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 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. entered according to act of congress, in the year , by william rounseville alger, in the clerk's office of the district court of the united states for the district of massachusetts. copyright , 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 , . 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. and it is not without able advocates among the scholars and thinkers 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. 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 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" 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. 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. 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 edward warren, no pre existence, p. . epistola clxvi. de anima, cap. x. et xix. himself from falling under the ruins of his system. henry woolner published in london, in , 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." 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." 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. these latent seeds of souls, swarming in all places, are drawn in with the first breath or imbibed with the earliest nourishment of the hennings, geschichte von den seelen der menschen, s. . philosophy of the inductive sciences, vol. i. b. ix. ch. iv. sect. . 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. 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. leibnitz, monadologie. 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." 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. 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 tract on the origin and propagation of the soul, chap. i. 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." 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. 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. 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? epist. clvi. faraday, conservation of force, phil. mag., april, . dr. frohschammer, ursprang der menechlichen seelen, sect. . 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." 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 feuerbach, gedanken uber tod and unsterblichkeit, sect. . 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. 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 spencer, principles of psychology, pp. - . 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. 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. 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. gesenius says, "many things in this narrative were drawn from older asiatic tradition." knobel also affirms that numerous matters in this relation were derived from traditions of east asian nations. 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. 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 tuch, kommentar uber genesis, s. xcviii. zur altesten sagenpoesie des orients. zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen gesellschaft, band viii. ss. - . mythologus, (schopfung and sundenfall, ) band i. s. . article "adam," in encyclopadia by ersch and gruber. die genesis erklart, s. . palfrey's academical lectures, vol. ii. pp. - . 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. 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 alian, no nat. animal., lib. vi. cap. . 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." 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 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. 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 strauss gives a multitude of apposite quotations in his christliche glaubenslehre, band i. s. , sect. , 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 species 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." the most forcible defence of this hypothesis is that made by herbert spencer. see, in his volume of essays, no. of the haythorne papers. also see oken, entstehung des ersten menechen, isis, , ss. - . 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, 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. the diversity of origin of the human races, by louis agassiz, christian examiner, july, . 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. 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 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. 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. augustine, op. imp. iii. . 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, 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. 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. bibliographical notice of the legend of the wandering jew, by paul lacroix; trans. into english by g.w. thornbury. grasse, der ewige jude. fragment x. quoted in mare's hist. lit. greece, book iii. chap. v. sect. . 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, 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." thomson's trans. of bhagavad gita, p. . outlines of the infinite, chap. ii. sect. iv. . 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. 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. 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." contributions to the natural history of the united states, vol. i. pp. - . umbreit, fiber das sterben ais einen akt menschlich personlicher selbststandigkeit. studien und kritiken, . 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. 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. 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 wohlfarth, triumph des glaubens an unsterblichkeit und wiedersehen uber jeden zweifel. oporinus, historia critica doctrina de immortalitate mortalium. muller, elements of physiology, book vi. sect. i. ch. . 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. 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. 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. 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 sir humphry davy, proteus or immortality. bakewell, natural evidence of a future state. butler, analogy, part i. ch. . 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. 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. 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 bretschneider, predigten uber tod, unsterblichkeit, und anferstehung. 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. 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. 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. 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. andrew baxter, inquiry into the nature of the soul. herbart, lehrbuch zur psychologie, sect. . 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. 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." 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. schubert, die symbolik des traumes. iliad, lib. xxiii. ll. . another assemblage of views, based on the character of god, form the theological argument for the future existence of man. 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. 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 aebli, unsterblichkeit der menschlichen seele, sechster brief. 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. 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. 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! m. jules simon, la religion naturelle, liv. iii.: l'immortalite. dr. chalmers, bridgewater treatise, chap. . 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. 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 crombie, natural theology, essay iv.: the arguments for immortality. bretschneider, die religiose glaubenslehre, sect. - . 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. 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. 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. addison, spectator, nos. and . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 drossbach, die harmonie der ergebnisse der naturforschung mit den forderungen des menschlichen gemuthes. 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." 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. 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, 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. philosophy and doctrines of erigena, universalist quarterly review, vol. vii. p. . 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. 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. 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, 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. 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 lange, das land der herrlichkelt. schmidius, diss. de multiplici animarum reditu in corpora. passed into his body at the moment of his birth. 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. 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 churchill, mount lebanon, vol. ii. ch. . fourier, passions of the human soul, (morell's translation,) introduction, vol. i. pp. - ; also pp. - . 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. 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. 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. 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." bertram, prufung der meinung von der praexistenz der menechlichen seele. nurnberger, still leben, oder uber die unsterblichkeit der seele. 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. 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? 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. 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." taylor, physical theory of another life, ch. xii. taylor, saturday evening, pp. - . 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, "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, 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 , 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. 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. 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." 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 shortland, traditions of the new zealanders, ch. vii. library of ent. knowl.: the new zealanders, pp. - . wilkes, narrative of the u. s. exploring expedition, vol. iii. ch. . 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. 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. 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. 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 jarves, hist. of the sandwich islands, p. . christoph meiners, vermischte philosophische schriften, - . prichard, physical hist. of mankind, vol. i. ch. . sought to seize them, unsubstantial. 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. 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. 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! 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. they said the mexican goddess, wife of the sun, was eve, or egede, greenland, ch. . dr. karl andree, gronland. prescott, conquest of peru, vol. i. ch. . erskine, islands of the western pacific, p. . schoolcraft, history, &c. of the indian tribes, part v. p. . the virgin mary, and quetzalcoatl was st. thomas! 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." squier, serpent symbol in america, p. . acosta, natural and moral history of the indies, book v. ch. . book ii. ch. . clavigero, history of mexico, book vi. sect. . prescott, conquest of mexico, vol. i. ch. . ibid. sect. . 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. 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. 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. the supposition seems forced and extremely doubtful. the truth probably lies in a simpler explanation, which will be offered further on. baumgarten, geschichte der volker von america, xiii. haupts.: vom tod, vergribniss, und trauer. clarke, onondaga, vol. l. p. . muller, geschichte der amerikanischen urreligionen, sect. . the winnebagoes located paradise above, and called the milky way the "road of the dead." 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. schoolcraft, history, &c. of the indian tribes, part iv. p. . ibid. part ii. p. . ibid. part v. p. ; part iv. p. . longfellow, song of hiawatha, xix.: the ghosts. schoolcraft, indian in his wigwam. p . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, loskiel, hist. mission of united brethren to n. a. indians, part i. ch. . schoolcraft, indian in his wigwam, p. . history, &c. of indian tribes, part iv. p. . schoolcraft, history of indian tribes, part ii. p. . ibid. pp. , . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 , 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 andree, north america, p. . republic, book v. ch. . r. taylor, new zealand, ch. . meiners, kritische geschichte der religionen, buch iii. absch. . 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! 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 smithsonian contributions, vol. ii. squier's aboriginal monuments, appendix, pp. - . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." accordingly, as soon as he ceased browne, trees of america, p. . schoolcraft, hist. &c part i. pp. - . earl, the papuans, p. . earl, the eastern seas, ch. . edwards, hist. of the west indies, book i. ch. . ibid. ch. . falkner, patagonia, ch. . catlin, north american indians, vol. ii. p. . 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. 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 meiners, geschichte der religionen, buch xiv. sect. . 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. 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," 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." pomponius mela, de orbis situ, iii. . translation of greek anthology, in bohn's library, p. . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 wilkinson, dalmatia and montenegro, vol. i. ch. . northern antiquities, ch. . lamartine, history of turkey, book i. ch. . kidd, china, sect. . crantz, history of greenland, book iii. ch. , sect. . 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 cornwall 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. 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. book ii. ch. . davies, celtic researches, appendix, pp. - . 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. 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. 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 pioneer 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 sketch of british bardism, prefixed to owen's translation of the heroic elegies of llywarch hen. herbert, essay on the neo druidic heresy in britannia. poems, lyric and pastoral, by edward williams, vol. ii. notes, pp. - . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. vans kennedy, ancient and hindu mythology, pp. , - . 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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 pigott, manual of scandinavian mythology, p. . keyser, religion of the northmen, trans. by pennock, p. . pigott, p. . 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. 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. 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 pigott, pp. , . the voluspa, strophes , . furnishes materials for the construction of that ship which men and gods wish to have finished as late as possible. 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. 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. the point is grimm, deutsche mythologie, s. , note. keyser, religion of the northmen, part i. ch. vi. pp. - . 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. 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 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. 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 muller, die etrusker, buch iii. kap. iv. sects. - . 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. 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 etruscans 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 saturnal. lib. i. cap. . 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." 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 porphyry and plutarch, 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." a writer on this subject says, "a people who believed in the transmigration herod. lib. ii. cap. . de abstinentia, lib. iv. cap. . banquet of the seven wise men. champollion, descr. de l'egypte, antiq. tom ii. p. . stuart's trans. of greppo's essay, p. . 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." 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, 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. 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 bonomi and arundel on egyptian antiq., p. . pl. xxxiii. in lepsius' todtenb. der. agypter. 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." 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. 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." 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. 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 lib. iii. cap. . kenrick, ancient egypt, vol. i. ch. xxi. sect. iii. lib. i. cap. . 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. 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. 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 spineto on egyptian antiq, lectures iv., v. wilkinson, manners and customs of the ancient egyptians, d series, vol. i. ch. . before the various divinities he would meet on his journey, and representations of some of the adventures awaiting him in the unseen state. 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. 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: "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." 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 das todtenbuch der agypter, edited with an introduction by dr. lepsius. ch. ix. of pettigrew's history of egyptian mummies. champollion's letter, dated thebes, may , . an abstract of this letter may be found in stuart's trans. of greppo's essay on champollion's hieroglyphic system, appendix, note n. basnage, hist. of the jews, lib. ii. ch. , sect. . 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. 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. 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. 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. liber metempsychosis veterum agyptiorum, edited and translated into latin from the funeral papyri by h. brugsch. l'univers, egypte ancienne, par champollion figeac, pp. . agyptische glaubenslehre von dr. ed. roth, ss. , . "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. 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." monumental history of egypt, vol. i. ch. . 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. 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! vol iii. pp. - . 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, makes the reader "sup full of horrors." the buddhist "books of ceylon" 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. 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 wilson's trans. pp. - . upham's trans. vol. iii. pp. , , . vans kennedy, ancient and hindu mythology, p. . 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." 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. 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 p. . journal of the american oriental society, vol. iv. p. . 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. 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. 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 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 hardy, manual of buddhism, p. . coleman, mythology of the hindus, p. . 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." "emancipation from all existence is the fulness of felicity." "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." "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.'" "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?'" eastern monachism, p. . vishnu purana, p. . hardy, manual of buddhism, p. . asiatic researches, vol. xvii. p. . journal of the american oriental society, vol. iv. p. . 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." 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." 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." 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 vishnu parana, p. . sankhya karika, preface, p. . vishnu purana, p. . 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. 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. 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. 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." "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." the brahmanic scriptures say, "the eternal deity consists of true knowledge." "brahma that is supreme is produced of reflection." 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." the saiva school vishnu purana, p. . hardy, manual of buddhism, p. , note. vishnu parana, pp. , . colebrooke, essays, vol. i. p. . vishnu purana, p. . vans kennedy, ancient and hindu mythology, p. . vishnu purana, pp. , . journal of the american oriental society, vol. ii. p. . 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. 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." "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. 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." 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. ibid. vol. iv. p. . vishnu purana, p. . weber, akademische vorlesungen uber indische literaturgeschichte, s. . sankbya karika, p. . 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." "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." "through knowledge the sage is absorbed into supreme spirit." "the supreme spirit attracts to itself him who meditates upon it, as the loadstone attracts the iron." "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." 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 ibid. pp. , . ibid. pp. , , . vishnu purana, p. . ibid. p. . rammohun roy, translations from the veda, d ed., london, , pp. , , . 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." 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 major cunningham, bbilsa topes, or buddhist monuments of central india, p. . 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. 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." 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." life of gotama in journal of the american oriental society, vol. iii. symbolik and mythologie, th. ii. abth. , s. . 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. 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." 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. 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, 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 burnouf, introduction a l'histoire du buddhisme indien, appendice no. i., du mot nirvana. colebrooke, essays, vol. i. p. . eleven years in ceylon, vol. ii. chap. ix. tanslation by dr. stevenson, p. . 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." 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 elements of physiophilosophy, tulk's trans. p. . 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. 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. hardy, manual, p. . 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 , 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" 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" 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." sankhya karika, pp. - . vishnu purana, p. . 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. "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 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, 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." 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. 