance. But that is unmitigated blasphemy. God is
unchangeable, his very nature being disinterested, immutable
goodness. The sufferings of the wicked are of their own
preparation. If a pestilential exhalation is drawn from some
decaying substance, it is not the fault of any alteration in the
sunlight. But a Christian writer assures us that when "the damned
are packed like brick in a kiln, so bound that they cannot move a
limb nor even an eyelid, God shall blow the fires of hell through
them for ever and ever."

And another writer says, "All in God is turned into fury: in hell
he draws out into the field all his forces, all his attributes,
whereof wrath is the leader and general."20 Such representations
may be left without a comment. Every enlightened mind will
instantly reject with horror the doctrine which necessitates a
conception of God like that here pictured forth. God is a being of
infinite forgiveness and magnanimity. To the wandering sinner,
even while a great way off, his arms are open, and his inviting
voice, penetrating the farthest abysses, says, "Return." His sun
shines and his rain falls on the fields of the unjust and
unthankful. What is it, the instant mortals pass the line of
death, that shall transform this Divinity of yearning pity and
beneficence into a devil of relentless hate and cruelty? It cannot
be. We shall find him dealing towards us in eternity as he does
here. An eminent theologian says, "If mortal men kill the body
temporally in their anger, it is like the immortal God to damn the
soul eternally in his." "God holds sinners in his hands over the
mouth of hell as so many spiders; and he is dreadfully provoked,
and he not only hates them, but holds them in utmost contempt, and
he will trample them beneath his feet with inexpressible
fierceness, he will crush their blood out, and will make it fly so
that it will sprinkle his garments and stain all his raiment."21
Oh, ravings and blasphemies of theological bigotry, blinded with
old creeds, inflamed with sectarian hate, soaked in the gall of
bitterness, encompassed by absurd delusions, you know not what you
say!

A daring writer of modern times observes that God can never say
from the last tribunal, in any other than a limited and
metaphorical sense, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire," because that would not be doing as he would be done by.
Saving the appearance of irreverence, we maintain his assertion to
be just, based on impregnable morality. A recent religious poet
describes Jesus, on descending into hell after his crucifixion,

20 For these and several other quotations we are indebted to the
Rev. T. J. Sawyer's work, entitled "Endless Punishment: its Origin
and Grounds Examined."

21 Edwards's works, vol. vii. p. 499.


meeting Judas, and when he saw his pangs and heard his stifled
sobs, "Pitying, Messiah gazed, and had forgiven, But Justice her
eternal bar opposed." 22

The instinctive sentiment is worthy of Jesus, but the deliberate
thought is worthy of Calvin. Why is it so calmly assumed that God
cannot pardon, and that therefore sinners must be given over to
endless pains? By what proofs is so tremendous a conclusion
supported? Is it not a gratuitous fiction of theologians? The
exemplification of God's character and conduct given in the
spirit, teachings, and deeds of Christ is full of a free mercy, an
eager charity that rushes forward to forgive and embrace the
sinful and wretched wanderers. He is a very different being whom
the evangelist represents saying of Jesus, "This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased," from Him whom Professor Park
describes "drawing his sword on Calvary and smiting down his Son!"

Why may not pardon from unpurchased grace be vouchsafed as well
after death as before? What moral conditions alter the case then?
Ah! it is only the metaphysical theories of the theologians that
have altered the case in their fancies and made it necessary for
them to limit probation. The attributes of God are laws, his modes
of action are the essentialities of his being, the same in all the
worlds of boundless extension and all the ages of endless
duration. How far some of the theologians have perverted the
simplicity of the gospel, or rather how utterly they have strayed
from it, may be seen when we remember that Christ said concerning
little children, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven," and then
compare with this declaration such a statement as this: "Reprobate
infants are vipers of vengeance which Jehovah will hold over hell
in the tongs of his wrath, till they writhe up and cast their
venom in his face." We deliberately assert that no depraved,
insane, pagan imagination ever conceived of a fiend malignant and
horrible enough to be worthily compared with this Christian
conception of God. Edwards repeatedly says, in his two sermons on
the "Punishment of the Wicked" and "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God," "You cannot stand an instant before an infuriated
tiger even: what, then, will you do when God rushes against you in
all his wrath?" Is this Christ's Father?

The God we worship is "the Father of lights, with whom there is
neither variableness nor shadow of turning, from whom cometh down
every good and every perfect gift." It is the Being referred to by
the Savior when he said, in exultant trust and love, "I am not
alone; for the Father is with me." It is the infinite One to whom
the Psalmist says, "Though I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art
there." If God is in hell, there must be mercy and hope there,
some gleams of alleviation and promise there, surely; even as the
Lutheran creed says that "early on Easter morning, before his
resurrection, Christ showed himself to the damned in hell." If God
is in hell, certainly it must be to soothe, to save. "Oh, no,"
says the popular theologian. Let us quote his words. "Why is God
here? To keep the tortures of the damned freshly plied, and to see
that no one ever escapes!" Can the climax of horror and

22 Lord, Christ in Hades.


blasphemy any further go? How much more reasonable, more moral and
Christ like, to say, with one of the best authors of our time,

"What hell may be I know not: this I know: I cannot lose the
presence of the Lord: One arm humility takes hold upon His dear
Humanity; the other love Clasps his Divinity: so, where I go He
goes; and better fire wall'd Hell with him Than golden gated
Paradise without."

The irreconcilableness of the common doctrine of endless misery
with any worthy idea of God is made clear by a process of
reasoning whose premises are as undeniable as its logic is
irrefragable and its conclusion consolatory. God is infinite
justice and goodness. His purpose in the creation, therefore, must
be the diffusion and triumph of holiness and blessedness. God is
infinite wisdom and power. His design, therefore, must be
fulfilled. Nothing can avail to thwart the ultimate realization of
all his intentions. The rule of his omnipotent love pervades
infinitude and eternity as a shining leash of law whereby he holds
every child of his creation in ultimate connection with his
throne, and will sooner or later bring even the worst soul to a
returning curve from the career of its wildest orbit. In the realm
and under the reign of a paternal and omnipotent God every being
must be salvable. Remorse itself is a recoil which may fling the
penitent into the lap of forgiving love. Any different thought
appears narrow, cruel, heathen. The blackest fiend that glooms the
midnight air of hell, bleached through the merciful purgation of
sorrow and loyalty, may become a white angel and be drawn into
heaven.

Lavater writes of himself, and the same is true of many a good
man, "I embraced in my heart all that is called man, past,
present, and future times and nations, the dead, the damned, even
Satan. I presented them all to God with the warmest wishes that he
would have mercy upon all." This is the true spirit of a good man.
And is man better than his Maker? We will answer that question,
and leave this head of the discussion, by presenting an Oriental
apologue.

God once sat on his inconceivable throne, and far around him, rank
after rank, angels and archangels, seraphim and cherubim, resting
on their silver wings and lifting their dazzling brows, rose and
swelled, with the splendors of an illimitable sea of immortal
beings, gleaming and fluctuating to the remotest borders of the
universe. The anthem of their praise shook the pillars of the
creation, and filled the vault of heaven with a pulsing flood of
harmony. When, as they closed their hymn, stole up, faint heard,
as from some most distant region of all space, in dim accents
humbly rising, a responsive "Amen." God asked Gabriel, "Whence
comes that Amen?" The hierarchic peer replied, "It rises from the
damned in hell." God took, from where it hung above his seat, the
key that unlocks the forty thousand doors of hell, and, giving it
to Gabriel, bade him go release them. On wings of light sped the
enraptured messenger, rescued the millions of the lost, and, just
as they were, covered all over with the traces of their sin,
filth, and woe, brought them straight up into the midst of heaven.
Instantly they were transformed, clothed in robes of glory, and
placed next to the throne; and henceforth, for evermore, the
dearest strain to God's ear, of all the celestial music, was that
borne by the choir his grace had ransomed from hell. And, because
there is no envy or other selfishness in heaven, this promotion
sent but new thrills of delight and gratitude through the heights
and depths of angelic life.

We come now to the last class of reasons for disbelieving the
dogma of eternal damnation, namely, those furnished by the
principles of human nature and the truths of human experience. The
doctrine, as we think can be clearly shown, is literally
incredible to the human mind and literally intolerable to the
human heart. In the first place, it is, viewed in the abstract,
absolutely incredible because it is inconceivable: no man can
possibly grasp and appreciate the idea. The nearest approximation
to it ever made perhaps is in De Quincey's gorgeous elaboration of
the famous Hindu myth of an enormous rock finally worn away by the
brushing of a gauze veil; and that is really no approximation at
all, since an incommensurable chasm always separates the finite
and the infinite. John Foster says, "It is infinitely beyond the
highest archangel's faculty to apprehend a thousandth part of the
horror of the doom to eternal damnation." The Buddhists, who
believe that the severest sentence passed on the worst sinner will
be brought to an end and his redemption be attained, use the
following illustration of the staggering periods that will first
elapse. A small yoke is thrown into the ocean and borne about in
every direction by the various winds. Once in a hundred thousand
years a blind tortoise rises to the surface of the water. Will the
time ever come when that tortoise shall so rise up that its neck
shall enter the hole of the yoke? It may, but the time required
cannot be told; and it is equally difficult for the unwise man,
who has entered one of the great hells, to obtain deliverance.
There is a remarkable specimen of the attempt to set forth the
idea of endless misery, by Suso, a mystic preacher who flourished
several centuries ago. It runs thus. "O eternity, what art thou?
Oh, end without end! O father, and mother, and all whom we love!
May God be merciful unto you for evermore! for we shall see you no
more to love you; we must be separated forever! O separation,
everlasting separation, how painful art thou! Oh, the wringing of
hands! Oh, sighing, weeping, and sobbing, unceasing howling and
lamenting, and yet never to be pardoned! Give us a millstone, says
the damned, as large as the whole earth, and so wide in
circumference as to touch the sky all around, and let a little
bird come in a hundred thousand years, and pick off a small
particle of the stone, not larger than the tenth part of a grain
of millet, and after another hundred thousand years let him come
again, so that in ten hundred thousand years he would pick off as
much as a grain of millet, we wretched sinners would desire
nothing but that thus the stone might have an end, and thus our
pains also; yet even that cannot be."23 But, after all the
struggles of reason and all the illustrations of laboring
imagination, the meaning of the phrase "eternal suffering in hell"
remains remote, dim, unrealized, an abstraction in words. If we
could adequately apprehend it, if its full significance should
burst upon us, as sometimes in fearful dreams the spaceless,
timeless, phantasmal, reeling sense of

23 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 210.


the infinite seems to be threatening to break into the brain, an
annihilating shudder would seize and destroy the soul.

We say, therefore, that the doctrine of the eternity of future
punishment is not believed as an intellectually conceived truth,
because that is a metaphysical impossibility. But more: we affirm,
in spite of the general belief in it publicly professed, that it
is actually held by hardly any one as a practical vivid belief
even within the limits wherein, as an intellectual conception, it
is possible. When intellect and imagination do not fail, heart and
conscience do, with sickened faintness and convulsive protest. In
his direful poem on the Last Day, Young makes one of the condemned
vainly beg of God to grant "This one, this slender, almost no,
request: When I have wept a thousand lives away, When torment is
grown weary of its prey, When I have raved of anguish'd years in
fire Ten thousand thousands, let me then expire."

Such a thought, when confronted with any generous holy sentiment
or with any worthy conception of the Divine character, is
practically incredible. The men all around us in whose Church
creed such a doctrine is written down do not truly believe it.
"They delude themselves," as Martineau well says, "with the mere
fancy and image of a belief. The death of a friend who departs
from life in heresy affects them in the same way as the loss of
another whose creed was unimpeachable: while the theoretic
difference is infinite, the practical is virtually nothing." Who
that had a child, parent, wife, brother, or other precious friend,
condemned to be roasted to death by a slow fire, would not be
frantic with agony? But there are in the world literally millions
on millions, some of whose nearest and dearest ones have died
under circumstances which, by their professed creeds, can leave no
doubt that they must roast in the fires of hell in an anguish
unutterably fiercer, and for eternity, and yet they go about as
smilingly, engage in the battle for money, in the race for fame,
in all the vain shows and frivolous pleasures of life, as eagerly
and as gayly as others. How often do we see the literal truth of
this exemplified! It is clear they do not believe in the dogma to
whose technical terms they formally subscribe.

A small proportion of its professors do undeniably believe the
doctrine so far as it can be sanely believed; and accordingly the
world is to them robed in a sable shroud, and life is an awful
mockery, under a flashing surface of sports concealing a
bottomless pit of horror. Every observing person has probably
known some few in his life who, in a degree, really believed the
common notions concerning hell, and out of whom, consequently, all
geniality, all bounding impulses, all magnanimous generosities,
were crushed, and their countenances wore the perpetual livery of
mourning, despair, and misanthropy. We will quote the confessions
of two persons who may stand as representatives of the class of
sincere believers in the doctrine. The first is a celebrated
French preacher of a century and a half ago, the other a very
eminent American divine of the present day. Saurin says, in his
great sermon on Hell, "I sink under the weight of this subject,
and I find in the thought a mortal poison which diffuseth itself
into every period of my life, rendering society tiresome,
nourishment insipid, pleasure disgustful, and life itself a cruel
bitter." Albert Barnes writes, "In the distress and anguish of my
own spirit, I confess I see not one ray to disclose to me the
reason why man should suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a
particle of light thrown on these subjects that has given a
moment's ease to my tortured mind. It is all dark dark dark to my
soul; and I cannot disguise it."

Such a state of mind is the legitimate result of an endeavor
sincerely to grasp and hold the popularly professed belief. So
often as that endeavor reaches a certain degree of success, and
the idea of an eternal hell is reduced from its vagueness to an
embraced conception, the over fraught heart gives way, the brain,
stretched on too high a tension, reels, madness sets in, and one
more case is added to that list of maniacs from religious causes
which, according to the yearly reports of insane asylums, forms so
large a class. Imagine what a vast and sudden change would come
over the spirit and conduct of society if nineteen twentieths of
Christendom believed that at the end of a week a horrible influx
of demons, from some insurgent region, would rush into our world
and put a great majority of our race to death in excruciating
tortures! But the doctrine of future punishment professed by
nineteen twentieths of Christendom is, if true, an evil
incomparably worse than that, though every element of its
dreadfulness were multiplied by millions beyond the power of
numeration; and yet all goes on as quietly, the most of these
fancied believers live as chirpingly, as if heaven were sure for
everybody! Of course in their hearts they do not believe the
terrific formula which drops so glibly from their tongues.

Again: it is a fatal objection to the doctrine in question that if
it be true it must destroy the happiness of the saved and fill all
heaven with sympathetic woe. Jesus teaches that "there is joy in
heaven over every sinner that repenteth." By a moral necessity,
then, there is sorrow in heaven over the wretched, lost soul. That
sorrow, indeed, may be alleviated, if not wholly quenched, by the
knowledge that every retributive pang is remedial, and that God's
glorious design will one day be fully crowned in the redemption of
the last prodigal. But what shall solace or end it if they know
that hell's borders are to be enlarged and to rage with avenging
misery forever? The good cannot be happy in heaven if they are to
see the ascending smoke and hear the resounding shrieks of a hell
full of their brethren, the children of a common humanity, among
whom are many of their own nearest relatives and dearest friends.

True, a long list of Christian writers may be cited as maintaining
that this is to be a principal element in the felicity of the
redeemed, gloating over the tortures of the damned, singing the
song of praise with redoubled emphasis as they see their parents,
their children, their former bosom companions, writhing and
howling in the fell extremities of torture. Thomas Aquinas says,
"That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God
more richly, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is
granted to them."24 Especially did the Puritans seem to revel in
this idea, that "the joys of the blessed were to be deepened and
sharpened by constant contrast with the sufferings of the damned."
One of them thus expresses the delectable thought: "The sight of
hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever, as a
sense of the opposite misery always increases the relish of any
pleasure."

24 Summa, pars iii., Suppl. Qu. 93, art. i.


But perhaps Hopkins caps the climax of the diabolical pyramid of
these representations, saying of the wicked, "The smoke of their
torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed for ever and
ever, and serve, as a most clear glass always before their eyes,
to give them a bright and most affecting view. This display of the
Divine character will be most entertaining to all who love God,
will give them the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the
fire of this eternal punishment cease, it would in a great measure
obscure the light of heaven and put an end to a great part of the
happiness and glory of the blessed."25 That is to say, in plain
terms, the saints, on entering their final state of bliss in
heaven, are converted into a set of unmitigated fiends, out
sataning Satan, finding their chief delight in forever comparing
their own enjoyments with the pangs of the damned, extracting
morsels of surpassing relish from every convulsion or shriek of
anguish they see or hear. It is all an exquisite piece of
gratuitous horror arbitrarily devised to meet a logical exigency
of the theory its contrivers held. When charged that the knowledge
of the infinite woe of their friends in hell must greatly affect
the saints, the stern old theologians, unwilling to recede an inch
from their dogmas, had the amazing hardihood to declare that, so
far from it, on the contrary their wills would so blend with God's
that the contemplation of this suffering would be a source of
ecstasy to them. It is doubly a blank assumption of the most
daring character, first assuming, by an unparalleled blasphemy,
that God himself will take delight in the pangs of his creatures,
and secondly assuming, by a violation of the laws of human nature
and of every principle of morals, that the elect will do so too.
In this world a man actuated by such a spirit would be styled a
devil. On entering heaven, what magic shall work such a demoniacal
change in him? There is not a word, direct or indirect, in the
Scriptures to warrant the dreadful notion; nor is there any
reasonable explanation or moral justification of it given by any
of its advocates, or indeed conceivable. The monstrous hypothesis
cannot be true. Under the omnipotent, benignant government of a
paternal God, each change of character in his chosen children, as
they advance, must be for the better, not for the worse.

We once heard a father say, running his fingers the while among
the golden curls of his child's hair, "If I were in heaven, and
saw my little daughter in hell, should not I be rushing down there
after her?" There spoke the voice of human nature; and that love
cannot be turned to hatred in heaven, but must grow purer and
intenser there. The doctrine which makes the saints pleased with
contemplating the woes of the damned, and even draw much of their
happiness from the contrast, is the deification of the absolute
selfishness of a demon. Human nature, even when left to its
uncultured instincts, is bound to far other and nobler things.
Radbod, one of the old Scandinavian kings, after long resistance,
finally consented to be baptized. After he had put one foot into
the water, he asked the priest if he should meet his forefathers
in heaven. Learning that they, being unbaptized pagans, were
victims of endless misery, he drew his foot back, and refused the
rite, choosing to be with his brave ancestors in hell rather than
to be in heaven with the Christian priests. And, speaking from the
stand point of the highest refinement of feeling and virtue, who
that has a heart in his

25 Park, Memoir of Hopkins, pp. 201, 202.


bosom would not say, "Heaven can be no heaven to me, if I am to
look down on the quenchless agonies of all I have loved here!" Is
it not strictly true that the thought that even one should have
endless woe "Would cast a shadow on the throne of God And darken
heaven"?

If a monarch, possessing unlimited power over all the earth, had
condemned one man to be stretched on a rack and be freshly plied
with incessant tortures for a period of fifty years, and if
everybody on earth could hear his terrible shrieks by day and
night, though they were themselves all, with this sole exception,
blessed with perfect happiness, would not the whole human race,
from Spitzbergen to Japan, from Rio Janeiro to Liberia, rise in a
body and go to implore the king's clemency for the solitary
victim? So, if hell had but one tenant doomed to eternal anguish,
a petition reaching from Sirius to Alcyone, signed by the universe
of moral beings, borne by a convoy of angels representing every
star in space, would be laid and unrolled at the foot of God's
throne, and He would read thereon this prayer: "FORGIVE HIM, AND
RELEASE HIM, WE BESEECH THEE, O GOD." And can it be that every
soul in the universe is better than the Maker and Father of the
universe?

The popular doctrine of eternal torment threatening nearly all our
race is refuted likewise by the impossibility of any general
observance of the obligations morally and logically consequent
from it. In the first place, as the world is constituted, and as
life goes on, the great majority of men are upon the whole happy,
evidently were meant to be happy. But every believer of the
doctrine in debate is bound to be unutterably wretched. If he has
any gleam of generous sentiment or touch of philanthropy in his
bosom, if he is not a frozen petrifaction of selfishness or an
incarnate devil, how can he look on his family, friends,
neighbors, fellow citizens, fellow beings, in the light of his
faith seeing them quivering over the dizzy verge of a blind
probation and momentarily dropping into the lake of fire and
brimstone that burns forever, how can he do this without being
ceaselessly stung with wretchedness and crushed with horror by the
perception? For a man who appreciatingly believes that hell is
directly under our meadows, streets, and homes, and that nine
tenths of the dead are in it, and that nine tenths of the living
soon will be, for such a man to be happy and jocose is as horrible
as it would be for a man, occupying the second story of a house,
to light it up brilliantly with gas, and make merry with his
friends, eating tidbits, sipping wine, and tripping it on the
light fantastic toe to the strains of gay music, while,
immediately under him, men, women, and children, including his own
parents and his own children, were stretched on racks, torn with
pincers, lacerated with surgical instruments, cauterized, lashed
with whips of fire, their half suppressed shrieks and groans
audibly rising through the floor!

Secondly, if the doctrine be true, then all unnecessary worldly
enterprises, labors, and studies should at once cease. One moment
on earth, and then, accordingly as we spend that moment, an
eternity in heaven or in hell: in heaven, if we succeed in
placating God by a sound belief and ritual proprieties; in hell,
if we are led astray by philosophy, nature, and the attractions of
life! On these suppositions, what time have we for any thing but
reciting our creed, meditating on the atonement, and seeking to
secure an interest for ourselves with God by flouting at our
carnal reason, praying in church, and groaning, "Lord, Lord, have
mercy on us miserable sinners"? What folly, what mockery, to be
searching into the motions of the stars, and the occult forces of
matter, and the other beautiful mysteries of science! There will
be no astronomy in hell, save vain speculations as to the distance
between the nadir of the damned and the zenith of the saved; no
chemistry in hell, save the experiments of infinite wrath in
distilling new torture poisons in the alembics of memory and
depositing fresh despair sediments in the crucibles of hope. If
Calvin's doctrine be true, let no book be printed, save the
"Westminster Catechism;" no calculation be ciphered, save how to
"solve the problem of damnation;" no picture be painted, save
"pictures of hell;" no school be supported, save "schools of
theology;" no business be pursued, save "the business of
salvation." What have men who are in imminent peril, who are in
truth almost infallibly sure, of being eternally damned the next
instant, what have they to do with science, literature, art,
social ambition, or commerce? Away with them all! Lures of the
devil to snare souls are they! The world reflecting from every
corner the lurid glare of hell, who can do any thing else but
shudder and pray? "Who could spare any attention for the
vicissitudes of cotton and the price of shares, for the merits of
the last opera and the bets upon the next election, if the actors
in these things were really swinging in his eye over such a verge
as he affects to see?"

Thirdly, those who believe the popular theory on this subject are
bound to live in cheap huts, on bread and water, that they may
devote to the sending of missionaries among the heathen every cent
of money they can get beyond that required for the bare
necessities of life. If our neighbor were perishing of hunger at
our door, it would be our duty to share with him even to the last
crust we had. How much more, then, seeing millions of our poor
helpless brethren sinking ignorantly into the eternal fires of
hell, are we bound to spare no possible effort until the
conditions of salvation are brought within the reach of every one!
An American missionary to China said, in a public address after
his return, "Fifty thousand a day go down to the fire that is not
quenched. Six hundred millions more are going the same road.
Should you not think at least once a day of the fifty thousand who
that day sink to the doom of the lost?" The American Board of
Commissioners of Foreign Missions say, "To send the gospel to the
heathen is a work of great exigency. Within the last thirty years
a whole generation of five hundred millions have gone down to
eternal death." Again: the same Board say, in their tract entitled
"The Grand Motive to Missionary Effort," "The heathen are involved
in the ruins of the apostasy, and are expressly doomed to
perdition. Six hundred millions of deathless souls on the brink of
hell! What a spectacle!" How a man who thinks the heathen are thus
sinking to hell by wholesale through ignorance of the gospel can
live in a costly house, crowded with luxuries and splendors,
spending every week more money on his miserable body than he gives
in his whole life to save the priceless souls for which he says
Christ died, is a problem admitting but two solutions. Either his
professed faith is an unreality to him, or else he is as selfish
as a demon and as hard hearted as the nether millstone. If he
really believed the doctrine, and had a human heart, he must feel
it to be his duty to deny himself every indulgence and give his
whole fortune and earnings to the missionary fund. And when he had
given all else, he ought to give himself, and go to pagan lands,
proclaiming the means of grace until his last breath. If he does
not that, he is inexcusable.

Should he attempt to clear himself of this obligation by adopting
the theory of predestination, which asserts that all men were
unconditionally elected from eternity, some to heaven, others to
hell, so that no effort can change their fate, logical consistency
reduces him to an alternative more intolerable in the eyes of
conscience and common sense than the other was. For by this theory
the gates of freedom and duty are hoisted, and the dark flood of
antinomian consequences rushes in. All things are fated. Let men
yield to every impulse and wish. The result is fixed. We have
nothing to do. Good or evil, virtue or crime, alter nothing.

Fourthly, if the common doctrine of eternal damnation be true,
then surely no more children should be brought into the world: it
is a duty to let the race die out and cease. He who begets a
child, forcing him to run the fearful risk of human existence,
with every probability of being doomed to hell at the close of
earth, commits a crime before whose endless consequences of horror
the guilt of fifty thousand deliberate murders would be as
nothing. For, be it remembered, an eternity in hell is an infinite
evil; and therefore the crime of thrusting such a fate on a single
child, with the unasked gift of being, is a crime admitting of no
just comparison. Rather than populate an everlasting hell with
human vipers and worms, a hell whose fires, alive and wriggling
with ghastly shapes of iniquity and anguish, shall swell with a
vast accession of fresh recruits from every generation, rather
than this, let the sacred lights on the marriage altar go out, no
more bounding forms of childhood be seen in cottage or hall, the
race grow old, thin out, and utterly perish, all happy villages be
overgrown, all regal cities crumble down, and this world roll
among the silent stars henceforth a globe of blasted deserts and
rank wildernesses, resonant only with the shrieks of the wind, the
yells of wild beasts, and the thunder's crash.

Fifthly, there is one more conclusion of moral duty deducible from
the prevalent theory of infinite torment. It is this. God ought
not to have permitted Adam to have any children. Let us not seem
presumptuous and irreverent in speaking thus. We are merely
reasoning on the popular theory of the theologians, not on any
supposition of our own or on any truth; and by showing the
absurdity and blasphemy of the moral consequences and duties
flowing from that theory, the absurdity, blasphemy, and
incredibility of the theory itself appear. We are not responsible
for the irreverence, but they are responsible for it who charge
God with the iniquity which we repel from his name. If the sin of
Adam must entail total depravity and an infinite penalty of
suffering on all his posterity, who were then certainly innocent
because not in existence, then, we ask, why did not God cause the
race to stop with Adam, and so save all the needless and cruel woe
that would otherwise surely be visited on the lengthening line of
generations? Or, to go still further back, why did he not,
foreseeing Adam's fall, refrain from creating even him? There was
no necessity laid on God of creating Adam. No positive evil would
have been done by omitting to create him. An infinite evil,
multiplied by the total number of the lost, was done by creating
him. Why, then, was he not left in peaceful nonentity? On the
Augustinian theory we see no way of escaping this awful dilemma.
Who can answer the question which rises to heaven from the abyss
of the damned?  "Father of mercies, why from silent earth Didst
thou awake and curse me into birth, Push into being a reverse of
thee, And animate a clod with misery?"

Satan is a sort of sublime Guy Fawkes, lurking in the infernal
cellar, preparing the train of that stupendous Gunpowder Plot by
which he hopes, on the day of judgment, to blow up the world
parliament of unbelievers with a general petard of damnation. Will
the King connive at this nefarious prowler and permit him to carry
out his design?

The doctrine of eternal damnation, as it has prevailed in the
Christian Church, appears to the natural man so unreasonable,
immoral, and harrowingly frightful, when earnestly contemplated,
that there have always been some who have shrunk from its
representations and sought to escape its conclusions. Many of its
strongest advocates in every age have avowed it to be a fearful
mystery, resting on the inscrutable sovereignty of God, and beyond
the power of man's faculties to explain and justify. The dogma has
been eluded in two ways. Some have believed in the annihilation of
the wicked after they should have undergone just punishment
proportioned to their sins. This supposition has had a
considerable number of advocates. It was maintained, among others,
by Arnobius, at the close of the third century, by the Socini, by
Dr. Hammond, and by some of the New England divines.26 All that
need be said in opposition to it is that it is an arbitrary device
to avoid the intolerable horror of the doctrine of endless misery,
unsupported by proof, extremely unsatisfactory in many of its
bearings, and really not needed to achieve the consummation
desired.

Others have more wisely maintained that all will finally be saved:
however severely and long they may justly suffer, they will at
last all be mercifully redeemed by God and admitted to the common
heaven. Defenders of the doctrine of ultimate universal salvation
have appeared from the beginning of Christian history.27 During
the last century and a half their numbers have rapidly
increased.28 A dignified and influential class of theologians,
represented by such names as Tillotson. Bahrdt, and Less, say that
the threats of eternal punishment, in the Scriptures, are
exaggerations to deter men from sin, and that God will not really
execute them, but will mercifully abate and limit them.29 Another
class of theologians, much more free, consistent, and numerous,
base their reception of the doctrine of final restoration on
figurative explanations of the scriptural language seemingly
opposed to it, and on arguments drawn from the character of God,
from reason, and from morals. This view of the subject is
spreading fast. All independent, genial, and cultivated thought
naturally leads to it. The central principles of the gospel
necessitate it. The spirit of the age cries for it. Before it the
old antagonistic dogma must fall and perish from respect. Dr.
Spring says, in reference to the hopeless condemnation of the
wicked to hell, "It puts in requisition all our confidence

26 This theory bas been resuscitated and advocated within a few
years by quite a number of writers, among whom may be specified
the Rev. C. F. Hudson, author of "Debt and Grace," a learned,
earnest, and able work, pervaded by an admirable spirit.

27 Ballou, Ancient History of Universalism.

28 Whittemore, Modern History of Universalism.

29 Knapp, Christian Theology, Woods's translation, sect. 158.


in God to justify this procedure of his government."30

A few devout and powerful minds have sought to avoid the gross
horrors and unreasonableness of the usual view of this subject, by
changing the mechanical and arithmetical values of the terms for
spiritual and religious values. They give the word "eternity" a
qualitative instead of a quantitative meaning. The everlasting woe
of the damned consists not in mechanical inflictions of torture
and numerical increments of duration, but in spiritual discord,
alienation from God, a wretched state of being, with which times
and spaces have nothing to do.31

How much better were it for the advocates of the popular theory,
instead of forcing their moral nature to bear up against the awful
perplexities and misgivings as to the justice and goodness of God
necessarily raised in them whenever they really face the dark
problems of their system of faith,32 resolutely to ask whether
there are any such problems in the actual government of God, or
anywhere else, except in their own "Bodies of Divinity"! It is an
extremely unfortunate and discreditable evasion of responsibility
when any man, especially when a teacher, takes for granted the
received formularies handed down to him, and, instead of honestly
analyzing their genuine significance and probing their foundations
to see if they be good and true, spends his genius in contriving
excuses and supports for them.

It is the very worst policy at this day to strive to fasten the
dogma of eternal misery to the New Testament. If both must be
taken or rejected together, an alternative which we emphatically
deny, what sincere and earnest thinker now, whose will is
unterrifiedly consecrated to truth, can be expected to hesitate
long? The doctrine is sustained in repute at present principally
for two reasons. First, because it has been transmitted to us from
the Church of the past as the established and authoritative
doctrine. It is yet technically current and popular because it has
been so: that is, it retains its place simply by right of
possession. The question ought to be sincerely and universally
raised whether it is true or false. Then it will swiftly lose its
prestige and disappear. Secondly, it is upheld and patronized by
many as a useful instrument for frightening the people and through
their fears deterring them from sin. We have ourselves heard
clergymen of high reputation say that it would never do to admit,
before the people, that there is any chance whatever of penitence
and salvation beyond the grave, because they would be sure to
abuse the hope as a sort of permission to indulge and continue in
sin. Thus to ignore the only solemn and worthy standard of judging
an abstract doctrine, namely, Is it a truth or a falsehood? and
put it solely on grounds of working expediency, is disgraceful,
contemptible, criminal. Watts exposes with well merited rebuke a
gross instance of pious frail in Burnet, who advised preachers to
teach the eternity of future punishment whether they believed it
or not.33 It is by such a course that error and superstition
reign, that truckling conformity, intellectual disloyalty, moral
indifference, vice, and infidelity, abound. It is practical
atheism, debauchery of conscience, and genuine spiritual

30 Glory of Christ, vol. ii. p. 268.

31 Lange, Positive Dogmatik, sect. 131: Die Aeonen der Verdammten.
Maurice, Theological Essays: Future Punishment.

32 See Beecher's Conflict of Ages, b. ii. ch. 4, 13.

33 World to Come, Disc. XIII.


death. Besides, the course we are characterizing is actually as
inexpedient in practice as it is wrong in theory. Experience and
observation show it to be as pernicious in its result as it is
immoral in its origin. Is a threat efficacious over men in
proportion to its intrinsic terror, or in proportion as it is
personally felt and feared by them? Do the menacing penalties of a
sin deter a man from it in proportion to their awfulness, or in
proportion to his belief in their reality and unavoidableness?
Eternal misery would be a threat of infinite frightfulness, if it
were realized and believed. But it is incredible. Some reject it
with indignation and an impetuous recoil that sends them much too
far towards antinomianism. Others let it float in the spectral
background of imagination, the faint reflection of a disagreeable
and fading dream. To all it is an unreality. An earnest belief in
a sure retribution exactly limited to desert must be far more
effective. If an individual had a profound conviction that for
every sin he committed he must suffer a million centuries of
inexpressible anguish, realizing that thought, would he commit a
sin?

If he cannot appreciate that enormous penalty, much less can he
the infinite one, which is far more likely to shade off and blur
out into a vague and remote nothing. Truth is an expression of
God's will, which we are bound exclusively to accept and employ
regardless of consequences. When we do that, God, the author of
truth, is himself solely responsible for the consequences. But
when, thinking we can devise something that will work better, we
use some theory of our own, we are responsible for the
consequences. Let every one beware how he ventures to assume that
dread responsibility. It is surely folly as well as sin. For
nothing can work so well as truth, the simple, calm, living truth,
which is a chime in the infinite harmony of morals and things. It
is only the morbid melodramatic tastes and incompetencies of an
unfinished culture that make men think otherwise. The magnificent
poetry of the day of judgment an audience of five hundred thousand
millions gathered in one throng as the Judge rises to pronounce
the last oration over a dissolving universe takes possession of
the fancy, and people conceive it so vividly, and are so moved by
it, that they think they see it to be true.

Grant for a moment the truth of the conception of hell as a
physical world of fiery torture full of the damned. Suppose the
scene of probation over, hell filled with its prisoners shut up,
banished and buried in the blackest deeps of space. Can it be left
there forever? Can it be that the roar of its furnace shall rage
on, and the wail of the execrable anguish ascend, eternally?
Endeavor to realize in some faint degree what these questions
mean, and then answer. If anybody can find it in his heart or in
his head to say yes, and can gloat over the idea, and wish to have
it continually brandished in terrorem over the heads of the
people, one feels impelled to declare that he of all men the most
needs to be converted to the Christian spirit. An unmitigated hell
of depravity, pain, and horror, would be Satan's victory and God's
defeat; for the very wish of a Satanic being must be for the
everlasting prevalence of sin and wretchedness. As above the
weltering hosts of the lost, each dreadful second, the iron clock
of hell ticked the thunder word "eternity," how would the devil on
his sulphurous dais shout in triumph! But if such a world of fire,
crowded with the writhing damned, ever existed at all, could it
exist forever?

Could the saved be happy and passive in heaven when the muffled
shrieks of their brethren, faint from the distance, fell on their
ears? In tones of love and pity that would melt the very
mountains, they would plead with God to pardon and free the lost.
Many a mourning lover would realize the fable of the Thracian poet
who wandered into Hades searching for his Eurydice; many a heroic
son would emulate the legend of the Grecian god who burst through
the iron walls of Tartarus and rescued his mother, the unfortunate
Semele, and led her in triumph up to heaven.

Could the angels be contented when they contemplated the far off
lurid orb and knew the agonies that fed its conscious conflagration?
Their gentle bosoms would be racked with commiserating pangs,
they would fly down and hover around that anguished world,
to moisten its parched tongues with the dropping of their sympathetic
tears and to cool its burning brows with the fanning of their wings.

Could Christ be satisfied? he who once was rich but for our sakes
became poor? he whose loving soul breathed itself forth in the
tender words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest"? he who poured his blood on
Judea's awful summit, be satisfied? Not until he had tried the
efficacy of ten thousand fresh crucifixions, on as many new
Calvaries, would he rest.

Could God suffer it? God! with the full rivers of superfluous
bliss rolling around thy throne, couldst thou look down and hear
thy creatures calling thee Father, and see them plunging in a sea
of fire eternally eternally eternally and never speak the
pardoning word? It would not be like thee, it would be like thine
adversary to do that. Not so wouldst thou do. But if Satan had
millions of prodigals, snatched from the fold of thy family, shut
up and tortured in hell, paternal yearnings after them would fill
thy heart. Love's smiles would light the dread abyss where they
groan. Pity's tears would fall over it, shattered by the radiance
into rainbows. And through that illumination THOU wouldst descend,
marching beneath the arch of its triumphal glories to the rescue
of thy children! Therefore we rest in hope, knowing that "Thou
wilt not leave our souls in hell."

CHAPTER V.

THE FIVE THEORETIC MODES OF SALVATION.

THE conceptions and fore feelings of immortality which men have
entertained have generally been accompanied by a sense of
uncertainty in regard to the nature of that inheritance, by a
perception of contingent conditions, yielding a twofold fate of
bliss and woe, poised on the perilous hinge of circumstance or
freedom. Almost as often and profoundly, indeed, as man has
thought that he should live hereafter, that idea has been followed
by the belief that if, on the one hand, salvation gleamed for him
in the possible sky, on the other hand perdition yawned for him in
the probable abyss. Heaven and Hell are the light side and shade
side of the doctrine of a future life. Few questions are more
interesting, as none can be more important, than that inquiry
which is about the salvation of the soul. The inherent reach of
this inquiry, and the extent of its philosophical and literary
history, are great. But, by arranging under certain heads the
various principal schemes of salvation which Christian teachers
have from time to time presented for popular acceptance, and
passing them before the mind in order and in mutual lights, we can
very much narrow the space required to exhibit and discuss them.
When the word "salvation" occurs in the following investigation,
it means unless something different be shown by the context the
removal of the soul's doom to misery beyond the grave, and the
securing of its future blessedness. Heaven and hell are terms
employed with wide latitude and fluctuating boundaries of literal
and figurative meaning; but their essential force is simply a
future life of wretchedness, a future life of joy; and salvation,
in its prevailing theological sense, is the avoidance of that and
the gaining of this. We shall not attempt to present the different
theories of redemption in their historical order of development,
or to give an exhaustive account of their diversified prevalence,
but shall arrange them with reference to the most perspicuous
exhibition of their logical contents and practical bearings.

The first scheme of Christian salvation to be noticed is the one
by which it is represented that the interference and suffering of
Christ, in itself, unconditionally saved all souls and emptied
hell forever. This theory arose in the minds of those who received
it as the natural and consistent completion of the view they held
concerning the nature and consequences of the fall of Adam, the
cause and extent of the lost state of man. Adam, as the federal
head of humanity, represented and acted for his whole race: the
responsibility of his decision rested, the consequences of his
conduct would legitimately descend, it was thought, upon all
mankind. If he had kept himself obedient through that easy yet
tremendous probation in Eden, he and all his children would have
lived on earth eternally in perfect bliss. But, violating the
commandment of God, the burden of sin, with its terrible penalty,
fell on him and his posterity. Every human being was henceforth to
be alien from the love of goodness and from the favor of God,
hopelessly condemned to death and the pains of hell. The sin of
Adam, it was believed, thoroughly corrupted the nature of man, and
incapacitated him from all successful efforts to save his soul
from its awful doom. The infinite majesty of God's will, the law
of the universe, had been insulted by disobedience. The only just
retribution was the suffering of an endless death. The adamantine
sanctities of God's government made forgiveness impossible. Thus
all men were lost, to be the prey of blackness, and fire, and the
undying worm, through the remediless ages of eternity. Just then
God had pity on the souls he had made, and himself came to the
rescue. In the person of Christ, he came into the world as a man,
and freely took upon himself the infinite debt of man's sins, by
his death on the cross expiated all offences, satisfied the claims
of offended justice, vindicated the inexpressible sacredness of
the law, and, at the same time, opened a way by which a full and
free reconciliation was extended to all. When the blood of Jesus
flowed over the cross, it purchased the ransom of every sinner. As
Jerome says, "it quenched the flaming sword at the entrance of
Paradise." The weary multitude of captives rose from their bed,
shook off the fetters and stains of the pit, and made the cope of
heaven snowy with their white winged ascent. The prison house of
the devil and his angels should be used no more to confine the
guilty souls of men.1 Their guilt was all washed away in the blood
of the Lamb. Their spirits, without exception, should follow to
the right hand of the Father, in the way marked out by the
ascending Redeemer. This is the first form of Universalism, the
form in which it was held by several of the Fathers in the earlier
ages of the Church, and by the pioneers of that doctrine in modern
times. Cyril of Jerusalem says, "Christ went into the under world
alone, but came out with many." 2 Cyril of Alexandria says that
when Christ ascended from the under world he "emptied it, and left
the devil there utterly alone." 3 The opinion that the whole
population of Hades was released, is found in the lists of ancient
heresies.4 It was advanced by Clement, an Irish priest, antagonist
of Boniface the famous Archbishop of Mentz, in the middle of the
eighth century. He was deposed by the Council of Soissons, and
afterwards anathematized by Pope Zachary. Gregory the Great also
refers in one of his letters with extreme severity to two
ecclesiastics, contemporaries of his own, who held the same
belief. Indeed, this conclusion is a necessary result of a
consistent development of the creed of the Orthodox Church, so
called. By the sin of one, even Adam, through the working of
absolute justice, hell became the portion of all, irrespective of
any fault or virtue of theirs; so, by the voluntary sacrifice, the
infinite atonement, of one, even Christ, through the unspeakable
mercy of God, salvation was effected for all, irrespective of any
virtue or fault of theirs. One member of the scheme is the exact
counterpoise of the other; one doctrine cries out for and
necessitates the other. Those who accept the commonly received
dogmas of original sin, total depravity, and universal
condemnation entailed upon all men in lineal descent from Adam,
and the dogmas of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Vicarious
Atonement, are bound, by all the constructions of logic, to accept
the scheme of salvation just set forth, namely, that the death of
Christ secured the deliverance of all unconditionally. We do not
believe that doctrine, only because we do not believe the other
associated doctrines out of which it springs and of whose system
it is the complement.

1 Doederlein, De Redemptione a Potestate Diaboli. In Opuse.
Theolog.

2 Catechesis xis. 9.

3 De Festis Paschalibus, homilia vii.

4 Augustine, De Haresibus, lxxix.


The reasons why we do not believe that our race fell into helpless
depravity and ruin in the sin of the first man are, in essence,
briefly these: First, we have never been able to perceive any
proof whatever of the truth of that dogma; and certainly the onus
probandi rests on the side of such an assumption. It arose
partially from a misinterpretation of the language of the Bible;
and so far as it has a basis in Scripture, we are compelled by
force of evidence to regard it as a Jewish adoption of a pagan
error without authority. Secondly, this doctrinal system seems to
us equally irreconcilable with history and with ethics: it seems
to trample on the surest convictions of reason and conscience, and
spurn the clearest principles of nature and religion, to blacken
and load the heart and doom of man with a mountain of gratuitous
horror, and shroud the face and throne of God in a pall of wilful
barbarity. How can men be guilty of a sin committed thousands of
years before they were born, and deserve to be sent to hopeless
hell for it? What justice is there in putting on one sinless head
the demerits of a world of reprobates, and then letting the
criminal go free because the innocent has suffered? A third
objection to this whole view an objection which, if sustained,
will utterly annihilate it is this: It is quite possible that,
momentous as is the part he has played in theology, the Biblical
Adam is not at all a historical personage, but only a significant
figment of poetry. The common belief of the most authoritative men
of science, that the human race has existed on this earth for a
vastly longer period than the Hebrew statement affirms, may yet be
completely established. It may also yet be acknowledged that each
distinct race of men had its own Adam.5 Then the dogmatic
theology, based on the fall of our entire race into perdition in
its primary representative, will, of course, crumble.

The second doctrine of Christian salvation is a modification and
limitation of the previous one. This theory, like the former,
presupposes that a burden of original sin and natural depravity
transmitted from the first man had doomed, and, unless prevented
in some supernatural manner, would forever press, all souls down
to the realms of ruin and woe; also that an infinite graciousness
in the bosom of the Godhead led Christ to offer himself as an
expiation for the sins, an atoning substitute for the condemnation,
of men. But, according to the present view, this interference
of Christ did not by itself save the lost: it only removed
the otherwise insuperable bar to forgiveness, and presented
to a chosen portion of mankind the means of experiencing
a condition upon the realization of which, in each individual
case, the certainty of salvation depends. That condition is a
mysterious conversion, stirring the depths of the soul through an
inspired faith in personal election by the unchanging decree of
God. The difference, then, in a word, between the two methods of
salvation thus far explained, is this: While both assume that
mankind are doomed to death and hell in consequence of the sin of
Adam, the one asserts that the interference of Christ of itself
saved all souls, the other asserts that that interference cannot
save any soul except those whom God, of his sovereign pleasure,
had from eternity arbitrarily elected.6 This scheme grew directly
out of the dogma of fatalism, which sinks human freedom in Divine
predestination. God having solely of his

5 Burdach, Carus, Oken, Bayrhoffer, Agassiz. See Bunsen,
Christianity and Mankind, vol. iv. p. 28; Mott and Gliddon, Types
of Mankind, p. 338.

6 Confession of Faith of Westminster Divines, ch. iii. sect. 3.


own will foreordained that a certain number of mankind should be
saved, Christ died in order to pay the penalty of their sins and
render it possible for them to be forgiven and taken into heaven
without violating the awful bond of justice. The benefits of the
atonement, therefore, are limited to the elect. Nor is this to be
regarded as an act of severity; on the contrary, it is an act of
unspeakable benevolence. For by the sin of Adam the whole race of
men, without exception, were hateful to God, and justly sentenced
to eternal damnation. When, consequently, he devised a plan of
redemption by which he could himself bear the guilt, and suffer
the agony, and pay the debt of a few, and thus ransom them from
their doom, the reprobates who were left had no right to complain,
but the chosen were a monument of disinterested love, because all
alike deserved the endless tortures of hell. According to this
conception, all men being by their ancestral act and inherited
nature irretrievably lost, God's arbitrary pleasure was the cause,
Christ's voluntary death was the means, by which a certain number
were to be saved. What individuals should compose this portion of
the race, was determined from eternity beyond all contingencies.
The effect of faith and conversion, and of the new birth, is not
to save the soul, but simply to convince the soul that it is
saved. That is to say, a regenerating belief and love is not the
efficient cause, it is merely the revealed assurance, of
salvation, proving to the soul that feels it, by the testimony of
the Holy Spirit, that it is of the chosen number. The preaching of
the gospel is to be extended everywhere, not for the purpose of
saving those who would otherwise be lost, but because its
presentation will awaken in the elect, and in them alone, that
responsive experience which will reveal their election to them,
and make them sure of it, already foretasting it; though it is
thought that no one can be saved who is ignorant of the gospel: it
is mysteriously ordered that the terms of the covenant shall be
preached to all the elect. There are correlated complexities,
miracles, absurdities, in wrought with the whole theory,
inseparable from it. The violence it does to nature, to thought,
to love, to morals, its arbitrariness, its mechanical form, the
wrenching exegesis by which alone it can be forced from the
Bible,7 its glaring partiality and eternal cruelty, are its
sufficient refutation and condemnation. If the death of Christ has
such wondrous saving efficacy, and nothing else has, what keeps
him from dying again to convince the unbelieving and to save the
lost? What man is there who, if he knew that, after thirty years
of suffering terminated by a fearful death, he should rise again
into boundless bliss and glory while rapt infinitude rung with the
paans of an applauding universe, and that by means of his
humiliation he could redeem countless millions from eternal
torture, would not with a joyous spring undertake the task? And is
a common man better than Christ?

The third general plan of Christian salvation which we are to
consider differs from the foregoing one in several essential
particulars. It affirms the free will of man in opposition to a
fatal predestination. It declares that the atonement is sufficient
to redeem not only a portion of our race, but all who will put
themselves in right spiritual relations with it. In a word, while
it admits that some will actually be lost forever, it asserts that
no one is doomed

7 Schweizer, Die Lehre des Apostels Paulus vom erlosenden Tode
Christi. Theologische Studien und Kritiken, Jahrg. 1858, heft 3.


to be lost, but that the offer of pardon is made to every soul,
and that every one has power to accept or reject it. The sacrifice
of the incarnate Deity vindicated the majesty of the law, appeased
the wrath of God, and purchased his saving favor towards all who,
by a sound and earnest faith, seize the proffered justification,
throw off all reliance on their own works, and present themselves
before the throne of mercy clothed in the righteousness and
sprinkled with the blood of Christ. Here the appropriation of the
merits of Christ, through an orthodox and vivifying faith, is the
real cause as well as the experimental assurance of salvation.
This is free to all. As the brazen serpent was hoisted in the
wilderness, and the scorpion bitten Israelites invited to look on
it and be healed, so the crucified God is lifted up, and all men,
everywhere, are urged to kneel before him, accept his atonement,
and thus enable his righteousness to be imputed to them, and their
souls to be saved. The vital condition of salvation is an
appropriating faith in the vicarious atonement. Without this no
one can be saved. Thus with one word and a single breath whole
nations and races are whiffed into hell. All that the good hearted
Luther could venture to say of Cicero, whom he deeply admired and
loved, was the kind ejaculation, "I hope God will be merciful to
him!" To those who appreciate it with hostility, and look on all
things in its light, the thought that there can be no salvation
except by belief in the expiatory death of Christ, hopelessly
dooming all the heathen,8 and all infant children, unless baptized
in a proxy faith,9 builds an altar of blood among the stars and
makes the universe reek with horror. Other crimes, though stained
through with midnight dyes and heaped up to the brim of outrageous
guilt, may be freely forgiven to him who comes heartily to credit
the vicarious death of the Savior; but he who does not trust in
that, though virtuous as man can be, must depart into the
unappeasable fires. "Why this unintelligible crime of not seeing
the atonement happens to be the only sin for which there is no
atonement, it is impossible to say." Though this view of the
method, extent, and conditions of redemption is less revolting and
incredible than the other, still, it does not seem to us that any
person whose mental and moral nature is unprejudiced, healthy, and
enlightened, and who will patiently study the subject, can
possibly accept either of them. The leading assumed doctrines
common to them, out of which they severally spring, and on which
they both rest, are not only unsupported by adequate proofs, but
really have no evidence at all, and are absurd in themselves,
confounding the broadest distinctions in morals, and subverting
the best established principles of natural religion.10

The fourth scheme of Christian salvation is that which predicates
the power of insuring souls from hell solely of the Church. This
is the sacramental theory. It is assumed that, in the state of
nature subsequent to the transgression and fall of Adam, all men
are alienated from God, and by the universal original sin
universally exposed to damnation, indeed, the helpless victims of
eternal misery. In the fulness of time, Christ appeared, and
offered himself to suffer in their stead to secure their
deliverance. His death cancelled the whole sum of

8 Bretschneider, Entwickelung der Dogmatik, sect. 112, Nos. 37 50.

9 So affirmed by the Council of Carthage, Canon II.

10 The violence done to moral reason by these views is powerfully
exposed in Bushnell's Discourse on the Atonement: God in Christ,
pp. 193-202.


original sin, and only that, thus taking away the absolute
impossibility of salvation, and leaving every man in the world
free to stand or fall, incur hell or win heaven, by his personal
merits. From that time any person who lived a perfectly holy life
which no man could find practically possible thereby secured
eternal blessedness; but the moment he fell into a single sin,
however trivial, he sealed his condemnation: Christ's sacrifice,
as was just said, merely removed the transmitted burden of
original sin from all mankind, but made no provision for their
personal sins, so that practically, all men being voluntary as
well as hereditary sinners, their condition was as bad as before:
they were surely lost. To meet this state of the case, the Church,
whose priests, it is claimed, are the representatives of Christ,
and whose head is the vicegerent of God on earth, was empowered by
the celebration of the mass to re enact, as often as it pleased,
the tragedy of the crucifixion. In this service Christ is supposed
literally to be put to death afresh, and the merit of his
substitutional sufferings is supposed to be placed to the account
of the Church.11 As Sir Henry Wotton says,  "One rosy drop from
Jesus' heart Was worlds of seas to quench God's ire."

In one of the Decretals of Clement VI., called "Extravagants," it
is asserted that "one drop of Christ's blood [una guttula
sanguinis] being sufficient to redeem the whole human race, the
remaining quantity which was shed in the garden and on the cross
was left as a legacy to the Church, to be a treasure whence
indulgences were to be drawn and administered by the Roman
pontiffs." Furthermore, saints and martyrs, by their constant self
denial, voluntary sufferings, penances, and prayers, like Christ,
do more good works than are necessary for their own salvation; and
the balance of merit the works of supererogation is likewise
accredited to the Church. In this way a great reserved fund of
merits is placed at the disposal of the priests. At their pleasure
they can draw upon this vicarious treasure and substitute it in
place of the deserved penalties of the guilty, and thus absolve
them and effect the salvation of their souls. All this dread
machinery is in the sole power of the Church. Outside of her pale,
heretics, heathen, all alike, are unalterably doomed to hell. But
whoso will acknowledge her authority, confess his sins, receive
the sacrament of baptism, partake of the eucharist, obey the
priests, shall be infallibly saved. The Church declares that those
who neglect to submit to her power and observe her rites are lost,
by excommunicating such every year just before Easter, thereby
typifying that they shall have no part in the resurrection and
ascension. The scheme of salvation just exhibited we reject as
alike unwarranted by the Scriptures, absurd to reason, absurd to
conscience, fraught with evil practices, and traceable in history
through the gradual and corrupt growths of the dogmatic policy of
an interested body. There is not one text in the Bible which
affords real argument, credit, or countenance to the haughty
pretensions of a Church to retain or absolve guilt, to have the
exclusive control of the tangible keys of heaven and hell. It is
incredible to a free and intelligent mind that the opposing fates
forever of hundreds of millions of men should turn on a mere
accident of time

11 Thomas Aquinas, Summa, Suppl. pars iii. qu. 25, art. 1.


and place, or at best on the moral contingence of their
acknowledging or denying the doubtful authority of a tyrannical
hierarchy, a mere matter of form and profession, independent of
their lives and characters, and of no spiritual worth at all. One
is here reminded of a passage in Plutarch's Essay "How a Young Man
ought to hear Poems." The lines in Sophocles which declare that
the initiates in the Mysteries shall be happy in the future life,
but that all others shall be wretched, having been read to
Diogenes, he exclaimed, "What! Shall the condition of Pantacion,
the notorious robber, be better after death than that of
Epaminondas, merely because he was initiated in the Mysteries?" It
is also a shocking violence to common sense, and to all proper
appreciation of spiritual realities, to imagine the gross
mechanical transference of blame and merit mutually between the
bad and the good, as if moral qualities were not personal, but
might be shifted about at will by pecuniary considerations, as the
accounts in the debt and credit columns of a ledger. The theoretic
falsities of such a scheme are as numerous and evident as its
practical abuses have been enormous and notorious. How ridiculous
this ritual fetch to snatch souls from perdition appears as stated
by Julian against Augustine! "God and the devil, then, have
entered into a covenant, that what is born the devil shall have,
and what is baptized God shall have!"12 We hesitate not to stake
the argument on one question. If there be no salvation save by
believing and accepting the sacraments with the authority of the
Romanist or the Episcopalian Church, then less than one in a
hundred thousand of the world's population thus far can be saved.
Death steadily showers into hell, age after age, an overwhelming
proportion of the souls of all mankind, a rain storm of agonized
drops of immortality to feed and freshen the quenchless fires of
damnation. Who can believe it, knowing what it is that he
believes?

We advance next to a system of Christian salvation as remarkable
for its simplicity, boldness, and instinctive benevolence as those
we have previously examined are for complexity, unnaturalness, and
severity. The theory referred to promises the natural and
inevitable salvation of every created soul. It bases itself on two
positions, the denial that men are ever lost, except partially and
temporarily, and the exhibition of the irresistible power, perfect
wisdom, and infinite goodness of God. The advocates of this
doctrine point first to observation and experience, and declare
that no person is totally reprobate, that every one is salvable;
those most corrupt and abandoned to wickedness, unbelief, and
hardness, have yet a spark that may be kindled, a fount that may
be made to gush, unto the illumination and purification of the
whole being. A stray word, an unknown influence, a breath of the
Spirit, is continually effecting such changes, such salvations.
True, there are many fettered by vices, torn by sins, ploughed by
the caustic shares of remorse, lost to peaceful freedom, lost to
spiritual joys, lost to the sweet, calm raptures of religious
belief and love, and, in that sense, plunged in damnation. But
this, they say, is the only hell there is. At the longest, it can
endure but for the night of this life: deliverance and blessedness
come with the morning dawn of a better world. Exact retributions
are awarded to all iniquity here; so

12 Julian, lib. vi. ix.


that at the termination of the present state there is nothing to
prevent the flowing of an equal bliss impartially over all. The
substantive faculties and forces of the soul are always good and
right: only their action is perverted to evil.13 This perversion
will cease with the accidents of the present state; and thus death
is the door to salvation. God's desires and intentions for his
creatures, again they argue, must be purely gracious and blessed;
for Nature, the Bible, and the Soul blend their ultimate teachings
in one affirmation that he is Love. Being omnipotent and of
perfect wisdom, nothing can withstand his decrees or thwart his
plans. His purpose, of course, must be fulfilled. There is every
thing to prove, and nothing, rightly understood, to disprove, that
that purpose is the eternal blessedness of all his intelligent
offspring after death. Therefore, they think they are justified in
concluding, the laws of nature, God's regular habits and course of
government, the normal arrangement and process of things, will of
themselves work out the inevitable salvation of all mankind. After
the uproar and darkness, the peril and fear, of a tempestuous
night, the all embracing smile of daylight gradually spreads over
the world, and the turmoil silently subsides, and the scene
sleeps. So after the sins and miseries, the condemnation and hell,
of this state of existence, shall succeed the redemption, the
holiness and happy peace, of heaven, into which all pass by the
order of nature, the original and undisturbed arrangement of the
creative Father. This view is advanced by some on grounds both of
revelation and reason. It is the doctrine of those Beghards who
taught that "there is neither hell nor purgatory; that no one is
damned, neither Jew nor Saracen, because on the death of the body
the soul returns to God."14 But the proper doctrine of the
Universalist denomination is founded directly on Scripture, and
seems now to be simply the absolute certainty of final salvation
for all. Balfour held that Christ, in obedience to the will of
God, secures eternal life for all men in the most literal manner,
by causing the resurrection of the dead from their otherwise
endless sleep in the grave, a doctrine nearly or quite fossil
now.15

It will be noticed that by this view salvation is an unlimited
necessity, not a contingency,  a boon thrown to all, and which no
one has power to reject:

"The road to heaven is broader than the world,
And deeper than the kingdoms of the dead;
And up its ample paths the nations tread
With all their banners furl'd."

This theory contains elements, it seems to us, both of truth and
falsehood. It casts off gross mistakes, announces some fundamental
realities, overlooks, perverts, exaggerates, some essential facts
in the case. There is so much in it that is grateful and beautiful
that we cannot wonder at its reception where the tender instincts
of the heart are stronger than the stern decisions of the
conscience, where the kindly sentiments usurp the province of the
critical reason and sit in judgment upon evidence for the
construction of a dogmatic creed. We

13 Universalist Quarterly Review, vol. x. art. xvi.: Character and
its Predicates.

14 Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, sect. 209, note 14.

15 See Ballou, Examination of the Doctrine of Future Punishment,
pp. 152-157. Williamson, Exposition of Universalism, Sermon XL:
Nature of Salvation. Cobb, Compend. of Divinity, ch. ix. sect. 3.


cannot accept it as a whole, cannot admit its great unqualified
conclusion, not only because there is no direct evidence for it,
but because there are many potent presumptions against it. It is
not built upon the facts of our consciousness and present
experience, but is resolutely constructed in defiance of them by
an arbitrary process of assumption and inference; for since God's
perfections are as absolute now as they ever can be, and he now
permits sin and misery, there is no impossibility that they will
be permitted for a season hereafter. If they are necessary now,
they may be necessary hereafter. An experience of salvation by
all, regardless of what they do or what they leave undone, would
also defeat what we have always considered the chief final cause
of man, namely, the self determined resistance of Evil and choice
of Good, the free formation of virtuous character. The plan of a
necessary and indiscriminate redemption likewise breaks the
evident continuity of life, ignores the lineal causative power of
experience, whereby each moment partially produces and moulds the
next, destroys the probationary nature of our lot, and palsies the
strength of moral motive. It is furthermore the height of
injustice, awarding to all men the same condition, remorselessly
swallowing up their infinite differences, making sin and virtue,
sloth and toil, exactly alike in the end. Whose earnestly embraces
the theory, and meditates much upon it, and reasons closely, will
be likely to become an Antinomian. It overlooks the loud,
omnipresent hints which tell us that the present state is
incomplete and dependent, the part of a great whole, the visible
segment of a circle whose complement overarches the invisible
world to come, where future correspondences and fulnesses will
satisfy and complete present claims and deficiencies. We reject
this scheme, as to its distinctive feature, for all those reasons
which lead us to accept that final view to which we now turn.

The theory of Christian redemption which seems to us correct,
represents the good and evil forces of personal character,
harmonious or discordant with the mind of God, as the conditions
of salvation or of reprobation. Swedenborg, who teaches that man
in the future state is the son of his own deeds in the present
state, says he once saw Melancthon in hell, writing, "Faith alone
saves," the words fading out as fast as written, because
expressive of a falsehood! It is not belief, but love, that
dominates the soul, not a mental act, but a spiritual substance.
According as the realities of the soul are what they should be,
just and pure, or what they should not be, perverted and corrupt,
and according as the realities of the soul are in right relations
with truth, beauty, goodness, or in vitiated relations with them,
so, and to that extent, is the soul saved or lost. This is not a
matter of arbitrary determination on one hand; and of helpless
submission on the other: it is a matter of Divine permission on
one hand, and of free, though sometimes unintelligent and
mistaken, choice on the other. The only perdition is to be out of
tune with the right constitution and exercise of things and rules.
That, of itself, makes a man the victim of guilt and wretchedness.
The only salvation is the restoration of the balance and normal
efficiency of the faculties, the restoration of their harmony with
the moral law, the recommencement of their action in unison with
the will of God. When a soul, through its exposure and freedom,
becomes and experiences what God did not intend and is not pleased
with, what his creative and executive arrangements are not
purposely ordered for, it is, for the time, and so far forth,
lost. It is saved, when knowledge of truth illuminates the mind,
love of goodness warms the heart, energy, purity, and aspiration
fill and animate the whole being. Then, having realized in its
experience the purposes of Christ's mission, the original aims of
its existence, it rejoices in the favor of God. In the harmonious
fruition of its internal efficiencies and external relations, all
things work together for good unto it, and it basks in the beams
of the sun of immortality. Perdition and hell are the condemnation
and misery instantaneously deposited in experience whenever and
wherever a perverted and corrupt soul touches its relations with
the universe. The meeting of its consciousness with the alienated
mournful faces of things, with the hostile retributive forces of
things, produces unrest and suffering with the same natural
necessity that the meeting of certain chemical substances deposits
poison and bitterness. Perdition being the degradation and
wretchedness of the soul through ingrained falsehood, vice,
impurity, and hardness, salvation is the casting out of these
evils, and the replacing them with truth, righteousness, a holy
and sensitive life. To ransom from hell and translate to heaven is
not, then, so much to deliver from a local dungeon of gnawing
fires and worms, and bear to a local paradise of luxuries, as it
is to heal diseases and restore health. Hell is a wrong, diseased
condition of the soul, its indwelling wretchedness and
retribution, wherever it may be, as when the light of day tortures
a sick eye. Heaven is a right, healthy condition of the soul, its
indwelling integrity and concord, in whatever realms it may
reside, as when the sunshine bathes the healthy orb of vision with
delight. Salvation is nothing more nor less than the harmonious
blessedness of the soul by the fruition of all its right powers
and relations. Remove a man who is writhing in the agonies of some
physical disease, from his desolate hut on the bleak mountain side
to a gorgeous palace in a delicious tropical clime. He is just as
badly off as before. He is still, so to speak, in hell, wherever
he may be in location. Cure his sickness, and then he is, so to
speak, saved, in heaven. It is so with the soul. The conditions of
salvation and reprobation are not arbitrary, mechanical, fickle,
but are the interior and unalterable laws of the soul and of the
universe. "Every devil," Sir Thomas Browne says, "holds enough of
torture in his own ubi, and needs not the torture of circumference
to afflict him." If there are, as there may be, two entirely
separate regions in space, whose respective boundaries enclose
hell and heaven, banishment into the one, or admission into the
other, evidently is not what constitutes the essence of perdition
or of salvation, is not the all important consideration; but the
characteristic condition of the soul, which produces its
experience and decides its destination, that is the essential
thing. The mild fanning of a zephyr in a summer evening is
intolerable to a person in the convulsions of the ague, but most
welcome and delightful to others. So to a wicked soul all objects,
operations, and influences of the moral creation become hostile
and retributive, making a hell of the whole universe. Purify the
soul, restore it to a correct condition, and every thing is
transfigured: the universal hell becomes universal heaven.

We may gather up in a few propositions the leading principles of
this theory of salvation. First, Perdition is not an experience to
which souls are helplessly born, not a sentence inflicted on them
by an arbitrary decree, but is a result wrought out by free
agency, in conformity to the unalterable laws of the spiritual
world. Secondly, heaven and hell are not essentially particular
localities into which spirits are thrust, nor states of
consciousness produced by outward circumstances, but are an outward
 reflection from, and a reciprocal action upon, internal character.

Thirdly, condemnation, or justification, is not absolute and
complete, equalizing all on each side of a given line, but is a
thing of degrees, not exactly the same in any two individuals,
or in the same person at all times. Fourthly, we have no reason
to suppose that probation closes with the closing of the
present life; but every relevant consideration leads us to
conclude that the same great constitution of laws pervades all
worlds and reigns throughout eternity, so that the fate of souls
is not unchangeably fixed at death. No analogy indicates that
after death all will be thoroughly different from what it is
before death. Rather do all analogies argue that the hell and
heaven of the future will be the aggravation, or mitigation, or
continuation, of the perdition and salvation of the present. It is
altogether a sentence of exact right according to character, a
matter of personal achievement depending upon freedom, an
experience of inward elements and states, a thing of degrees, and
a subject of continued probation.

The condition of the heathen nations in reference to salvation is
satisfactory only in the light of the foregoing theory. If a
person is what God wishes, as shown by his revealed will in the
model of Christ, pure, loving, devout, wise, and earnest, he is
saved, whether he ever heard of Christ or not. Are Plato and
Aristides, Cato and Antoninus, to be damned, while Pope Alexander
VI. and King Philip II are saved, because those glorious
characters merely lived at the then height of attainable
excellence, but these fanatic scoundrels made a technical
profession of Christianity? The "Athanasian" creed asserts that
whoever doth not fully believe its dogmas "shall without doubt
perish everlastingly." And the eighteenth article in the creed of
the Church of England declares "them accursed who presume to say
that any man can be saved by diligently framing his life according
to the law or sect which he professeth, and the light of
nature."16

Another particular in which the present view of salvation is
satisfactory, in opposition to the other theories, is in leaving
the personal nature of sin clear, the realm of personal
responsibility unconfused. Why should a system of thought be set
up and adhered to in religion that would be instantly and
universally scouted at if applied to any other subject? 17 "No one
dreams that the sin of an unexercised intellect, of gross
ignorance, can be pardoned only through faith in the sacrifice of
some incarnation of the Perfect Reason. No one expects to be told
that the violation of the bodily laws can be forgiven by the
Infinite Creator only on the ground that some perfect physician
honors them by obedience and death. It is by opening the mind to
God's published truth, and by conformity to the discovered
philosophical

16 Arnauld, Emes, Goeze, and others, have written volumes to prove
the indiscriminate damnation of the heathen. On the contrary,
Muller, in his "Diss. de Paganorum poet Mortem Conditione," and
Marmontel, in his "Belisaire," take a more favorable view of the
fate of the ethnic world. The best work on the subject a work of
great geniality and ability is Eberhard's "Neue Apologie des
Socrates." Also see Knapp's Christian Theology, sect. lxxxviii.

17 Martineau, Studies of Christianity, pp. 153-176: Mediatorial
Religion. Ibid. pp. 468-477: Sin What it is, What it is not.


order, or the reception of the adopted remedy, that the mind and
the frame experience new life. And our souls are redeemed, not by
any expiation on account of which penalties are lifted, but by
reception of spiritual truth and consecration of will, which push
away penalties by wholesome life." 18

The awful inviolability of justice is shown by the eternal course
of God's laws bringing the exactly deserved penalty upon every
soul that sinneth. Whoever breaks a Divine decree puts all sacred
things in antagonism to him, and the precise punishment of his
offences not the worth of worlds nor the blood of angels can
avert. The boundless mercy of God, his atoning love, is shown by
the absence of all vindictiveness from his judgments, their
restorative aim and tendency. Whenever the sinner repents,
reforms, puts himself in a right attitude, God is waiting to
pardon and bless him, the sun shines and the happy heart is glad
as at first, the cloudy screen of sin and fear and retributive
alienation being removed. This view, when appreciated, affords as
impressive a sanction to law, and as affecting an exhibition of
love, as are theoretically ascribed to the doctrine of vicarious
expiation. The infinite sanctity of justice and the fathomless
love of God are certainly much more plainly and satisfactorily
shown by the righteous nature and beneficent operation of the law,
than by its terrible severity and arbitrary subversion. According
to the present view, the relation of Christ to human redemption is
as simple and rational as it is divinely appointed and perfectly
fulfilled. Accredited with miraculous seals, presenting the most
pathetic and inspiring motives, he reveals the truths and
exemplifies the virtues which, when adopted, regenerate the
springs of faith and character, rectify the lines of conduct, and
change men from sinful and wretched to saintly and blessed. He
stirs the stagnant soul, that man may replunge into his native
self, and rise redeemed.