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, not disgust, but wonder and awe, fathomless intellectual emotion, at so unparalleled a phenomenon of our miraculous human nature. buddhism and buddhist pilgrims, p. . burnouf, le bhagavata purana, tome i. livre iii. ch. : acquisition de la delivrance, ch. . 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." 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. 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 , 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 , 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 to . 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 , 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. 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 wilson, parsi religion unfolded, p. . 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. professor muller of oxford also holds the same opinion. 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. , 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. spiegel, in , 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 ueber die heiligen schriften der arier. jahrbucher fur deutsche theologie, , band ii. ss. , . essay on the veda and the zend avesta, p. . see also bunsen's christianity and mankind, vol. iii. p. . baron von hammer, in heidelberger jabrbucher der literatur, . id. in journal asiatique, juillet, . dabistan, preliminary discourse, pp. xix. lxv. thought, about the seventh century, but was derived, it is claimed, from a more ancient work. the book entitled "revelations of ardai viraf" exists in pehlevi probably of the fourth century, according to troyer, 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 . 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 . an english translation, with elaborate explanatory matter, by david shea and anthony troyer, was published at london and at paris in . 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, dabistan, vol. i. p. , note. ibid. p. , note. reviewed in asiatic journal, , pp. - . 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." 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. zoroastrische glaubenslehre, ss. , . 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. 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, 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. they invariably represent death as resulting kleuker, zend avesta, band i. anhang , s. . ibid. band i. s. . yasna, th 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. 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. 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." "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." 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," while the neglecters of it "will pass into the dwelling of the devs," "after death will have no part in paradise, but will occupy the place of darkness die sage von dschemschid. von professor r. roth. in zeitschrift der deutschen morgeulandischen gesellschaft, band iv. ss. - . weber, indische studien, band iii. . . yesht lxxxvii. kleuker, band ii. sect. . bundehesh, ch. xv. avesta die heiligen schriften der parsen. von dr. f. spiegel, band i. s, . ibid. s. . destined for the wicked." 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. an avestan fragment 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. 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." rhode thinks this was a part of the old persian faith, and the source of ibid. s. . ibid. ss. - . vendidad, fargard xix. kleuker, band i. ss. xxxi. xxxv. spiegel, vendidad, ss. , , , . kleuker, band ii. s. . the roman catholic doctrine of purgatory. 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." 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 rhode, heilige sage des zendvolks, s. . 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. but he confesses that the resurrection theory was in existence long before that time. 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." 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. "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. 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 studien uber das zend avesta, in zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen gesellschaft, , band ix. s. . spiegel, avesta, band i. s. . dabistan, vol. i. pp. - . diogenes laertius, lives of the philosophers, introduction, sect. vi. plutarch, concerning isis and osiris. lib. vi. cap. i. sect. . 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. 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, and in many other places in the avesta, 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, spiegel, avesta, band i. ss. , . fargard xviii, spiegel's uebersetzung, s. . kleuker, band ii. ss. , , . an influence which, in regard to the doctrine of angels, satan, and the resurrection of the dead, cannot be mistaken. 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. 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 die lehre zoroasters nach den alten liedern des zendavesta. zeitschrift der morgenlandischen gesellschaft, band ix. ss. , - . rawlinson's herodotus, vol. i. pp. - . 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. 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 spiegel, avesta, ss. , , , , . afforded 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." 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. windischmann has now ( ) fully proved this, in his zoroastrische studien. spiegel frankly avows it: avesta, band iii., einleitung, s. lxxv. rhode, heilige sage des zendvolks, s. . 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. 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 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." 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 livy, i. ; dion. hal. ii. . 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. 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 wood, the last things, p. . 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. 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," exegetical essays, (andover, ,) p. . 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." 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 biblical archeology, sect. . 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. 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 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." 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." 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." 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. cap. viii. . cap. ii. , . cap. xiv. . 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." "complete virtue is the tree of immortal life." "vices and crimes, rushing in through the gate of sensual pleasure, changed a happy and immortal life for a wretched and mortal one." 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." "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 mangey's edition of philo's works, vol. i. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . and the assumption of vice." "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." 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." 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." "a vile life is the true hades, despicable and obnoxious to every sort of execration." "different regions are set apart for different things, heaven for the good, the confines of the earth for the bad." 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." "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." 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." "ignorant men regard death as the end of punishments, whereas in the divine judgment it is scarcely the beginning of them." 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." "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." 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, ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. , . ibid. p. . ibid. vol. ii. p. . ibid. p. . mangey's edition of philo's works, vol. ii. p. . ibid. vol. i. p. . enjoying immortality and made similar to the angels. for the angels are the army of god, bodiless and happy souls." 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. 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." 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." 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." ibid. p. . 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. lightfoot in matt. xxii. . josephus, de bell. lib. ii. cap. . ibid. lib. vii. cap. . 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." again, he writes, "the pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but that only the souls of good men are removed into other bodies." 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 antiq. lib. xviii. cap. . de bell. lib. ii. cap. . 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." 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." 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. "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 schoettgen, dissertatio de hierosolyma coelesti, cap. iii. sect. . schoettgen, hora biblica et talmudica, in rom. v. , et in johan. iii. . ibid. in cor. v. . 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." 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 schoettgen, in cor. xv. . 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.'" "paradise is separated from hell by a distance no greater than the width of a thread." 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.'" "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." "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." "the fire of gehenna was kindled on the evening of the first sabbath, and shall never be extinguished." 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. 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." 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." borrowing some persian modes of thinking, and adding them to their own inordinate national pride, the rabbins soon began talmud, tract. berachoth. eisenmenger, entdecktes judenthum, th. ii. cap. v. s. . lightfoot, in matt. v. . schroder, satzungen and gebrauche des talmudisch rabbinischen judenthums, s. . schoettgen, in johan. xiv. . nov. test. ex talmude, etc. illustratum a j. g. menschen, p. . basnage, hist. of jews, lib. iv. cap. . also, traditions of the rabbins, in blackwood for april, . eisenmenger, th. ii. s. . lightfoot, in matt. ii. . 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." "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." 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. "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." 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, also by the appearance of the prophet elias as a forerunner. 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. "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 schroder, s. . eisenmenger, th. ii. kap. vi. s. . ibid. s. . geschichte des urchristenthums, zweit. abth. s. . maimonides also asserts the doctrine of supererogatory works: see p. of h. h. bernard's selections from the yad hachazakah of maimonides. surenhusius, mischna, pars tertia, p. . lightfoot, in matt. xvii. . 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." gfrorer derives the origin of the doctrine that christ rescued souls out of the under world, from a jewish notion, preserved in the talmud, that the just patriarchs sometimes did it. 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" schoettgen quotes this statement from the sohar: "messia shall die, and shall remain in the state of death a time, and shall rise." 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. , 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." 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." "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." "sodom and gomorrah shall not rise in the resurrection of the dead." rabbi chebbo says, "the patriarchs so vehemently desired to be buried in schoettgen, de messia, lib. vi. cap. v. sect. . eisenmenger, th. ii. ss. , . geschichte urchrist. kap. viii. s. . christologia judaorum jesu apostolorumque atate, sect. , (de descensu messia ad inferos.) de messia, lib. vi. cap. v. sect. . lightfoot, in matt. xxvii. . witsius, dissertatio de seculo, etc. sect. . nov. test. illustratum, etc. a meuschen, p. . schoettgen, in johan. vi. . 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." 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. 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." 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. the righteous were never to return to the dust, but "at the end schoettgen, de messia, lib. vi. cap. vi. sect. . see an able dissertation on jewish notions of the resurrection of the dead, prefixed to humphrey's translation of athenagoras on the resurrection. surenhusius, mischna, pars tertia, p. . schroder, s. . 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." 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. 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 theology 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 schoettgen, de messia, lib. vi. cap. vi. sect. ; cap. vii. ss. , . john allen, modern judaism, ch. vi. and xv. see abriss der religion zoroasters nach den zendbuchern, von abbe foucher, in kleuker's zend avesta, band i. zweit anhang, ss. - . by them during and just after the babylonish captivity, and is much like that which they found among their enslavers. 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, 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. "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." of this belief in a subterranean purgatory there are numerous unmistakable evidences and examples in the rabbinical writings. 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 schroder, p. . yacna, ha . kleuker, zweit. auf. s. . die heiligen schriften der parsen, von dr. f. spiegel, kap. ii. ss. - . studien and kritiken, , 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. die zoroastrischen glaubenslehre, von dr. eduard roth. s. . see, in tom. i. kabbala denudata, synopsis dogmatum libri sohar pp. , , . 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. 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." "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 lucke, einleitung in die offenbarung des johannes, kap. , sect. . kleuker, zend avesta, band ii. anhang i. s. . 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." 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 georg. lib. i. ii. - . 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." 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." 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 odyssey, lib. xi. ii. , . antigone, ii. - . 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." 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 odyssey, lib. iv. ii. - . 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. 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; ovid, met. lib. ix. ii. - . 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." 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." 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." mure says that the doctrine of apotheosis belonged to the graco pelasgic race through all their history. 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 the suppliants, l. . nicomachean ethics, lib. viii. cap. . suetonius, cap. xxiii. hist. greek literature, vol. i. ch. , sect. . 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 ode 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." 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." 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. l. . li. , . l. . 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." 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." 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. "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, ll. - . ll. - . ll. - . 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." 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." "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." "we are plants, not of earth, but of heaven." 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 phado, . gorgias, . menexenus, . timaus, . 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. 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." 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 republic, lib. vii. cap. . phadrus, - , , . revolution of the universe, a period vulgarly known under the name of the "platonic year." 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." "when a man dies, he possesses in the other world a destiny suited to the life which he has led in this." 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." 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." 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 statesman, , . gorgias, . republic, lib. vi. cap. i. phadrus, . timaus, . 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." 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 menexenus, . 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." 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." 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." 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 the laws, b. ix. ch. . phadrus, - . the laws, lib. x. cap. . 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." 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." 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." 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. 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. seneca has a great many contradictory passages on this subject hist. anc. phil. p. iii. b. ix. ch. . meditations, lib. iii. cap. . ibid. lib. iv. cap. . plutarch, plac. phil. iv. . tusc. quast. lib. i. cap. . in his works; but his preponderant authority, upon the whole, is that the soul and the body perish together. 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." 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. 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." 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." 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, the pictures of the scenery of the under world, hung in the temples, of which there was a famous one by polygnotus, 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 christoph meiners, vermischte philosophische schriften. commentarius quo stoicorum sententia; de animorum post mortem statu satis illustrantur. epist. . troades, . . phado, . republic, lib. i. cap. . ovid, fasti, lib. ii. ii. - . pausanias, lib. x. cap. . mouth of orcus, and was opened three days in the year for souls to rise out into the upper world. 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. 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." 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!" 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." 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 de significatione verborum, verbum "manalis." lessing, wie die alten den tod gebildet. ayes, i. . epigram iv. vita apollonii, lib. viii. cap. . wise." 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." 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." 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." "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." 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. plutarch says, "demons are the spies and scouts of the gods, wandering and circuiting around on their commands." disembodied souls cyropadia, lib. viii. cap. . epigram xxiv. josephus, de bell. lib. vi. cap. . diss. xxv. diss. xli. tusc. quest. lib i. cap. . 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. 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." 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. 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, juvenal, persius, concur in scouting at the tales which once, when recited on the stage, had made vast audiences perceptibly tremble. and cicero asks, "what old woman is so insane as to fear these things?" 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." muller, greek literature, ch. vi. works and days, lib. i. ii. - . lib. ii. cap. . lib. i. epist. . sat. ii. sat. ii. tusc. quest. lib. i. cap. . ibid. cap. . 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." 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. lib. i. cap. , . 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, 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, 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 rabbi abraham geiger, prize essay upon the question, proposed by the university of bonn, "was hat mohammed aus dem judenthum aufgenommen?" 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 sects 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." 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 churchill, mount lebanon, vol. i. ch. xv. 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:" "all who shall be willing to walk uprightly; but they shall not be willing unless god willeth." 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." 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 koran, ch. lxxiv. ibid. ch. lxxxi. gibbon, decline and fall of rome, ch. . 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." 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?" 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. 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 taylor, hist. of fanaticism, sect. vii. ch. xlvii. 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?" "is not he who created man able to quicken the dead?" "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.'" 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?" "whoever hath wrought either good or evil of the weight of an ant shall in that day behold the same." 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." "every man of them on that day shall have business enough of his own to employ his thoughts." 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, ch. lxxxiv. ch. lxxv. ch. xxxvii., lvi. koran, ch. lxxxviii. ibid. ch. xcix. ibid. ch. lxxxii. 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. 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. 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 w. c. taylor, mohammedanism and its sects. koran, ch. viii. sale, preliminary discourse, p. . 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. 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. 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. hyat ul kuloob, ch. x. p. . koran, ch. lv. ch. lvi. hyat ul kuloob, ch. xvi. p. . 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. 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: chambers's papers for the people, vol. i.: the myth, p. . 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. 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. 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 lib. i. cap. . de boismont, rational history of hallucinations, ch. : 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. 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 corrodi, gesch. des chiliasmns, th. i. abschn. : gastmahl des leviathan. they die. 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!" 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 churchill, mt. lebanon, vol. iii. ch. . pallegoix, description du royaume de siam, ch. xx. p. . 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. 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." 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. the hardy, manual of buddhism, p. . logan, scottish gael, ch. xiv. squier, serpent symbol, p. , 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. they also say that the good trisanku, having pleased a god, was elevated in his living body to heaven. 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. 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. 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; vans kennedy, ancient and hindu mythology, p. . vishnu purana, p. . upham, sacred books of ceylon, vol. i. introduction, p. . hardy, manual of buddhism, p. , 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." 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. 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. 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. lewes, biographical history of philosophy, vol. i. p. , ( st eng. edit.) schoolcraft, notes on the iroquois, ch. ix. adventures of hatim tai, p. . 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. schoolcraft gives a picturesque narrative of a journey made by a wyandot brave to and from the land of souls. 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. 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 shortland, traditions of the new zealanders, p. . history, &c. of indian tribes, part ii. p. . there is a fanatic sect of sebastianists in brazil now. see "brazil and the brazilians," by kidier and fletcher, pp. - . 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. 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. alian, in his various history, recounts the following singular circumstances concerning the meropes who inhabited the valley of anostan. 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 abbe domenech's seven years' residence in the great deserts of north america; vol. i. ch. viii. stuart, commentary on the apocalypse: excursus upon ch. xiii. v. . lib. iii. cap. . 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. 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, 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 , , 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. 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, the whole doctrine which we maintain is implied in the present passage; but he was so perplexed by certain difficult queries 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 see, for example, clem. alex. stromata, lib. vi.; cyprian, test. adv. judaos, lib. ii. cap. , lactantius, divin. instit. lib. vii. cap. . epist. xcix. 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." christ fulfilled the law of see rosenmuller's explanation in hoc loco. death, 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. 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." 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." 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 see king's history of the apostles' creed, d ed., pp. - . "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." ambrose, de fide, etc., lib. iv. cap. , 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. , affirms "that christ descended into the under world to deliver those who, from adam downwards, had been imprisoned there." in assumptionem christi. 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." 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." 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." 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 ruffinus, expos. in symb. apost. comm. in tim. ii. . 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. 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." tholuck says, "it was a jewish opinion that the death of the just atoned for the people." 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, 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;" 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." 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 witsius, dissertatio de seculo hoc et futuro, sect. . lightfoot on matt. xii. . comm. on john i. . "god shall liberate the israelites from the under world." bertholdt's christologia judaorum, sect. xxxiv., (de descensu messia ad inferos,) note . "the captives shall ascend from the under world, shechinah at their head." schoettgen de messia, lib. vi. cap. , sect. . see his letter to heliodorus, epiat. xxxv., benedict. ed. comm. in eccles. cap. iii. , 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 to . 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. 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 christian examiner, vols. for . 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. 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 xi. , , et al. see chap. x. , 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. , ,) 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" 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, 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. the same exposition is given by origen, 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 robinson's lexicon, first edition, under [nac]; also see philo, cited there. ch. x. . epist. clxiv. sect. ix., ed. benedictina. de principiis, lib. ii. cap. . 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. 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: schoettgen, hora hebraica et talmudica in cor. xii. . "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." 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 all 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. 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 antiq. lib. iii. cap. , sect. ; ibid. cap. , sect. . philo declares, "the whole universe is one temple of god, in which the holiest of all is heaven." de monarchia, p. , ed. mangey. schoettgen, dissertatio de hierosolyma coelesti, cap. , sect. . 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." 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." 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." the hebrew word for death, maveth, is repeatedly used for the abode of the dead. 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." 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 homil. epist. ad heb. in hoc loc. quod a deo mitt. somn., p. , ed. mangey. sam. xxii. ; prov. xxiii. . ps. ix. . prov. vii, . comm. in epist. ad rom., lib. vi. cap. , sect. .: "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." 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, 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; 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 having 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 neander, planting and training of the church, ryland's trans. p. . [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, and consequently that his word is to be reverenced still more than theirs. 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, heb. i. , ii. ; acts vii. ; gal. iii. heb. ii. . altars, victims, lustrations, and kindred things." 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; 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 opuscula: de imaginibus judaicis in epist. ad hebraos. 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. , v. . 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, philosopher of neapolis, at the close of the apostolic age, and ending with john hobart, 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. dial. cum tryph. cap. v. et cap. lxxx. 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. this bretschneider, religiose glaubenslehre, sect. . 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. in this connection jude cites a legend from an apocryphal book, called the "ascension of moses," of which origen gives an account. 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." 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;" e. g. stuart's dissertation on the angelology of the scriptures, published in vol. i. of the bibliotheca sacra. de principiis, lib. iii. cap . see, also, in michaelis's introduction to the new testament, sect. of the chapter on jude. 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." 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. griesbuch's reading of the th 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. 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 cicero de nat. deorum, lib. ii. cap. . also ovid, minucius felix, seneca, and other authorities, as quoted by rosenmuller on peter iii. . 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." 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." 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." 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. see this book in fabricii codex pseudepigraphus veteris testamenti, test. lev. sect. iv. ibid. test. dan. sect. v. ibid. test. benj. sect. ix. the fourth book of ezra contains scattered declarations and hints of the same nature. it describes a vision of the messiah, on mount zion, distributing crowns to those confessors of his name who had died in their fidelity. the world is said to be full of sorrows and oppressions; and as the souls of the just ask when the harvest shall come, 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." the "son of god will come and consume his enemies with fire; but the elect will be protected and made happy." 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. it predicts great apostasy and sin among the disciples of the apostles, and much dissension respecting the nearness of the second advent of christ. 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." 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 see the abstract of it given in section vi. of stuart's commentary on the apocalypse. cap. ii. cap. iv. cap. v., vii. cap. xiii., xvi. ascensio isaia vatis, a ricardo laurence, cap. ix., x., xi. ibid. cap. ii., iii. ibid. cap. iv. - . of their oppressors by declarations of approaching deliverance to those and vengeance to these. this is transparent at frequent intervals through the whole book. "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." 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." 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. 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. the angels descend to earth to dwell with men, and the saints ascend to heaven to dwell with angels. "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. 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 book of enoch, translated into english by dr. r. laurence. see particularly the following places: i. ; lii. ; liv. ; lxi. ; lxii. , ; xciv.; xcv.; civ. ibid. cap. ix. ; xxii. ; xlvii. - . ibid. cap. xcviii. . ibid. cap. x. , , ; xxii. , ; cii. ; ciii. . ibid. cap. xxii. , ; xlv. ; xlvi. ; . - . cap. xxxviii. xl. see the abstract of it given in lucke's einleit. in die offenbar. joh., cap. , sect. . 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. 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. see, e. g., corrodi, kritische geschichte des chiliasmus, band ii. th. ; gfrorer, geschichte urchristenthums, abth. ii. kap. ; schottgen in apoc. xii. ; ibid. in cor. v. . 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. 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. "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." "god of our fathers, and lord of mercy, who hast made all things by thy logos." "thine almighty logos leaped down from heaven from his royal throne, a fierce warrior, into the midst of a land of destruction." "plainly enough, the apocalyptic view of christ is based on that profound logos doctrine so copiously see the excursus by stuart in his commentary on the apoc. xiii. , which conclusively shows that the beast could be no other than nero. lucke, einleitung in das evang. joh. evang. joh. i. , , . wisdom of solomon, ix. , . ibid. xviii. . 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." 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 stuart, comm. in apoc. i. . 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." epiphanius says, "christ was the first that rose from the under world to heaven from the time of the creation." lactantius affirms, "christ's descent into the under world and ascent into heaven were necessary to give man the hope of a heavenly immortality." 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." 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." 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." 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." 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, de civitate dei, lib. xx. cap. . in resurrectionem christi. divin. instit. lib. iv. cap. , . hilary in ps. cxviii. et cxix. homil. in rom. viii. . adv. hares. lib. iv. sect. . ecc. hist. lib. i. cap. . 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 ." 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 lib. ii. cap. , pp. , 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." 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. 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 martineau, sermon, "the god of revelation his own interpreter." 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. . 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." "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, 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. 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 divin. instit. lib. vii. cap. , , . on deut. xxxiii. . gfrorer, geschichte des urchristenthums, kap. . s. . 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." 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.") "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 enarratio in psalmum xc. adv. hares. lib. v. cap. . 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. 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 planting and training, ryland's trans. p. . 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." 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." 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." exactly so. with innocence, the soul at death sendschreiben des apostels paulus, s. . die lehre von oer sunde und vom tode, cap. xi, s. . neander's planting and training, book vi. ch. . 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. - .) 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." 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 impatib., dialogue iii. pp. , , ed. sirmondi. under world in which souls are detained is called death." "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." comm. in epist. ad rom. lib. vi. cap. , sect. . also see jerome, comm. in ecc. iii. . 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, , heft ii. ss. - . 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." 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." schoettgen, commenting on this text, ( cor. v. , ) 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, laurence, ascensio isaia vatis, appendix, p. . laurence, ascensio isaia atis, cap. , v. , ; cap. . 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." 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. 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. 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 comm. in osee, lib. iii. cap. . 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. 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. 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. 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." 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, 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." stuart's romans i. , iii. , , &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 hand in the heavenly places, far above every principality, and power, and might, and dominion." the last words refer to different orders of spirits, supposed 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. - . 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; ] 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. "the lord jesus shall be revealed from 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] "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; 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 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. . 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." 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 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. to v. , 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. "so when" without a 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. 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. a detailed and most curious account of this region, which he calls tartarus, is given by angustine. de gen. ad. lit. lib. iii. cap. , , 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. 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, , 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." "the logos is the first begotten son." "the logos of god is above the whole world, and is the most ancient and generic of all that had a beginning." "nothing intervenes between the logos and god on whom he rests." "this sensible world is the junior son of god; the senior is the idea," 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." "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." "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." 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 mangey's edition of philo, vol. i. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . ibid. p. . 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." 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." whoso eateth my body and drinketh my blood hath eternal life." "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." "the bread the lord gave us to eat was his word." "except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life mangey's edition of philo, vol. ii. p. . john vi. . . ibid. . quoted by g. scheffer in his treatise "de usu philonis in interpretatione novi testamenti," p. . lbid. p. . in you." "he alone can become the heir of incorporeal and divine things whose whole soul is filled with the salubrious word." "every one that seeth the son and believeth on him shall have everlasting life." "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." "i am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever." "lifting up his eyes to the ether, man receives manna, the divine logos, heavenly and immortal nourishment for the right desiring soul." "god is the perennial fountain of life; god is the fountain of the most ancient logos." "as the living father hath sent me, and i live by the father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." 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." 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." john speaks of christ as "the only begotten son, who is in the bosom of the father." philo says, "the logos is the first begotten son of god," "between whom and god nothing intervenes." john writes, "the son of man will give you the food of everlasting life; for him hath god the father sealed." philo writes, "the stamp of the seal of god is the immortal logos." we have this from john: "he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin." and this from philo: "the divine logos is free from all sins, voluntary and involuntary." 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 john vi. . philo, vol. i. p. . john vi. . philo, vol. i. p. . john vi. . philo, vol. i. p. . ibid. pp. , . john vi. . john i. . philo, vol. i. p. . john i. . philo, vol. i. pp. , . john vi. . philo, vol. ii. p. . john iii. . philo, vol. i. p. . 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. 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 john i. ; ix. . 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." 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." 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 statement of reasons, st ed. p. . christian examiner, may, , p. . 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." 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 philo, vol. i. p. . 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." 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 philo, vol. i. p. . 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." "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: philo, vol. ii. p. . 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." "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." 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. - . 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." again he writes, "deathless life delivers the dying pious; but the dying impious everlasting death seizes." 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. 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 vol. i. p. . ibid. p. . see vol. i. pp. , , , , , ; vol. ii. pp. , . 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. 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 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. . 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. 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 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. 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 see christian examiner for march, , pp. - . 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. 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." and it was a common belief among the persians that souls were at seasons permitted to leave purgatory and visit their relatives on earth. 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 see copious illustrations by rosenmuller, in luc. cap. xvi. , . "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." rhode, heilige sage des zendvolks, s. . ibid. s. . 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. 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 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. 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 schoettgen, in john iii. . 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. 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. we will present the usually exhibited scheme of proof as strongly as we can. 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 the opposite view is ably argued by bush in his valuable treatise on the resurrection. sherlock, trial of the witnesses. 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." 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. 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 dial. cum tryph. sect. lxxii. discussed, with full list of references, in strauss's life of jesus, part iii. cap. i. sect. . 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. 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. wood, the last things, pp. - . 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." 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. 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." 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 bretschneider, religiose glaubenslehre, sect. : christus der erloser vom tode. guder, die lehre von der erscheinung jesu christi unter den todten: in ihrem zusammenhange mit der lehre von den letzten dingen. physiol., cap. : 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. 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. de wette quotes the following sentence, and many others of the same purport, gfrorer, gesehichte des urchristenthums, abth. ii. pp. . mosheim, commentaries on christianity in the first three centuries, eng. trans., vol. ii. pp. - . from the talmud: "the death of the just is the redemption of sinners." 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. 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 comm. de morte christi expiatoria, cap. iii.: qua judaorum recentiorum christologia de passione ac morte messia docet. die christliche lehre von der versohnung in ihrer geschichtlichen entwicklung von der alteaten zeit bis auf die neueste. steinbart, schott, bretschneider, klaiber, 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. 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. 