For the more distinct comprehension and remembrance of the schemes
of Christian salvation we have been considering, it may be well to
recapitulate them.

The first theory is this: When, by the fall of Adam, all men were
utterly lost and doomed to hell forever, the vicarious sufferings
of Christ cancelled sin, and unconditionally purchased and saved
all. This was the original development of Universalism. It sprang
consistently from Augustinian grounds. It was taught by a party in
the Church of the first centuries, was afterwards repeatedly
condemned as a heresy by popes and by councils, and was revived by
Kelly, Murray, and others. We are not aware that it now has any
avowed disciples.

The second conception is, in substance, that God, foreseeing from
eternity the fall of Adam and the consequent damnation of his
posterity, arbitrarily elected a portion of them to salvation,
leaving the rest to their fate; and the vicarious sufferings of
Christ were the only possible means of carrying that decree into
effect. This is the Augustinian and Calvinistic theology, and has
had a very extensive prevalence among Christians. Many church
creeds still embody the doctrine; but in its original,
uncompromising form it is rapidly fading from belief. Even now few
persons can be found to profess it without essential modifications,
so

18 T. S. King, Endless Punishment Unchristian and Unreasonable, p.
65.


qualifying it as to destroy its identity.

The third plan of delivering souls from the doom supposed to rest
on them attributes to the vicarious sufferings of Christ a
conditional efficacy, depending upon personal faith. Every one who
will heartily believe in the substitutional death of Christ, and
trust in his atoning merits, shall thereby be saved. This was the
system of Pelagius, Arminius, Luther. It prevails now in the so
called Evangelical Churches more generally than any other system.

The fourth received method of salvation, assuming the same
premises which the three foregoing schemes assume, namely, that
through the fall all men are eternally sentenced to hell, declares
that, by Christ's vicarious sufferings, power is given to the
Church, a priestly hierarchy, to save such as confess her
authority and observe her rites. All others must continue lost.19
This theory early began to be constructed and broached by the
Fathers. It is held by the Roman Catholic Church, and by all the
consistent portion of the Episcopalian. A part of the Baptist
denomination also through their popular preachers, if not in their
recognised symbols assert the indispensableness of ritual baptism
to salvation.

The fifth view of the problem is that no soul is lost or doomed
except so far as it is personally, voluntarily depraved and
sinful. And even to that extent, and in that sense, it can be
called lost only in the present life. After death every soul is
freed from evil, and ushered at once into heaven. This is the
distinctive doctrine of the ultra Universalists. It is
disappearing from among its recent advocates. As a body they have
already exchanged its arbitrary conceptions of "death and glory"
for the more rational conclusions of the "Restorationists." 20

The sixth and final scheme of Christian salvation teaches that, by
the immutable laws which the Creator has established in and over
his works and creatures, a free soul may choose good or evil,
truth or falsehood, love or hate, beneficence or iniquity. Just so
far and just so long as it partakes of the former it is saved; as
it partakes of the latter it is lost, that is, alienates the favor
of God, forfeits so much of the benefits of creation and of the
blessings of being. The conditions and means of repentance,
reformation, regeneration, are always within its power, the future
state being but the unencumbered, more favorable experience of the
spiritual elements of the present, under the same Divine
constitution and laws. This is the common belief of Unitarians and
Universalists, the latter alone teaching it as a sure doctrine of
Revelation.

Salvation by purchase, by the redeeming blood of Christ; salvation
by election, by the independent decree of God, sealed by the blood
of Christ; salvation by faith, by an appropriating faith in the
blood of Christ; salvation by the Church, by the sacraments made
efficacious to that end by the blood of Christ; salvation by
nature, by the irresistible working of the natural order of
things, declared by the teachings of Christ; salvation by a
resurrection from the dead, miraculously effected by the delegated
power of Christ; salvation by character, by conformity of
character to the spiritual laws of the universe, to the nature and
will of God, revealed, urged, exemplified, by the whole mission of
Christ; these are the different theories

19 Adams, Mercy to Babes. (A plea for the baptism of infants, that
they may not be damned.)

20 Adin Ballou, Universalism and Restorationism Moral Contraries,
1837.


proposed for the acceptance of Christians.

Outside of Christendom we discern, received and operative in
various forms, all the theoretic modes of salvation acknowledged
within it, and some others in addition. The creed and practice of
the Mohammedans afford a more unflinching embodiment of the
conception of salvation by election than is furnished anywhere
else. Islam denotes Fate. All is predestinated and follows on in
inevitable sequence. No modifying influence is possible. Can a
breath move Mount Kaf? The chosen of Allah shall believe; the
rejected of Allah shall deny. Every believer's bower is blooming
for him in Paradise; every unbeliever's bed is burning for him in
hell. And nothing whatever can avail to change the persons or the
total number elected for each.

There is one theory of salvation scarcely heard of in the West,
but extensively held in the East. The Brahmanic as well as the
Buddhist thinker relies on obtaining salvation by knowledge. Life
in a continual succession of different bodies is his perdition.
His salvation is to be freed from the vortex of births and deaths,
the fret and storm of finite existence. Neither goodness nor piety
can ever release him. Knowledge alone can do it: an unsullied
intellectual vision and a free intellectual grasp of truth and
love alone can rescue him from the turbid sea of forms and
struggles. "As a lump of salt is of uniform taste within and
without, so the soul is nothing but intelligence."21 If the soul
be an entire mass of intelligence, a current of ideas, its real
salvation depends on its becoming pure and eternal truth without
mixture of falsehood or of emotional disturbance. He "must free
himself from virtues as well as from sins; for the confinement of
fetters is the same whether the chain be of gold or of iron."22
Accordingly, the Hindu, to secure emancipation, planes down the
mountainous thoughts and passions of his soul to a desert level of
indifferent insight. And when, in direct personal knowledge, free
from joy and sorrow, free from good and ill, he gazes into the
limitless abyss of Divine truth, then he is sure of the bosom of
Brahm, the door of Nirwana. Then the wheel of the Brahmanic Ixion
ceases revolving, and the Buddhist Ahasuerus flings away his
staff; for salvation is attained.

The conception of salvation by ritual works based on faith either
faith in Deity or in some redemptive agency is exhibited all over
the world. Hani, a Hindu devotee, dwelt in a thicket, and repeated
the name of Krishna a hundred thousand times each day, 23 and thus
saved his soul. The saintly Muni Shukadev said, as is written in
the most popular religious authority of India, "Who even
ignorantly sing the praises of Krishna undoubtedly obtain final
beatitude; just as, if one ignorant of the properties of nectar
should drink it, he would still become immortal. Whoever worships
Hari, with whatever disposition of mind, obtains beatitude."24
"The repetition of the names of Vishnu purifies from all sins,
even when invoked by an evil minded person, as fire burns even him
who approaches it unwillingly."25 Nothing is more common in the
sacred writings of the Hindus than the promise that "whoever reads
or hears this narrative with a devout mind shall receive final
beatitude." Millions on millions of these docile and abject
devotees undoubtingly expect salvation by such merely ritual

21 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 359.

22 Ibid. p. 363.

23 Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi. p. 115.

24 Eastwick, Prem Sagar, p. 56.

25 Vishnu Parans, p. 210, note 13.


observances. One cries "Lord!" "Lord!" Another thumbs a book, as
if it were an omnipotent amulet. Another meditates on some mystic
theme, as if musing were a resistless spell of silent exorcism and
invocation. Another pierces himself with red hot irons, as if
voluntary pain endured now could accumulate merit for him and buy
off future inflictions.

It is surprising to what an extent men's efforts for salvation
seem underlaid by conceptions of propitiation, the placation of a
hatred, the awakening of a love, in the objects of their worship.
In all these cases salvation is sought indirectly through works,
though not particularly good works. The savage makes an offering,
mutters a prayer, or fiercely wounds his body, before the hideous
idol of his choice. The fakir, swung upon sharp hooks, revolves
slowly round a fire. The monk wears a hair shirt, and flagellates
himself until blood trickles across the floor of his cell. The
Portuguese sailor in a storm takes a leaden saint from his bosom
and kneels before it for safety. The offending Bushman crawls in
the dust and shudders as he seeks to avert the fury of the fetich
which he has carved and set in a tree. The wounded brigand in the
Apennines, with unnumbered robberies and murders on his soul,
finds perfect ease to his conscience as his glazing eye falls on a
carefully treasured picture of the Virgin, and he expires in a
triumph of faith, saying, "Sweet Mother of God, intercede for me."
The Calvinistic convert, about to be executed for his fearful
crimes, kneels at the foot of the gallows, and exclaims, as in a
recent well known instance, "I hold the blood of Christ between my
soul and the flaming face of God, and die happy, assured that I am
going to heaven."

It is all a terrible delusion, arising from perverted sentiment
and degraded thought. Of the five theoretical modes of salvation
taught in the world, Election, Faith, Works, Knowledge, Harmony,
one alone is real and divine, although it contains principles
taken from all the rest and blended with its own. There is no
salvation by foregone election; for that would dethrone the moral
laws and deify caprice. There is no salvation by dogmatic faith;
because faith is not a matter of will, but of evidence, not within
man's own power, and a thousand varieties of faith are
necessitated among men. There is no salvation by determinate
works; for works are measurable quantities, whose rewards and
punishments are meted and finally spent, but salvation is
qualitative and infinite. There is no salvation by intellectual
knowledge; for knowledge is sight, not being, an accident, not an
essence, an attribute of one faculty, not a right state and ruling
force in all. The true salvation is by harmony; for harmony of all
the forces of the soul with themselves and with all related forces
beyond, harmony of the individual will with the Divine will,
harmony of personal action with the universal activity, what other
negation of perdition is possible? what other definition and
affirmation of salvation conceivable? By the Creator's fiat, man
is first elected to be. By the guiding stimulus of faith, he is
next animated to spiritual exertion. By the performance of good
works, he then brings his moral nature into beautiful form and
attitude. By knowledge of truth, he furthermore sees how to
direct, govern, and attune himself. And finally, by the
accomplishment of all this in the organized harmony of a wise and
holy soul, there results that state of being whose passive
conditions constitute salvation, and whose active experience is
eternal life.

CHAPTER VI.

RECOGNITION OF FRIENDS IN A FUTURE LIFE.

OF all the sorrows incident to human life, none is so penetrating
to gentle hearts as that which fills them with aching regrets,
and, for a time, writes hollowness and vanity on their dearest
treasures, when death robs them of those they love. And so, of all
the questions that haunt the soul, wringing its faculties for a
solution, beseeching the oracles of the universe for a response,
none can have a more intense interest than gathers about the
irrepressible inquiry, "Shall we ever meet again, and know, the
friends we have lost? somewhere in the ample creation and in the
boundless ages, join, with the old familiar love, our long parted,
fondly cherished, never forgotten dead?" The grief of bereavement
and the desire of reunion are experienced in an endless diversity
of degrees by different persons, according as they are careless,
hard, and sense bound, or thoughtful, sympathizing, and
imaginative; undisciplined by the mysteries and afflictions of our
mortal destiny, or profoundly tried by the disappointments and
prophecies of time and fate; and as they are shadowed by the gloom
of despair, or cheered by the radiance of belief. But to all who
feel, even the least, the uncertain but deep monitions of the
silent pall, the sad procession, and the burial mound, the
impressive problem must occur, with frequency and power, Does the
grave sunder us and the objects of our affection forever? or,
across that dark gulf, shall we be united again in purer bonds?
Outside of the atheistic dissolution and the pantheistic
absorption, it is supposable that, surviving the blow of death,
our spirits may return to God and run their endless course in
divine solitude. On the other hand, it is supposable that,
possessed with all the memories of this probationary state,
blessed by the companionship of our earthly friends, we may aspire
together along the interminable gradations of the world to come.
If the former supposition be true, and the farewell of the dying
is the announcement of an irrevocable separation, then the tears
we shed over the shrouded clay, once so prized, should be
distillations from Lethe's flood, to make us forget all. But if
the latter be true, then our deadly seeming losses are as the
partings of travellers at night to meet in the morning; and, as
friend after friend retires, we should sigh to each departing
spirit a kind adieu till we meet again, and let pleasing memories
of them linger to mingle in the sacred day dreams of remaining
life.

Evidently it is of much importance to a man which of these views
he shall take; for each exerts a distinctive influence in regard
to his peace of mind, his moral strength, and his religious
character. On one who believes that hereafter, beyond all the
partings in this land of tombs, he shall never meet the dear
companions who now bless his lot, the death of friends must fall,
if he be a person of strong sensibilities, as a staggering blow,
awakening an agony of sorrow, taking from the sky and the earth a
glory nothing can ever replace, and leaving in his heart a
wretched void nothing can ever fill. Henceforth he will be
deprived mostly for all felt connection between them is hopelessly
sundered of the good influences they exerted on him when present:
he must try, by all expedients, to forget them; think no more of
their virtues, their welcome voices and kindly deeds; wipe from
the tablets of his soul all fond records of their united happy
days; look not to the future, let the past be as though it had
never been, and absorb his thoughts and feelings in the turmoil of
the present. This is his only course; and even then, if true to
the holiest instincts of his soul, he will find the fatal
separation has lessened his being and impoverished his life,

"For this losing is true dying; This is lordly man's down lying,
This his slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world
resigning."

But to him who earnestly expects soon to be restored under fairer
auspices and in a deathless world to those from whom he parted as
he laid their crumbling bodies in the earth, the death of friends
will come as a message from the Great Father, a message solemn yet
kind, laden indeed with natural sadness yet brightened by sure
promise and followed by heavenly compensations. If his tears flow,
they flow not in scalding bitterness from the Marah fountain of
despair, but in chastened joy from the smitten rock of faith. So
far from endeavoring to forget the departed, he will cling to
their memories with redoubled tenderness, as a sacred trust and a
redeeming power. They will be more precious to him than ever,
stronger to purify and animate. Their saintly examples will
attract him as never before, and their celestial voices plead from
on high to win him to virtue and to heaven. The constant thought
of seeing them once more, and wafting in their arms through the
enchanted spaces of Paradise, will wield a sanctifying force over
his spirit. They will make the invisible sphere a peopled reality
to him, and draw him to God by the diffused bonds of a spiritual
acquaintance and an eternal love.

Since the result in which a man rests on this subject, believing
or disbelieving that he shall recognise his beloved ones the other
side of the grave, exerts a deep influence on him, in one case
disheartening, in the other uplifting, it is incumbent on us to
investigate the subject, try to get at the truth, clear it up, and
appreciate it as well as we can. It is a theme to interest us all.
Who has not endeared relatives, choice friends, freshly or long
ago removed from this earth into the unknown clime? In a little
while, as the ravaging reaper sweeps on his way, who will not have
still more there, or be there himself? Whether old acquaintance
shall be all forgot or be well remembered there, is an inquiry
which must profoundly interest all who have hearts to love their
companions, and minds to perceive the creeping shadows of mystery
drawing over us as we approach the sure destiny of age and the dim
confines of the world. It is a theme, far removed from noisy
strifes and vain shows, penetrating that mysterious essence of
affection and thought which we are. The thing of first importance
is not the conclusion we reach, but the spirit in which we seek
and hold it. The Christian says to his friend, "Our souls will be
united in yonder heaven." Danton, with a horrible travesty, said
to his comrades on the scaffold, "Our heads will meet in that
sack."

Before engaging directly in the discussion, it will be interesting
to notice, for an instant, the verdict which history, in the
spontaneous suppositions and rude speculations of ancient peoples,
pronounces on this subject.1 Among their various opinions about
the state after death, it is a prominent circumstance that they
generally agree in conceiving it as a social state in which
personal likenesses and memories are retained, fellow countrymen
are grouped together, and friends united. This is minutely true of
those nations with the details of whose faith we are acquainted,
and is implied in the general belief of all others, except those
who expected the individual spirit to be absorbed in the soul of
the universe. Homer shows Ulysses and Virgil in like manner shows
Aneas upon his entrance into the other world mutually recognising
his old comrades and recognised by them. The two heroes whose
inseparable friendship on earth was proverbial are still together
in Elysium:

"Then, side by side, along the dreary coast Advanced Achilles' and
Patroclus' ghost, A friendly pair."

In this representation that there was a full recognition of
acquaintances, all the accounts of the other world given in Greek
and Roman literature harmonize. The same is true of the accounts
contained in the literature of the ancient Hebrews. In the Book of
Genesis, when Jacob hears of the death of his favorite child, he
exclaims, "I shall go down to my son Joseph in the under world,
mourning." When the witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel,
Saul knew him by the description she gave of him as he rose. The
monarch shades in the under world are pictured by Isaiah as
recognising the shade of the king of Babylon and rising from their
sombre thrones to greet him with mockery. Ezekiel shows us each
people of the heathen nations in the under world in a company by
themselves. When David's child died, the king sorrowfully
exclaimed, "He will not return to me; but I shall go to him." All
these passages are based on the conception of a gloomy
subterranean abode where the ghosts of the dead are reunited after
their separation at death on earth. An old commentator on the
Koran says a Mohammedan priest was once asked how the blessed in
paradise could be happy when missing some near relative or dear
friend whom they were thus forced to suppose in hell. He replied,
God will either cause believers to forget such persons or else to
rest in expectation of their coming. The anecdote shows
affectingly that the same yearning heart and curiosity are
possessed by Moslem and Christian. A still more impressive case in
point is furnished by a picture in a Buddhist temple in China. The
painting represents the story of the priest Lo Puh, who, on
passing into paradise at death, saw his mother, Yin Te, in hell.
He instantly descended into the infernal court, Tsin Kwang Wang,
where she was suffering, and, by his valor, virtues, and
intercessions, rescued her. The picture vividly portraying the
whole story may be seen and studied at the present time by
Christian missionaries who enter that temple of the benevolent
Buddha.2 From the faith of many other nations illustrations might
be brought of the same fact, that the great common instinct which
has led men to believe in a future life has at the same time
caused them to believe that in that life there would be a union
and recognition of friends. Let this far reaching historical fact
be taken at its just value,

1 Alexius, Tod and Wiedersehen. Eine Gedankenfolge der besten
Schriftsteller aller Zeiten und Volker.

2 Asiatic Journal, 1840, p. 211.


while we proceed to the labor in hand. The fact referred to is of
some value, because, being an expression of the heart of man as
God made it, it is an indication of his will, a prophecy.

There are three ways of trying the problem of future recognition.
The cool, skeptical class of persons will examine the present
related facts of the case; argue from what they now know; test the
question by induction and inference. Let us see to what results
they will thus be led. In the first place, we learn upon
reflection that we now distinguish each other by the outward form,
physical proportion, and combination of looks, tones of voice, and
other the like particulars. Every one has his individuality in
these respects, by which he is separable from others. It may be
hastily inferred, then, that if we are to know our friends
hereafter it will be through the retention or the recovery of
their sensible peculiarities. Accordingly, many believe the soul
to be a perfect reflection or immaterial fac simile of the body,
the exact correspondence in shadowy outline of its gross
tabernacle, and consequently at once recognizable in the
disembodied state. The literature of Christendom we may almost say
of the world teems with exemplifications of this idea. Others,
arguing from the same acknowledged premises, conclude that future
recognition will be secured by the resurrection of the material
body as it was in all its perfection, in renovated and unfading
prime. But, leaving out of view the inherent absurdity of the
doctrine of a physical resurrection, there is a fatal difficulty
in the way of both these supposititious modes of mutual knowledge
in another world. It is this. The outward form, features, and
expression sometimes alter so thoroughly that it is impossible for
us to recognise our once most intimate companions. Cases are not
rare of this kind. Let one pass in absence from childhood to
maturity, and who that had not seen him in the mean time could
tell that it was he? The trouble arising thence is finely
illustrated by Shakspeare in the motherly solicitude of Constance,
who, on learning that her young son has been imprisoned by his
uncle, King John, and will probably be kept until he pines to
death, cries in anguish to her confessor,

"Father cardinal, I have  heard you say
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more."

Owing to the changes of all sorts which take place in the body,
future recognition cannot safely depend upon that or upon any
resemblance of the spirit to it. Besides, not the faintest proof
can be adduced of any such perceptible correspondence subsisting
between them.

Turning again to the facts of experience, we find that it is not
alone, nor indeed chiefly, by their visible forms and features
that we know our chosen ones. We also, and far more truly, know
them by the traits of their characters, the elements of their
lives, the effluence of their spirits, the magic atmosphere which
surrounds them, the electric thrill and communication which vivify
and conjoin our souls. And even in the exterior, that which most
reveals and distinguishes each is not the shape, but the
expression, the lights and shades, reflected out from the immortal
spirit shrined within. We know each other really by the mysterious
motions of our souls. And all these things endure and act
uninterrupted though the fleshly frame alter a thousand times or
dissolve in its native dust. The knowledge of a friend, then,
being independent of the body, spirits may be recognised in the
future state by the associations mutually surrounding them, the
feelings connecting them. Amidst all the innumerable thronging
multitudes, through all the immeasurable intervening heights and
depths, of the immaterial world, remembered and desired companions
may be selected and united by inward laws that act with the ease
and precision of chemical affinities. We may therefore recognise
each other by the feelings which now connect us, and which shall
spontaneously kindle and interchange when we meet in heaven, as
the signs of our former communion.

It needs but little thought to perceive that by this view future
recognition is conditional, being made to depend on the permanence
of our sympathies: there must be the same mutual relations,
affinities, fitness to awaken the same emotions upon approaching
each other's sphere, or we shall neither know nor be known. But in
fact our sympathies and aversions change as much as our outward
appearance does. The vices and virtues, loves and hatreds, of our
hearts alter, the peculiar characteristics of our souls undergo as
great a transformation, sometimes, as thorough a revolution, as
the body does in the interval between childhood and manhood. These
changes going on in our associates frequently change our feelings
towards them, heightening or diminishing our affection, creating a
new interest, destroying an old one, now making enemies lovers,
and now thoroughly alienating very friends. Such fundamental
alterations of character may occur in us, or in our friend, before
we meet in the unseen state, that we shall no more recognise each
other's spirits than we should know each other on earth after a
separation in which our bodily appearances and voices had been
entirely changed. These considerations would induce us to think
that recognition hereafter is not sure, but turns on the condition
that we preserve a remembrance, desire, and adaptedness for one
another.

If now the critical inquirer shall say there is no evidence, and
it is incredible, that the body will be restored to a future life,
or that the soul has any resemblance to the body by which it may
be identified, furthermore, if he shall maintain that the doctrine
of the revelation and recognition of the souls of friends in
another life by an instinctive feeling, a mysterious attraction
and response, is fanciful, an overdrawn conclusion of the
imagination, not warranted by a stern induction of the average
realities of the subject, and if he shall then ask, how are we to
distinguish our former acquaintances among the hosts of heaven?
there is one more fact of experience which meets the case and
answers his demand. When long absence and great exposures have
wiped off all the marks by which old companions knew each other,
it has frequently happened that they have met and conversed with
indifference, each being ignorant of whom the other was; and so it
has continued until, by some indirect means, some accidental
allusion, or the agency of a third person, they have been suddenly
revealed. Then, with throbbing hearts, in tears and rapture, they
have rushed into each other's arms, with an instantaneous
recurrence of their early friendship in all its original warmth,
fulness, and flooding associations. Many such instances are
related in books of romance with strict truth to the actual
occurrences of life. Several instances of it are authenticated in
the early history of America, when children, torn from their homes
by the Indians, were recovered by their parents after twenty or
thirty years had elapsed and they were identified by circumstantial
evidence. Let any parent ask his heart, any true friend ask his heart,
if, discovering by some foreign means the object of his love,
he would not embrace him with just as ardent a gratitude and
devotion as though there were no outward change and they had
known one another at sight. So, in the life beyond the
grave, if we are not able to recognise our earthly companions
directly, either by spiritual sight or by intuitive feeling, we
may obtain knowledge of each other indirectly by comparison of
common recollections, or by the mediation of angels, or by some
other Divine arrangement especially prepared for that purpose. And
therefore, whether in heaven we look or feel as we do here or not,
whether there be any provision in our present constitution for
future recognition or not, is of no consequence. In a thousand
ways the defect can be remedied, if such be the will of God. And
that such is his will every relevant fact and consideration would
seem to prove. It is a consistent and seemingly requisite
continuation and completion of that great scheme of which this
life is a part. It is an apparently essential element and
fulfilment of the wonderful apparatus of retribution, reward, and
discipline, intended to educate us as members of God's eternal
family. Because from the little which we now understand we cannot
infer with plainness and certainty the precise means and method by
which we can discriminate our friends in heaven need be no
obstacle to believing the fact itself; for there are millions of
undoubted truths whose conditions and ways of operation we can
nowise fathom. Upon the whole, then, we conclude that we cannot by
our mere understandings decide with certainty the question
concerning future recognition; but we are justified in trusting to
the accuracy of that doctrine, since it rests safely with the free
pleasure of God, who is both infinitely able and disposed to do
what is best, and we cannot help believing that it is best for us
to be with and love hereafter those whom we are with and love
here.3

There is a way of dealing with the general subject before us
wholly different from the course thus far pursued. Ceasing to act
the philosopher, laying aside all arguments and theories, all dry
speculations, we may come as simple believers to the Christian
Scriptures and investigate their teachings to accept whatever they
pronounce as the word of God's truth. Let us see to what results
we shall thus be led. Searching the New Testament to learn its
doctrine

3 Munch, Werden wir uns wiedersehen nach dem Tode. This work,
based on the Kantian philosophy, denies future recognition. There
is an able reply to it by Vogel, Ueber die Hoffnung des
Wiedersehens.


in regard to reunion in a future state, we are very soon struck
with surprise at the mysterious reserve, so characteristic of its
pages, on this entire theme. Instead of a full and minute
revelation blazing along the track of the gospel pens, a few
fragmentary intimations, incidental hints, scattered here and
there, are the substance of all that it expressly says. But though
little is directly declared, yet much is plainly implied:
especially the one great inference with which we are now concerned
may be unequivocally and repeatedly drawn. In the parable of the
Rich Man and the Beggar the Savior pictures forth the recognition
of their souls in the disembodied state. Dives also is described
as recollecting with intense interest, with the most anxious
sympathy, his endangered brethren on earth. Although this occurs
in a parable, yet it is likely that so prominent and vital a
feature of it would be moulded, as to its essential significance,
in accordance with what the author intended should be received as
truth. Jesus also speaks of many who should come from the east and
the west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the
kingdom of heaven; from which it would appear that the patriarchs
are together in fellowship and that the righteous of after times
were to be received with them in mutual acquaintance. On the Mount
of Transfiguration the witnessing disciples saw Moses and Elias
together with Jesus, and recognised them, probably from their
resemblance to traditional descriptions of them. Jesus always
represented the future state as a society. He said to his
followers, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there
ye may be also;" and he prayed to his Father that his disciples
might be with him where he was going. At another time he declared
of little children, "Their angels always behold the face of my
Father in heaven:" he also taught that "there is joy in heaven
over every sinner that repenteth;" passages that presuppose such a
community of faculties, sympathies, in heaven and earth, in angels
and men, as certainly implies the doctrine of continued knowledge
and fellowship. When heaven was opened before the dying Stephen,
he saw and instantly knew his Divine Master, the Lord Jesus, and
called to him to welcome his ascending spirit. Paul writes to the
Thessalonians that he would not have them sorrow concerning the
dead as those who have no hope, assuring them that when Christ
reappears they shall all be united again. In the Apocalypse, John
saw, in a vision, the souls of the martyrs, who had died for the
faith of the gospel, together, under the altar. From community of
suffering and a common abode together in heaven we may safely
infer their recognition of each other. The Gospels declare that
Christ after his death remembered his disciples and came back to
them to assure them that they should rejoin him on high; and the
apostles assert that we are to be with Christ and to be like him
in the future state. It follows from the admission of these
declarations that we shall remember our friends and be united with
them in conscious knowledge. Few, and brief, and vague as the
utterances of the Scriptures are in relation to this theme, they
necessarily involve all the results of an avowed doctrine. They
undeniably involve the supposition that in the other life we shall
be conscious personalities as here, retaining our memories and
constituting a society. From these implications the fact of the
future recognition of friends irresistibly results, unless there
be some special interference to prevent it; and such an
interposition there is no hint of and can be no reason for
fearing.

Such is really all that we can learn from the Scriptures on the
subject of our inquiry.4 Its indirectness and brevity would
convince us that God did not intend to betray to us in clear light
the secrets of the shrouded future, that for some reason it is
best that his teaching should be so reserved, and leave us to the
haunting wonder, the anxious surmise, the appalling mystery, the
alluring possibilities, that now meet our gaze on the unmoving
veil of death. God intends we shall trust in him without
knowledge, and by faith, not by sight, pursue his guidance into
the silent and unknown land.

Therefore, after analyzing the relevant facts of present
experience and inferring what we can from them, and after studying
the Scriptures and finding what they say, there is yet another
method of considering the problem of recognition in the future
state. That is without caring for critical discussion, without
deferring to extraneous authority, we may follow the gravitating
force of instinct, imagination, and moral reason. We are made to
love and depend on each other. The longer, the more profoundly, we
know and admire the good, the more our being becomes intertwined
with theirs, so much the more intensely we desire to be with them
always, and so much the more awful is the agony of separation.
This, what is it but great Nature's testimony, God's silent
avowal, that we are to meet in eternity? Can the fearful anguish
of bereavement be gratuitous? can the yearning prophecies of the
smitten heart be all false? Belief in reunion hereafter is
spontaneously adopted by humanity. We therefore esteem it divinely
ordered or true. Without that soothing and sustaining trust, the
unrelieved, intolerable wretchedness in many cases would burst
through the fortress of the mind, hurl reason from its throne, and
tear the royal affections and their attendants in the trampled
dust of madness. Many a rarely gifted soul, unknown in his
nameless privacy of life, has been so conjoined with a worthy
peer, through precious bonds of unutterable sympathy, that, rather
than be left behind, "the divided half of such a friendship as had
mastered time," he has prayed that they, dying at once, might,
involved together, hover across the dolorous strait to the other
shore, and

"Arrive at last the blessed goal
Where He that died in Holy Land
Might reach them out the shining hand
And take them as a single soul."

Denied that inmost wish, the rest of his widowed life below has
been one melancholy strain of "In Memoriam." Many a faithful and
noble mourner, whose garnered love and hope have been blighted for
this world, would tell you that, without meeting his lost ones
there, heaven itself would be no heaven to him. In such a state of
soul we must expect to know again in an unfading clime the
cherished dead. That belief is of Divine inspiration, an
arrangement to heal the deadly wounds of sorrow. It is madness not
to think it a verity. Who believes, as he shall float through the
ambrosial airs of heaven, he could touch, in passing, the radiant
robes of his chosen friends without a thrill of recognition, the
prelude to a blissful and immortal communion? Is there not truth
in the poet's picture of the meeting of child and parent in heaven?

4 Harbaugh, The Heavenly Recognition. Gisborne, Recollections of
Friends in the World to Come. Muston, Perpetuation of Christian
Friendship.


"It was not, mother, that I knew thy face: The luminous eclipse
that is on it now, Though it was fair on earth, would have made it
strange Even to one who knew as well as he loved thee; But my
heart cried out in me, Mother!"

Think of the unfathomable yearnings, the infinite ecstasies of
desire and faith from age to age swelling in the very heart of the
world, all set on the one hope of future union, and who then can
believe that God will coldly blast them all? They are innocent,
they are holy, they are meritorious, they are unspeakably dear. We
would not destroy them; and God will not.

Man's life is the true fable of that beautiful youth, Narcissus,
who had a twin sister of remarkable loveliness, strongly
resembling himself, and to whom he was most tenderly attached. She
dies young. He frequents fountains to gaze upon his own image
reflected in the waters, it seeming to him the likeness of her he
has lost. He is in pity transformed into a flower on the border of
a stream, where, bending on his fragile stem, he seeks his image
in the waters murmuring by, until he fades and dies. Has not God,
the all loving Author who composed the sweet poem of Man and
Nature, written at the close a reconciling Elysium wherein these
pure lovers, the fond Narcissus and his echo mate, shall wander in
perennial bliss, their embracing forms mirrored in unruffled
fountains?

Looking now for the conclusion of the whole matter, we find that
it lies in three different aspects, both of inquiring thought and
of practical morality, according to the lights and modes in which
three different classes of minds approach it. To the consistent
metaphysician, reasoning rigidly on grounds of science and
philosophy, every thing pertaining to the methods and circumstances
of the future life is an affair of entire uncertainty and hypothesis.5
If in the future state the soul retains its individuality as an
identical force, form, life, and memory, and if associates in the
present state are brought together, it is probable that old friends
will recognise each other. But if they are oblivious of the past,
if they are incommunicably separated in space or state, if one
progresses so much farther that the other can never overtake him,
if the personal soul blends its individual consciousness with the
unitary consciousness of the Over Soul, if it commences a new career
from a fresh psychical germ, then, by the terms, there will be no
mutual recognition. In that case his comfort and his duty are to
know that the anguish and longing he now feels will cease then; to
trust in the benignity of the Infinite Wisdom, who knows best what
to appoint for his creatures; and to submit with harmonizing
resignation to the unalterable decree, offering his private wish a
voluntary sacrifice on the altar of natural piety. That he shall
know his friends hereafter is not impossible, not improbable;
neither is it certain. He may desire it, expect it, but not with
speculative pride dogmatically affirm it, nor with insisting
egotism presumptuously demand it.

5 Gravell, Das Wiedersehen nach dem Tode. Wie es nur sein konne.

To the uncritical Christian the recognising reunion of friends in
heaven is an unshaken assurance.6 There is nothing to disturb his
implicit reception of the plain teaching of Scripture. The
legitimate exhortations of his faith are these. Mourn not too
bitterly nor too long over your absent dead; for you shall meet
them in an immortal clime. As the last hour comes for your dearest
ones or for yourself, be of good cheer; for an imperishable joy is
yours. You:

"Cannot lose the hope that many a year
Hath shone on a gleaming way,
When the walls of life are closing round
And the sky grows sombre gray."

Put not away the intruding thoughts of the departed, but let them
often recur. The dead are constant. You know not how much they may
think of you, how near they may be to you. Will you pass to meet
them not having thought of them for years, having perhaps
forgotten them? Let your mind have its nightly firmament of
religious communion, beneath which white and sable memories shall
walk, and the sphered spirits of your risen friends, like stars,
shed down their holy rays to soothe your feverish cares and hush
every murmuring doubt to rest. From the dumb heavings of your
loving and trustful heart, sometimes exclaim, Parents who nurtured
and watched over me with unwearied affection, I would remember you
oft, and love you well, and so live that one day I may meet you at
the right hand of God. Early friends, so close and dear once, who
in the light of young romance trod with me life's morning hills,
neither your familiar faces nor your sweet communion are forgotten
by me: I fondly think of you, and aspire towards you, and pray for
a purer soul, that I may mount to your celestial circle at last;

"For many a tear these eyes must weep,
And many a sin must be forgiven,
Ere these pale lids shall sink to sleep,
Ere you and I shall meet in heaven."

Blessed Jesus, elder Brother of our race, who sittest now by thy
Father's throne, or pacest along the crystal coast as a leader,
chief among ten thousand, whose condescending brow the bloody
thorns no longer press, but the dazzling crown of thy Divinity
encircles, oh, remember us, poor erring pilgrims after thine
earthly steps; pity us, help us, and after death bring us to thy
home.

To the sympathetic poet, the man of sentiment and meditation, who
views the question from the position of the heart, in the glory
and vistas of the imagination, but with all the known facts and
relations of the subject lying bare under his sight, the uniting
restoration, in another sphere, of earth's broken ties and parted
friends, is an unappeasable craving of the soul, in harmony with
the moral law, powerfully prophesied to his experience from all
quarters, and seemingly confirmed to his hopes by every promise of
God and nature.7

6 Grafe, Biblische Beitrage zu der Frage, Werden wir uns
wiedersehen nach dem Tode.

7 Engel, Wir werden uns wiedersehen. Halst, Beleuchtung der
Hauptgrunde fur den Glauben an Erinnerung und Wiedersehen nach dem
Tode. Streicher, Neue Beitrage zur Kritik des Glaubens an
Ruckerinnerung nach dem Tode.


Received as a truth, it is a well of inexhaustible comfort, making
experience a green oasis where it overflows. The denial of it as a
proven falsehood is a withering blast of dust blowing on the
friendly caravan of sojourners in the desert of life. If existence
is the enjoyment of a largess of social love, and death is to have
a solitary hand snatch it all away forever, how dismal is the
prospect to the poor heart that loves and clings, loses and
despairs, and can only falter hopelessly on! It cannot be so. Love
is the true prophet. Heaven will restore the treasures earth has
lost.

The mourner by the grave! Eve convulsed over the form of Abel!
Jesus weeping where Lazarus lay! America embracing the urn of
Washington! The Genius of Humanity at the Tomb of the Past! It is
the most pathetic spectacle of the world. As in the old myth the
pelican, hovering over her dead broodlets, pierced her own breast
in agony and fluttered there until by the fanning of her wings
above them and the dropping of her warm blood on them they were
brought to life again, so the great Mother of men seems in history
to brood over the ashes of departed ages, dropping the tears of
her grief and faith into the future to restore her deceased
children to life and draw them together within her embrace. And
that sublime Rachel will not easily be comforted except when her
thoughts, migrating whither her offspring have gone, seem to find
them happy in some happy heaven.

The poet, lover of his race, who cannot trust his happier
instinct, but perforce believes that beyond the sepulchral line of
mortality he shall know no more of his friends, may find, as helps
to a willing acquiescence in what is fated, either one of two
possible contemplations.8 He may sadly lay upon his heart the
stifling solace, There will be no baffled wants nor unhappiness,
but all will be over when hic jacet is sculptured on the headstone
of my grave. Or, with measureless rebound of faith, he may crowd
the capacity of his soul with the mysterious presentiment, In the
unchangeable fulness of an infinite bliss, all specialties will be
merged and forgotten, and I shall be one of those to whom "the
wearisome disease" of remembered sorrow and anticipated joy "is an
alien thing."

8 Wieland's Euthanasia expresses disbelief in the preservation of
personality and consciousness after death. The same ground had
been taken in the work published anonymously at Halle in 1775,
Plato and Leibnitz jenseits des Styx. See, on the other side of
the question, Wohlfahrt, Tempel der Unsterblichkeit, oder neue
Anthologie der wichtigsten Ausspruche, besonders neuerer Weisen
uber Wiedersehen u. s. w.

CHAPTER VII.

LOCAL FATE OF MAN IN THE ASTRONOMIC UNIVERSE.

ACCORDING to the imagining of some speculative geologists, perhaps
this earth first floated in the abyss as a volume of vapor,
wreathing its enormous folds of mist in fantastic shapes as it was
borne along on the idle breath of law. Ages swept by, until this
stupendous fog ball was condensed into an ocean of fire, whose
billows heaved their lurid bosoms and reared their ashy crests
without a check, while their burning spray illuminated its track
around the sable vault. During periods which stagger computation,
this molten world was gradually cooled down; constant rivers wrung
from the densely swathing vapor poured over the heated mass and at
last submerged its crust in an immense sea. Then, for unknown
centuries, fire, water, and wind waged a Titanic war, that
imagination shudders to think of, jets of flame licking the stars,
massive battlements and columns of fire piled to terrific heights,
now the basin of the sea suddenly turned into a glowing caldron
and the atmosphere saturated with steam, again explosions hurling
mountains far into space and tearing the earth open in ghastly
rents to its very heart. At length the fire was partially subdued,
the peaceful deep glassed the sky in its bosom or rippled to the
whispers of the breeze, and from amidst the fertile slime and
mould of its sheltered floor began to sprout the first traces of
organic life, the germs of a rude species of marine vegetation.
Thousands of years rolled on. The world ocean subsided, the peaks
of mountains, the breasts of islands, mighty continents, emerged,
and slowly, after many tedious processes of preparation, a
gigantic growth of grass, every blade as large as our vastest oak,
shot from the soil, and the incalculable epoch of ferns commenced,
whose tremendous harvest clothed the whole land with a deep carpet
of living verdure. While unnumbered growths of this vegetation
were successively maturing, falling, and hardening into the dark
layers of inexhaustible coal beds, the world, one waving
wilderness of solemn ferns, swept in its orbit, voiceless and
silent, without a single bird or insect of any kind in all its
magnificent green solitudes, the air everywhere being heavily
surcharged with gases of the deadliest poison. Again innumerable
ages passed, and the era of mere botanic growths reaching its
limit, the lowest forms of animal life moved in the waters, the
earliest creatures being certain marine reptiles, worms, and bugs
of the sea. Then followed various untimed periods, during which
animal life rose by degrees from mollusk and jellyfish, by
plesiosaurus and pterodactyl, horrible monsters, hundreds of feet
in length, whose tramp crashed through the woods, or whose flight
loaded the groaning air, to the dolphin and the whale in the sea,
the horse and the lion on the land, and the eagle, the
nightingale, and the bird of paradise in the air. Finally, when
millions of aons had worn away, the creative process culminated in
Humanity, the crown and perfection of all; for God said, "Let us
make man in our own image;" and straightway Adam, with upright
form, kingly eye, and reason throned upon his brow, stood on the
summit of the world and gave names to all the races of creatures
beneath.1

At this stage two important questions arise. The first is, whether
man is the final type of being intended in the Divine plan for
this world, or whether he too is destined in his turn to be
superseded by a higher race, endowed with form, faculties, and
attributes transcending our conceptions, even as our own
transcended the ideas of the previous orders of existence.
Undoubtedly, had the ichthyosaurus, ploughing through the deep and
making it boil like a pot, or one of those mammoth creatures of
the antediluvian age who browsed half a dozen trees for breakfast,
crunched a couple of oxen for luncheon and a whole flock of sheep
for his dinner, been consulted on a similar problem, he would have
replied, without hesitation, "I exhaust the uses of the world.
What animal can there be superior to me? beyond a question, my
race shall possess the earth forever!" The mastodon could not know
any uses of nature except those he was fitted to experience, nor
imagine a being with the form and prerogatives of man. Therefore
he would not believe that the mastodon race would ever be
displaced by the human. We labor under the same disqualification
for judgment. There may be in the system of nature around us
adaptations, gifts, glories, as much higher than any we enjoy as
our noblest powers and privileges are in advance of those of the
tiger or the lark.

It is a remarkable fact that the mature states of the antediluvian
races correspond with the foetal states of the present races, and
that the foetal states of embryonic man are counterparts of the
mature states of the lower races now contemporaneous with him.
This great discovery of modern science, though perhaps destitute
of logical value, suggests to the imagination the thought that man
may be but the foetal state of a higher being, a regent
temporarily presiding here until the birth and inauguration of the
true king of the world, and destined himself to be born from the
womb of this world into the free light and air of the spirit
kingdom!

The resources of God are inexhaustible; and in the evolution of
his prearranged ages it may be that there will arise upon the
earth a race of beings of unforetold majesty, who shall disinter
the remnant bones and ponder the wrecked monuments of forgotten
man as we do those of the disgusting reptiles of the Saurian
epoch. But this is a mere conceit of possibility; and, so far as
the data for forming an opinion are in our hands, it is altogether
incredible. So far as appears, the adaptation between man and the
earth is exhaustive. He is able to subdue all her forces, reign
over all her provinces, enjoy all her delights, and gather into
his consciousness all her prophecies. And our practical conviction
is absolute that the race of men is the climax of being destined
for this earth, and that they will occupy its hospitable bosom
forever with their toils and their homes, their sports and their
graves.2

The other question is this: Was the subjection of the human race
to physical death a part of the Creator's original plan, or the
retributive result of a subsequent dislocation of that plan by
sin? a part of the great harmony of nature, or a discord marring
the happy destiny

1 Harris, The Pre Adamite Earth.

2 Agassiz says no higher creature than man is to be expected on
earth, because the capacities of the earthly plan of organic
creation are completed and exhausted with him. Introduction to
Study of Natural History, p. 57.


of man? Approaching this problem on grounds of science and reason
alone, there can be no hesitation as to the reply. There are but
two considerations really bearing upon the point and throwing
light upon it; and they both force us to the same conclusion.
First, it is a fact admitting no denial that death was the
predetermined natural fate of the successive generations of the
races that preceded man. Now, what conceivable reason is there for
supposing that man, constructed from the same elements, living
under the same organic laws, was exempt from the same doom? There
is not in the whole realm of science a single hint to that effect.
Secondly, the reproductive element an essential feature in the
human constitution, leading our kind to multiply and replenish the
earth is a demonstration that the office of death entered into
God's original plan of the world. For otherwise the earth at this
moment could not hold a tithe of the inhabitants that would be
demanding room. When God had permitted this world to roll in space
for awful ages, a lifeless globe of gas, fire, water, earth, and
then let it be occupied for incommensurable epochs more by snails,
vermin, and iguanodons, would he wind up the whole scene and
destroy it when the race of man, crowning glory of all, had only
flourished for a petty two thousand years? It is not credible. And
yet it must have been so unless it was decreed that the successive
generations should pass away and thus leave space for, the new
comers. We conclude, then, that it is the will of God and was in
the beginning that the human race shall possess the earth through
all the unknown periods of the future, the parents continually
passing off the stage in death as the children rise upon it to
maturity. We cannot discern any authority in those old traditions
which foretell the impending destruction of the world. On what
grounds are we to believe them? The great system of things is a
stable harmony. There is no wear or tear in the perfect machinery
of the creation, rolling noiseless in its blue bearings of ether.
It seems, comparatively speaking, to have just begun. Its
oscillations are self adjusted, and science prophesies for
humanity an illimitable career on this earthly theatre. The swift
melting of the elements and restoration of chaos is a mere heathen
whim or a poetic figment. It is the bards who sing,

"The earth shall shortly die. Her grave is dug. I see the worlds,
night clad, all gathering In long and dark procession. And the
stars, Which stand as thick as glittering dewdrops on The fields
of heaven, shall pass in blazing mist."

Such pictures are delusion winning the imagination, not truth
commanding the reason. In spite of all the Cassandra screams of
the priesthood, vaticinating universal ruin, the young old earth,
fresh every spring, shall remain under God's preserving
providence, and humanity's inexhaustible generations renewedly
reign over its kingdoms, forever. Plotinus said, "If God repents
having made the world, why does he defer its destruction? If he
does not yet repent, he never will, as being now accustomed to it,
and becoming through time more friendly to it."

3 Lucan says, "Our bones and the stars shall be mingled on one
funeral pyre." Communis mundo superest rogus, ossibus astra
Misturus.

But to receive such a good piece of poetry as veritable prevision
is surely a puerile error which a mature mind in the nineteenth
century should be ashamed to commit.

The most recently broached theory of the end of the world is that
developed from some remarkable speculations as to the composition
and distribution of force. The view is briefly this. All force is
derived from heat. All heat is derived from the sun.4 The
mechanical value of a cubic mile of sunlight at the surface of the
earth is one horse power for a third of a minute; at the sun it is
fifteen thousand horse power for a minute. Now, it is calculated
that enough heat is radiated from the sun to require for its
production the annual consumption of the whole surface of the sun
to the depth of from ten to twenty miles. Of course, ultimately
the fuel will be all expended; then the forces of the system will
expire, and the creation will die.5 This brilliant and sublime
theorem assumes, first, that the heat of the sun arises from
consumption of matter, which may not be true; secondly, that it is
not a self replenishing process, as it certainly may be. Some have
even surmised that the zodiacal light is an illuminated tornado of
stones showering into the sun to feed its tremendous
conflagration. The whole scheme is a fine toy, but a very faint
terror. Even if it be true, then we are to perish at last from
lack of fire, and not, as commonly feared, from its abundance!

The belief of mankind that a soul or ghost survives the body has
been so nearly universal as to appear like the spontaneous result
of an instinct. We propose to trace the history of opinions
concerning the physical destination of this disembodied spirit,
its connection with localities, to give the historical topography
of the future life.

The earliest conception of the abode of the dead was probably that
of the Hebrew Sheol or the Greek Hades, namely, the idea born from
the silence, depth, and gloom of the grave of a stupendous
subterranean cavern full of the drowsy race of shades, the
indiscriminate habitation of all who leave the land of the living.
Gradually the thought arose and won acceptance that the favorites
of Deity, peerless heroes and sages, might be exempt from this
dismal fate, and migrate at death to some delightful clime beyond
some far shore, there, amidst unalloyed pleasures, to spend
immortal days. This region was naturally located on the surface of
the earth, where the cheerful sun could shine and the fresh
breezes blow, yet in some untrodden distance, where the gauntlet
of fact had not smitten the sceptre of fable. The paltry portion
of this earth familiar to the ancients was surrounded by an
unexplored region, which their fancy, stimulated by the legends of
the poets, peopled with mythological kingdoms, the rainbow bowers
and cloudy synods of Olympus, from whose glittering peak the
Thunderer threw his bolts over the south; the Golden Garden of the

3 Ennead ii. lib. ix.: Contra Gnosticos, cap. 4.

4 Helmholtz, Edinburgh Phil. Msg., series iv. vol. xi.:
Interaction of Natural Forces.

5 Thomson, Ibid. Dec. 1854: Mechanical Energies of the Solar
System.


Hesperides, whose dragons lay on guard in the remote west; the
divine cities of Meru, whose encircling towers pierced the eastern
sky; the Banquet Halls of Ethiopia, gleaming through the fiery
desert; the fragrant Islands of Immortality, musical and luring in
the central ocean; the happy land of the Hyperboreans, beyond the
snowy summits of northern Caucasus:

"How pleasant were the wild beliefs That dwelt in legends old!
Alas! to our posterity Will no such tales be told. We know too
much: scroll after scroll Weighs down our weary shelves: Our only
point of ignorance Is centred in ourselves."

There was a belief among the Persians that Kaf, a mountain two
thousand miles high, formed a rim to the flat world and prevented
travellers from ever falling off.6 The fact that the earth is a
globe inhabited on all sides is a comparatively recent piece of
knowledge. So late as in the eighth century Pope Zachary accused
Virgilius, an Irish mathematician and monk, of heresy for
believing in the existence of antipodes.7 St. Boniface wrote to
the Pope against Virgilius; and Zachary ordered a council to be
held to expel him from the Church, for "professing, against God
and his own soul, so perverse and wicked a doctrine." To the
ancients all beyond the region they had traversed was an unknown
land, clothed in darkness, crowded with mystery and allurement.
Across the weltering wastes of brine, in a halcyon sea, the Hindu
placed the White Isle, the dwelling of translated and immortalized
men.8 Under the attraction of a mystic curiosity, well might the
old, wearied Ulysses say,

"Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push
off, and, sitting well in order, smite The sounding furrows; for
my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all
the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash
us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the
great Achilles, whom we knew."

Decius Brutus and his army, as Florus relates, reaching the coast
of Portugal, where, for the first time, they saw the sun setting
in the blood tinged ocean, turned back their standards with horror
as they beheld "the huge corpse of ruddy gold let down into the
deep." The Phoenician traders brought intelligence to Greece of a
people, the Cimmerians, who dwelt on the borders of Hades in the
umbered realms of perpetual night. To the dying Roman, on the
farthest verge of the known horizon hovered a vision of Elysian
Fields. And the American

6 Adventures of Hatim Tai, p. 36, note.

7 Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, vol. i. book iv. ch. i. sect.
7.

8 Wilford, Essays on the Sacred Isles, In Asiatic Researches,
vols. viii. xi.


Indian, sinking in battle or the chase, caught glimpses of happier
Hunting Grounds, whose woods trooped with game, and where the
arrows of the braves never missed, and there was no winter. There
was a pretty myth received among some of the ancient Britons,
locating their paradise in a spot surrounded by tempests, far in
the Western Ocean, and named Flath Innis, or Noble Island.9 The
following legend is illustrative. An old man sat thoughtful on a
rock beside the sea. A cloud, under whose squally skirts the
waters foamed, rushed down; and from its dark womb issued a boat,
with white sails bent to the wind, and hung round with moving
oars. Destitute of mariners, itself seemed to live and move. A
voice said, "Arise, behold the boat of heroes: embark, and see the
Green Isle of those who have passed away!" Seven days and seven
nights he voyaged, when a thousand tongues called out, "The Isle!
the Isle!" The black billows opened before him, and the calm land
of the departed rushed in light on his eyes. We are reminded by
this of what Procopius says concerning the conveyal of the soul of
the barbarian to his paradise. At midnight there is a knocking at
the door, and indistinct voices call him to come. Mysteriously
impelled, he goes to the sea coast, and there finds a frail, empty
wherry awaiting him. He embarks, and a spirit crew row him to his
destination.10

"He finds with ghosts His boat deep freighted, sinking to the edge
Of the dark flood, and voices hears, yet sees No substance; but,
arrived where once again His skiff floats free, hears friends to
friends Give lamentable welcome. The unseen Shore faint resounds,
and all the mystic air Breathes forth the names of parent,
brother, wife."

During that period of poetic credulity while the face of the earth
remained to a great extent concealed from knowledge, wherever the
Hebrew Scriptures were known went the cherished traditions of the
Garden of Eden from which our first parents were driven for their
sin. Speculation naturally strove to settle the locality of this
lost paradise. Sometimes it was situated in the mysterious bosom
of India; sometimes in the flowery vales of Georgia, where roses
and spices perfumed the gales; sometimes in the guarded recesses
of Mesopotamia. Now it was the Grand Oasis in the Arabian desert,
flashing on the wilted pilgrim, over the blasted and blazing
wastes, with the verdure of palms, the play of waters, the smell
and flavor of perennial fruits. Again it was at the equator, where
the torrid zone stretched around it as a fiery sword waving every
way so that no mortal could enter. In the "Imago Mundi," a Latin
treatise on cosmography written early in the twelfth century, we
read, "Paradise is the extreme eastern part of Asia, and is made
inaccessible by a wall of fire surrounding it and rising unto
heaven." At a later time the Canaries were thought to be the
ancient Elysium, and were accordingly named the Fortunate Isles.
Indeed, among the motives that animated

9 Macpherson, Introduction to the History of Great Britain and
Ireland, pp. 180-186.

10 Procopius, Gothica, lib. iv.


Columbus on his adventurous voyage no inferior place must be
assigned to the hope of finding the primeval seat of Paradise.11
The curious traveller, exploring these visionary spots one by one,
found them lying in the light of common day no nearer heaven than
his own natal home; and at last all faith in them died out when
the whole surface of the globe had been surveyed, no nook left
wherein romance and superstition might any longer play at hide and
seek.

Continuing our search after the local abode of the departed, we
now leave the surface of the earth and descend beneath it. The
first haunted region we reach is the realm of the Fairies, which,
as every one acquainted with the magic lore of old Germany or
England knows, was situated just under the external ground, and
was clothed with every charm poets could imagine or the heart
dream. There was supposed to be an entrance to this enchanted
domain at the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire, and at several other
places. Sir Walter Scott has collected some of the best legends
illustrative of this belief in his "History of Demonology." Sir
Gawaine, a famous knight of the Round Table, was once admitted to
dine, above ground, in the edge of the forest, with the King of
the Fairies:

"The banquet o'er, the royal Fay, intent
To do all honor to King Arthur's knight,
Smote with his rod the bank on which they leant,
And Fairy land flash'd glorious on the sight;
Flash'd, through a silvery, soft, translucent mist,
The opal shafts and domes of amethyst;
Flash'd founts in shells of pearl, which crystal walls
And phosphor lights of myriad hues redouble.
There, in the blissful subterranean halls,
When morning wakes the world of human trouble
Glide the gay race; each sound our discord knows,
Faint heard above, but lulls them to repose."

To this empire of moonlit swards and elfin dances, of jewelled
banks, lapsing streams, and enchanting visions, it was thought a
few favored mortals might now and then find their way. But this
was never an earnest general faith. It was a poetic superstition
that hovered over fanciful brains, a legendary dream that pleased
credulous hearts; and, with the other romance of the early world,
it has vanished quite away.

The popular belief of Jews, Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, Germans,
and afterwards of Christians, was that there was an immense world
of the dead deep beneath the earth, subdivided into several
subordinate regions. The Greenlanders believed in a separated
heaven and hell, both located far below the Polar Ocean. According
to the old classic descriptions of the under world, what a scene
of colossal gloom it is! Its atmosphere murmurs with a breath of
plaintive sighs. Its population, impalpable ghosts timidly
flitting at every motion,

11 Irving, Life of Columbus: Appendix on the Situation of the
Terrestrial Paradise. By far the most valuable book ever published
on this subject is that of Schulthess, Das Paradies, das irdische
und uberirdische historische, mythische und mystische, nebst einer
kritischen Revision der allgemelnen biblischen Geographie.


crowd the sombre landscapes in numbers surpassing imagination.
There Cocytus creeps to the seat of doom, his waves emitting
doleful wails. Styx, nine times enfolding the whole abode, drags
his black and sluggish length around. Charon, the slovenly old
ferryman, plies his noiseless boat to and fro laden with shadowy
passengers. Far away in the centre grim Pluto sits on his ebony
throne and surveys the sad subjects of his dreadful domain. By his
side sits his stolen and shrinking bride, Proserpine, her
glimmering brows encircled with a wreath of poppies. Above the
subterranean monarch's head a sable rainbow spans the infernal
firmament; and when, with lifted hand, he announces his decrees,
the applause given by the twilight populace of Hades is a rustle
of sighs, a vapor of tears, and a shudder of submission.

The belief in this dolorous kingdom was early modified by the
reception of two other adjacent realms, one of reward, one of
torture; even as Goethe says, in allusion to the current Christian
doctrine, "Hell was originally but one apartment: limbo and
purgatory were afterwards added as wings." Passing through Hades,
and turning in one direction, the spirit traveller would arrive at
Elysium or Abraham's bosom:

"To paradise the gloomy passage winds Through regions drear and
dismal, and through pain, Emerging soon in beatific blaze Of
light."

There the blessed ones found respite and peaceful joys in flowery
fields, pure breezes, social fellowship, and the similitudes of
their earthly pursuits. In this placid clime, lighted by its own
constellations, favored souls roamed or reposed in a sort of
ineffectual happiness. According to the pagans, here were such
heroes as Achilles, such sages as Socrates, to remain forever, or
until the end of the world. And here, according to the Christians,
the departed patriarchs and saints were tarrying expectant of
Christ's arrival to ransom them. Dante thus describes that great
event:

"Then he, who well my covert meaning knew,
Answer'd, Herein I had not long been bound,
When an All puissant One I saw march through,
With victory's radiant sign triumphal crown'd.
He led from us our Father Adam's shade,
Abel and Noah, whom God loved the most,
Lawgiving Moses, him who best obey'd,
Abraam the patriarch, royal David's ghost;
Israel, his father, and his sons, and her
Whom Israel served for, faithfully and long,
Rachel, with more, to bliss did He transfer:
No souls were saved before this chosen throng." 12

At the opposite extremity of Hades was supposed to be an opening
that led down into Tartarus, "a place made underneath all things,
so low and horrible that hell is its heaven." Here the old earth
giants, the looming Titans, lay, bound, transfixed with
thunderbolts, their

12 Parsons's trans. Dell' Inferno, canto iv. ii. 55-63.


mountainous shapes half buried in rocks, encrusting lava, and
ashes. Rivers of fire seam the darkness, whose borders are braided
with sentinel furies. On every hand the worst criminals,
perjurers, blasphemers, ingrates, groan beneath the pitiless
punishments inflicted on them without escape. Any realization of
the terrific scenery of this whole realm would curdle the blood.13
There were fabled entrances to the dread under world at Acherusia,
in Bithynia, at Avernus, in Campania, where Ulysses evoked the
dead and traversed the grisly abodes, through the Sibyl's cave at
Cuma, at Hermione, in Argolis, where the people thought the
passage below so near and easy that they neglected to give the
dying an obolus to pay ferriage to Charon, at Tanarus, the
southern most point of Peloponnesus, where Herakles went down and
dragged the three headed dog up into day, at the cave of
Trophonius, in Lebadea, and at several other places.

Similar conceptions have been embodied in the ecclesiastical
doctrine which has generally prevailed in Christendom. Locating
the scene in the hollow of the earth, thus has it been described
by Milton,

"A dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great furnace
flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness
visible, Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of
anguish, doleful shades, where peace Nor hope can come, but
torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed With ever
burning sulphur unconsumed;" wherein, confined by adamantine
walls, the fallen angels and all the damned welter overwhelmed
with floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire. Shapes once
celestially fair and proud, but now scarred from battle and
darkened by sin into faded forms of haggard splendor, support
their uneasy steps over the burning marl. Everywhere shrieks and
moans resound, and the dusky vault of pandemonium is lighted by a
blue glare cast pale and dreadful from the tossings of the flaming
lake. This was hell, where the wicked must shrink and howl
forever. Etna, Vesuvius, Stromboli, Hecla, were believed to be
vent holes from this bottomless and living pit of fire. The famous
traveller, Sir John Maundeville, asserted that he found a descent
into hell "in a perilous vale" in the dominions of Prester John.
Many a cavern in England still bears the name of "Hell hole." In a
dialogue between a clerk and a master, preserved in an old Saxon
catechism, the following question and reply occur: "Why is the sun
so red when she sets?" "Because she looks down upon hell."
Antonius Rusca, a learned professor at Milan, in the year 1621,
published a huge quarto in five books, giving a detailed
topographical account of the interior of the earth, hell,
purgatory, and limbo.14 There is a lake in the south of Ireland in
which is an island containing a cavern said to open down into
hell. This cave

13 Descriptions of the sufferings of hell, according to the
popular notions at different periods, are given in the work
published at Weimar in 1817, Das Rad der ewigen Hollenqual. In den
Curiositaten der physisch literarisch artistisch historischen Vor
und Mitwelt, band vi. st. 2.

14 De Inferno et Statn Damonum ante Mundi Exitium.


is called St. Patrick's Purgatory, and the pretence obtained quite
general credit for upwards of five centuries. Crowds of pilgrims
visited the place. Some who had the hardihood to venture in were
severely pinched, beaten, and burned, by the priests within,
disguised as devils, and were almost frightened out of their wits
by the diabolical scenes they saw where

"Forth from the depths of flame that singed the gloom Despairing
wails and piercing shrieks were heard."

Several popes openly preached in behalf of this gross imposition;
and the Church virtually authorized it by receiving the large
revenues accruing from it, until at last outraged common sense
demanded its repudiation and suppression.15

Few persons now, as they walk the streets and fields, are much
disturbed by the thought that, not far below, the vivid lake of
fire and brimstone, greedily roaring for new food, heaves its
tortured surges convulsed and featured with souls. Few persons now
shudder at a volcanic eruption as a premonishing message freshly
belched from hell.16 In fact, the old belief in a local physical
hell within the earth has almost gone from the public mind of to
day. It arose from pagan myths and figures of speech based on
ignorant observation and arbitrary fancy, and with the growth of
science and the enlightenment of reason it has very extensively
fallen and faded away. No honest and intelligent inquirer into the
matter can find the slightest valid support for such a notion. It
is now a mere tradition, upheld by groundless authority. And yet
the dim shadow of that great idea of a subterranean hell which
once burned so fierce and lurid in the brain of Christendom still
vaguely haunts the modern world. The dogma still lies in the
prevalent creeds, and is occasionally dragged out and brandished
by fanatic preachers. The transmitted literature and influences of
the past are so full of it that it cannot immediately cease.
Accordingly, while the common understanding no longer grasps it as
a definite verity, it lingers in the popular fancy as a half
credible image. The painful attempts made now and then by some
antiquated or fanatical clergyman to compel attention to it and
belief in it as a tangible fact of science, as well as an
unquestionable revelation of Scripture, scarcely win a passing
notice, but provoke a significant smile. Father Passaglia, an
eminent Jesuit theologian, in 1856 published in Italy a work on
the Literality of Hell Fire and the Eternity of the Punishments of
the Damned. He says, "In this world fire burns by chemical
operations; but in hell it burns by the breath of the Lord!" The
learned and venerable Faber, a voluminous author and distinguished
English divine, published in the year 1851 a large octavo entitled
"The Many Mansions in the House of the Father," discussing with
elaborate detail the question as to the locality of the scenes
awaiting souls after death. His grand conclusion the unreasonableness
of which will be apparent without comment is as follows:
"The saints having first risen with Christ into the highest
regions of the air, out of reach of the dreadful heat, the
tremendous flood of fire hitherto detained inside the earth will
be let loose, and an awful conflagration rage till the whole
material globe is dissipated into sublimated particles. Then the
world will be formed anew, in three parts. First, there will be

15 Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory: an Essay on the Legends of
Paradise, Hell, and Purgatory, current during the Middle Ages.

16 Patuzzi, De Sede inferni in Terris quarenda.


a solid central sphere of fire the flaming nucleus of Gehenna two
thousand miles in diameter. Secondly, there shall roll around this
central ball on all sides an ignited ocean of liquid fire two
thousand miles in depth, the peculiar residence of the wicked, the
sulphurous lake spoken of in the Apocalypse. Thirdly, around this
infernal sea a vast spherical arch will hang, a thousand miles
thick, a massive and unbroken shell, through which there are no
spiracles, and whose external surface, beautiful beyond
conception, becomes the heaven of the redeemed, where Christ
himself, perfect man as well as perfect God, fixes his residence
and establishes the local sovereignty of the Universal Archangel."
17 A comfortable thought it must be for the saints, as they roam
the flowery fields, basking in immortal bliss, to remember that
under the crust they tread, a soundless sea of fire is forever
plunging on its circular course, all its crimson waves packed with
the agonized faces of the damned as thick as drops! The whole
scheme is without real foundation. Science laughs at such a
theory. Its scriptural supports are either ethnic figments or
rhetorical tropes. Reason, recollecting the immateriality of the
soul, dissipates the ghastly dream beyond the possibility of
restoration to belief.

Following the historic locations of the abode of departed souls,
we next ascend from the interior of the earth, and above the
surface of the earth, into the air and the lofty realms of ether.
The ancient Caledonians fixed the site of their spirit world in
the clouds. Their bards have presented this conception in manifold
forms and with the most picturesque details. In tempests the
ghosts of their famous warriors ride on the thunderbolts, looking
on the earth with eyes of fire, and hurling lances of lightning.
They float over the summits of the hills or along the valleys in
wreaths of mist, on vapory steeds, waving their shadowy arms in
the moonlight, the stars dimly glimmering through their visionary
shapes. The Laplanders also placed their heaven in the upper air,
where the Northern Lights play. They regarded the auroral
streamers as the sport of departed spirits in the happy region to
which they had risen. Such ideas, clad in the familiar imagery
furnished by their own climes, would naturally be suggested to the
ignorant fancy, and easily commended to the credulous thoughts, of
the Celts and Finns. Explanation and refutation are alike
unnecessary.

Plutarch describes a theory held by some of the ancients locating
hell in the air, elysium in the moon.18 After death all souls are
compelled to spend a period in the region between the earth and
the moon, the wicked in severe tortures and for a longer time, the
good in a mild discipline soon purging away all their stains and
fitting them for the lunar paradise. After tarrying a season
there, they were either born again upon the earth, or transported
to the divine realm of the sun. Macrobius, too, says, "The
Platonists reckon as the infernal

17 Part iv. chap. ix. p. 417. Dr. Cumming (The End, Lect. X.)
teaches the doctrine of the literal resurrection of the flesh, and
the subsequent residence of the redeemed on this globe as their
eternal heaven under the immediate rule of Christ. Quite a full
detail of the historic and present belief in this scheme may be
found in the recent work of its earnest advocate, D. T. Taylor,
The Voice of the Church on the Coming of the Redeemer, or a
History of the Doctrine of the Reign of Christ on Earth.

18 In his Essay on the Face in the Orb of the Moon.


region the whole space between the earth and the moon."19 He also
adds, "The tropical signs Cancer and Capricorn are called the
gates of the sun, because there he meets the solstice and can go
no farther. Cancer is the gate of men, because by it is the
descent to the lower regions; Capricorn is the gate of gods,
because by it is a return for souls to the rank of gods in the
seat of their proper immortality." 20 The Manicheans taught that
souls were borne to the moon on leaving their bodies, and there
washed from their sins in water, then taken to the sun and further
cleansed in fire. They described the moon and sun as two splendid
ships prepared for transferring souls to their native country, the
world of perfect light in the heights of the creation.21

The ancient Hebrews thought the sky a solid firmament overarching
the earth, and supporting a sea of inexhaustible waters, beyond
which God and his angels dwelt in monopolized splendor. Eliphaz
the Temanite says, "Is not God in the height of heaven? And behold
the stars, how high they are; but he walketh upon the arch of
heaven!" And Job says, "He covereth the face of his throne, and
spreadeth his clouds under it. He hath drawn a circular bound upon
the waters to the confines of light and darkness." From the
dazzling realm above this supernal ocean all men were supposed,
until after the resurrection of Christ, to be excluded. But from
that time the belief gradually spread in Christendom that a way
was open for faithful souls to ascend thither. Ephraim the
Syrian,22 and Ambrose, located paradise in the outermost East on
the highest summit of the earth, stretching into the serene
heights of the sky. The ancients often conceived the universe to
form one solid whole, whose different provinces were accessible
from each other to gods and angels by means of bridges and golden
staircases. Hence the innumerable paradisal legends associated
with the mythic mountains of antiquity, such as Elborz, Olympus,
Meru, and Kaf. Among the strange legends of the Middle Age,
Gervase of Tilbury preserves the following one, illustrative of
this belief in a sea over the sky: "One Sunday the people of an
English village were coming out of church, a dark, gloomy day,
when they saw the anchor of a ship hooked to one of the
tombstones, the cable, tightly stretched, hanging down the air.
Presently they saw a sailor sliding down the rope to unfix the
anchor. When he had just loosened it the villagers seized hold of
him; and, while in their hands, he quickly died, as though he had
been drowned!" There is also a famous legend called "St. Brandon's
Voyage." The worthy saint set sail from the coast of Ireland, and
held on his way till he arrived at the moon, which he found to be
the location of hell. Here he saw Judas Iscariot in execrable
tortures, regularly respited, however, every week from Saturday
eve till Sunday eve!