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? 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 system der reinen philosophie, oder gluckseligkeitslehre des christenthums, u.s.f. epitome theologia christiana dogmatica. die lehren von adam's fall, der erbsunde, und dem opfer christi. studien der evang. geietlichkeit wurtemburgs, viii. , . 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. , note . die lehre der kirche vom tode jesu in den ersten drei jahrhunderteu. die lehre der kirche vom tode jesu in den ersten drei jahrhunderten, ss. - . augustine, epist. ad evodium . op. imp. vi. , . epist. . dante makes adam say he had been 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. 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 bretschneider forcibly illustrates this in his handbuch der dogmatik der evang. luther. kirche, sects. - , 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. 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 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. . 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. . 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. . 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. . 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. . 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. . 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, 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. . 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." 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 die neutestamentliche lehre von der sunde and erlosung, ss. . dissert. ii. , . 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. 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. 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." herod. i. ; cic. tusc. quast. i. . 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? 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 eschatologie, oder die lebre von den letzten dingen. mit besonderer rucksicht anf die gangbare irriehre vom hades. basel, . 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. . 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 heine 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. 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. 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." 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." compare bengal's essay, quid doctrina de animarum immortalitate religioni christiana debeat. venerable bede, book ii. ch. xiv. 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. 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. 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 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. , ss. - . de principiis, lib. lit. cap. . 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. 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. 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 . 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; 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. 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 ibid. lib. ii. cap. , . commentaries on the affairs of the christians in the first three centuries: third century sects. - . hagenbach, dogmengeschichte, sect. . wiggers, augustinism and pelagianism, trans. from the german by r. emerson, ch. xix.; also pp. , , , . 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; 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 in gen. lib. ix. cap. , : "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. 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 hagenbach, dogmengeschichte, sect. . 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. augustine says that nearly the whole church agreed in believing that christ delivered adam from the under world when he rose thence himself. 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. 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: 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. 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." 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. de anima, sects. et . epist. clxiv. huidekoper, belief of the first three centuries concerning christ's mission to the under world. augustine, de civ. del. lib. xx. cap. xv. wiedenfeld, de exorcismi origine, mutatione, deque hujus actus peragendi ratione neander, church history, vol. i. p. torrey's trans. 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. 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. 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." 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. the con they feel, as novatian says, (de trinitate, ,) 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. e. g., see ambrose, de paradiso. adv. hares., lib. v. cap. v. see this point ably argued in an academic dissertation published at konigsberg, , 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 ; 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." 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 de civ. del, lib. xx. cap. , sect. . personal salvation, solving the chains of the devil, washing off original sin, and opening the door of heaven. 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. 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. 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! 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. 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 neander, planting and training, eng. trans. p. . de usu patrum, lib. ii. cap. . munscher, entwickelung der lehre vom tausendjahrigen reiche in den drei ersten jahrhunderten. in henke's magaz. b. vi. ss. . see e. g. the end, by dr. cumming. the second advent, by d. brown. 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. 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. 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 flugge, geschichte der lehre vom zustande des menschen nach dem tode in der christlichen kirche, absch. v. ss. - . eusebius, hist. eccl. lib. vi. cap. . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 irenaus, adv. herres., lib. i. cap. . account of the gnostic sects, in moshelm's comm., ii. century, sect. . lardner, hist. of heretics, ch. xviii. sect. . 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. 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. mosheim, comm., iii. century, sects. - . 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, 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. 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. the custom of initiating children into the mysteries was also common, as infant baptism became. 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. 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. middleton, letter from rome, showing an exact conformity between popery and paganism. lobeck, aglaophamus, lib. i. sect. . mosheim's comm., ch. i. sect. . warburton, div. leg., book ii. sect. . terence, phormio, act i scene . council of trent, sess. vi. can. xxx. sess. xxv.: decree on invocation of saints. 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. 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." 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. 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." the rabbins taught that children by sin offerings could help their parents out of their misery in the infernal world. 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. 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. 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 see references to "sraddha" in index to vishnu purana. atkinson's trans. of the shah nameh, p. . richardson, dissertation on the language, literature, and manners of the eastern nations, p. . cap. xii. - . eisenmenger, entdecktes judenthum, th. ii. kap. vi. s. . kabbala denudata, tom ii. pars. i. pp. , , . aneid, lib. vi. . . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 asiatic journal, , p. , note. mosheim, comm., iii. century, sect. , note . dissuasive from popery, part ii. book ii. sect. . edgar, variations of popery, ch. xvi. 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." "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: 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." catechism of the council of trent. thomas aquinas, summa theologia, pars suppl. quast. . 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." 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. 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 deutsche mythologie, cap. xxxiii.: teufel. quarterly review, jan. : 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. 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 , 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." in the long, quaint poem, "vision of william concerning piers ploughman," written probably by robert langland about the year , 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." "ever since the fall of adam, age has shaken the tree of human life, and the devil has gathered the fruit into hell." 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. 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, allies, antiquities of worcestershire, d ed. p. . michelet, hist. de france, livre iv. chap. ix. vision of dowell, part iii. vision of dobet, part ii. 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. 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 , 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. 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. 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 , 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." early english miscellanies, no. . london antiquaries' archaologis, vol. xxxv. art. . 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 . many of the charters given at that time commence with the words, "as the world is now drawing to a close." 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." 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. 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 st and the eve of the d 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. 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." 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. 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 hecker, epidemics of the middle ages. quarterly review, july, : article on monachism. perry, history of the franks, p. . eccl. hist., xiii. century, part ii. ch. , sect. . 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. 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 , 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. there is every reason to suppose that such deceptions miracles in which secret speaking tubes, asbestos, and phosphorus were indispensable 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." 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. maclaine's trans, of mosheim's eccl. hist., vol. ii. p. , note. manufactures of the ancients, pub. by harper and brothers, , part iv. ch. . 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. 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 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 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 , 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 . the bishop of worms, in , issued a proclamation against the abuses which had crept into the festivities of easter, and gives a long and curious description of them. 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. 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. - . 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." 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!" 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." 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; sententia, lib. iii. distinctio . hone, ancient mysteries. "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." 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. 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 halliwell's edition of the harrowing of hell, p. . sharp, essay on the dramatic mysteries, p. . 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." 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. 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. recently edited by halliwell and published by the shakspeare society. hagenbach, dogmengeschichte, sect. . 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. 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." 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. 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." 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! 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. ullmann, reformatoren vor der reformation. epist. ccclxiii. ad orientalis francia clerum et populum. 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 , 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. 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. 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 flugge gives a full exposition of these points with references to the authorities. lehre vom zustande, u. s. f., abth. ii. ss. - . 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. 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. 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. 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, coward, search after souls. hallet, no resurrection, no future state. 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. 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?" john asgill printed, in the year , 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 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." 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, . 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; 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 philo the jew says, (vol. i. p. , 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. ,) "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. 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. 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. cousin, hist. mod. phil., lect. ix. staudlin, geschichte des rationalismus. saintes, histoire critique du rationalisme en allemagne, eng. trans. by dr. beard. geschichte des glaubens an unsterblichkeit, u. s. f., th. iii. abth. ii. ss. - . 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, 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." then came the 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. summa iii. in suppl. . . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." institutes, lib. ii. cap. , sects. , . ledderhose, life of melancthon, eng. trans. by krotel, ch. xxx. compendium der christliche dogmengeschichte, thl. ii. sects. - . 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! 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 , 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, 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 in acta apostolorum, homil. xxiv. 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. 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 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." 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 andrew jackson davis, nature's divine revelations, sects. . 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. 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. 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." 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." 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. 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 merrick, hyat ul kuloob, note . hagenbach, dogmengeschichte, sect. , note . christian remembrancer, april, . 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 , 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." 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." 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. 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, preface, p. . ibid. p. . bucknill and tuke, psychological medicine, ch. ix. and the reign of eternity begins." 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: 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!" 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. 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 lib. i. sects. , . 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." 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. 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 , 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 suetonius, vita neronis, cap. xxxiv. 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." pausanias describes the uninitiated as being compelled in hades to carry water in buckets bored full of holes. 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." 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. cicero says, "initiation makes us both live more honorably and die with better hopes." 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. 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." 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 scene iii. lib. x. cap. xxxi. phadon, sect. xxxviii. leg., lib. ix. cap. x. de leg., lib. ii. cap. xiv. st. john, hellenes, ch. xi. 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." 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. 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." 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. history of the literature of ancient greece, ch. iii. sects. . 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. . muller, hist. gr. lit., ch. xvi. sect. . 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. 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. 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." leitch's eng. trans. of k. o. muller's introduction to a scientific system of mythology, appendix, pp. - . muller, introduction to mythology, pp. and . also his dorian, lib. ii. cap. vii. sect. . 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. 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." 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. 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. 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 wilkinson, egyptian antiquities, series i. vol. i. ch. . de civitate dei, lib. vi. cap. . de is. et osir. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." julius firmicus, de errore prof. relig. mithraica, memoire academique sur le culte solaire de mithra, par joseph de hammer, pp: - , - . tertullian, prescript. ad her., cap. xl. porphyry, de abstinentia, lib. iv. sect. . hyde. hist. vet. pers. relig., p. . hist. du culte d'adonis, mem. acad. des inscript., vol. iv. p. . theocritus, idyl xv. bion, epitaph adon., l. . see references in anthon's class. dict., art. adonis. dupuis, orig. de cultes, vol. iv. p. , ed. . 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 asiatic researches, vol. iii. p. . see article atys in smith's class. dict. with references. lucretius, de rerum natura, lib. ii. . - . muller, hist. greek lit., ch. xvi. lobeck, aglaophamus, lib. iii. cap. , sect. . 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. 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. 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 pigott, manual of scandinavian mythology, pp. - . davies, mythology and rites of the british druids, pp. - ; - ; , , . 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 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. 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 travels in the interior of north america, ch. vii. again, is restored to a new life." 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. 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 golden ass, eng. trans., by thomas taylor, p. . 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." 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. 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. 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, 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 golden ass, taylor's trans., p. . herodotus, lib. il. cap. cxxii. divine legation of moses, book ii. sect. iv. 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. 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. 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 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. mysteries of the cabiri, ch. : 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. 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. 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. 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." faber, mysteries of the cabiri, ch. , pp. - . dion chrysostom describes this scene: oration xii. the clouds, . . 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. they had the powers of electricity, gunpowder, hydrostatic pressure, at their command. 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 anthon's class. dict., art. "elicius." 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 stromata, lib. iii., cited by a writer on the mysteries in blackwood, feb. , pp. - . taylor's trans. of golden ass, p. . in a note to p. 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." aglaophamus, lib. i. sect. . discourse to the lit. and sci. soc. of java, , pub. in valpy's pamphleteer, no. . lib. ii. cap. ix. socrates, ecc. inst., lib. iii. cap. . greeks would consider life insupportable if they were forbidden to celebrate those most sacred mysteries which bind together the human race." 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." 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." porphyry ascribes to pythagoras the declaration that the souls of departed men are gathered in the zodiac. 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. 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." 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." he afterwards stigmatizes the notion that the life succeeding death is subterranean as an error, and in his own name addresses his auditor thus: "i see you gazing upward and wishing to migrate into heaven." 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. the emperor julian says, in his letter on the essay on mysteries, by m. ouvaroff, eng. trans. by j. d. price, p. . aneid, lib. vi. . - . ecl. v. . , , . de antro nympharum. phado sects. - . soma. scipionis. tusc. quast., lib. i. cap. xi. ibid. cap. xvi. ibid. cap. xxxiv. 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." 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. 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 phado, sect. lxxi. muller, mist. greek lit., cap. ii. sect. ; cap. xvi. sect. . 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." 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. heraclitus was accustomed to say, "men are mortal gods; gods are immortal men." macrobius says, "the soul is not only immortal, but a god." and cicero declares, "the soul of man is a divine thing, as euripides dares to say, a god." 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." 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.'" 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 lives, romulus, sect. xxviii. 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. somn. scip., lib. ii. cap. . tusc. quest., lib. i. cap. . we omit several other authorities, as the reader would probably deem any further evidence superfluous. alcestis, ll. - , 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?" 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. 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 tusc. quast., lib. i. cap. . 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." 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. 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. 