The thought so entirely in accordance with the first impression
made by the phenomenon of the night sky on the ignorant senses and
imagination that the stars are set in a firm revolving dome, has
widely prevailed; and the thought that heaven lies beyond that
solid arch, in the unknown space is a popular notion lingering
still. The scriptural image declaring that the convulsions of the
last day will shake the stars from their sockets in the

19 In Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. cap. xi.

20 Ibid. cap. xii.

21 Augustine, De Natura Boni, cap. xliv.

22 De Paradiso Eden, Sermo I.


heavenly floor, "as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she
is shaken of a mighty wind," although so obviously a figure of
speech, has been very generally credited as the description of a
literal fact yet to occur. And how many thousands of pious
Christians have felt, with the sainted Doddridge,

"Ye stars are but the shining dust Of my Divine abode,  The
pavement of those heavenly courts Where I shall see my God!"

The universal diffusion in civilized nations of the knowledge that
the visible sky is no substantial expanse, but only an illimitable
void of space hung with successive worlds, has by no means
banished the belief, originally based on the opposite error, in a
physical heaven definitely located far overhead, the destination
of all ransomed souls. This is undoubtedly the most common idea at
the present time. An English clergyman once wrote a book,
afterwards translated into German, to teach that the sun is hell,
and that the black spots often noticed on the disk of that orb are
gatherings of damned souls.23 Isaac Taylor, on the contrary,
contends with no little force and ingenuity that the sun may be
the heaven of our planetary system, a globe of immortal
blessedness and glory.24 The celebrated Dr. Whiston was convinced
that the great comet which appeared in his day was hell. He
imagined it remarkably fitted for that purpose by its fiery vapor,
and its alternate plunges, now into the frozen extremity of space,
now into the scorching breath of the sun. Tupper fastens the
stigma of being the infernal prison house on the moon, in this
style:

"I know thee well, O Moon, thou cavern'd realm, Sad satellite,
thou giant ash of death, Blot on God's firmament, pale home of
crime, Scarr'd prison house of sin, where damned souls Feed upon
punishment: Oh, thought sublime, That amid night's black deeds,
when evil prowls Through the broad world, thou, watching sinners
well, Glarest o'er all, the wakeful eye of Hell!"

Bailey's conception is the darker birth of a deeper feeling:

"There is a blind world, yet unlit by God, Rolling around the
extremest edge of light, Where all things are disaster and decay:
That black and outcast orb is Satan's home That dusky world man's
science counteth not Upon the brightest sky. He never knows How
near it comes to him; but, swathed in clouds, As though in plumed
and palled state, it steals, Hearse like and thief like, round the
universe, Forever rolling, and returning not,

23 Swinden, On the Nature and Location of Hell.

24 Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. xvi.


Robbing all worlds of many an angel soul,  With its light hidden
in its breast, which burns With all concentrate and superfluent
woe."

In the average faith of individuals to day, heaven and hell exist
as separate places located somewhere in the universe; but the
notions as to the precise regions in which they lie are most vague
and ineffectual when compared with what they formerly were.

The Scandinavian kosmos contained nine worlds, arranged in the
following order:  Gimle, a golden region at the top of the
universe, the eternal residence of Allfather and his chosen ones;
next below that, Muspel, the realm of the genii of fire; Asgard,
the abode of the gods in the starry firmament; Vindheim, the home
of the air spirits; Manheim, the earth, or middle realm;
Jotunheim, the world of the giants, outside the sea surrounding
the earth; Elfheim, the world of the black demons and dwarfs, just
under the earth's surface; Helheim, the domain of the goddess of
death, deep within the earth's bosom; and finally, Niflheim, the
lowest kingdom of horror and pain, at the very bottom of the
creation. The Buddhist kosmos, in the simplest form, as some of
them conceived it, was composed of a series of concentric spheres
each separated from the next by a space, and successively
overarching and under arching each other with circular layers of
brightness above and blackness beneath; each starry hollow
overhead being a heaven inhabited by gods and blessed souls, each
lurid hollow underfoot being a hell filled with demons and wicked
souls in penance. The Arabian kosmos, beginning with the earth,
ascended to a world of water above the firmament, next to a world
of air, then to a world of fire, followed in rising order by an
emerald heaven with angels in the form of birds, a heaven of
precious stones with angels as eagles, a hyacinth heaven with
angels as vultures, a silver heaven with angels as horses, a
golden and a pearl heaven each peopled with angel girls, a crystal
heaven with angel men, then two heavens full of angels, and
finally a great sea without bound, each sphere being presided over
by a chief ruler, the names of all of whom were familiar to the
learned Arabs. The Syrian kosmos corresponded closely to the
foregoing. It soared up the mounting steps of earth, water, air,
fire, and innumerable choruses successively of Angels, Archangels,
Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim
and Seraphim, unto the Expanse whence Lucifer fell; afterwards to
a boundless Ocean; and lastly to a magnificent Crown of Light
filling the uppermost space of all.25

It is hard for us to imagine the aspects of the universe to the
ancients and the impressions it produced in them, all seemed so
different then, in the dimness of crude observation, from the
present appearance in the light of astronomic science. Anaximander
held that the earth was of cylindrical form, suspended in the
middle of the universe and surrounded by envelopes of water, air,
and fire, as by the coats of an onion, but that the exterior
stratum was broken up and collected into masses, and thus
originated the sun, moon, and stars, which are carried around by
the three spheres in which they are fixed.26 Many of the Oriental
nations believed the planets to be animated beings, conscious
divinities, freely marching around their high realms, keeping
watch and ward over the creation, smiling their favorites on to
happy fortune,

25 Dupuis, L'Origine de tous les Cultes, Planche No. 21.

26 Arist. de Coel. ii. 13.


fixing their baleful eyes and shedding disastrous eclipse on
"falling nations and on kingly lines about to sink forever." This
belief was cherished among the later Greek philosophers and Roman
priests, and was vividly held by such men as Philo, Origen, and
even Kepler. It is here that we are to look for the birth of
astrology, that solemn lore, linking the petty fates of men with
the starry conjunctions, which once sank so deeply into the mind
of the world, but is now wellnigh forgotten:

"No more of that, ye planetary lights! Your aspects, dignities,
ascendancies, Your partite quartiles, and your plastic trines, And
all your heavenly houses and effects, Shall meet no more devout
expounders here.

The joy of Jupiter, The exaltation of the Dragon's head, The sun's
triplicity and glorious Day house on high, the moon's dim
detriment, And all the starry inclusions of all signs, Shall rise,
and rule, and pass, and no one know That there are spirit rulers
of all worlds, Which fraternize with earth, and, though unknown,
Hold in the shining voices of the stars Communion on high and
everywhere."

The belief that the stars were living beings, combining with the
fancy of an unscientific time, gave rise to the stellar apotheosis
of heroes and legendary names, and was the source of those
numerous asterisms, out lined groups of stars, which still bedeck
the skies and form the landmarks of celestial topography. It was
these and kindred influences that wrought together

"To make the firmament bristle with shapes Of intermittent motion,
aspect vague, And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth,
Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood;" the Gorgon's
petrific Head, the Bear's frightful form, Berenice's streaming
Hair, the curdling length of Ophiuchus, and the Hydra's horrid
shape. The poetic eye of old religion saw gods in the planets
walking their serene blue paths,

"Osiris, Bel, Odin, Mithras, Brahm, Zeus, Who gave their names to
stars which still roam round The skies all worshipless, even from
climes Where their own altars once topp'd every hill."

By selected constellations the choicest legends of the antique
world are preserved in silent enactment. On the heavenly sea the
Argonautss keep nightly sail towards the Golden Fleece. There
Herakles gripes the hydra's heads and sways his irresistible club;
Arion with his harp rides the docile Dolphin; the Centaur's right
hand clutches the Wolf; the Hare flees from the raging eye and
inaudible bark of the Dog; and space crawls with the horrors of
the Scorpion.

In consequence of the earth's revolution in its orbit, the sun
appears at different seasons to rise in connection with different
groups of stars. It seems as if the sun made an annual journey
around the ecliptic. This circuit was divided into twelve parts
corresponding to the months, and each marked by a distinct
constellation. There was a singular agreement in regard to these
solar houses, residences of the gods, or signs of the zodiac,
among the leading nations of the earth, the Persians, Chaldeans,
Hebrews, Syrians, Hindus, Chinese, Arabians, Japanese, Siamese,
Goths, Javanese, Mexicans, Peruvians, and Scandinavians. 27 Among
the various explanations of the origin of these artificial signs,
we will notice only the one attributed by Volney to the Egyptians.
The constellations in which the sun successively appeared from
month to month were named thus: at the time of the overflow of the
Nile, the stars of inundation, (Aquarius;) at the time of
ploughing, stars of the ox, (Taurus;) when lions, driven forth by
thirst, appeared on the banks of the Nile, stars of the lion,
(Leo;) at the time of reaping, stars of the sheaf, (Virgo;) stars
of the lamb and two kids, (Aries,) when these animals were born;
stars of the crab, (Cancer,) when the sun, touching the tropic,
returned backwards; stars of the wild goat, (Capricorn,) when the
sun reached the highest point in his yearly track; stars of the
balance, (Libra,) when days and nights were in equilibrium; stars
of the scorpion, (Scorpio,) when periodical simooms burned like
the venom of a scorpion; and so on of the rest.28

The progress of astronomical science from the wild time when men
thought the stars were mere spangles stuck in a solid expanse not
far off, to the vigorous age when Ptolemy's mathematics spanned
the scope of the sky; from the first reverent observations of the
Chaldean shepherds watching the constellations as gods, to the
magnificent reasonings of Copernicus dashing down the innumerable
crystalline spheres, "cycle on epicycle, orb on orb," with which
crude theorizers had crowded the stellar spaces; from the uncurbed
poetry of Hyginus writing the floor of heaven over with romantic
myths in planetary words, to the more wondrous truth of Le Verrier
measuring the steps from nimble Mercury flitting moth like in the
beard of the sun to dull Neptune sagging in his cold course twenty
six hundred million miles away; from the half inch orb of
Hipparchus's naked eye, to the six feet speculum of Rosse's awful
tube; from the primeval belief in one world studded around with
skyey torch lights, to the modern conviction of octillions of
inhabited worlds all governed by one law constitutes the most
astonishing chapter in the history of the human mind. Every step
of this incredible progress has had its effect in modifying the
conceptions of man's position and importance in nature and of the
connection of his future fate with localities. Of old, the entire
creation was thought to lie pretty much within the comprehension
of man's unaided senses, and man himself was supposed to be the
chief if not the sole object of Divine providence. The deities
often came down in incarnations and mingled with their favorites
and rescued the earth from evils. Every thing was anthropomorphized.
Man's relative magnitude and power were believed to be such
that he fancied during an eclipse that, by screams, the crashing
of gongs, and magic rites, he could scare away the monsters

27 Pigott, Scandinavian Mythology, chap. i. p. 31.

28 Volney, Ruins, chap. xxii. sect. 3. Maurice, Hist. Hindostan,
vol. i. pp. 145-147.


who were swallowing the sun or the moon. Meteors shooting through
the evening air the Arabs believed were fallen angels trying to
get back into heaven but hurled from the crystal battlements by
the flaming lances of the guardian watchers. Then the gazer saw
"The top of heaven full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets."

Now the student contemplates an abyss swarming with orbs each out
weighing millions of our earth. Then they read their nativities in
the planets and felt how great must be the state overwatched by
such resplendent servitors. Now "They seek communion with the stars
that they may know How petty is this ball on which they come and go."

Then the hugest view of the extent of the universal sphere was
that an iron mass would require nine days and nights to plunge
from its Olympian height to its Tartarean depth. Now we are told
by the masters of science that there are stars so distant that it
would take their light, travelling at a rate of nearly twelve
million miles a minute, thirty million years to reach us. The
telescope has multiplied the size of the creation by hundreds of
millions, and the grandest conception of the stellar universe
possible to the most capacious human mind probably bears no larger
proportion to the fact than an orrery does to the solar system.
Our earth is a hundred million miles from the sun, whose diameter
is so monstrous that a hundred such orbs strung in a straight line
would occupy the whole distance. The sun, with all his attendant
planets and moons, is sweeping around his own centre supposed by
some to be Alcyone at the rate of four hundred thousand miles a
day; and it will take him eighteen million years to complete one
revolution. Our firmamental cluster contains, it has been
calculated, in round numbers about twenty million stars. There are
many thousands of such nebula visible, some of them capable of
packing away in their awful bosoms hundreds of thousands of our
galaxies. Measure off the abysmal space into seven hundred
thousand stages each a hundred million miles wide, and you reach
the nearest fixed stars, for instance, the constellation of the
Lyre. Multiply that inconceivable distance by hundreds of
thousands, and still you will discern enormous sand banks of stars
obscurely glittering on the farthest verge of telescopic vision.
And even all this is but a little corner of the whole.

Coleridge once said, "To some infinitely superior Being, the whole
universe may be as one plain, the distance between planet and
planet being only as the pores in a grain of sand, and the spaces
between system and system no greater than the intervals between
one grain and the grain adjacent." One of the vastest thoughts yet
conceived by any mortal mind is that of turning the universe from
a mechanical to a chemical problem, as illustrated by Prof.
Lovering.29 Assuming the acknowledged truths in physics, that the
ultimate particles of matter never actually touch each other, and
that water in evaporating expands into eighteen hundred times its
previous volume, he demonstrates that the porosity of our solar
system is no greater than that of steam. "The porosity of granite
or gold may be equal to that of steam,

29 Cambridge Miscellany, 1842.


the greater density being a stronger energy in the central
forces." And the conclusion is scientifically reached that "the
vast interval between the sun and Herschel is an enormous pore,
while the invisible distance that separates the most closely
nestled atoms is a planetary space, a stupendous gulf when
compared with the little spheres between which it flows." Thus we
may think of the entire universe as a living organism, like a
ripening orange, its component atoms worlds, the sidereal
movements its vital circulation.

Surely, when a man looks up from his familiar fields and household
roof to such incommensurable objects as scientific imagination
reveals in the sparkling sword handle of Perseus and the hazy
girdle of Andromeda, overpowering humility will fill his breast,
an unutterable solemnity will "fall on him as from the very
presence chamber of the Highest." And will he not, when he
contemplates the dust like shoals of stars, the shining films of
firmaments, that retreat and hover through all the boundless
heights, the Nubecula nebula, looking like a bunch of ribbons
disposed in a true love's knot, that most awful nebula whirled
into the shape and bearing the name of the Dumb Bell, the Crab
nebula, hanging over the infinitely remote space, a sprawling
terror, every point holding millions of worlds,  thinking of these
all transcendent wonders, and then remembering his own
inexpressible littleness, how that the visible existence of his
whole race does not occupy a single tick of the great Sidereal
Clock, will he not sink under helpless misgivings, will he not
utterly despair of immortal notice and support from the King of
all this? In a word, how does the solemn greatness of man, the
supposed eternal destiny of man, stand affected by the modern
knowledge of the vastness of creation? Regarding the immensities
receding over him in unfathomable abysses bursting with dust heaps
of suns, must not man be dwarfed into unmitigated contempt, his
life and character rendered absolutely insignificant, the utmost
span of his fortunes seeming but as the hum and glitter of an
ephemeron in a moment's sunshine? Doubtless many a one has at
times felt the stupendous truths of astronomy thus palsying him
with a crushing sense of his own nothingness and burying him in
fatalistic despair. Standing at night, alone, beneath the august
dome studded from of old with its ever blazing lights, he gazes up
and sees the innumerable armies of heaven marshalled forth above
him in the order and silence of their primeval pomp. Peacefully
and forever they shine there. In nebula separated from nebula by
trillions of leagues, plane beyond plane, they stretch and glitter
to the feet of God. Falling on his knees, he clasps his hands in
speechless adoration, but feels, with an intolerable ache of the
heart, that in this infinitude such an one as he can be of no
consequence whatever. He waits passively for the resistless round
of fate to bear him away, ah, whither? "Conscious that he dwells
but as an atom of dust on the outskirts of a galaxy of
inconceivable glory" moving through eternity in the arms of law,
he becomes, in his own estimation, an insensible dot lost in the
uncontainable wilderness of firmamental systems. But this
conclusion of despair is a mistake as sophistical as it is
injurious, as baseless in reality as it is natural in seeming. Its
antidote and corrective are found in a more penetrative thought
and juster understanding of the subject, which will preserve the
greatness and the immortal destiny of man unharmed despite the
frowning vastitudes of creation. This will appear from fairly
weighing the following considerations.

In the first place, the immensity of the material universe is an
element entirely foreign to the problem of human fate. When
seeking to solve the question of human destiny, we are to study
the facts and prophecies of human nature, and to conclude
accordingly. It is a perversion of reason to bring from far an
induction of nebular magnitudes to crush with their brute weight
the plain indications of the spirit of humanity. What though the
number of telescopic worlds were raised to the ten thousandth
power, and each orb were as large as all of them combined would
now be? what difference would that make in the facts of human
nature and destiny? It is from the experience going on in man's
breast, and not from the firmaments rolling above his head, that
his importance and his final cause are to be inferred. The human
mind, heart, and conscience, thought, love, faith, and piety,
remain the same in their intrinsic rank and capacities whether the
universe be as small as it appeared to the eyes of Abraham or as
large as it seems in the cosmical theory of Humboldt. Thus the
spiritual position of man really remains precisely what it was
before the telescope smote the veils of distance and bared the
outer courts of being.

Secondly, if we do bring in the irrelevant realms of science to
the examination of our princely pretensions, it is but fair to
look in both directions. And then what we lose above we gain
below. The revelations of the microscope balance those of the
telescope. The animalcula magnify man as much as the nebulsa
belittle him. We cannot help believing that He who frames and
provides for those infinitesimal animals quadrillions of whom
might inhabit a drop of water or a leaf and have ample room and
verge enough, and whose vital and muscular organization is as
complicated and perfect as that of an elephant, will much more
take care of man, no matter how numerous the constellations are.
Let us see how far scientific vision can look beneath ourselves as
the question is answered by a few well known facts. In each drop
of human blood there are three million vitalized corpuscular
disks. Considering all the drops made up in this way, man is a
kosmos, his veins galaxies through whose circuits these red
clustering planets perform their revolutions. How small the
exhaling atoms of a grain of musk must be, since it will perfume
every breath of air blowing through a hall for a quarter of a
century, and then not be perceptibly diminished. An ounce of gold
may be reduced into four hundred and thirty two billion parts,
each microscopically visible.30 There is a deposit of slate in
Bohemia covering forty square miles to the depth of eight feet,
each cubic inch of which Ehrenberg found by microscopic
measurement to contain forty one thousand million infusorial
animals. Sir David Brewster says, "A cubic inch of the Bilin
polieschiefer slate contains above one billion seven hundred and
fifty thousand millions of distinct individuals of Galionella
ferruginea."31 It is a fact that the size of one of these insects
as compared with the bulk of a man is virtually as small as that
of a man compared with the whole scheme of modern astronomy. Thus,
if the problem of our immortal consequence is prejudicially
vitiated by contemplating the immense extremity of vision, it is
rectified by gazing on the opposite extremity. If man justly
scrutinized, without comparisons, is fitted for and worthy of
eternity,

30 Lardner, Hand Book of Natural Philosophy, book i. chap. v.31
More Worlds than One, ch. viii. note 3.


no foreign facts, however magnificent or minute, should alter our
judgment from the premises.

Thirdly, is it not evident that man's greatness keeps even pace
along the scale of magnitude with the widening creation, since it
is his mind that sees and comprehends how wondrous the dimensions
of the universe are? The number of stars and the limits of space
are not more astounding than it is that he should be capable of
knowing such things, enumerating and staking them off. When man
has measured the distance and weighed the bulk of Sirius, it is
more appropriate to kneel in amazement before the inscrutable
mystery of his genius, the irrepressible soaring of his soul, than
to sink in despair under the swinging of those lumps of dirt in
their unapproachable spheres because they are so gigantic! The
appearance of the creation to man is not vaster than his
perception of it. They are exactly correlated by the very terms of
the statement. As the astronomic world expands, the astronomer's
mind dilates and must be as large as it in order to contain it in
thought. What we lose in relative importance from the enlargement
of the boundaries of the universe we gain from the new revelation
of our capacities that is made through these transcendent
achievements of our science. That we are favorites of the Creator
and destined for immortal glories is therefore logically and
morally just as credible after looking through Herschel's forty
feet reflector and reading La Place's Mecanique Celeste as it
would be were this planet, suspended in a hollow dome, the
entirety of material being.

Furthermore, we can reason only from the data we have; and, doing
that, we should conclude, from the intrinsic and incomparable
superiority of spirit to matter, that man and his kindred
scattered in families over all the orbs of space were the especial
objects of the infinite Author's care. They are fitted by their
filial attributes to commune with Him in praise and love. They
know the prodigious and marvellous works of mechanical nature;
mechanical nature knows nothing. Man can return his Maker's
blessing in voluntary obedience and thanks; matter is inanimate
clay for the Potter's moulding. Turning from the gleaming
wildernesses of star land to the intellect and heart, appreciating
the infinite problems and hopes with which they deal and aspire,
we feel the truth expressed by Wordsworth in his tremendous lines:

"I must, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds To which the heaven of
heavens is but a veil. Not chaos, darkest pit of Erebus, Nor aught
of blinder vacancy, scoop'd out By help of dreams, can breed such
fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our minds,
into the mind of man."

Is not one noble thought of truth, one holy emotion of love, one
divine impulse of devotion, better than a whole planet of mud, a
whole solar system of gas and dust? Who would not rather be the
soul that gauges the deeps, groups the laws, foretells the
movements, of the universe, writing down in a brief mathematical
formula a complete horoscope of the heavens as they will appear on
any given night thousands of years hence, than to be all that
array of swooping systems? To think the world is to be superior to
the world. That which appreciates is akin to that which makes; and
so we are the Creator's children, and these crowding nebula,
packed with orbs as thick as the ocean beach with sands, are the
many mansions of the House fitted up for His abode and ours. An
only prince would be of more consideration than a palace, although
its foundation pressed the shoulders of Serpentarius, its turret
touched the brow of Orion, and its wings reached from the Great
Bear to the Phoenix. So a mind is of more importance than the
material creation, and the moral condition of a man is of greater
moment than the aspect of stellar firmaments.

Another illustration of the truth we are considering is to be
drawn from the idealist theory, to which so many of the ablest
thinkers of the world have given their devoted adhesion, that
matter is merely phenomenal, no substantial entity, but a
transient show preserved in appearance for some ulterior cause,
and finally, at the withdrawal or suspension of God's volition, to
return into annihilating invisibility as swiftly as a flash of
lightning. The solid seeming firmaments are but an exertion of
Divine force projected into vision to serve for a season as a
theatre for the training of spirits. When that process is
complete, in the twinkling of an eye the phantasmal exhibition of
matter will disappear, leaving only the ideal realm of
indestructible things, souls with their inward treasures remaining
in their native sphere of the infinite, while the outward universe
"Doth vanish like a ghost before the sun."

The same practical result may also be reached by a different path,
may be attained by the road of physics as well as by that of
transcendental metaphysics. For Newton has given in his Principia
a geometrical demonstration of the infinite compressibility of
matter. All the worlds, therefore, that cluster in yon swelling
vault can be condensed into a single globe of the size of a
walnut; and then, on that petty lump of apparent substance, the
enfranchised soul might trample in an exultation of magnanimous
scorn upon the whole universe of earths, and soar through its own
unlimited dominion, Monarch of Immortality, the snatched glory of
shrunken firmaments flashing from its deathless wings.

Finally, a proper comprehension of the idea of God will neutralize
the skepticism and despondency sometimes stealthily nourished or
crushingly impressed by contemplations of the immensity of nature.
If one, from regarding the cold and relentless mechanism of the
surrounding system, tremble for fear of there being no kind
Overruler, let him gaze on the warm beauty that flushes the
countenance of day, the mystic meditativeness that hangs on the
pensive and starry brow of night, let him follow the commanding
instincts of his own heart, and he will find himself clinging in
irresistible faith and filial love to the thought of an infinite
Father. If still the atheistic sentiment obtrudes upon him and
oppresses him, let him observe how every spot of immensity whereon
the eye of science has fallen is crowded with unnumbered amazing
examples of design, love, beneficence, and he will perceive that
the irrefragable lines of argument drawn through the boundless
spaces of creation light up the stupendous contour of God and show
the expression of his features to be love. It seems as though any
man acquainted with the truths and magnitudes of astronomy, who,
after seeing the star strewn abysses, would look in his mirror and
ask if the image reflected there is that of the greatest being in
the universe, would need nothing further to convince him that a
God, the Creator, Preserver, Sovereign, lives. And then, if,
mistakenly judging from his own limitations, he thinks that the
particular care of all the accumulated galaxies of worlds, every
world perhaps teeming with countless millions of conscious
creatures, would transcend the possibilities even of God, a
moment's reflection will dissolve that sophistry in the truth that
God is infinite, and that to his infinite attributes globule and
globe are alike, the oversight of the whole and of each part a
matter of instantaneous and equal ease. Still further: if this
abstract truth be insufficient to support faith and bestow peace,
what will he say to the visible fact that all the races of beings,
and all the clusters of worlds, from the motes in a sunbeam to the
orbs of the remotest firmament, are now taken care of by Divine
Providence? God now keeps them all in being and order, unconfused
by their multiplicity, unoppressed by their magnitude, and not for
an instant forgetting or neglecting either the mightiest or the
least. Morbidly suspicious, perversely incredulous, must be the
mind that denies, since it is so now in this state, that it may be
so as well in the other state and forever! Grasping the conception
of one God, who creates, rules, and loves all, man may
unpresumptuously feel himself to be a child of the Infinite and a
safe heir of immortality. Looking within and without, and soaring
in fancy amidst the blue and starry altitudes interspersed with
blazing suns and nebulous oceans, he may cry, from a sober
estimate of all the experimental and phenomenal facts within his
reach,

"Even here I feel,
Among these mighty things, that as I am
I am akin to God; that I am part
Of the use universal, and can grasp
Some portion of that reason in the which
The whole is ruled and founded; that I have
A spirit nobler in its cause and end,
Lovelier in order, greater in its powers,
Than all these bright and swift immensities."

Perhaps the force of these arguments may be better condensed and
expressed by help of an individual illustration. While the pen is
forming these words, the announcement of the death of Dr. Kane
saddens the world. Alas that the gallant heart no longer beats,
the story of whose noble generosity and indomitable prowess has
just thrilled the dull nations of men of meaner mould! Who even
though standing before a telescope under the full architecture of
the heavens can believe that that maiden soul of heroism and
devotion is now but an extinguished spark, that the love, honor,
intelligence, self sacrificing consecration which enswathed him as
with a saintly halo have all gone out? Turning from that pale
form, stretched on the couch of death in fatal Cuba, through the
receding gulfs of space where incomputable systems of worlds are
wheeling on their eternal courses, and then looking back again
from the noiseless glitter and awful bulk of the creation, do you
despair of the immortal consequence of the poor sufferer whose
fleshly moorings to existence are successively loosening at every
gasp? Ah, remember that Matter and the Soul are not alone! Far
above that clay bound, struggling soul, and far above those
measureless, firmamental masses, is God, the Maker of them both,
and the Lover of his child. Glancing in His omniscience down upon
that human death couch, around which affectionate prayers are
floating from every part of the earth, and from whose pallid
occupant confiding sighs are rising to His ear, He sees the
unutterable mysteries of yearning thought, emotion, and power,
which are the hidden being of man, and which so ally the filial
spirit to the parent Divinity. As beneath His gaze the faithful
soul of Elisha Kane slowly extricating itself from its overwrought
tabernacle, and also extricating itself from the holy network of
heart strings which sixty millions of men speaking one speech have
flung around him, if haply so they might retain him to earth to
take their love and waiting honors rises into the invisible,
seeking to return, bearing its virgin purity with it, to the bosom
of God, will He overlook it, or carelessly spurn it into night,
because the banks of stars are piled up so thick and high that
they absorb His regards? My soul, come not thou into the counsels
of them that think so! It should not be believed though astronomy
were a thousand times astronomy. But it shall rather be thought
that, ere now, the brave American has discovered the Mariner whom
he sought, though sailing on far other seas, where there is no
destroying winter and no need of rescue.

In association with the measureless spaces and countless worlds
brought to light by astronomic science naturally arises the
question whether the other worlds are, like our earth, peopled
with responsible intelligences. In ancient times the stars were
not generally thought to be worlds, but to be persons, genii or
gods. At the dawn of creation "the morning stars sang together;"
that is, "the sons of God shouted for joy." The stars were the
living army of "Jehovah of hosts." At the time when the
theological dogmas now prevalent were first conceived, the
greatness and glory of the universe were supposed to centre on
this globe. The fortunes of man wellnigh absorbed, it was
imagined, the interest of angels and of God. The whole creation
was esteemed a temporary theatre for the enactment of the sublime
drama of the fall and redemption of man. The entire heavens with
all their host were thought to revolve in satellite dependence
around this stationary and regal planet. For God to hold long,
anxious, repeated councils to devise means to save us, was not
deemed out of keeping with the relative dignity of the earth and
the human race. But at length the progress of discovery put a
different aspect on the physical conditions of the problem. The
philosopher began to survey man's habitation and history, and to
estimate man's comparative rank and destiny, not from the stand
point of a solitary planet dating back only a few thousand years,
but in the light of millions of centuries of duration and from a
position among millions of crowded firmaments whence our sun
appears as a dim and motionless star. This new vision of science
required a new construction of theology. The petty and monstrous
notions of the ignorant superstition of the early age needed
rectification. In the minds of the wise and devout few this was
effected; but with the great majority the two sets of ideas
existed side by side in unreconciled confusion and contradiction,
as they even continue to do unto this day.

When it came to be believed that the universe teemed with suns,
moons, and planets, composed of material substances, subject to
day and night, and various other laws and changes, like our own
abode, it was natural to infer that these innumerable worlds were
also inhabited by rational creatures akin to ourselves and capable
of worshipping God. Numerous considerations, possessing more or
less weight, were brought forward to confirm such a conclusion.
The most striking presentation ever made of the argument, perhaps,
is that in Oersted's essay on the "Universe as a Single
Intellectual Realm." It became the popular faith, and is
undoubtedly more so now than ever before. Towards the end of the
seventeenth century a work was published in explicit support of
this faith by Fontenelle. It was entitled "Conversations on the
Plurality of Worlds," and had marked success, running through many
editions. A few years later, Huygens wrote a book, called
"Cosmotheoros," in maintenance of the same thesis. The more this
doctrine obtained root and life in the convictions of men, the
more strongly its irreconcilableness with the ordinary theology
must have made itself felt by fearless and competent thinkers.
Could a quadrillion firmaments loaded with stars, each inhabited
by its own race of free intelligences, all be burned up and
destroyed in the Day of Judgment provoked on this petty grain of
dust by the sin of Adam? 32 Were the stars mere sparks and
spangles stuck in heaven for us to see by, it would be no shock to
our reason to suppose that they might be extinguished with our
extinction; but, grasping the truths of astronomy as they now lie
in the brain of a master in science, we can no longer think of God
expelling our race from the joys of being and then quenching the
splendors of his hall "as an innkeeper blows out the lights when
the dance is at an end." God rules and over rules all, and
serenely works out his irresistible ends, incapable of wrath or
defeat. Would it be more incongruous for Him to be angry with an
ant hill and come down to trample it, than to be so with the earth
and appear in vindictive fire to annihilate it?

From time to time, in the interests of the antiquated ideas,
doubts have been raised as to the validity of the doctrine of
stellar worlds stocked with intellectual families.33 Hegel, either
imbued with that Gnostic contempt and hatred for matter which
described the earth as "a dirt ball for the extrication of light
spirits," or from an obscure impulse of pantheistic thought,
sullies the stars with every demeaning phrase, even stigmatizing
them as "pimples of light." Michelet, a disciple of Hegel,
followed his example, and, in a work published in 1840, strove
vigorously to aggrandize the earth and man at the expense of the
accepted teachings of astronomy.34 With argument and ridicule, wit
and reason, he endeavored to make it out that the stars are no
better than gleaming patches of vapor. We are the exclusive
autocrats of all immensity. Whewell has followed up this species
of thought with quite remarkable adroitness, force, and
brilliance.35 Whether his motive in this undertaking is purely
scientific and artistic, or whether he is impelled by a fancied
religious animus, having been bitten by some theological fear
which has given him the astrophobia, does not clearly appear.

32 As specimens of the large number of treatises which have been
published asserting the destruction of the whole creation in the
Day of Judgment, the following may be consulted. Osiander, De
Consummatione Saculi Dissertationum Pentus. Lund, De Excidio
Universi Totali et Substantiali. Frisch, Die Welt im Feuer, oder
das wahre Vergehen und Ende der Welt durch den letzen Sundenbrand.
For a century past the opinion has been gaining favor that the
great catastrophe will be confined to our earth, and that even
this is not to be annihilated, but to be transformed, purged, and
beautified by the crisis. See, e. g., Brumhey, Ueber die endliche
Umwandlung der Erde durch Feuer.

33 Kurtz, Bibel and Astronomie. Simonton's Eng. trans., ch. vi.
sect. 14: Incarnation of God.

34 Vorlesungen uber die ewige Personlichkeit des Geistes. 35 Of a
Plurality of Worlds: An Essay.


Brewster has replied to Whewell's disturbing essay in a volume
which more commands our sympathies and carries our reason,
but is less sustained in force and less close in logic.36 Powell
has still more recently published a very valuable treatise on the
subject;37 and with this work the discussion rests thus far,
leaving, as we believe, the popular faith in an astronomic
universe of inhabited worlds unshaken, however fatal the
legitimate implications of that faith may be to other doctrines
simultaneously held.38 It is curious to observe the shifting
positions taken up by skepticism in science, now, with powerful
recoil from the narrow bigotries of theology, eagerly embracing
the sublimest dreams of astronomic speculation, and now inclining
to the faith that the remoter stars are but brilliant globules
trickling from the poles of some terrible battery in the godless
heights of space. But if there be any thing sure in science at
all, it is that the material creation is inconceivably vast,
including innumerable systems, and all governed by invariable
laws. But let us return from this episode.

The foregoing sixfold argument, preserving us from the remorseless
grasp of annihilation, leaves to us unchanged the problem of the
relations which shall be sustained by the disembodied soul to time
and space, the question as to the locality of the spirit world,
the scene of our future life. Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, Valhalla
with its mead brimmed horns, Blessed Isles, Elysium, supernal
Olympus, firmamental Heaven, paradisal Eden, definite sites of
celestial Worlds for departed souls, the Chaldee's golden orbs,
the Sanscrit Meru, the Indian Hunting Ground, the Moslem's love
bowers, and wine rivers, and gem palaces thronged with dark eyed
houris, these notions, and all similar ones, of material
residences for spirits, located and bounded, we must dismiss as
dreams and cheats of the childish world's unripe fancy. There is
no evidence for any thing of that coarse, crude sort. The
fictitious theological Heaven is a deposit of imagination on the
azure ground of infinity, like a bird's nest on Himalaya. What,
then, shall we say? Why, in the first place, that, while there are
reasons enough and room enough for an undisheartened faith in the
grand fact of human immortality, it is beyond our present powers
to establish any detailed conclusions in regard to its locality or
its scenery.

But surely, in the second place, we should say that it becomes us,
when reflecting on the scenes to be opened to us at death, to rise
to a more ideal and sublime view than any of those tangible
figments which were the products of untrained sensual imagination
and gross materialistic theory. When the fleshly prison walls of
the mind fall, its first inheritance is a stupendous freedom. The
narrow limits that caged it here are gone, and it lives in an
ethereal sphere with no impeding bounds. Leaving its natal
threshold of earth and the lazar house of time, its home is
immensity, and its lease is eternity. Even in our present state,
to a true

36 More Worlds than One the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope
of the Christian.

37 Essay on the Unity or Plurality of Worlds. See, furthermore, in
Westminster Review, July, 1858, Recent Astronomy and the Nebular
Hypothesis.

38 Volger, Erde and Ewigkeit. (Natural History of the Earth as a
Periodical Process of Development in Opposition to the Unnatural
Geology of Revolutions and Catastrophes.) Treise, Dag Endlose der
grossen und der kleinen materiellen Welt.


thinker there is no ascent or descent or terminating wall in
space, but equal motion illimitably in all directions; and no
absolute standard of duration, only a relative and variable one
from the insect of an hour, to man, to an archangel, to that
incomprehensible Being whose shortest moments are too vast to be
noted by the awful nebula of the Hour Glass, although its rushing
sands are systems of worlds. The soul emerges from earthly bondage
emancipated into eternity, while "The ages sweep around him with
their wings, Like anger'd eagles cheated of their prey."

We have now sufficient premonitions and examples of this wondrous
enlargement to base a rational belief on. What hems us in when we
think, feel, and imagine? And what is the heaven that shall dawn
for us beyond the veil of death's domain but the realm of Thought,
the sphere of the spirit's unhampered powers? There are often
vouchsafed to us here hours of outsoaring emotion and conception
which make the enclosures in which the astronomer loiters seem
narrow. "His skies are shoal, and imagination, like a thirsty
traveller, pants to be through their desert. The roving mind
impatiently bursts the fetters of astronomical orbits, like
cobwebs in a corner of its universe, and launches itself to where
distance fails to follow, and law, such as science has discovered,
grows weak and weary." There are moods of spiritual expansion and
infinite longing that illustrate the train of thought so well
expressed in the following lines:

"Even as the dupe in tales Arabian
Dipp'd but his brow beneath the beaker's brim,
And in that instant all the life of man
From youth to age roll'd its slow years on him,
And, while the foot stood motionless, the soul
Swept with deliberate wing from pole to pole;
So when the man the Grave's still portal passes,
Closed on the substances or cheats of earth,
The Immaterial, for the things earth glasses,
Shapes a new vision from the matter's dearth:
Before the soul that sees not with our eyes
The undefined Immeasurable lies." 39

Then we realize that the spiritual world does not form some now
unseen and distant region of the visible creation, but that the
astronomic universe is a speck lying in the invisible bosom of the
spiritual world. "Space is an attribute of God in which all matter
is laid, and other attributes he may have which are the home of
mind and soul." We suppose the difference between the present
embodied and the future disembodied state to be so vast that the
conditions of the latter cannot be intelligibly illustrated by the
analogies of the former. It is not to be expected that the human
soul will ever be absolutely independent of time and space,
literally transcending them, but only relatively so as compared
with its earthly predicament.

39 Bulwer, King Arthur, book xi.


For, as an able thinker and writer a philosopher of the
Swedenborgian school, too has said, "The conception of a mind
absolutely sundered from all connection with space is a mere
pretence which words necessarily repudiate."

The soul on the hypothesis that there is a soul is now in the
body. Evidently, on leaving the body, it must either be nowhere,
and that is annihilation, which the vehement totality of our
thought denies; or everywhere, and that implies infinity, the loss
of finite being in boundless Deity, a conclusion which we know of
nothing to warrant; or somewhere,  and that predicates a surviving
individuality related to surrounding externals, which is the
prophesied and satisfactory result in which we rest in faith,
humbly confessing our ignorance as to all the minutia. It does not
necessarily follow from this view, however, that the soul is
limited to a fixed region in space. It may have the freedom of the
universe. More wonders, and sublimer than mortal fancies have ever
suspected, are waiting to be revealed when we die:

"For this life is but being's first faint ray, And heaven on
heaven make up God's dazzling day."

We are here living unconsciously engirt by another universe than
the senses can apprehend, thinly veiled, but real, and waiting for
us with hospitable invitation. "What are those dream like and
inscrutable thoughts which start up in moments of stillness,
apparently as from the deeps, like the movement of the leaves
during a silent night, in prognostic of the breeze that has yet
scarce come, if not the rustlings of schemes and orders of
existence near though unseen?" Perchance the range of the abode
and destiny of the soul after death is all immensity. The
interstellar spaces, which we usually fancy are barren deserts
where nonentity reigns, may really be the immortal kingdom
colonized by the spirits who since the beginning of the creation
have sailed from the mortal shores of all planets. They may be the
crowded aisles of the universal temple trod by bright throngs of
worshipping angels. The soul's home, the heaven of God, may be
suffused throughout the material universe, ignoring the existence
of physical globes and galaxies. So light and electricity pervade
some solid bodies, as if for them there were no solidity. So,
doubtless, there are millions of realities around us utterly
eluding our finest senses. "A fact," Emerson says, "is the last
issue of spirit," and not its entire extent. "The visible creation
is the terminus of the invisible world," and not the totality of
the universe. There are gradations of matter and being, from the
rock to the flower, from the vegetable to man. Is it most probable
that the scale breaks abruptly there, or that other ranks of
spiritual existence successively rise peopling the seeming abysses
unto the very confines of God?

"Can every leaf a teeming world contain,
Can every globule gird a countless race,
Yet one death slumber in its dreamless reign
Clasp all the illumed magnificence of space?
Life crowd a grain, from air's vast realms effaced?
The leaf a world, the firmament a waste?"

An honest historical criticism forces us, however reluctantly, to
loose our hold from the various supposed localities of the soul's
destination, which have pleased the fancies and won the assent of
mankind in earlier times. But it cannot touch the simple and
cardinal fact of an immortal life for man. It merely forces us to
acknowledge that while the fact stands clear and authoritative to
instinct, reason, and faith, yet the how, and the where, and all
such problems, are wrapped in unfathomable mystery. We are to obey
and hope, not dissect and dogmatize. However the fantastic dreams
of the imagination and the subtle speculations of the intellect
may shift from time to time, and be routed and vanish, the deep
yearning of the heart remains the same, the divine polarity of the
reason changes not, and men will never cease fondly to believe
that although they cannot tell where heaven is, yet surely there
is a heaven reserved for them somewhere within the sheltering
embrace of God's infinite providence. We may not say of that
kingdom, Lo, here! or Lo, there! but it is wherever God's
approving presence extends: and is that not wherever the pure in
heart are found? 40

Let every elysian clime the breezes blow over, every magic isle
the waves murmur round, every subterranean retreat fancy has
devised, every cerulean region the moon visits, every planet that
hangs afar on the neck of night, be disenchanted of their
imaginary charms, and brought, by the advance of discovery, within
the relentless light of familiarity, for the common gaze of
fleshly eyes and tread of vulgar feet, still the prophetic MIND
would not be robbed of its belief in immortality; still the
unquenchable instincts of the HEART would retain, uninjured, the
great expectation of ANOTHER WORLD, although no traveller returns
from its voiceless bourne to tell in what local direction it lies,
no voyager comes back from its mystic port to describe its
latitude and longitude on the chartless infinite of space.

Turn we now from the lateral distribution of notions as to a
future life, to their lineal development. We have seen that the
development of belief as to the locality of our future destination
has been a chase of places, over the earth, under the earth,
through the sky, as fast as the unknown was brought within the
known, until it has stopped at the verge of the unknowable. There
we stand, confessing our inability to fix the scene. The doctrine
of the conditions and contents of the future life has followed the
same course as that of its locality.

In the first stage of belief the future life consists of the gross
conditions and materials of the known present reflected, under the
impulse of the senses, into the unknown future. This style of
faith prevailed for a vast period, and is not yet obsolete. When
the King of Dahomey has done a great feat, he kills a man to carry
the tidings to the ghost of his royal father. When he dies
himself, a host are killed, that he may enter Deadland with a
becoming cortege. His wives also are slain, or commit suicide,
that they may rejoin him.

The second stage of belief is reached when, under the ethical
impulse, only certain refined elements of the present,
discriminated portions of the products of reason, imagination and
sentiment, are reflected into the future, and accepted as the
facts of the life there. Critical processes, applied to thought
and faith, cause the rejection of much that was received. That
alone which answers to our wants, and has coherence, continues to
be held

40 Chalmers, Sermon, Heaven a Character and not a Locality.


as truth. An example is afforded by Augustine in his essay, De
Libero Arbitrio. He argues that the wicked are kept in being on
the out skirts of the material universe; partly wretched, partly
happy; too bad for heaven, too good for annihilation; incapable of
attaining the summit of their beatified destiny. Not the crude
reflection of the present state, but a criticized and purged
portion of the results of speculation on it, is thrown forward,
and composes the doctrine of the future life. This is the
condition of faith in which civilized mankind, for the most part,
now are.

The third stage of development is that wherein the thinker
perceives that it is illegitimate to reflect into the future any
of the realities or relations of the present, and then to regard
them as the truths of the experience which awaits him after death.
His experience here is the resultant of his faculties as related
to the universe. Destroy his organization, and what follows? One
will say, "Nonentity." Another, more wise and modest, will say,
"Something necessarily unknown as yet." We have no better right to
project into the ideal space of futurity the ingredients of our
thoughts than we have to project there the objects of our senses.
Bunsen, whose thought and scholarship included pretty much all the
knowledge of mankind, represents this stage of faith. He stands on
the religious side of the movement of Science, believing in
immortality without defining it. Comte stands on the positivist
side, blankly denying all objective immortality. These two
represent the results in which, advancing from its opposite sides,
the logical development of the doctrine of a future life ends.
With Comte, atheistic dogmatism crushing every eternal hope; with
Bunsen, Christian faith pointing the child to an eternal home in
the Father. For all but fetichistic minds the only choice lies
between these two.

The organic evolution of the doctrine of a life to come is,
therefore, a process of faith beginning with the crude
transference of the elements of the present into the future,
continuing with refined modifications of that transference, ending
with an entire cessation of it as inapplicable and incompetent.
Having examined all the historic, experimental, and scientific
data within our reach, we pause on the edge of the PART which we
know, and wait, with serene trust, though with bowed head and
silent lip, before the UNKNOWABLE WHOLE.

CHAPTER VIII.

CRITICAL HISTORY OF DISBELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE.

IF the first men were conscious spirits who, at the command of
God, dropped from the skies into organic forms of matter, or who
were created here on an exalted plane of insight and communion far
above any thing now experienced by us, then the destination of man
to a life after death may originally have been a fact of direct
knowledge, universally seen and grasped without any obscuring
peradventure. From that state it gradually declined into dubious
dimness as successive generations grew sinful, sensual, hardened,
immersed and bound in affairs of passion and earth. It became
remoter, assumed a questionable aspect, gave rise to discussions
and doubts, and here and there to positive disbelief and open
denial. Thus, beginning as a clear reality within the vision of
all, it sank into a matter of uncertain debate among individuals.

But if the first men were called up into being from the earth, by
the creative energy of God, as the distinct climax of the other
species, then the early generations of our race, during the long
ages of their wild and slowly ameliorating state, were totally
ignorant of any conscious sequel to the fate seemingly closed in
death. They were too animal and rude yet to conceive a spiritual
existence outside of the flesh and the earth. Among the
accumulating trophies of their progressive intellectual conquests
hung up by mankind in the historic hall of experience, this
marvellous achievement is one of the sublimest. What a day was
that for all humanity forever after, when for the first time, on
some climbing brain, dawned from the great Sun of the spirit world
the idea of a personal immortality! It was announced. It dawned
separately wherever there were prepared persons. It spread from
soul to soul, and became the common faith of the world. Still,
among every people there were pertinacious individuals, who swore
not by the judge and went not with the multitude, persons of less
credulous hearts and more skeptical faculties, who demurred at the
great doctrine, challenged it in many particulars, gainsaid it on
various grounds, disbelieved it from different motives, and fought
it with numerous weapons.

Whichever of the foregoing suppositions be adopted, that the
doctrine of a future life subsided from universal acceptance into
party contention, or that it arose at length from personal
perception and authority into common credit, the fact remains
equally prominent and interesting that throughout the traceable
history of human opinion there is a line of dissenters who have
thought death the finality of man, and the next world an illusion.
The history of this special department of thought opens a wide and
fertile subject. To gain a comprehensive survey of its boundaries
and a compact epitome of its contents, it will be well to consider
it in these two lights and divisions, all the time trying to see,
step by step, what justice, and what injustice, is done: first,
the dominant motive forces animating the disbelievers; secondly,
the methods and materials they have employed.

At first thought it would appear difficult to tell what impulses
could move persons to undertake, as many constantly have
undertaken, a crusade against a faith so dear to man, so ennobling
to his nature. Peruse the pages of philosophical history with
careful reflection, and the mystery is scattered, and various
groups of disbelievers stand revealed, with earnest voices and
gestures assailing the doctrine of a future life.1

One company, having their representatives in every age, reject it
as a protest in behalf of the right of private judgment against
the tyranny of authority. The doctrine has been inculcated by
priesthoods, embodied in sacred books, and wrought into the
organic social life of states; and acceptance of it has been
commanded as a duty, and expected as a decent and respectable
thing. To deny it has required courage, implied independent
opinions, and conferred singularity. To cast off the yoke of
tradition, undermine the basis of power supporting a galling
religious tyranny, and be marked as a rebellious freethinker in a
generation of slavish conformists, this motive could scarcely fail
to exhibit results. Some of the radical revolutionists of the
present time say that the doctrine of the divine right of kings
and the infallible authority of the priesthood is the living core
of the power of tyranny in the world. They therefore deny God and
futurity in order to overthrow their oppressors, who reign over
them and prey upon them in the name of God and the pretended
interests of a future life.2 The true way to secure the real
desideratum corruptly indicated in this movement is not by denying
the reality of a future life, but by removing the adjustment of
its conditions and the administration of its rewards and penalties
out of the hands of every clique of priests and rulers. A
righteously and benignly ordered immortality, based in truth and
adjudicated by the sole sovereignty of God, is no engine of
oppression, though a doctrine of heaven and hell irresponsibly
managed by an Orphic association, the guardians of a Delphic
tripod, the owners of a secret confessional, or the interpreters
of an exclusive creed, may be. In a matter of such grave
importance, that searching and decisive discrimination, so rare
when the passions get enlisted, is especially needed. Because a
doctrine is abused by selfish tyrants is no reason for supposing
the doctrine itself either false or injurious.

No little injury has been done to the common faith in a future
life, great disbelief has been provoked unwittingly, by writers
who have sought to magnify the importance of revealed religion at
the expense of natural religion. Many such persons have labored to
show that all the scientific, philosophical, and moral arguments
for immortality are worthless, the teachings and resurrection of
Christ, the revealed word of God, alone possessing any validity to
establish that great truth. An accomplished author says, in a
recent work, "The immortality of the soul cannot be proved without
the aid of revelation." 3 Bishop Courtenay published, a few years
since, a most deliberate and unrelenting attack upon the arguments
for the deathlessness of the soul, seeking with persevering
remorselessness to demolish every one of them, and to prove that
man totally perishes, but will be restored to life at the second
coming of Christ.4 There can scarcely be a question that such
statements usually awaken and confirm a deep skepticism as to a
future life, instead of enhancing a grateful estimate of the
gospel.

1 J. A. Luther, Recensetur numerus eorum, qui immortalitatem
inficiati sunt.

2 Schmidt, Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur im neunzehnten
Jahrhundert, band iii. kap. iv.: Der philosophische Radicalismus.


3 Bowen, Metaphysical and Ethical Science, part ii. ch. ix. The
Future States: Their Evidences and Nature considered on Principles
Physical, Moral, and Scriptural, with the Design of Showing the
Value of the Gospel Revelation.


If man is once annihilated, it is hardly credible that he will be
identically restored. Such a stupendous and arbitrary miracle
clashes with the continuity of the universe, and staggers rather
than steadies faith. We should beg such volunteers however sincere
and good their intentions to withhold the impoverishing gift of
their service. And when kindred reasonings are advanced by such
men as the unbelieving Hume, we feel tempted to say, in the
language of a distinguished divine speaking on this very point,
"Ah, gentlemen, we understand you: you belong to the sappers and
miners in the army of the aliens!"

Another party of disbelievers have repudiated the whole conception
of a future state as a protest against the nonsense and cruelty
associated with it in the prevailing superstitions and dogmatisms
of their time. From the beginning of history in most nations, the
details of another existence and its conditions have been
furnished to the eager credulity of the people by the lawless
fancies of poets, the fine spinning brains of metaphysicians, and
the cold blooded calculations or hot headed zeal of sectarian
leaders. Of course a mass of absurdities would grow up around the
central germ and a multitude of horrors sprout forth. While the
common throng would unquestioningly receive all these ridiculous
and revolting particulars, they could not but provoke doubt,
satire, flat rejection, from the bolder and keener wits. So we
find it was in Greece. The fables about the under world the
ferriage over the Styx, poor Tantalus so torturingly mocked, the
daughters of Danaus drawing water in sieves all were accredited by
the general crowd on one extreme.5 On the other extreme the whole
scheme, root and branch, was flung away with scorn. The following
epitaph on an unbeliever is attributed to Callimachus. "O
Charidas, what are the things below? Vast darkness. And what the
returns to earth? A falsehood. And Pluto? A fable. We have
perished: this is my true speech to you; but, if you want the
flattering style, the Pellaan's great ox is in the shades."6
Meanwhile, a few judicious mediators, neither swallowing the whole
gross draught at a gulp, nor throwing the whole away with utter
disgust, drank through the strainer of a discriminative
interpretation. Because caprice, hatred, and favoritism are
embalmed in some perverse doctrine of future punishment is no
defensible reason for denying a righteous retribution. Because
heaven has been located on a hill top, and its sublime denizens
made to eat ambrosia and sometimes to fall out among themselves,
is no adequate reason for rejecting the idea of a heavenly life.
Puerilities of fancy and monstrosities of passion arbitrarily
connected with principles claiming to be eternal truths should be
carefully separated, and not the whole be despised and trodden on
together. From lack of this analysis and discrimination, in the
presence of abnormal excrescences and offensive secretions dislike
and disbelief have often flourished where, if judicial thought and
conscience had cut off the imposed deformities

5 Plutarch, De Superstition. The reality of the popular credulity
and terror in later Rome clearly appears from the fact that Marcus
Aurelius had a law passed condemning to banishment "those who do
any thing through which men's excitable minds are alarmed by a
superstitious fear of the Deity." Nero, after murdering his
mother, haunted by her ghost and tortured by the Furies, attempted
by magical rites to bring up her shade from below, and soften her
vindictive wrath Suetonius, Vita Neronis, cap. xxxiv.

6 Epigram. XIV.


and dispelled the discoloring vengeance, faith and love would have
been confirmed in contemplating the pure and harmonious form of
doctrine left exposed in the beauty of benignant truth. The aim
ostensibly proposed by Lucretius, in his elaborate and masterly
exposition of the Epicurean philosophy, is to free men from their
absurd belief in childish legends and their painful fears of death
and hell. As far as merely this purpose is concerned, he might
have accomplished it as effectually, perhaps, and more directly,
by exposing the adventitious errors without assailing the great
doctrine around which they had been gathered. Bion the
Borysthenite is reported by Diogenes Laertius to have said, with a
sharp humor, that the souls below would be more punished by
carrying water in whole buckets than in such as had been bored! A
soul may pass into the unseen state though there be no Plutonian
wherry, suffer woe though there be no river Pyriphlegethon, enjoy
bliss though there be no cup of nectar borne by Hebe. But to fly
to rash extremes and build positive conclusions on mere ignorance
has always been natural to man, not only as a believer, but also
as an iconoclastic denier.

A third set of disbelievers in a future life consists of those who
advocate the "emancipation of the flesh" and assert the
sufficiency of this life when fully enjoyed. They attack the dogma
of immortality as the essential germ of asceticism, and abjure it
as a protest against that superstitious distrust and gloom which
put a ban on the pleasures of the world. These are the earthlings
who would fain displace the stern law of self denial with the
bland permission of self indulgence, rehabilitate the senses, feed
every appetite full, and, when satiated of the banquet of
existence, fall asleep under the table of the earth. The
countenance of Duty, severe daughter of God, looks commands upon
them to turn from dallying ease and luxury, to sacrifice the
meaner inclinations, to gird themselves for an arduous race
through difficulties, to labor and aspire evermore towards the
highest and the best. They prefer to install in her stead
Aphrodite crowned with Paphian roses, her eyes aglow with the
light of misleading stars, her charms bewitching them with fatal
enchantments and melting them in softest joys. The pale face of
Death, with mournful eyes, lurks at the bottom of every winecup
and looks out from behind every garland; therefore brim the purple
beaker higher and hide the unwelcome intruder under more flowers.
We are a cunning mixture of sense and dust, and life is a fair but
swift opportunity. Make haste to get the utmost pleasure out of it
ere it has gone, scorning every pretended bond by which sour
ascetics would restrain you and turn your days into penitential
scourges. This gospel of the senses had a swarm of apostles in the
last century in France, when the chief gates of the cemetery in
Paris bore the inscription, "Death is an eternal sleep." It has
had more in Germany in this century; and voices of enervating
music are not wanting in our own literature to swell its siren
chorus.7 Perhaps the greatest prophet it has had was Heine, whose
pages reek with a fragrance of pleasure through which sighs, like
a fading wail from the solitary string of a deserted harp struck
by a lonesome breeze, the perpetual refrain of death! death!
death! His motto seems to be, "Quick! let me

7 Pierer, Universal Lexikon, dritte Auflage, Deutsche Literatur,
sect. 42. Schmidt, Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur im
neuntzehnten Jahrhundert, band iii: kap. i.: Das junge
Deutschland.


enjoy what there is; for I must die. Oh, the gusty relish of life!
Oh, the speechless mystery, the infinite reality, of death!" He
says himself, comparing the degradation of his later experience
with the soaring enthusiasm of his youth, "It is as if a star had
fallen from heaven upon a hillock of muck, and swine were gnawing
at it!"

These men think that the doctrine of a future life, like a great
magnet, has drawn the needle of human activity out of its true
direction; that the dominant tendency of the present age is, and
of right ought to be, towards the attainment of material well
being, in a total forgetfulness to lay up treasures in heaven. The
end is enjoyment; the obstacle, asceticism; the means to secure
the end, the destruction of faith in immortality, so that man,
having nothing left but this world, will set himself to improve
and enjoy it. The monkish severity of a morbid and erroneous
theology, darkening the present and prescribing pain in it to
brighten the future and increase its pleasures, legitimates an
earnest reaction. But that reaction should be wise, measured by
truth. It should rectify, not demolish, the prevailing faith. For
the desired end is most likely to be reached by perceiving, not
that all terminates in the grave, but that the greatest enjoyment
flows from a self controlling devotedness to noble ends, that the
claims of another life are in perfect unison with the interests of
this life, that the lawful fruition of every function of human
nature, each lower faculty being subordinated to each higher one,
and the highest always reigning, at once yields the most immediate
pleasure and makes the completest preparation for the hereafter.
In the absence of the all irradiating sun of immortality, these
disbelievers, exulting over the pale taper of sensual pleasure,
remind us of a parcel of apes gathered around a cold glow worm and
rejoicing that they have found a fire in the damp, chilly night.

Besides the freethinkers, who will not yield to authority, but
insist upon standing apart from the crowd, and the satirists, who
level their shafts undiscriminatingly against what they perceive
associated with absurdity, and the worldlings, who prefer the
pleasures of time to the imaginarily contrasted goods of eternity,
there is a fourth class of men who oppose the doctrine of a
personal immortality as a protest against the burdensome miseries
of individuality. The Gipseys exclaimed to Borrow, "What! is it
not enough to have borne the wretchedness of this life, that we
must also endure another?" 8 A feeling of the necessary
limitations and suffering exposures of a finite form of being has
for untold ages harassed the great nations of the East with
painful unrest and wondrous longing. Pantheistic absorption  to
lose all imprisoning bounds, and blend in that ecstatic flood of
Deity which, forever full, never ebbs on any coast has been
equally the metaphysical speculation, the imaginative dream, and
the passionate desire, of the Hindu mind. It is the basis and
motive of the most extensive disbelief of individual immortality
the world has known. "The violence of fruition in these foul
puddles of flesh and blood presently glutteth with satiety," and
the mortal circuits of earth and time are a round of griefs and
pangs from which they would escape into the impersonal Godhead.
Sheerly against this lofty strain of poetic souls is that
grovelling life of ignorance which, dominated by selfish
instincts, crawling on brutish grounds,

8 The Zincali, part ii. ch. i.


cannot awaken the creative force of spiritual wants slumbering
within, nor lift its head high enough out of the dust to see the
stars of a deathless destiny; and a fifth group of disbelievers
deny immortality because their degraded experience does not
prophesy it. Many a man might say, with Autolycus, "For the life
to come, I sleep out the thought of it." A mind holy and loving,
communing with God and an ideal world, "lighted up as a spar grot"
with pure feelings and divine truths, is mirrored full of
incorporeal shapes of angels, and aware of their immaterial
disentanglement and eternity. A brain surcharged with fires of
hatred, drowsed with filthy drugs, and drenched with drunkenness,
will teem, on the contrary, with vermin writhing in the meshes of
decaying matter. Cleaving to evanescent things, men feel that they
are passing away like leaves on waves; filled with convictions
rooted and breathing in eternity, they feel that they shall abide
in serene survival, like stars above tempests. Turn from every
obscene sight, curb every base propensity, obey every heavenly
vision by assimilation of immortal things, sacred self denials and
toils, disinterested sympathies and hopes, accumulate divine
treasures and kindle the mounting flame of a divine life, and at
the same time consciousness will crave and faith behold an
illimitable destiny. Experiences worthy of being eternal generate
faith in their own eternity. But the ignorant and selfish
sensualist, whose total experience is of the earth earthy, who has
no realization of pure truth, goodness, beauty, is incapable of
sincere faith in immortal life. The dormancy of his higher powers
excludes the necessary conditions of such a faith. His ignoble
bodily life does not furnish the conscious basis and prophecy of a
glorious spiritual life, but shudderingly proclaims the cessation
of all his experience with the destruction of his senses. The
termination of all the functions he knows, what else can it be but
his virtual annihilation? When to the privative degradations of an
uncultivated and earthy experience, naturally accompanied by a
passive unbelief in immortality, are added the positive coarseness
and guilt of a thick insensibility and a wicked life, aggressive
disbelief is quite likely to arise, the essay of an uneasy
conscience to slay what it feels would be a foe, and strangle the
worm that never dies. The denial springing from such sources is
refuted when it is explained. Its motive should never by any man
be yielded to, much less be willingly nourished. It should be
resisted by a devout culture courting the smiles of God, by rising
into the loftier airs of meditation and duty, by imaginative
sentiment and practical philanthropy, until the eternal instinct,
long smothered under sluggish loads of sense and sin, reached by a
soliciting warmth from heaven, stirs with demonstrating vitality.

The last and largest assemblage of dissenters from the prevailing
opinion on this subject comprises those who utter their disbelief
in a future existence out of simple loyalty to seeming truth, as a
protest against what they think a false doctrine, and against the
sophistical and defective arguments by which it has been propped.
It may be granted that the five previously named classes are
equally sincere in their convictions, honest assailants of error
and adherents of truth; but they are actuated by animating motives
of a various moral character. In the present case, the ruling
motive is purely a determination, as Buchner says, to stand by the
facts and to establish the correct doctrine. The directest and
clearest way of giving a descriptive account of the active
philosophical history of this class of disbelievers will be to
follow on the lines of their tracks with statements and criticisms
of their procedures.9 Disbelief in the doctrine of a future life
for man has planted itself upon bold affirmation, and fortified
itself with arguments which may most conveniently be considered
under five distinct heads.

First is the sensational Argument from Appearance. In death the
visible functions cease, the organism dissolves, the mind
disappears; there is apparently a total scattering and end of the
individual. That these phenomena should suggest the thought of
annihilation is inevitable; to suppose that they prove the fact is
absurd. It is an arrant begging of the question; for the very
problem is, Does not an invisible spiritual entity survive the
visible material disintegration? Among the unsound and
superstitious attempts to prove the fact of a future life is that
founded on narratives of ghosts, appearances and visions of the
dead. Dr. Tafel published at Tubingen in 1853 a volume aiming to
demonstrate the immortality and personal identity of the soul by
citation of ninety cases of supernatural appearances, extending
from the history of the ghost whose address to Curtius Rufus is
recorded by Tacitus, to the wonderful story told by Renatus
Luderitz in 1837. Such efforts are worse than vain. Their data are
so explicable in many cases, and so inconclusive in all, that they
quite naturally provoke deeper disbelief and produce telling
retorts. While here and there a credulous person is convinced of a
future life by the asserted appearance of a spirit, the well
informed psychologist refers the argument to the laws of insanity
and illusions, and the skeptic adds as a finality his belief that
there is no future life, because no ghost has ever come back to
reveal and certify it. The argument on both sides is equally
futile, and removed from the true requisitions of the problem.

To the philosophical thinker a mere appearance is scarcely a
presumption in favor of a conclusion in accordance with it.
Science and experience are full of examples exposing the nullity
or the falsity of appearances. The sun seems to move around the
earth; but truth contradicts it. We seem to discern distances and
the forms of bodies by direct sight; but the truth is we see
nothing but shades and colors: all beyond is inference based on
acquired experience. The first darkness would seem to the
trembling contemplator absolutely to blot out the universe; but in
truth it only prevented him from seeing it. The first thorough
unconscious sleep would seem to be the hopeless destruction of the
soul in its perfect oblivion. Death is forever for the first time,
shrouded in the misleading obscurities of an unknown novelty.
Appearances are often deceitful, yielding obvious clews only to
mistakes and falsehoods. They are always superficial, furnishing
no reliable evidence of the reality.

"Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal'd
Within thy beams, O Sun! Or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood reveal'd,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why then do we shun death with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?"

9 Spazier, Antiphadon, oder Prufung einiger Hauptbeweise fur die
Einfachheit und Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele.


When the body dies, the mind is no longer manifested through it.
That is all we immediately know by perception. The inference that
the mind has therefore ceased to be at all, is a mere supposition.
It may still live and act, independently of the body. An outside
phenomenon can prove nothing here. We must by some psychological
probe pierce to the core of the being and discern, as there
concealed, the central interpretation of truth, or else, in want
of this, turn from these surface shadows and seek the solution in
some other province. Millions of appearances being opposed to the
truth or inadequate to hint it, we must never implicitly trust
their suggestions. What microscope can reveal the organic life in
a kernel of corn, and show that through the decay of that kernel a
stalk will spring up and bear a thousand kernels more? But if a
new mental life emerges from the dying form of man, it lies in a
spiritual realm whereinto we have no instruments to gaze. Every
existent thing has its metes and limits. In fact, the only final
weapon and fort of a thing is its environing limitation. It goes
into nothing if that be taken down, the atheist says; into
infinity, the mystic says. The mistake and difficulty lie in
discerning what the last wall around the essence is. "The universe
is the body of our body." The boundary of our life is boundless
life. Schlegel has somewhere asked the question, "Is life in us,
or are we in life?" Because man appears to be wholly extinguished
in death, we have no right whatever in reason to conclude that he
really is so. The star which seemed to set in the western grave of
aged and benighted time, we, soon coming round east to the true
spirit sky, may discern bright in the morning forehead of
eternity. There can be no safe reasoning from the outmost husk and
phenomenon of a thing to its inmost essence and result. And, in
spite of any possible amount of appearance, man himself may pass
distinct and whole into another sphere of being when his flesh
falls to dust. That science should search in vain with her finest
glasses to discern a royal occupant reigning in the purple
chambered palace of the heart, or to trace any such mysterious
tenant departing in sudden horror from the crushed and bleeding
house of life, belongs to the necessary conditions of the subject;
for spirit can only be spiritually discerned. As well might you
seek to smell a color, or taste a sound, tie a knot of water, or
braid a cord of wind.

Next comes the abstract Argument from Speculative Philosophy.
Under this head are to be included all those theories which deny
the soul to be a spiritual entity, but reduce it to an atomic
arrangement, or a dependent attribute, or a process of action.
Heracleitus held that the soul was fire: of course, when the fuel
was exhausted the fire would go out. Thales taught that it was
water: this might all evaporate away. Anaximenes affirmed that it
was air, of which all things were formed by rarefaction and
condensation: on such a supposition it could have no permanent
personal identity. Critias said it was blood: this might
degenerate and lose its nature, or be poured out on the ground.
Leucippus maintained that it was a peculiar concourse of atoms: as
these came together, so they might fly apart and there be an end
of what they formed. The followers of Aristotle asserted that it
was a fifth unknown substance, with properties of its own, unlike
those of fire, air, water, and earth. This might be mortal or
immortal: there was nothing decisive in the conception or the
defining terms to prove which it was. Accordingly, the Peripatetic
school has always been divided on the question of the immortality
of the soul, from the time of its founder's immediate disciples to
this day. It cannot be clearly shown what the mighty Stagyrite's
own opinion really was.

Speculative conceptions as to the nature of the soul like the
foregoing, when advanced as arguments to establish its proper
mortality, are destitute of force, because they are gratuitous
assumptions. They are not generalizations based on careful
induction of facts; they are only arbitrary hypotheses.
Furthermore, they are inconsistent both with the facts and
phenomena of experience. Mind cannot fairly be brought into the
category of the material elements; for it has properties and
performs functions emphatically distinguishing it from every thing
else, placing it in a rank by itself, with exclusive predicates of
its own. Can fire think? Can water will? Can air feel? Can blood
see? Can a mathematical number tell the difference between good
and evil? Can earth be jealous of a rival and loyal to a duty? Can
a ganglion solve a problem in Euclid or understand the Theodicee
of Leibnitz? It is absurd to confound things so distinct. Mind is
mind, and matter is matter; and though we are now consciously
acquainted with them only in their correlation, yet there is as
much reason for supposing that the former survives the close of
that correlation as for supposing that the latter does. True, we
perceive the material remaining and do not perceive the spirit.
Yes; but the differentiation of the two is exactly this, that one
is appreciable by the senses, while the other transcends and
baffles them. It is absolutely inconceivable in imagination,
wholly incredible to reason, intrinsically nonsensical every way,
that a shifting concourse of atoms, a plastic arrangement of
particles, a regular succession of galvanic shocks, a continuous
series of nervous currents, or any thing of the sort, should
constitute the reality of a human soul, the process of a human
life, the accumulated treasures of a human experience, all
preserved at command and traversed by the moral lines of personal
identity. The things lie in different spheres and are full of
incommunicable contrasts. However numerously and intimately
correlated the physical and psychical constituents of man are,
yet, so far as we can know any thing about them, they are steeply
opposed to each other both in essence and function. Otherwise
consciousness is mendacious and language is unmeaning. A recent
able author speaks of "that congeries of organs whose union forms
the brain and whose action constitutes the mind." 10 The mind,
then, is an action! Can an action love and hate, choose and
resolve, rejoice and grieve, remember, repent, and pray? Is not an
agent necessary for an action? All such speculative conceptions as
to the nature of soul as make it purely phenomenal are to be
offset, if they can be, by the view which exhibits the personal
ego or conscious selfhood of the soul, not as an empty spot in
which a swarm of relations centre as their goal point, but as an
indestructible monad, the innermost and substantial essence and
cause of the organization, the self apprehending and unchangeable
axis of all thinking and acting. Some of the most free, acute,
learned, wise, and powerful thinkers of the world have been
champions of this doctrine; especially among the moderns may be
named Leibnitz, Herbart, Goethe, and Hartenstein. Jacobi most
earnestly maintained it both against Mendelssohn and against
Fichte.

10 Bucknill and Tuke, Psychological Medicine, p. 371.


That the mind is a substantial entity, and therefore may be
conceived as immortal, that it is not a mere functional operation
accompanying the organic life, a phantom procession of conscious
states filing off on the stage of the cerebrum "in a dead march of
mere effects,"  that it is not, as old Aristoxenus dreamed, merely
a harmony resulting from the form and nature of the body in the
same way that a tune springs from the consenting motions of a
musical instrument, seems to be shown by facts of which we have
direct knowledge in consciousness. We think that the mind is an
independent force, dealing with intellectual products, weighing
opposing motives, estimating moral qualities, resisting some
tendencies, strengthening others, forming resolves, deciding upon
its own course of action and carrying out its chosen designs
accordingly. If the soul were a mere process, it could not pause
in mid career, select from the mass of possible considerations
those adapted to suppress a base passion or to kindle a generous
sentiment, deliberately balance rival solicitations, and, when
fully satisfied, proceed. Yet all this it is constantly doing. So,
if the soul were but a harmony, it would give no sounds contrary
to the affections of the lyre it comes from. But actually it
resists the parts of the instrument from which they say it
subsists, exercising dominion over them, punishing some,
persuading others, and ruling the desires, angers, and fears, as
if itself of a different nature.11 Until an organ is seen to blow
its own bellows, mend its shattered keys, move its pedals, and
play, with no foreign aid, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," or a
violin tunes up its discordant strings and wields its bow in a
spontaneous performance of the Carnival, showing us every Cremona
as its own Paganini, we may, despite the conceits of speculative
disbelief, hold that the mind is a dynamic personal entity. That
thought is the very "latch string of a new world's wicket."

Thirdly, we have the fanciful Argument from Analogy. The keen
champions of disbelief, with their athletic agility of dialectics,
have made terrible havoc among the troops of poetic arguments from
resemblance, drawn up to sustain the doctrine of immortality. They
have exposed the feebleness of the argument for our immortality
from the wonderful workmanship and costliness of human nature, on
the ground that what requires the most pains and displays the most
skill and genius in its production is the most lovingly preserved.
For God organizes the mind of a man just as easily as he
constructs the geometry of a diamond. His omnipotent attributes
are no more enlisted in the creation of the intelligence of an
elephant or the gratitude of a soul than they are in the
fabrication of the wing of a gnat or the fragrance of a flower.
Infinite wisdom and power are equally implied in each and in all.
They have shown the gross defectiveness of the comparison of the
butterfly and psyche. The butterfly, lying in the caterpillar
neatly folded up like a flower in the bud, in due time comes
forth. It is a material development, open to the senses, a common
demonstration tosensible experience. The disengagement of a spirit
from a fleshly encasement, on the other hand, is a pure hypothesis
wholly removed from sensible apprehension. There is no parallel in
the cases. So the ridiculousness has been made evident of Plato's
famous analogical argument that by a general law of nature all
things are produced contraries from contraries; warmth dies into
the

11 Plato, Phado, 98.


life of cold, and lives out of the death of cold; night is born
from the death of day, and day is born from the death of night;
and thus everywhere death springs from life, and life from
death.12 The whole comparison, considered as evidence of human
immortality, is baseless and full of astonishing sophistry. When
one hemisphere of the earth is turned away from the sun, it is
night there; when it is turned towards the sun, it is day again.
To this state of facts this revolving succession there is
obviously no parallelism whatever in the two phenomenal phases of
man, life and death, whereof one finishes its course and then the
other seems fixed forever. In like manner, when Jeremy Taylor,13
after the example of many others, especially of old Licetus,
argues soberly, as he does in a letter to Evelyn, for the
immortality of the soul from the analogy of lamps burning in tombs
for centuries with no waste of matter, there is no apposite and
valid similarity, even if the instances were not a childish fable.
An equally baseless argument for the existence of an independent
spiritual body within the material body, to be extricated from the
flesh at death and to survive in the same form and dimensions, we
recollect having seen in a work by a Swedenborgian author.14 He
reasons that when a person who has suffered amputation feels the
lost limb as vividly as ever before, the phenomenon is palpable
proof of a spirit limb remaining while the fleshly one is gone! Of
course, the simple physiological explanation is that the mind
instinctively refers the sensations brought in by the severed
nerves to the points where, by inveterate custom, it has hitherto
learned to trace their origination. The report being the same, it
is naturally attributed to the same source.

But those skeptics who have mercilessly exposed these fallacious
arguments from analogy have themselves reasoned in the same way as
fallaciously and as often. When individual life leaves the
physical man, say they, cosmical life immediately enters the
corpse and restores it to the general stock of nature; so when
personal consciousness deserts the psychical man, the universal
spirit resumes the dissolving soul. When certain conditions meet,
a human soul is formed, a gyrating current of thought, or a vortex
of force: soon some accident or a spent impulse breaks the eddy,
and the individual subsides like a whirl in the air or a water
spout in the sea. When the spirit fuel of life is exhausted, man
goes out as an extinguished candle. He ceases like a tone from a
broken harp string. All these analogies are vitiated by radical
unlikeness between the things compared. As arguments they are
perfectly worthless, being spoiled by essential differences in the
cases. Wherein there is a similarity it falls short of the vital
point. There is no justice in the conception of man as a momentary
gyre of individual consciousness drawn from the universal sea by a
sun burst of the Spirit. He is a self ruling intelligence, using a
dependent organism for his own ends, comprehending his own
destiny, successively developing its conditions and acquiring the
materials for occupying and improving them, with a prevision of
eternity. A flower may just as well perish as live, a musical
sound cease as continue, a lamp be put out as burn on: they know
not the difference. Not so with the soul of man. We here overpass
a discrete degree and enter upon a subject

12 Crawford, On the Phadon of Plato.

13 Heber's Life and Works of Jeremy Taylor, vol. i. p. 69.

14 Dee Guays, True System of Religious Philosophy, Letter V.


within another circle of categories. Let the rash reasoner who
madly tries conclusions on a matter of such infinite pith and
moment, with data so inapt and poor, pause in sacred horror
before, having first "Put out the light, he then puts out
THE LIGHT!"

There are peculiarities in the soul removing it out of the range
of physical combinations and making a distinct destiny fairly
predicable of it. When we reflect on the nature of a self
contained will, intelligent of immaterial verities and perhaps
transcendent of space and time, how burlesque is the terror of the
ancient corpuscular theorists lest the feebly cohering soul, on
leaving the body, especially if death happened during a storm,
would be blown in pieces all abroad! Socrates, in the Phado, has a
hearty laugh over this; but Lucretius seriously urges it.15 The
answer to the skeptical reasoning from analogy is double. First,
the lines of partial correspondence which visibly terminate within
our tangible reach can teach nothing as to the termination of
other lines which lead out of sight and disappear in a spiritual
region. An organized material form for instance, a tree is fatally
limited: else it would finally fill and exhaust the earth. But no
such limiting necessity can be predicated of mind. Secondly, as
far as there is genuine analogy, its implications are much
stronger in favor of immortality than against it. Matter, whose
essence is materiality, survives all apprehensible changes;
spirit, whose essence is spirituality, should do the same.

Another attack on the doctrine of a future life is masked in the
negative Argument from Ignorance. We do not know how we shall live
again; we are unable to construct the conditions and explain the
details of a spiritual state of existence; and therefore, it is
said, we should of right conclude that there is no such thing. The
proposition is not usually stated so blankly; but it really
amounts to that. The Epicureans say, as a tree cannot exist in the
sky, nor clouds in the ocean, nor fishes in the meadow, nor water
in stone, thus the mind cannot exist apart from the nerves and the
blood. This style of reasoning is a bold begging of the question.
Our present experience is vacant of any specific knowledge of the
conditions, methods, and contents of a life it has not yet
experienced: therefore there is no such life. Innumerable millions
of facts beyond our present knowledge unquestionably exist. It is
not in any way difficult to conceive that innumerable millions of
experiences and problems now defying and eluding our utmost powers
may hereafter fall within our comprehension and be easily solved.
Will you accept the horizon of your mind as the limit of the
universe? In the present, experience must be confined within its
own boundaries by the necessity of the case. If an embryo were
endowed with a developed reasoning consciousness, it could not
construct any intelligible theory of the world and life into which
it was destined soon to emerge. But it would surely be bad logic
to infer, because the embryo could not, from want of materials
within its experience, ascertain the how, the when, the where, and
the what, of the life awaiting it, that there was no other life
reserved for it. An acorn buried and sprouting in the dark mould,
if endowed with intelligent consciousness, could not know any
definite particulars of its maturer life yet to be in the upper
light and air, with cattle in its shade and

15 Lib. iii. ll. 503-508.


singing birds in its branches. Ignorance is not a ground of
argument, only of modest suspense. We can only reason from what we
know. And the wondrous mysteries or natural miracles with which
science abounds, myriads of truths transcending all fictions, melt
and remove from the path of faith every supposed difficulty. Any
quantity of facts have been scientifically established as real
which are intrinsically far more strange and baffling to belief
than the assertion of our immortality is. Indeed, "there is no
more mystery in the mind living forever in the future than in its
having been kept out of life through a past eternity. The
authentic wonder is the fact of the transition having been made
from the one to the other; and it is far more incredible that,
from not having been, we are, than that, from actual being, we
shall continue to be." 16

The unbounded possibilities of life suggested by science and open
to imagination furnish sufficient reply to the objection that we
cannot conceive the precise causes and modes of a future state.
Had one little partitular been different in the structure of the
eye, or in the radiation and media of light, we should never have
seen the stars! We should have supposed this globe the whole of
creation. So some slightest integument or hindering condition may
now be hiding from us the sublime reality and arrangements of
immortality which in death's disenveloping hour are to burst into
our vision as the stellar hemisphere through the night. Shut up
now to one form of being and one method of experience, how can we
expect an exhaustive knowledge of other and future forms and
methods of being and experience? It is a contradiction to ask it.
But the soul is warranted in having faith, like a buried mustard
seed which shall yet mount into its future life. A sevenfold
denser mystery and a seven times narrower ignorance would bring no
real argument against the survival of the soul. For in an
omnipotent infinitude of possibilities one line of ignorance
cannot exhaust the avenues and capacities of being. Escaping the
flesh, we may soar into heaven

"Upon ethereal wings, whose way
Lies through an element so fraught
With living Mind that, as they play,
Their every movement is a thought."

Ignorance of the scientific method avails nothing against moral
proofs of the fact. The physiologist studying the coats of the
stomach, the anatomist dissecting the convolutions of the brain,
could never tell that man is capable of sentiment, faith, and
logic. No stethoscope can discern the sound of an expectation, and
no scalpel can lay bare a dream; yet there are expectations and
dreams. No metaphysical glass can detect, no prognosis foresee,
the death of the soul with the dissolution of its organs: on
empirical grounds, the assertion of it is therefore unwarranted.
But though no amount of obscurity enveloping the subject, no
extent of ignorance disabling us now to grasp the secret, is a
legitimate basis of disbelief, yet actually, there can be no
doubt, in multitudes of instances, the effectual cause of
disbelief in immortality is the impossibility of vividly
conceiving its conditions and scenery; "for," as one of the
subtlest of thinkers has remarked, "however far faith may go
beyond experience, it

16 Martineau, Sermon on Immortality, in Endeavors after the
Christian Life.


must always be chained down by it at a distance." But if there are
good grounds for anticipating another life, then man should
confide in it, no matter how incompetent he is to construct its
theatre and foresee its career. A hundred years ago, one might
have scouted the statement that the most fearful surgical
operations would be performed without inflicting pain, because it
was impossible to see how it could be done. Or if a person had
been informed that two men, one in Europe and one in America,
should converse in lightning athwart the bed of the Atlantic, he
might have rejected it as an absurdity, because he could not
conceive the mode. If destined to a future life, all we could
reasonably expect to know of it now would be through hinting germs
and mystic presentiments of it. And there we do experience to the
fullest extent: their ceaseless prophecies are everywhere with us,

"Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not
realized."

The last weapon of disbelief in a future life is the Scientific
Argument from Materialism. Lucretius says, "There is nothing in
the universe but bodies and the properties of bodies." This is a
characteristic example of the method of the materialists: to
assume, as an unquestionable postulate, the very point in debate,
and that, too, in defiance of the intelligent instincts of
consciousness which compel every unsophisticated person to
acknowledge the simultaneous existence of mind and matter as two
correlated yet distinct realities. The better statement would be,
There is nothing in the universe but forces and the relations of
forces. For, while we know ourselves in immediate self
consciousness, as personal intelligences perceiving, willing, and
acting, all we know of an outward world is the effects produced on
us by its forces. Certainly the powers of the universe can never
be lost from the universe. Therefore if our souls are, as
consciousness declares, causes, and not mere phenomena, they are
immortal. To ignore either factor in the problem of life, the
material substratum or the dynamic agent, is mere narrowness and
blindness.

But the unbelieving naturalist argues that the total man is a
product of organization, and therefore that with the dissolution
of the living combination of organs all is over. Matter is the
marriage bed and grave of soul. Priestley says, "The principle of
thought no more belongs to substance distinct from body than the
principle of sound belongs to substance distinct from bell." There
is no relevancy in the comparison, because the things are wholly
unlike. Thought is not, as Hartley's theory avowed it was, a
vibration of a cerebral nerve, as sound is a vibration of a
sonorous body; for how could these vibrations be accumulated in
memory as our mental experiences are? When a material vibration
ends, it has gone forever; but thoughts are stored up and
preserved. A hypothetical simile, like that just cited from
Priestley, is not a cogent argument. It is false science thus to
limit the modes of being to what lies within our present empirical
knowledge. Is it not pure presumptuousness to affirm that the
creative power of Almighty God is shut up so that intelligent
creatures can only exist in forms of flesh? When a recent
materialist makes the assertion, "The thinking man is the sum of
his senses," it is manifest that he goes beyond the data, assuming
what should be proved, and confounding the instruments and
material with the workman. It is as if one should say, "A working
cotton manufactory is the sum of its machines," excluding the
persons by whose guiding oversight all is done. Plainly, it may be
granted that all which man knows is brought in through the door of
the senses, without allowing the same of all that man is. We have
no warrant for pronouncing the identical coextensiveness of what
man learns to know and what he is created to be. The very
proposition, man knows something, presupposes three things, a
subject, an act, and an object. Whether the three exist and perish
together or not is matter for discussion, and not fairly to be
settled by forcibly lumping the heterogeneous three into
homogeneous unity.

In the present state of science it must be confessed that all
kinds of physical force  whether mechanical, chemical, vital, or
nervous are drawn more or less directly from the sun, the material
reservoir of power for our solar system. This must be admitted,
although some recent materialists have pushed the doctrine so far
that they may be called the Parsees of the West. Whenever the
proper conditions for an animate being are furnished, a force
derived from the sun lifts matter from its stable equilibrium to
the level of organic existence. In due season, from its wavering
life struggle there, it decays back to the deep rest of insensate
earth.17 This is a truth throughout the organic realm, from the
bulb of a sea weed to the brain of a Casar. So much cannot be
denied. Every organism constantly receives from the universe food
and force, and as constantly restores in other forms the material
and dynamical equivalents of what it receives, and finally itself
goes to the sources whence it came. But the affirmation of this
for all within the physical realm is not the admission of it for
what subsists in an immeasurably higher rank and totally different
realm. Entering the psychical sphere, where we deal with a new,
distinct order of realities, not impenetrability, weight,
extension, but thought, affection, will, why may not this province
contain eternities, even though the other holds only mortalities?
It is a question to be examined on its own grounds, not to be put
aside with a foregone conclusion. In nature the cause endures
under all evanescent changes, and survives all phenomenal
beginnings and endings: so in spirit the causal personality, if
there be one, may outlast all the shifting currents of the outward
phenomena in endless persistence. Of course, the manifestation of
the mind through the senses must cease when the senses no longer
remain. The essence of the controversy, then, is exactly this: Is
the mind an entity? or is it a collection of functions? If the
soul be a substantial force, it is immortal. If it be a phenomenal
resultant, it ceases at death.

A reductio ad absurdum immediately occurs. If the psychical
totality of man consists of states of feeling, modes of volition,
and powers of thought, not necessitating any spiritual entity in
which they inhere, then, by parity of reasoning, the physical
totality of man consists of states of nutrition, modes of
absorption, and powers of change, implying no body in which these
processes are effectuated! Qualities cannot exist without a
subject: and just as physical attributes involve a body, spiritual
attributes involve a mind. And, if a mental entity be admitted,
its death or cessation with that of its outer dress or case is not
a fair inference, but needs appropriate evidence.

The soul of a man has been defined as the sum of his ideas, an
idea being a state of the consciousness. But the essence of mind
must be the common ground and element of all

17 Moleschott, Licht and Leben.


different states of consciousness. What is that common ground and
element but the presence of a percipient volitional force, whether
manifested or unmanifested, still there? That is the germinal core
of our mental being, integrating and holding in continuous
identity all the phenomenal fluctuations of consciousness. It is
clear that any other representation seems inconsistent with the
most central and vivid facts of our knowledge. In illustration of
this, let us see how every materialistic exposition omits utterly,
or fails to account for, the most essential element, the solitary
and crowning peculiarity, of the case. For example, it is said
that thought or consciousness is a phenomenal process of changes
sustained in the brain by a correlation of forces, just as the
rainbow appears, but has no ontological subsistence of its own:
the continuous spectrum hangs steady on the ceaselessly renewed
substratum of the moving mist rack and the falling rain. But the
comparison is absolutely inapplicable, because the deepest ground
principle of the mind is wanting in the rainbow, namely, conscious
and continuous identity holding in each present moment all the
changes of the past moments. If the rainbow were gifted with
consciousness, it could not preserve its personal identity, but
merely its phenomenal identity, for any two successive moments,
since its whole being would consist of an untied succession of
states.

Traversing the body from its extreme tissues to the gray vesicular
substance composing the spinal cord and covering the surface and
convolutions of the brain, are two sets of white, fibrous nerves.
One set, the afferents, bring in sensation, all kinds of tidings,
from the out world of matter. The other set, the efferents, carry
out volition, all kinds of decrees, from the in world of mind.
Without an afferent nerve no influence of the world can reach the
mind; and without an efferent nerve no conclusion of the mind can
reach the world. As we are now constituted, this machinery is
necessary for the intercommunication of the mind and the material
universe. But if there be something in the case besides live
machinery and crossing telegrams, if there be a monarch mind
inaccessible to the vulgar crowd of things and only conversing
with them through the internuncial nerves, that spirit entity may
itself be capable of existing forever in an ideal universe and of
communing there face to face with its own kingly lineage and
brood. And we maintain that the account of the phenomena is
grossly defective, and that the phenomena themselves are palpably
inexplicable, except upon the supposition of such an entity, which
uses the organism but is not the organism itself nor a function of
it. "Ideas," one materialist teaches, "are transformed
sensations." Yes; but that does not supersede a transforming mind.
There must be a force to produce the transformations. "The
phenomena of mind," says another, "consist in a succession of
states of consciousness." Yes; but what is it that presides over,
takes up, and preserves this succession? The phenomena of the mind
are not the mind itself. "The actions of the mind are the
functions of the cerebrum," adds a third. Yes; but the inquiry is,
what is the mind itself? not, what are its acts? The admission of
the gray nerve cells of the brain, as the material substratum
through which sensations are received and volitions returned, does
not exclude the necessity of a dynamical cause for the
metamorphosing phenomenon. That cause must be free and
intelligent, because the products of its action, as well as its
accompanying consciousness, are marked by freedom and intelligence.
For example, when a cylindrical and

fibrous porter deposits his sensitive burden in the vesicular and
cineritious substance, something examines it, tests its import,
reflects on what shall be done, forms an intelligent resolution,
and commands another porter to bear the dynamic load forth. The
reflective and determining something that does this is the mind.
Thus, by the fact of an indissoluble dynamic will, is the broad
lineal experience of man grasped and kept from dissipating into
crumbled psychical states, as when the dead kings of ancient India
were burned their corpses were wrapped in asbestos shrouds to hold
the ashes together.

The flame of a burnt out candle twinkling in the socket is not
numerically the same with that which appeared when it was first
lighted; nor is a river at any two periods numerically the same.
Different particles constantly feed an ever renewed flame or
stream, just like the former but never the same. A totally new
element appears when we contemplate mind. Here, although the whole
molecular substance of the visible organism is in perpetual flux,
the same conscious personality persists through all, growing ever
richer in an accumulating possession of past experiences still
held in living command. The Arethusa of identity threads the
blending states of consciousness, and, passing the ocean bed of
death, may emerge in some morning fount of immortality. A
photographic image impressed on suitable paper and then
obliterated is restored by exposure to the fumes of mercury. But
if an indefinite number of impressions were superimposed on the
same paper, could the fumes of mercury restore any one called for
at random? Yet man's memory is a plate with a hundred millions of
impressions all cleanly preserved, and he can at will select and
evoke the one he wants. No conceivable relationship of
materialistic forces can account for the facts of this miraculous
daguerreotype plate of experience, and the power of the mind to
call out into solitary conspicuousness a desired picture which has
forty nine million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine
hundred and ninety nine latent pictures lying above it, and fifty
millions below it. It has been said that "the impressions on the
brain, whether perceptions or intellections, are fixed and
retained through the exactness of assimilation. As the mind took
cognizance of the change made by the first impression of an object
acting on the brain through the sense organs, so afterwards it
recognises the likeness of that change in the parts inserted by
the nutritive process.18 This passage implies that the mind is an
agent, not a phenomenon; and it describes some of the machinery
with which the mind works, not the essence of the mind itself. Its
doctrine does not destroy nor explain the presiding and elective
power which interprets these assimilated and preserved changes,
choosing out such of them as it pleases, that unavoided and
incomprehensible power, the hiding place of volition and eternity,
whose startling call has often been known, in some dread crisis,
to effect an instantaneous restoration of the entire bygone life,
making all past events troop through the memory, a swiftly awful
cavalcade marching along the fibrous pavement of the brain, while
each terrified thought rushes to its ashy window to behold. We
here leave the material realm behind and enter a spiritual
province where other predicates and laws hold, and where,
"delivered over to a night of pure light, in which no unpurged
sight is sharp enough to penetrate the mysterious essence that
sprouteth into different persons," we kneel in most pious awe, and
cry, with Sir

18 Paget. Surgical Pathology, Lecture II.


Thomas Browne, "There is surely a piece of divinity in us,
something that was before the elements and owes no homage unto the
sun!"

The fatal and invariable mistake of materialism is that it
confounds means and steps with causes, processes with sources,
organs with ends, predicates with subject.19 Alexander Bain denies
that there is any cerebral closet or receptacle of sensation and
imagery where impressions are stored to be reproduced at pleasure.
He says, the revival of a past impression, instead of being an
evocation of it from an inner chamber, is a setting on anew of the
current which originally produced it, now to produce it again.20
But this theory does not alter the fact that all past impressions
are remembered and can be revived at will by an internal
efficiency. The miracle, and the necessity of an unchanging
conscious entity to explain it, are implied just as they were on
the old theory. "The organs of sense," Sir Isaac Newton writes,
"are not for enabling the soul to perceive the species of things
in its sensorium, but for conveying them there." 21 Now, as we
cannot suppose that God has a brain or needs any material organs,
but rather that all infinitude is his Sensorium, so spirits may
perceive spiritual realities without any mediating organism. Our
physical experience in the present is no limit to the spiritual
possibilities of the future. The materialistic argument against
immortality fails, because it excludes essential facts. As
anterior to our experience in the present state there was a power
to organize experiences and to become what we are, so none of the
superficial reasonings of a mere earth science can show that there
is not now a power to organize experiences in a future state and
to become what our faith anticipates we shall be. And this
suggests to speculative curiosity the query, Shall we commence our
future life, a psychical cell, as we commenced our present life, a
physical cell?

It will be well, perhaps, to reply next to some of the aggressive
sophistries of disbelief. The following lines by Dr. Beddoes are
striking, but, considered as a symbol of life, seem almost
wilfully defective:

"The body is but an engine Which draws a mighty stream of
spiritual power Out of the world's own soul, and makes it play A
while in visible motion."

Man is that miraculous engine which includes not only all the
needful machinery, but also fuel, fire, steam, and speed, and
then, in climacteric addition to these, an engineer! Does the
engineer die when the fire goes out and the locomotive stops? When
the engine madly plunges off the embankment or bridge of life,
does the engineer perish in the ruin, or nimbly leap off and
immortally escape? The theory of despair has no greater
plausibility than that of faith.

Feuerbach teaches that the memento mori of reason meets us
everywhere in the spiritual God's acre of literature. A book is a
grave, which buries not the dead remains, but the quick

19 Frauenstadt, Per Materialismus, seine Wahrheit und sein
Irrthum, s. 169.

20 The Senses and the Intellect, p. 61.

21 Brodie, Psychological Inquiries, p. 41, 3d edition.


man, not his corpse, but his soul. And so we live on the psychical
deposits of our ancestry. Our souls consist of that material which
once constituted other souls, as our bodies consist of the
material which once constituted other bodies. A thought, it is to
be replied, is never excreted from the mind and left behind. Only
its existence is indicated by symbols, while itself is added to
the eternal stock of the deathless mind. A thought is a spiritual
product in the mind from an affection of the cerebral substance. A
sentence is a symbol of a thought adapted to create in the
contemplator just such a cerebral affection as that from which it
sprang, and to deposit in his mind just such a spiritual product
as that which it now denotes. Thus are we stimulated and
instructed by the transmitted symbols of our ancestors'
experiences, but not literally nourished by assimilation of their
very psychical substance, as this remorseless prophet of death's
ghastly idealism would have us believe. Still, in whatever aspect
we regard it, one cannot but shudder before that terrible
cineritious substance whose dynamic inhabitants are generated in
the meeting of matter's messages with mind's forces, and sent
forth in emblems to shake the souls of millions, revolutionize
empires, and refashion the world.

Strauss employs an ingenious argument against the belief in a
future life, an argument as harmless in reality as it is novel and
formidable in appearance. "Whether the nerve spirit be considered
as a dependent product, or as the producing principle of the
organism, it ends at death: for, in the former case, it can no
longer be produced when the organism perishes; in the latter case,
that it ceases to sustain the organism is a proof that it has
itself decayed."22 In this specious bit of special pleading,
unwarranted postulates are assumed and much confusion of thought
is displayed. It is covertly taken for granted that every thing
seen in a given phenomenon is either product or producer; but
something may be an accompanying part, involved in the conditions
of the phenomenon, yet not in any way essentially dependent on it,
and in fact surviving it. What does Strauss mean by "the nerve
spirit"? Is there no mind behind it and above it, making use of it
as a servant? Our present life is the result of an actual and
regulated harmony of forces. Surely that harmony may end without
implying the decay of any of its initial components, without
implying the destruction of the central constituent of its
intelligence. It is illegitimate logic, passing from pure
ignorance to positive affirmation; a saltation of sophistry from a
negative premise of blindness to all behind the organic life, to a
dogmatic conclusion of denial that there is any thing behind the
organic life.

A subtle and vigorous disbeliever has said, "The belief in
immortality is not a correct expression of human nature, but rests
solely on a misunderstanding of it. The real opinion of human
nature is expressed in the universal sorrow and wailing over
death." It is obvious to answer that both these expressions are
true utterances of human nature. It grieves over the sadness of
parting, the appalling change and decay, the close locked mystery
of the unseen state. It rejoices in the solace and cheer of a
sublime hope springing out of the manifold powerful promises
within and without. Instead of contemning the idea of a heavenly
futurity as an idle dream image of human longing, it were both
devouter and more reasonable, from

22 Charakteristiken und Kritiken, s. 394.


that very causal basis of it, to revere it and confide in it as
divinely pledged. All the thwarted powers and preparations and
affections, too grand, too fine, too sacred, to meet their fit
fulfilment here, are a claim for some holier and vaster sphere, a
prophecy of a more exalted and serene existence, elsewhere. The
unsatisfied and longing soul has created the doctrine of a future
life, has it? Very good. If the soul has builded a house in
heaven, flown up and made a nest in the breezy boughs of
immortality, that house must have tenants, that nest must be
occupied. The divinely implanted instincts do not provide and
build for naught.

Certain considerations based on the resemblances of men and
beasts, their asserted community of origin and fundamental unity
of nature, have had great influence in leading to the denial of
the immortality of the human soul. It is taken for granted that
animals are totally mortal; and then, from the apparent
correspondences of phenomena and fate between them and us, the
inference is drawn that the cases are parallel throughout, and
that our destiny, too, is annihilation. The course of thought on
this subject has been extremely curious, illustrating, on the one
hand, that "where our egotism begins, there the laws of logic
break," and, on the other hand, that often when fancy gets scent
of a theory the voice and lash of reason are futile to restrain it
until the theory is run into the ground. Des Cartes, and after him
Malebranche and a few other writers, gave no slight currency to
the notion that brutes are mere machines, moved by prearranged
influences and utterly destitute of intelligence, will, or
consciousness. This scheme gave rise to many controversies, but
has now passed into complete neglect.23 Of late years the tendency
has been to assimilate instead of separating man and beast.
Touching the outer sphere, we have Oken's homologies of the
cranial vertebra. In regard to the inner sphere, we have a score
of treatises, like Vogt's Pictures from Brute Life, affirming that
there is no qualitative, but merely a quantitative, distinction
between the human soul and the brute soul.24 Over this point the
conflict is still thick and hot. But, however much of truth there
may be in the doctrine of the ground identity of the soul of a man
and the soul of a dog, the conclusion that man therefore perishes
is a pure piece of sophistry. Such a monstrous assassination of
the souls of the human race with the jaw bone of an ass may be
legitimately avoided in either of two ways. It is as fair to argue
the immortality of animals from their likeness to us, as our
annihilation from our likeness to them. The psychological realm
has been as much deepened in them by the researches of modern
science as the physiological domain has been widened in us. As
Agassiz says, we must not lose sight of the mental individuality
of animals in an exclusive attention to the bodily side of their
nature.25 A multitude of able thinkers have held the faith that
animals have immaterial and deathless souls. Rightly considered,
there is nothing in such a

23 Darmanson, La bete transformee en machine. Ditton, Appendix to
Discourse on Resurrection of Christ, showing that brutes are not
mere machines, but have immortal souls. Orphal, Sind die Thiere
blos sinnliche Geschopfe? Thomasius, De Anima Brutorum, quo
asseritur, eam non esse Materialem, contra Cartesianam Opinionem.
Winkler, Philosophische Untersuchungen von dem Seyn and Wesen der
Seelen der Thiere, von einzelnen Liebhabern der Weltweisheit.

24 Buchner, Kraft und Stoff, kap. 19: Die Thierseele.

25 Essay on Classification, p. 64.


doctrine which a keen reasoner may not credit and a person of the
most refined feelings find pleasure in embracing. In their serene
catholicity and divine sympathy, science and religion exclude
pride and contempt.

But admitting that there is no surviving psychical entity in the
brute, that is in no way a clear postulate for proving that the
same fact holds of man. The lower endowments and provinces of
man's nature and experience may correspond ever so closely with
the being and life of brutes whose existence absolutely ceases at
death, and yet he may be immortal. The higher range of his
spiritual faculties may elevate him into a realm of universal and
eternal principles, extricating his soul from the meshes of decay.
He may come into contact with a sphere of truths, grasp and rise
into a region of realities, conferring the prerogative of
deathlessness, not to be reached by natures gifted in a much lower
degree, although of the same kind. Such a distinction is made
between men themselves by Spinoza.26 His doctrine of immortality
depicts the stupendous boon as contingent, to be acquired by
observance of conditions. If the ideas of the soul represent
perishable objects, it is itself mortal; if imperishable, it is
immortal. Now, brutes, it is probable, never rise to the
apprehension of pure and eternal truths; but men do. It was a mean
prejudice, founded on selfish ignorance and pride, which first
assumed the total destruction of brutes in death, and afterwards,
by the grovelling range of considerations in which it fastened and
the reaction it naturally provoked, involved man and all his
imperial hopes in the same fate. A firm logical discrimination
disentangles the human mind from this beastly snarl.27 The
difference in data warrants a difference in result. The argument
for the immortality of brutes and that for the immortality of men
are, in some respects, parallel lines, but they are not
coextensive. Beginning together, the latter far outreaches the
former. Man, like the animals, eats, drinks, sleeps, builds;
unlike them, he adorns an ideal world of the eternal future, lays
up treasures in its heavenly kingdom, and waits to migrate into
it.

There are two distinct methods of escaping the fatal inference of
disbelief usually drawn by materialists. First, by the denial of
their philosophical postulates, by the predication of immaterial
substance, affirming the soul to be a spaceless point, its life an
indivisible moment. The reasonings in behalf of this conception
have been manifold, and cogent enough to convince a multitude of
accomplished and vigorous thinkers.28 In Herbart's system the soul
is an immaterial monad, or real, capable of the permanent
formation of states in its interior. Its life consists of a
quenchless series of self preservations. These reals, with their
relations and aggregations, constitute at once the varying
phenomena and the causal substrata of the universe. Mamertius
Claudianus, a philosophical priest of Southern Gaul in the fifth
century, wrote a treatise "On the Nature of the Soul." He says,
"When the soul wills, it is all will; when it recollects or feels,
it is all recollection or feeling. Now, will, recollection, and
feeling, are not bodies. Therefore the soul is incorporeal." This
makes the conscious man an

26 Jouffroy, Introduction to Ethics: Channing's trans., vol. ii.
pp. 189-191.

27 Schaller, Leib und Seele, kap. 13: Der Psychische Unterschied
des Menschen vom Thiere.

28 Crombie, Natural Theology, vol. ii.: Essay on the Immortality
of the Soul. Brougham, Discourse of Nat. Theol., sect. 5.


imperishable substantial activity. An old English writer, with
quaint eloquence, declares, "There is a proportion between an atom
and the universe, because both are quantitative. All this excesse
vanisheth into nothing as soon as the lowest substance shineth out
of that orbe where they reside that scorn divisibility."

From this brief statement of the position of the immaterialists,
without arguing it, we pass to note, in the second place, that
nearly all the postulates ordinarily claimed by the materialist
may be granted without by any means proving the justice of their
disbelief of a future life.29 Admit that there can be no sensation
without a nerve, no thought without a brain, no phenomenal
manifestation without an organ. Such an admission legitimates the
conclusion, on empirical grounds, that our present mode of life
must cease with the dissolution of our organism. It does not even
empirically prove that we may not survive in some other mode of
being, passing perhaps to an inconceivably higher stage and more
blessed kind of life. After the entire disintegration of our
material organs, we may, by some now unknown means, possess in a
refined form the equivalents of what those organs gave us. There
may be, interfused throughout the gross mortal body, an immortal
body of exquisitely delicate structure invisibly extricating
itself from the carious ruins at death. Plattner develops and
defends this hypothesis with plausible skill and power.30 The
Hindus conceived the soul to be concealed within several
successive sheaths, the innermost of which accompanied it through
all its transmigrations.31 "The subtile person extends to a small
distance over the skull, like the flame of a lamp above its wick."
32 The later Pythagoreans and Platonists seem to have believed
that the same numerical ethereal body with which the soul was at
first created adhered to it inseparably during all its descents
into grosser bodies, a lucid and wingy vehicle, which, purged by
diet and catharms, ascends again, bearing the soul to its native
seat.33 The doctrine of Swedenborg asserts man to be interiorly an
organized form pervading the physical body, an eternal receptacle
of life from God. In his terminology, "constant influx of life"
supersedes the popular idea of a self contained spiritual
existence. But this influx is conditioned by its receiving organ,
the undecaying inner body.34 However boldly it may be assailed and
rejected as a baseless theory, no materialistic logic can disprove
the existence of an ethereal form contained in, animating, and
surviving, the visible organism. It is a possibility; although,
even if it be a fact, science, by the very conditions of the case,
can never unveil or demonstrate it.

When subjected to a certain mode of thought developed recently by
Faraday, Drossbach, and others, materialism itself brightens and
dissolves into a species of idealism, the universe becomes a
glittering congeries of indestructible points of power, and the
immortality of the soul is established as a mathematical
certainty.35 All bodies, all entities, are but forms of

This has been ably shown by Spiers in his treatise, Ueber das
korperliche Bedingtsein der Seelenthatigkeiten.

30 Spes immortalitatis animorum per rationes physiologicas
confirmata.

31 Dabistan, vol. ii. p. 177.

32 Colebrooke, Essays, vol. i. p. 246.

33 Cudworth, Int. Sys., vol. ii. pp. 218-230, Am. ed.

34 On the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, sect. 9.

35 Lott, Herbarti de animi immortalitate doctrina.


force.36 Gravity, cohesion, bitterness, thought, love,
recollection, are manifestations of force peculiarly conditioned.
Our perceptions are a series of states of consciousness. An
attribute or property of a thing is an exercise of force or mode
of activity producing a certain state of consciousness in us. The
sum of its attributes or properties constitutes the totality of
the thing, and is not adventitiously laid upon the thing: you can
separate the parts of a thing; but you cannot take away its forces
from any part, because they are its essence. Matter is not a
limitation or neutralization, but a state and expression, of
force. Force itself is not multiplex, but one, all qualities and
directions of it lying potentially in each entity, the kinds and
amounts which shall be actually manifested depending in each case
on the conditions environing it. All matter, all being, therefore,
consists of ultimate atoms or monads, each one of which is an
inseparable solidarity of activities. The universe is an eternal
society of eternal force individuals, all of which are capable of
constant changes in groupings, aggregations, developments,
relations, but absolutely incapable of annihilation. Every atom
possesses potential reason, and comes to self apprehension
whenever the appropriate conditions meet. All differences
originate from conditions and exist not in essentialities.

According to this theory, the eternity of the soul is sure, but
that eternity must be an endless series of mutual transitions
between consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death.37 Since
all cannot be men at once, they must take their turns. Carus says,
a soul enclosing in itself an independent consciousness is
inconceivable. When the organism by which consciousness is
conditioned and revealed is destroyed in death, consciousness
disappears as certainly as the gleaming height of a dome falls in
when its foundation is removed. And Drossbach adds, death is the
shade side of life. Without shade, light would not be perceptible,
nor life without death; for only contrast leads to knowledge. The
consciousness of life is realized by interchange with the
unconsciousness of death. Mortality is the inevitable attribute of
a self conscious being. The immortality of such a being can be
nothing else than an everlasting mortality. In this restless
alternation between the opposite states of life and death, being
holds continuous endurance, but consciousness is successively
extinguished and revived, while memory is each time hopelessly
lost. Widenmann holds that the periods of death are momentary, the
soul being at once born again, retaining no vestiges of its
past.38 Drossbach, on the contrary, believes that memory is an
indefeasible quality of the soul atom, the reason why we do not
remember previous lives being that the present is our first
experiment. When all atoms destined to become men have once run
the human career, the earliest ones will begin to reappear with
full memory of their preceding course. It matters not how long it
requires for one circuit of the whole series of souls; for the
infinite future is before us, and, as we are unconscious in death,
the lapse of ages is nothing. We lie down to sleep, and instantly
rise up to a new life.

36 Hickok, Rational Cosmology, ch. ii. sect. 1: Matter is force.

37 Drossbach, Die personliche Unsterblichkeit als Folge der
atomistischen Verfaasung der Natur, abschn. iv. kap. ii. sect. 5,
6.

38 Gedanken uber die Unsterblichkeit als Wiederholung des
Erdenlebens.


"Death gives to life all its relish, as hunger is the true sauce
of food. Death first makes us precious and dear to ourselves.
Since it lies in the nature of change that no condition is
endless, but morning ever follows night, death cannot be endless.
Be unconcerned; thy being shall as little be lost as the grain of
dust at thy foot! Because in death thou dost not know that thou
art, therefore fearest thou that thou shalt be no more? O
pusillanimous! the great events of nature are too vast for thy
weak heart. A whole eternity thou hast not been conscious that
thou art, and yet thou hast become conscious of it. Every night
thou losest thy consciousness, yet art thou conscious again, and
shalt be. The loss of consciousness is not necessarily the loss of
self. The knowledge of my being is not my being itself, but a
peculiar force thereof, which, entering into reciprocal action
with other forces, is subject to change. It is its essence to act,
and thus to change, yet without surrendering its essence. Goethe's
words may be applied to the soul: 'It is; therefore eternally it
is.'

Not in cold motionlessness consists eternal life, but in eternal
movement, in eternal alteration, in incessant change. These are
warranties that no state endures forever, not even the
unconscious, death." 39

In this unfolding of the theory there are many arbitrary and
fanciful conceptions which may easily be dispensed with. The
interspersion of the bright life of the human monads with blank
epochs of oblivious darkness, and the confinement of their destiny
to an endless repetition of their life course on this globe, are
not necessary. In the will of God the free range of the boundless
universe may lie open to them and an incessant career in forever
novel circumstances await them. It is also conceivable that human
souls, leading still recurrent lives on earth with total
forgetfulness, may at last acquire sufficient power, in some happy
concurrence or sublime exigency, to summon back and retain all
their foregone states. But, leaving aside all such incidental
speculations, the chief interest of the dynamic atomistic or monad
theory, as affording a solid basis for immortality, is in relation
to the arrogance of a shallow and conceited materialism. Says the
materialist, "Show me a spirit, and I will believe in your
heaven." Replies the idealist, "Show me your matter, however small
a piece, and I will yield to your argument." Spirit is no
phenomenon to be shown, and matter is an inference from thought:
thus the counter statements of physical science and ideal
philosophy fairly offset each other, and throw their respective
advocates back upon the natural ground of unsophisticated faith
and observation. Standing there unperverted, man has an invincible
reliance on the veracity of his faculties and the normal reports
of nature. Through immediate apprehension of his own conscious
will and the posited experience of his senses, he has knowledge
both of causal forms of being, or free productive force, and of
resultant processes and phenomena. And surely sound logic teaches
that the latter may alter or disappear without implying the
annihilation of the former. If all material substance, so called,
were destroyed, not only would space remain as an infinite
indivisible unity, but the equivalents

39 Drossbach, Die individuelle Unsterblichkeit vom monadistisch
metaphysischen Standpunkte betrachtet.


of what had been destroyed must remain in some form or other. Who
shall say that these equivalents would not be intelligent points
of power, capable of organizing aggregate bodies and of
reconstituting the universe in the will of God, or of forming from
period to period, in endless succession, new kinds of universes,
each abounding in hitherto unimagined modes of life and degrees of
bliss? To our present faculties, with only our present
opportunities and data, the final problem of being is insoluble.
We resolve the properties of matter into methods of activity,
manifestations of force. But there, covered with alluring awe, a
wall of impenetrable mystery confronts us with its baffling "Thus
far, and no farther, shall thine explicating gaze read the secrets
of destiny." We cannot tell what force is. We can conceive neither
its genesis nor its extinction. Over that obscure environment,
into the immense empire of possibilities, we must bravely fling
the treasures of our love and the colors of our hope, and with a
divine impulse in the moment of death leap after, trusting not to
sink as nothing into the abyss of nowhere, but, landing safe in
some elysium better than we know, to find ourselves still in God.

In dealing with moral problems in the realm of the higher reason,
intuitions, mysterious hints, prophetic feelings, instinctive
apprehensions of fitness and harmony, may be of more convincing
validity than all the formal arguments logic can build.40
"Sentiment," Ancillon says, as quoted by Lewes, "goes further than
knowledge: beyond demonstrative proofs there is natural evidence;
beyond analysis, inspiration; beyond words, ideas; beyond ideas,
emotions; and the sense of the infinite is a primitive fact of the
soul." In transcendental mathematics, problems otherwise
unapproachable are solved by operating with emblems of the
relations of purely imaginary quantities to the facts of the
problems. The process is sound and the result valid, notwithstanding
the hypothetical and imaginary character of the aids in reaching it.

When for mastering the dim momentous problems of our destiny
the given quantities and relations of science are inadequate,
the helpful supposititious conditions furnished by faith may
equally lead over their airy ways to conclusions of eternal truth.

The disbelievers of a future life have in their investigations
applied methods not justly applicable to the subject, and
demanded a species of proof impossible for the subject to yield:
as if one should use his ear to listen to the symmetries of beauty,
and his eye to gaze upon the undulations of music.

It is therefore that the terribly logical onslaughts of
Feuerbach are harmless upon most persons. The glittering scimetar
of this Saracenic metaphysician flashes swift and sharp, but he
fights the air with weapons of air. No blood flows from the
severed emptiness of space; no clash of the blows is heard any
more than bell strokes would be heard in an exhausted receiver.
One may justifiably accept propositions which strict science
cannot establish and believe in the existence of a thing which
science cannot reveal, as Jacobi has abundantly shown41 and as
Wagner has with less ability tried to illustrate.42 The utmost
possible achievement of a negative criticism is to show the
invalidity of the physiological,

40 Abel, Disquisitio omnium tam pro immortalitate quam pro
mortalitate argumentandi generum.

41 Von den goutlichen Dingen and ibrer Offenbarung. Wissen und
Glauben mit besonderer Beziehung zur Zukunft der Seelen:
Fortsetzung der Betrachtungen uber Menschenschopfung und
Seelensubstanz.


analogical, and metaphysical arguments to furnish positive proof
of a future life for us. But this negation fully admitted is no
evidence of our total mortality. Science is impotent to give any
proof reaching to such a conclusion. However badly the archery of
the sharp eyed and strong armed critics of disbelief has riddled
the outer works of ordinary argument, it has not slain the
garrison. Scientific criticism therefore leaves us at this point:
there may be an immortal soul in us. Then the question whether
there actually is an immortal soul in us, rests entirely on moral
facts and considerations. Allowing their native force to these
moral facts and considerations, the healthy ethical thinker,
recognising in himself an innermost self conscious ego which knows
itself persistent and identical amidst the multiplex vicissitude
of transient conditions, lies down to die expecting immediately to
continue his being's journey elsewhere, in some other guise.
Leaving out of view these moral facts and considerations, the
materialistic naturalist thinker, recognising his consciousness as
only a phantom procession of states across the cerebral stage hung
in ashy livery and afloat on blood, lies down to expire expecting
immediately to be turned into nobody forever. Misinterpreting and
undervaluing these moral facts and considerations, the anchorless
speculative thinker, recognising his organism as an eye through
which the World Spirit beholds itself, or a momentary pulse in
which the All feels itself, his consciousness as a part of the
infinite Thought, lies down on his death couch expecting
immediately to be turned into everybody, eternity, instead of
greeting him with an individual kiss, wrapping him in a monistic
embrace. The broad drift of human conviction leads to the first
conclusion, a persistent personality. The greatest philosophers,
from Plato to Pascal, deny the second view, a blotting extinction
of the soul, declaring it false in science and incredible in
presentation. The third theory a pantheistic absorption  the
irresistible common sense of mankind repudiates as a morbid dream.
Man naturally believes himself immortal but not infinite. Monism
is a doctrine utterly foreign to undiseased thinking. Although it
be a Fichte, a Schelling, or a Hegel, who says that the soul is a
circumscribed yet omnipotent ego, which first radiates the
universe, and afterwards beholds it in the mirror of itself, and
at length breaks into dead universality, the conception is, to the
average apprehension of humanity, as overweening a piece of wild
fancy as ever rose in a madman's reveries.43

The ordinary contemplator of the phenomena of the world and the
sequel of human life from the materialistic point of view feels
disgust and terror at the prospect. The scene seems to him
degrading and the fate fearful. The loathing and dismay vulgarly
experienced thus, it is true, arise from an exaggerated
misapprehension of the basis and meaning of the facts: rightly
appreciated, all is rulingly alive, aspirant, beautiful, and
benignant. The ceaseless transformations filling the heights and
depths of the creation are pervaded with joy and

42 A full discussion of the pantheistic doctrine of immortality
will be found in the following works. Richmann, Gemsinfassl.
Darstellung und Wurdigung aller gehaltreichen Beweisarten fur Gott
und fur Unsterblichkeit der Seele. Unius, Unsterblichkeit.
Blanche, Philosophische Unsterblichkeitlehre.

43 Weisse, Die philosophische Geheimlehre von der Unsterblichkeit
des menschlichen Individuums. Goschel, Von den Beweisen fur die
Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele im Lichte der speculativen
Philosophie. Morell, Historical and Critical View of the
Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the 19th Century, part ii. ch.
v. sect. 2: The German School of the 19th Century. Buchanan,
Modern Atheism.


clothed with a noble poetry. There is no real death: what seems so
is but a "return or falling home of the fundamental phenomenon to
the phenomenal foundation, a dissolution through which nature
seeks her ground and strives to renew herself in her principles."
Still, in spite of this more profound and genial interpretation of
the shifting metamorphoses of nature, the fear of there being no
conscious future life for man produces, when first entertained, a
horrid constriction around the heart, felt like the ice cold coils
of a serpent. The thought of tumbling hopelessly into "The blind
cave of eternal night" naturally oppresses the heart of man with
sadness and with alarm. To escape the unhappiness thus inflicted,
recourse has been had to expedients. Four artificial substitutes
for immortality have been devised. Fondly fixing attention upon
these, men have tried to find comfort and to absorb their thoughts
from the dreaded spectre and the long oblivion. The first is the
sentimental phantasm of posthumous fame. The Latin bard, ancient
Ennius, sings,

"Nemo me lacrymis decoret, nec funera fletu Faxit. Cur? volito
vivu' per ora virum." 44

Shakspeare likewise often expresses the same thought:

"When all the breathers of this world are dead, You still shall
live (such virtue hath my pen) Where breath most breathes, even in
the mouths of men."

And again in similar strain:

"My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Since, spite of
him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, While he insults o'er dull and
speechless tribes."

Napoleon is reported to have said, "My soul will pass into history
and the deathless memories of mankind; and thus in glory shall I
be immortal." This characteristically French notion forms the
essence of Comte's "positivist" doctrine of a future life. Those
deemed worthy after their death to be incorporated, by vote of the
people, in the Supreme Being, the Grand Etre, a fictitious product
of a poetic personification, through the perpetual fame and
influence thus secured have an immortal life in the thoughts and
feelings of a grateful posterity. Comte says, "Positivism greatly
improves immortality and places it on a firmer foundation, by
changing it from objective to subjective." Great and eternal
Humanity is God. The dead who are meritorious are alone
remembered, and, thus incorporated into the Divinity, they have a
"subjective immortality in the brains of the living." 45 It is a
poor shadow of the sublime truth which the soul craves. Leopardi,
in his Bruto Minore, expresses this "poor hope of being in the
future's breath:"

44 Cicero, Tusc. Quast., lib. i. cap. xv.

45 Catechism of Positive Religion, Conversation III.


"dell' atra morte ultima raggio Conscia future eta." That proud
and gifted natures should have seriously stooped to such a toy, to
solace themselves with it, is a fact strange and pathetic. With
reverential tenderness of sympathy must we yearn towards those
whose loving natures, baffled of any solid resource, turn
appealingly, ere they fade away, to clasp this substanceless image
of an image.

Another scheme is what may be called the "lampada tradunt" 46
theory of a future life. Generations succeed each other, and the
course is always full. Eternal life takes up new subjects as fast
as its exhausted receptacles perish. Men are the mortal cells of
immortal humanity. The individual must comfort himself with the
sympathetic reflection that his extinction destroys nothing, since
all the elements of his being will be manipulated into the forms
of his successors.

Life is a constant renovation, and its sum is forever full and
equal on the globe. The only genuine resurrection unto eternal
life is an unending re creation of organisms from the same
materials to repeat the same physiological and psychological
processes.47 There is a gleam of cheer and of nobleness in this
representation; but, upon the whole, it is perhaps as ineffectual
as the former. It is a vapid consolation, in view of our own
annihilation, to think that others will then live and also be
annihilated in their turn. It is pleasant to believe that the
earth will forever be peopled with throngs of men; but though such
a belief might help to reconcile us to our fate, it could not
alter the intrinsic sadness of that fate.

A third substitute for the common view of immortality is a
scientific perception of the fact that the peculiar force which
each man is, the sum of his character and life, is a cause
indestructibly mixed with the course of subsequent history, an
objective personal immortality, though not a conscious one. What
he was, remains and acts forever in the world.

The fourth substitute is an identification of self with the
integral scheme of things. I am an inseparable portion of the
totality of being, to move eternally in its eternal motion.

"If death seem hanging o'er thy separate soul, Discern thyself a
part of life's great whole."

Lose the thought of thy particular evanescence in the thought of
the universal permanence. The inverted torch denotes death to a
mere inhabitant of the earth: to a citizen of the universe,
downward and upward are the same. Perhaps one who rejects the
ordinary doctrine of a future life can be solaced and edified by
these substitutes in proportion to his fineness, greatness, and
nobleness. But to most persons no substitute can atone for the
withdrawn truth of immortality itself.

In regard to the eternal preservation of personal consciousness,
it were bigoted blindness to deny that there is room for doubts
and fears. While the monad soul so to call it lies here beneath
the weak glimmer of suns so far off that they are forceless to
develop it to a

46 Lucretius, De Nat. Rerum, lib. ii. 1. 78.

47 Schultz Schultzenstein, Die Bildung des menschlichen Geistes
durch Kultur der Verjungung seines Lebens, ss. 834-847: Die
Unsterblichkeitsbegriffe.


victorious assurance, we cannot but sometimes feel misgivings and
be depressed by skeptical surmises. Accordingly, while belief has
generally prevailed, disbelief has in every age had its
representatives. The ancients had their Dicaarchus, Protagoras,
Panatius, Lucan, Epicurus, Casar, Horace, and a long list besides.
The moderns have had their Gassendi, Diderot, Condillac, Hobbes,
Hume, Paine, Leopardi, Shelley, and now have their Feuerbach,
Vogt, Moleschott, and scores of others needless to be named. And
although in any argument from authority the company of the great
believers would incomparably outshine and a thousand times
outweigh the array of deniers, this does not alter the obvious
fact that there are certain phenomena which are natural
provocatives of doubt and whose troubling influence scarcely any
one can always escape. Homer, in giving expression to Hector's
confidence of victory over the Greeks, makes him wish that he were
but as sure of entering the state of the immortal gods.48 When
some one asked Dr. Johnson, "Have we not proof enough of the
immortality of the soul?" he replied, "I want more." Davenant of
whom Southey says, "I know no other author who has so often
expressed his doubts respecting a future state and how burdensome
he felt them" writes,  "But ask not bodies doom'd to die,
To what abode they go: Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
It is not safe to know."

Charles Lamb writes, "If men would honestly confess their
misgivings, (which few men will,) there are times when the
strongest Christian of us has reeled under questionings of such
staggering obscurity." Many a man, seeing nature hang her veil of
shifting glories above the silent tombs of vanished generations,
voiceless now forever, entertaining innumerable contradictory
queries amidst feelings of decay and sights of corruption, before
the darkness of unknown futurity might piteously exclaim, without
deserving blame,

"I run the gauntlet of a file of doubts, Each one of which down
hurls me to the ground."

Who that has reached maturity of reflection cannot appreciate and
sympathize somewhat with these lines of Byron, when he stands
before a lifeless form of humanity?

"I gazed, as oft I have gazed the same, To try if I could wrench
aught out of death Which should confirm, or shake, or make, a
faith; But it was all a mystery. Here we are, And there we go: but
where? Five bits of lead, Or three, or two, or one, send very far!
And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed? Can every element
our elements mar? Can air, earth, water, fire, live and we dead?
We, whose minds comprehend all things? No more."

48 Iliad, lib, viii. Il. 538-540.


Doubt is not sin, but rather a misfortune; for it is to adopt a
suggestion from Schaller a cleft in the soul through which thought
steals away what the heart desires. The guilt or innocence of
doubting depends on the spirit in which it is done. There are two
attitudes of mind and moods of feeling before propositions and
evidence. One is, "I will not believe unless I see the prints of
the nails and lay my finger in the marks of the wounds." The other
is, "Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief." In abstract logic
or rigid science the former may be appropriate and right. The
latter alone can be justifiable in moral and religious things. If
a man sorrowfully and humbly doubts, because he cannot help it, he
shall not be condemned. When he is proud of his doubts,
complacently swells with fancied superiority, plays the fanfaron
with his pretentious arguments, and sets up as a propagandist of
disbelief, being all the while in reality "Most ignorant of what
he is most assured,  His glassy essence," his conduct is offensive
to every good man, and his spirit must receive the condemnation of
God. A missionary of atheism and death, horridly eager to destroy
those lofty thoughts which so much help to make us men, is a
shocking spectacle. Yet a few such there are, who seem delighted
as by their dismal theory they bury mankind in an iron tomb of
materialism and inscribe on the irrevocable door the solitary
words, Fate and Silence.

The more attentively one dwells on the perishable physical side of
life, the more prone he will be to believe in an absolute death;
the more prevailingly he ponders the incorruptible psychical side,
the more prepared he will be to credit immortality. The chemist
who confines his studies exclusively within his own province, when
he reflects on the probable sequence of life, will speculatively
see himself vanish in his blowpipes and retorts. Whoso devotedly
dabbles in organisms, nerves, and bloods may easily become
skeptical of spirit; for it everywhere balks his analysis and
eludes his search. The objects he deals with are things. They
belong to change and dissolution. Mind and its proper home belong
to a different category of being. Because no heaven appears at the
end of the telescope, and no soul is seen on the edge of the
dissecting knife, and no mind is found at the bottom of the
crucible, to infer that therefore there is neither heaven, nor
soul, nor mind, is as monstrous a non sequitur as it would be to
infer the non existence of gravity because it cannot be distilled
in any alembic nor discerned with any glass. The man who goes into
the dark crimson dripping halls of physiology seeking proofs of
immortality, and, failing to find them, abandons his faith in it,
is like that hapless traveller who, groping in the catacombs under
Rome, was buried by the caving in of the sepulchral roof, and thus
lost his life, while all the time, above, the great vault of
heaven was stretching, blue and breezy, filled with sunshine and
sentient joy!

When we contemplate men in a mass, like a swarm of bees or a hive
of ants, we find ourselves doubting their immortality. They melt
away, in swiftly confused heaps and generations, into the bosom of
nature. On the other hand, when we think of individuals, an almost
unavoidable thought of personal identity makes us spontaneously
conclude them immortal. It rather requires the effort then to
think them otherwise. But obviously the real problem is never of
the multitudinous throng, but always of the solitary person. In
reference

to this question it is sophistry to fix our thoughts on a Chinese
city as crowded with nameless and indistinguishable human
inhabitants as a decayed cheese is with vermin. Fairness requires
that our imaginations and reasonings upon the subject fasten upon
an individual, set apart and uplifted, like a king, in the
incommunicable distinctness and grandeur of selfhood and
responsibility.

From looking about this grave paved star, from painful and
degrading contemplations of dead bodies, "the snuff and loathed
part of nature which burns itself out," let a man turn away, and
send his interior kingly glance aloft into ideal realms, let him
summon up the glorious sentiments of freedom, duty, admiration,
the noble experiences of self sacrifice, love, and joy, and his
soul will extricate itself from the filthy net of material decay,
and feel the divine exemption of its own clean prerogatives,
dazzling types of eternity, and fragments of blessedness that
"Promise, on our Maker's truth, Long morrow to this mortal youth."
Martyrdom is demonstration of immortality; for self preservation
is the innermost, indestructible instinct of every conscious
being. When the soul, in a sacred cause, enthusiastically rushes
upon death, or in calm composure awaits death, it is irresistibly
convinced that it cannot be hurt, but will be blessed, by the
crisis. It knows that in an inexpressibly profound sense whosoever
would ignobly save his life loses it, but whosoever would nobly
lose his life saves it. Martyrdom demonstrates immortality.

"Life embark'd out at sea, 'mid the wave tumbling roar, The poor
ship of my body went down to the floor; But I broke, at the bottom
of death, through a door, And, from sinking, began forever to
soar."

The most lamentable and pertinacious doubts of immortality
sometimes arise from the survey of instances of gross wickedness,
sluggishness, and imbecility forced on our attention. But, as
these undeniably are palpable violations of the creative
intention, it is not just to reason from them. In fairness the
argument demands that we select the noblest, healthiest specimens
of completed humanity to reason from. Should we not take a case in
which God's will is so far plainly fulfilled, in order to trace
that will farther and even to its finality? And regarding on his
death bed a Newton, a Fenelon, a Washington, is it difficult to
conceive him surviving the climax and catastrophe of his somatic
cell basis and soaring to a more august range of existence?
Remembering that such as these have lived and died, ay, and even
the godlike Nazarene, can we believe that man is merely a white
interrogation point lifted on the black margin of matter to ask
the answerless secret of the universe and be erased?

Such a conclusion charges God with the transcendent crime of
infanticide perpetrated in the most deliberate manner and on the
most gigantic scale. Who can bear, by thus quenching the hope of
another life, to add death to death, and overcast, to every
thoughtful eye, the whole sunny field of life with the melancholy
shadow of a bier? There is a noble strength and confidence,
cheering to the reader, in these words of one of the wisest and
boldest of thinkers: "I should be the very last man to be willing
to dispense with the faith in a future life: nay, I would say,
with Lorenzo de'Medici, that all those are dead, even for the
present life, who do not hope for another. I have the firm
conviction that our soul is an existence of indestructible nature,
whose working is from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun,
that seems indeed to set, but really never sets, shining on in
unchangeable splendor." 49 Such a view of our destiny incomparably
inspires and ennobles us. Man, discovering under all the poor,
wretched accidents of earth and sense and hard fortune the
immortality of his soul, feels as that king's son who, lost in
infancy, and growing up under the care of a forest hind, supposed
himself to belong to the rude class among whom he lived; but one
day, learning his true parentage, he knew beneath his mean
disguise that he was a prince, and immediately claimed his
kingdom. These facts of experience show clearly how much it
behooves us to cultivate by every honest method this cardinal
tenet of religion, how much wiser faith is in listening to the
lucid echoes of the sky than despair in listening to the muffled
reverberations of the grave. All noble and sweet beliefs grow with
the growing nobleness and tenderness of characters sensitive to
those fine revealings which pachydermatous souls can never know.
In the upper hall of reason, before the high shrine of faith, burn
the base doubts begotten in the cellars of sense; and they may
serve as tapers to light your tentative way to conviction. If the
floating al Sirat between physiology and psychology, earth and
heaven, is too slippery and perilous for your footing, where heavy
limbed science cannot tread, nerve the wings of faith for a free
flight. Or, if every effort to fasten a definite theory on some
solid support on the other side of the gulf fails, venture forth
on the naked line of limitless desire, as the spider escapes from
an unwelcome position by flinging out an exceedingly long and fine
thread and going forth upon it sustained by the air.50 Whoever
preserves the full intensity of the affections is little likely to
lose his trust in God and a future life, even when exposed to
lowering and chilling influences from material science and
speculative philosophy: the glowing of the heart, as Jean Paul
says, relights the extinguished torch in the night of the
intellect, as a beast stunned by an electric shock in the head is
restored by an electric shock in the breast. Daniel Webster says,
in an expression of his faith in Christianity written shortly
before his death, "Philosophical argument, especially that drawn
from the vastness of the universe in comparison with the apparent
insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for
the faith which is in me; but my heart has always assured and
reassured me."51 Contemplating the stable permanence of nature as
it swallows our fleet generations, we may feel that we vanish like
sparks in the night; but when we think of the persistent identity
of the soul, and of its immeasurable superiority to the brute mass
of matter, the aspect of the case changes and the moral inference
is reversed. Does not the simple truth of love conquer and trample
the world's aggregated lie? The man who, with assiduous toil and
earnest faith, develops his forces, and disciplines his faculties,
and cherishes his aspirations, and accumulates virtue and wisdom,
is thus preparing the auspicious stores and conditions of another
existence. As he slowly journeys over the mountains of life, aware
that there can be

49 Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe.

50 Greenough, An Artist's Creed.

51 Memorial of Daniel Webster from the City of Boston, p. 16.


no returning, he gathers and carries with him materials to build a
ship when he reaches the strand of death. Upon the mist veiled
ocean launching then, he will sail where? Whither God orders. Must
not that be to the right port?

We remember an old Brahmanic poem brought from the East by Ruckert
and sweetly resung in the speech of the West full of encouragement
to those who shall die.52 A man wrapped in slumber calmly reclines
on the deck of a ship stranded and parting in the breakers. The
plank on which he sleeps is borne by a huge wave upon a bank of
roses, and he awakes amidst a jubilee of music and a chorus of
friendly voices bidding him welcome. So, perhaps, when the body is
shattered on the death ledge, the soul will be tossed into the
fragrant lap of eternal life on the self identified and dynamic
plank of personality.

52 Brahmanische Erzahlungen, s. 5.


CHAPTER IX.

MORALITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. IN discussing the
ethics of the doctrine of a future life a subject here amazingly
neglected, there more amazingly maltreated, and nowhere, within
our knowledge, truly analyzed and exhibited1 it is important that
the theme be precisely defined and the debate kept strictly to the
lines. Let it be distinctly understood, therefore, that the
question to be handled is not, "Whether there ought to be a future
life or not," nor, "Whether there is a future life or not." The
question is, "What difference should it make to us whether we
admit or deny the fact of a future life?" If we believe that we
are to pass through death into an immortal existence, what
inferences pertaining to the present are right, fully to be drawn
from the supposition? If, on the other hand, we think there is
nothing for us after the present, what are the logical
consequences of that faith in regard to our aims and rules of
conduct in this world?

Suppose a man who has always imagined that death is utter
annihilation should in some way suddenly acquire knowledge that an
endless existence immediately succeeds the termination of this:
what would be the legitimate instructions of his new information?
Before we can fairly answer this inquiry, we need to know what
relations connect the two states of existence. A knowledge of the
law and method and means of man's destiny is more important for
his guidance than the mere ascertainment of its duration. With
reference to the query before us, four hypotheses are conceivable.
If, in the first place, there be no connection whatever except
that of temporal sequence between the present life and the future,
then, so far as duty is concerned, the expectation of a world to
come yields not the slightest practical application for the
experience that now is. It can only be a source of comfort or of
terror; and that will be accordingly as it is conceived under the
aspect of benignity or of vengeance. If, secondly, the character
of the future life depend on conditions to be fulfilled here, but
those conditions be not within our control, then, again, no
inferences of immediate duty can be drawn from the apprehended
hereafter. Being quasi actors in a scene prearranged and with a
plot predetermined, we can no more be capable of any obligation or
choice, in regard to the end, than puppets which some unseen
Harlequin moves by the terrible wires of primitive decree or
transmitted depravity towards the genial or the tragic crisis. If
the soul's fate there is to be heaven or hell according to the
part enacted here, it must have free will and a fair opportunity
to work the unmarred problem safely out. Otherwise the future life
is reduced, as far as it affects us here, to a mere source of
complacency or of horror as it respectively touches the elect and
the reprobate.

Thirdly, it may be conceived that the future life is a state of
everlasting reward and punishment unchangeably decided by the way
in which the probationary period allotted on

1 The only direct treatise on the subject known to us is
Tilemann's Kritik der Unsterblichkeitslehre in Ansehung des
Sittengesetzes, published in 1789. And this we have not seen.


earth is passed through. Here are men, for a brief time, free to
act thus or otherwise. Do thus, and the endless bliss of heaven is
won. Do otherwise, and the endless agony of hell is incurred. The
plain rule of action yielded by this doctrine is, Sacrifice all
other things to the one thing needful. The present life is in
itself a worthless instant. The future life is an inexhaustible
eternity. And yet this infinite wealth of glory or woe depends on
how you act during that poor moment. Therefore you have nothing to
do while on earth but to seek the salvation of your soul. To waste
a single pulse beat on any thing else is the very madness of
folly. To find out how to escape hell and secure heaven, and then
to improve the means, this should absolutely absorb every energy
and every thought and every desire of every moment. This world is
a bridge of straw over the roaring gulf of eternal fire. Is there
leisure for sport and business, or room for science and
literature, or mood for pleasures and amenities? No: to get
ourselves and our friends into the magic car of salvation, which
will waft us up from the ravenous crests of the brimstone lake
packed with visages of anguish, to bind around our souls the
floating cord of redemption, which will draw us up to heaven, this
should intensely engage every faculty. Nothing else can be
admitted save by oversight of the awful facts. For is it not one
flexible instant of opportunity, and then an adamantine
immortality of doom? That doctrine of a future life which makes
eternal unalterable happiness or misery depend on the fleeting
probation allowed here yields but one practical moral; and that it
pronounces with imminent urgency and perfect distinctness. The
only true duty, the only real use, of this life is to secure the
forensic salvation of the soul by improvement of the appointed
means. Suspended by such a hair of frailty, for one breathless
moment, on such a razor edged contingence, an entrancing sea of
blessedness above, a horrible abyss of torture beneath, such
should be the all concentrating anxiety to secure safety that
there would be neither time nor taste for any thing else. Every
object should seem an altar drenched with sacrificial blood, every
sound a knell laden with dolorous omen, every look a propitiatory
confession, every breath a pleading prayer. From so single and
preternatural a tension of the believer's faculties nothing could
allow an instant's cessation except a temporary forgetting or
blinking of the awful scene and the immeasurable hazard. Such
would be a logical application to life of the genuine morals of
the doctrine under consideration. But the doctrine itself is to be
rejected as false on many grounds. It is deduced from Scripture by
a technical and unsound interpretation. It is unjust and cruel,
irreconcilable with the righteousness or the goodness of God. It
is unreasonable, opposed to the analogies of nature and to the
experience of man. It is wholly impossible to carry it out
consistently in the practice of life. If it were thoroughly
credited and acted upon, all the business of the world would
cease, and the human race would soon die out.