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 wilson, two lectures on the religious opinions of the hindus, p. . kingsborough, antiquities of mexico, vol. viii. p. . bartlett, personal narrative of explorations in texas, new mexico, &c., ch. xxx. to spare the living whom accident should throw within their reach. similar superstitions, but more elaborately developed, are rife among many tribes of african negroes. 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. 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 jarves, hist. sandwich islands, p. . wilson, western africa, p. . 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. 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." 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 basnage, hist. jews, lib. iv. cap. xxx.: schroder, judenthum, buch ii. kap. iii. eisenmenger, entdecktes judenthum. th. ii. kap. i. 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. 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 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. 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." colebrooke, essays, vol. i. p. . 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. 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. 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. 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 professor wilson's translation, p. . de l'humanite, livre v. chap. xlii. porphyry, de abstinentis, lib. iv. sect. . 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. 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. 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 sera numinis vindicta: near the close. spectator, no. . 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." 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: thoreau, walden, or life in the woods, p. . "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." 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. - . 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. 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." 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 wilson, lectures on the hindus, pp. - . the dabistan, vol. iii. p. . that he has no company." 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. 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 epictetus, lib. iii. cap. . sonntag, de palingenesia stoicorum. ritter's hist. of an. phil., lib. xi. cap. . souls shall be redeemed from hell and their bodies be rebuilt from their scattered atoms and clothed upon them again. 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. frazer, history of persia, chap. iv. baur, symbolik und mythologice thl. ii. absch. ii. cap. ss. - . 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. 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. 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 dr. sykes, inquiry when the article of the resurrection of the body or flesh was first introduced into the public creeds. 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." as if that would not cause any deformity! some of the later origenists held that the resurrection bodies would be in the shape of a ball, the mere heads of cherubs! 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?" 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." 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. de civ. dei, lib. xxii. cap. , . see the strange speculations of opitz in his work "de statura et atate resurgentium. redepenning, origenes, b. ii. s. . summa theologia, thoma aquinatis, tertia pars, supplementum, quastiones - . hagenbuch, dogmengeschichte, sect. . 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." 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." 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." that is to say, christ was from eternity god, the infinite spirit, in the glory of christ, vol. ii. p. . de civ. dei, lib. xxii. cap. . pearson on the creed, th ed., pp. - . 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." 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 eumenides, . , 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." 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 also see dialogue inter corpus et animam, p. 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." 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. 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," drew on resurrection, ch. vi. sect. vii. pp. - . 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. 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. 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." 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 liebig, animal chemistry, sect. xix. the circulation of matter, blackwood's magazine, may, . the resurrection of spring, p. . 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. 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"? candlish, life in a risen savior: discourse xv. 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. 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. lange on the resurrection of the body, studien und kritiken, . 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. 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. see pope's translation of the viraf nameh. also the dabistan, vol. i. pp. - , 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." 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 taylor 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." there is an unmerciful animus in them, a vindictiveness of thought and feeling, far oh, how far! removed from the meek and loving de spectaculis, cap. xxx., gibbon's trans. contemplations of the state of man, ch. . friends of christ, p. . 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." 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. 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 apol. cap. - . de civ. dei, lib. xxi. cap. . 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." 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." 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." 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, edwards's works, vol. viii. p. . instit., lib. iii. cap. xxiii. sect. . the glory of christ, vol. ii. p. . 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!" 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 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. 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, hardy, manual of buddhism, p. . 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!" 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 sermons, d 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. 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 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." 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 de mysteriis egyptiorum, cap. viii. sect. . did not consciously intend to proclaim the rigid endlessness of that woe. "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, corrodi, ueber die ewigkeit der hollenetrafen. in den beitragen zur beforderung des vernunft. denk. n. s. w. heft vii. ss. - . 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. 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. 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. 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. , ewig keit der hollenstrafen. thomas aquinas, summa, pars iii. suppl. qu. , art. . 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." 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 wilson's ed. of mill's hist. of british india, vol. i. p. , 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." 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." 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." 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, 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." edwards's works, vol. vii. p. . 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." 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 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." 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 hagenbach, dogmengeschichte, sect. . 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." 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." summa, pars iii., suppl. qu. , 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." 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 park, memoir of hopkins, pp. , . 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. 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. during the last century and a half their numbers have rapidly increased. 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. 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 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. ballou, ancient history of universalism. whittemore, modern history of universalism. knapp, christian theology, woods's translation, sect. . in god to justify this procedure of his government." 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. 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, 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. 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 glory of christ, vol. ii. p. . lange, positive dogmatik, sect. : die aeonen der verdammten. maurice, theological essays: future punishment. see beecher's conflict of ages, b. ii. ch. , . 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. 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." cyril of alexandria says that when christ ascended from the under world he "emptied it, and left the devil there utterly alone." the opinion that the whole population of hades was released, is found in the lists of ancient heresies. 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. doederlein, de redemptione a potestate diaboli. in opuse. theolog. catechesis xis. . de festis paschalibus, homilia vii. 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. 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. this scheme grew directly out of the dogma of fatalism, which sinks human freedom in divine predestination. god having solely of his burdach, carus, oken, bayrhoffer, agassiz. see bunsen, christianity and mankind, vol. iv. p. ; mott and gliddon, types of mankind, p. . confession of faith of westminster divines, ch. iii. sect. . 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, 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 schweizer, die lehre des apostels paulus vom erlosenden tode christi. theologische studien und kritiken, jahrg. , heft . 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, and all infant children, unless baptized in a proxy faith, 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. 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 bretschneider, entwickelung der dogmatik, sect. , nos. . so affirmed by the council of carthage, canon ii. the violence done to moral reason by these views is powerfully exposed in bushnell's discourse on the atonement: god in christ, pp. - . 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. 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 thomas aquinas, summa, suppl. pars iii. qu. , art. . 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!" 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 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. 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." 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. 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 universalist quarterly review, vol. x. art. xvi.: character and its predicates. hagenbach, dogmengeschichte, sect. , note . see ballou, examination of the doctrine of future punishment, pp. - . williamson, exposition of universalism, sermon xl: nature of salvation. cobb, compend. of divinity, ch. ix. sect. . 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." 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? "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 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. martineau, studies of christianity, pp. - : mediatorial religion. ibid. pp. - : 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." 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 t. s. king, endless punishment unchristian and unreasonable, p. . 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. 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." 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 adams, mercy to babes. (a plea for the baptism of infants, that they may not be damned.) adin ballou, universalism and restorationism moral contraries, . 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." 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." 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, 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." "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." 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 colebrooke, essays, vol. i. p. . ibid. p. . asiatic researches, vol. xvi. p. . eastwick, prem sagar, p. . vishnu parans, p. , note . 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. 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. 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, alexius, tod and wiedersehen. eine gedankenfolge der besten schriftsteller aller zeiten und volker. asiatic journal, , p. . 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. 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 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. grafe, biblische beitrage zu der frage, werden wir uns wiedersehen nach dem tode. 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. 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." 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 , 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. 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. 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 harris, the pre adamite earth. 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. . 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." 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. 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. 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 ennead ii. lib. ix.: contra gnosticos, cap. . helmholtz, edinburgh phil. msg., series iv. vol. xi.: interaction of natural forces. thomson, ibid. dec. : 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. 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. 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. 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 adventures of hatim tai, p. , note. whewell, hist. inductive sciences, vol. i. book iv. ch. i. sect. . 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. 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. "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 macpherson, introduction to the history of great britain and ireland, pp. - . 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. 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, 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." 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 parsons's trans. dell' inferno, canto iv. ii. - . 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. 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 , published a huge quarto in five books, giving a detailed topographical account of the interior of the earth, hell, purgatory, and limbo. 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 descriptions of the sufferings of hell, according to the popular notions at different periods, are given in the work published at weimar in , das rad der ewigen hollenqual. in den curiositaten der physisch literarisch artistisch historischen vor und mitwelt, band vi. st. . 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. 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. 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 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 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 wright, st. patrick's purgatory: an essay on the legends of paradise, hell, and purgatory, current during the middle ages. 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." 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. 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 part iv. chap. ix. p. . 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. in his essay on the face in the orb of the moon. region the whole space between the earth and the moon." 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." 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. 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, 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 in somnium scipionis, lib. i. cap. xi. ibid. cap. xii. augustine, de natura boni, cap. xliv. 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. 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. 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, swinden, on the nature and location of hell. 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. 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. 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, dupuis, l'origine de tous les cultes, planche no. . arist. de coel. ii. . 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. 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. 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 pigott, scandinavian mythology, chap. i. p. . volney, ruins, chap. xxii. sect. . maurice, hist. hindostan, vol. i. pp. - . 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. 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, cambridge miscellany, . 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. 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." 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, lardner, hand book of natural philosophy, book i. chap. v. more worlds than one, ch. viii. note . 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? 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. 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 , strove vigorously to aggrandize the earth and man at the expense of the accepted teachings of astronomy. 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. 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. 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. kurtz, bibel and astronomie. simonton's eng. trans., ch. vi. sect. : incarnation of god. vorlesungen uber die ewige personlichkeit des geistes. 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. powell has still more recently published a very valuable treatise on the subject; 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. 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 more worlds than one the creed of the philosopher and the hope of the christian. essay on the unity or plurality of worlds. see, furthermore, in westminster review, july, , recent astronomy and the nebular hypothesis. 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." 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. 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? 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 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. j. a. luther, recensetur numerus eorum, qui immortalitatem inficiati sunt. schmidt, geschichte der deutschen literatur im neunzehnten jahrhundert, band iii. kap. iv.: der philosophische radicalismus. 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. 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." 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 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. 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. 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 pierer, universal lexikon, dritte auflage, deutsche literatur, sect. . 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?" 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, 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. 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 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 . 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?" 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." 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. bucknill and tuke, psychological medicine, p. . 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. 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 plato, phado, . 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. 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, 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. 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 crawford, on the phadon of plato. heber's life and works of jeremy taylor, vol. i. p. . 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. 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 lib. iii. ll. - . 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." 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 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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. 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." 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 frauenstadt, per materialismus, seine wahrheit und sein irrthum, s. . the senses and the intellect, p. . brodie, psychological inquiries, p. , d 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." 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 charakteristiken und kritiken, s. . 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. 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. 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. a multitude of able thinkers have held the faith that animals have immaterial and deathless souls. rightly considered, there is nothing in such a 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. buchner, kraft und stoff, kap. : die thierseele. essay on classification, p. . 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. 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. 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. 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 jouffroy, introduction to ethics: channing's trans., vol. ii. pp. - . schaller, leib und seele, kap. : der psychische unterschied des menschen vom thiere. crombie, natural theology, vol. ii.: essay on the immortality of the soul. brougham, discourse of nat. theol., sect. . 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. 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. the hindus conceived the soul to be concealed within several successive sheaths, the innermost of which accompanied it through all its transmigrations. "the subtile person extends to a small distance over the skull, like the flame of a lamp above its wick." 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. 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. 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. all bodies, all entities, are but forms of this has been ably shown by spiers in his treatise, ueber das korperliche bedingtsein der seelenthatigkeiten. spes immortalitatis animorum per rationes physiologicas confirmata. dabistan, vol. ii. p. . colebrooke, essays, vol. i. p. . cudworth, int. sys., vol. ii. pp. - , am. ed. on the intercourse between the soul and the body, sect. . lott, herbarti de animi immortalitate doctrina. force. 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. 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. 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. hickok, rational cosmology, ch. ii. sect. : matter is force. drossbach, die personliche unsterblichkeit als folge der atomistischen verfaasung der natur, abschn. iv. kap. ii. sect. , . 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." 