There remains one other view of the relationship of a future life
with the present. And it seems to be the true view. The same
Creator presiding, the same laws prevailing, over infinitude and
eternity that now rule over time and earth, our immortality cannot
reasonably be imagined either a moment of free action and an
eternity of fixed consequences, or a series of separate fragments
patched into a parti colored experience with blanks of death
between the patterns of life. It must be conceived as one endless
existence in linear connection of cause and effect developing in
progressive phases under varying conditions of motive and scenery.
With what we are at death we live on into the next life. In every
epoch and world of our destiny our happiness depends on the
possession of a harmoniously working soul harmoniously related
with its environment. Each stage and state of our eternal
existence has its peculiarities of duty and privilege. In this one
our proper work is to improve the opportunities, discharge the
tasks, enjoy the blessings, belonging here. We are to do the same
in the next one when we arrive in that. All the wealth of wisdom,
virtue, strength, and harmony we acquire in our present life is
the vantage ground and capital wherewith we start in the
succeeding life. Therefore the true preparation for the future is
to fit ourselves to enter it under the most favorable auspices, by
accumulating in our souls all the spiritual treasures afforded by
the present. In other words, the truest aim we can set before
ourselves during our existence on earth is to make it yield the
greatest possible results of the noblest experience. The life
hereafter is the elevated and complementary continuation of the
life here; and certainly the directest way to ameliorate the
continuation is to improve the commencement.

But, it may be said, according to this representation, the fact of
a future life makes no difference in regard to our duty now; for
if the grave swallows all, still, it is our duty and our interest
to make the best and the most of our life in the world while it
lasts. True; and really that very consideration is a strong proof
of the correctness of the view in question. It corresponds with
the other arrangements of God. He makes every thing its own end,
complete in itself, at the same time that it subserves some
further end and enters into some higher unity. He is no mere
Teleologist, hobbling towards his conclusions on a pair of decayed
logic crutches,2 but an infinite Artist, whose means and ends are
consentaneous in the timeless and spaceless spontaneity and
perfection of his play. If the tomb is our total goal, our genuine
aim in this existence is to win during its course an experience
the largest in quantity and the best in quality. On the other
hand, if another life follows this, our wisdom is just the same;
because that experience alone, with the favor of God, can
constitute our fitness and stock to enter on the future. And yet
between the two cases there is this immense difference,  not
indeed in duty, but in endowment, that in the latter instance we
work out our allotted destiny here, in a broader illumination,
with grander incentives, and with vaster consolations. A future
life, then, really imposes no new duty upon the present, alters no
fundamental ingredient in the present, takes away none of the
charms and claims of the present, but merely sheds an additional
radiance upon the shaded lights already shining here, infuses an
additional motive into the stimulants already animating our
purposes, distills an additional balm into the comforts which
already assuage our sorrows amidst an evanescent scene. The belief
that we are to live hereafter in a compensating world explains to
us many a sad mystery, strengthens us for many an oppressive
burden, consoles us in many a sharp grief. Else we should oftener
go mad in the baffling whirl of problems, oftener obey the baser
voice, oftener yield to despair. These three are the moral uses,
in the present life, of the

2 "Seht, an der morschen Syllogismenkrucke Hinkt Gott in Seine
Welt."Lenau's Satire auf einen Professor philosophia.


doctrine of a future life. Outside of these three considerations
the doctrine has no ethical meaning for human observance here.

It will be seen, according to the foregoing representation, that
the expectation of a future life, instead of being harmful to the
interests and attractions of the present, simply casts a cheering
and magnifying light upon them. It does not depreciate the
realities or nullify the obligations now upon us, but emphasizes
them, flinging their lights and shades forward through a mightier
vista. Consequently there is no reason for assailing the idea of
another life in behalf of the interests of this. Such an
opposition between the two states is entirely sophistical,
resulting from a profound misinterpretation of the truemoral
relations connecting them.

The belief in immortality has been mistakenly attacked, not merely
as hostile to our welfare on earth, but likewise as immoral in
itself, springing from essential selfishness, and in turn
nourishing selfishness and fatally tainting every thing with that
central vice. To desire to live everlastingly as an identical
individual, it has been said, is the ecstasy and culmination of
avaricious conceitedness. Man, the vain egotist, dives out of
sight in God to fish up the pearl of his darling self. He makes
his poor individuality the measure of all things, his selfish
desire the law of endless being. Such a rampant proclamation of
self will and enthronement of pure egotism, flying in the face of
the solemn and all submerging order of the universe, is the very
essence and climax of immorality and irreligiousness. To this
assault on the morality of the belief in a future life, whether
made in the devout tones of magnanimous sincerity, as by the
sublime Schleiermacher, or with the dishonest trickiness of a
vulgar declaimer for the rehabilitation of the senses, as by some
who might be named, several fair replies may be made. In the first
place, the objection begs the question, by assuming that the
doctrine is a falsehood, and that its disciples wilfully set up
their private wishes against the public truth. Such tremendous
postulates cannot be granted. It is seizing the victory before the
battle, grasping the conclusion without establishing the premises.
For, if there be a future life provided by the Creator, it cannot
be sinful or selfish in us to trust in it, to accept it with
humble gratitude, and to prepare our souls for it. That, instead
of being rebellious arrogance or overweening selfishness, would
simply be conforming our thoughts and plans, our desires and
labors, to the Divine arrangements. That would be both morality
and piety. When one clings by will to a doctrine known to be a
falsehood, obstinately suppressing reason to affirm it as a truth,
and, in obedience to his personal whims, trying to force all
things into conformity with it, he does act as a selfish egotist
in full violation of the moral law and the spirit of religion. But
a future life we believe to be a fact; and therefore we are, in
every respect, justified in gladly expecting it and consecratedly
living with reference to it.

Furthermore, admitting it to be an open question, neither proved
nor disproved, but poised in equal uncertainty, still, it is not
immoral nor undevout deeply to desire and fondly to hope a
personal immortality. "The aim of religion," it has been said, "is
the annihilation of one's own individuality, the living in the
All, the becoming one with the universe." But in such a definition
altogether too much is assumed. The aim of religion is only the
annihilation of the self will of the individual as opposed to the
Will of the Whole, not the losing of one's self in the unconscious
wastes of the universe, but the harmonizing of one's self with the
Supreme Law of the universe.

An humble, loving, and joyous conformity to the truth constitutes
morality and religion. This is not necessarily inconsistent with a
personal immortality. Besides, the charge may be retorted. To be
identified with the universe is a prouder thought than to be
subordinated to it as an infinitesimal individual. It is a far
haughtier conceit to fancy one's self an integral part of God's
substance than to believe one's self a worshipping pensioner of
God's will. The conception, too, is less native to the mind, has
been more curiously sought out, and is incomparably more pampering
to speculative luxury. If accusations of selfishness and
wilfulness are to be hurled upon any modes of preferred faith as
to our destiny, this self styled disinterested surrender of our
personality to the pantheistic Soul is as obnoxious to them as the
common belief.

If a desire for personal immortality be a normal experience in the
development of our nature, it cannot be indictable as an offence,
but must be recognised as an indication of God's design. Whether
the desire is a cold and degraded piece of egotism deserving
rebuke and contempt, or a lofty and sympathetic affection worthy
of reverence and approval, depends on no intrinsic ingredient of
the desire itself, but on the character in which it has its being.
One person will be a heartless tyrant, another a loving saint, in
his hope of a future life. Shall our love of the dead, our prayers
to meet them again, our unfathomed yearnings to know that they
still live and are happy, be stigmatized as mean and evil? Regard
for others as much as for ourselves prompts the eternal sigh. Nor
will Divinity ever condemn the feeling himself has awakened. It is
said that Xerxes, gazing once upon his gorgeous army of a million
men spread out below hire, sheathed in golden armor, white plumes
nodding, purple standards waving, martial horns blowing, wept as
he thought that in thirty years the entire host composing that
magnificent spectacle would be dead. To have gazed thoughtfully
upon such a sight with unmoved sensibilities would imply a much
more selfish and hard hearted egotist. So when a lonely
philanthropist from some meditative eminence looks down on the
human race, if, as the contemplation of their pathetic fading and
decay wounds his saddened heart, he heals and cheers it with the
faith of a glorious immortality for them all, who shall call him
selfish and sinful? To rest contented with the speedy night and
the infinite oblivion, wiping off all the unsolved sums from the
slate of existence with annihilation's remorseless sponge, that
would be the selfishness and the cruelty.

When that sweet asp, death, fastens on our vein of earthly life,
we all feel, like the dying queen of Egypt, that we have "immortal
longings" in us. Since the soul thus holds by a pertinacious
instinct to the eternity of her own existence, it is more rational
to conclude that this is a pledge of her indestructible
personality, God's impregnable defence reared around the citadel
of her being, than to consider it the artificial rampart flung up
by an insurgent egotism. In like manner, it is a misrepresentation
of the facts to assert the culpable selfishness of the faith in a
future life as a demanded reward for fidelity and merit here. No
one demands immortality as pay for acquired desert. It is modestly
looked for as a free boon from the God who freely gave the present
and who has by a thousand symbolic prophecies promised it. Richter
says, with great insight, "We desire immortality not as the reward
of virtue, but as its continuance. Virtue can no more be rewarded
than joy can: it is its own reward." Kant says, "Immortality has
been left so uncertain in order that pure freedom of choice, and
no selfish views, shall prompt our aspirations." "But," Jean Paul
keenly replies, "as we have now discovered this intention, its
object is defeated. Besides, if the belief in immortality makes
virtue selfish, the experience of it in the next world would make
it more so." The anticipation of heaven can hardly make man a
selfish calculator of profit; because heaven is no reward for
crafty reckoning, but the home of pure and holy souls. Virtue
which resists temptation and perseveres in rectitude because it
has a sharp eye to an ulterior result is not virtue. No credible
doctrine of a future life offers a prize except to those who are
just and devout and strenuous in sacred service from free loyalty
to the right and the good, spontaneously obeying and loving the
higher and better call because it divinely commands their
obedience and love. The law of duty is the superior claim of truth
and goodness. Virtue, yielding itself filially to this, finds in
heaven not remuneration, but a sublimer theatre and an immortal
career. Egotistic greed, all mere prudential considerations as
determining conditions or forces in the award, are excluded as
unclean and inadmissible by the very terms; and the doctrine
stands justified on every ground as pure and wholesome before the
holiest tribunal of ethics. Surely it is right that goodness
should be blessed; but when it continues good only for the sake of
being blessed it ceases to be goodness. It is not the belief in
immortality, but only the belief in a corrupt doctrine of
immortality which can poison the springs of disinterested virtue.

The morality of the doctrine of a future life having thus been
defended from the attacks of those who have sought to destroy it
in the fancied interests either of the enjoyments of the earth or
of the purity of virtue and religion, it now remains to free it
from the still more fatal supports which false or superficial
religionists have sought to give it by wrenching out of it
meanings it never held, by various perverse abuses of it, by
monstrous exaggerations of its moral importance to the present. We
have seen that the supposition of another life, correctly
interpreted, lays no new duty upon man, takes away from him no old
duty or privilege, but simply gives to the previously existing
facts of the case the intensifying glory and strength of fresh
light, motive, and consolation. But many public teachers, not
content to treat the subject with this sobriety of reason, instead
of presenting the careful conclusions of a conscientious analysis,
have sought to strengthen their argument to the feelings by help
of prodigious assumptions, assumptions hastily adopted, highly
colored, and authoritatively urged. Upon the hypothesis that
annihilation is the fate of man, they are not satisfied merely to
take away from the present all the additional light, incentive,
and comfort imparted by the faith in a future existence, but they
arbitrarily remove all the alleviations and glories intrinsically
belonging to the scene, and paint it in the most horrible hues,
and set it in a frame of midnight. Thus, instead of calmly seeking
to elicit and recommend truth, they strive, by terrifying the
fancy and shocking the prejudices, to make people accept their
dogma because frightened at the seeming consequences of rejecting
it. It is necessary to expose the fearful fallacies which have
been employed in this way, and which are yet extensively used for
the same purpose.

Even a Christian writer usually so judicious as Andrews Norton has
said, "Without the belief in personal immortality there can be no
religion; for what can any truths of religion concern the feelings
and the conduct of beings whose existence is limited to a few
years in this world?" 3 Such a statement from such a quarter is
astonishing. Surely the sentiments natural to a person or
incumbent upon him do not depend on the duration of his being, but
on the character, endowments, and relations of his being. The
hypothetical fact that man perishes with his body does not destroy
God, does not destroy man's dependence on God for all his
privileges, does not annihilate the overwhelming magnificence of
the universe, does not alter the native sovereignty of holiness,
does not quench our living reason, imagination, or sensibility,
while they last. The soul's gratitude, wonder, love, and worship
are just as right and instinctive as before. If our experience on
earth, before the phenomena of the visible creation and in
conscious communion with the emblemed attributes of God, does not
cause us to kneel in humility and to adore in awe, then it may be
doubted if heaven or hell will ever persuade us to any sincerity
in such acts. The simple prolongation of our being does not add to
its qualitative contents, cannot increase the kinds of our
capacity or the number of our duties. Chalmers utters an injurious
error in saying, as he does, "If there be no future life, the
moral constitution of man is stripped of its significancy, and the
Author of that constitution is stripped of his wisdom and
authority and honor." 4 The creative Sovereign of fifty million
firmaments of worlds "stripped of his wisdom and authority and
honor" because a few insects on a little speck are not eternal!
Can egotistic folly any further go? The affirmation or denial of
immortality neither adds to nor diminishes the numerical relations
and ingredients of our nature and experience. If religion is
fitted for us on the former supposition, it is also on the latter.
To any dependent intelligence blessed with our human susceptibilities,
reverential love and submission are as obligatory, natural, and
becoming on the brink of annihilation as on the verge of immortality.

Rebellious egotism makes all the difference. Truth is truth,
whatever it be. Religion is the meek submission of self will to
God's will. That is a duty not to be escaped, no matter what the
future reserves or excludes for us.

Another sophism almost universally accepted needs to be shown.
Man, it is said, has no interest in a future life if not conscious
in it of the past. If, on exchange of worlds, man loses his
memory, he virtually ceases to exist, and might just as well be
annihilated. A future life with perfect oblivion of the present is
no life at all for us. Is not this style of thought the most
provincial egotism, the utter absence of all generous thought and
sympathy unselfishly grasping the absolute boons of being? It is a
shallow error, too, even on the grounds of selfishness itself. In
any point of view the difference is diametric and immense between
a happy being in an eternal present, unconscious of the past, and
no being at all. Suppose a man thirty years of age were offered
his choice to die this moment, or to live fifty years longer of
unalloyed success and happiness, only with a complete
forgetfulness of all that has happened up to this moment. He would
not hesitate to grasp the gift, however much he regretted the
condition.

3 Tracts concerning Christianity, p. 307.

4 Bridgewater Treatise, part ii. ch. 10, sect. 15.


It has often been argued that with the denial of a retributive
life beyond the grave all restraints are taken off from the
passions, free course given to every impulse. Chateaubriand says,
bluntly, "There can be no morality if there be no future state." 5
With displeasing coarseness, and with most reprehensible
recklessness of reasoning, Luther says, in contradiction to the
essential nobleness of his loving, heroic nature, "If you believe
in no future life, I would not give a mushroom for your God. Do,
then, as you like. For if no God, so no devil, no hell: as with a
fallen tree, all is over when you die. Then plunge into lechery,
rascality, robbery, and murder." What bible of Moloch had he been
studying to form, for the time, so horrid a theory of the happiest
life, and to put so degrading an estimate upon human nature? Is
man's will a starved wolf only held back by the triple chain of
fear of death, Satan, and hell, from tearing forth with ravenous
bounds to flesh the fangs of his desires in bleeding virtue and
innocence? Does the greatest satisfaction man is capable of here,
the highest blessedness he can attain to, consist in drunkenness,
gluttony, dishonesty, violence, and impiety? If he had the
appetite of a tiger or a vulture, then, thus to wallow in the
offal of vice, dive into the carrion of sensuality, abandon
himself to revelling in carnivorous crime, might be his instinct
and his happiness. But by virtue of his humanity man loves his
fellows, enjoys the scenery of nature, takes delight in thought
and art, dilates with grand presentiments of glory and eternity,
mysteriously yearns after the hidden God. To a reasonable man and
no other is to be reasoned with on matters of truth and interest
the assumption of this brief season as all, will be a double
motive not to hasten and embitter its brevity by folly, excess,
and sin. If you are to be dead to morrow, for that very reason, in
God's name, do not, by gormandizing and guzzling, anticipate death
to day! The true restraint from wrong and degradation is not a
crouching conscience of superstition and selfishness, fancying a
chasm of fire, but a high toned conscience of reason and honor,
perceiving that they are wrong and degradation, and spontaneously
loathing them.

Still worse, many esteemed authors have not hesitated to assert
that unless there be a future life there is not only no check on
passion within, but no moral law without; every man is free to do
what he pleases, without blame or fault. Sir Kenelm Digby says, in
his "Treatise on Man's Soule," that "to predicate mortality in the
soule taketh away all morality, and changeth men into beastes, by
removing the ground of all difference in those thinges which are
to governe our actions." 6 This style of teaching is a very
mischievous absurdity. Admit, for a moment, that Jocko in the
woods of Brazil, and Schiller in the brilliant circles of Weimar,
will at last meet the same fate in the dusty grasp of death; yet,
while they live, one is an ape, the other is a man. And the
differences of capacity and of duty are numberless and immense.
The statement is enough: argument would be ridiculous. The words
of an audacious French preacher are yet more shocking than those
of the English nobleman. It is hard to believe they could be
uttered in good faith. Says Massillon, in his famous declamation
on immortality, "If we wholly perish with the body, the maxims of
charity, patience, justice, honor, gratitude, and friendship, are
but empty words. Our own passions shall decide our duty.

5 Genie du Christianisme, partie ii. livre vi. chap. 3.

6 Ch. ix. sect. 10.


If retribution terminate with the grave, morality is a mere
chimera, a bugbear of human invention." 7 What debauched
unbeliever ever inculcated a viler or a more fatal doctrine? Its
utter barelessness, as a single illustration may show, is obvious
at a glance. As the sciences of algebra and geometry, the
relations of numbers and bodies, are true for the material world
although they may be lost sight of when time and space are
transcended in some higher state, so the science of ethics, the
relations of nobler and baser, of right and wrong, the manifold
grades and qualities of actions and motives, are true for human
nature and experience in this life even if men perish in the
grave. However soon certain facts are to end, while they endure
they are as they are. In a moment of carelessness, by some strange
slip of the mind, showing, perhaps, how tenaciously rooted are the
common prejudice and falsehood on this subject,  even so bold and
fresh a thinker as Theodore Parker has contradicted his own
philosophy by declaring, "If to morrow I perish utterly, then my
fathers will be to me only as the ground out of which my bread
corn is grown. I shall care nothing for the generations of
mankind. I shall know no higher law than passion. Morality will
vanish." 8 Ah, man reveres his fathers and loves to act nobly, not
because he is to live forever, but because he is a man. And,
though all the summer hopes of escaping the grave were taken from
human life, choicest and tenderest virtues might still flourish,
as it is said the German crossbill pairs and broods in the dead of
winter. The martyr's sacrifice and the voluptuary's indulgence are
very different things to day, if they do both cease to morrow. No
speed of advancing destruction can equalize Agamemnon and
Thersites, Mansfield and Jeffries, or hustle together justice and
fraud, cowardice and valor, purity and corruption, so that they
will interchange qualities. There is an eternal and immutable
morality, as whiteness is white, and blackness is black, and
triangularity is triangular. And no severance of temporal ties or
compression of spatial limits can ever cut the condign bonds of
duty and annihilate the essential distinctions of good and evil,
magnanimity and meanness, faithfulness and treachery.

Reducing our destiny from endless to definite cannot alter the
inherent rightfulness and superiority of the claims of virtue. The
most it can do is to lessen the strength of the motive, to give
the great motor nerve of our moral life a perceptible stroke of
palsy. In reference to the question, Can ephemera have a moral
law? Richter reasons as follows: "Suppose a statue besouled for
two days. If on the first day you should shatter it, and thus rob
it of one day's life, would you be guilty of murder? One can
injure only an immortal." 9 The sophistry appears when we rectify
the conclusion thus: one can inflict an immortal injury only on an
immortal being. In fact, it would appear to be a greater wrong and
injury, for the time, to destroy one day's life of a man whose
entire existence was confined to two days, than it would be to
take away the same period from the bodily existence of one who
immediately thereupon passes into a more exalted and eternal life.
To the sufferer, the former would seem an immitigable calamity,
the latter a benign furtherance; while, in the agent, the overt
act is the same. This general moral problem has been more
accurately answered by Isaac Taylor, whose lucid statement is as
follows: "The creatures of a summer's day might be imagined, when

7 OEuvres Completes, tome xiii.: Immortalite de l'Ame.

8 Sermons of Theism, Sermon VII.

9 Werke, band xxxiii. s. 240.


they stand upon the threshold of their term of existence, to make
inquiry concerning the attributes of the Creator and the rules of
his government; for these are to be the law of their season of
life and the measure of their enjoyments. The sons of immortality
would put the same questions with an intensity the greater from
the greater stake."

Practically, the acknowledged authority of the moral law in human
society cannot be destroyed. Its influence may be unlimitedly
weakened, its basis variously altered, but as a confessed
sovereign principle it cannot be expelled. The denial of the
freedom of the will theoretically explodes it; but social custom,
law, and opinion will enforce it still. Make man a mere dissoluble
mixture of carbon and magnetism, yet so long as he can distinguish
right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate, and, unsophisticated
by dialectics, can follow either of opposite courses of action,
the moral law exists and exerts its sway.

It has been asked, "If the incendiary be, like the fire he kindles,
a result of material combinations, shall he not be treated in the
same way?" 10 We should reply thus: No matter what man springs
from or consists of, if he has moral ideas, performs moral
actions, and is susceptible of moral motives, then he is morally
responsible: for all practical and disciplinary purposes he is
wholly removed from the categories of physical science.

Another pernicious misrepresentation of the fair consequences of
the denial of a life hereafter is shown in the frequent
declaration that then there would be no motive to any thing good
and great. The incentives which animate men to strenuous services,
perilous virtues, disinterested enterprises, spiritual culture,
would cease to operate. The essential life of all moral motives
would be killed. This view is to be met by a broad and indignant
denial based on an appeal to human consciousness and to the reason
of the thing. Every man knows by experience that there are a
multitude of powerful motives, entirely disconnected with future
reward or punishment, causing him to resist evil and to do good
even with self sacrificing toil and danger. When the fireman risks
his life to save a child from the flames of a tumbling house, is
the hope of heaven his motive? When the soldier spurns an offered
bribe and will not betray his comrades nor desert his post, is the
fear of hell all that animates him? A million such decisive
specifications might be made. The renowned sentence of Cicero,
"Nemo unquam sine magna spe immortalitatis se pro patria offerret
ad mortem," 11 is effective eloquence; but it is a baseless libel
against humanity and the truth. In every moment of supreme
nobleness and sacrifice personality vanishes. Thousands of
patriots, philosophers, saints, have been glad to die for the
freedom of native land, the cause of truth, the welfare of fellow
men, without a taint of selfish reward touching their wills. Are
there not souls "To whom dishonor's shadow is a substance More
terrible than death here and hereafter"?

He must be the basest of men who would decline to do any sublime
act of virtue because he did not expect to enjoy the consequences
of it eternally. Is there no motive for the

10 Some discussion of this general subject is to be found in
Schaller, Leib nod Seele. kap. 5: Die Consequentzen des
Materialismus. And in Schopenhauer, Die beiden Grundprobleme der
Ethik.

11 Tuscul. Quast. lib. i. cap. 15.


preservation of health because it cannot be an everlasting
possession? Since we cannot eat sweet and wholesome food forever,
shall we therefore at once saturate our stomachs with nauseating
poisons?

If all experienced good and evil wholly terminate for us when we
die, still, every intrinsic reason which, on the supposition of
immortality, makes wisdom better than folly, industry better than
sloth, righteousness better than iniquity, benevolence and purity
better than hatred and corruption, also makes them equally
preferable while they last. Even if the philosopher and the idiot,
the religious philanthropist and the brutal pirate, did die alike,
who would not rather live like the sage and the saint than like
the fool and the felon? Shall heaven be held before man simply as
a piece of meat before a hungry dog to make him jump well? It is a
shocking perversion of the grandest doctrine of faith. Let the
theory of annihilation assume its direst phase, still, our
perception of principles, our consciousness of sentiments, our
sense of moral loyalty, are not dissolved, but will hold us firmly
to every noble duty until we ourselves flow into the dissolving
abyss. But some one may say, "If I have fought with beasts at
Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not?" It
advantageth you every thing until you are dead, although there be
nothing afterwards. As long as you live, is it not glory and
reward enough to have conquered the beasts at Ephesus? This is
sufficient reply to the unbelieving flouters at the moral law.
And, as an unanswerable refutation of the feeble whine of
sentimentality that without immortal endurance nothing is worth
our affection, let great Shakspeare advance, with his matchless
depth of bold insight reversing the conclusion, and pronouncing,
in tones of cordial solidity,

"This, thou perceivest, will make thy love more strong, To love
that well which thou must leave ere long."

What though Decay's shapeless hand extinguish us? Its foreflung
and enervating shadow shall neither transform us into devils nor
degrade us into beasts. That shadow indeed only falls in the
valleys of ignoble fear and selfishness, leaving all the clear
road lines of moral truth and practical virtue and heroic
consecration still high and bright on the table land of a worthy
life; and every honorable soul, calmly confronting its fate, will
cry, despite the worst, "The pathway of my duty lies in sunlight;
And I would tread it with as firm a step, Though it should
terminate in cold oblivion, As if Elysian pleasures at its
Close Gleam'd palpable to sight as things of earth."

If a captain knew that his ship would never reach her port, would
he therefore neglect his functions, be slovenly and careless,
permit insubordination and drunkenness among the crew, let the
broad pennon draggle in filthy rents, the cordage become tangled
and stiff, the planks be covered with dirt, and the guns be grimed
with rust? No: all generous hearts would condemn that. He would
keep every inch of the deck scoured, every piece of metal polished
like a mirror, the sails set full and clean, and, with shining
muzzles out, ropes hauled taut in their blocks, and every man at
his post, he would sweep towards the reef, and go down into the
sea firing a farewell salute of honor to the sun, his flag flying
above him as he sunk.

The dogmatic assertors of a future life, in a partisan spirit set
upon making out the most impressive case in its behalf, have been
guilty of painting frightful caricatures of the true nature and
significance of the opposite conclusion. Instead of saying, "If
such a thing be fated, why, then, it must be right, God's will be
done," they frantically rebel against any such admission, and
declare that it would make God a liar and a fiend, man a "magnetic
mockery," and life a hellish taunt. This, however unconscious it
may be to its authors, is blasphemous egotism. One of the
tenderest, devoutest, richest, writers of the century has
unflinchingly affirmed that if man who trusted that love was the
final law of creation, although nature, her claws and teeth red
with raven, shrieked against his creed be left to be blown about
the desert dust or sealed within the iron hills,

"No more! a monster, then, a dream,
A discord; dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with Him!"

Epictetus says, "When death overtakes me, it is enough if I can
stretch out my hands to God, and say, 'The opportunities which
thou hast given me of comprehending and following thy government,
I have not neglected. I thank thee that thou hast brought me into
being. I am satisfied with the time I have enjoyed the things thou
hast given me. Receive them again, and assign them to whatever
place thou wilt.'" 12 Surely the pious heathen here speaks more
worthily than the presumptuous Christian! How much fitter would it
be, granting that death is the end all, to revise our interpretation,
look at the subject from the stand point of universal order,
not from this opinionative narrowness, and see if it be not
susceptible of a benignant meaning, worthy of grateful acceptance
by the humble mind of piety and the dispassionate spirit of science!
Yea, let God and his providence stand justified, though man prove
to have been egregiously mistaken.

"Though He smite me, yet will I praise Him; though He slay me, yet
will I trust in Him."

To return into the state we were in before we were created is not
to suffer any evil: it is to be absolutely free from all evil. It
is but the more perfect playing of that part, of which every sound
sleep is a rehearsal. The thought of it is mournful to the
enjoying soul, but not terrific; and even the mournfulness ceases
in the realization. He uttered a piece of cruel madness who said,
"Hell is more bearable than nothingness." Is it worse to have
nothing than it is to have infinite torture? Milton asks,

"For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual
being?"

Every creature that exists, if full of pain, would snatch at the
boon of ceasing to be. To be blessed is a good; to be wretched is
an evil; not to be is neither a good nor an evil, but simply

12 Dissert., lib. iv. cap. x. sect. 2.


nothing. If such be our necessary fate, let us accept it with a
harmonized mind, not entertaining fear nor yielding to sadness.
Why should we shudder or grieve? Every time we slumber, we try on
the dress which, when we die, we shall wear easily forever.

Not satisfied to let the result rest in this somewhat sad but
peaceful aspect, it is quite customary to give it a turn and hue
of ghastly horribleness, by casting over it the dyspeptic dreams,
injecting it with the lurid lights and shades, of a morbid and
wilful fancy. The most loathsome and inexcusable instance in point
is the "Vision of Annihilation" depicted by the vermicular,
infested imagination of the great Teutonic phantasist while yet
writhing under the sanguinary fumes of some horrid attack of
nightmare. Stepping across the earth, which is but a broad
executioner's block for pale, stooping humanity, he enters the
larva world of blotted out men. The rotten chain of beings reaches
down into this slaughter field of souls. Here the dead are
pictured as eternally horripilating at death! "As annihilation,
the white shapelessness of revolting terror, passes by each
unsouled mask of a man, a tear gushes from the crumbled eye, as a
corpse bleeds when its murderer approaches." Pah! Out upon this
execrable retching of a nauseated fancy! What good is there in the
baseless conceit and gratuitous disgust of saying, "The next world
is in the grave, betwixt the teeth of the worm"? In the case
supposed, the truth is merely that there is no next world
anywhere; not that all the horrors of hell are scooped together
into the grave, and there multiplied by others direr yet and
unknown before. Man's blended duty and interest, in such a case,
are to try to see the interior beauty and essential kindness of
his fate, to adorn it and embrace it, fomenting his resignation
with the sweet lotions of faith and peace, not exasperating his
wounds with the angry pungents of suspicion, alarm, and complaint.
At the worst, amidst all our personal disappointments, losses, and
decay, "the view of the great universal whole of nature," as
Humboldt says, "is reassuring and consolatory." If the boon of a
future immortality be not ours, therefore to scorn the gift of the
present life, is to act not like a wise man, who with grateful
piety makes the best of what is given, but like a spoiled child,
who, if he cannot have both his orange and his gingerbread,
pettishly flings his gingerbread in the mud.

The future life, outside of the realm of faith, to an earnest and
independent inquirer, and considered as a scientific question,
lies in a painted mist of uncertainty. There is room for hope, and
there is room for doubt. The wavering evidences in some moods
preponderate on that side, in other moods on this side. Meanwhile
it is clear that, while he lives here, the best thing he can do is
to cherish a devout spirit, cultivate a noble character, lead a
pure and useful life in the service of wisdom, humanity, and God,
and finally, when the appointed time arrives, meet the issue with
reverential and affectionate conformity, without dictating terms.
Let the vanishing man say, like Ruckert's dying flower, "Thanks to
day for all the favors I have received from sun and stream and
earth and sky, for all the gifts from men and God which have made
my little life an ornament and a bliss. Heaven, stretch out thine
azure tent while my faded one is sinking here. Joyous spring tide,
roll on through ages yet to come, in which fresh generations shall
rise and be glad. Farewell all! Content to have had my turn, I now
fall asleep, without a murmur or a sigh." Surely the mournful
nobility of such a strain of sentiment is preferable by much to
the selfish terror of that unquestioning belief which in the
Middle Age depicted the chase of the soul by Satan, on the columns
and doors of the churches, under the symbol of a deer pursued by a
hunter and hounds; and which has in later times produced in
thousands the feeling thus terribly expressed by Bunyan, "I
blessed the condition of the dog and toad because they had no soul
to perish under the everlasting weight of hell!"

Sight of truth, with devout and loving submission to it, is an
achievement whose nobleness outweighs its sorrow, even if the
gazer foresee his own destruction.

It is not our intention in these words to cast doubt on the
immortality of the soul, or to depreciate the value of a belief in
it. We desire to vindicate morality and religion from the
unwitting attacks made on them by many self styled Christian
writers in their exaggeration of the practical importance of such
a faith. The qualitative contents of human nature have nothing to
do with its quantitative contents: our duties rest not on the
length, but on the faculties and relations, of our existence. Make
the life of a dog endless, he has only the capacity of a dog; make
the life of a man finite, still, within its limits, he has the
psychological functions of humanity. Faith in immortality may
enlarge and intensify the motives to prudent and noble conduct; it
does not create new ones. The denial of immortality may pale and
contract those motives; it does not take them away.

Knowing the burden and sorrow of earth, brooding in dim solicitude
over the far times and men yet to be, we cannot recklessly utter a
word calculated to lessen the hopes of man, pathetic creature, who
weeps into the world and faints out of it. It is our faith not
knowledge that the spirit is without terminus or rest. The
faithful truth hunter, in dying, finds not a covert, but a better
trail. Yet the saintliness of the intellect is to be purged from
prejudice and self will. With God we are not to prescribe
conditions. The thought that all high virtue and piety must die
with the abandonment of belief in immortality is as pernicious and
dangerous as it is shallow, vulgar, and unchristian. The view is
obviously gaining prevalence among scientific and philosophical
thinkers, that life is the specialization of the universal in the
individual, death the restoration of the individual to the whole.
This doubt as to a personal future life will unquestionably
increase. Let traditional teachers beware how they venture to
shift the moral law from its immutable basis in the will of God to
a precarious poise on the selfish hope and fear of man. The sole
safety, the ultimate desideratum, is perception of law with
disinterested conformity.

The influence of the doctrine of reward and punishment in a future
state, as a working motive for the observance of the moral law, is
enormously overestimated. The influence, as such a motive, of the
public opinion of mankind, with the legal and social sanctions, is
enormously underestimated. And the authority of a personal
perception of right is also most unbecomingly depreciated.
UNIVERSAL ORDER is the expression of the purposes of God, not as
arbitrarily chosen by his will and capriciously revealed in a
book, but as necessitated by his nature and embodied in his works.
The true basis of morality is universal order. The true end of
morality is life, the sum of moral laws being identical with the
sum of the conditions in accordance with which the fruition of the
functions of life can be secured with nearest approach to
perfectness, perpetuity, and universality. The true sanctions of
morality are the manifold forms in which consciousness of life is
heightened by harmony with universal order or lowered by discord
with it. The true law of moral sacrifice or resistance to
temptation is misrepresented by the common doctrine of heaven and
hell, which makes it consist in the renunciation of a present good
for the clutching of a future good, the voluntary suffering of a
small present evil to avoid the involuntary suffering of an
immense future evil. The true law of moral sacrifice is deeper,
purer, more comprehensive, than that. It expresses our duty, in
accordance with the requirements of universal order, to
subordinate the gratification of any part of our being to that of
the whole of our being, to forego the good of any portion of our
life in deference to that of all our life, to renounce any
happiness of the individual which conflicts with the welfare of
the race, to hold the spiritual atom in absolute abeyance to the
spiritual universe, to sink self in God. If a man believe in no
future life, is he thereby absolved from the moral law? The kind
and number of his duties remain as before: only the apparent
grandeur of their scale and motives is diminished. The two halves
of morality are the co ordination of separate interests in
universal order, and the loyalty of the parts to the wholes. The
desire to remove the obligations and sanctions of the moral law
from their intrinsic supports, and posit them on the fictitious
pedestals of a forensic heaven and hell, reveals incompetency of
thought and vulgarity of sentiment in him who does it, and is a
procedure not less perilous than unwarranted. If the creation be
conceived as a machine, it is a machine self regulating in all its
parts by the immanent presence of its Maker.

When we die, may the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter of Christ, be
our confessor; the last inhaled breath our cup of absolution; the
tears of some dear friend our extreme unction; no complaint for
past trials, but a grateful acknowledgment for all blessings, our
parting word. And then, resigning ourselves to the universal
Father, assured that whatever ought to be, and is best to be, will
be, either absolute oblivion shall be welcome, or we will go
forward to new destinies, whether with preserved identity or with
transformed consciousness and powers being indifferent to us,
since the will of God is done. In the mean time, until that
critical pass and all decisive hour, as Milnes says:

"We all must patient stand, Like statues on appointed pedestals:
Yet we may choose since choice is given to shun Servile
contentment or ignoble fear In the expression of our attitude; And
with far straining eyes, and hands upcast, And feet half raised,
declare our painful state, Yearning for wings to reach the fields
of truth, Mourning for wisdom, panting to be free."

PART SIXTH SUPPLEMENTARY.

[FIFTEEN YEARS LATER]

CHAPTER I.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

WE read in the New Testament that the heavens and the earth are
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, when they shall be
burned up, and all be made new. It is said that the elements shall
melt with ferment heat, the stars fall, and the sky pass away like
a scroll that is rolled together. On these and similar passages is
based the belief of Christendom in the destined destruction of the
world by fire and in the scenic judgment of the dead and the
living gathered before the visible tribunal of Christ. This belief
was once general and intense. It is still common, though more
vague and feeble than formerly. In whatever degree it is held, it
is a doctrine of terror. We hope by tracing its origin, and
showing how mistaken it is, to help dispel its sway, free men from
the further oppression of its fearfulness, and put in its place
the just and wholesome authority of the truth. The true doctrine
of the divine government of the world, the correct explanation of
the course and sequel of history, must be more honorable to God,
more useful to men, of better working and omen in the life of
society, than any error can be. Let us then, as far as we are
able, displace by the truth the errors prevalent around us in
regard to the end of the world and the day of judgment.

It will help us in our proposed investigation, if we first notice
that the ecclesiastical doctrine as to an impending destruction of
the world is not solitary, but has prototypes and parallels in the
faiths of other nations and ages. Almost every people, every
tribe, has its cosmogony or theory of the creation, in which there
are accounts, more or less rude or refined, general or minute, of
the supposed beginning and of the imagined end of nature. All
early literatures from the philosophic treatises of the Hindus to
the oral traditions of the Polynesians are found to contain either
sublime dreams or obscure prophecies or awful pictures of the
final doom and destruction of earth and man. The Hebrew symbols
and the Christian beliefs in relation to this subject therefore
stand not alone, but in connection with a multitude of others,
each one plainly reflecting the degree of knowledge and stage of
development attained by the minds which originated it. Before
proceeding to examine the familiar doctrine so enveloped in our
prejudices, a brief examination of some kindred doctrines, less
familiar to us and quite detached from our prejudices, will be of
service.

The sacred books of the Hindus describe certain enormous periods
of time in which the universe successively begins and ends,
springs into being and sinks into nothing. These periods are
called kalpas, and each one covers a duration of thousands of
millions of years. Each kalpa of creation is called a day of
Brahma; each kalpa of destruction, a night of Brahma. The belief
is that Brahma, waking from the slumber of his self absorbed
solitude, feels his loneliness, and his thoughts and emotions go
forth in creative forms, composing the immense scheme of worlds
and creatures. These play their parts, and run their courses,
until the vast day of Brahma is completed; when he closes his
eyes, and falls to rest, while the whole system of finite things
returns to the silence and darkness of its aboriginal unity, and
remains there in invisible annihilation through the stupendous
night that precedes the reawaking of the slumbering Godhead and
the appearance of the creation once more.

A little reflection makes the origin of this imagery and belief
clear. Each night, as the darkness comes down, and the outer world
disappears, man falls asleep, and, so far as he is consciously
concerned, every thing is destroyed. In his unconsciousness,
everything ceases to be. The light dawns again, he awakes, and his
reopened senses create anew the busy frame and phenomena of
nature. Transfer this experience from man to God; consider it not
as abstract and apparent, but as concrete and real, and you have
the Hindu doctrine of the kalpa. When we sleep, to us all things
are destroyed; and when we awake, to us they reappear. When God
sleeps, all things in themselves really end; and when he wakes,
they begin anew to be. The visible and experimental phenomena of
day and night, sleeping and waking, are universalized, and
attributed to God, It is a poetic process of thought, natural
enough to a rich minded, simple people, but wholly illegitimate as
a logical ground of belief, But being stated in books supposed to
be infallibly inspired, and in the absence of critical tests for
the discrimination of sound from unsound thought, it was
implicitly accepted by multitudes.

Closely allied to the foregoing doctrine, yet in several
particulars strikingly different from it, and evidently quite
independent in its origin, was the Great Year of the Stoics, or
the alternative blotting out and restoration of all things. This
school of philosophers conceived of God as a pure artistic force
or seed of universal energy, which exhibits its history in the
evolution of the kosmos, and, on its completion, blossoms into
fire, and vanishes. The universal periodical conflagration
destroys all evil, and leaves the indestructible God alone in his
pure essence again. The artistic germ or seed force then begins,
under its laws of intrinsic necessity, to go once more through the
same process to the same end.

The rise of this imagery and belief is not so obvious as in the
last instance, but it is equally discoverable and intelligible.
Every animal, every flower, every plant, begins from its proper
specific germ or force, goes through a fixed series of growths and
changes, and relapses into its prime elements, and another and
another follow after it in the same order. The seasons come and
go, and come again and go again, Every planet repeats its
revolutions over and over. Wherever we look, this repetition of
identical processes greets our vision. Now, by imaginative
association universalize this repetition of the course of
phenomena as seen in the parts, and take it up and apply it to the
whole creation, and you have the doctrine in hand.

It is a poetic process of thought not scientific or philosophic,
and without claim to belief; yet, in the absence of scientific
data and standards, it might easily win acceptance on authority.

The Scandinavians, also, have transmitted to us, in their sacred
books, descriptions of their belief in the approaching end of the
world, descriptions rude, wild, terrible, not without elements of
appalling grandeur. They foretell a day called Ragnarok, or the
Twilight of the gods, when all the powers of good and evil shall
join in battle, and the whole present system of things perish in a
scene of unutterable strife and dismay. The Eddas were composed in
an ignorant but deeply poetic and fertile age, when all the
mythological elements of mind were in full action. Their authors
looking within, on their own passions, and without, on the natural
scenery around them, conscious of order and disorder, love and
hate, virtue and crime, beholding phenomena of beauty and horror,
sun and stars, night and tempest, winter and summer, icebergs and
volcanoes, placid moonlight and blinding mist, assisting friends
and battling foes, personified everything as a demon or a
divinity. Asgard, above the blue firmament, was the bright home of
the gods, the Asir. Helheim, beneath the rocky earth and the
frozen ocean, was the dark and foul abode of the bad spirits, the
Jotuns. Everywhere in nature, fog and fire, fertility and
barrenness, were in conflict; everywhere in society, law and crime
were contending. In the moon followed by a drifting cloud, they
saw a goddess chased by a wolf. The strife goes on waxing, and
must sooner or later reach a climax. Each side enlists its allies,
until all are ranged in opposition, from Jormungandur, the serpent
of the deep, to Heindall, the warder of the rainbow, gods and
brave men there, demons, traitors, and cowards here. Then sounds
the horn of battle, and the last day dawns in fire and splendor
from the sky, in fog and venom from the abyss. Flame devours the
earth. For the most part, the combatants mutually slay each other.
Only Gimli, the high, safe heaven of All Father, remains as a
refuge for the survivors and the beginning of a new and fairer
world.

The natural history of this mythological mess is clear enough. It
arises from the poetic embodiment and personification of
phenomena, the grouping together of all evil and of all good, then
imaginatively universalizing the conflict, and carrying it out in
idea to its inevitable ultimatum. The process of thought was
obviously natural in its ground, but fictitious in its result. Yet
in a period when no sharp distinction was drawn between fancy and
fact, song and science, but an indiscriminate faith was often
yielded to both, even such a picturesque medley as this might be
held as religious truth.

The Zarathustrian or Persian scheme of a general judgment of men
and of the world in some respects resembles the systems already
set forth, in other respects more closely approaches that
Christian doctrine partially borrowed from it, and which is
hereafter to be noticed. Ahura Mazda, the God of light and truth,
creates the world full of all sorts of blessings. His adversary,
Angra Mainyus, the author of darkness and falsehood, seeks to
counteract and destroy the works of Ahura Mazda by means of all
sorts of correspondent evils and woes. When Ahura Mazda creates
the race of men happy and immortal, Angra Mainyus, the old serpent,
full of corruption and destruction, steals in, seduces them from
their allegiance, and brings misery and death on them, and then
leads their souls to his dark abode. The whole creation is
supposed to be crowded with good spirits, the angels of Ahura
Mazda,

seeking to carry out his beneficent designs; and also with evil
spirits, the ministers of Angra Mainyus, plotting to make men
wicked, and to pervert and poison every blessing with an answering
curse. Light is the symbol of God, darkness the symbol of his
Antagonist. Under these hostile banners are ranged all living
creatures, all created objects. For long periods this dreadful
contention rages, involving everything below in its fluctuations.
But at last Ahura Mazda subdues Angra Mainyus, overturns all the
mischief he has done, by means of a great deliverer whom he has
sent among men to instruct and redeem them raises the dead,
purifies the world with fire, and, after properly punishing the
guilty, restores all nature to its original paradisal condition,
free from pain and death.

In the primitive state of mankind, when the germs of this religion
were conceived, when men dwelt in ignorance, exposure, and fear,
they naturally shuddered at darkness as a supernatural enemy, and
worshipped light as a supernatural friend. That became the emblem
or personification of the Devil, this the emblem or personification
of God. They grouped all evils with that, all goods with this.

Imaginatively associating all light and darkness, all blessing
and bale, respectively with Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyus,
they universalized the fragmentary embodiments and oppositions
of these into one great battle; and under the impulse of
worshipping faith and hope, carried it to its crisis in the
final victory of the good. Plainly, it is mere poetry injected a
little with a later speculative element, and dealing in
mythological fashion chiefly with the phenomena of nature as
related to the experience of man. No one now can accept it
literally.

This survey of the various heathen myths of the end of the world
has prepared us, in some degree, to consider the corresponding
view held by the Jews, and more completely developed by the
Christian successors to the Jewish heritage of thought and
feeling.

The Hebrews believed themselves to be exclusively the chosen
people of God, who directly ruled over them himself by a
theocratic government represented in their patriarchs, law givers,
prophets, and kings. Jehovah was the only true God; they were his
only pure and accepted worshippers, sharply distinguished from the
whole idolatrous world. The heathen nations, uncircumcised
adorers of vain idols or of demons, were by consequence enemies
both of the true God and of his servants. This contrast and
hostility they even carried over into the unseen world, and
imagined that each nation had its own guardian angel in the Court
of Jehovah in heaven, who contended there for its interests; their
own national guardian, the angel Michael, being more powerful and
nearer to the throne than any other one. In the calamities that
fell on them, they recognized the vengeance of Jehovah for the
violation of his commands. In their victories, their deliverances,
their great blessings, especially in their rescue from Egypt, and
in the many miracles which they believed to have accompanied that
great passage, they saw the signal superiority of their God over
every other god, and the proofs of his particular providence over
them in distinct preference to all other peoples. He had, as they
piously believed, made a special covenant with Abraham, and set
apart his posterity as a sacred family, exclusively intrusted with
the divine law, and commissioned to subdue and govern all the
other families of the earth. When this proud and intensely
cherished faith was baffled of fulfillment, they never dreamed of
abandoning it.

They only supposed its triumphant execution postponed, as a
penalty for their sins, and looked forward with redoubled ardor to
a better time when their hopes should break into fruition, their
exile be ended, their captivity appear as a dream, Jerusalem be
the central gem of the world, and the anointed ruler wield his
sceptre over all mankind.

But misfortunes and woes were heaped on them. Their city was
sacked, their temple desecrated, their people dragged into foreign
slavery, forbidden to celebrate the rites of their religion,
slaughtered by wholesale. Many times, during the two centuries
before and the first century after Christ, did they suffer these
terrible sorrows. Their hatred and scorn of their heathen
persecutors; their faith in their own incomparable destiny; their
expectation of the speedy appearance of an anointed deliverer,
raised up by Jehovah to avenge them and vindicate their trust, all
became the more fervent and profound the longer the delay. Under
these circumstances grew up the Jewish doctrine of the Messiah, as
it is seen in that Apocalyptic literature represented by the Book
of Daniel, the Sibylline Oracles, the Book of Enoch, the
Assumption of Moses, the Fourth Book of Esdras, and similar
documents.

The Jews were remarkably free from that habit of mind which led
almost all the other nations to personify the most startling
phenomena of nature as living beings, which created fetiches of
stocks and stones and animals; saw a god in every wind, season,
star, and cloud. The Semitic mind and literature were more sober,
rational, and monotheistic. The place occupied in the thoughts of
other peoples by the phenomena of nature was held in the thoughts
of the Jews by political phenomena, by ritual, legal, and military
relations. And the poetic action of fancy, the mythological
creativeness and superstitious feeling which other people
exercised on the objects and changes of nature, the Jews exercised
on the phenomena of their own national history. The burning
central point of their polity and belief and imagination was the
conviction of their own national consecration as the exclusive
people of God, meant to conquer, teach, and rule all the infidel
nations; that Jehovah was literally their invisible King,
represented in their chief ruler; that every great triumph or
disaster was a signal Day of the Lord, a special Coming of Jehovah
to reward or punish his people. During their repeated bondages
under the Persians, Syrians, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, their
feeling of the antagonism between themselves and the other people
increased. From the time of the Babylonish captivity the Persian
doctrine of good and evil spirits had infiltrated into their
belief; and they adopted the notion of Angra Mainyus, and
developed it (with certain modifications) into their conception of
Satan. Then, in their faith, the war of Jews and Gentiles spread
into the invisible world, and took up on its opposite sides the
good and the fallen angels. And, finally, the idea of their
Messiah became the centre of a battle and a judgment in which all
the generations of the dead as well as of the living were to have
a part; and which should culminate in the overthrow of evil, the
subjection of the heathen, the assignment of the righteous to a
paradisal reign, and of the wicked to a doom typified by the
submersion of Sodom and Gomorrah in fiery brimstone.

How plainly this doctrine was the result of the same poetic
process of thought with the other schemes already depicted! Only
they were developed on the basis of natural phenomena; this, on
the basis of political phenomena. It is simply the imaginative
universalization of the struggle between Jew and Gentile, and the
carrying of it to its crisis and sequel. And when inexplicable
delays and the accumulation of obstacles made the realization of
the expected result amidst the conditions of the present world
seem ever more and more hopeless, the growing and assimilative
action of faith and fancy expanded the scene, and transferred it
to a transmundane state, involving the destruction of the heavens
and earth and their replacement with a new creation.

Is there any more real reason for believing this doctrine than
there is for believing the other kindred schemes? Not a whit. It
is a mistake of the same poetic nature, and resting on the same
grounds with them. Two thousand years have passed, and it has not
been fulfilled; and there is ever less and less sign of its
fulfillment. It never will be fulfilled, except in a spiritual
sense. The Jews will finally lose their pride of race and
covenant, abandon their special Messianic creed, and blend
themselves and their opinions in the mass of redeemed and
progressive humanity, and no more dream of a physical resurrection
of the dead amidst the dissolving elements of nature.

And now we must notice that besides all these poetic pictures of
the end of the world, there are prophecies of a similar result
which wear an apparently scientific garb. Many men of science
firmly believe that our world is destined to be destroyed, that a
close for the earthly fortunes of mankind can be plainly foreseen.
No little alarm was felt a century or more ago, when it was
discovered that there was a progressive diminution going on in the
orbit of the moon, which must cause it at length to impinge upon
the earth. But La Grange exhibited the fallaciousness of the
prophecy, by showing that the decrease was periodical and
succeeded by a corresponding increase. Intense and widely spread
terror has repeatedly been felt less a comet should come within
our planetary orbit, and shatter or melt our globe by its contact.
But the discovery of the nebulous nature of comets, of their great
numbers and regular movements, has quite dissipated that fear from
the popular mind in our day.

There are, however, other forms of scientific speculation which
put the prophesied destruction of the world on a more plausible
and formidable basis. It is supposed by many scientists that all
force is derived from the consumption of heat; and that the fuel
must at last be used up, and therefore no life or energy be left
for sustaining the present system of the creation. This theory is
met by the counter statement that the heat of the sun and other
similar centres may possibly not depend on any material
consumption; or, if it does, there may be a self replenishing
supply, loss and repair forming an endless circle.

It is foretold by some chemists, that the progressive interior
cooling and contraction of our orb will cause ever greater
interstices or vacant spaces among the solid substances below the
outer crust; and that into these pores, first all liquids, then
all gases and the whole atmosphere, will be absorbed: so that the
world will be left desolate, utterly uninhabitable by life.

Again: it is said that all force or energy tends at every
transformation to pass (at least partially) into heat; and
therefore that, finally, all force will be frittered down into the
one form of heat, all matter vanishing from its separate shapes
into the state of a homogeneous, nebulous fire. The portentous
sight, repeatedly descried by astronomers, of a nameless world,
away in remotest space, which has suddenly kindled, blazed,
smouldered, darkened, and vanished forever from its place, is
perhaps a solemn symbol of the fate of our own planet; hinting at
a time when the earth, too, shall make itself a funeral pyre,

And, awed in distant orbs, some race unknown Shall miss one star
whose smile had lit their own.

This same final crisis is also prophesied on the basis of a slight
retardation to which the planets are subjected in their passage
through the ethereal medium. No matter how slight the resistance
thus interposed, its consequence, it is thought, must accumulate
and ultimately compel all material bodies to approach each other;
and, as their successive collisions convert them into heat and
vapor, nothing will be left at last but one uniform nebula. The
process of evolution will then begin anew, and so the stupendous
history of the universe repeat itself eternally.

This is the sublimest of all the generalizations of science. It
may be true, and it may not be true. At any rate, it differs
immensely in the moral impression it makes from that made by the
current theological doctrine of the same catastrophe. We can
contemplate the scientific prophecy of the end of the world with a
peace of mind which the traditional prophecy does not permit.

In the first place, the ecclesiastical doctrine makes the
destruction of the world a result of wrath and vengeance. The
angry God looms above us with flaming features and avenging
weapons to tread down his enemies. We shrink in fright from the
wrath and power of the personal Judge, the inexorable Foe of the
wicked. But the scientific doctrine makes the end a result of
passionless laws, a steady evolution of effects from causes,
wholly free from everything vindictive.

Secondly. The ecclesiastical doctrine makes the dreadful
conclusion a sudden event, an inconceivable shock of horror,
falling in an instant, overwhelming all its victims with the
swiftness of lightning in the unutterable agony of their ruin. But
the scientific doctrine makes the climax a matter of slow and
gradual approach. Whether the worlds are to be frozen up by
increasing cold, or to evaporate in culminating heat, or to be
converted into gas as they meet in their career, the changes of
the chemical conditions will be so steady and moderate beforehand
as to cause all living creatures to have diminished in numbers by
insensible degrees, and to have utterly ceased long before the
final shock arrives.

Thirdly. The ecclesiastical doctrine makes the sequel imminent,
near, ready to fall at a moment's warning. At any hour the signal
may strike. Thus it is to the earnest believer a constant, urgent
alarm, close at hand. But the scientific doctrine depicts the
close as almost unimaginably remote. All the data in the hands of
our scientists lead their calculations as to the nearest probable
end to land them in an epoch so far off as to be stated only in
thousands of millions of years. Thus the picture is so distant as
to be virtually enfeebled into nothing. We cannot, even by the
most vivid imagination, bring it home closely enough to make it
real and effective on our plans.

And, finally, the theological dogma of the destruction of the
world professes to be an infallible certainty. The believer holds
that he absolutely knows it by a revelation of supernatural
authority. But with the scientist such a belief is held as merely
a probability. A billion of centuries hence the world may perhaps
come to an end; and, on the other hand, the phenomena which lead
to such a belief may yet be explained as implying no such result.
And these two issues, so far as our social or ideal experience is
concerned, are virtually the same.

A brilliant French writer has suggested that even if the natural
course of evolution does of itself necessitate the final
destruction of the world, yet our race, judging from the
magnificent achievements of science and art already reached, may,
within ten thousand centuries, which will be long before the
foreseen end approaches, obtain such a knowledge and control of
the forces of nature as to make collective humanity master of this
planet, able to shape and guide its destinies, ward off every
fatal crisis, and perfect and immortalize the system as now
sustained. It is an audacious fancy. But like many other
incredible conceptions which have forerun their own still more
incredible fulfillment, the very thought electrifies us with hope
and courage.

And thus the conclusion in which we rest at the close of our
investigation is the belief that the world is to last, and our
race to flourish on it virtually forever. This conclusion is
equally a relief from the frightful burdens of superstition, and a
consolation for our own personal evanescence. The stable harmony
of natural beauty and beneficence, amidst which we individually
play our brief part and vanish, shall stand fast, blooming with
fresh growths, and shining with fadeless light, and the successive
generations of our dear fellow men shall grow ever wiser and
happier, beyond the reach of our farthest vision into the future.
And if we recognize in the great catastrophic myths and previsions
of the poets and scientists the fundamental truth that the things
which are seen are temporal, while the things alone which are
unseen are eternal, the end being a regular and remote sequel in
the creative plan of God, free from anger, retributive
disappointment, or cruelty will not alarm us. For if souls are
substantial entities, and not mere phenomenal processes, they will
survive the universal crisis, and either at the lucid goals of
their perfected destiny rejoice forever in a reflected individual
fruition of the attributes of God, or else start refreshed on a
new career with that redistribution of the cosmic matter and
motion which in its gigantic and eternal rhythm of development and
dissolution the ancient Hindu mind figured as the respiration of
Brahm and which ambitious science now generalizes as the law of
evolution.

CHAPTER II.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

JUDAISM so largely supplied the circumstantial and doctrinal germs
out of which dogmatic Christianity grew, that we cannot thoroughly
understand the Christian belief in a final day of judgment, unless
we first notice the historic and literary derivation of that
belief from Judaism, and then trace its development in the new
conditions through which it passed. The personal character,
teachings, life, and death of Jesus Christ, together with his
subsequent resurrection and career in the consciousness of
ecclesiastical Christendom, constituted the crystalizing centre
which, dipped in the inherited solution of ideal and social
materials furnished by the Church, has gathered around it the
accretion of faith and dogma composing the theoretic Christianity
of the present day. To follow this process with reference to the
particular tenet before us, analyze it, discriminate the
appropriate in it from the inappropriate, the true from the false,
maybe difficult; but it is necessary for a satisfactory
conclusion. To this task let us therefore now address ourselves,
putting away all bias and prejudice, invoking in equal degree
candor, fearlessness and charity.

The Jews believed themselves to be a people chosen out of all the
world as the exclusive favorites of God. By the covenant of
Abraham, and the code of Moses, Jehovah had entered, as they
thought, into a special contract with them to be their peculiar
God, Guardian, and Ruler. In contrast with the depraved habits and
idolatrous rites of the heathen nations, the Israelites were
strictly to keep the moral law, and, at the same time, to pay a
pure worship to Jehovah through the scrupulous observance of their
ceremonial law. The bond of race and family descent from Abraham,
the practice of circumcision, and the ceremonies of the Mosaic
ritual, sealed them as accepted members of this divine covenant.
So long as they were true to the duties involved in this relation,
Jehovah would watch over them, defend them from their enemies, set
them proudly above the alien Gentiles, and crown them with every
spiritual and temporal blessing. The noblest representatives of
the people believed this with unparalleled thoroughness and
intensity. They looked down on the uncircumcised nations as wicked
idolaters, destined to be their servants until they should be
adopted into the same covenant by becoming proselytes to their
faith. Jehovah was literally their direct, though invisible, King,
Law giver, and Judge, palpably rewarding their fidelity by overt
temporal blessings, punishing their dereliction by awful temporal
calamities and sufferings.

Every signal instance of his providential intervention in their
affairs they called a Day of the Lord, a Coming of Jehovah, a
Judgment from heaven. Thus the prophet Joel foretells the
vengeance which God would take on Tyre and Sidon and Philistia,
because they had assailed and scattered his people. "Behold the
day of Jehovah cometh, the great and terrible day. And I will show
wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and
pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the
moon into blood. Then whosoever calleth on the name of Jehovah
shall be delivered: for upon Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be
deliverance. I will contend with the Gentiles for my people, and
will bring back the captives.

The multitudes, the multitudes in the valley of judgment: for the
day of Jehovah is near in the valley of judgment." In a similar
strain Isaiah prophesies against Edom: "Draw near, O ye nations,
and hear! For the wrath of Jehovah is kindled against the nations,
and he hath given up their armies to slaughter. The stench of
their carcasses shall ascend, and the mountains shall melt with
their blood. And all the hosts of heaven shall melt away; and all
their host shall fall down, as the blighted fruit from the fig
tree. For my sword shall rush drunk from heaven: behold, upon Edom
shall it descend. For it is a day of vengeance from Jehovah. Her
streams shall be turned into pitch, and her dust into brimstone,
and her whole land shall become burning pitch. It shall lie waste
forever, and none shall pass through it. The pelican and the
hedgehog shall possess it; the heron and the raven shall dwell in
it."

Tremendous and appalling as this imagery is, it is obvious that
the whole meaning of it is earthly and temporal, a local judgment
of Jehovah in vindication of his people against the heathen. And
kindred judgments are threatened against his own people when they
lapse into wickedness and idolatry. "Thus saith the Lord, Behold,
I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and
turning it upside down." "Jehovah appeareth as a hostile witness,
the Lord from his holy place. Behold, Jehovah cometh forth from
his dwelling place, and advanceth on the high places of the earth.
The mountains melt under him, and the valleys cleave asunder like
wax before the fire. For the sin of the house of Israel is all
this."

Thus the earliest meaning of the phrase, Day of the Lord, or Day
of Judgment, according to Biblical usage, was the occurrence of
any severe calamity, either to the Jews, as a punishment for their
apostasy; or to the Gentiles, as a punishment for their
wickedness, or for their violent encroachment on the rights of the
chosen people. These visitations of military disaster or political
subjection, though purely local and temporal, are depicted in the
most terrific images, such as flaming brimstone, falling stars,
heaven and earth dissolving in darkness, blood, and fire. Ezekiel,
alluding to the barbarous invasion headed by Prince Gog,
represents Jehovah as declaring, "I will contend against him, and
will rain fire and brimstone upon him and his hosts. Thus will I
show myself in my greatness and glory before the eyes of many
nations, and they shall know that I am Jehovah." The highly
figurative character of this imagery must be apparent to every
candid critic.

For example, in the following passage from Zechariah, no one will
suppose for a moment that it is meant that Jehovah will appear
visibly in person and reign in Jerusalem, but only that his
promise shall be fulfilled, and his law shall prevail there in the
triumphant establishment of his chosen people: "Behold the day of
Jehovah cometh, when I will gather all nations to battle against
Jerusalem; and the city shall be taken. Then shall Jehovah go
forth, and fight against those nations. And his feet shall stand
in that day upon the Mount of Olives. And Jehovah shall be king
over all the earth. And it shall be that whoso of all the families
of the earth will not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King,
Jehovah of hosts, upon them shall be no rain."

When the prophets burst out in the lyric metaphors, "Jehovah will
roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem;" "Egypt shall
be a waste and Edom a wilderness for their violence to the sons of
Judah; but Jerusalem shall be inhabited forever, and Jehovah shall
dwell upon Zion," the meaning is simply that "Jehovah will be a
refuge to his people, a stronghold to the sons of Israel, and all
people shall know that Jehovah is God." It would imply the
grossest ignorance in any critic if he imagined that the Jews ever
believed that Jehovah was visibly to come down and reign over them
in person. They did however, believe that an awful token or the
presence of Jehovah dwelt in the holy of holies of their temple.
They also believed that every anointed ruler who governed them in
justice and piety represented the authority of Jehovah. And as, in
the long times of their natural captivity and oppression, their
hopes sought refuge from the depressing present in bright visions
of a glorious future, when some inspired deliverer should justify
their faith by carrying the national power and happiness to the
highest pitch, they naturally believed that the spirit and signet
of the Lord would, in a special manner, rest on that Messianic
hero.

By the assimilative action of faith and imagination, this idea of
a divinely accredited Messiah developed, and grew ever richer and
more complete. It began simply with the expectation of a holy
leader and ruler who should subdue the heathen and establish the
favored people of Jehovah in peerless purity, power, and happiness
in the land of Judea. Little by little the rewards of the
righteous and the punishments of the wicked were extended beyond
those living on the earth, and took in the dead. The prophet
Ezekiel depicted the promised restoration of the Jews from their
captivity at Babylon to Jerusalem under the poetic image of a
revivification of a heap of dead bones. This metaphor slowly
assumed the form of a literal dogma, which grew from its beginning
as an exceptional belief in the resurrection of a chosen few,
stated in the book of Daniel and the second book of Maccabees, to
the belief in the universal resurrection of the dead, avowed by
Paul as the common Pharisaic belief. The belief, too, in regard to
the scene of the Messianic triumph, the penalties to be inflicted
on the enemies of Jehovah, and the kind and number of those
enemies, underwent the same process of development and growth. The
world was conceived as a sort of three story house connected with
passage ways; heaven above the firmament, the earth between, and a
penal region below. The imagery of fire and brimstone associated
in the Hebrew mind with Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fearful
imagery of idolatory, filth, and flames in the detested valley of
Hinnom where the refuse of Jerusalem was carried to be burned, had
been transferred by the popular imagination to the subterranean
place of departed souls. The story in the book of Genesis about
the sons of God forming an alliance with the daughters of men, and
begetting a wicked brood of giants, had been wrought into the
belief in a race of fallen angels, foes of God and men, whose
dwelling place was the upper air. Above these wicked spirits in
high places, but below the heaven of Jehovah, was the paradise
whither Enoch and Elijah were supposed to have been translated,
and whence they would come again in the last days. The Jewish
apocryphal book of Enoch which was written probably about a
century and a half before the birth of Christ, and is explicitly
quoted in the Epistle of Jude contains a minute account of the
final judgment, including in its scope this whole scenery and all
these agents, and closely anticipating both the doctrinal and
verbal details of the same subject as recorded in the New
Testament itself. There is not, with one exception, a single
essential feature of the now current Christian belief, in regard
to the day of judgment at the end of the world, which is not
distinctly brought out in the same form in the book of Enoch,
written certainly more than a hundred years before a line of the
Gospels was composed. The exception referred to relates to the
person of the Messiah. In the book of Enoch he is indeed called
the Son of man, but is wrapt in mysterious obscurity, undefined
and unnamed: in the Christian documents and faith he is, of
course, identified with Jesus of Nazareth, and, at a later period,
identified also with God.

The growth of the Messianic personality in distinctness,
prominence, importance, and completeness of associated grouping,
is not only historically traceable, but was also perfectly
natural. At first the prophecy of the triumphant re establishment
of the Jews was conceived as the result of the favoring power of
Jehovah, not in a personal manifestation, but providentially
displayed. Thus Joel represents Jehovah as saying, in his promise
to vindicate Jerusalem, "Let the heathen be wakened, and come up
to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all
the heathen round about." It cannot be denied that this was purely
metaphorical. But in all imagery of a kingdom, of war, of
judgment, the idea of the king, the leader, the judge, would
naturally be the strongest point of imaginative action, the center
of crystalizing association around which congruous particulars
would be drawn until the picture was complete. So it actually
happened. Perhaps the most striking example of this is seen in the
growth of the notion of the great Adversary who precedes and
fights against the Messiah. The book of Daniel, written just after
Antiochus Epiphanes had oppressed the Jews with such frightful
cruelties and profaned their temple with such abominable
desecrations, impersonated in him the whole head and front of the
impious hostility which the promised deliverer would have to
subdue in vindicating the rights and hopes of the chosen people.
"The figure of Antiochus Epiphanes," Martineau has happily said,
"placed in immediate antecedence and antithesis to that of the
Messiah, as the predicted crisis moved forward, was carried with
it, and spread its portentous shadow over the expected close." The
writer of the book of Daniel looked for the immediate arising of
some inspired hero and servant of Jehovah to overthrow this wicked
despot, this persecuting monster, and avenge the oppressed Jews on
their Gentile tyrants. When subsequent events postponed this
expected sequel, the opposed parties in it, the Antichrist and the
Christ, were thrown forward together in ever dilating proportions
of gloom and brightness: the fierce countenanced king in Daniel
becomes the Man of Sin in Paul and the Beast drunk with the blood
of saints in the Apocalypse. And in the Rabbinical books of the
Jews the belief in Antichrist, under the name of Armillus, is
developed into a mass of mythological details, afterwards adopted
quite in the gross by the Mohammedans. Terrible signs will precede
the appearance of the Messiah, such as a dew of blood, the
darkening of the sun, the destruction of the holy city, with the
slaughter and dispersion of the Israelites, and the suffering of
awful woes. The Messiah shall gather his people and rebuild and
occupy Jerusalem. Armillus shall collect an army and besiege that
city. But God shall say to Messiah, "Sit thou on my right hand,"
and to the Israelites, "Stand still, and see what God will work
for you to day." Then God will pour down sulphur and fire from
heaven, and consume Armillus and his hosts. Then the trumpet will
sound, the tombs be opened, the ten tribes be led to Paradise to
celebrate the marriage supper of the Messiah, the aliens be
consigned to Gehenna, and the earth be renovated.

As the doctrine of the functions of the Messiah, in this finished
form, is not stated in the Old Testament, but was familiar in the
Christian Church, it is commonly supposed to be exclusively a
later Christian development from the Jewish germ. It did, however,
exist in the Jewish mind, before the birth of Christ, in the
mature form already set forth. It is found clearly laid down and
drawn out in Jewish apocryphal books dated earlier than the
Christian era. It is likewise explicitly and minutely detailed in
the Talmud, where its subsequent adoption from the Christians must
have been impossible to the bigoted scorn and hate of the Jews for
the Christians; while the historic affiliation of Christianity on
Judaism made the Christians avowedly adopt all the vital doctrines
of the older creed. The gradual growth of the Christian doctrine
of the connection of the Messiah with the final judgment, out of
the previous Jewish and Rabbinical notions, by the hardening of
metaphors into dogmas and the universalizing of local peculiarities,
is confessedly an obscure process, in many of its particulars
extremely difficult to trace. But that it did thus grow up,
no impartial scholar, who has mastered what is now known
on the subject, can doubt. A world of new knowledge and light has
been thrown on this whole field during the last thirty five years
by Gfrorer, Baur, Ewald, Hoffmann, Hilgenfeld, Dilmann, Ceriani,
Volkmar, and other students of kindred power and spirit.
Researches and discussions in this department are still pushed
with the greatest zeal; and it is confidently believed that in a
few years the views adopted in the present writing will be
established beyond all cavil from any fair minded critic. Then all
the steps will have been clearly defined in the development of
that doctrine of the great Day of the Lord, which, beginning with
a poetic picture of a Jewish overthrow of the Gentiles, through
the inspiring power of Jehovah, before the walls of Jerusalem,
ended with a literal belief in the setting up, by the Messiah, of
a tribunal in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the assemblage there of
all the living and the dead for judgment, the installation of the
immortalized righteous in Paradise, and the submerging of the
wicked under the Vale of Hinnom in a rainstorm of blazing
brimstone.

And now what must we think in regard to the truth or falsehood of
the outward, forensic, military, and ritual part of the doctrine
of historic and literary development we have imperfectly followed.
Is it not perfectly clear, that the growth of the doctrine in
question has been but a natural action of the imagination on the
materials furnished it; adding congruous particulars, one after
another, until the view was complete, and therefore could extend
no further? And is it not equally obvious, that it can lay no sort
of claim to logical validity? The superstitious and arbitrary
character of its intrinsic constituents, its irreconcilableness
with science and philosophy, disprove, to all who dare honestly
face the facts, every plea set up for it as an inspired revelation
of truth. It is a mixture of poetry and speculation, credible
enough in an early and uncritical age, but a hopeless stumbling
block to the educated reason of the present day. Every one who
brings a free intelligence to the subject will find it impossible
not to recognize the same fanciful process of thought, the same
poetic ingredients, here as in the schemes of those heathen
religions whose principal portrayals we all regard as mythology.
To argue that because earthly rulers, in their anger and power,
send retributive armies against their rebellious subjects, to
bring them to judgment, destroy their homes and cities, and lay
waste their lands with fire and sword, therefore God, the supreme
King, will do so by the whole world, is not to reason logically,
but to poetize creatively. There can be no warrant for
transferring the political and military relations between men and
earthly sovereigns to the moral and spiritual relations between
the human race and God, since the two sets of relations are wholly
different. The relation of Creator and creature is immensely
higher and wider than that of king and subject. He whose laws are
everywhere incessantly self executing needs not to select and
group and reserve his friends or foes for any climateric
catastrophe. The common notion of a final judgment day the
fanciful association of all the good together, on one side, to be
saved; of all the bad together, on the other side, to be damned,
applies to the divine government an imperfection belonging only to
human governments. Surely every one must see, the moment the
thought is stated, that this imaginative universalizing of the
indignation of God, and carrying it to a climax, in the
destruction of the world, is a mythological procedure utterly
inapplicable to a Being who can know no anger, no caprice, no
change, a Being whose will is universal truth, whose throne is
immensity, whose robe is omnipresence.

Original Christianity, internally regarded in its divine truth,
was the pure moral law exemplified in the personal traits of Jesus
Christ, and universalized by his ascent out of the flesh into that
kingdom of heaven which knows not nationalities or ceremonies. But
original Christianity, externally and historically regarded, in
the belief of its first disciples, was simply Judaism, with the
addition of the faith that the Messiah had actually come in the
person of Jesus Christ. The first disciples vividly cherished the
prevalent Pharisaic doctrine that the Messiah would glorify his
people, vanquish the heathen, raise and judge the dead, change the
face of the earth, and inaugurate a holy reign of Israel in joy
and splendor. This the Messiah was to do. But they believed Jesus
to be the Messiah. Yet, before doing these things, he had been put
to death. Therefore, they argued, he must come again, to finish
his uncompleted mission. Such was the derivation of the apostolic
and ecclesiastical doctrine of the speedy second advent of Christ
to judge the dead and the living, and to wind up the present
scheme of things. The belief was inevitable under the circumstances.
To have believed otherwise, they must have reconstructed the current
idea of the Messiah, and have seen in him no political monarch
with an outward realm, but purely a king of truth.

For this they were not ready; though it seems as if, after
the experience of eighteen hundred years, we ought by this
time to be prepared to see that such was really the intention of
Providence.

It is a question of primary interest, whether Jesus himself, in
assuming the Messiahship, regarded it personally as an exclusively
spiritual office, or as a literally including these royal and
judicial functions in a visible form.

Jesus foretold, in the same imaginary used by the previous
prophets, and familiar to the minds of his contemporaries, the
speedy approach of frightful calamities, wars, rumor of wars,
famine and slaughter, Jerusalem compassed with armies and
destroyed. Then, he adds, the Son of man shall come in the clouds
of heaven, with all his holy angels, and take possession of the
scene, apportioning the destinies of the righteous and the wicked.
The question is, whether this pictured reappearance, in such
transcendent pomp and power, was meant by him as a literal
prophecy, to be physically fulfilled in his own person; or as a
moral horoscope of the destined fortunes of his religion, a
figurative representation of the establishment and reign of his
spiritual truth. The latter view seems to us to be the correct one.

In the first place, this is what has actually taken place. In the
growing recognition of his spirit and power, in the spread of his
teachings and name, in the revolutionizing advancement of his
kingdom among men, Jesus has come again and again. Jerusalem was
destroyed by the Romans, as he foretold, amidst unspeakable
tribulations, and the disciples of the new faith installed in
domination over the world. He said the time was then at hand, even
at the doors, that some of those standing by should not taste
death until all these things came to pass. If his prophecy bore a
moral sense, the sequel justified it; if it bore a physical sense,
the sequel refuted and falsified it. For that generation passed
away, fifty generations since have passed away, and yet there has
been no literal second advent of Jesus in person to judge the dead
and the living, and to destroy the world. The event proves that we
must either give the words of Jesus a metaphorical interpretation
or hold that he was in error.

But, secondly, such an error would be incompatible with soundness
of mind. For any man, even for him called by an apostle "the man
Christ Jesus," to believe that after his death he should reappear,
swooping down from heaven, convoyed by squadrons of angels, to
collect all men from their graves, and replace the old creation
with a new one, would imply a profound disturbance of reason, a
monomaniacal fanaticism if not an actual insanity. It is such a
pure piece of theatrics that no one deeply in unison with that
spirit of truth which expresses the mind of God through the order
of nature and providence could possibly believe it. Such a nature
was preeminently that of Jesus. All his most characteristic
utterances, such as: "blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God;" "who loves much shall be forgiven much;" reveal
unsurpassed saneness and truth of perception. It is by much the
most probable supposition, that Jesus employed in the deepest and
purest moral sense alone those Messianic images and catastrophic
prophecies which were indeed originally used as moral metaphors,
but had been afterwards degraded into material dogmas.

Still further, the literal belief commonly attributed to Jesus, in
his own physical reappearance and reign, is not only incompatible
with his supreme soundness of mind, it is also irreconcilable with
his other explicit teachings. "My kingdom is not of this world."
"Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." He warns his
disciples against the many false Christs who will appear, and says
that "the kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation." "Say
not, lo here! or lo there! for the kingdom of heaven is within
you." "I am the truth, the way, and the life." "He that rejecteth
me, I judge him not; the word that I have spoken, that shall judge
him." "Whoever doeth the will of my Father in heaven, the same is
my brother." In view of these and kindred utterances of the
profoundest insight, irreconcilable with any gross mythological
beliefs, we must hold to the purely spiritual character of the
doctrine of Jesus concerning his personal offices, and think that
all the speeches, if any such there be, which cannot be fairly
explained in accordance with this view, have been refracted in
their transmission through incompetent reporters, or even perhaps
fictitiously ascribed to him from the faith of a later age. There
is a grateful satisfaction in thus discharging, as we feel we are
fairly entitled to do, from the authority of Jesus a burden too
great even for his peerless name any longer to support. For, say
what its advocates may, this gigantic melo drama of the second
advent, this world wide mixture and display of martial and
forensic elements before an audience of all mankind and amidst a
convulsed and closing universe, is inherently incredible by any
mind not grossly ignorant and undisciplined or drilled to the most
slavish servility of traditional thought. Every one really
educated in science and philosophy, and familiar with the
physiological conditions and literary history of mythology in the
other nations of the world, will plainly perceive the intrinsic
fancifulness and falsity of the belief, at the same time that he
easily accounts for its rise and prevalence.

The same picture of the siege of Jerusalem by a league of
idolatrous armies, and of the mighty coming of the Messiah, found
in the New Testament, is drawn in the third book of the Sibylline
Oracles, which was composed by a Jew two hundred years before one
word of Matthew or Luke was written. Jesus took up this current
and fitting imagery wherein to express the conflict of his
religion with the world, and to predict its ultimate triumph. He
identifies himself with the truths he has brought, with the
regenerating energies he has inaugurated to combat and overcome
the wickedness and despotism of the nations of men. Every advent
of his universal principles to a wider conflict or a higher seat
of authority, is a true coming of the Son of Man. The vices and
crimes of men, the selfishness and tyranny of governments,
accumulate impediments in the way of the free working of the will
of God in human society. Therefore from period to period
convulsive crises occur, shocks of progressive truth and liberty
against the obstacles gathered in their way. Thus, not only the
destruction of Jerusalem, but the destruction of Rome, the French
Revolution, and all the terrible social crises in the advancing
affairs of the world, write on the earth and the sky, in huge
characters of blood, smoke and fire, the true meaning of the
repeated coming of Christ. This is the only kind of judicial
second advent he will ever make, and this will occur over and over
in calamitous but helpful revolutions, until all removable evils
are done away, all the laws of men made just and all the hearts of
men pure. Then the spirit once manifested by Jesus in his lonely
mission will be a universal presence on earth, and the genuine
millennium prevail without end.

It is necessary now, as preliminary to a clear exposition of the
true Christian doctrine of judgment, to explain the cause and
process of the dark perversion which the teachings of Christ
himself have so unfortunately undergone in the Church. For this
purpose we must again, for a moment, refer to the original
connection of Christianity with Judaism.

Judaism was composed of two parts: one an accidental form; the
other, essential truth. The first was the ceremonial peculiarities
of the Jewish race and history; the second was the absolute and
eternal principles of morality and religion. These two parts the
ritual law and moral law were closely joined in all the best
representatives of the nation at all the best periods of its
history. Yet there was a constant tendency to separate these. One
party exalted the ritual element, another party the spiritual
element; the priestly class and the vulgar populace the former;
the prophets the men of poetic, fiery heart and genius the latter.

Such men as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, always insisted on personal
and national righteousness, purity, and devotion, as the one
essential thing. But the natural tendency of the common multitude,
and of every professional class, to an external routine of
mechanised forms, manifested itself more and more in a party which
made an overt covenant and ritualistic conformity the all
important thing. This party reached its head in the sect of the
Pharisees, who, at the time of Jesus, possessed the offices, and
represented the dominant spirit and authority of the Jewish
nation. The character of this sect of bigoted formalists, as
indignantly described and denounced by Jesus, is too well known to
need illustration. They subordinated and trivialized the weightier
matters of justice, mercy, humility, and peace, but enthroned and
glorified the regime of mint, anise, and cummin.

What was the Jewish idea of salvation, or citizenship in the
kingdom of God? What was the condition of acceptance in the
Pharisaic church? It was heirship in the Jewish race, either by
descent or adoption, with ceremonial blamelessness in belief and
act. Do you belong to the chosen family of Abraham, and are you
undefiled in relation to all the requirements of our code? Then
you are one of the elect. Are you a Gentile, an idolatrous member
of the uncircumcision, or a scorner of the Levitic and Rabbinical
customs? Then you are unfit to enter beyond the outer precincts of
the Temple; you are a hopeless alien from the kingdom of heaven.
Thus the Jewish test of acceptance with God was national,
external, formal, a local and temporal peculiarity.

When Jesus arose and began to teach, his transcendent genius,
working under the unparalleled inspiration of God, an unprecedented
sensibility to divine truth in its utmost purity and freedom,
expanded beyond all these shallow material accidents and
bonds; and he propounded a perfectly moral and spiritual test of
acceptance before God; namely, the possession of an intrinsically
good character. He made nothing of the distinction between Jew and
Gentile, declaring, "My father is able of these stones to raise up
children unto Abraham." He affirmed the condition of admittance
into the kingdom of God to be simply the doing of the will of God.
When he saw the young lawyer who had kept the two commandments,
loving God with all his soul, and his neighbor as himself, his
heart yearned towards him in benediction. And, finally, in his
sublime picture of the last judgment, he, in the most explicit and
unmistakable manner, makes the one essential condition of
rejection to be inhumanity of life, cruel selfishness of
character; the one essential condition of acceptance, the spirit
of love, the practical doing of good. He utters not a solitary
syllable about immaculateness of ceremonial propriety or soundness
of dogmatic belief. He only says, Inasmuch as ye have or have not
visited the sick and the imprisoned, fed the hungry, and clothed
the naked, ye shall be justified or condemned at the divine
tribunal. This test of personal goodness or wickedness, benevolent
or malignant conduct, proclaimed by Jesus, is the true standard,
free from everything local and temporary, fitted for application
to all nations and all ages.

But no sooner had Christianity obtained a foothold on earth,
multiplied its converts, and gained some outward sway, than its
Judaizing disciples and promulgators, fastening on that which was
easiest to comprehend and practise, that which was most impressive
to the imagination, that which seemed most sharply to distinguish
them from the unbelieving and unconforming world around, thrust
far into the background this universal and eternal test of
judgment set up by Jesus himself, and in place of it installed an
exclusive test fashioned after a more developed and aggravated
pattern of the very narrowest and worst elements in the
Phariasaism which he expressly came to supersede. The Pharisaic
condition of salvation was inheritance, by blood or adoption, in
the Jewish race and Abrahamic covenant, together with exactitude
of ceremonial observance. Everybody else was an unclean alien, an
uncircumcised dog, an uncovenanted leper. In place of this test,
the orthodox ecclesiastical party made their test dogmatic belief
in the supernatural Messiahship of Jesus Christ, formal profession
of allegiance to the official person of Jesus Christ. It is summed
up in the formula, "Whoso believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is
of God; whoso denieth this, is of the Devil."

Exactly here is where Paul, the noble apostle to the Gentiles,
broke with the Judaizing apostles, and taught a doctrine more
fully developed in its historic sequence, but substantially in
perfect unison with the free teachings and spirit of Jesus
himself. With Paul the test of Christian salvation was the
possession of the mind of Christ. "If any man have not the spirit
of Christ, he is none of his;" "but as many as are led by the
spirit of God are sons of God." "Neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision; but a new creature," begotten in the
image of Christ, availeth everything before God. "God rewardeth
every man, the Jew and the Gentile, according to his works." With
Paul, descent from Abraham was nothing, observance of the legal
code was nothing: a just and pure character, full of self
sacrificing love, evoked by faith in Christ, was the all in all.
Jesus Christ was the head of a new race, the second Adam; and all
disciples, who, through moral faith in him, were regenerated into
his likeness and unto newness of living, were thereby adopted as
sons of God and joint heirs with him. The Pauline formula of
salvation, freely open to all the world, was, spiritual
assimilation and reproduction of Christ in the disciple.

But the Judaizing party bore a heavy preponderance in the early
Church, and has succeeded unto this day in imposing on
ecclesiastical Christendom its own test: namely, a sound dogmatic,
belief in the supreme personal rank and office of Christ, as the
only means of admission to the kingdom of heaven. The one
peculiarity which most sharply and broadly contrasted the early
Christians with the rest of the world was unquestionably their
belief in the miraculous mission of Jesus, a belief growing
deeper, higher, intenser, until it actually identified him with
the omnipotent God. There was an inevitable tendency, it was a
perfectly natural and necessary process, for them to make this
point of contrast the central condition on which depended the
possession of all the special privileges supposed to be promised
to its disciples by the new religion. The result is well expressed
by Polycarp in these words: "Whosoever confesses not that Christ
is come in the flesh, is an Antichrist; and whosoever acknowledges
not the martyrdom of the cross, is of the Devil; and whosoever
says that there is no resurrection nor judgment, is the first born
of Satan." This extract strikes the key note of the Orthodox
Church all through Christendom from the second century to the
present hour. In place of the true condition of salvation
announced by Jesus, personal and practical goodness, it
inaugurates the false ecclesiastic standard, soundness of dogmatic
belief in relation to Jesus himself! Those who hold this are the
elect, and shall stand in heaven with white robes and palms and a
new song, while all the rest of the world apostate and detested
enemies of God and his saints shall be trampled down in merciless
slaughter, and flung into the pit whence the smoking signal of
their torment shall ascend for ever and ever. It is a transformation
of the bigoted scorn and hate of the covenanted Jew for his
Gentile foes into the intensified horror of the Orthodox
believer for the reprobate infidel. And it finally culminated in
the following frightful picture which still lowers and blazes in
the imagination of ecclesiastical Christendom as a veritable
revelation of what is to take place at the end of the world:

While the stars are falling, the firmament dissolving, the dead
swarming from their graves, and the nations assembling, Christ
will come in the clouds of heaven with a host of angels and sit in
judgment on collected mankind. All who submissively believed in
his Divinity, and have the seal of his blood on their foreheads,
he will approve and accept; all others he will condemn and reject.
No matter for the natural goodness and integrity of the
unbeliever: his unbelief dooms him. No matter for the natural
depravity and iniquity of the believer: his faith in the atoning
sacrifice saves him. The Judge will say to the orthodox, on his
right, "You may have been impure and cruel, lied, cheated, hated
your neighbor, rolled in vice and crime, but you have believed in
me, in my divinity: therefore, come, ye blessed, inherit my
kingdom." To the heretical, on his left, he will say, "You may
have been pure and kind, sought the truth, self sacrificingly
served your fellow men, fulfilled every moral duty in your power,
but you have not believed in me, in my deity, and my blood:
therefore, depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." Such is a
fit verdict to be pronounced by the avenging Warrior depicted in
the Apocalypse, from whose mouth issues a two edged sword, to cut
his enemies asunder; who sits on a white charger, in a vesture
dipped in blood, with a bow and a crown, and goes forth conquering
and to conquer; whose eyes are flames of fire; who treads his
rejecters in the wine press of his wrath until their blood reaches
to the horse bridles. It was the natural reflection of an age
filled with the most murderous hatreds and persecutions, based on
political and dogmatic distinctions. But how contradictory it is
to the teachings of Jesus himself! How utterly irreconcilable it
is with the image and spirit of that meek and lowly Son of Man who
said that he "came not to destroy men's lives but to save them;"
who declared, "of mine own self I can do nothing;" who modestly
deprecated all personal homage, asking, "Why callest thou me
good?" who sat with the publican, and forgave the harlot, and
denounced bigotry in many an immortal breathing of charity; and
who, even in his final agony, pardoned and prayed for his
murderers! What reason is there for supposing that he who was so
infinitely gentle, unselfish, forgiving, when on earth, will
undergo such a fiendish metamorphosis in his exaltation and
return? It is the most monstrous, the most atrocious travesty of
the truth that ever was perpetrated by the superstitious ignorance
and audacity of the human mind. It is a direct transference into
the Godhead of the most egotistical and hateful feelings of a bad
man. No good man who had been ever so grossly misconceived,
vilified, and wronged, if he saw his enemies prostrate in
submissive terror at his feet, perfectly powerless before his
authority, could bear to trample on them and wreak vengeance on
them. He would say, "Unhappy ones, fear not; you have misunderstood
me; I will not injure you; if there be any favor which I can
bestow on you, freely take it." And is it not an incredible
blasphemy to deny to the deified Christ a magnanimity equal to
that which any good man would exhibit?

It is with pain and regret that the writer has penned the
foregoing sentences, which, he supposes, some persons will read
with the feeling that they are inexcusable misrepresentations,
others, with a shocked and resentful horror, relieving itself in
the cry, Infidelity! Blasphemy! The reply of the writer is simply
that, while reluctant to wound the sensibility of any, he feels
bound in conscience to make this exposition, because he believes
it to be a true statement; and loyalty to truth is the first duty
of every man. Truth is the will of God, obedience to which alone
is sound morality, reverential love of which alone is pure piety.
Frightful as is the picture drawn above of Christ in the judgment,
it is impossible to deny, without utter stultification, that every
lineament of it is logically implied in the formula. "There is no
salvation for the man who unbelievingly rejects, no damnation for
the man who believingly accepts, the official Christ and his
blood." And what teacher will have the presumption to deny that
just this has been, and still is, the central dogma in the faith
of ecclesiastical Christendom? The legitimate result of this view,
unflinchingly carried out, and applied to the precise point we now
have in hand, is seen in that horrible portrayal of the Last
Judgment wherewith Michael Angelo has covered the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel, in Rome. The great anatomical artist consistently
depicts Christ as an almighty athlete, towering with vindictive
wrath, flinging thunderbolts on the writhing and helpless
wilderness of his victims. The popular conception of Christ in the
judgment has been borrowed from the type of a king, who, hurling
off the incognito in which he has been outraged, breaks out in his
proper insignia, to sentence and trample his scorners. The true
conception is to be fashioned after the type given in his own
example during his life. So far as Christ is the representative of
God, there must be no vanity or egotism in him. Every such quality
ascribed to the Godhead is anthropomorphizing sophistry. However
much more God may be, he is the General Mind of the Universe. He
includes, while he transcends, all other beings. Now, the General
Mind must represent the interests of all, the disinterested good
of the whole, and not any particular and selfish exactions, or
resentful caprices, fashioned on the pattern shown among human
egotists by a kingly despot.

The Church, in developing Christianity out of Judaism through the
person and life of Jesus, has given prominence and emphasis to the
wrong elements, seeking to universalize and perpetuate, in a
transformed guise, the local spirit and historic errors of that
Pharisaic sect against which he had himself launched all his
invective. That temper of bigotry and ceremonial technicality
which hates all outside of its own pale as reprobate, and which
ultimated itself in the virtual Pharisaic formula, "Keep the hands
and platter washed, and it is no matter how full of uncleanness
you are within," at a later period embodied itself through the
leaders of ecclesiastical Orthodoxy in the central dogma, "Nothing
but faith in Christ can avail man anything before God." Instead of
this the true doctrine is, Nothing but obedience, surrender, and
trust, personal penitence and aspiration, can avail man anything
before God.

The Christians, as the Jews did before them, have made a wrong
selection of the doctrine to be, on the one hand, particularized
and left behind; on the other hand, carried forward and
universalized. This immense error demands correction. Let us
notice a few specimens in exemplication of it. Jehovah is not the
only true God in distinction from odious idols; but Brahma, Ahura
Mazda, Osiris, Zeus, Jupiter, and the rest, are names given by
different nations to the Infinite Spirit whom each nation worships
according to its own light. The Jews and the Christians are not
the only chosen people of God; but all nations are his people,
chosen in the degree of their harmony with his will. The
providence of God is not an exceptional interference from without,
exclusively for the Jews and Christians; but it is for all, a
steady order of laws within, as much to be seen in the shining of
the sun, or the regular harvest, as in any shocks of political
calamity and glory. Not the Messiah alone reveals God; but, in his
degree, every ruler, prophet, priest, every man who stands for
wisdom, justice, purity, and devotion, represents him. It is not
doctrinal belief in the Messiah, but vital adoption of his spirit
and character, of the principles of real goodness, that
constitutes the salvation of the disciple. We are to look not for
the resurrection of the flesh from the grave, but for the
resurrection of the soul from all forms of sin, ignorance, and
misery. It is the universal prevalence of truth and virtue,
knowledge, love, and peace, in the hearts of men, not the physical
reign of the returning Messiah, which will make a millennium on
earth. The kingdom of God which Judaism localized exclusively in
Palestine, and the early church exclusively in heaven or on the
millennial earth, should be recognized in every place, whether
above the sky or on the globe, where duty is done, and pure
affection, trust, and joy experienced; for God is not excluded
from all other spaces by any enthronization in one. We ought not
to cling, as to permanent fixtures of revealed truth, to the rigid
outlines of that scheme of faith which was struck out when the
three story house of the Hebrew cosmogony showed the limits of
what men knew, before exact science was born, or criticism
conceived, or the telescope invented, or America and Australia and
the Germanic races heard of; but we should hold our speculative
theological beliefs freely and provisionally, ready to reconstruct
and read just them, from time to time, in accordance with the
demands of the growing body of human knowledge.

Reflecting, in the light of these general ideas of truth, on the
whole subject of the current doctrine of the end of the world and
the day of judgment, we shall see that that doctrine presents no
valid claim for our belief, but is a mythological growth out of
the historic and literary conditions amidst which Christianity
arose on the basis of Judaism. The doctrine was formed by the
unconscious transmutation of metaphors into dogmas. Poetic figures
came, by dint of familiarizing repetition, by dint of imaginative
collection and contemplation, to be taken as expressive of literal
truths. To any reader of the Apocalypse, with competent historical
and critical information for entering into the book from the point
of view occupied by its author, it is just as evident that its
imagery was meant to describe the immediate conflict of Hebrew
Christianity with pagan Rome, and not the literal blotting out of
the universe, as it is unquestionable that the book of Daniel
depicts, not the impending destruction of the world, but the
relations of the chosen nation with the hostile empires of
Persia, Media, Babylon, and Macedonia, from which they had
suffered so much, and which they then hoped speedily to put
beneath their feet. The slain Lamb, standing amidst the throne of
God, with seven eyes and seven horns; Death, on a pale horse, with
Hell following him; the woman, clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet; the great red dragon, whose tail casts to the
earth the third part of the stars of heaven; the worm wood star,
that falls as a blazing lamp, and turns a third of the waters of
the earth into bitterness; the seven thunders, seven seals, seven
vials, seven spirits before the throne, seven candlesticks, seven
angels, seven trumpets, seven epistles to the seven churches,
seven horns, seven headed beast, all these things must, perforce,
be taken as free poetic imagery; it would require a lunatic or an
utterly unthinking verbalist to interpret them literally. Why,
then, shall we select from the mass of metaphors a few of the most
violent, and insist on rendering these as veritable statements of
fact? If the rest is symbolism, so are the pictures of the
avenging armies of angels, the reeking gulf of sulphur, and the
golden streets of the city.

The entire scheme of thought, as it still stands in the mind of
the Orthodox believer, is to be rejected as spurious, because it
rests on a process of imaginative accumulation and transference
which is absolutely illegitimate; namely, the association and
universalizing of political and military images, which are then
hardened from emblems into facts, and cast over upon the mutual
relations of God and mankind. We ought to break open the
metaphors, extract their significance, and throw the shells aside.
But ignorant bibliolatary and ecclesiasticism insist on
worshipping the shells, with no insight of their contents.

There is one all important fact which should convince of their
error those who hold the current view of a general judgment at the
end of the world as having been revealed from God through Christ.
We refer to the fact that the system of ideas in which a final
resurrection and judgment of the dead are logical parts, existed
in the Zoroastrian theology five or six centuries before the birth
of Christ. It was adopted thence by the Jews, and afterwards
adopted from the Jews by the Christians. If, therefore, this
doctrine be a revelation from God, it was revealed by him to the
Persians in a dark and credulous antiquity. In that case it is
Zoroaster and not Christ to whom we are indebted for the central
dogmas of our religion! No, these things are imagery, not essence,
the human element of imaginative error with which the divine
element of truth has been overlaid, and from whose darkening and
corrupt company this is to be extricated.

There are, in the New Testament, in addition to the relevant
metaphors which we have already examined, several others of great
impressiveness and importance. We must now explain these, separate
the truths and errors popularly associated with them, and leave
the subject with an exposition of the real method of the divine
government and the true idea of the day of judgment, in contrast
with the prevalent ecclesiastical perversions of them.

The part played in theological speculation and popular religious
belief by imagery borrowed from the scenery and methods of
judicial tribunals, the procedures and enforcement of penal law,
has not been less prominent and profound than the influence
exerted by natural, political, and military metaphors. The power,
the pomp, the elaborate spectacle, the mysterious formalities, the
frightful penalties, the intense personal hopes and fears,
associated with the trial of culprits in courts or before the head
of a nation, must always have sunk so deeply into the minds of men
as to be vividly present in imagination to be affixed as typical
stamps on their theories concerning the judgments of God and the
future world. This process is perhaps nowhere more distinctly
shown than in the belief of the ancient Egyptians. Before the
sarcophagus containing the mummy was ferried over the holy lake to
be deposited in the tomb, the friends and relatives of the
departed, and his enemies and accusers, if he had any, together
with forty two assessors, each of whom had the oversight of a
particular sin, assembled on the shore and sat in judgment. The
deceased was put on his trial before them: and, if justified,
awarded an honorable burial; if condemned, disgraced by the
withholding of the funeral rites. Now the papyrus rolls found with
the mummies give a description of the judgment of the dead, a
picture of the fate of the disembodied soul in the Egyptian Hades,
minutely agreeing in many particulars with the foregoing ceremony.
Ma, the Goddess of Justice, leads the soul into the judgment hall,
before the throne of Osiris, where stands a great balance with a
symbol of truth in one scale, the symbol of a human heart in the
other. The accuser is heard, and the deceased defends himself
before forty two divine judges who preside over the forty two sins
from which he must be cleared. The gods Horus and Anubis attend to
the balance, and Thoth writes down the verdict and the sentence.
The soul then passes on through adventures of penance or bliss,
the details of which are obviously copied, with fanciful changes
and additions, from the connected scenery and experience known on
the earth.

Taking it for all in all, there perhaps never was any other scene
in human society so impressive as the periodical sitting in
judgment of the great Oriental kings. It was the custom of those
half deified rulers the King of Egypt, the Sultan of Persia, the
Emperor of India, the Great Father of China to set up, each in the
gate of his palace, a tribunal for the public and irreversible
administration of justice. Seated on his throne, blazing in
purple, gold, and gems, the members of the royal family nearest to
his person; his chief officers and chosen favorites coming next in
order; his body guards and various classes of servants, in
distinctive costumes, ranged in their several posts; vast masses
of troops, marshalled far and near. The whole assemblage must have
composed a sight of august splendor and dread. Then appeared the
accusers and the accused, criminals from their dungeons, captives
taken in war, representatives of tributary nations, all who had
complaints to offer, charges to repel, or offences to expiate. The
monarch listened, weighed, decided, sentenced; and his executioners
carried out his commands. Some were pardoned, some rewarded, some
sent to the quarries, some to prison, some to death. When the
tribunal was struck, and the king retired, and the scene ended,
there was relief with one, joy with another, blood here, darkness
there, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in many a place.

Dramatic scenes of judgment, public judicial procedures, in some
degree corresponding with the foregoing picture, are necessary in
human governments. The prison, the culprit, the witnesses, the
judge, the verdict, the penalty, are inevitable facts of the
social order. Offences needing to be punished by overt penalties,
wrongs demanding to be rectified by outward decrees, criminals
gathered in cells, appeals from lower courts to higher ones, may
go on accumulating until a grand audit or universal clearing up of
arrears becomes indispensable. Is it not obvious how natural it
would be for a mind profoundly impressed with these facts, and
vividly stamped with this imagery, to think of the relation
between mankind and God in a similar way, conceiving of the
Creator as the Infinite King and Judge, who will appoint a final
day to set everything right, issue a general act of jail delivery,
summon the living and the dead before him, and adjudicate their
doom according to his sovereign pleasure?

The tremendous language ascribed to Jesus, in the twenty fifth
chapter of Matthew, was evidently based on the historic picture of
an Eastern king in judgment. "When the Son of Man shall come in
his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit
upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all
nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the
sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." If Jesus
himself used these words, we suppose he meant figuratively to
indicate by them the triumphant installation, as a ruling and
judging power in human society, of the pure eternal principles of
morality, the true universal principles of religion, which he had
taught and exemplified. But unfortunately the image proved so
overpoweringly impressive to the imagination of subsequent times,
that its metaphorical import was lost in its physical setting.

This momentous error has arisen from the inevitable tendency of
the human mind to conceive of God after the type of an earthly
king, as an enthroned local Presence; from the rooted incapacity
of popular thought to grasp the idea that God is an equal and
undivided Everywhereness. In his great speech on Mar's Hill, the
apostle Paul told the Athenians that "God had appointed a day in
the which he would judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained." Is not this notion of the judgment being
delegated to Jesus plainly adopted from the political image of a
deputy? The king himself rarely sits on a judicial tribunal: he is
generally represented there by an inferior officer. But this
arrangement is totally inapplicable to God, who can never abdicate
his prerogatives, since they are not legal, but dynamic. The
essential nature of God is infinity. Certainly, there can be no
substitution of this. It cannot be put off, nor put on, nor
multiplied. There is one Infinite alone.

The Greeks located, in the future state, three judges of the dead,
Minos, who presided at the trial of souls arriving from Europe;
Rhadamanthus, who examined those coming from Asia; and Aacus, who
judged those from Africa. They had no fourth and fifth inspectors
for the souls from America and Australia, because those divisions
of the earth were, as yet, unknown! How suggestive is this mixture
of knowledge and ignorance! The heaven of the Esquimaux is a place
where they will have a plenty of fine boats and harpoons, and find
a summer climate, and a calm ocean abounding with fat seals and
walruses. The Greenlander's hell is a place of torment from cold;
the Arab's, a place of torment from heat. Every people and every
man unless they have learned by comparative criticism to correct
the tendency  conceive their destiny in the unknown future in
forms and lights copied, more or less closely, from their familiar
experiences here. Is there not just as much reason for holding to
the literal accuracy and validity of the result in one case as in
another? The popular picture, in the imagination of Christendom,
of Gabriel playing a trumpet solo at the end of the world, and a
huge squad of angelic police darting about the four quarters of
heaven, gathering the past and present inhabitants of the earth,
while the Judge and his officers take their places in the
Universal Assize, instead of being received as sound theology,
should be held as moral symbol. Taken in any other way, it sinks
into gross mythology. Can any one fail to see that this picture of
the Last Judgment is the result of an illogical process; namely,
the poetic association and universalizing of our fragmentary
judicial experiences, and the bodily transfer of them over upon
our relations with God? The procedure is clearly a fallacious one,
because the relations of men with God in the sphere of eternal
truths are wholly different from their relations with each other
in the sphere of political society. They are, in no sense, formal
or forensic, but substantial and moral; not of the nature of a
league or compact, but interior and organic; not acting by fits
and starts, or gathering through interruptions and delays to
convulsive catastrophes, but going on in unbreakable continuity.
God is a Spirit; and we too, in essence, are spirits. The rewards
and punishments imparted from God to us, then, are spiritual,
results of the regular action of the laws of our being as related
to all other being. Consequently, no figures borrowed from those
judicial and police arrangements inevitable in the broken and
hitching affairs of earthly rulers, can be directly applicable,
the circumstances are so completely different. The true
illustration of the divine government must be adopted from
physiology and psychology, where the perfect working of the
Creator is exemplified,  not from the forum and the court, where
the imperfect artifices of men are exhibited.

God forever sits in judgment on all souls, in the reactions of
their own acts. The divine retribution for every deed is the kick
of the gun, not an extra explosion arbitrarily thrown in. The
thief, the liar, the misanthrope, the drunkard, the poet, the
philosopher, the hero, the saint, all have their just and
intrinsic returns for what they are and for what they do, in the
fitness of their own characters and their harmonies or discords
with the will of God, with the public order of creation. Thus is
the daily experience of one man made a lake of peace threaded with
thrilling rivulets of bliss; that of another, a stream of
devouring fire and poison, or a heaving and smoking bed of
uncleanness and torment. The virtues represent the conditions of
universal good; the vices represent private opposition to those
conditions. Accordingly, the good man is in attracting and
cooperative connection with all good; the bad man, in antagonistic
and repulsive connection with it. In these facts a perfect
retribution resides. If any one does not see it, does not feel its
working, it is because he is too insensible to be conscious of the
secrets of his own being, too dull to read the lessons of his own
experience. And this self ignorant degradation, so far from
refuting, is itself the profoundest exemplification of the truth
of that wonderful word of Jesus: "Verily, I say unto you, they
have their reward." Those who consider themselves saints indulge
in an unspeakable vulgarity, when they feel, "Well, the sinners
have their turn in this world; we shall have ours in the next."
The law of retribution in the spiritual sphere is identical with
the first law of motion in the material sphere; action and
reaction are equal, and in opposite directions. This law being
instantaneous and incessant in its operation, there can be no
occasion for a final epoch to redress its accumulated disbalancements.
It has no disbalancements, save in our erroneous or defective vision.

The true conception of the relation of the all judging Creator to
his creatures is that of the Infinite Being who supplies all
finite receptacles in accordance with their special forms of
organization and character, and who causes exact retributions of
good and evil intrinsically to inhere in their indulged modes of
thought and feeling and will, their own virtues and vices,
fruitions and battlements. This internal, continuous, dynamic view
worthily represents the perfection of the Divine government. The
incomparably inferior view the external, intermittent,
constabulary theory rests, as it seems to us, merely on the
traditions of ignorance and fancy. It has, in every instance,
originated from the unwarrantable interpretation of a trope as a
truth.

For example, the picture of the Last Judgment, supposed to be
drawn by Jesus, in the Parable of the Tares, must be considered,
not as a rigid prophecy of the end of the earth, and the
transmundane destination of souls, but as a free emblem of the
approaching close of the Jewish dispensation, and the terrible
calamities which would then come on the proud, obstinate and
rebellious people. The reaping angels are the Roman and Jewish
armies, and other kindred agencies and collisions in the destined
evolution of the fortunes of Christianity and mankind in the
future. Taken literally, the symbols are incongruous with fact,
and absolutely incredible in doctrine. For they are based on the
image of a royal land owner, who draws his support from the income
of his fields and subjects, and who rewards the faithful bringer
of fruits, and punishes the slothful defaulter; who welcomes and
stores sheaves, because they are wealth: rejects and burns tares,
because they are an injury and a nuisance. But nothing can be
riches or a nuisance to the infinite God, who neither lives on
revenue nor judges by jerks. Men are not literally wheat, the
property of the good sower, Christ; nor tares, the property of the
bad sower, the Devil: they are souls, responsibly belonging to
themselves, under God. And the pay of the human agriculturists, in
the moral fields of the divine King, consists in the daily crops
of experience they raise, not in being advanced to a seat at the
right hand of their Lord, or in being flagellated and flung into a
flaming furnace.

Jesus himself, undoubtedly, used this physical imagery as the
vehicle of spiritual truths; it is lamentable that perfunctory
minds have so generally overlooked the substance in the dress. He
is represented, in Matthew, as having said to his apostles: "When
the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall
sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
Now, that he used this figure to convey an impersonal moral
meaning, and that his profound thought underwent a materializing
degradation in the minds of his hearers and reporters, appears
clearly from the incident related immediately afterward. The wife
of Zebedee asked that her two sons might sit, the one on his right
hand, and the other on the left, in his kingdom. And Jesus said,
"Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my
left, is not mine to give." The imagery meant that the missionary
assistants, in forwarding and spreading the kingdom of truth and
love he came to establish, would be represented in common with
himself in the power it would acquire and sway over the world.
When his hearers interpreted the imagery in a physical sense, as
indicating that he was hereafter to be a visible king, and that
his favorites might expect to share in his authority, honor, and
glory, he solemnly repudiated it.

There is yet another and a wholly different style of imagery
employed by Jesus to convey his instructions as to the judgment
which is to separate the justified from the condemned. The
consideration of this species of imagery would afford an
independent proof, of a cogent character, that they strangely
misapprehend the mind of Jesus who interpret the moral meaning of
his parable in an outward and dramatic sense. The metaphors to
which we now refer are of a domestic and convivial nature, based
on some of the most impressive social customs of the Oriental
nations. It was the habit of kings, governors, and other rich and
powerful men, to give, on certain occasions, great banquets, to
which the guests were invited by special favor. These feasts were
celebrated with the utmost pomp and splendor, by night, in
brilliantly illuminated apartments. The contrast of the blazing
lights, the richly costumed guests, the music and talk, the honor
and luxury within, set against the darkness, the silence, the
envious poverty and misery without, must have deeply struck all
who saw it, and would naturally secure rhetorical reflections in
speech and literature. The Jews illustrated their idea of the
Kingdom of God by the symbol of a table at which Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob were banqueting, and would be joined by all their
faithful countrymen. In his parable of the Supper, describing how
a king, on occasion of the marriage of his son, made a feast and
sent out generous invitations to it, Jesus works up this imagery
still more elaborately. What did he really mean to teach by it? Is
it not clearly apparent from the whole context that he intended it
as an illustration of the fact that the Jews, to whom he first
announced his gospel, and offered all its privileges, having
rejected it, its blessings would be freely thrown open to the
Gentiles, and that they would crowd in to occupy the place of joy
and honor, which the chosen people of Jehovah had refused to
accept? It is by a pure effect of fancy and doctrinal bias that
the parable has been perverted into a description of the Last
Judgment. The reference plainly indicates admission to or
exclusion from the privileges of the new dispensation, a matter of
personal experience in the heart of the disciple and in the
society of the church on this earth. The wedding garment, without
which no one can come to the royal table, is a holy, humble, and
loving character. In consequence of his destitution of this,
Judas, although seated at the table, with the most honored guests,
in the very presence of his Lord, was proved to have no right
there, and was thrust into the outer darkness. His bad spirit, his
inability to appreciate and enjoy the pure truths of the kingdom,
constituted his expulsion. That such was the idea in the mind of
Jesus, something to be experienced personally and spiritually in
the present, and not something to be shown collectively and
materially at the end of the world, appears from the great number
of different forms in which he reiterates his doctrine. Had he
meant to teach literally that he was to come in person at the last
day, and sit in judgment on all men, would he not have had a
distinct conception of the method, and have always drawn one and
the same consistent picture of it? But if he meant to teach that
all who were fitted by their spirit, character and conduct to
assimilate the living substance of his kingdom were thereby made
members of it, while all others were, by their own intrinsic
unfitness, excluded, then it was perfectly natural that his
fertile mind would on a hundred different occasions convey this
one truth in a hundred different figures of speech. That in which
the images all differ is unessential: that in which they all agree
must be the essential thought. Now the parables differ in the
forms of judgment they picture. Therefore these forms are
metaphoric dress. The parables agree in assigning a different fate
to the righteous and the wicked. Therefore this difference is the
vital truth. And Jesus nowhere makes righteousness consist in
anything national, dogmatic, or ceremonial, but everywhere is
something moral.

The doctrine of an unfailing tribunal in the soul, the belief that
we are all judged momentarily at the continuous bar of the truth
reflected in our own conscience, is too deep, delicate, and
elusive a view for the ignorance and hardness of some ages, and of
some persons in every age. They cannot understand that the mind of
man is itself a living table of the law and judgment seat of the
Creator, by its positive and negative polarities, in sympathetic
connection with the standards of good and evil, pronouncing the
verdicts and executing the sentences deserved. They need to
project the scheme of retribution into the startling shape of a
trial in a formal court, and then to universalize it into an
overwhelming world assize. The semi dramatic figment, no doubt,
was an inevitable stage of thought, and has wrought powerfully for
good in certain periods of history. But the pure truth must be as
much better for all who can appreciate it, as it is more real and
more pervasive.

Since God, the indefeasible Creator, is a resistless power of
justice and love in omnipresent relations with his creatures, the
genuine day of judgment to each being must be the entire career of
that being. In a lower degree, every day is a day of judgment;
because all acts, in the spirit from which they spring and the end
at which they aim, carry their own immediate retributions. If we
could survey the whole, at once, from the Divine point of view,
and comprehend the relation of the parts to the whole, undoubtedly
we should perceive that the deserts and the receipts of each
ephemeral existence are balanced between the rise and set of its
sun. But death may, with most solemn emphasis, be regarded as the
final day of judgment to each man, in this sense; that then the
sum of his earthly life and deeds is sealed up and closed from all
further alteration by him, passing into history as a collective
cause or total unit of influence. As long as the creation rolls in
space, and conscious beings live and die, that bequeathal will
tell its good or evil tale of him. What sensitive spirit will not
tremble at the thought of a judgment so unavoidable and so
tremendous as this! The votaries of superstition are mistaken in
supposing that the removal of their false beliefs will destroy or
weaken the sanctions of duty among men. The removal of imaginary
sanctions will but cause the true ones to appear more clearly and
to work more effectively.

The judgment of God then, we conclude, is no vengeful wreaking of
arbitrary royal volitions; but it is the return of the laws of
being on all deeds, actual or ideal. This is, in itself, perpetual
and infallible: but it sometimes forces itself on our recognition
in sudden shocks or crises caused by the gathering obstacles and
opposition made to it by our ignorance, vice, and crime. Every
other doctrine of the Divine judgment is either an error or a
figurative statement of this one. In the latter case, the physical
cover should be dissolved and thrown away, the moral nucleus laid
bare and appropriated. But the popular mind of Christendom has
unfortunately pursued the contrary course, first exaggerating and
consolidating the metaphors, then putting their forms literally in
the place of their meaning.

The awful panorama of the last things, as painted in the
Apocalypse, the sun becoming as sackcloth of hair, and the moon as
blood; the blighted stars dropping; the unveiling of the great
white throne, from before the face of whose occupant the
frightened heaven and earth flee away; the standing up of the
dead, both small and great, the opening of the books, and the
judging of the dead out of the things written therein, this scenic
array has, by its terrible vividness and power of fanciful
plausibility, sunk so deeply into the imagination, and taken such
a tenacious hold on the feelings of the Christian world, secured
for itself so constant a contemplation and encrusted itself with
such a mass of associations, that it has actually come to be
regarded as a veritable revelation of the reality, and to act as
such. And yet, surely, surely, no one who will stop to think on
the subject, with conscious clearness, can believe that books are
provided in heaven with the names of men in them and recording
angels appointed to keep their accounts by double or by single
entry, and that God will literally sit upon a vast white dais
raised on the earth, and go through an overt judicial ceremony. On
what principle is a part of the undivided apocalyptic portrayal
rendered as emblem, the rest accepted as absolute verity? If the
blood red warrior on his white horse followed by the shining
cavalry of heaven, the horrible vials of wrath, the chimerical
angels and beasts, the sky and globe converted into terror struck
fugitives, the bridal city descending from God with its incredible
walls and its impossible gates and its magic tree of life yielding
twelve kinds of fruit, are imagery; then the lake of burning
sulphur, and the resurrection trumpet, and the indictment of the
dead before the dazzling throne, are imagery too. The reader
smiles at the idea that the good Esquimau will sit in Leaven
amidst boiling pots of walrus meat, while in hell the fish lines
of the bad Esquimau will break, and his canoe be crushed by
falling ice. But what better reason can the civilized man give for
the reflecting over upon the judgments of the future his present
experience in the imagery of criminal courts? The same process of
thought is exemplified in both cases. Can any one literally credit
the following verses:

"There are two angels that attend, unseen Each one of us, and in
great books record Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down The
good ones after every action closes His volume and ascends to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day book open Till sunset, that we
may repent, which doing, The record of the action fades away, And
leaves a line of white across the page."

No more should we literally credit the kindred phraseology in the
New Testament. It is free metaphor. The sultan may keep in his
treasury a book with the names of all his favorites enrolled in
it. Is it not a peurility to suppose that God has such documents?

When the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament were
written, the reappearance of Christ for the last judgment was
almost universally supposed by the Church to be just at hand. At
any instant of day or night the signal blast might be blown, the
troops of the sky pour down the swarms of the dead surge up, and
the sheep and the goats for ever be parted to the right and left.
Each day when they saw "the sun write its irrevocable verdict in
the flame of the west," the believers felt that the supreme Dies
iroe was so much nearer to its dawn. But as generation after
generation died, without the sight, and the tokens of its approach
seemed no clearer, the belief itself subsided from its early
prominence into the background. But as it retreated, and became
more obscure and vague in its date and other details, it grew ever
more sombre, appalling, and stupendous in its general certainty
and preternatural accompaniments. When the tenth century drew nigh
its close, a literal acceptance of the scriptural text that "the
dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, after
being bound in the bottomless pit for a thousand years," should
"be loosed a little season," filled Christendom with the most
intense agitation and alarm. From all the literature and history
of that period the reverberations of the frightful effects of the
general expectation of the impending judgment and destruction of
the world have rolled down to the present time. The portentous
season passed, all things continuing as they were, and the immense
incubus rose and dissolvingly vanished. And the Mediaval Church,
like the Apostolic Church before, instead of logically saying: Our
expectation of the physical return of Christ was a delusion,
fancifully concluded: We were wrong as to the date; and still
continued to expect him.

The longer the crisis was delayed, and the more it was brooded
over, the more awful the suppositious picture became. The
Mohammedans held that the end would be announced by three blasts:
the blast of consternation, so terrible that mothers will neglect
the babes on their breasts, and the solid world will melt; the
blast of disembodiment, which will annihilate everything but
heaven and hell and their inhabitants; and the blast of
resurrection, which will call up brutes, men, genii, and angels,
in such numbers that their trial will occupy the space of
thousands of years.

But in the later imagination of Christendom the vision assumed a
shape even more fearful than this. The Protestant Reformation,
when one party identified the Pope, the other, Luther, with
Antichrist, gave a new impulse to the common expectation of the
avenging advent of the Lord. The horrible cruelties inflicted on
each other by the hostile divisions of the Church aggravated the
fears and animosities reflected in the sequel at the last day.
Probably nothing was ever seen in this world more execrable or
more dreadful than those great ceremonies celebrated in Spain and
Portugal, in the seventeenth century, at the execution of heretics
condemned to death by the Inquisition. The slow, dismal tolling of
bells; the masked and muffled familiars; the Dominicans carrying
their horrid flag, followed by the penitents behind a huge cross;
the condemned ones, barefoot, clad in painted caps and the
repulsive sanbenito; next the effigies of accused offenders who
had escaped by flight; then, the bones of dead culprits in black
coffins painted with flames and other hellish symbols; and,
finally, the train closing with a host of priests and monks. The
procession tediously winds to the great square in front of the
cathedral, where the accused stand before a crucifix with
extinguished torches in their hands. The king, with all his court
and the whole population of the city, exalt the solemnity by their
presence. The flames are kindled, and the poor victims perish in
long drawn agonies. Now can anything conceivable give one a more
vivid idea of the terrors embodied in the day of judgment than the
fact that it came to be thought of under the terrific image of an
Auto da Fe magnified to the scale of the human race and the earth,
Christ, the Grand Inquisitor, seated as judge; his familiars
standing by ready with their implements of torture to fulfil his
bidding; his fellow monks enthroned around him; his sign, the
crucifix, towering from hell to heaven in sight of the universe;
the whole heretical world, dressed in the sanbenito, helpless
before him, awaiting their doom? Who will not shudder at the
inexorable horrors of such a scheme of doctrine, and devoutly
thank God that he knows it to be a fiction as baseless as it is
cruel?

Since the cooling down of the great Anabaptist fanaticism, the
millennarian fever has raged less and less extensively. But if the
literature it has produced, in ignorant and declamatory books,
sermons, and tracts, were heaped together, they would make a pile
as big as one of the pyramids. The preaching of Miller, about a
quarter of a century ago, with his definite assignment of the time
for the appointed consummation, caused quite a violent panic in
the United States. Several prophets of a similar order in Germany
have also stirred transient commotions. In England, the celebrated
London preacher, Dr. Cumming, whose works entitled "The End," and
"The Great Tribulation," have been circulated in tens of thousands
of copies, is now the most prominent representative of this
catastrophic belief. He has, however, made himself so ridiculous
by his repeated postponements of the crisis, that he has become
more an object of laughter than of admiration. Mathematical
calculations, based on mystic numbers transmitted in apocalyptic
poetry, are at a heavy discount. And yet there is a considerable
sect, called the Second Adventists, composed of the most
illiterate believers, and swelled by clergymen wrought up to the
fanatic pitch by an exclusive dogmatic drill, who lead an
eleemosynary life on mouldy scraps of Scripture, and anxiously
wait for the sound of the archangelic trump. Every earthquake,
pestilence, revolution, violent thunderstorm, comet, meteoric
shower, or extraordinary gleaming of the aurora borealis, startles
them as a possible avant courier of the crack of doom. Some of
them are said to keep their white robes in their closets all ready
for ascension. What a dismal thing it must be to live in such a
lurid and lugubrious dream; their best hope for the world the hope
that its end is at hand,

"Impatient of the stars that keep their course And make no pathway
for the coming Judge!"

But this excited and uneasy anticipation is now a rare exception.
In the minds of most intelligent Christians, even of those who
still cling to the old Orthodox dogmas, the day of judgment has
been put forward as far as the day of creation has been put
backward. Less and less do religious believers shudder before the
theatric trials depicted in heathen and Christian mythology; more
and more do they reverently recognize the intrinsic jurisdiction
in the structure of the soul, and in the organism of society. The
time is not far remote, let us trust, when the ancient spirit of
national separation, political antipathy, and sectarian hatred,
whose subjects identify themselves with the party of God, all
others with the party of the Devil, and cry, "How long, O Lord,
dost thou not judge and avenge us on our enemies," will give way
to that better spirit of philanthropy and true piety, which sees
brethren in all men, and prays to the common Father for the equal
salvation and blessedness of all. Then the faith of the self
righteous, who plume themselves on their sound creed, and so
relentlessly consign the heretics to perdition, gloating over the
idea of the time "when the kings of the earth, and the chief
captains, and the rich men, and the mighty men, and every bondman,
and every freeman, shall hide themselves in dens and caves, saying
to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the
face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the
Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be
able to stand?"  then the temper of this faith will be seen to be
as wicked as its doctrine is erroneous. It will be recognized as a
remnant of the barbaric past in steep contradiction with the whole
mind of the modest and loving Jesus, who, when the disciples
wished to call down fire from heaven to consume his opponents,
rebuked them in words still condemning all their imitators, "Ye
know not what spirit ye are of." Many a bigoted and complacent
dogmatist, wrapt in that same ignorance to day, fails to read his
own heart, and obstinately shuts his eyes to the truth, foolishly
fancying himself better and safer, on account of his blind
conservatism, than he who fearlessly seeks the guidance of
science. Yet are not the principles of science as much glimpses of
the mind of God as any sentences in the Bible are? The whole
ecclesiastical scheme of eschatology is a delusion. No such
gigantic melodrama, no such grotesque and horrible extravaganza,
will ever get itself enacted between heaven and earth. Forever, as
freshly as on the first morning, the Creator pours his will
through his works in irresistible vibrations of goodness and
justice; and forever may all his creatures come to him unimpeded,
and trust in him without limit.

Away, then, monstrous horrors, bred in the night of the past!
Dreadful incubi! too cruelly and too long ye have sat on the
breast of man. The cockcrow of reason has been heard, and it is
time ye were gone. Fade, terrible dream, painted by superstition
on the cope of the sky, picture of contending fiends and angels,
fiery rain, a frowning God, and shuddering millions of victims!
Away forever, and leave the blue space free for the benignant
mysteries of the unknown eternity to lure us blessedly forward to
our fate. Come, believers in the merciful God of truth, lend your
aid to the glorious work of spiritual emancipation. In this benign
battle for the deliverance of the world from error and fear, every
free mind should be a champion, every loving heart a volunteer.
Free leaders of the free, forward! out of the darkness into the
light. Lift your banner in the front of the field of opinions
where all may see it, and then follow it as far as truth itself
shall lead. On! Progress is the eternal rule. Man was made to
outgrow the old and struggle into the new, as every morning the
sun mounts afresh out of the dead day, and drives the night before
him. Ignorance and despotism have crushed us long. But now, now we
fling our fetters off, and, marching from good to better, hope to
escape from every falsehood, and to conquer every wrong, under the
inspiration of the omnipresent Judge who executes his decrees in
the very working itself of that Universal Order whose progressive
unfolding will be fulfilled at last, not in any magic resurrection
and assize, but in the simple lifting of the veil of ignorance
from all souls brought into full community, and the illumination
before their opened faculties of the whole contents of history.
For we believe that all history is by its own enactment
indestructibly registered in the theatre of space, and that every
consciousness is educating to read it and adore the perfect
justification of the ways of God. The eternal immensity of the
universe is the true Aula Regis in which God holds perpetual
session, overlooking no suppliant, omitting no case.

CHAPTER III.

THE MYTHOLOGICAL HELL AND THE TRUE ONE, OR THE LAW OF PERDITION.


THE doctrine that there is a material place of torment destined to
be the eternal abode of the wicked after death is based on the
language of the Bible, supported by the aggregate teachings of the
church, and commonly asserted, though with a stricken and failing
faith, throughout Christendom at this moment. When any one tries
to show the unreasonableness of the belief in this local prison
house of the damned, arrayed with the innumerable horrors of
physical anguish, he is at once met with the declaration that God
himself has declared the fact, and consequently that we are bound
to accept it without question, as a truth of revelation. For the
reasons which we will immediately proceed to give, this
representation must be rejected as a mistake.

The popular doctrine of hell is not a divine revelation, but is a
mythological growth. It is a fanciful mass of grotesque and
frightful errors enveloping a truth which needs to be separated
from them and exhibited in its purity. In the first place, the
substance of the doctrine affirmed, the notion of a bottomless
pit, or penal territory of fire and torment in which God will
confine all the unredeemed portions of the human race after their
bodily dissolution, is something wholly apart from morality and
religion, something belonging to the two departments of
descriptive geography and police history. The existence or
nonexistence of a place of material torment reserved for the
wicked, is a question not of theology, but of topography. In
earlier times it was avowedly included in geography; and numerous
caves, lakes, volcanos, as at Lebadeia, Derbyshire, Avernus,
Nafita, Etna, and elsewhere were believed to be literally
entrances to hell. So famous and eminent a man as Saint Gregory
the Great, when the great Sicilian volcano was seen to be
increasingly agitated, taught that it was owing to the press of
lost souls, rendering it necessary to enlarge the approach to
their prison. With the increase of knowledge, the localization of
hell was subsequently by many authors, made a part of cosmography,
and shifted about among the comets, the moon and the sun, although
most people still think that it is the interior of the earth. But,
the best theologians of all denominations, the most authoritative
thinkers of all schools, now hold that the supernatural
revelations of God are limited to the sphere of the spirit, and do
not include the data of geology, astronomy, chemistry and
mathematics.

God is not a local king, ruling his subjects by means of political
machinery and external interferences; he is the omnipresent
Creator, spiritually sustaining and governing his creatures from
within by means of the laws which determine their experience, the
action and reaction between their faculties and their surrounding
conditions. Accordingly, the sphere of direct revelations from the
spirit of God to the spirit of man is limited to the implications
in the divine logic of the soul and its life, that is, to moral
and religious truths. The facts of history and cosmology are left
for the processes of natural discovery. Whether there be or be not
a localized hell of material tortures lies not within the domain
of revelation, but is a problem of physical science. And science
demonstrates, from the weight of the globe, that it is solid; and
not, according to the current belief, a hollow shell containing a
sea of flame packed with the floating hosts of the lost.

Furthermore, the only mode in which the truth of such a doctrine
could be made known is wholly aside from the method of
supernatural revelation. God does not utter his thoughts to his
chosen messengers in words or other outward signs as a man does.
Men communicate information to one another by voice, gesture,
drawing, writing or other mechanical devices. It is the natural
mistake of a crude age to suppose that God does the same,
breathing verbal formularies into the of minds of his selected
servants. But this is not the case. Revelation is not to receive
an announcement; it is to perceive a truth. Since God is infinite,
we cannot stand out against him and talk with him. Souls in finer
and fuller harmony with the works and laws of God, thus fulfilling
the human conditions of inspiration, are met by the divine
conditions, and obtain new insight of the ways and designs of God.
They experience purer and richer ideas and emotions than others,
and may afterwards impart them to others, thus transmitting the
revelation to them. For this new enlightenment, sanctification, or
rise of life, is what alone constitutes a true revelation. Now if
there be a local and physical hell, it is not a moral truth which
the inspired soul can see, but a scientific fact which can be
perceived only by the senses or deduced by the logical intellect.
If a man could travel to every nook of the creation he might
discover whether there were such a hell or not. But you cannot
discover a spiritual truth by any amount of outward travel. When a
soul is so delivered from egotism, or the jar of self will against
universal law, and brought into such high harmony with the spirit
of the whole, as to perceive this divine law of life, "He who
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him," then he is
inspired to see a religious truth. He has obtained a divine
revelation. But we cannot conceive of any degree of exaltation
into unison with God which would enable a man to see the fact that
the centre of the earth or the surface of the sun or any other
spot, is a place of fire set apart as the penal abode of the
damned, and that it is crowded with burning sulphur and
unimaginable forms of wickedness and agony. Such a doctrine is out
of the province, and its conveyance irreconcilable with the method
of revelation, which consists not in an exterior communication of
scientific facts to messengers selected to receive them, but in an
interior unveiling of religious truths to souls prepared to see
them.

In the next place, we maintain, that the doctrine of a local hell,
a guarded and smoking dungeon of the damned, ought not to be
regarded as a truth contained in a revelation from God, because it
is plainly proved by historic evidence to be a part of the
mythology of the world, a natural product of the poetic
imagination of ignorant and superstitious men. In all ages and
lands men have recognized the difference between the good and the
bad, merit and crime; have seen that innocence and virtue
represented the permanent conditions of human welfare, that guilt
and vice represented the insurrection of private or lower and
transient desire against public or higher and more lasting good;
and have felt that the former deserved to be praised and rewarded,
the latter to be blamed and punished. In all ages and all nations
society has teemed with devices for the distribution of these
returns, prizes to the meritorious, penalties to the derelict.
There is scarcely any evil discoverable in nature or inventable in
art which has not been used as a means for the punishment of
criminals. Enemies captured in battle, or seized by the minions of
despots, violators of the laws of the community, arraigned before
judicial tribunals, have been in every country subjected to every
species of penalty, such as slavery, imprisonment, banishment,
fine, stripes, dismemberment. They have been starved, frozen,
burned, hung, drowned, strangled by serpents, devoured by wild
beasts. The rebellious and hated offenders of the king, while he
banquets in his illuminated palace with his faithful servants and
favorites around him, are exiled into outer darkness, fettered in
dungeons, plied with every conceivable indignity and misery,
bastinadoed, bowstrung, or torn in pieces with lingering torture.
Here we have the germ of hell. To get the fully developed popular
doctrine of hell it is only necessary to concentrate and aggravate
the known evils of this world, the horrible sufferings inflicted
on criminals and enemies here, and transfer the vindictive and
pitiable mass of wretchedness over into the future state as a
representation of the doom God has there prepared for his foes.
Earthly rulers and their practice, the most impressive scenes and
acts experienced among men, have always hitherto furnished the
types of thought applied to illustrate the unknown details of the
hereafter. The judge orders the culprit to be disgraced, scourged,
put in the stocks, or cropped and transported. The sultan hurls
those he hates into the dungeon, upon the gibbet or into the
flame, with every accompaniment of mockery and pain. So, an
imaginative instinct concludes, God will deal with all who offend
him. They will be excluded from his presence, imprisoned and
tormented forever.

This whole process of comparison and inference, natural as it is,
is one prolonged fallacy exemplifying the very essence of all
mythological construction in contrast both with inspired
perception and logical reasoning. The revealing arrival of a truth
in consciousness is when an intuitive thrill announces the action
of our faculties in correspondence with some relation in the
reality of things. Mythology is the deceptive substitute for this,
employed when we arbitrarily project forms of our present
experience into the unknown futurity, and then hold the resultant
fancies as a rigid belief, or regard them as actual knowledge.
This is exactly what has happened in the case of the doctrine of
an eternal physical hell beyond the grave. The natural and
punitive horrors of the present state have been collected,
intensified, dilated, and thrown into the future as a world of
unmitigated sin and wrath and anguish, a consolidated image of the
vengeance of God on his insurgent subjects.

Now the true desideratum, the only result on which reason can
rest, whenever tests are applied to our beliefs, is this: that
what is known be scientifically set forth in distinct definitions;
that what is unknown be treated provisionally, with theoretic
approaches; and that what is absolutely unknowable be fixedly
recognized as such. This regulative principle of thought is
grossly violated in every particular by the popular belief in a
material hell.

Wherever we look at the prevalent doctrines of hell among
different peoples, from the rudest to the most refined, we see
them reflecting into the penal arrangements of the other world the
leading features of their earthly experience of natural, domestic,
judicial, and political evils. The hells of the inhabitants of the
frigid zones are icy and rocky; those of the inhabitants of the
torrid zones are fiery and sandy. Are not the poetic process and
its sophistry clear? Nastrond, the hell of the Northmen, is a
vast, hideous and grisly dwelling, its walls built of adders whose
heads, turned inward, continually spew poison which forms a lake
of venom wherein all thieves, cowards, traitors, perjurers and
murderers, eternally swim. Is this revelation, science, logic, or
is it mythology?

The Egyptian priests taught, and the people seemed to have
implicitly trusted the tale, that there was a long series of hells
awaiting the disembodied souls of all who had not scrupulously
observed the ritual prescribed for them, and secured the pass
words and magical formulas necessary for the safe completion of
the post mortal journey. The specifications and pictures of the
terrors and distresses provided in the various hells are vivid in
the extreme, including ingenious paraphrases of every sort of
penalty and pang known in Egypt. The same thing may be affirmed
with quadruple emphasis of the Hindu doctrine of future
punishment. In the Hindu hells, truly, the possibilities of horror
are exhausted. To enumerate their sufferings in anything like
their own detail would require a large volume. The Vishnu Parana
names twenty eight distinct hells, assigning each one to a
particular class of sinners; and it adds that there are hundreds
of others, in which the various classes of offenders undergo the
penalties of their misdeeds. There are separate hells for thieves,
for liars, for those who kill a cow, for those who drink wine, for
those who insult a priest, and so on. Some of the victims are
chained to posts of red hot steel and lashed with flexible flames:
others are forced to devour the most horrible filth. Some are
mangled and eaten by ravenous birds, others are squeezed into
chests of fire and locked up for millions of years. These examples
may serve as a small specimen of the infernal ingenuity displayed
in the descriptions of the Hindu hells, which are all of one
substantial pattern, however varied in the embroidery.

The Parsees hold that when a bad man dies his soul remains by the
body three days and nights, seeing all the sins it has ever
committed, and anxiously crying, "Whither shall I go? Who will
save me?" On the fourth day devils come and thrust the bad soul
into fetters and lead it to the bridge that reaches from earth to
heaven. The warder of the bridge weighs the deeds of the wicked
soul in his balance, and condemns it. The devils then fling the
soul down and beat it cruelly. It shrieks and groans, struggles,
and calls for help; but all in vain. It is forced on toward hell,
when it is suddenly met by a hideous and hateful maiden. It
demands, "Who art thou, O, maiden, uglier and more detestable than
I ever saw in the world?" She replies, "I am no maiden; I am thine
own wicked deeds, O, thou hateful unbeliever furnished with bad
thoughts and words." After further disagreeable adventures, the
soul is plunged into the abode of the devil, where the darkness
and foul odor are so thick that they can be grasped. Fed with
horrid viands, such as snakes, scorpions, poison, there the wicked
soul must remain until the day of resurrection.

Now, no enlightened Christian scholar or thinker will hesitate
with one stroke to brush away all the details of these pagan
descriptions of hell, as so much mythological rubbish, leaving
nothing of them but the bare truth that there is a retribution for
the guilty soul in the future as in the present. But, in the
ecclesiastical doctrine of hell, prevalent in Christendom, we see
the full equivalents of the baseless fancies and superstitions
incorporated in these other doctrines. If the mythological hells
of the heathen nations are not a revelation from God, neither is
that of the Christians; for they are fundamentally alike, all
illustrating the same fallacy of the imaginative association of
things known, and the transference of them to things unknown. Not
a single argument can the Christian urge in behalf of his local
hell which the Scandinavian, the Egyptian, the Hindu or the
Persian, would not urge in behalf of his.

We can actually trace the historic development of the orthodox
belief in a material hell from its simple beginning to its
subsequent monstrousness of detail. The Hebrew Sheol or
underworld, the common abode of the dead, is depicted in the Old
Testament as a vast, slumberous, shadowy, subterranean realm,
gloomy and silent. It grew out of the grave in this manner. The
dead man was buried in the ground. The imagination of the
survivors followed him there and brooded on the idea of him there.
The image of him survived in their minds, as a free presence
existing and moving wherever their conscious thought located him.
The grave expanded for him, and one grave opened into another
adjoining one, and shade was added to shade in the cavernous space
thus provided; just as the sepulchres were associated in the
burial place, and as the family of the dead were associated in the
recollection of the remaining members. Thus Sheol was an
imaginative dilatation of the grave.

But it was dark and still; an obscure region of painless rest and
peace. How came the notions of punishment, fire, brimstone, and
kindred imagery, to be connected with it? We might safely say in
general that these ideas were joined with the supposed world of
the dead, by the Hebrews, in the same way that a similar result
has been reached by almost every other civilized nation, that is,
by a reflection into the future state of the retributive terrors
experienced here. Since the sharpest torture known to us in this
world is that inflicted by fire, it is perfectly natural that men,
in imagining the punishments to be inflicted on his victims in the
next world by one who has at his command all possible modes of
pain, should think of the application of fire there. But happily,
we are not left to this possible conjecture.

Few influences sank more deeply into the Hebrew mind then the
legend how the earth opened her mouth and swallowed into Sheol,
Korah and Dathan and Abiram, the rebels against the authority of
Moses, at the same time that fire fell from Jehovah and consumed
two hundred and fifty of their confederates. In this story,
rebellion against a prophet of God, fire and submersion in Sheol,
are fused into one thought as a type of the future punishment of
the wicked.

But another narrative has been of far greater importance in this
direction, namely, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The
Cities of the Plain were situated on a sulphur freighted and
volcanic soil. They were inhabited by a people specially abandoned
to vices, and specially odious to the chosen people of God. When a
terrible eruption took place, overwhelming those cities with all
their people, and swallowing them under a flood of bituminous
flame, ashes and gas, it was natural that the Hebrews in after
time should say that Jehovah had rained fire and brimstone from
heaven on his enemies, and then that the history should take form
in their proud and pious imaginations as a fixed type of the doom
of the wicked. So it did.