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 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. "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 shown and as wagner has with less ability tried to illustrate. the utmost possible achievement of a negative criticism is to show the invalidity of the physiological, abel, disquisitio omnium tam pro immortalitate quam pro mortalitate argumentandi generum. 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. 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 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. 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 th century, part ii. ch. v. sect. : the german school of the th 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." 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." 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:" cicero, tusc. quast., lib. i. cap. xv. 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" 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. 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 lucretius, de nat. rerum, lib. ii. . . schultz schultzenstein, die bildung des menschlichen geistes durch kultur der verjungung seines lebens, ss. - : 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. 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." iliad, lib, viii. il. - . 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." 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. 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." 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 eckermann's conversations with goethe. greenough, an artist's creed. memorial of daniel webster from the city of boston, p. . 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. 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. brahmanische erzahlungen, s. . 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 exhibited 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 the only direct treatise on the subject known to us is tilemann's kritik der unsterblichkeitslehre in ansehung des sittengesetzes, published in . 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, 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 "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?" 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." 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. tracts concerning christianity, p. . bridgewater treatise, part ii. ch. , sect. . 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." 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." 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. genie du christianisme, partie ii. livre vi. chap. . ch. ix. sect. . if retribution terminate with the grave, morality is a mere chimera, a bugbear of human invention." 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." 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." 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 oeuvres completes, tome xiii.: immortalite de l'ame. sermons of theism, sermon vii. werke, band xxxiii. s. . 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?" 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," 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 some discussion of this general subject is to be found in schaller, leib nod seele. kap. : die consequentzen des materialismus. and in schopenhauer, die beiden grundprobleme der ethik. tuscul. quast. lib. i. cap. . 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.'" 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 dissert., lib. iv. cap. x. sect. . 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 , , , , , , , , 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. e-text donated by the kempton project, submitted by william rotella heaven and its wonders and hell from things heard and seen by emanuel swedenborg. translated by john ager. . the lord, speaking in the presence of his disciples of the consummation of the age, which is the final period of the church,{ } says, near the end of what he foretells about its successive states in respect to love and faith:{ } immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. and he shall send forth his angels with a trumpet and a great sound; and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the end to end of the heavens (matt. : - ). those who understood these words according to the sense of the letter have no other belief than that during that latest period, which is called the final judgment, all these things are to come to pass just as they are described in the literal sense, that is, that the sun and moon will be darkened and the stars will fall from the sky, that the sign of the lord will appear in the sky, and he himself will be seen in the clouds, attended by angels with trumpets; and furthermore, as is foretold else where, that the whole visible universe will be destroyed, and afterwards a new heaven with a new earth will come into being. such is the opinion of most men in the church at the present day. but those who so believe are ignorant of the arcana that lie hid in every particular of the word. for in every particular of the word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter. and this is true not only of the meaning of groups of words, it is true of each particular word.{ } for the word is written solely by correspondences,{ } to the end that there may be an internal sense in every least particular of it. what that sense is can be seen from all that has been said and shown about it in the arcana coelestia; also from quotations gathered from that work in the explanation of the white horse spoken of in the apocalypse. it is according to that sense that what the lord says in the passage quoted above respecting his coming in the clouds of heaven is to be understood. the "sun" there that is to be darkened signifies the lord in respect to love;{ } the "moon" the lord in respect to faith;{ } "stars" knowledges of good and truth, or of love and faith;{ } "the sign of the son of man in heaven" the manifestation of divine truth; "the tribes of the earth" that shall mourn, all things relating to truth and good or to faith and love;{ } "the coming of the lord in the clouds of heaven with power and glory" his presence in the word, and revelation,{ } "clouds" signifying the sense of the letter of the word,{ } and "glory" the internal sense of the word;{ } "the angels with a trumpet and great voice" signify heaven as a source of divine truth.{ } all this makes clear that these words of the lord mean that at the end of the church, when there is no longer any love, and consequently no faith, the lord will open the internal meaning of the word and reveal arcana of heaven. the arcana revealed in the following pages relate to heaven and hell, and also to the life of man after death. the man of the church at this date knows scarcely anything about heaven and hell or about his life after death, although all these matters are set forth and described in the word; and yet many of those born within the church refuse to believe in them, saying in their hearts, "who has come from that world and told us?" lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial, which especially prevails with those who have much worldly wisdom, should also infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years; so now from what i have seen and heard it has been granted me to describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus be enlightened and unbelief dissipated. such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is what is meant by the coming of the lord. [references to the author's arcana coelestia.] {footnote } the consummation of the age is the final period of the church (n. , ). {footnote } the lord's predictions in matthew ( and ), respecting the consummation of the age and his coming, and the consequent successive vastation of the church and the final judgment, are explained in the prefaces to chapters - of genesis (n. - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - ). {footnote } both in the wholes and in the particulars of the word there is an internal or spiritual sense (n. , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } the word is written solely by correspondences, and for this reason each thing and all things in it have a spiritual meaning (n. , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } in the word the "sun" signifies the lord in respect to love, and in consequence love to the lord (n. , , , , , , , ). {footnote } in the word the "moon" signifies the lord in respect to faith, and in consequence faith in the lord (n. , , , , , ). {footnote } in the word "stars" signify knowledges of good and truth (n. , , ). {footnote } "tribes" signify all truths and goods in the complex, thus all things of faith and love (n. , , , ). {footnote } the coming of the lord signifies his presence in the word, and revelation (n , ). {footnote } in the word clouds signify the word in the letter or the sense of its letter (n. , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } in the word "glory" signifies divine truth as it is in heaven and as it is in the internal sense of the word (n. , , , , , ). {footnote } a "trumpet" or "horn" signifies divine truth in heaven, and revealed from heaven (n. , , ); and "voice" has a like signification (n. , ). . i. the god of heaven is the lord first of all it must be known who the god of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend. throughout all heaven no other than the lord alone is acknowledged as the god of heaven. there it is said, as he himself taught, that he is one with the father; that the father is in him, and he in the father; that he who sees him sees the father; and that everything that is holy goes forth from him (john : , ; : - ; : - ). i have often talked with angels on this subject, and they have invariably declared that in heaven they are unable to divide the divine into three, because they know and perceive that the divine is one and this one is in the lord. they also said that those of the church who come from this world having an idea of three divine beings cannot be admitted into heaven, since their thought wanders from one divine being to another; and it is not allowable there to think three and say one.{ } because in heaven everyone speaks from his thought, since speech there is the immediate product of the thought, or the thought speaking. consequently, those in this world who have divided the divine into three, and have adopted a different idea of each, and have not made that idea one and centered it in the lord, cannot be received into heaven, because in heaven there is a sharing of all thoughts, and therefore if any one came thinking three and saying one, he would be at once found out and rejected. but let it be known that all those who have not separated what is true from what is good, or faith from love, accept in the other life, when they have been taught, the heavenly idea of the lord, that he is the god of the universe. it is otherwise with those who have separated faith from life, that is, who have not lived according to the precepts of true faith. {footnote } christians were examined in the other life in regard to their idea of the one god and it was found that they held the idea of three gods (n. , , , , ). a divine trinity in the lord is acknowledged in heaven (n. , , , , , ). . those within the church who have denied the lord and have acknowledged the father only, and have confirmed themselves in that belief, are not in heaven; and as they are unable to receive any influx from heaven, where the lord alone is worshiped, they gradually lose the ability to think what is true about any subject whatever; and finally they become as if dumb, or they talk stupidly, and ramble about with their arms dangling and swinging as if weak in the joints. again, those who, like the socinians, have denied the divinity of the lord and have acknowledged his humanity only, are likewise outside of heaven; they are brought forward a little towards the right and are let down into the deep, and are thus wholly separated from the rest that come from the christian world. finally, those who profess to believe in an invisible divine, which they call the soul of the universe [ens universi], from which all things originated, and who reject all belief in the lord, find out that they believe in no god; since this invisible divine is to them a property of nature in her first principles, which cannot be an object of faith and love, because it is not an object of thought.{ } such have their lot among those called naturalists. it is otherwise with those born outside the church, who are called the heathen; these will be treated of hereafter. {footnote } a divine that cannot be perceived by any idea cannot be received by faith (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). . infants, who form a third part of heaven, are all initiated into the acknowledgment and belief that the lord is their father, and afterwards that he is the lord of all, thus the god of heaven and earth. that children grow up in heaven and are perfected by means of knowledges, even to angelic intelligence and wisdom, will be seen in the following pages. . those who are of the church cannot doubt that the lord is the god of heaven, for he himself taught, that all things of the father are his (matt. : ; john : ; : ). and that he hath all power in heaven and on earth (matt. : ). he says "in heaven and on earth," because he that rules heaven rules the earth also, for the one depends upon the other.{ } "ruling heaven and earth" means to receive from the lord every good pertaining to love and every truth pertaining to faith, thus all intelligence and wisdom, and in consequence all happiness, in a word, eternal life. this also the lord taught when he said: he that believeth on the son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the son shall not see life (john : ). again: i am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me, though he die yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die (john : , ). and again: i am the way, the truth, and the life (john : ). {footnote } the entire heaven is the lord's (n. , ). he has all power in the heavens and on the earths (n. , , ). as the lord rules heaven he rules also all things that depend thereon, thus all things in the world (n. , , , ). the lord alone has power to remove the hells, to withhold from evil and hold in good, and thus to save (n. ). . there were certain spirits who while living in the world had professed to believe in the father; but of the lord they had the same idea as of any other man, and therefore did not believe him to be the god of heaven. for this reason they were permitted to wander about and inquire wherever they wished whether there were any other heaven than the heaven of the lord. they searched for several days, but nowhere found any. these were such as place the happiness of heaven in glory and dominion; and as they were unable to get what they desired, and were told that heaven does not consist in such things, they became indignant, and wished for a heaven where they could lord it over others and be eminent in glory like that in the world. . ii. it is the divine of the lord that makes heaven. the angels taken collectively are called heaven, for they constitute heaven; and yet that which makes heaven in general and in particular is the divine that goes forth from the lord and flows into the angels and is received by them. and as the divine that goes forth from the lord is the good of love and the truth of faith, the angels are angels and are heaven in the measure in which they receive good and truth from the lord. . everyone in the heavens knows and believes and even perceives that he wills and does nothing of good from himself, and that he thinks and believes nothing of truth from himself, but only from the divine, thus from the lord; also that good from himself is not good, and truth from himself is not truth, because these have in them no life from the divine. moreover, the angels of the inmost heaven clearly perceive and feel the influx, and the more of it they receive the more they seem to themselves to be in heaven, because the more are they in love and faith and in the light of intelligence and wisdom, and in heavenly joy therefrom; and since all these go forth from the divine of the lord, and in these the angels have their heaven, it is clear that it is the divine of the lord, and not the angels from anything properly their own that makes heaven.{ } this is why heaven is called in the word the "dwelling-place" of the lord and "his throne," and those who are there are said to be in the lord.{ } but in what manner the divine goes forth from the lord and fills heaven will be told in what follows. {footnote } the angels of heaven acknowledge all good to be from the lord, and nothing from themselves, and the lord dwells in them in his own and not in their own (n. , , , ). therefore in the word by "angels" something of the lord is meant (n. , , , , , ). furthermore, angels are called "gods" from the reception of the divine from the lord (n. , , , , , ). again, all good that is good, and all truth that is truth, consequently all peace, love, charity, and faith, are from the lord (n. , , , , , , , ). also all wisdom and intelligence (n. , , , ). {footnote } those who are in heaven are said to be in the lord (n. , ). . angels from their wisdom go still further. they say that not only everything good and true is from the lord, but everything of life as well. they confirm it by this, that nothing can spring from itself, but only from something prior to itself; therefore all things spring from a first, which they call the very being [esse] of the life of all things. and in like manner all things continue to exist, for continuous existence is a ceaseless springing forth, and whatever is not continually held by means of intermediates in connection with the first instantly disperses and is wholly dissipated. they say also that there is but one fountain of life, and that man's life is a rivulet therefrom, which if it did not unceasingly continue from its fountain would immediately flow away. [ ] again, they say that from this one fountain of life, which is the lord, nothing goes forth except divine good and divine truth, and that each one is affected by these in accordance with his reception of them, those who receive them in faith and life find heaven in them while those who reject them or stifle them change them into hell; for they change good into evil and truth into falsity, thus life into death. again, that everything of life is from the lord they confirm by this: that all things in the universe have relation to good and truth,-the life of man's will, which is the life of his love, to good; and the life of his understanding, which is the life of his faith, to truth; and since everything good and true comes from above it follows that everything of life must come from above. [ ] this being the belief of the angels they refuse all thanks for the good they do, and are displeased and withdraw if any one attributes good to them. they wonder how any one can believe that he is wise from himself or does anything good from himself. doing good for one's own sake they do not call good, because it is done from self. but doing good for the sake of good they call good from the divine; and this they say is the good that makes heaven, because this good is the lord.{ } {footnote } good from the lord has the lord inwardly in it, but good from one's own has not (n. , , ). . such spirits as have confirmed themselves during their life in the world in the belief that the good they do and the truth they believe is from themselves, or is appropriated to them as their own (which is the belief of all who place merit in good actions and claim righteousness to themselves) are not received into heaven. angels avoid them. they look upon them as stupid and as thieves; as stupid because they continually have themselves in view and not the divine; and as thieves because they steal from the lord what is his. these are averse to the belief of heaven, that it is the divine of the lord in the angels that makes heaven. . the lord teaches that those that are in heaven and in the church are in the lord and the lord is in them, when he says: abide in me and i in you. as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. i am the vine, ye are the branches. he that abideth in me and i in him, the same beareth much fruit; for apart from me ye can do nothing (john : , ). . from all this it can now be seen that the lord dwells in the angels of heaven in what is his own, and thus that the lord is the all in all things of heaven; and this for the reason that good from the lord is the lord in angels, for what is from the lord is the lord; consequently heaven to the angels is good from the lord, and not anything of their own. . iii. in heaven the divine of the lord is love to him and charity towards the neighbor. the divine that goes forth from the lord is called in heaven divine truth, for a reason that will presently appear. this divine truth flows into heaven from the lord from his divine love. the divine love and the divine truth therefrom are related to each other as the fire of the sun and the light therefrom in the world, love resembling the fire of the sun and truth therefrom light from the sun. moreover, by correspondence fire signifies love, and light truth going forth from love.{ } from this it is clear what the divine truth that goes forth from the lord's divine love is-that in its essence it is divine good joined to divine truth, and being so conjoined it vivifies all things of heaven; just as in the world when the sun's heat is joined to light it makes all things of the earth fruitful, which takes place in spring and summer. it is otherwise when the heat is not joined with the light, that is, when the light is cold; then all things become torpid and lie dead. with the angels this divine good, which is compared to heat, is the good of love; and divine truth, which is compared to light, is that through which and out of which good of love comes. {footnote } in the word "fire" signifies heavenly love and infernal love (n. , , ). "holy and heavenly fire" signifies divine love, and every affection that belongs to that love (n. , , ). "light" from fire signifies truth going forth from good of love; and light in heaven signifies divine truth (n. , , , , , , , , , ). . the divine in heaven which makes heaven is love, because love is spiritual conjunction. it conjoins angels to the lord and conjoins them to one another, so conjoining them that in the lord's sight they are all as one. moreover, love is the very being [esse] of everyone's life; consequently from love both angels and men have life. everyone who reflects can know that the inmost vitality of man is from love, since he grows warm from the presence of love and cold from its absence, and when deprived of it he dies.{ } but it is to be remembered that the quality of his love is what determines the quality of each one's life. {footnote } love is the fire of life, and life itself is actually therefrom (n. , , , ). . in heaven there are two distinct loves, love to the lord and love towards the neighbor, in the inmost or third heaven love to the lord, in the second or middle heaven love towards the neighbor. they both go forth from the lord, and they both make heaven. how these two loves are distinct and how they are conjoined is seen in heaven in clear light, but in the world only obscurely. in heaven loving the lord does not mean loving him in respect to his person, but it means loving the good that is from him; and to love good is to will and do good from love; and to love the neighbor does not mean loving a companion in respect to his person, but loving the truth that is from the word; and to love truth is to will and do it. this makes clear that these two loves are distinct as good and truth are distinct, and that they are conjoined as good is conjoined with truth.