At a later period the scenes and events in Gehenna, or the Valley
of Hinnom in the outskirts of Jerusalem, confirmed this tendency
and completed the Jewish picture of hell. In this detested vale
the worship of Moloch was once celebrated by roasting children
alive in the brazen arms of the god, in whose hollow form a fierce
fire was kept up, and around whose shrine gongs were beaten and
hymns howled to drown the shrieks of the victims. Here all the
refuse and offal of the city was carried and consumed, in a
conflagration whose fire was never quenched, and amidst an
uncleanness whose worms never died. This imagery, too, was cast
over into the future state as a representation of the fate
awaiting the wicked.

Still further, it was the custom of some Oriental kings to have
criminals of an especially revolting character, or the objects of
their own particular hatred, flung into a furnace of fire, and
there burned alive before the eyes of their judges. The example of
this given in the Book of Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar had the
furnace heated seven times hotter than was wont, and ordered
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego cast into it, furnished both the
Jews and the Christians with another type of the punishment of
hell. So striking an image could hardly fail to take effect, and
to be often reproduced. It occurs repeatedly in the New Testament.
The old dragon, the devil, as the Apocalypse says, is to be
chained and cast into a furnace of fire. In the writings of the
Church fathers, and in the visions of the monks of the Middle Age,
this image constantly occupies a conspicuous place. And thus,
finally, the common notion of hell became an underground world of
burning brimstone, an enormous furnace or lake of fire, full of
fiends and shrieking souls.

Tundale, an Irish monk of the Twelfth century, describes the devil
in the midst of hell, fastened to a blazing gridiron by red hot
chains, The screams echo from the rafters, but with his hands he
seizes lost souls, crushes them like grapes between his teeth, and
with his breath draws them down the fiery caverns of his throat.
Some of the damned the chronicler describes as suspended by their
tongues, some sawn asunder, some alternately plunged into caldrons
of fire and baths of ice, some gnawed by serpents, some beaten on
an anvil and welded into one mass, some boiled and strained
through a cloth. The defenders of the orthodox doctrine of hell
will admit that this terrible picture is mere mythology; but they
will say it is the product of a benighted age, and long since
outgrown. Yet it is no more mythological than the declarations in
the Apocalypse which are still literally accredited by multitudes
of the believing. And what shall be said of the following extract
from a little book called "The Sight of Hell," recently published
with high ecclesiastical endorsement, for circulation among the
children of Great Britain and America? The writer, the Rev. J.
Furniss, describes the different dungeons of hell, and the passage
which we quote is but a fair specimen of the entire series of
tracts which he has collected in a volume, and which is having a
large sale at this very time. "In the middle of the fourth dungeon
there is a boy. His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two
long flames come out of his ears. He opens his mouth, and blazing
fire rolls out. But listen! there is a sound like a kettle
boiling. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy.
The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is
boiling in his bones. There is a little child in a red hot oven.
Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists
itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of
the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. Very likely God
saw that this child would get worse and worse, and never repent,
and thus would have to be punished much more in hell. So God in
his mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood." Of
these diabolical horrors, drawn out through hundreds of pages, the
orthodox Protestant may say, "Oh, this is only a piece of Popish
superstition. We all repudiate it as a most repulsive and absurd
fancy."

Well, what then will he say if representations, though perhaps not
quite so grossly graphic in circumstance, yet absolutely identical
in principle, are set before him from the fresh utterances of
hundreds of the most distinguished Baptist, Methodist,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian preachers and theologians? It would be
easy to present whole volumes of apposite citations. But two or
three will be enough. John Henry Newman in that one of his
parochial sermons, entitled, "On the Individuality of the Soul,"
gives us accounts of hell which for unshrinking detail of
materiality will compare with the most frightful passages of
Oriental mythology. George Bull, Lord Bishop of Saint Davids, in
his volume of sermons declares that all who die with any sin
unrepented of, "are immediately consigned to a place and state of
irreversible misery a place of horrid darkness where there shines
not the least glimmering of light or comfort." Mr. Spurgeon
asserts, "There is a real fire in hell a fire exactly like that
which we have on earth, except that it will torture without
consuming. When thou diest thy soul will be tormented alone in
hell: but at the day of judgment thy body shall join thy soul, and
then thou wilt have twin hells, body and soul together, each
brimfull of pain; thy soul sweating in its inmost pores drops of
blood, and thy body, from head to foot, suffused with agony; not
only conscience, judgment, memory, all tormented, but thy head
tormented with racking pain, thine eyes starting from their
sockets with sights of blood and woe; thine ears tormented with
horrid noises; thy heart beating high with fever; thy pulse
rattling at an enormous rate in agony; thy limbs cracking in the
fire, and yet unburned; thyself put in a vessel of hot oil,
pained, yet undestroyed. Ah! fine lady, who takest care of thy
goodly fashioned face, that fair face shall be scarred with the
claws of fiends. Ah! proud gentleman, dress thyself in goodly
apparel for the pit; come to hell with powdered hair. It ill
becomes you to waste time in pampering your bodies when you are
only feeding them to be devoured in the flame. If God be true, and
the Bible be true, what I have said is the truth, and you will
find it one day to be so." Is not this paragraph a disgusting
combination of ignorance and arrogance? It is to be swept aside
and forgotten along with the immense mass of similar trash,
loathsome mixture of superstition and conceit, with which
Christendom has for these many centuries been so cruelly deceived
and surfeited.

Tearing off and throwing away from the vulgar doctrine of hell all
the incrustation of material errors and poetic symbolism, the pure
truth remains that God will forever see that justice is done,
virtue rewarded, vice punished. Then the question arises, In what
way is this done? Not by the material apparatus of a local hell.
For the doctrine of such a penal abode is not only a natural
product of the mythological action of the human mind in its
development through the circumstances of history, but when
regarded in that light it is clearly a false representation. It is
a figment incredible to any vigorous, educated and free

mind at the present day. Such reception as it now has it retains
by force of an unthinking submission to tradition and authority.
In the primitive ages, when the soul was imagined to be a fac
simile of the body, only of a more refined substance, capable of
becoming visible as a ghost, of receiving wounds, of uttering
faint shrieks when hurt, of partaking of physical food and
pleasure, it was perfectly natural to believe it susceptible of
material imprisonment and material torments. Such was the common
belief when the doctrine of a physical hell was wrought out. The
doctrine yet lingers by sheer force of prescription and
unthinkingness, when the basis on which it originally rested has
been dissipated. We know great as our ignorance is, we know that
the soul is a pure immateriality. Its manifestations depend on
certain physical organs and accompaniments, but are not identical
with them. Thought, feeling, will, action, force, desire, these
are spirit, and not matter. A pure consciousness cannot be shut up
in a dungeon under lock and bolt. A wish cannot be lashed with a
whip. A volition cannot be fastened in chains of iron. You may
crush or blast the visible organism in connection with which the
soul now acts; but no hammer can injure an idea, no flame scorch a
sentiment. What the spiritual personality becomes, how it exists,
what it is susceptible of, when disembodied, no man knows. It is
idle for any man, or any set of men to pretend to know.
Unquestionably it is not capable of material confinement and
penalties. The gross popular doctrine of hell as the fiery prison
house of the devil and his angels, and the condemned majority of
mankind, therefore, fades into thin air and vanishes before the
truth of the absolute spirituality of mind.

In those early times, when military, political, judicial and
convivial phenomena furnished the most imposing and instructive
phenomena, before exact science and critical philosophy had given
us their fitter moulds and tests of thought, it was unavoidable
that men should think of God and Satan as two hostile monarchs,
each having his own empire and striving to secure his own
subjects, and looking on the subjects of his adversary as foes to
be thwarted at all points. But when, with the progress of thought
evil is discerned to be a negation, the devil vanishes as a verbal
phantom, and the bounds of his local realm are blotted out and
blent in the single dominion of the infinite God who regards none
as enemies, but is the steady friend and ruler of all creatures,
everywhere aiming, not to inflict vengeance on the wicked, but to
harmonize the discordant, bringing good out of bad and better out
of good in perpetual evolution. Sound theology will see that God
is the pervading Creator who governs all from within by the
continuous action and reaction between every life and its
environing conditions. But mythology puts in place of this the
incompetent conception of God as a political king, governing by
external edicts and agents, by overt decrees and constables. This
deludes us with the local and material hell of superstition, which
has no existence in reality. Disordered Function is the open
turnpike and metropolis of the real hell of experience. The great
king's highway, leading to heaven from every point in the universe
is the golden Mean of Virtue; but on the right and left of this
broad road two tributary rivers, namely, Defect and Excess, empty
into hell. The only true hell is the vindicating and remedial
return of resisted law on a being out of tune with some just
condition of his nature and destiny. The fearful cruelty and
tyranny of the mythological hell, supported by the constant
drilling of the people on the part of the priesthood whose vested
interests and prejudices are bound up in the doctrine, have held
the human race long enough in their bondage of pain and terror. In
a Buddhist scripture we read, "The people in hell who are immersed
in the Lohakumbha, a copper caldron a thousand miles in depth,
boiling and bubbling like rice grains in a cooking pot, once in
sixty thousand years descend to the bottom and return to the top.
As they reach the surface they utter one syllable of prayer, and
sink again on their terrific journey. Those who, during their life
on earth, reverence the three jewels, Buddha, the Law and the
Priesthood, will escape Lohakumbha!" The same essential doctrine
resting on the same inveterate basis, selfish love of power and
sensation, still prevails, though diminishingly, among us. When at
last in the light of reason and a pure faith it vanishes away what
a long breath of relief Christendom and humanity will draw!

If we thus dismiss as a vulgar error the belief in a hell which is
a bounded region of physical torture somewhere in outward space,
it becomes us to acquire in place of this rejected figment some
more just and adequate idea. For a doctrine which has played such
a tremendous part in the religious history of the world must be
based on a truth, however travestied and overlaid that truth may
be. This frightful envelop of superstitious fictions cannot be
without some important reality within. In distinction, then, from
the monstrous mass of mistakes denoted by it, what is the truth
carried in the awful word, hell?

Denying hell to be distinctively any particular locality in time
and space, we affirm it to be an experience resulting wherever the
spiritual conditions of it are furnished. Accordingly, we are not
to exclude it from the present state and confine it to the future,
as those seem to do who say that men go to hell after death. Being
a personal experience and not a material place, many are in it now
and here as much as they ever will be anywhere. Neither are we to
exclude it from the future and confine it to the present state, as
those do who say that all the hell there is terminates with the
emergence of the soul from the body. This might be so, if all sins
discords and retributions were bodily. But, plainly, they are not.
A mental chaos or inversion of order is as possible as a physical
one. Hell is anywhere or nowhere, at any time or at no time,
accordingly as the soul carries or does not carry its conditions.
We are not to say of the sinner that he goes to hell when he dies,
but that hell comes to him when he feels the returns of his evil
deeds. It is a state within rather than a place without.

The true meaning of hell is, a state of painful opposition to the
will of God, misadjustment of personal constitution with universal
order or the rightful conditions of being. This is not, as the
vulgar doctrine would make it, an experience of unvarying sameness
into which all its subjects are indiscriminately flung. It is a
thing of endless varieties and degrees, varying with the
individual fitnessess. Hell is pain in the senses, slavery in the
will, contradiction or confusion in the intellect, remorse or vain
aspiration in the conscience, disproportion or ugliness in the
imagination, doubt, fear, and hate in the heart. There is a hell
of remorse, forever retreading the path of ruined yesterdays.
There is a hell of loss, whose occupant stands gazing on the
melancholy might have been transmuted now into a relentless
nevermore. Every sinner has a hell as original and idiosyncratic
as his soul and its contents. As the ingredients of evil
experience are not mixed alike in any, hell cannot be one
monotonous fixture for all, but must be a process altering with
the different elements and degrees afforded, and softening or
ending its wretchedness in proportion as the heavenly elements and
degrees of freedom, pleasure, clearness, self approval, beauty,
faith and love, furnish the conditions of blessedness. Hell being
the consciousness of a soul in which private will is antagonistic
to some relation of universal law, its keenness and extent, in
every instance, must be measured by the variations of this
antagonism. But how does such an antagonism arise? What are the
results or penalties of it? How can it be remedied? No amount of
reflection will enable any man to penetrate to the bottom of all
the mysteries connected with these questions. But though we cannot
tell why the principles of our destiny should be as we find them,
we can see what the facts of the case actually are as revealed in
the history of human experience. And this is what chiefly concerns
us. Let us, then, try to penetrate a little more thoroughly into
the nature of hell.

The rude definition of heaven and hell, regardless of any special
place or time, is respectively the experience of good, and the
experience of evil. But what are good and evil? Good is the
conscious realization of universal order, the absolute fruition of
being, the fulfillment of individual function, in accordance with
the conditions for the most perfect and prolonged fulfillment of
the universal totality of functions. Supposing that there were
only one instance and form of conscious life, with no possibility
of conflicting claims within or without, then good would be to
that life simply the fulfillment of the functions of its nature.
But the moment a being is set in relation with other beings like
itself, and also made aware of various gradations of importance
among its own interior faculties, then the definition of good is
no longer the simple fulfillment of function, or the mere
gratification of desire; but it becomes the fulfillment of
function in such a manner as to secure the greatest total quality
and quantity of fulfilled function. Now evil is the opposite or
negation of this. It is whatever lessens the fruition of life,
prevents the fulfillment of function, contracts or mars the
realization of universal order in the consciousness of a living
being. Thus evil is not merely the keeping of an individual desire
from its own proper good. But every gratification of desire which
involves the winning of a less important good at the expense of a
more important one is evil; or, on the other hand, the evil of
sacrificing or denying a gratification in itself legitimate,
becomes good when it is the means for securing a more authoritative
gratification. Let us try to make these abstract statements
intelligible by illustration.

The appropriation of nutriment is a good, the indispensable method
for sustaining life. It is right that we should eat and drink; and
the pleasure which accompanies the proper performance of the
function is the reflex approval of the Creator. The refusal fitly
to take and relish our food brings debility, disease, pain, and
premature death. Whether this refusal results from absorption in
other employment or from some superstitious belief, it is a
violation of the will of our Maker, and the consequent suffering
and dissolution are the retributive hell or reflex signals,
painfully pointing out our duty. On the other hand, if the
pleasure of gratifying appetite becomes a motive for its own sake
and leads to excessive indulgence, the superior good of permanent
health and vigor is sacrificed to the far inferior transient good
of a tickled palate. Thus, the dyspeptic over loading his stomach
is plunged into the horrid hell of nightmare: the gourmand,
pampering himself with a diet of spiced meats and Burgundy,
shrieks from the twinging hell of gout. There is no divine malice
in this. It is simply the rectifying rebound of the distorted
arrangements of nature. The law of virtue prescribes in every
respect that course of action which, on the whole, permanently and
universally, will secure the greatest amount and the best quality
of life and experience. Vice is whatever inverts or interferes
with this, as when a man exalts a physical impulse above a moral
faculty, or incurs years of shame and misery in the future for the
sake of some passing gratification in the present. God commands
man to rule his passions by reason, not slavishly obey them; to
exercise a wisely proportioned self denial to day for the winning
of a safer and nobler morrow. The degree in which they do this
measures the civilization, wisdom, moral valor, and dignity of
men. The failure to do this is the condition on which every
infernal penalty or reaction of hellish experience hinges. A man
may feed an abnormal craving for opium, until all his once royal
powers of body and mind are sacrificed, imbecility and madness set
in, and his nervous system becomes a darting box of torments. How
much better, according to the aphorism of Jesus, to have cut off
this single desire, than for the whole man to be thus cast into
hell.

Hell is the retributive reflex or return of disarranged order
experienced when in the hieriarchy of man higher grades of faculty
and motive are subordinated to lower ones. The miser who gives
himself up to a base greed for money, separated from its uses, is
thereby degraded into a mechanized, self fed and self consuming
passion, having no pleasure, except that of accumulating, hoarding
and gloating over the idle emblem of a good never realized. His
time and life, his very brain and heart, are coined into an
obscene dream of money. He knows nothing of the grandest ranges of
the universe, nothing of the sweetest delights of humanity.
Contracted, stooping, poorly clad, ill fed, self neglected,
despised by everybody, dwelling alone in a bleak and squalid
chamber, despite his potential riches, his whole life is a
conglomerate of impure fears welded by one sordid lust fear of
robbery, fear of poverty, fear of men, fear of God, fear of death,
all fused together by a lust for money. Is he not in a competent
hell? Who would wish anything worse for him? His vice is the
elevation of the love of money above a thousand nobler claims. His
unclean and odious experience is the avenging hell which warns the
spectators, and would redeem its occupant, if he would open his
soul to its lessons. So, when a burglar breaks into a bank and
bears off the treasures deposited there, scattering dismay and
ruin amidst a hundred families, the essence of his crime is that
he makes the narrow principle of his selfish desire paramount over
the broad principle of the public welfare, setting the petty good
of his individual enrichment above the weighty good represented by
that respect for the right of property which is a condition
essential to the life of the community. The principle on which he
acts, if carried out, would cause the dissolution of society. The
evil which he seeks to avoid, his lack of the means of life, is
incomparably smaller than the evil he perpetrates, the means for
the death of society. The resulting sense of hostility between
himself and the community, alienation from his fellow men and from
God, fear of detection, actual condemnation by his own conscience,
and ideal condemnation by all the world, constitute a hell felt in
proportion to the delicacy of his sensibility. The spiritual
disturbance and pain thus suffered are the effort of Providence to
readjust the inverted relation of his low self interest to the
higher interest of the general public, and remove the threatened
ruinous consequences of his sin by remedying the order it has
disbalanced and broken.

These illustrations have prepared the way for a statement of the
true idea of hell in its final formula. The will of God is
expressed in that gradation of goods or scale of ranks which
indicates the fixed conditions of universal welfare and the
accordant forces of the motives which should impel our pursuit of
them. To seek these goods in their proper order of importance and
authority, every level of function beneath kept subservient to
every one above, is the law of salvation, or the pathway of heaven
through the universe. To substitute our will for the will of God,
the intensity of private desires in place of the dignity of public
motives, putting the lower and smaller over the higher and
greater, is the law of perdition, or the pathway of hell through
the universe.

The lowest function of man is a simple momentary gratification of
sense, as, for example, an act of nutrition. The highest function
of which his nature is capable is the surrender of himself to the
universal order, the sympathetic identification of himself with
the eternal law and weal of the whole. Between those vast extremes
there are hundreds of intermediate functions, rising in worth and
authority from the direct gratifications of appetite to the ideal
appropriations of transcendental good, from the titillation given
by a pinch of snuff to the thrill imparted by an imaginative
contemplation of the redeemed state of humanity a million years
ahead. But, throughout the entire range, all the sin and guilt
from which hell is produced consist in obeying a lower motive in
preference to a higher one, making some narrow or selfish good
paramount over a wider or disinterested one. A man, educated as a
physician, practiced his profession on scientific principles, and
nearly starved on an income of seven hundred dollars a year. He
then set up as a quack, compounded a worthless nostrum, and, by
dint of impudence, advertising, and other charlatanry, made
eighteen thousand dollars a year, and justified his conduct on the
ground of his success. By falsehood and cheating he preyed on the
credulity of the public. If all men were like him, society could
not exist. The meanness of his soul, shutting him out from the
most exquisite and exalted prerogatives of human nature, is the
revenge which the universe takes on such a man the hell in which
God envelops him. A manufacturer turns out certain products by
means of a chemical process which adds seven per cent. to his
profit, but shortens the average life of his workmen five years.
All mankind would indignantly denounce him with an instinctive
recognition of his wickedness in thus erecting the profane
standard of pecuniary gain above the sacredness of the lives of
his brothers. But when of two men in deadly peril from an
approaching explosion only one can escape, and the stronger,
instead of monopolizing the chance, as he might, stands back and
lays down his life in saving the weaker, it is a deed of heroic
virtue, applauded by all men, supported by the whole moral
creation which derives new beauty and sweetness from it. It
radiates a peaceful bliss of self approval through the breast
before it is mangled and cold, and fills the soul with a serene
joy as it flies to God. The essential merit of such an action is
the subjection of that selfishness which is the principle of all
sin, and whose recoil is the spring trap of hell, to that
disinterestedness which is the germ of redemption and the perfume
of heaven.

It is not an unfrequent occurrence for a mixture of heaven and
hell to be experienced. Here is an able and upright merchant who
is about to fail, in consequence of disasters which he could
neither foresee nor prevent, and for which he is in no sense
responsible. He shrinks from bankruptcy with inexpressible shame
and distress. He is mortified, cut to the quick, robbed of sleep,
can hardly look his creditors in the face. Now, he reflects, "This
is not my fault. I have been honest, prudent, economical,
unwearied in effort, I have done my duty to the best of my
ability. God approves me, and all good men would if they knew the
exact facts." If that assurance does not shed an element of heaven
into his hell, spread a soothing veil of light and oil over his
stormy trouble, then it is because his pride is greater than his
self respect, his vanity more keen than his conscience is strong,
his regard for appearances more influential than his knowledge of
the truth. And in that case the misery he suffers is the penalty
of his excessive self sensitiveness.

The elements of hell are pain, slavery, imprisonment, rebellion,
forced exertion, forced inaction, shame, fear, self condemnation,
social condemnation, universal condemnation, aimlessness, and
despair. He who seeks good only in the just order of its
successive standards, gratifying no lower function, except in
subservience to the higher ones, escapes these experiences, feels
that he fulfills his destiny, and is an approved freeman of God.
The service of truth and good alone makes free; all service of
evil is slavery and wretchedness. For freedom is spontaneous
obedience to that which has a right to command. The thirsty man
who quaffs a glass of cold water does an act of liberty; but he
who constantly intoxicates himself in satiation of a morbid and
despotic appetite, knows that he is a slave, and feels condemned,
and chafes in the hell of his bondage.

The dissipated sluggards and thieves who feed the vices and prey
on the interests of the community, writhe under the rebuke of the
higher laws they break in enthroning their selfish propensities
above the cardinal standards of the public good; and in the stale
monotony of their indulgences, they know nothing of the glorious
zest shed by the best prizes of existence into the breasts of the
virtuous and aspiring, whom every day finds farther advanced on
their way to perfection. Envy is the very blast that blows the
forge of hell. It sets its victim in painful antagonism with all
good not his own, actually turning it into evil; while a generous
sympathy appropriates as its own all the foreign good it
contemplates. The sight of his successful rival keeps an envious
man in a chronic hell, but adds a heavenly enjoyment to the
experience of a generous friend. Ignorance, pride, falsehood, and
hate are the four master keys to the gates of hell keys which
sinners are ever unwittingly using to let themselves in, and then
to lock the bolts behind.

A character whose spontaneous motions are upward and outward, from
the central and lowermost instincts of self toward the highest and
outer most apprehensions of good, exemplifies the law of
salvation, which guides the conscious soul in an ascending and
expanding spiral through the successively greater spheres of truth
and life. The character whose spontaneous tendencies are the
reverse of this, moving inward and downward, exemplifies the law
of perdition, which guides the soul in a descending and
contracting spiral, constantly enslaving it to lower and viler
attractions of self in preference to letting it freely serve the
superior ranks forever issuing their redemptive behests and
invitations above. When the members of a family erect their
separate wills as independent laws, instead of harmoniously
blending around a common authority of truth and love, when they
live in incessant collisions and stormy insubordination, a
poisonous fret of irritable vanity gnawing their heart strings, a
fiery sleet of hate and scorn hurtling through the domestic
atmosphere, the whole household are in perdition. Their home is a
concentrated hell. To be without love, without soothing attentions
and encouragements, without fresh aims, and a relishing
alternation of work and rest, without progress and hope, to be
deprived of the legitimate gratifications of the functions of our
being, and compelled to suffer their opposites what closer
definition of hell can there be than this? And this, while avoided
or neutralized by virtue, is, in its various degrees, obviously
the inevitable result and penalty of sin.

The great mistake in the popular view or mythological doctrine of
hell has arisen from conceiving of God under the image of a
political ruler, acting from without, by wilful methods, and
inflicting arbitrary judgments on his rebellious subjects. He
should be conceived as the dynamic Creator, acting from within,
through the intrinsic order and laws of things, for the
instruction and guidance of his creatures. His condemnation is the
inevitable culmination of a discordant state of being, rather than
the verdict of a vindictive judge or the sentence of a forensic
monarch. Every retribution is an impinge of the creature in the
creation, and, so far from expressing destructive wrath, is an act
of the self rectifying mechanism of the universe to readjust the
part with the whole. With what pernicious folly, what cruel
superstition, men have attributed their own miserable passions to
their imperturbable Maker, breaking his infinite perfection into
all sorts of frightful shapes, as seen through the blur and
effervescence of their own imperfections! So the sun seems to go
down with his garments rolled in blood, and to set angrily in a
stormy ocean of fire: but really the great lamp of the universe
shines serenely from the unalterable fixture of his central seat,
and all this spectral tempest of blaze and glare is but a
refraction of his beams through our vexed atmosphere.

God being infinitely perfect, does not change his dispositions and
modes of action like a fickle man. His intentions and deeds are
the same here and everywhere, now and always. If we wish to learn
in what manner God will prepare a hell and punish the impenitent
wicked after death, we must not, as men did in the barbaric and
mythological ages, make an induction from the treatment of
criminals by capricious and revengeful rulers in this world; we
must see how God himself now treats his disobedient children for
their demerits here, assured that his eternal temper and method
are identical with his temporal temper and method.

Well, then, how does God treat offenders now? Incapable of anger
or caprice, he retains his own steady procedures and absolute
serenity unaltered, but leaves the culprits to endure the effects
of their perverted bearing towards him and towards the order he
has established.

If a man lies or defiles himself, or blasphemes, or murders, God
does not dash him from a cliff or cast him into a furnace of fire.
There would be no connection of cause and effect in

that; and to suppose it, is a gross superstition. He leaves the
offender to the reactions of his own acts, the discordant vileness
of his own degradation, the devouring return of his own passions,
to punish him for his sin, and to purge him of his wrong. The true
retribution of every wicked deed is contained in the recalcitration
of its own motive. What fitter penalty can the soul suffer than
that of being embraced in the hellish atmosphere of its own bad spirit,
to teach it to reform itself and cultivate a better spirit?

What, then, is the meaning of the fear, suffering and horror,
which so often accompany or follow sin? They do not, as has been
commonly supposed, express the indignation and revengefulness of
God. No, at their very darkest, they must suggest the shadow of
his aggrieved will, not the lurid frown of his rage. A part of the
discord which sin is and introduces, they denote the remedial
struggles of nature and grace to restore the perverted being to
its normal condition. If you put your finger in the fire the
burning pain is the reaction of your act, and that pain is not
vengeance, but preservative education. When some frightful disease
seizes on a man, the inflammation and convulsions which succeed
are the violent spring of the constitution on the enemy, its
desperate attempt to shake off the fell grasp, and bring the
organism to health and peace again. These efforts either succeed,
or in the exhausting shocks the body is destroyed. It is the same
with the soul. Sin is the displacement of the hierarchy of
authorities in the soul, the misbalancing of its energies, the
disturbance of its health and peace. And all the varieties of
retribution are the recoil of the injured faculties, the struggles
of the insulted authorities, to vindicate and reestablish
themselves. Now, these efforts, if the soul is indestructible,
must always, at last, be successful. Health in the body is the
harmonious adjustment of its energies with its conditions; and a
sufficient modicum must be obtained or death ensues. Virtue in the
soul is the harmony of its powers with the laws of God; the
measure of this is the measure of spiritual life; and granting the
soul to be immortal, the tendency towards a complete measure of
virtue must ultimately become irresistible, and every hell at last
terminate in paradise. The persistent forces or laws of the divine
environment steadily tend to draw the unstable forces or passions
of all creatures into harmony with them, and that harmony is
redemption. Perdition is consequently never, as the ecclesiastical
doctrine makes it always, a state of fixed hopelessness. Though we
make our bed in the nethermost hell, God is there. And wherever
God is, penitence and grace, reformation and pardon, have a right
of eminent domain between him and the souls of his children.

According to the common doctrine of hell as a physical locality,
and the predestination of all men to it through the sin of Adam,
birth is a universal gateway of perdition, the whole world one
open course to damnation for all except the few elected to be
saved through the blood of Christ. The orthodox scheme depicts the
lineage of Adam as a dark river of perdition, choked with the
souls of the damned, steadily pouring into hell ever since our
human generations began. But in addition to the refutation of this
terrible belief by its monstrous moral iniquity, science is now
doubly refuting it by the proof of the existence of the human race
on the earth for unnumbered centuries before the Biblical date of
Adam. So this fictitious gate of a fictitious hell is shut and
abolished. With it vanishes the horrible picture of this world as
floored with omnipresent trap doors to the bottomless pit, and
closed fatally around by a dead wall of doom, through which, by
one bloody orifice alone, the believers in the vicarious atonement
could crawl up into heaven. In place of this, we see the whole
universe as one open House of God, traversed in all directions by
the free entries of laws of intrinsic justice and love.

And so of the remaining theoretic gates of hell, unbelief, ritual
neglect, and the other technicalities on which priests and deluded
zealots have always hinged the perdition of such as heed not their
authority; none of them shall much longer prevail. With the wiping
out of the mythological hell all these fanciful entrances to it
likewise disappear. But instead of these visionary ones we should
point out and warn men from the substantial gates of the true
hell. Whatever is a cause of insubordinate and discordant fruition
in body or soul, individual or community, is a real gate of hell.
All the moral and social evils, intemperance, war, ambition,
avarice, the extremes of poverty and wealth, ignorance, bad
example, despotism, disease, every form of vice or crime, all the
influences that destroy or mar human virtue, excellence, and
harmony, are so many open gates of hell, drawing their victims in.
In holding back those who are approaching these fatal gates, in
trying to contract them, to shut them up here is a vital work to
be done, infinitely more promising than the brandishing of the
terrors of that material hell in which sensible men can no longer
believe. For the only true hell is the remedial vibration of truth
in an uncoordinated soul, even when not remedial for the
individual still remedial for the race.

It is not our outward abode, but our inmost spirit, that makes our
experience infernal or heavenly: for, in the last result, it is
the occupying spirit that moulds the environment, not the
habitation that determines the tenant. This is the substance of
the whole matter. An accomplished chemist, who was a good man in
truth, but a heretic by the standard of orthodoxy, died. Being an
unbeliever, of course, he went to hell. Seeing a group of children
in torment there, he pitied them very deeply, and straightway
began to devise measures, by means of his skill in chemical
science, to shield them from the flame. Instantly the whole scene
changed. The beauty of heaven lay around him, and all its
blandness breathed through him. Forgetting his own sufferings in
sympathy for those of others, he had obeyed the law of virtue,
subjecting a selfish desire to a disinterested one; and the
omnipotent God enveloped him with the heaven of his own spirit.
Another man, who was hard and cruel in character, but perfectly
sound in the orthodox faith and observances, died. It is true he
was an avaricious and hard saint, but then he believed in the
atoning blood; and so, of course, he went to heaven. No sooner did
he find himself safely seated in bliss than he tried to peep over
the golden wall into the pit of perdition, in order to heighten
the relish of his favored lot by the contrast of the agonies of
the lost. Instantly the celestial scenery about him was changed
into infernal, and, by the radiation and return of his own bad
spirit, he found himself plunged into hell and writhing under its
retributive experience. His character exemplified the law of
perdition, enthroning selfishness over disinterestedness,
subverting the order of virtue; and the insulted will of God made
his imagined heaven a real hell.

Hell is revealed in the experience of the world as a diminishing
quantity through the successive periods since war, cannibalism and
slavery were universal. Will not the progressive process terminate
in the utter extinction of it, paradise everywhere steadily
encroaching on purgatory until at last the whole universe of matter
and spirit composes an unbroken heaven?

According to the nebular hypothesis, the entire creation was once
a measureless chaos  confusion, conflict, collisions, explosions,
making a universal hell of matter. But the discords and
perturbations grew ever less and less, regularity and order more
and more, as suns and planets and moons took form and wheeled in
their gleaming circles, till now the mazy web of worlds is weaving
throughout space the perfect harmony of the creative design. The
evolution of incarnate spiritual destinies began later, and is
more complex than the material, each mind being as complicated as
the whole galaxy. May we not trust that at last it shall be as
complete as the evolution of the astronomic motions already is,
and a divine empire of holy and happy men be the goal of history?
This hope carries the cross through hell, and leaves nothing
unredeemed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GATES OF HEAVEN; OR, THE LAW OF SALVATION IN ALL WORLDS.

HEAVEN, in the crude fancy of mankind, has generally been
conceived as a definite, exclusive, material abode; either some
elysian clime on the surface of the earth; or some happy isle
beyond the setting sun; or this whole globe, renovated by fire and
peopled with a risen and ransomed race; or else some halcyon spot
in the sky, curtained with inaccessible splendor and crowded with
eternal blessings. It was natural that men should think thus of
heaven as a place whence all the evils which they knew were
excluded and where all the goods which they knew were carried to
the highest pitch, God himself visibly enthroned there in
entrancing glory amidst throngs of worshippers.

This was unavoidable, because, in an early age, before knowledge
and reflection had trained men to the critical examination and
correction of their instinctive conclusions, all the data which
they possessed would naturally lead them to imagine the unknown
God in the glorified form and circumstances of the most enviable
being their experience had yet revealed to them; and to paint the
unknown future state of perfected souls under the purest aspects
of the most desirable boons they had known in the present state.
It being a necessity of their uncritical minds to personify God by
a definite picture of imagination, and to portray heaven to
themselves as an external place, they could not do otherwise than
work out the results by means of the most intense experiences and
the most impressive imagery familiar to them. The highest idea
they had of man, purified and expanded to the utmost, would be
their idea of God; and the grandest and happiest conditions of
existence within their observation, enhanced by the removal of
every limiting ill, would form their notion of heaven. Both would
be outward, definite, local, and, as it were, tangible. Royal
courts with their pomp of power and luxury; priestly temples, with
their exclusive sanctity, their awe inspiring secrets, their
processions and anthems, would inevitably furnish the prevailing
casts and colors to the dogmas and the scenery of early religion.
For what were the most vivid of all the experiences men had among
their fellows on earth? Why, the exhibitions of the sultan with
his gorgeous ceremonial state, and of the high priest with the
dread sacrifice and homage he paid amidst clouds of incense and
rolling waves of song; the admission of the favored, in glittering
robes, to share the privileges; the exclusion of the profane and
vulgar in squalid misery and outer darkness. Consequently, except
by a miracle, these sights could not fail largely to constitute
the scenic elements for the popular belief concerning God and
heaven. What should men reflect over into the unknown to portray
their ideals there, if not the most coveted ingredients and the
most impressive forms of the known? The great thing, then,
inevitably, would be supposed to be to gain the personal favor of
the supreme Sovereign by some artifice, some flattery, some
fortunate compliance with his arbitrary caprice, and to get into
the charmed enclosure of his abode by some special grace some
authoritative passport or magic art.

But as soon as science and philosophy, and a spiritual experience
rectifying its own errors by reflective criticism, have created a
more competent theology it discredits all these raw schemes. It
teaches that God, being the eternal omnipresent power and mystery
which foreran, underlies, pervades and includes all things, cannot
justly be figured as a man, locally here or there, and not
elsewhere. He can be justly thought of only as the almighty
Creator of the universe, intelligible in the order of his works
and ways, but inscrutable in his essence, absent nowhere, present
everywhere in general, and specially revealed anywhere whenever a
fit experience in the soul awakens a special consciousness of him.
This conception of God the only one any longer defensible as the
Infinite Spirit, incapable, except in his various incarnations, of
particular local enthronement and uncovering to the outward gaze
of worshippers, necessitates a correspondent alteration in the
vulgar idea of heaven as an exclusive spot in space.

In every form of being, in any portion of the universe, the
central idea of a state of salvation, is the fulfillment of the
will of the Creator in the faculties of the creature, the fruition
of the ends of the whole in the consciousness of the part, the
congruity of the forces of the soul with the requirements of its
situation. If this definition be accepted, it is clear that no
mere place of residence, however excellent, can be heaven. That is
but one factor of heaven, and worthless without a corresponding
factor of a spiritual kind. Essentially, heaven is a divine
experience, not a divine location; yet constructively it is both
of these. Ever so serene and pure a space, perfectly free from
every perturbation of ill, and surrounded with all the outer
provisions of power and order, would be no heaven, until a
prepared soul entered it, furnishing the spiritual conditions for
the forces to run into fruition, for the melody of blissful being
to play. The material elements of the universe, so far as we know,
are unconscious dynamics. However perfectly marshalled, they can
by themselves compose no heaven. So the conscious soul, as far as
we know, is incapable of an independent and unrelated existence in
itself. All its experience, when ultimately analyzed, is the
resultant of the mutual relations between its own energies and
capacities and the forms and forces of things outside of itself.
When there is a right arrangement of right realities in the
residence, and a right development of faculties and affections
within the resident, and such an adjustment of the spiritual
states with the surrounding conditions, that, as these act and
react upon each other, the laws of the universe break into
conscious harmony, or the will of God is realized in a life of
blessedness; that harmony, that blessedness, is what we mean by
heaven; and the conditions of its realization constitute the law
of salvation.

Such being the true idea of heaven, obviously, it cannot be
limited to any particular locality. It may be here, elsewhere,
anywhere, everywhere, before death, in death, after death;
whenever and wherever the proper conditions meet inward state and
outward circumstances so adjusted as to produce an experience
which fulfills the will of God and realizes the end of the
creation. Hereafter this may be, as we know it now on earth, a
spiritual fruition in material conditions, or it may be something
altered in accordance with the varying exigences of worlds whose
details are as yet inconceivable by us, altogether hidden behind
the veil of futurity and our ignorance. But its one fundamental
condition, its eternal essence under all circumstances which can
possibly happen, must always be the same. Whatever changes await
the soul, embodied in a new form in the state after death, or
remaining in pure disembodiment; whatever be the relation of the
immaterial entity of mind to the circumference and contents of its
new home, it can be in paradise, it can command peace and bliss,
or any equivalent of these terms, only by the fulfillment of the
will of God in its being. Heaven is, therefore, the reconciliation
and unison of the soul with its divinely appointed lot, the
identification of the ideal and the real.

The will of God is expressed in the soul in the submissive
services and virtues of a pure and pious character it is expressed
in the outward creation by the unbreakable persistency of his laws
through all the aberrations and discords of accompaning evil or
limitation. Nowhere can it ever be an impossibility to conjoin
these and thus to make a heaven. The one thing which everywhere is
variable and evanescent, is evil, or the imperfect adjustment of
the creature with the works and designs of the Creator. The one
thing which forever stays, and steadily invites the intelligent
soul to its embrace, is good, that is, the opportunity to realize
the divinely intended correspondence of the relations in the part
with the relations in the whole, a serene movement of life through
the unison of the soul with its true fate. Now, the one predicate
which is essential in all things, without whose presence nothing
can be, is the will of God. Even could that will be violated or
withstood, still it would be there, upholding, forgiving, wooing
Salvation, or a life of conscious harmony, is capable of
realization, of course, wherever the means are offered for the
performance and enjoyment of the will of God; and the infinity of
his attributes necessarily makes that condition an omnipresent
possibility in the realm of free spirits. Therefore, heaven is not
outwardly limited to one place, or to one period, but may be
achieved at any time, and anywhere. This throws light on the
fallacy of the current, narrow doctrine of a limited probation.
The oriental belief that the action of the present is the fate of
the future unquestionably covers a profound truth. Yet, if there
is always a future there must likewise always be a present, and
the right action in this may forever redeem that. Probation is
limited by no decree, only by the duration of free being.

Although the essential element in the idea of heaven is forever
the same, it may be regarded in three different aspects, or on
three different scales as an individual experience, as a social
state, as a far off universal event. Heaven, as a private
experience, is the harmonized intercourse of the soul with the
divineness in its surrounding conditions. Heaven, as a public
society, is the blessed communion of blessed souls, a complete
adjustment of the lives of kindred natures. Heaven, as a final
consummation, is the publication of the vindicated will of God in
the total harmony of the universe, all individual wills so many
separate notes blent in the collective consonance of the whole.

But, for all practical purposes, we may overlook this triple
distinction and think of heaven simply as the correspondence of
the life of the soul with those outward conditions which represent
the will of God. And towards this conclusion everything, in its
profoundest and most persistent tendency, is bearing. In spite of
interruptions and seeming exceptions, it is towards this that the
entire confluence of forces and beings gravitates and slowly
advances. The universal law of evolution, in which a scientific
philosophy has generalized its most comprehensive induction, is
but a history and prophecy of the progress towards a moving
equilibrium of the totality of worlds and intelligences, which can
eventuate only in a universal heaven, or unimpeded completion of
the creative design.

Do we not see all creatures tending towards the perfection of
their respective types, every improvement selectively taken up and
carried on, every deteriorating deviation eliminated, all errors
and failures doomed to perish or change into new conditions for
more hopeful attempts? This confirms the faith first based on the
deeper argument. For, since the will of God is the one persistent
reality, the one all evolving and all inclusive power of which
evil is only the distorted and shadowy negation, that opposition
to the will of God which constitutes sin and misery, that discord
with him which generates hell, must prove an ever smaller
accompaniment of his plan, a transitory phenomenon ceasing in even
degree with the spreading conquests of his almighty purpose, as
race on race of creatures, and system on system of worlds, sweep
into the victorious harmony, until the boundless realm of being
shall be boundless heaven.

Heaven, then, in essence, is not merely a favored locality, not
merely a resigned soul, but the result of a combination of these
in a just relation. It is not a playing power in the material
environment nor an inherent attribute of the spiritual instrument;
but it is the music which flows from the instrument when it is
attuned to react in coordination with the acting environment.
Salvation, consequently, is not simply a divine place of abode,
not simply a divine state of soul; but it is these two conjoined.
It is the experimental deposit between the two poles of rightly
ordered conditions in the realm and rightly directed energies in
the inhabitant. Heaven, then, in the best and briefest definition
we can give, is the will of God in fulfillment, or the law of the
whole in uncrossed action.

Hell is the experience produced by the rebound of violated law.
Or, if we hold that, strictly speaking, a divine law is incapable
of violation; as every seeming resistance to gravitation is in
fact a deeper obedience to gravitation, then we may say, in more
accurate phrase, hell is the collision and friction of the
limitations of different laws. It is the discord of the part with
the whole. It is the antagonism of the soul with God. But the
perpetual preservation of a perfectly balanced antagonism with God
is inconceivable. It must vary, totter, grow either worse or
better. If it grows worse, it will finally destroy itself, the
aberrant individuality or malign insurgence vanishing in the
totality of force, as the filth of our sewers vanishes purely in
the purity of the ocean. If it grows better, its improvement will
finally transform the opposition into reconciliation, the evil
disappearing in good. Therefore, every being must at length be
saved from misery, if not by redemptive atonement then by
absolvent annihilation, and one absolute heaven finally absorb the
dwindling hells.

The question of chief importance to us in relation to heaven is,
How can we gain admission into it. The limitations of language
necessitate the use of imagery for the expression of religious
ideas: and there is no objection to it if it be recognized as
imagery, and be interpreted accordingly. Considering, then, that
beatific experience of which heaven consists, under the metaphor
of a city, what are its ways of entrance? How can we pass to its
citizenship?

The obstacles to our entrance exist not in the city itself. Its
gates are never closed. The supreme conditions of redemption are
spiritual, and not local or material. If there be within
no fatal impediments to the free course of the will of God, all
outer obstacles easily give way and cease. If we are ever to know
heaven, it is within ourselves that we must find it out. Whatever
abolishes that internal rebellion of the soul which makes its
experience a purgatory, whatever replaces this confusion with an
accord of the faculties, is a road to heaven. Whatever removes
vices and inserts virtues in their stead, attuning us to the
eternal laws of things, leads us through some gate into paradise.
And nothing else can no ceremonial artifice, no external
transference, no sacramental exorcism, no priestly dodge.

The same mistake generally committed in regard to the nature of
heaven, making it a mere local residence, has been as generally
committed in regard to the conditions of admission. They have been
made arbitrary, whereas they are intrinsic. They are inwrought
with the substantial laws of being. The idea of God being first
fashioned after the image of a sultan throned in his palace amidst
his courtiers, ruling an empire by his whims, it was but natural
that heaven, and the terms of entrance there, should be in a
similar manner conceived under the forms of court ceremonial with
its capricious favoritisms. Thus it has been supposed that by the
atoning sacrifice of an incarnate person of the Godhead
satisfaction has been made for the sins of the world, which was
hopelessly ruined by its original federal representative, and that
thus a pardon was offered to those alone who mentally accept the
formula of the correspondent belief.

According to this view, the only open gateway of heaven is faith
in the vicarious atonement, a baptismal passage through the blood
of Christ. Science explodes this narrow and repulsive doctrine by
demonstrating its irreconcilableness alike with physical fact and
with moral law, first tracing the affiliated lines of our race
back to many separate Adams in the shadows of an indeterminable
antiquity, and then showing that the divine method of salvation is
through substantial rejection of evil and appropriation of good in
personal character, and not through royal proclamation and
forensic conformity.

The plan of God for the salvation of men, as its culmination is
seen in Christ, is the exhibition of the true type of being, the
true style of motive and action, for their assimilation and
reproduction: but Calvinism, when fundamentally analyzed, reduces
it to a monarchical manifesto and spectacular drama working its
effects through verbal terms, acts of mental assent and gesticular
deeds. Every sound teaching of philosophy refutes this exclusive
and arbitrary creed. In fact, its fictitious and mythological
nature is obvious the moment we see that the will of God is
represented in those laws of nature which are the direct
articulations and embodiments of his eternal mind, and not in
those political regulations or priestly and judicial formalities
which express the perverted desires and artificial devices of men.
The wearing of a certain dress, the bending of the knee, the
muttering of a phrase, may flatter an earthly sovereign and gain a
seat at his banquets. But it is childish folly to fancy any such
thing of God. It is absurd to suppose that he has two schemes of
government, one for the present state, another for the future; one
for the elect, another for the reprobate; one for those who gaze
on the spectacle of the crucifixion and make a certain sign,
another for those who do not. His laws, identified with the
unchangeable nature and course of the creation, sweep in one
unbroken order throughout immensity and eternity, awarding perfect
justice, and perfect mercy to all alike, making the experience of
all souls a hell or a heaven to them accordingly as they strive
against or harmonize with the divine system of existence in
which they have their being. The mere acceptance of a technical
dogma, the mere performance of a ritual action, cannot adjust
a discordant character with the conditions of blessedness so
as to reinstate an exile of heaven. To imagine that God will,
in consideration of some technical device, place in heaven a
man whose character fits him for hell, or, in default of that
conventionality, place in hell a man whose character fits him
for heaven, is to represent him as acting on an eccentric whim.
And surely every one who has a worthy idea of God must find
it much easier to believe that men have mixed mythological
dreams with their religion, than to believe that the infinite
God is capable of despotic freaks or melo dramatic caprices.

The poor, odious figment that baptism with the blood of Christ
is the sole entrance to heaven, is rebuked by the sweet and awful
imperturbableness with which the laws of being act, distributing
the ingredients of hell or heaven to every one accordingly as his
vices disobey or his virtues obey the will of God.

In a universe of law where God with all his attributes is
omnipresent no trick can ever be the pathway into paradise. The
true method of salvation is by the production of a good character
through divine grace and the discipline of life. Thus, the real
law of salvation through Christ consists not in the technical
belief that he shed his blood for our redemption, but in the
personal derival from him of that spirit which will make us
willing to shed our own blood for the good of others.

There was, not long ago, called to her eternal home, a young
woman, who, by the sweet gentleness, the heroic generosity and the
unspotted fidelity of her whole life, deserves an exalted place on
the roll of feminine chivalry and saintliness. Not a brighter
name, or one associated with a more fearless and accomplished
spirit, is recorded on the list of those Christian women who
volunteered to serve as nurses in the great American war of
nationality. No soldier was braver, few were more under fire, than
she; still plying her holy work with unfaltering love and
fortitude, both in the horrid miasma of camps and before the
charge of cavalry and the blaze of cannon. Many a time, the
livelong night, under the solemn stars, equipped with assuaging
stores, she threaded her way alone through the debris of carnage,
seeking out the wounded among the dead, lifting her voice in song
as a signal for any lingering survivor who might be near. Many a
time she broke on the vision of mutilated and dying men, with the
light of love in her eyes, a hymn of cheer on her lips, and
unwearied ministrations in her hands, transfigured with courage
and devotion, gleaming on their sight through the sulphurous flame
of battle or the darkening mists of disease like an angel from
heaven. Receiving the seeds of fatal illness from her exposures,
she returned home to delight with her noble qualities all who knew
her, to make a husband happy, and then to die a contented martyr.
Meekly folding her hands, and saying: "Thanks, Father, for what
thou hast enabled me to do, and still more for the new home to
which thou art calling me now" she was gone. The cruel creed of
superstition says: "Since she was a Universalist, having no part,
by faith, in the mystic sacrifice of Christ, she is doomed to
hell." But every attribute of God, every promise written by his
own finger in the sacred instincts of our nature, as well as the
cardinal teachings of the New Testament, assure us that as the
victorious purity and devotedness of her soul bore her away from
the tabernacle of flesh, the welcoming Savior said: "Come, thou
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared from the
foundation of the world." And heaven swung wide its gate for her;
and excited fancy conceives that, as she passed in, there was a
gratulatory flutter of wings and waving of palms through the
angelic ranks.

In distinction from that hypothetical gate of blood, set up by a
crude theology in one narrow place alone, what, then, are the real
gates of heaven, which stand open throughout the realms of
responsible being? All the causes which bring the will of man into
consent with the will of God. Truth is the harmony of mind with
the divine order; beauty, the harmony of taste with the divine
symmetries; good, the harmony of volition with the divine ends.
Everything that secures these for us is an avenue into the
peaceful city of bliss. To be in heaven is to be a transparent
medium through which the qualities of objects, the reflections of
phenomena, the vibrations of aboriginal power, pass in blessed
freedom, without deflection or jar, and on which the mysterious
attraction of the Infinite exerts its supreme spell. To be there
in a superlative degree is to have a mind which is an
infinitesimal mirror of the All, and a heart responsive to that
mind, every perception of truth in the realm of the intellect
generating a correspondent emotion of good in the realm of
affection. Not any forensic act of faith in atoning blood, but
ingrained piety a modest renunciation before the reality of things
is the grand gateway of souls to the blessedness and repose of
God. Anselm, the great sainted Archbishop of Canterbury, said: "I
would rather be in hell without a fault than in heaven with one."
Can any defective technicality damn such a man? No; such a spirit
carries and radiates heaven is itself heaven. That spirit is God
himself in his creature, and can no more be imprisoned in hell
than God can be. On the other hand, any professing Orthodoxist
who, according to a horrible doctrine of the Calvinists in former
days, should hope in heaven to obtain a sharper relish for his own
joy by looking down on the tortures of the damned, and contrasting
his blissful safety with the hopeless agony of their perdition,
would find himself in hell. The infernal scenery, even there,
would burst on his gaze, its atmosphere of pain reek around him,
and the detestable turmoil of its experience rage in his breast.
The selfishness of his character, in steep contradiction to the
public disinterestedness belonging to the divine will, must invert
every proper experience of heaven. Could any conventional
arrangement, or accident of locality, save such a man, while his
character remained unchanged? No; such a spirit carries and
radiates hell, is itself hell.

A Mohammedan author says of the seventy three sects into which his
coreligionists are divided, that seventy two are wrong ways,
terminating in eternal damnation; the remaining one alone, in
which are the party of salvation, leads through the true faith
into the City of Allah. The same unwise bigotry, the same
unripeness of judgment, has been generally shown by Christians. It
is time they were ashamed of it, and allowed their souls to mature
and expand into a more liberal creed in fuller keeping with the
hospitable amplitude of the righteousness and goodness of God.
Everything that tends to bring the will of man into loving
submission to the infinite Father, to mould the structure of
character into correspondence with those established conditions of
rightful being represented by the moral and religious
virtues, is an open highway of salvation. And all the great
cardinal ordinations of life do legitimately tend to this result.
Therefore all these are gates of heaven. Some pass in through one
of them, others through another; and by means of them all, it is
decreed in the sovereign councils of the Divinity, as we believe,
that, sooner or later, every intelligence shall reach the goal.

First is the gate of innocence. Little children, spotless youths
and maidens who have known no malice or guile, the saintly few
among mature men and women who by the untempted elevation and
serenity of their temper have kept their integrity unmarred and
their robes unsullied, enter by this nearest and easiest gate.
Borne aloft by their own native gravitation, we see the white
procession of the innocent ones winding far up the cerulean height
and defiling in long melodious line into heaven.

The second gate is prosperity. Through this enter those to whom
good fortune has served as the guiding smile of God, not pampering
them with arrogance, nor hardening them with careless egotism, but
shaping them to thankful meekness and generosity. Exempt from
lacerating trials, every want benignly supplied, girt with
friends, they have grown up in goodness and gratitude, obeying the
will of God by the natural discharge of their duties, diffusing
benedictions and benefits around them. To such beautiful spirits,
saved from wrong and woe by the redemptive shelter of their lot,
happiness is a better purgatory than wretchedness. The crystal
stream of joy percolating throughout the soul cleanses it more
perfectly than any flames of pain can. And so the virtuous
children of a favored fortune, who have improved their privileges
with pious fidelity, move on into heaven.

Then the third gate is victory. This is more arduous of approach,
and yet a throng of heroic souls, the very chivalry of heaven,
press through it, wounded and bleeding from the struggle, but
triumphant. These are they who have endured hardship with
uncomplaining fortitude and fought their way through all enemies,
seductions and tribulations. These are they who, armed with the
native sacrament of righteousness, inspired with a loyal love,
would never stoop their crests to wrong nor make a league with
iniquity the conquering champions who tread down every vile
temptation, ever hearing their Leader say, "In the world ye shall
have trouble and sorrow; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the
world."

Penitence is another gate of heaven. By the instructions of
Providence, by the natural progress of experience, the evolution
of wisdom, a sinner may become aware of the ingratitude of his
disobedience, ashamed of the odiousness of his guilt; be smitten
with a regenerating love of truth, beauty, goodness, God; and,
without waiting for the lash of an external judgment to drive him
the way he should go, by voluntary preference may grieve over his
folly and sin, and turn to his duty and his Savior. Then the
blessed gate of a spontaneous repentance stands open before him;
and through this hospitable entrance multitudes find admission to
the divine home.

Death often gives an otherwise unattainable deliverance, and so
yields the poor victim of unhappy outer conditions a passage to
heaven. It is a thought no less false than it is frightful, which
represents death as the vindictive turnkey of the creation, at
whose approach probation ends, and the shuddering convict is
thrust into hell, the hopeless bolt dropping into its ward behind
him. It is rather the divine messenger of deliverance for those
who are borne down here under a fate too hard for them. Oh, what
myriads of afflicted ones orphan children crushed by brutal
treatment; poor seamstresses starving in garrets; men and women
ground and grimed almost out of the semblance of humanity, in the
drudgery and darkness of coal mines; hapless suicides, who have
rashly fled from this step dame world, and whose alabaster forms,
purpled with bruises, are laid on the dismal beds of brass in the
morgue, where a ghastly light strains through the grates, and the
crowd of gazers sweeps endlessly on; unsuccessful men of genius,
unappreciated, neglected, cruelly wronged, their extreme
sensitiveness making their lives a long martyrdom to these what a
blessed angel is death, freeing them, setting them in a new state,
starting them on a fresh career, amidst fairer circumstances, in
front of better opportunities! To be saved, and in paradise, what
is it but to be a pure instrument to echo the music of divine
things? When the corruptible parts of the instrument are
hopelessly discordant, or the circumstances of its place here are
jangled with evils which it cannot overcome, then the
disentanglement of the spiritual harp, and the translation of it
to some finer sphere; where its free chords may ring their proper
music clearly out, are a blessed redemption, making death itself a
triumphant gate of heaven.

Retribution is the remotest and most difficult of all the heavenly
gates; and yet it is one, and one that is indispensable for many a
neglectful, halting, and obstinate child of man. It is an extreme
error to think punishment a gate of hell. It is rather a result of
being already inside, and it legitimately serves as an outlet
thence. Whatever may be the case with imperfect human rulers, in
the government of God no punishment is ever inflicted for the sake
of vengeance, a gratuitous evil. It is blasphemy to deem God
vindictive. He always punishes for the sake of good, to awaken
attention, produce insight and sorrow, and cause a reattunement of
character and conduct with the laws of right, seen at last to be
supremely authoritative and benignant, indissolubly bound up with
the truest good of each and with the sole good of all. On every
gate of hell may be written. Wherever retribution is actual,
salvation is possible, equivalent to the great maxim of
jurisprudence: Ubi jus ibi remedium! So, even the dark door of
retribution, when men will advance by no other way, leads them to
thoughtfulness, regret, and a redemptive readjustment of their
passions and acts. Thus it becomes the ultimate gate of heaven.
And, alas! what a dismal crowd of sufferers, refusing all shorter
and happier ways, wait to be drawn through this torturing passage
of remedial mercy! May the number entering by the other gates ever
increase, and those entering this dwindle! And yet, may it forever
stand open for the unhappy culprits who must be lost unless saved
here!

Besides all these gates, and commanding them all, there is one
everywhere accessible, and never shut on any soul which has the
grace to try it the omnipresent gate of resignation. Remove the
conditions of resistance, or friction, by a total surrender of
self will and an absolute acceptance of the Divine Will, and, it
matters not where you are, the essence of perdition is destroyed
in your soul. The utter abandonment of pride, a pious submission
to the laws of things, a glad and grateful acquiescence in
whatever the Supreme Authority decrees this is the unrestricted
way into heaven which waits before the steps of all who will only
exhibit the requisite spirit, and enter. Yes, let any being but
banish from himself every vestige of personal dictation before God
and unexactingly identify his desires with universal good; and,
even though he stand on the bottom of hell, heaven will be directly
before him through the open gate of resignation. For the organic
attitude of a pure and loving submission tunes the discordant
creature to that eternal breath of God which blows everywhere
through the universe of souls, sighing until they conspire with
it to make the music of redemption.

CHAPTER V.

RESUME HOW THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY NOW STANDS.

IN THE leading nations of Christendom, the belief in the
immortality of the soul has for some time past obviously been
weakening. The number of those who assail the belief increases,
and their utterances become more frank and dogmatic. A multitude
of instances, clear to every careful observer, prove this.
Especially at the present moment do examples of painful doubt,
profound misgiving, bold and exultant denial, mocking flippancy
and ridicule, abound on all sides, in private conversation, in
public discussion, and in every form of literary activity. The
hearty thoroughness and fervor with which the faith of the Church
was once held have gone from whole classes. Subtle skepticism or
blank negation is a common characteristic. Whether this tendency
towards unbelief be sound or fallacious, temporary or permanent,
it is at least actual. And it is important that we examine the
causes of it, and test their logical validity while tracing their
historic spread. Why, then, we ask, is the faith in a future life
for man suffering such a marked decay in the present generation of
Christendom?

In the first place, the faith pales and dwindles, from the general
neglect of that strenuous and constant cultivation of it formerly
secured by the stern doctrinal drill and by the rigid supervision
of daily thought and habit in the interests of religion. Never
before were men so absorbed as now in material toil and care
during the serious portion of their existence; never before so
beset as now during the leisure portion by innumerable forms of
amusement and dissipation. The habit of lonely meditation and
prayer grows rarer. The exactions of the struggle of ambition grow
fiercer, the burdens of necessity press more heavily; the vices
and temptations of society thicken: and they withdraw the
attention of men from ideal and sacred aims. More and more men
seem to live for labor and pleasure, for time and sense; less and
less for truth and good, for God and eternity. Absorbed in the
materialistic game, or frittered and jaded in frivolous
diversions, all eternal aims go by default. In what precious age
was maddening rivalry so universal, giggling laughter so pestilent
an epidemic, triviality at such a premium and sublimity at such a
discount? But the things to which men really devote themselves
dilate to fill the whole field of their vision. They soon come to
disbelieve that for which they take no thought and make no
sacrifice or investment. The average men of our time, as well
those of the educated classes as those of the laboring classes, do
not live for immortality. Therefore their faith in it diminishes.
Our fathers, to a degree not common now, walked in mental
companionship with God, practiced solitary devotion, shaped their
daily feelings and deeds with reference to the effect on their
future life. Thus that hidden life became real to them. Now the
interests and provocations of the present world, concentrated and
intensified as never before the strife of aspirants, the giddy
enterprises of speculation and commerce and engineering, the chaos
of caucuses and newspapers and telegraphs  monopolize our
faculties and exhaust our energies, leaving us but faint
inclination to attend to the solemn themes of the soul and the
mystic lures of infinity. To those crazed with greed, battling
with rivals or sunk in debauchery, God naturally becomes a verbal
phantom and immortality a foolish dream. There is nothing in
mechanism and mammon worship, nothing in selfish sloth and
laughter, nothing in cruel oppression and drudgery, to inspire
belief in the deathless spirituality of man. Among a people
prevailingly given over to these earthlinesses, faith in the
transcendent verities of religion perforce dies out. In the long
run the supreme devotion of the soul irresistibly moulds its
faith. Christendom does not live in conscious sacrifices and
aspirations for God and eternal life, but it lives chiefly for
selfish power and knowledge, money, praise and luxury. Therefore
in Christendom faith in immortality is decaying. But we believe
this decay to be temporary, the necessary transition to a richer
and more harmonic insight. The passing eclipse of faith in a
future life is destined by concentrating attention on the present
to develop its resources, realize the divine possibilities of this
world, unveil all the elements of hell and heaven really existing
here, and fully attune mankind to the conditions of virtue and
blessedness now. When this shall have been done the tangential and
fractional character of our experience will be so obvious, the
inadequacy of the earthly state for the wants of our transcendent
and prophetic faculties will be so urgent, and the supplementing
adaptations of the entire unseen but clearly divined future to the
craving parts in the present will be so manifest, that a complete
revelation of immortality will break upon the prepared mind of the
race. Then history will take a new departure in breathing
communion with the whole creation.

But infidelity to duty and privilege does not destroy the truth of
duty and privilege. It only blinds the faithless eyes so that they
cannot see the truth. If the immortality of the soul be a truth,
the materialistic absorption of our life would blind us to it and
make us deny it. Exclusive attention to the present would hide the
future from us, although its dazzling prizes, scattered on the
dark back ground of eternity, were burning there in everlasting
invitation and hospitality. Thus, while the eager worldliness of
our age practically vacates the faith in a future life, it does
not logically disprove it; but leaves it for the ultimate test of
the genuine evidence.

The second reason for the apparent rapid crumbling away of the
belief in immortality in Christendom is the recent wide diffusion
of a critical knowledge of the comparative history of the opinions
of all nations on the subject of a future life, revealing the
mythological character common to them, and tracking them back to
their origin in primitive superstitions no longer is their literal
purport credible to any educated intelligence. In many works by
theological writers, and by scientific writers, of free habits of
thought, like Strauss and Spencer, collections have been made of
the fancies and theories of mankind respecting the survival of the
spirit and the conditions of its experience after the death of the
body. These beliefs, it has been agreed, even among the most
enlightened peoples, rest at last on the same basis with the
crudest notions of the barbarians of the prehistoric period,
namely, the spontaneous workings of raw instinct and imagination.
Tracing the views of Christians as to the nature of the soul, and
the life to come in heaven or hell, back to the rude conceptions
of the naked savages who fashioned their idea of the ghost from
the shadow or the reflection of the man, which was a picture or
representative of him, yet without matter, and from the phenomena
of dreams, in which they supposed the spirit of the man left him
and went through the adventures of the dream and returned ere he
awoke it has been asserted that every form of later faith, however
refined and improved in details, yet really resting on such
puerile fancies, such incompetent and absurd beginnings, is
thereby discredited and must be rejected.

Now, it is true that when we find among Christian believers,
connected with the doctrine of a future life, an incongruous
medley of physical imagery and gross imaginative pictures,
conceptions of just the same character as the grotesque dreamings
of the earliest savages and the elaborate mythology of subsequent
priesthoods, we are required to treat the whole suppositious mass
as mere poetry or superstition, and to dismiss it from our faith.
But we are by no means justified in doing so with the essential
fact itself of a future life. The essential fact, the assertion of
immortality, may be true, even if the mythological dress be all
fictitious. It does not follow that man has no surviving soul
because the local heaven or hell, described by savage or priest as
its residence, is unreal. It surely is no correct inference that
the soul perishes with the body, because the barbarian mind
generalized its idea of the soul from the phenomena of shadows,
reflections, echoes and dreams. The critical scholar, who judges
the case fairly, will correct the fallacies of the confused
reasoning instinct, and relegate the mythology to its proper
province, but reserve his judgment on the question itself of
spiritual survival to be settled on the only appropriate evidence.
Although the habit thus formed by the critical scholar, and by
those who follow his authority, of sweeping away as wholly
untenable so many varieties of speculation, and so many groups of
images connected with the belief in a future life, has
unquestionably contributed powerfully to foster complete disbelief
in the doctrine itself, yet it is equally unquestionable that this
process of negation is illogical. Many a true doctrine has been
cradled in superstitions and absurdities. A faith supported by
many classes of independent arguments is not overthrown by the
disproof of one of those classes. It is as wrongful a procedure to
deny the immortality of the soul because barbaric instinct
grounded it on erroneous notions and enveloped it with falsehoods,
as it would be to reject the established laws of gravitation and
light and sound, for the reason that the various provisional
theories, preceding the correct ones, were ridiculous mistakes.
The problem to be solved is, Does the man who is now a soul in a
body remain a soul when the body dissolves? The inadequacy or
folly of a hundred provisional answers does not affect the final
answer. Instead of denying immortality because the childish mind
of the early world feigned impossible things about it, we should
change the question by appeal to a more competent court, and
inquire what Pythagoras, Augustine, Dante, Leibnitz, Fichte,
Schelling, Swedenborg, Goethe, thought about it. It is a question
for the consensus of the most gifted and impartial minds, the very
Areopagus of Humanity, to decide. Furthermore, on a deeper
inquiry, it seems clear that the real belief in immortality did
not originate from the contemplation of the phenomena of dreams
and shadows and echoes, but arose rather from the inexpugnable
self assertion of consciousness, its inability to feel itself non
existent. This persistency of consciousness, following it in all
its imaginative flights of thought beyond the death of the body,
was the cause of the mythological creativeness of the barbaric
mind. And thus the elaboration of the imagery of ghosts and a
ghostly realm was not the precursor, but the result of a belief in
another life. The belief sprang directly out of the feeling of a
continuous being unconquerably connected with human self
consciousness, and is independent of the imagery in which it has
been clothed, may clothe itself in endless forms of imagery, and
survive their removal on the discovery of their incompetence.

Besides, the savage himself was, after all, not so far out of the
way. His mythology was not a mere fiction concreted into fact by
superstition. He was on that track of analogy which, when cleared,
will be, perhaps, the luminous highway to universal truth. The
savage was obscurely conscious that the objects which appeared
around him as solid material realities had their immaterial
correspondences within his spirit. The tree, the stone, the
flower, the star, the beast, the man, had within him correspondent
mental images or ideas just as real as they, but without sensible
qualities, and incapable of hurt. With creative wonder he
recognized a symbol or analogy of this inner world in the shadow
and the reflection. The shadow or the reflection is a representation
of its original, but without material substance.

See, it lies there, wavering, on the rock, or in the water. No
arrow can pierce it, no club bruise it, no pestle pulverize it, no
chemistry disintegrate it. It is an emblem of the immaterial and
indestructible spirit, revealed in the outer world of matter,
where everything changes and passes away except the noumena under
the phenomena. No wonder it stirred the brooding fancy of the
ignorant, but prophetic primitive man, and made it teem with poesy
and personification.

Freely, then, let us brush aside the mythological extravagance and
irrational errors in the entire cosmopolitan doctrine of a future
life, but beware of rejecting the fact itself of immortality until
we have better grounds than have yet been afforded by the
accumulating insight of literary history. As the world moves on,
and the human mind develops with it, the crude must give way to
the mature, and the false be replaced, not with vacancy, but with
the true. The problem of the nature and destiny of the soul will
not be solved by tearing away the fictitious drapery thrown around
it, but by piercing to the roots of the reality within the
drapery.

And now we come to the third reason for the increasing doubt and
decreasing faith in regard to a future life: that reason is that
the form of the belief in it prevalent in Christendom has become
incredible, and the rejection of the form has loosened the hold on
the substance. The philosophic mind, which has attained to the
idea of the infinite God, without body, or parts, or passions,
omnipresent in his total perfection, can reason to the belief in a
kindred immortality for its own finite being. But since our
experience is here limited to the life now known, we are utterly
without data or ability to image forth such a conception of
immortality in any form of picture or mental scenery. There seem
to be only three ways in which we can give imaginative
representation of a future life. The first is the method of the
universal barbarian mind, which paints the life to come as a
shadowy reflex or copy of the present world and life, an
unsubstantial, graspless, yet actual and conscious realm of
ghosts, carrying on a pale and noiseless mimicry of their former
adventures in the body. Holding fast to that clew of analogy which
is the nucleus of philosophy in this view, but rejecting the rest
as fantastic figment, we arrive at the next way in which those who
are unwilling to leave their thoughts of the future life in empty
rational abstraction, portray it in vivid concrete. This they do
by means of the doctrine of a general bodily resurrection of the
dead.