{ } but this can scarcely be comprehended by men unless it is known what love is, what good is, and what the neighbor is.{ } {footnote } to love the lord and the neighbor is to live according to the lord's commandments (n. , , , , ). {footnote } to love the neighbor is not to love the person, but to love that in him from which he is what he is, that is, his truth and good (n. . ). those who love the person, and not that in him from which he is what he is, love evil and good alike (n. ). charity is willing truths and being affected by truths for the sake of truths (n. , ). charity towards the neighbor is doing what is good, just, and right, in every work and in every function (n. - ). . i have repeatedly talked with angels about this matter. they were astonished, they said, that men of the church do not know that to love the lord and to love the neighbor is to love what is good and true, and to do this from the will, when they ought to know that one evinces love by willing and doing what another wishes, and it is this that brings reciprocal love and conjunction, and not loving another without doing what he wishes, which in itself is not loving; also that men should know that the good that goes forth from the lord is a likeness of him, since he is in it; and that those who make good and truth to belong to their life by willing them and doing them become likenesses of the lord and are conjoined to him. willing is loving to do. that this is so the lord teaches in the word, saying, he that hath my commandments and doeth them, he it is that loveth me; and i will love him and will make my abode with him (john : , ). and again: if ye do my commandments ye shall abide in my love (john : ). . all experience in heaven attests that the divine that goes forth from the lord and that affects angels and makes heaven is love; for all who are in heaven are forms of love and charity, and appear in ineffable beauty, with love shining forth from their faces, and from their speech and from every particular of their life.{ } moreover, there are spiritual spheres of life emanating from and surrounding every angel and every spirit, by which their quality in respect to the affections of their love is known, sometimes at a great distance. for with everyone these spheres flow forth from the life of his affection and consequent thought, or from the life of his love and consequent faith. the spheres that go forth from angels are so full of love as to affect the inmosts of life of those who are with them. they have repeatedly been perceived by me and have thus affected me.{ } that it is love from which angels have their life is further evident from the fact that in the other life everyone turns himself in accordance with his love-those who are in love to the lord and in love towards the neighbor turning themselves always to the lord, while those who are in love of self turn themselves always away from the lord. this is so, however their bodies may turn, since with those in the other life spaces conform to the states of their interiors, likewise quarters, which are not constant as they are in this world, but are determined in accordance with the direction of their faces. and yet it is not the angels that turn themselves to the lord; but the lord turns to himself those that love to do the things that are from him.{ } but more on this subject hereafter, where the quarters in the other life are treated of. {footnote } angels are forms of love and charity (n. , , , , , , , ). {footnote } a spiritual sphere, which is a sphere of the life, overflows and pours forth from every man, spirit, and angel, and encompasses them (n. , , , ). it flows from the life of their affection and consequent thought (n. , , ). {footnote } spirits and angels turn themselves constantly to their loves, and those in the heavens turn themselves constantly to the lord (n. , , , ). quarters in the other life are to each one in accordance with the direction of his face, and are thereby determined, otherwise than in the world (n. , , , ). . the divine of the lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness. for love is receptive of each and all things that are in harmony with it; it longs for them, seeks them, and drinks them in as it were spontaneously, for it desires unceasingly to be enriched and perfected by them.{ } this, too, man well knows, for with him love searches as it were the stores of his memory and draws forth all things that are in accord with itself, collecting and arranging them in and under itself-in itself that they may be its own, and under itself that they may be its servants; but other things not in accord with it it discards and expels. that there is present in love every capacity for receiving truths in harmony with itself, and a longing to conjoin them to itself, has been made clear also by the fact that some who were simple-minded in the world were taken up into heaven, and yet when they were with the angels they came into angelic wisdom and heavenly blessedness, and for the reason that they had loved what is good and true for its own sake, and had implanted it in their life, and had thereby become capacities for receiving heaven with all that is ineffable there. but those who are in love of self and of the world have no capacity for receiving what is good and true; they loathe and reject it, and at its first touch and entrance they flee and associate themselves with those in hell who are in loves like their own. there were spirits who had doubts about there being such capacities in heavenly love, and who wished to know whether it were true; whereupon they were let into a state of heavenly love, whatever opposed being for the time removed, and were brought forward some distance, where there was an angelic heaven, and from it they talked with me, saying that they perceived a more interior happiness than they could possibly express in words, and they lamented greatly that they must return into their former state. others also were taken up into heaven; and the higher or more interiorly they were exalted the more of intelligence and wisdom were they admitted into, such as enabled them to perceive what had before been incomprehensible to them. from this it is clear that the love that goes forth from the lord is receptive of heaven and all things therein. {footnote } innumerable things are contained in love, and love gathers to itself all things that are in harmony with it (n. , , , , , , ). . that love to the lord and love towards the neighbor include in themselves all divine truths is made evident by what the lord himself said of these two loves: thou shalt love thy god with all thy heart and with all thy soul. this is the greatest and first commandment. and the second, like unto it, is, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. on these two commandments hang the law and the prophets (matt. : - ). "the law and the prophets" are the whole word, thus all divine truth. . iv. heaven is divided into two kingdoms. as there are infinite varieties in heaven, and no one society nor any one angel is exactly like any other,{ } there are in heaven general, specific, and particular divisions. the general division is into two kingdoms, the specific into three heavens, and the particular into innumerable societies. each of these will be treated of in what follows. the general division is said to be into kingdoms, because heaven is called "the kingdom of god." {footnote } there is infinite variety, and nowhere any thing the same as another (n. , ). also in the heavens there is infinite variety (n. , , , , ). varieties in heaven are varieties of good (n. , , , , , ). all societies in the heavens, and all angels in a society, are thereby distinguished from each other (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). nevertheless they are all made one by love from the lord (n. , ). . there are angels that receive more interiorly the divine that goes forth from the lord, and others that receive it less interiorly; the former are called celestial angels, and the latter spiritual angels. because of this difference heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom, the other the spiritual kingdom.{ } {footnote } heaven as a whole is divided into two kingdoms, a celestial kingdom and a spiritual kingdom (n. , ). the angels of the celestial kingdom receive the divine of the lord in their voluntary part, thus more interiorly than the spiritual angels, who receive it in their intellectual part (n. , , , , , ). . as the angels that constitute the celestial kingdom receive the divine of the lord more interiorly they are called interior and also higher angels; and for the same reason the heavens that they constitute are called interior and higher heavens.{ } they are called higher and lower, because these terms designate what is interior and what is exterior.{ } {footnote } the heavens that constitute the celestial kingdom are called higher while those that constitute the spiritual kingdom are called lower (n. ). {footnote } interior things are portrayed by higher things, and higher things signify interior things (n. , , , , ). . the love in which those are, who are in the celestial kingdom is called celestial love, and the love in which those are who are in the spiritual kingdom is called spiritual love. celestial love is love to the lord, and spiritual love is love towards the neighbor. and as all good pertains to love (for good to any one is what he loves) the good also of the other kingdom is called celestial, and the good of the other spiritual. evidently, then, the two kingdoms are distinguished from each other in the same way as good of love to the lord is distinguished from good of love towards the neighbor.{ } and as the good of love to the lord is an interior good, and that love is interior love, so the celestial angels are interior angels, and are called higher angels. {footnote } the good of the celestial kingdom is good of love to the lord, and the good of the spiritual kingdom is good of charity towards the neighbor (n. , , , , , ). . the celestial kingdom is called also the lord's priestly kingdom, and in the word "his dwelling-place;" while the spiritual kingdom is called his royal kingdom, and in the word "his throne." and from the celestial divine the lord in the world was called "jesus," while from the spiritual divine he was called "christ." . the angels in the lord's celestial kingdom, from their more interior reception of the divine of the lord, far excel in wisdom and glory the angels that are in his spiritual kingdom; for they are in love to the lord, and consequently are nearer and more closely conjoined to him.{ } these angels are such because they have received and continue to receive divine truths at once in their life, and not first in memory and thought, as the spiritual angels do. consequently they have divine truths written in their hearts, and they perceive them, and as it were see them, in themselves; nor do they ever reason about them whether they are true or not.{ } they are such as are described in jeremiah: i will put my law in their mind, and will write it in their heart. they shall teach no more everyone his friend and everyone his brother, saying, know ye jehovah. they shall know me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them ( : , ). and they are called in isaiah: taught of jehovah ( : ). that the "taught of jehovah" are those who are taught by the lord he himself teaches in john ( : , ). {footnote } the celestial angels immeasurably surpass in wisdom the spiritual angels (n. , ). the nature of the distinction between celestial angels and spiritual angels (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } the celestial angels do not reason about truths of faith, because they perceive them in themselves; but the spiritual angels reason about them whether they are true or not (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). . it has been said that these angels have wisdom and glory above others for the reason that they have received and continue to receive divine truths at once in their life. for as soon as they hear divine truths, they will and do them, instead of storing them up in the memory and afterwards considering whether they are true. they know at once by influx from the lord whether the truth they hear is true; for the lord flows directly into man's willing, but mediately through his willing into his thinking. or what is the same, the lord flows directly into good, but mediately through good into truth.{ } that is called good which belongs to the will and action therefrom, while that is called truth that belongs to the memory and to the thought therefrom. moreover, every truth is turned into good and implanted in love as soon as it enters into the will; but so long as truth remains in the memory and in the thought therefrom it does not become good, nor does it live, nor is it appropriated to man, since man is a man from his will and understanding therefrom, and not from his understanding separated from his will.{ } {footnote } the lord's influx is into good and through good into truth, and not the reverse; thus into the will and through that into the understanding, and not the reverse (n. , , , , , ). {footnote } the will of man is the very being [esse] of his life, and the receptacle of the good of love, while his understanding is the outgo [existere] of his life therefrom, and the receptacle of the truth and good of faith (n. , , ). thus the will's life is the chief life of man, and the life of the understanding goes forth therefrom (n. , , , , , , , , ). whatever is received by the will comes to be the life, and is appropriated to man (n. , , ). man is a man from his will and his understanding therefrom (n. , , , , , ). moreover, everyone who wills and understands rightly is loved and valued by others, while he that understands rightly and does not will rightly is rejected and despised (n. , ). also, after death man remains such as his will and his understanding therefrom have been, while the things that pertain to the understanding and not also to the will then vanish, because they are not in the man (n. , , , , ). . because of this difference between the angels of the celestial kingdom and the angels of the spiritual kingdom they are not together, and have no interaction with each other. they are able to communicate only through intermediate angelic societies, which are called celestial-spiritual. through these the celestial kingdom flows into the spiritual;{ } and from this it comes to pass that although heaven is divided into two kingdoms it nevertheless makes one. the lord always provides such intermediate angels through whom there is communication and conjunction. {footnote } between the two kingdoms there is communication and conjunction by mean's of angelic societies which are called celestial-spiritual (n. , , , ). the influx of the lord through the celestial kingdom into the spiritual (n. , ). . as the angels of these two kingdoms will be fully treated of in what follows, particulars are here omitted. . v. there are three heavens. there are three heavens, entirely distinct from each other, an inmost or third, a middle or second, and an outmost or first. these have a like order and relation to each other as the highest part of man, or his head, the middle part, or body, and the lowest, or feet; or as the upper, the middle, and the lower stories of a house. in the same order is the divine that goes forth and descends from the lord; consequently heaven, from the necessity of order, is threefold. . the interiors of man, which belong to his mind and disposition, are also in like order. he has an inmost, a middle, and an outmost part; for when man was created all things of divine order were brought together in him, so that he became divine order in form, and consequently a heaven in miniature.{ } for this reason also man, as regards his interiors, has communication with the heavens and comes after death among the angels, either among those of the inmost, or of the middle, or of the outmost heaven, in accordance with his reception of divine good and truth from the lord during his life in the world. {footnote } all things of divine order are brought together in man, and by creation man is divine order in form (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). in man the internal man was formed after the image of heaven, and the external after the image of the world, and this is why man was called by the ancients a microcosm (n. , , , , , , , , ). thus man is respect to his interiors is by creation a heaven in least form after the image of the greatest; and such also man becomes when he has been created anew or regenerated by the lord (n. , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , ). . the divine that flows in from the lord and is received in the third or inmost heaven is called celestial, and in consequence the angels there are called celestial angels; the divine that flows in from the lord and is received in the second or middle heaven is called spiritual, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual angels; while the divine that flows in from the lord and is received in the outmost or first heaven is called natural; but as the natural of that heaven is not like the natural of the world, but has the spiritual and the celestial within it, that heaven is called the spiritual-natural and the celestial-natural, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual-natural and celestial-natural.{ } those who receive influx from the middle or second heaven, which is the spiritual heaven, are called spiritual-natural; and those who receive influx from the third or inmost heaven, which is the celestial heaven, are called celestial-natural. the spiritual-natural angels and the celestial-natural angels are distinct from each other; nevertheless they constitute one heaven, because they are in one degree. {footnote } there are three heavens, inmost, middle, and outmost, or third, second, and first (n. , ). goods therein also follow in triple order (n. , , , , ). the good of the inmost or third heaven is called celestial, the good of the middle or second is called spiritual, and the good of the outmost or first, spiritual-natural (n. , , , , , , , ). . in each heaven there is an internal and an external; those in the internal are called there internal angels, while those in the external are called external angels. the internal and the external in the heavens, or in each heaven, hold the same relation as the voluntary and intellectual in man-the internal corresponding to the voluntary, and the external to the intellectual. everything voluntary has its intellectual; one cannot exist without the other. the voluntary may be compared to a flame and the intellectual to the light therefrom. . let it be clearly understood that with the angels it is the interiors that cause them to be in one heaven or another; for as their interiors are more open to the lord they are in a more interior heaven. there are three degrees of interiors in each angel and spirit, and also in man. those in whom the third degree is opened are in the inmost heaven. those in whom the second degree is opened, or only the first, are in the middle or in the outmost heaven. the interiors are opened by reception of divine good and divine truth. those who are affected by divine truths and admit them at once into the life, thus into the will and into action therefrom, are in the inmost or third heaven, and have their place there in accordance with their reception of good from affection for truth. those who do not admit truths at once into the will but into the memory, and thence into the understanding, and from the understanding will and do them, are in the middle or second heaven. but those who live morally and who believe in a divine, and who care very little about being taught, are in the outmost or first heaven.{ } from this it is clear that the states of the interiors are what make heaven, and that heaven is within everyone, and not outside of him; as the lord teaches when he says: the kingdom of god cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, lo here, or lo there; for behold the kingdom of god ye have within you (luke : , ). {footnote } there are as many degrees of life in man as there are heavens, and these are opened after death in accordance with his life (n. , ). heaven is in man (n. ). therefore he that has received heaven into himself in the world, comes into heaven after death (n. ). . furthermore, all perfection increases towards interiors and decreases towards exteriors, since interiors are nearer to the divine, and are in themselves pure, while exteriors are more remote from the divine and are in themselves grosser.{ } intelligence, wisdom, love, everything good and the resulting happiness, are what constitute angelic perfection; but not happiness apart from these, for such happiness is external and not internal. because in the angels of the inmost heaven the interiors have been opened in the third degree their perfection immeasurably surpasses the perfection of angels in the middle heaven, whose interiors have been opened in the second degree. so the perfection of these angels exceeds in like measure the perfection of angels of the outmost heaven. {footnote } interiors are more perfect because nearer to the divine (n. , , ). in the internal there are thousands and thousands of things that appear in the external as one general thing (n. ). as far as man is raised from externals towards interiors, so far he comes into light and thus into intelligence and the elevation is like rising out of a cloud into clearness (n. , , ). . because of this distinction an angel of one heaven cannot go among the angels of another heaven, that is, no one can ascend from a lower heaven and no one can descend from a higher heaven. one ascending from a lower heaven is seized with a distress even to anguish, and is unable to see those who are there, still less to talk with them; while one descending from a higher heaven is deprived of his wisdom, stammers in his speech, and is in despair. there were some from the outmost heaven who had not yet been taught that the interiors of angels are what constitute heaven, and who believed that they might come into a higher heavenly happiness by simply gaining access to a heaven where higher angels are. these were permitted to enter among such angels. but when they were there they could see no one, however much they searched, although there was a great multitude present; for the interiors of the newcomers not having been opened in the same degree as the interiors of the angels there, their sight was not so opened. presently they were seized with such anguish of heart that they scarcely knew whether they were alive or not. therefore they hastily betook themselves to the heaven from which they came, glad to get back among their like, and pledging themselves that they would no longer covet higher things than were in agreement with their life. again, i have seen some let down from a higher heaven; and these were deprived of their wisdom until they no longer knew what their own heaven was. it is otherwise when, as is often done, angels are raised up by the lord out of a lower heaven into a higher that they may behold its glory; for then they are prepared beforehand, and are encompassed by intermediate angels, through whom they have communication with those they come among. from all this it is plain that the three heavens are entirely distinct from each other. . those, however, who are in the same heaven can affiliate with any who are there; but the delights of such affiliation are measured by the kinships of good they have come into; of which more will be said in the following chapters. . but although the heavens are so distinct that there can be no companionship between the angels of one heaven and the angels of another, still the lord joins all the heavens together by both direct and mediate influx-direct from himself into all the heavens, and mediate from one heaven into another.