It is a striking fact that four of the great historic and literary
religions have taught the doctrine of immortality under the form
of a physical resurrection, namely: Zoroastrianism, Judaism,
Christianity, and Mohammedanism. It has been attributed, also, to
the ancient religion of Egypt, but erroneously. Its belief there
is a mere inference from facts which do not really imply it. The
Egyptians plainly believed in a series of individual reincarnations,
not in any general resurrection. But it is a sufficiently
interesting and impressive fact that over one third of the human
race have embodied their expectation of a future eternal life
in this concrete and astonishing form. It has not rested on a basis
of reason, but on one of asserted revelation and authority. It
originated in the fact that the only life of which we now have
any experience is a life in the body, and, therefore, this is the
life which we instinctively love and prefer; also in the fact
that this is the only mode of life which we are able to
represent to ourselves in any satisfactory, apprehensible image.
It then bolstered itself up by arbitrary theological theorizings,
and proclaimed itself with sanctions of a pretended supernatural
authority. Slowly the minds of its disciples were drilled to a
familiarity with it, and to a habit of implicitly believing it,
which grew strong enough to make them hold to it in spite of its
difficulty as a sheer and violent miracle having no connection
whatever with the natural order of things. Authority and passive
habit long maintained the belief in unbroken sway. They still so
support it in the Mohammedan world, where there is almost no
science, but little skeptical thought, and a common uniformity of
abject submission to the word of the Koran. But in Christendom it
fares differently. Here, the knowledge of modern science and
habits of free inquiry are almost universally diffused. The
consequence is, since the chief Christian belief in immortality
has been identified with the notion of a general physical
resurrection of the dead at the last day, and since all
philosophical and scientific thinking refutes that notion by
setting its arbitrariness and monstrous abnormality in high and
steep relief against the consensus of demonstrated knowledge and
moral probability, that the popular belief of Christendom in
immortality itself is depolarized and swiftly dropping into decay
with a large class of persons. But this spread of doubt and
denial, while a natural process, is yet an illogical and
unnecessary one. The competent thinker will extricate the question
of the immortality of the soul from its accidental entanglement
with the doctrine of the resurrection, and, rejecting the latter
as incredible, still affirm the former on its own independent
grounds. To prove and illustrate these statements we must here
give a little additional study, fresh and independent study, to
the subject.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh is bound up with the
whole fabric of the Catholic and Orthodox dogmatic theology of
Christendom, and cannot be removed without logically shaking that
system of belief into pieces. And yet the doctrine, as has been
shown in a previous chapter, is unscriptural and of a purely pagan
origin, the New Testament foretelling a resurrection of spirits
from the underworld, not of bodies from the grave. It has no real
analogies in the world, but is a figment of fancy, unsupported by
reason on any authentic physical or moral grounds. It is,
furthermore, a doctrine whose realization is impossible, because
it is a self destroying absurdity.

All that we need for demonstrating its absolute incredibility, is
simply to ultimate its implications, carry it out in thought to
the necessary results which its ignorant originators never
foresaw. The doctrine of a physical resurrection presupposes that
our race was originally intended to be immortal on earth, and that
death was a penalty for sin. Fill out the theory. Adam and Eve,
made male and female, were commanded to multiply and replenish the
earth. Their descendants, doubling every twenty five years, would,
after sixty or seventy generations had accumulated, have covered
the whole earth so thickly that they would be packed in one
immovable mass, the whole planet carpeted with their forms and
paved with their upturned faces. Not an inch of room on the globe
for any harvest to grow or any creature to move; the world,
crowded and imbedded at every point with one continuous multitude
of immortal human beings, would have then rolled around the
zodiac, presenting this chronic and motionless picture, to all
eternity!

If it be maintained that had it not been for sin and its penalty,
the successive generations would neither have died nor have
remained forever on the earth, but would have been translated
bodily to some other world, the absurdity just exposed is escaped
only to introduce another one equally glaring. For in time, the
entire solid contents of the globe would thus be removed, and the
disappearance of our planet unhinge the solar system and produce a
general cataclysm. The solid contents of the earth have been
estimated at about thirty nine trillions of cubic feet. Seventy
five doublings of the primal pair would reach to over seventy
trillions of human beings, each containing more than a solid cubic
foot.

It is perfectly clear, therefore, in any view, that the only way
in which the human race, with their reproductive constitution,
could permanently inhabit the world is by the present system of
successive births and deaths; a system, furthermore, which science
shows to have been in working existence among the preceding races
of creatures for innumerable ages before the mythical sin of Adam
and Eve, with its mythical consequences.

The fabulous scheme of an intended bodily immortality on the earth
is a discordant and disagreeable one in every respect, asthetic,
rational, and moral. It jars incongruously with the great order of
nature and providence, which everywhere interpolates a night
between two days, a sleep between two wakings, to keep the edge of
consciousness fresh and the possibilities of pleasure alive.
Imprisoned in this carcass of flesh with its ignoble necessities
for endless ages, the contemplation of the fearful burden of
monotony would be insufferable to any one who had thought the case
out in all its details with vivid realization. And yet, so
unthinking are most persons in regard to the conventional beliefs
prevalent in society,  Parsees, Jews, Christians and Mohammedans,
professedly base their entire faith in immortality on this dogma
with the resurrection involved in it.

When carried out in its particulars by the imagination, the
doctrine is self evidently untenable, contradictory to the
essential facts of human nature under the given conditions of the
material creation. It had its theologic birth in the speculations
of the dualistic religion of Persia, whence it was first borrowed
by the Jews, then secondarily adopted into Christianity, and
thence finally impacted into the mongrel creed of Mohammed and his
followers. It is philosophically irreconcilable with a pure
monotheism; for, if God be infinite, no enemy could subvert his
original scheme and force Him to an arbitrary miracle to restore
it. It is a creaking and dissonant artifice, every way repugnant
to all whose reason and sentiment have learned to love the smooth
and continuous evolution of the order of the cosmos and the
connected destinies of conscious beings. It is absolutely refuted
by the double reductio ad absurdum shown above to be contained in
it.

Yet, while the grounds on which the common belief in a destined
general resurrection of the dead rests have really lost their
validity to the mind of the nineteenth century, the millions of
Islam and Christendom retain the article unchanged in their
creeds, and to question it is a heresy. No wonder skepticism
flourishes and genuine faith decays. This clinging to an outgrown
scheme is not only from the strong drift of a passive mental
conformity, as the train of cars keeps on for some time after the
dynamic locomotive has been taken off. Another reason is that the
tenet is so centrally imbedded in the dogmatic ecclesiasticism
that it cannot be extricated without involving all the associated
dogmas. Therefore, one portion of this knowing generation repeat
the formula and blink the difficulties, while another portion go
over to open disbelief of any future life. The doctrine of the
literal resurrection of the body from the grave is incredible to
the educated and free intelligence of the age. In continuing to
affirm it ecclesiastical Christendom brands itself with frivolity,
not earnest enough to carry its thought in loyalty to truth as far
as possible, or with hypocrisy, consciously dishonest to its
doubts.

It is a precious boon to be rid of such an unnatural and ominous
belief as that in the final disemboguing of the dead by sea and
land, the tumbling of the rocks, the falling of the stars, and the
everlasting torture of the condemned in a prison of fire. Far
better than any such doctrine is a calm confronting of the mystery
of the future in its confessed secrecy as it is, and a peaceful
resignation to the will of God in conscious ignorance and trust.
And yet the believer in this scheme of colossal and ghastly
necromancy, when confronted with the unanswerable arguments
against it, is sometimes found clinging to it with willful
tenacity, and bitterly complaining of those who refute it, that
they would rob him of his faith and give him nothing in exchange.
Suppose a man to believe that in the year nineteen hundred the
earth will be exploded, and that all men, except himself and the
little clique of his friends, will be strung for eternity on a red
hot iron wire in empty space. Suppose that this horrid notion is
clearly proved to him to be an error. Then, because he is not
taught exactly what will happen in the year nineteen hundred, he,
the unhappy man, assails his enlightener for having robbed him of
his faith and given him nothing in exchange! Is not the truth of
ignorance better than the falsity of superstition? Modest faith in
front of the shrouded unknown can well stand comparison with the
arrogant and incompetent exultation of fanaticism. In regard to
that belated relic of the belief in magic, the doctrine of the
literal resurrection of the dead in their fleshy bodies, let us
gratefully wipe it all out and draw a long breath of relief. Let
us rejoice to know that the will of God will be done in the
fulfilling order of the universe, although we may now be ignorant
of precisely what that will is. Believing the will of God to be
good, whether revealed or concealed, we can afford to wait in
peace, trying in the meantime to carry our individual character
and our social state and experience here steadily toward
perfection. Surely, that is the best way to prepare ourselves for
whatever lies beyond.

And yet we are not wholly shut up to mere blind faith. There is
always some ground of moral truth in every widely extended
dogmatic belief. In casting off the dogma we should carefully
extract its moral purport and try to give it a more authentic
setting. It will not be hard to do this with reference to the
doctrine now under consideration.

Obscure and complicated and baffling as the problem of our future
destiny is, we can already trace many a line of light, many a
prophetic signal and hint suggestive of what is ordained to happen
to the individual and the race.

Unquestionably, the genuine moral reason why the belief in the
fleshly resurrection has been so general and tenacious is the two
fold consideration: first; that we desire our future life to be an
incarnate life because our experience makes that form of being
realizable and precious to our imagination, while a disembodied
ghostliness is, perforce, repulsively vacant and abstract; and,
secondly because our affection and our imagination and our
conscience profoundly crave the complete fulfillment of the scheme
of the historic career of collective humanity in this world in
some such manner, that here, on this dear old earth, the
experience of our whole race may be brought to a clear epical
unity, and may close with an illuminating justification of
providence in the sight of all men, who shall then read the
interpretation of their entire past, and see together eye to eye.
Now we believe that the essence of this natural desire and this
sublime hope is a divine prophecy which shall be fulfilled. We
believe that in the very falsity of the doctrine of a carnal
resurrection and judgment there lurks a truth yet to break out in
overwhelming refulgence and perfectly satisfy every soul of man.
But it will be brought about by the gradual culmination of the
means and processes which God is now visibly carrying forward, and
not by any sudden convulsion of miracle.

The faculties of human consciousness in the individual and the
race are in process of development. Also the transmissible sum of
knowledge, on which those faculties employ themselves, is in
process of rapid increase. The faculties of knowledge possessed by
an accomplished master of literature and science now, contrasted
with those of a cannibal savage of the pre glacial epoch, reveal
an advance which hardly needs to be repeated in order to give us a
comprehension of the whole experience of our kind on earth, quite
ample to explain the facts of the case and solve the problem of
our destiny. The grasp of our intelligence and the richness of our
sensibility increase along the ages. The generalizations of our
philosophy grow wider, the gropings of our sympathetic faith
become vaster, the retrospection and the prevision of our science
keener and longer and more inclusive, every generation. It is very
significant that the further away we get from the prehistoric
times the more we learn about them. Archaology is one of the
latest and most swiftly enlarging branches of knowledge. Let the
processes thus indicated go on, as they have gone on and are with
accelerated pace going on, and the date is not beyond prophecy
when all earthly and human secrets will be solved, and their
mysteries be revealed, and the autobiographic book and volume of
the world be opened, and the universal tribunal be set in the
light of every life, and the irreversible judgment be declared, by
the simple revelation of the truth of history in the web of its
relations. For as every atom of matter is conjoined by all the
laws of nature with all other atoms of matter, and the history of
all their adventures is registered by their own indestructible
vibrations in the elemental spaces of the universe where they run
their career, so every identity of spirit is conjoined by all the
laws of spirit with all other spirits, and all their deeds and
sufferings are ineffaceably self registered in their reactions
upon the authors, in the pictures they shed upon space, and the
influences they set rolling through the eternity of successive
souls and lives. All, then, that is needed for a perfectly
vindicating judgment is the awakening of consciousness to the full
view of the facts. And the tendencies are powerfully moving in
that direction. What was the illumination of Swedenborg but the
taking possession by his consciousness of the unconscious lower
nervous system, with all its impacted ancestral experiences and
wondrous relations with the visible and invisible worlds? And this
may be repeated, by and by, and be perfected, and become common.
What may result is as yet almost inconceivable. Let us trace a
little, in this regard, the connections of the individual and the
face, and follow out some of their implications.

Suppose that in turn every child born begets or bears two
children. Then in the thirtieth generation the transmitted
qualities of spirit, nerve and blood, of the single original pair
of parents will be represented in upwards of one thousand millions
of descendants. It is clear from this law, allowing for all
deviations from its numerical progression on account of inter
marriages and of failures of offspring, how powerfully and swiftly
the ever multiplying streams of consanguinity are spreading in
every direction, affiliating and fraternizing the whole human race
literally into one family, the innumerable rills of separate
descent intermingling as they flow on, and finally diffusing over
the earth in that oceanic unity of humanity, which, when full,
will beat with the tidal pulse of a single sympathy. It is
believed by many that no experience of any living creature is ever
lost, but is by its own spontaneous and exact reflex vibrations
either registered in the conscious memory or deposited in the
unconscious organism in latent perfection of vestige and tendency.
Memory is a faithful treasurer of all the stores of events.
Suppose now that each parent bequeaths in the dynamic germ of his
progeny the possibility of reviving into consciousness, when the
proper conditions shall be furnished, the accumulated sum of all
that has happened throughout the entire line of his ancestry. And
again, imagine that all the souls composing the human race each of
which is a substantial and indestructible entity, living
incarnated over and over, and not a mere phenomenal process that
vanishes into nothing with the dissolution of the body are so
limited in number that they may be embodied on the earth in one
generation, whose members shall be so conjoined in knowledge and
fellowship that the life of the whole is concentrated in every
one, and the life of every one mirrored in the whole. Now,
finally, let it be conceived that this latest generation,
including all who have ever inhabited the world, at last attain a
development which enables them to grasp in distinct consciousness
the collective sum of the organic heritage of the race, each one
reading with perfect clearness in every particular the complete
history of humanity from the beginning to the end, understanding
all its causes, courses and consequences, and beholding with
unspeakable delight the justification of the ways of God, the
whole universe opening into free intercommunication, as if time
and space were either no more or else their measures were of
boundless subjective elasticity, every creature found in peace and
rapture at the goal of his destiny. That, indeed, would be a
realization of the day of judgment and the resurrection of the
dead, but without a shock or a jar in the course of things which
science reveals. The process of development now going on, if
carried far enough, will naturally result in this or in something
equivalent to it; while the notion of the vomiting forth of the
accumulated dead from land and sea, at the blast of a trumpet, is
a wild piece of imagery, borrowed from startling political
phenomena, and applied with absurd incongruity to the chronic
providence of God. The former view contains all the moral
significance of the latter, but without its violation of
probability. Nor is it all necessary that the climax shall be
brought about of a simultaneous universal judgment, or of the
appearance of our whole race on the earth at one time. The giving
of the vision to souls subjectively, one after another, in the
order of their attainment of the conditions, would meet every
requirement of the case. To each one in turn, wherever he was, as
the result broke on him in the ecstatic glory of all it means, the
essence of the so long cherished faith of Christendom would be
justified, and the providential theater and scenery of human
experience would appear under its illumination as a dazzling
vision of poetic justice perfect at every point.

Marvelous and almost incredible as this scheme of thought may
seem, it is not more mysterious in itself, or more staggering in
its demand on our faith, than many things successively were which
are now established beyond a doubt such as the telegraphic
conversation of men through the ocean and around the globe; the
seven hundred and thirty three thousand millions of ethereal
vibrations in a second, which cause the report of the violet ray
in consciousness; the transcendent disclosures of the spectrum
analysis; the conception of gravitation as a force which holds all
matter in unbroken union, and acts throughout the stellar universe
with timeless simultaneity. It is in entire keeping with
everything else in the workings of God, as demonstrated by
science, on every hand, both in nature and history. The atomic
theory and the nebular hypothesis, the chemical crucible and the
mathematical calculus, the microscope and the telescope discover
to our senses and our reason, wherever we look, facts as
mysterious to the understanding, and as baffling to the
imagination as any of the foregoing implications; showing us, in
every department of nature and experience, the bewildering
miracles of the infinitely little and the infinitely great exactly
balanced and perpetually passing into one another.

There is a third way, in addition to the ghost world of the
primitive faith of barbarians, and the resurrection climax of the
Christian and Parsee and Hebrew and Moslem creeds, in which the
imagination of man, moved by his instinct and reason, has
concreted the idea of a future life; namely, by the doctrine of
transmigration. A striking feature and no slight recommendation of
the foregoing view of the true meaning of the dogma of the
resurrection is that it reconciles these two chief forms of the
belief in immortal life. For resurrection and transmigration agree
in the central point of a restoration of the disembodied soul to a
new bodily existence, only the former represents this as a single
collective miracle wrought by an arbitrary stroke of God at the
close of the earthly drama, the latter depicts it as constantly
taking place in the regular fulfillment of the divine plan in the
creation. This difference is certainly, to a scientific and
philosophical thinker, who reasons on the data of nature and
experience and not on the dicta of theologians, strongly in favor
of the Oriental theory. We have no experience whatever of any
general resurrection, but all experience is full of the constant
appearances of souls in freshly created bodies throughout the
scale of sentient being. If our final future life is to be a
bodily one there surely is a world of presumptive evidence,
therefore, in behalf of transmigration as opposed to resurrection.
Besides the various distinctive arguments of its own, every reason
for the resurrection holds with at least equal force for
transmigration. The argument from analogy is especially strong. It
is natural to argue from the universal spectacle of incarnated
life that this is the eternal scheme everywhere, the variety of
souls finding in the variety of worlds an everlasting series of
adventures, in appropriate organisms; there being, as Paul said,
one kind of flesh of birds, another kind of flesh of beasts,
another of men, another of angels, and so on. Our present lack of
recollection of past lives is no disproof of their actuality.
Every night we lose all knowledge of the past, but every day we
reawaken to a memory of the whole series of days and nights. So in
one life we may forget or dream, and in another recover the whole
thread of experience from the beginning.

In every event, it must be confessed that of all the thoughtful
and refined forms of the belief in a future life none has had so
extensive and prolonged a prevalence as this. It has the vote of
the majority, having for ages on ages been held by half of the
human race with an intensity of conviction almost without a
parallel. Indeed the most striking fact, at first sight, about the
doctrine of the repeated existences of the soul incarnated in
different organisms, its form and experience in each successive
embodiment being determined by its merits and demerits in the
preceding ones, is the constant reappearance of the faith in it in
all parts of the world, and its permanent hold on certain great
nations. The ancient civilization of Egypt, whose contrasted
splendors and horrors awaken astonishment more and more with each
step in the progressive decipherment of its mysterious record,
seems largely to have grown out of this faith. The swarming
millions of India also, through the chief periods of their
history, have lain under its spell, suffered their lives, wrought
their great works of government, architecture, philosophy, and
poetry, and in its belief meditated, aspired, and exhaled their
souls. Ruder forms of it are reported among innumerable barbaric
tribes. It played an important part in the speculations of the
early Fathers of the Christian Church, and has often cropped out
in the works of later theologians. Men of the profoundest
metaphysical genius, like Scotus Erigena and Leibnitz, have
affirmed it, and sought to give it a logical or scientific basis.
And even amidst the predominance of skeptical and materialistic
influences in Europe and America, at the present time, we
constantly meet individuals with independent minds who earnestly
believe the alluring dogma. For, to a large and varied class of
minds, the doctrine holds a transcendent attraction as well as a
manifold plausibility.

Another striking fact connected with this doctrine is that it
seems to be a native and ineradicable growth of the Oriental
world; but appears in the Western world only in scattered
instances, and rather as an exotic form of thought. In the growing
freedom and liberality of thought, which no less than its doubt
and denial, now characterize Christendom, it seems as if the full
time had come for a greater mental and asthetic hospitality on the
part of Christians towards Hindus. The advocates of the
resurrection should not confine their attention to the repellent
or the ludicrous aspects of metempsychosis, but do justice to its
claim and its charm. The Pantheistic tendency which possessed and
overwhelmed the Brahminic mind, shaping and tinging its views
opened the whole range of sentient existences to an indiscriminate
sympathy, and made the idea of transmigration natural, and more
pleasing than repugnant. Furthermore, the Brahminic thinkers and
sages were a distinct class of men whose whole lives were absorbed
in introspective reveries and metaphysical broodings calculated to
stimulate the imagination and arouse to the keenest consciousness
all the latent marvels and possibilities of human experience, thus
furnishing the most favorable conditions for exactly such a belief
as that of transmigration, an endless series of ever varying
adventures for the imperishable soul. And the vast swarms of the
common people in the East are the passive followers of this high
caste of thinkers, abjectly accepting what they teach.
Accordingly, the mysterious doctrine of the metempsychosis has
held the entire mind, sentiment and civilization of the East,
through every period of its history, as with an irreversible
spell.

The persistent practice of various modes of profound and
rhythmical breathing by which the Brahmins perfect their
respiration, and the keen and sustained concentration of their
attention on their inner states, tend at the same time to heighten
the richness and intensity of the cerebral nerves, to unify the
connections of the lower nerve centres with them, and to fuse the
unconscious physiological processes with the conscious
psychological processes. Then the persevering disuse and
suppression of the action of their outer senses cause the objects
of the material world around them to seem more vague and dreamy
than the impressions of the ideal world within. And so the earth
with all its affairs seems an illusion, while their own unsought
trains of thought, feeling and imagery the rich mental panorama of
pictures and events, are taken for a series of substantial
revelations of the universe of being. An irresistible belief in
preexistence, immortality and transmigration, results.

On the contrary, in the Western world, the characteristic
tendencies are all different. Pantheistic theories are rarely
held, and the dreams and emotions which those theories are fitted
to feed are foreign and repulsive. An impassible barrier is
imagined separating humanity from every other form of being.
Speculative reason, imagination and affection, are chiefly
employed in scientific studies and social pursuits, or personal
schemes, external rather than internal. This absorption in
material things and evanescent affairs engenders in the spirit an
arid atmosphere of doubt and denial, in which no efflorescence of
poetic and mystic faiths can flourish. Thus, while the outward
utilities abound, hard negations spread abroad; and living,
personal apprehension of God, of an all pervasive Providence, and
of the immortality of the soul in any form, dies out either in
open infidelity or in a mere verbal acceptance of the established
creed of society. Consequently, to the average mind of the modern
Western world, the doctrine of transmigration remains a mere
fancy, although, as we shall immediately see, it has a strange
poetic charm, a deep metaphysical basis, and a high ethical and
religious quality.

The first ground on which the belief rests is the various strong
resemblances, both physical and psychical, connecting human beings
with the whole family of lower creatures. They have all the senses
in common with us, together with the rudiments of intelligence and
will. They all seem created after one plan, as if their varieties
were the gradulations of a single original type. We recognize
kindred forms of experience and modes of expression in ourselves
and in them. Now the man seems a travesty of the hog, the parrot,
the ape, the hawk, or the shark; now they seem travesties of him.
As we gaze at the ruminating ox, couched on the summer grass,
notice the slow rhythm of his jaw, and the wondering dreaminess of
his eyes, it is not difficult to fancy him some ancient Brahmin
transmigrated to this, and patiently awaiting his release. Nor is
it incongruous with our reason or moral feeling to suppose that
the cruel monsters of humanity may in a succeeding birth find the
fit penalty for their degradation and crime, in the horrid life of
a crocodile or a boa constrictor.

The conception of a series of connected lives also furnishes a
plausible explanation for many mysteries in our present
experience. Reference is made to all that class of phenomena
covered by the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence. Faces previously
unseen, and localities unvisited, awaken in us a vivid feeling of
a long familiarity with them. Thoughts and emotions, not hitherto
entertained, come to us as if we had welcomed and dismissed them a
thousand times in periods long gone by. Many an experience,
apparently novel and untried, makes us start as at the shadowy
reminder of something often known before. The supposition of
forgotten lives preceding the present, portions of whose
consciousness reverberate and gleam through the veils of thought
and sense, seems to throw satisfactory light on this strange
department of experience.

Much more weighty and penetrative, however, than the foregoing
considerations is the philosophical argument in behalf of
transmigration, drawn from the nature of the soul. Consciousness
being in its very essence the feeling of itself, the conscious
soul can never feel itself annihilated, even in thought it only
loses the knowledge of its being when it lapses into unconsciousness,
as in sleep or trance. The soul may indeed think of its own
annihilation but cannot realize the thought in feeling,
since the fainter emotional reflex upon the idea of its
destruction is instantly contradicted and over borne by the more
massive and vivid sense of its persistent being in immediate
consciousness. This incessant self assertion of consciousness at
once suggests the idea of its being independent of the changing
and vanishing body in which it is temporarily shrined. Then the
conception naturally follows that the soul, as it has once
appeared in human form, so it may reappear indefinitely in any of
the higher or lower forms of being which compose the hierarchy of
the universe. The eternity of the soul, past and future, once
accepted by the mind, leads directly to the construction of the
whole scheme of metempsychosis an everlasting succession of births
and deaths, disembodiments and reembodiments, with their laws of
personality and fortunes of time and space weaving the boundless
web of destiny and playing the endless drama of providence.

But the strongest support of the theory of transmigration is the
happy moral solution it seems to give to the problem of the dark
and distressing inequality and injustice which otherwise appear so
predominant in the experience of the world. To the superficial
observer of human life the whole scene of struggle, sin and
sorrow, nobleness and joy, triumph and defeat, is a tangled maze
of inconsistencies, a painful combination of violent discords. But
if we believe that every soul, from that of the lowest insect to
that of the greatest archangel, forms an affiliated member of the
infinite family of God, and is eternal in its conscious essence,
perishable only as to its evanescent disguises of unconscious
incarnation; that every act of every creature is followed by its
legitimate reactions; that these actions and reactions constitute
a law of retribution absolutely perfect; that these souls, with
all their doings and sufferings are interconnected with one
another, and with the whole, all whose relationships copenetrate
and cooperate with mutual influences whose reports are infallible
and with lines of sequence that never break, then the bewildering
maze becomes a vindicated plan, the horrible discord a divine
harmony. What an explication it gives of those mysteries of evil,
pain, sorrow and retribution, which often wrap the innocent and
the wicked in one sad fate, if we but see that no individual
stands alone, but trails along with him the unfinished sequels of
all ancestral experience, and, furthermore, is so bound up with
his simultaneous race that each is responsible for all and all for
each, and that no one can be wholly saved or safe until all are
redeemed and perfected! Then every suffering we endure for faults
not our own, the consequence of the deeds of others, assumes a
holy light and a sublime dignity, associating us with that great
sacrament of atoning pain whereof the crucified Christ is not the
exclusive instance but the representative head.

The above translation of the ecclesiastical doctrine of the
resurrection into a form scientifically credible, and reconciled
with the immemorial tenet of transmigration, may seem to some a
very fanciful speculation, a mere intellectual toy. Perhaps it is
so. It is not propounded with the slightest dogmatic animus. It is
advanced solely as an illustration of what may possibly be true,
as suggested by the general evidence of the phenomena of history
and the facts of experience. The thoughts embodied in it are so
wonderful, the method of it is so rational, the region of
contemplation into which it lifts the mind is so grand, the
prospects it opens are of such universal reach and import, that
the study of it brings us into full sympathy with the sublime
scope of the idea of immortality and of a cosmopolitan vindication
of providence uncovered to every eye. It takes us out of the
littleness of petty themes and selfish affairs, and makes it
easier for us to believe in the vastest hopes mankind have ever
known. It causes the most magnificent conceptions of human destiny
to seem simply proportional to the native magnitude and beauty of
the powers of the mind which can conceive such things. After
traversing the grounds here set forth we feel that if the view
based on them be not the truth, it must be because God has in
reserve for us a sequel greater and lovelier, not meaner than our
brightest dream hitherto. The worthiest theory of the fate of man
which the spirit of man can construct must either be a revelatory
divination of the truth, or an inadequate attempt to grasp the
design of the Creator in its true glory. It is impious and absurd
to hold that man can think out a scheme superior to the one God
has decreed. And it seems equally unreasonable to suppose that the
scheme of God for the future stages of our career is one which has
no hints in our present experience. Certainly it appears more
likely that the sequel will be discovered by the logical
completion of the inwrought order which has been slowly unfolding
from the first. And what do history and prophecy show more plainly
than the tendency to a convergence of all humanity in every man?
Spreading consanguinity in descent and growth of sympathetic
knowledge both point to this. Perfect this in each man, and
illuminate his whole organism and its relations with adequate
intelligence, and we have a true resurrection, not indeed of
decayed bodies from the grave, but of historic states of
consciousness from their latent embedment in the nervous system,
and their undulatory record in the dynamic medium of the creation.
Our senses now convert certain sets of undulations of the ethereal
medium into perceptions of light, heat, sound, and so interpret
their contents and extract their tidings. It is not impossible
that in a coming stage of development we may obtain additional
senses; our spirits may command the means of translating into
correspondent states of consciousness all the other modes of
vibration of the ethereal medium, and grasp the keys of unlimited
knowledge deciphering every secret wherever they go. The whole
universe may be a palimpsest preserving the inscriptions of all
deeds, and every soul may be a reagent gifted with the power to
recover and read its own.

As each generation is the inheritor of the preceding ones, all of
which from the first prolong their existence into the last in
unbroken continuity of historic conduct and responsibility,
justice may at the ripened period be naturally summed up without
any miracle. We all are projections of our ancestors. They
properly in us suffer and enjoy in accordance with what has flowed
from their lives. The whole of this, lighted up with consciousness
at last, may be the real meaning of the burden of the spirit given
to the apostle Paul, but misinterpreted by him into the mechanico
scenic scheme of the Judaized Christian Church. For when the
mighty influx struck the brain of the persecuting zealot,
revolutionizing his life, it came into connection with all the
inflamed theories and convictions so deeply drilled therein by his
Pharisaic education. These convictions, partly of a mere local and
transient character, associated with legends of Adam and Abraham
and the under world and Christ and the sky, mixed with the true
and universal import of the higher inspiration now given him,
caused his misconstrual of its message, and stamped the purely
human and providential meaning of the doctrine of the resurrection
with the rabbinical die of a politico mythological dogma. If this
were so, it is not the only instance in which the preexistent
discolorations in the mind of an inspired prophet have refracted
the truth of his burden into distorted error and bequeathed the
task of a future rectification when more light shall have come.

In the next place, we come to the fourth reason for the growing
doubts and disbelief of our day in immortality. It is the
remarkable diffusion of the habits of thought engendered by the
study of materialistic science. The authority of physical science
has been rapidly encroaching on and displacing the authority of
the church theology and sectarian creeds. Belief in invariable
laws has undermined belief in miracle and supernatural revelation.
Those who had been taught that the resurrection of Christ was the
only adequate proof of the immortality of the soul, learning to
deny the former, have naturally proceeded to question the latter.
For in such matters the real implications of logic are little
noticed. The religious skepticism nourished by physical science is
in all respects really as irrational and baseless as it is actual.
For example, the resurrection of Christ, admitting it to be a
fact, did not create the immortality it was considered to
illustrate. If he rose, it was because men are immortal, and men
are not immortal because he rose. If he did not rise, men are
immortal all the same, provided human immortality be a truth; if
it be not a truth, the resurrection of Christ would be an isolated
abnormal event without any logical validity on the question. The
truth or falsity of human immortality, therefore, is a question of
the creative plan of God and the essential nature of man, to be
decided on the intrinsic evidences, and cannot logically be
affected one way or the other by any individual historic
occurrence limited to a certain time and place. Yet it is a
practical necessity that any great popular faith, if it rests on
authority, will be shocked and weakened by everything which shocks
and weakens that authority, no matter how adventitious it is. If
one cannot believe in the preternatural resurrection of Christ,
that surely is no valid reason for denying the natural immortality
of the soul, but only a good reason for seeking to learn if there
be not adequate grounds for this faith quite independent of
scripture text and priestly assertion.

Precisely the same reasoning holds in relation to the doubts about
spiritual realities bred in the minds of those whose studies are
conversant exclusively with material realities. The professors of
physical science, thoroughly familiarized with things which
combine and dissolve, often come to fancy that everything is
phenomenal and evanescent, that there is no immaterial substance,
that spirit is not entity but process, that thought and feeling
and will are mere transient functions of transient matter. Thus
all faith in the individuality of mind is pulverized at the
fountain head. There can be no question but that such is the
common influence of a constant contemplation of the physical
aspects alone of physical things. Mentality, consciousness, is
regarded as the prismatic bow in the cloud, a spectral show that
appears and vanishes, with no permanent substance. At the present
time, in Christendom, the one conquering power in literature, the
one fascinating absorption of thought in society, is that
connected with the cultivation of physical science. Its prestige
is overwhelming. Its prevalent methods and results give a
materialistic turn of interpretation to the popular mind upon all
subjects. The direct consequence, among that class of minds who
put physical science above theology, is the spreading disavowal of
all belief in the immortality of the soul. The fallacy is obvious,
and the remedy is simple, if there be at hand but enough of modest
candor and patience fairly to weigh the facts of the case in the
scales of a sound logic.

In the first place, by the very structure of our being, by the
very necessity of our experience, the universe is divided into two
irreconcilable classes of realities, namely, spiritual subjects
and material objects. Sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts,
volitions, all qualities of mind, all states of consciousness, are
absolutely immaterial. They are more real to us, that is to say,
they more inexpugnably assert and maintain themselves, than
material things do: and it is only hopeless vulgarity and
incompetence of thinking which can ever confuse or merge them with
material things. Matter is that which proves itself to spirit by
the effects it produces on spirit. Spirit is that which is its own
evidence. The center of consciousness in us is its own proof of
its own being, and all that occurs within it is its own proof, and
is unsusceptible of any other or foreign demonstration. Hope,
fear, love, imagination, reason, are absolutely unthinkable as
forms of material substance, however exquisitely refined and
exalted. There is no conceivable community of being between a
sentiment and an atom, a gas and an aspiration, an idea of truth
in the soul and any mass of matter in space. Each of these facts,
conscious thought and material extension, has its own incommunicable
and incomparable sphere of being and laws of action, which can be
confused only by ignorance and sophistry.

So clear has this become to all profound reflection, that the ablest
supporters of the theory of evolution, with all their preponderant
bias in favor of physical science, declare, in the words of
Herbert Spencer, that if compelled to choose between thinking of
spirit in the terms of matter and thinking of matter in the terms
of spirit, they should take the latter alternative and give an
idealistic interpretation to nature rather than a materialistic
interpretation to the soul. It is logically clear, then, despite
the fallacious influences of habit to the contrary, that no
progress of the physical sciences, no conceivable amount of
induction and generalization as to the composition or decomposition
of material bodies, can throw any new light or darkness on the
nature and destiny of the immaterial soul.

The incessant flux of phenomena constructing and destroying apparent
things, though studied till the observing eye sees nothing but
mirage anywhere, has nothing to do with the steady persistence of
spiritual identity. To force it to discredit our claim to a divine
descent and an endless inheritance is a glaring sophism. The
question must be snatched back from the assumption of the retort
and crucible, the observational and numerical methods of the
physical realm, and relegated to the legitimate tests of the moral
and metaphysical realm.

Again, there is furnished in the results of the study of physical
science itself, as pursued by its most gifted masters, a glorious
overthrow and neutralization of the moral and religious doubts
called out in its shallower votaries by their absorption in its
more superficial phases. The scientific men of the most profound
intellectual power and the most brilliant original genius, the
supreme heads of chemistry, dynamics and mathematics, have applied
to the phenomena of the material creation modes of observation and
instruments of reasoning before whose compelling efficacy the
whole frowning vastitude of the outer universe melts into ideal
points of force and forms of law. Everything in time and space is
reduced to molecular vibrations, regulated by the mental
conceptions of number, weight and measure. The reasonings of such
men as Oersted and Faraday on electricity and magnetism; of Sir
William Thomson and Clerk Maxwell on thermodynamics; the theories
of the greatest mathematicians, grasping all things in heaven and
earth with their irresistible calculus, literally using infinites
as toys, creating imaginary quantities, and, going through certain
operations with them, actually discovering new truths in the solid
domain of reality yield conceptions of order, beauty and
sublimity, and emotions of wonder, awe and delight, nowhere else
surpassed. They exalt the spectacle of nature into a vision of
poetic intelligence, and show the theorizing mind of man to be
akin to the creating mind of God. Thus, if skepticism as to the
deathless royalty of soul is bred in the physicist who constantly
stoops with the scalpel and the microscope, it is offset in him
who, with as steady a judgment, soars to the contemplation of the
ethereal medium with its lines of force traversing immensity and
vibrating timelessly along their whole length, loaded, for those
who can interpret them, with tidings of all that happens. Instead
of spirit being materialized, matter is spiritualized and nature
transfigured into the ideal home of ideal entities. Dumas, years
ago, asserted that hydrogen gas is but an etherealized metal. Just
now, it is said, Pictet has succeeded, under a pressure of six
hundred and fifty atmospheres, in actually crystallizing oxygen
and hydrogen. One has only to read such papers as those of Stallo
on the fundamental concepts of science to learn that if matter or
mind is ever to be lost, it will not be mind.

But there remains a more direct and more important way of
correcting the dismal or defiant doubts of immortality caused by
the inferior phases of materialistic study; and that is, by
bringing up to a correspondent fullness and intensity the counter
activity of the ideal powers. Let justice be done to the subject
as well as to the object. Over against the watching of clouds and
waves, the sorting of herbs, the weighing of metals, the measuring
of quantities, bring up the exercise of the mind on the treasures
of qualitative substance in its own proper sphere of reason and
love and faith. Admire the beautiful, love the good, obey the
true, worship the right, aspire to the highest, subordinate or
sacrifice everything base or wrong in a generous service of duty,
and thus nourish a consciousness of those ontological relations by
which the soul is rooted in the Godhead, and stimulate that
intuitive efflorescence of faith which grows out of progressive
fulfillment and which prophecies perpetuity of fulfillment. To say
the least, the subject is as real as the object, the contemplating
faculty as valid as the phenomenon it confronts. The teachings of
the soul rightly construed are as authentic as the teachings of
nature. And, some day in the future, a complete system of truth
developed from the central principle of the one by the subjective
method will be found to correspond perfectly with the complete
system of truth developed by the objective method from the central
principle of the other. As the objective scientific principle is
the persistence of force, the subjective scientific principle is
the potential infinity of individual spirit, each one the
equivalent of the all. What else than this can be the ultimate
meaning of the primal, universal, indestructible antithesis or
dual classification of being, the ego and the non ego, self and
not self, the former including each individual in his own
apprehension, the latter including all besides?

There is a philosophical authority which, for those incompetent to
judge for themselves, should properly take the place vacated by
the ecclesiastical authority, which, in our day, is plainly on the
wane. Multitudes no longer believe in the immortality of their
souls on the ground of the resurrection of Christ, or the
assertion of Scripture or creed. Shall they, then, deny it
altogether because the materialistic band clamor that it is a
delusion, and they themselves see no sufficient evidence for it?
There is a more appropriate alternative. Many theories in natural
philosophy have been exploded by the proof of their absurdity, and
the correct explanations are accepted on trust by the multitudes
incompetent to master their logical and mathematical grounds. Very
few understand the proofs of the chief laws of nature, but the
vast majority of men implicitly trust the assertions of those who
do know them. In like manner there is a legitimate sphere for
authority in moral and religious beliefs; only it should be the
authority of the competent and disinterested. Now, it is a fact
that the very greatest philosophers who have ever lived, the
preeminently imperial thinkers, such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas,
Anselm, Hegel, and the resplendent group of their peers, have
asserted as a necessary principle the real being and eternal
substantiality of the soul. Besides all the combinations of matter
that dissolve, all the phenomena that pass, they affirm the
existence of enduring entities, individual spirits, thinkers
conscious of their thoughts. In central calm, far within the
struggle and vex of the rolling elements, throned in its own
serene realm of law, lives the free, conscious soul, and will live
eternally, actualizing its potentialities. Nothing can
disintegrate it, because it is not an aggregate but a unity, not a
quantitative mass of matter, but a spaceless monad of power. It is
a closed circuit of thinking activity, impenetrable to everything
else. Spirits are the only solids, matter being endlessly
penetrable and transmutable.

We are all obliged to think of ourselves as entities, and not as
mere phenomenal series of states. There must be a substratum for
the affections of consciousness. All changes are changes of
something. It is true there is a mystery involved here which no
words can make clear; yet the more deeply one thinks and feels the
more intense will be his assurance that there is something in him
which thinks and feels, or rather that he himself is a something
which thinks and feels. The best conception we can get of the soul
is that it is a subject which is its own object and a mirror for
the inner reflection of all other objects. God is not an object,
because He is the actualized infinite Subject. His thoughts are
concrete creations, the objective realities of the universe
phenomenal and substantial. We are actually finite subjects, but
with a potential infinity, patterned in free correspondence with
Him. Our thoughts are subjective reflections of His, modified by
the contents of our facultative constitution and the peculiarities
of our historic experience. What constitutes my soul is the
potentiality of all states of consciousness, actual and latent,
past, present and future. It reveals itself to me, so to speak, in
my actual thoughts and feelings. So far as these are true and
good, they correspond with and represent the will of God, and must
share the fortunes of the Divine Reality with which they are
implicitly joined. Then my soul cannot be annihilated unless the
will of God is so far annihilated. But God is infinite being, and
there is nothing outside of or counter to infinite being to
destroy it. All evil is but defect or negation. I am only in so
far as I am positive reality. Nothing of me, therefore, can ever
perish, except my imperfections; and the thought of the perishing
of imperfections is a thought of joy. Welcome, then, be the
approach of death which shall cleanse and dislimit me into
unimprisonable divineness of being, the crystalline sphere of pure
intelligence and immortality!

The only real proof of immortality in the sight of the intellect,
is the perception of the necessity of self determining entities as
the causes and grounds of the facts of experience. A series of
states implies something of which they are states. There seems to
be no possible explanation or understanding of the phenomena which
confront our experience without the conception of ultimate
individualities, indestructible subject objects, centers of
spiritual activity, monistic selfhoods, conscious egos, each of
which distinguishes itself from every other, and contrasts itself
with the All. Now it is claimed that every thinker who reaches the
maturest stage of thought attains to this insight. It is the
imperial mark of a certain stage of knowledge. Here the supreme
thinkers, sceptered with final perception of the truth of their
own eternity, sit at ease, enthroned in the serene and lucid realm
of law, beyond the reach of the dark tempest of cavils and doubts.
And there is a larger company who on easier terms have attained
the same result. For, without this wearisome metaphysical hewing
of conclusions from the quarries of ontology, the good and pure,
who, in their loving obedience and aspiration, keep the harmonic
quickness and innocence of their intuitions uninjured, also have
an unshaken assurance that they live in God and shall share his
life forevermore. The mystics of every period seem in feeling to
have an immediate grasp of all that the greatest philosophers have
painfully conquered by speculation. These two classes may claim to
possess direct certitude of eternal life. All others must either
attain to the stage of development and mount of vision of these,
or receive the faith on their authority, or else be subject to
doubt and unbelief.

To accept the doctrine of the immortality of the soul on the
authority of the wisest philosophers and the purest saints, is a
legitimate procedure perfectly in keeping with what the human race
does in all other provinces of thought where it is incapable of
proving what its teachers have demonstrated, but can easily
appreciate and make practical application of the truths they have
affirmed. The great laws of science in all its domains are
scientifically mastered by very few, but their empirical rules are
implicitly followed by the common multitude. One form or
receptacle of authority after another may be superseded; but
authority itself always remains. And the true course for those to
pursue who have come to repudiate the authority of scripture, or
church creed, or the resurrection of Christ, as a proof of the
future life of man, is not at once to abandon all belief in a
future state, but to accept the guidance of the most competent
independent thinkers in place of that of the most arbitrary
dogmatists. For unto all who do not arrogate to themselves a
transcendent competency to judge, the general consensus of the
thought and feeling of the world, clarified and interpreted by the
fittest few, will always be a grateful ground of reliance and
trust. And the verdict thus revealed is unequivocally in favor of
the doctrine of immortality.

There can be no changes independently of something which is
changed. Amidst all the changeable in us which passes and is
forgotten, there is something which stays and is inexpugnable. It
is our identity. That which appears in consciousness first, which
recurs oftenest, and which persists longest, is the most valid
object of belief. And what is that but the very consciousness, or
the subject as its own object? Surely, the one invariable
accompaniment of all the shifting states of consciousness is the
bare essential consciousness itself: this is, so to speak, the
unitary vessel containing all their varieties. This unquestionably
exists now. The burden of proof, then, as Bishop Butler long ago
showed, is on those who affirm its destruction in the article of
death. Consciousness is purely immaterial, as every one who has
passed beyond the most ignorant and childish stages of thought
must see. Merely because it is, in our present experience,
associated in time and space with a material organism, therefore
to declare that it is a dependent production of matter, or a
transient concomitant of the transient body, is a gratuitous
assertion with not one scintilla of evidence.

Even, for the moment, admitting it to be true that no argument of
irresistible cogency has yet been advanced to prove the
immortality of the soul, it is certain that no proof has ever
been given of its mortality. The very utmost that can be claimed
by any skeptic who fairly understands the whole case, is that the
different arguments, for and against, offset one another, and
leave the question in a neutral balance of suspense, just where it
was before the debate began. Many persons hold that the counter
reasonings do thus balance and annul one another. For them the
problem remains to be decided on other grounds than those of the
logical disputation which has proved inadequate to its settlement.
These other grounds are considerations of congruity, probability,
the prophetic preparations and demands of present experience. What
sort of a figure would the segments which we now see, compose, if
they were completed? What in the hidden future portions of our
destiny would be harmonic and complementary as related with the
parts here experienced? When the other modes of inquiry are
abandoned this mode remains. Its teachings are rich and impressive
in proportion to the greatness of the faculties and the wealth of
knowledge and love brought to its consideration. And thus we come
face to face with the fifth and last cause of the failing faith in
immortality confessed to characterize the present day.

That cause is the common inability to realize in the thoughts of
the mind, and to hold in the faith of the feelings, a conception
so vast, so mysterious, so remote from the usual routine of the
selfish trifles and petty notions which monopolize the powers and
fritter down the faculties of the average people of the nineteenth
century. The battle of sensualism, the scramble over material
interests, the wearing absorption in the small and evanescent
struggles of social rivalry, the irritated attention given to the
ever thickening claims of external things, the pulverizing
discussions of all sorts of opinions by hostile schools, are fatal
to that concentrated calmness of mood, that unity of passion, that
serene amplitude of intellectual and imaginative scope, that
docile religious receptiveness of soul, requisite for the fit
contemplation of a doctrine so solemn and sublime as that of
immortality. The grade of thought and scale of emotion ordinarily
characteristic of ordinary men are utterly out of keeping with the
inexpressible grandeur of themes like that of the divine kinship
and eternity of the soul. The reason and fancy, before they can be
competent to appreciate such truths, must be trained in the study
and worshipful meditation of subjects of commensurate mystery and
sublimity. It is no wonder that when minds and hearts familiar
only with houses and clothes and food, the trivial gossip and
vanity of the hour, are summoned to grasp the idea of spiritual
survival and an everlasting destiny of conscious adventures, they
are overwhelmed and helplessly fail to represent to themselves the
possibility of any such truth. This cause of doubt is very
prevalent and effective; for ever more and more in our age
conscious attention is turned away from states within and fixed
upon things without. The natural consequence is that the objective
world is arrogating the first place in consciousness, and the
subjective world is sinking into the secondary rank. Whatever
exalts the object at the expense of the subject tends to
materialism, unbelief in the separate being of the spirit. On the
other hand whatever gives the panoramic passage of subjective
states in the soul greater apparent vividness and tenacity than
belong to outer phenomena, tends to produce faith in the
independence and immortality of the spirit. Hence it is quite to
be expected that until our modern concentration on objective toil
and study and amusement reaches its destined climax and begins the
return career to subjective reason and feeling, the skepticism of
the age will increase.

Meanwhile the remedy for the evil is, first, to perceive it, and
then, to cultivate the kinds of experience calculated to
neutralize it. For the logical invalidity and fallaciousness of
the doubts concerning immortality, arising from the immense
disparity of such a belief with the mental habits of ignorant
earthlings and social parasites, appear from the fact that there
are others with whose experience and thought the doctrine has no
such disparity, but for whose spiritual range and haunt it is as
natural to believe it as to breathe. And, in explaining the
destiny of man, it is legitimate to take the most finished and
furnished specimens, not the abortive ones. There are grounds of
knowledge, domains of imagination, heights of nobility, familiar
to the most exalted characters, perfectly cognate and harmonious
with the conception of eternal life, and making the faith in it
fully as credible as the transcendent truths of science and
philosophy which have been actually demonstrated. Those who are
familiar only with the little affairs of sense, in narrow bounds
of time and space, may well gasp in despair and denial when the
bewildering contents of the doctrine of immortality are held
before them; but for all who have mastered what science reveals of
the objective world of nature, and what literature records of the
subjective world of soul, both these spheres furnish ample
illustrative examples and data to make the faith in every way
congruous with what else they know, and as easy as it is pleasing
to receive. Assuredly the belief resulting in this latter class
from their positive perception and correspondent desire and
persuasion, are, on every ground of reason or moral fitness, more
than a counterbalance for the unbelief resulting in the former
class from their negative experience and incompetency. If we
sought to estimate the possibility and destined fulfillment of
human nature when all its conditions shall have been perfected,
should we choose for the basis of our judgment the incapacity of
the lower specimens of man? or the capacity of the higher? After
considering the chief achievements of human genius, the mysterious
powers of the human soul now, the doctrine of immortality does not
seem too great and wonderful for belief; but, on the contrary, it
appears the coherent complement of the facts of the present.

Nothing can be more marvelous or imply greater glory for the
destiny of the individual being than the fact that each
consciousness is to itself the antithetical equivalent or balance
of the totality of being beside; since the whole universe, all
other beings, God himself, are known to the individual
consciousness only as revealed in itself through its personal
faculties. The slightest change in the subject is reported by a
correspondent change in objects. Heighten the internal activities
of the soul to a certain pitch, and the convictions they engender
will be so intense, and the experience so absorbing, as
irresistibly to sweep away all opposing doubts and fill every
craving with the triumphant flood of life. What overwhelming
revelations of the providence of God and eternal life, crowding
the cosmos at every point with the workings of poetic justice, may
thus be made to prepared spirits, only those who receive them
know. Paul said he was caught up into the third heaven and heard
unspeakable words. It is to be believed that such visions, while
often illusory, are sometimes genuine. A test to discriminate the
spurious and the authentic will one day be secured. Meanwhile it
is either a faithless faintheartedness or a vulgar arrogance to
omit from the data of our expected fate those thoughts, which,
though beyond the reaches of our souls, nevertheless irresistibly
allure our attention and enchain our affection; ideas belonging to
our nature, though transcending our experience, and, while
surpassing our faculties, still attracting us to our destiny. What
are presentiments but divine wings of the spirit fluttering toward
our unseen goal?

Again, the great metaphysicians, who have elaborated the
idealistic philosophy in so many forms, exhibit the mind of man to
us as superior to the cosmic spectacle it contemplates projected
in immensity. They portray the material creation as a phantasmal
show of mind, a phenomenal process and aspect of spirit,
indissoluble centers of consciousness alone having solid verity
and stay, while matter and force and times and places whirl and
pass, combine and dissolve.

Likewise the mathematicians, with their mighty calculus, translate
all quantities and qualities, all objects and operations, into
numerical symbols, and with these intellectual toys play the same
miraculous tricks that the Creator himself plays with the
originals. They symbolize purely imaginary quantities, bring them
into relations and pass them through certain operations, and
thereby discover truths which are found to have permanent
objective validity. It demonstrates, as said before, that the
filial mind which thus wanders in thought through the house of the
Father, and, everywhere making itself familiarly at home, disports
among His treasures, is of the same type with the parental Mind.

And now, still farther, that the cultivators of physical science
are pushing their discoveries and their theories to ultimates, we
begin to see the adamantine structure of material nature melting
into a system of ideal equivalents, vaporizing into an undulatory
ether, vanishing before our microscopes in immaterial bases of
thought, reason, law and will. The gases have just been first
liquified and then actually solidified, confirming the speculative
announcement long before made that oxygen and hydrogen are metals
volatilized. Many valuable and strange discoveries have been
reached in physical science by following prophetic declarations
made a priori on grounds of pure reason. The same proofs of
intellectual design and purpose are discerned in the order of
atomic combination, in the beauty of crystals and dewdrops and
snowflakes, in the perfect geometrical symmetry of minerals and
flowers, and in the same spiral adjustment of the leaves on a tree
and of the orbits of the planets in the sky, as in the artistic
works of man. Intellect and will are as much shown in the
production of a palm tree as they are in the production of a poem
And so, before the gaze of the accomplished and devout scientist,
matter is translated into terms of mind, rather than the reverse,
and the whole cosmos is transmuted into a divine laboratory of
ideal powers, a divine gallery of ideal pictures, a divine theater
for the eternal adventures of conscious spirits.

In mental conception man deals with mathematical infinites as
easily as with the pettiest objects, dilates a point to the
universe and shrinks the universe to a point, condenses eternity
into a moment or stretches a moment to eternity. It has been shown
that if correspondent diminution or enlargement in the faculties
of sense and intelligence and in all the forces concerned were
made, the whole stellar system and its contents might be dwarfed
into the bulk of a grain of sand, or so magnified that each grain
would fill the space now occupied by the whole, and no one would
perceive any change whatever in the scale. In reply to the
statement that nothing can act where it is not, it has been proved
that every atom is virtually omnipresent. It takes the entire
universe to constitute an atom, since the forces centered in each
atom are connected with the whole by the insunderable continuity
of all the laws of being. The science of molecular physics as
expounded by its latest masters is not less astounding than the
wildest soarings of transcendental metaphysics. For instance, it
is proved that if there be ultimate atoms their size must be so
small that it would require at least five hundred millions of them
to an inch in length. In a cubic inch of hydrogen gas, then, for
example, there are 125,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 one hundred
and twenty five septillions of atoms, moving with the inconceivable
velocity that is implied by their making thousands of millions
of changes of direction every second. The view of the dynamic s
tructure of the universe opened in this direction is as
appalling as that unveiled in the opposite direction by the
largest extension of the nebular hypothesis. He who can gaze here
with steady reason need not be staggered by the sublimest doctrine
of religion. Amazed at the spectacle of creative power and wisdom,
equally amazed at the discovering faculty of man, we feel it to be
incredible that he should have been made capable of such thoughts
only to be annihilated after a brief tantalization. Confronting
the immeasurable wilderness of divine glory, strewn all through
with prizes before which his soul burns with the unconsumable fire
of a god like ambition, man lifts his eye to worship and reaches
out his hand to receive. Is he merely taunted with the starry sky,
and mocked with an infinite illusion of progress, suddenly barred
with endless night and oblivion? Behold him emerging out of
nothingness, mastering his self conscious identity, climbing over
the rounds of symbolic experience and language through the heights
of knowledge and love. Strange, helpless, sublime prince of the
universe, beggar of God, when he has attained the summit of
illimitable perception, holding immortal joys in full prospect,
shall he be dashed back into nonentity? Is it not fitter that he
be welcomed by triumphant initiation into the family of the
deathless Father?

Think of the advancement man has made since the time when he was a
cannibal cave dweller, shivering out of the glacial epoch, and
contending with wild beasts for a foothold on the earth, till now
that he enjoys the idealism of Berkeley, wields the quaternions of
Hamilton, uses the lightnings for his red sandaled messengers,
holds his spectroscope to a star and tells what elements compose
it, or to an outskirting nebula and declares it a mass of
incandescent hydrogen. From such a background of accomplished fact
he seems really to have a right to peer forth into the unbounded
future and promise himself an unbounded destiny. The repetition of
such a progress, nay much less, it may not unreasonably be
imagined would raise the curtains from unsuspected secrets, bring
the family of intelligences scattered over all worlds into
conscious communication, and accomplish the deliverance of the
whole creation travailing and groaning together unto this day for
the redemption of the creature. What a splendid, almost incredible
task man has already achieved in disentangling the apparent
astronomic motions and converting them into the real ones. How
immensely sublimer and more complex is the position of man on this
planet than it seemed to the primitive savage, who knew only what
his crude senses taught him, although, all the while, the moon was
circling about him twenty five hundred miles an hour, and he was
whirling with the revolving earth a thousand miles an hour, and
spinning around the sun over thirty thousand miles an hour, and
swooping with the whole solar system through the blue void with a
still swifter gyre in a yet vaster cycle! This is demonstrated
physical fact. Its harmonic correlate in the spiritual sphere
would be nothing less than a lease of eternal existence for the
soul which sees endless invitations ahead, and exults at the
prospect of an eternal pursuit of them, its reason and affection
affiliated with those of the whole divine household of immortals.
Two or three generations ago it would have been more inconceivable
that men a hundred miles apart could audibly converse together, as
they now do by means of the telephone, than it is at this day to
believe that communication may at some future time be opened
between the inhabitants of the earth and the inhabitants of Sirius
through the vibrations of the ethereal medium.

Futhermore, the idea of the infinite God, in possession of which
man finds himself, is a warrant for his immortality. There cannot
be more in an effect than was in its cause, though there may be
less. We perceive intelligence, orderly purpose, as well as power,
in nature. We find in ourselves all the explicit attributes and
treasures of consciousness. Reasoning back by indubitable steps we
come to an uncaused, unlimited, infinite Being, the underived and
eternal source of all that is. This idea in our minds of a Being
of absolute perfection, whose boundless consciousness as being
necessarily indivisible must be totally present at every point of
infinitude, is the charter of our own divine nature and heirship.
For we can become, even here, friends and companions of this
omnipresent One, of whose essence and attributes everything below
is but a defective transcript or dimmed revelation. This idea of
Himself is the gift of God to us. To suppose that we are capable
of originating it implies a greater miracle than the one it seeks
to account for, and really puts ourselves in the place of God. Can
we imagine that we are the creators of God? If the absolute
noumenal Power beyond all phenomena be unknowable, it cannot
contain less, but must contain more than all the attributes of the
material and spiritual creation which has proceeded thence. The
noblest and best spirits of all lands and ages have walked in full
fellowship with this Being, seeking supremely to serve and love
Him in the subjection of self will and in the doing of good. Many
a nameless saint, in a pure consecration, has heroically thought
and suffered and aspired, worn out life in slow toils or offered
it up in sharp sacrifice, for the good of fellow creatures, as a
tribute to God, and exhaled the last breath in a prayer of love
and trust. Such faithful servants and comrades must be dear to the
Infinite Spirit, and it is natural to believe that He will keep
them with him forever. When Christ, in self sacrificing love,
submitted to death on the cross, saying, "Father, into Thy hands I
commit my spirit," he who can believe that the magnanimous
sufferer was disappointed, blotted out and extinguished, thus
reveals the grade of his own insight, but does not refute the
greater hope of nobler seers. It seems as if the idea of God, with
loving faith and obedience to its requirements, planted in a soul
which had not inherited immortality would straightway begin to
develop it there. The atmosphere of eternity alone befits a nature
which feels itself living in the companionship of God. Everything
subject to decay cowers into oblivion from before the idea of that
august, incorruptible presence. The fear of death is but the
recoil of the immortal from mortality. When man voluntarily faces
death without fear, even courting martyrdom with a radiant joy, it
is because there is in him, deeper than consciousness, a mystic
knowledge that he is essentially eternal and cannot perish. He who
freely sacrifices anything thereby proves himself superior to that
which he sacrifices. Man freely sacrifices his life. Therefore he
is immortal.

The ancient Semitic philosopher and poet who wrote the book of
Job, brooding on the strange problem of life and death, murmured,
"Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" With each successive
generation, for many ages, countless millions have dissolved and
vanished into the vast, dumb mystery. Now, the spectator,
remembering all this, stands beneath the dome of midnight,
imploringly breathes the mystic sigh, "Man giveth up the ghost,
and where is he?" The only responses is the same dread silence
still maintained as of old. And, in a moment more, he who breathed
the wondering inquiry is himself gone. Whither? Into the vacant
dark of nothingness? Into the transparent sphere of perfect
intelligence? The sublimity of the demand seems to ally the finite
questioner with the infinite Creator; and, with a presentiment of
marvelous joy, we look beyond the ignorant veil at the close of
earth, and hold that eternity itself will not exhaust the
possibilities of the soul, whose career shall be kept from
stagnation by constant interspersals of death and birth,
refreshing disembodiments from worn out forms and reincarnations
in new.

If this life on the earth, where man feels himself a stranger, be
his all, how superfluously he is equipped with foresights and
longings that outrun every conceivable limit! Why is he gifted
with powers of reason and demands of love so far beyond his
conditions? If there be no future for him, why is he tortured with
the inspiring idea of the eternal pursuit of the still flying goal
of perfection? Is it possible that the hero and the martyr and the
saint, whose experience is laden with painful sacrifices for
humanity, are mistaken? and that the slattern and the voluptuary
and the sluggard, whose course is one of base self indulgence, are
correct? Is it credible that, with no justifying explanation
hereafter, it should be ordained that the more gifted and
disinterested a man is the more he shall uselessly suffer, from
his sympathetic carriage of the greater share in the sin and
sorrow of all his race? No, far back in the past there has been
some dark mystery which yet flings its dense shadows over our
history here; and in the obscurity we cannot read its solution.
But there is a solution. And when in some blessed age to come
mankind shall outgrow their discords and be reconciled, so that
their divinest living member can become the focalizing center of
their collective inspiration, through him the truth will be
revealed. The most inspired individual can only in a degree
anticipate his age. At a certain distance he is tethered by his
connections with the race. They must be near the goal before he
can deliver the final message. Inspiration and revelation are as
real as the sensuous method of outer knowledge. Spirit or
consciousness, as that which is its own evidence, has a more than
mathematic validity. When men purely love one another, and, with
supreme loyalty, seek truth, ignorance and delusion will melt away
before the encroaching illumination from God, and the dominion of
death will be abolished.

That the human mind shall be the victim of death is incongruous
with its rank. The atheistic scientist who imagines that the
energy of the stellar creation is gradually dissipating, so that
the whole scheme must at last perish; and who sees the soul, then,
like a belated butterfly, fall frozen on the boundary of a dead
universe, refutes his own dismal creed by the grandeur of the
power shown in thinking it. The might of love, the faculty of
thought, the instinct of curiosity, are insatiable; and that which
remains wooing them to grasp it, is infinite. And, after all is
said, it seems certain that we are either discerpted emanations
and avatars of God suffering transient incarnations for a purpose,
and then to be resumed, immortal in his immortality; or else we
are separate and inherent entities, immortal in ourselves. The
former faith ought to satisfy the proudest ambition. The latter
faith yields every motive for contentment and aspiring obedience.
Man, forever feeding on the unknown, is the mysterious guest of
God in the universe. We cannot believe that, the hospitality of
the infinite Housekeeper becoming exhausted, He will ever blow out
the lights and quench the guests.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRANSIENT AND THE PERMANENT IN THE DESTINY OF MAN.

A COMPANION of Solomon once said to him, "Give me, O king of
wisdom, a maxim equally applicable on all occasions, that I may
fortify myself with it against the caprices of fortune." Solomon
reflected a moment, then gave him, in these words, the maxim he
sought: "This, too, shall pass away." The courtier at first felt
disappointed, but, meditating awhile, perceived the pertinent and
profound meaning hidden in the transparent simplicity of the
words. Are you afflicted? Be not despondent or rash, This, too,
shall pass away. Are you blessed? Be not elated or careless, This
too shall pass away. Are you in danger? in temptation? in glory?
Still, for your proper guidance, in relation to each one,
remember; This too shall pass away. And so on, under every
diversity of situation in which man can be placed. Whatever
restraint, whatever encouragement, whatever consolation he needs,
it is all contained in the profound thought, This too shall pass
away.

This maxim for all times needs to be supplemented by a
corresponding maxim for all persons. There is a truth constantly
suited for the variety of immortal souls, as the foregoing one is
for the variety of temporal changes. Let us see what that truth is
and set it in a fitting aphorism.

The desires of the human soul are boundless. Nothing can satisfy
its wishes by fulfilling them and circumscribing there a fixed
limit. It would devour the whole creation, and hungrily cry for
more. Whatever extension of power or fruition it can conceive, it
wants for its own, and frets if deprived of it. Now, if the spirit
of the Creator is in the creature, this illimitable passion of
acquisition cannot be a mere mockery. It must be a hint of the
will of God and of the destiny of his child in whom He has
implanted it. It is prophetic of something awaiting fulfillment.
But what is the prophecy, and how is it to be fulfilled? The
answer to this question will give us that maxim of eternal
humanity which accords with the maxim of transient fortune. And
thus it reads: Over all the things for which men struggle with
each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle,
which indivisibly belongs to every man, and that one thing is the
whole universe! Be not baffled by the appearance of transcendental
mysticism in this maxim, as the ancient inquirer was by the
appearance of commonplace in his, but seek its significance.

A son is an heir of his father. All men are sons of God, though
only a few, and that in varying degree, are distinctly conscious
as yet of their sonship. But, despite their ignorance, all are
tending, more or less swiftly, toward the goal of their nature and
inheritance.

There are exclusive prizes which men can monopolize: and they
fight with one another for these, because the more some have the
less others can obtain. There are also inclusive prizes, or modes
of holding and enjoying property which do not interfere with
universal participation, with universal, undivided ownership. In
these no one need have any the less because every one has all.
This is the region of reason, imagination, affection, the empire
of the soul. The more one knows of mathematical truth, poetic
beauty or moral good, the easier it is, not the harder, for others
to know and enjoy as much or more. In this divine domain no
monopoly or conflict is possible, because the outward moving fence
of each consciousness, retreating and vanishing before its
conquests of experience, is a vacuum with respect to that of every
other. They overlap and penetrate one another as if they were
mutually nonexistent. For example, the pleasure any one takes in a
picture, or in a play, does not lessen the pleasure which remains
for the other spectators; but, on the contrary, adds to it if they
have sympathy.

Now, the all inclusive prize of desire, the very secret of the
Godhead namely, the power of taking a full pure joy in every form
of being, in every substance and phenomenon of the creation is
forever wooing every soul; and every soul, in proportion to its
advancement, is forever embracing it just as freely as if no other
soul existed, yet has the zest of its enjoyments endlessly varied
and heightened by mutual contemplations and reflections of those
of all the rest. Such is the superiority of the disinterested
spirit over the selfish flesh, of the inner world over the outer
world, of good over evil.

Mental ownership is sympathetic and universal, physical
appropriation antagonistic and individual. We hate and oppose our
fellows that with hand and foot we may monopolize some wretched
grains of good, while God is inviting every one of us with our
mind and heart to accept as fast as we can his whole undivided
infinitude of good. The universe is the house of the Father; the
true spirit of the family is disinterested, and consequently every
child is heir of the whole even as the apostle Paul said, joint
heir with Christ. Register, then, deeply in memory, side by side
with the historic maxim for all times, This too shall pass away!
the religious maxim for all souls. Over those things for which men
struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of
struggle, which belongs indivisibly to every man, and that one
thing is the whole universe! Then, should you ever feel vexed or
disheartened by the irritations and failures you meet in your
journey through the evanescent masquerade of this world, pause and
say to yourself, Is it worthy of me, while the entire realm of
existence asks me to appropriate it in ever expansive possession,
to be angry or sad because some infinitesimal speck of it does not
grant me as much of itself as I crave?

The more things we love the richer we are. The fewer things we
care for the freer we are. O blessed wealth and wretched freedom,
how shall we perfect and reconcile them? This is the secret: If we
love the divine and eternal in everything, and care not for the
limiting and perishable evil connected with it, then we shall at
once be both rich and free. The former practice educates our
powers; the latter emancipates them. The true use of renunciation
is as a means for larger fulfillment. Detach from lower and lesser
objects in order to attach to higher and greater ones. Be always
ready to renounce the meaner at the invitation of the nobler. The
soul, like a grand frigate, may be loosely tied by a thousand
separate strings, but should be held firm by one cable. Our
relations to fellow creatures are those threads; our supreme
relation to God, that cable. Those are the gossamer of time; this
the adamant of eternity.

The lame man cries, O, that I could walk! He who can walk says, O,
that I could fly! If he could soar, he would sigh, O, that I were
omnipresent, and therefore had no need to move! The end of one
wish is but the beginning of another; and the craving of every
human soul, let loose in sincere expression, is absolutely
illimitable. It always comes, in the last analysis, to this; every
one really longs to be God. Therefore, unless the rational
creation is mendacious, to be deified, is, in some mystical but
true sense, the final destiny of all souls. Every one, in its
consciousness fully developed and harmonized, shall become a focus
of universal being, a finite reflex of God, the infinite God
himself remaining eternally the same unescapable and incomprehensible
mystery as ever.

There are, therefore, two supreme maxims for souls conditioned in
time and space but destined for eternity and infinity a maxim of
comfort for those who suffer, and a maxim of impulse for those who
aspire. The one, to be used in view of every fear, every evil or
limit. This, too, shall pass away! The other, to be used in view
of every insatiable desire, Over all those things for which men
struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of
struggle, which indivisibly belongs to every man, and that one
thing is the whole universe!

Nothing but the Absolute Good is everlasting: and that must belong
to all who, being essential personalities, are superior to death.
Blessed, blessed, then, are they who hunger and thirst after God;
for, by a real transubstantiation assimilating Him, they shall as
divinely live forevermore. They shall cease to say any more of
anything, This, too, shall pass away! because the infinite God
shall have said to each of them, Son, thou art ever with me, and
all that I have is thine!

If the view above marked out, a view in many respects so sublime
and satisfactory, a view which goes so far to explain the
mysteries, reconcile the contradictions, and transfigure the evils
of our transient life and lot below be not true, it must either be
because some other higher and better view is the truth in which
case we certainly ought to be contented or else the creative and
providential plan of God is inferior to the thought of one of his
creatures. It is not possible for me to suppose that a speculative
theory of my brain can transcend in harmony and beneficence the
design of the infinite God. Could it do so, then, in reality, I
should be a higher being than He. I should veritably have
dethroned Him and vaulted into his place. Is not that a pitch of
impiety and absurdity too great even for the pride of man,
insurgent atom of criticising assumption, set, baffled at every
point, amidst the awful immensity of existence? Here, then, is
rest. Either our highest view is the truth, or the truth is higher
and better than that. For to think that his thought is superior to
the purpose of God, thus making himself the real God, is too much
for the extremist human egotist within the limits of sanity.

Therefore, until a better theory is propounded, we hold that the
destiny of the soul is to become, through the progressive
actualization of its potential consciousness, a free thinking
center of the universe, an infinitesimal mirror of God. The
adventures of the different souls, full of inexhaustible curiosity
and relish in the mutually revealing contacts of their degrees of
development and originalities of personal character and treasure,
constitute the endless drama of spiritual existence within the
phenomenal theater of the material creation. And still the
infinite One serenely smiles on the troubled play of the eternal
Many; because the psychological kaleidoscope of their experience
is a continuous improvisation of justice, weaving the fate of Each
with the fates of All, and transfusing the monotonous unity of the
Same with the zestful variety of the Other.