{ } he thus makes the three heavens to be one, and all to be in such connection from the first to the last that nothing unconnected is possible. whatever is not connected through intermediates with the first can have no permanent existence, but is dissipated and becomes nothing.{ } {footnote } influx from the lord is direct from himself and also mediate through on heaven into another, and in like manner into man's interiors (n. , , , , ). direct influx of the divine from the lord (n. , - , , ). mediate influx through the spiritual world into the natural world (n. , , , ). {footnote } all things spring from things prior to themselves, thus from a first, and in like inner subsist, because subsistence is unceasing springing forth; therefore nothing unconnected is possible (n. - , , , , , ). . only he who knows how degrees are related to divine order can comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even what is meant by the internal and the external man. most men in the world have no other idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by continuity, from purer to grosser. but the relation of what is interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous. degrees are of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not. continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of a light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. these degrees are determined by distance. [ ] on the other hand, degrees that are not continuous, but discrete, are distinguished like prior and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what is produced. whoever looks into the matter will see that in each thing and all things in the whole world, whatever they are, there are such degrees of producing and compounding, that is, from one a second, and from that a third, and so on. [ ] until one has acquired for himself a perception of these degrees he cannot possibly understand the differences between the heavens, nor between the interior and exterior faculties of man, nor the differences between the spiritual world and the natural world, nor between the spirit of man and his body. so neither can he understand the nature and source of correspondences and representations, or the nature of influx. sensual men do not apprehend these differences, for they make increase and decrease, even according to these degrees, to be continuous, and are therefore unable to conceive of what is spiritual otherwise than as a purer natural. and in consequence they remain outside of and a great way off from intelligence.{ } {footnote } things interior and things exterior are not continuous but distinct and discrete according to degrees, and each degree has its bounds (n. , , , , ). one thing is formed from another, and the things so formed are not continuously purer and grosser (n. , ). until the difference between what is interior and what is exterior according to such degrees is perceived, neither the internal and external man nor the interior and exterior heavens can be clearly understood (n. , , , ). . finally, a certain arcanum respecting the angels of the three heavens, which has not hitherto come into any one's mind, because degrees have not been understood, may be related. in every angel and also in every man there is an inmost or highest degree, or an inmost or highest something, into which the divine of the lord primarily or proximately flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that follow in accordance with the degrees of order. this inmost or highest degree may be called the entrance of the lord to the angel or man, and his veriest dwelling-place in them. it is by virtue of this inmost or highest that a man is a man, and is distinguished from irrational animals, for these do not have it. from this it is that man, unlike the animals, is capable, in respect to all his interiors which pertain to his mind and disposition, of being raised up by the lord to himself, of believing in the lord, of being moved by love to the lord, and thereby beholding him, and of receiving intelligence and wisdom, and speaking from reason. also, it is by virtue of this that he lives to eternity. but what is arranged and provided by the lord in this inmost does not distinctly flow into the perception of any angel, because it is above his thought and transcends his wisdom. . these now are the general truths respecting the three heavens; but in what follows each heaven will be particularly treated of. . vi. the heavens consist of innumerable societies. the angels of each heaven are not together in one place, but are divided into larger and smaller societies in accordance with the differences of good of love and of faith in which they are, those who are in like good forming a single society. goods in the heavens are in infinite variety, and each angel is as it were his own good.{ } {footnote } there is infinite variety, and never any thing the same with any other (n. , ). so in the heavens there is infinite variety (n. , , , , ). varieties in the heavens, which are infinite, are varieties of good (n. , , , , , ). these varieties exist through truths, which are manifold from which is each one's good (n. , , , , ). it is because of this that all the societies in the heavens, and all angels in a society, are distinct from each other (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). nevertheless they all make one through love from the lord (n. , ). . moreover, the angelic societies in the heavens are at a distance from each other as their goods differ in general and in particular. for in the spiritual world the only ground of distance is difference in the state of interiors, thus in the heavens difference in the states of love, those who differ much being far apart, and those who differ but little being but little apart, and likeness causing them to be together.{ } {footnote } all the societies of heaven have a constant position in accordance with the differences of their state of life, thus in accordance with the differences of love and faith (n. , , ). wonderful things in the other life, that is, in the spiritual world, respecting distance, situation, place space and time (n. - ). . all who are in the same society are arranged in like manner in respect to each other; those who are more perfect, that is, who excel in good, thus in love, wisdom, and intelligence, being in the middle; those who are less pre-eminent being round about at a distance in accordance with the decrease of their perfection. the arrangement is like light diminishing from the middle to the circumference, those who are in the middle being in the greatest light, and those towards the circumference in less and less. . like are drawn spontaneously as it were to their like; for with their like they are as if with their own and at home, but with others they are as if with strangers and abroad; also when with their like they are in their freedom, and consequently in every delight of life. . all this makes clear that all in the heavens are affiliated by good, and are distinguished according to the quality of the good. nevertheless it is not the angels who thus affiliate themselves, but the lord, from whom the good is. the lord leads them, conjoins and separates them, and preserves them in freedom proportionate to their good. thus he holds everyone in the life of his love and faith, of his intelligence and wisdom, and the resulting happiness.{ } {footnote } all freedom pertains to love and affection, since what a man loves, that he does freely (n. , , , , , ). because freedom pertains to love everyone's life and delight is therefrom (n. ). nothing appears as one's own, except what is from his freedom (n. ). the veriest freedom is to be led by the lord, because one is thus led by the love of good and truth (n. , , , , - , , - ). . again, all who are in like good, even though they have never seen each other before, know each other, just as men in the world do their kinsmen, near relations, and friends; and for the reason that in the other life there are none but spiritual kinships, relationships, and friendships, thus such as spring from love and faith.{ } this it has sometimes been granted me to see, when i have been in the spirit, and thus withdrawn from the body, and in the society of angels. some of those i then saw seemed as if i had known them from childhood, but others as if not known at all. those whom i seemed to have known from childhood were such as were in a state similar to that of my spirit; but those who seemed unknown were in a dissimilar state. {footnote } all nearness, relationship, connections, and as it were ties of blood, in heaven are from good and in accordance with its agreements and differences (n. , , , , , , ). . all who form the same angelic society resemble each other in countenance in a general way, but not in particulars. how these general resemblances are related to differences in particulars can in some measure be seen from like things in the world. it is well known that with every race there is a certain general resemblance of face and eyes, by which it is known and distinguished from all other races. this is still more true of different families. in the heavens this is much more fully the case, because there all the interior affections appear in and shine forth from the face, for there the face is the external and representative form of those affections. no one there can have any other face than that of his own affection. it was also shown how this general likeness is varied in particulars with individuals in the same society. a face like an angel's appeared to me, and this was varied in accordance with such affections for good and truth as are in those who belong to a single society. these changes went on for a long time, and i noticed that the same face in general continued as a ground work, all besides being what was derived and produced from that. thus by means of this face the affections of the whole society were exhibited, whereby the faces of those in it are varied. for, as has been said above, the faces of angels are the forms of their interiors, thus of the affections that belong to their love and faith. . from this it also comes to pass that an angel who excels in wisdom instantly sees the quality of another from his face. in heaven no one can conceal his interiors by his expression, or feign, or really deceive and mislead by craft or hypocrisy. there are hypocrites who are experts in disguising their interiors and fashioning their exteriors into the form of that good in which those are who belong to a society, and who thus make themselves appear angels of light; and these sometimes insinuate themselves into a society; but they cannot stay there long, for they begin to suffer inward pain and torture, to grow livid in the face, and to become as it were lifeless. these changes arise from the contrariety of the life that flows in and affects them. therefore they quickly cast themselves down into hell where their like are, and no longer want to ascend. these are such as are meant by the man found among the invited guests at the feast not clothed with a wedding garment, who was cast out into outer darkness (matt. : , seq.). . all the societies of heaven have communication with one another, though not by open interaction; for few go out of their own society into another, since going out of their own society is like going away from themselves or from their own life, and passing into another life which is less congenial. but all the societies communicate by an extension of the sphere that goes forth from the life of each. this sphere of the life is the sphere of the affections of love and faith. this sphere extends itself far and wide into the surrounding societies, and farther and wider in proportion as the affections are the more interior and perfect.{ } in the measure of that extension do the angels have intelligence and wisdom. those that are in the inmost heaven and in the middle of it have extension into the entire heavens; thus there is a sharing of all in heaven with each one, and of each one with all.{ } but this extension will be considered more fully hereafter, where the form of heaven in accord with which the angelic societies are arranged, and also the wisdom and intelligence of angels, will be treated of, for in accordance with that form all extension of affections and thoughts proceeds. {footnote } a spiritual sphere, which is the sphere of life flows out from every man, spirit, and angel, and encompasses them (n. , , , ). it flows forth from the life of their affection and thought (n. , , ). these spheres extend themselves far into angelic societies in accordance with the quality and quantity of their good (n. - , , , ). {footnote } in the heavens a sharing of all goods is possible because heavenly love shares with another everything that is its own (n. , , , , , , ). . it has been said above that in the heavens there are larger and smaller societies. the larger consist of myriads of angels, the smaller of some thousands, and the least of some hundreds. there are also some that dwell apart, house by house as it were, and family by family. although these live in this scattered way, they are arranged in order like those who live in societies, the wiser in the middle and the more simple in the borders. such are more closely under the divine auspices of the lord, and are the best of the angels. . vii. each society is a heaven in a smaller form, and each angel in the smallest form. each society is a heaven in a smaller form, and each angel in the smallest form, because it is the good of love and of faith that makes heaven, and this good is in each society of heaven and in each angel of a society. it does not matter that this good everywhere differs and varies, it is still the good of heaven; and there is no difference except that heaven has one quality here and another there. so when any one is raised up into any society of heaven he is said to come into heaven; and those who are there are said to be in heaven, and each one in his own. this is known to all in the other life; consequently those standing outside of or beneath heaven, when they see at a distance companies of angels, say that heaven is in this or that place. it is comparatively like civil and military officers and attendants in a royal palace or castle, who, although dwelling apart in their own quarters or chambers above and below, are yet in the same palace or castle, each in his own position in the royal service. this makes evident the meaning of the lord's words, that: in his father's house are many abiding places (john : ); also what is meant by the dwelling-places of heaven, and the heavens of heavens, in the prophets. . that each society is a heaven in a smaller form can be seen from this also, that each society there has a heavenly form like that of heaven as a whole. in the whole heavens those who are superior to the rest are in the middle, with the less excellent round about in a decreasing order even to the borders (as stated in a preceding chapter, n. ). it can be seen also from this, that the lord directs all in the whole heaven as if they were a single angel; and the same is true of all in each society; and as a consequence an entire angelic society sometimes appears in angelic form like a single angel, as i have been permitted by the lord to see. moreover, when the lord appears in the midst of the angels he does not appear as one surrounded by many, but the appearance is as a one, in an angelic form. this is why the lord is called "an angel" in the word, and why an entire society is so called. "michael," "gabriel," and "raphael" are no other than angelic societies so named from their function.{ } {footnote } in the word the lord is called an angel (n. , , , ). a whole angelic society is called an angel, and michael and raphael are angelic societies, so called from their functions (n. ). the societies of heaven and the angels have no names, but are distinguished by the quality of their good, and by the idea of it (n. , ). . as an entire society is a heaven in a smaller form, so an angel is a heaven in the smallest form. for heaven is not outside of the angel, but is within him, since the interior things which belong to his mind are arranged into the form of heaven, thus for the reception of all things of heaven that are outside of him. these also he receives according to the quality of the good that is in him from the lord. it is from this that an angel is a heaven. . it can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it is within him. for it is in accordance with the heaven that is within him that each angel receives the heaven that is outside of him. this makes clear how greatly misled is he who believes that to come into heaven is simply to be taken up among angels, without regard to what one's interior life may be, thus that heaven is granted to each one by mercy apart from means;{ } when, in fact, unless heaven is within one, nothing of the heaven that is outside can flow in and be received. there are many spirits who have this idea. because of this belief they have been taken up into heaven; but when they came there, because their interior life was contrary to the angelic life, their intellectual faculties began to be blinded until they became like fools; and they began to be tortured in their voluntary faculties until they became like madmen. in a word, if those that have lived wickedly come into heaven they gasp for breath and writhe about, like fishes out of water in the air, or like animals in ether in an airpump when the air has been exhausted. from this it can be seen that heaven is not outside of a man, but within him.{ } {footnote } heaven is not granted from mercy apart from means, but in accordance with the life; yet everything of the life by which man is led to heaven by the lord belongs to mercy; this is what is meant by mercy (n. , ). if heaven were granted from mercy apart from means it would be granted to all (n. ). about some evil spirits cast down from heaven who believed that heaven was granted to everyone from mercy apart from means (n. ). {footnote } heaven is in man (n. ). . as everyone receives the heaven that is outside of him in accordance with the quality of the heaven that is within him, so in like manner does everyone receive the lord, since it is the divine of the lord that makes heaven. and for this reason when the lord becomes manifestly present in any society his appearance there is in accord with the quality of the good in which the society is, thus not the same in one society as in another. this diversity is not in the lord; it is in the angels who behold him from their own good, and thus in accordance with their good. and they are affected by his appearance in accordance with the quality of their love, those who love him inmostly being inmostly affected, and those who love him less being less affected; while the evil who are outside of heaven are tortured by his presence. when the lord is seen in any society he is seen as an angel, but is distinguished from others by the divine that shines through. . again, heaven is where the lord is acknowledged, believed in, and loved. variety in worship of the lord from the variety of good in different societies is not harmful, but beneficial, for the perfection of heaven is therefrom. this can scarcely be made clear to the comprehension without employing terms that are in common use in the learned world, and showing by means of these how unity, that it may be perfect, must be formed from variety. every whole exists from various parts, since a whole without constituents is not anything; it has no form, and therefore no quality. but when a whole exists from various parts, and the various parts are in a perfect form, in which each attaches itself like a congenial friend to another in series, then the quality is perfect. so heaven is a whole from various parts arranged in a most perfect form, for the heavenly form is the most perfect of all forms. that this is the ground of all perfection is evident from the nature of all beauty, agreeableness and delight, by which the senses and the mind are affected; for these qualities spring and flow from no other source than the concert and harmony of many concordant and congenial parts, either coexisting in order or following in order, and never from a whole without many parts. from this is the saying that variety gives delight; and the nature of variety, as is known, is what determines the delight. from all this it can be seen as in a mirror how perfection comes from variety even in heaven. for from the things that exist in the natural world the things of the spiritual world can be seen as in a mirror.{ } {footnote } every whole is from the harmony and concert of many parts. otherwise it has no quality (n. ). from this the entire heaven is a whole (n. ). and for the reason that all there have regard to one end, which is the lord (n. ). . what has been said of heaven may be said also of the church, for the church is the lord's heaven on earth. there are also many churches, each one of which is called a church, and so far as the good of love and faith reigns therein is a church. here, too, the lord out of various parts forms a unity, that is, one church out of many churches.{ } and the like may be said of the man of the church in particular that is said of the church in general, namely, that the church is within man and not outside of him; and that every man is a church in whom the lord is present in the good of love and of faith.{ } again, the same may be said of a man that has the church in him as of an angel that has heaven in him, namely, that he is a church in the smallest form, as an angel is a heaven in the smallest form; and furthermore that a man that has the church in him, equally with an angel, is a heaven. for man was created that he might come into heaven and become an angel; consequently he that has good from the lord is a man-angel.{ } what man has in common with an angel and what he has in contrast with angels may be mentioned. it is granted to man, equally with the angel, to have his interiors conformed to the image of heaven, and to become, so far as he is in the good of love and faith, an image of heaven. but it is granted to man and not to angels to have his exteriors conform to the image of the world; and so far as he is in good to have the world in him subordinated to heaven and made to serve heaven.{ } and then the lord is present in him both in the world and in heaven just as if he were in his heaven. for the lord is in his divine order in both worlds, since god is order.{ } {footnote } if good were the characteristic and essential of the church, and not truth apart from good, the church would be one (n. , , , , , . ). from good all churches make one church before the lord (n. , ). {footnote } the church is in man, and not outside of him, and the church in general is made up of men that have the church in them (n. [ ]). {footnote } a man who is a church is a heaven in the smallest form after the image of the greatest, because his interiors, which belong to his mind, are arranged after the form of heaven, and consequently for reception of all things of heaven (n. , , , - , , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } man has an internal and an external; hid internal is formed by creation after the image of heaven, and his external after the image of the world; and for this reason man was called by the ancients a microcosm (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). therefore man was created to have the world in him serve heaven, and this takes place with the good; but it is the reverse with the evil, in whom heaven serves the world (n. , ). {footnote } the lord is order, since the divine good and truth that go forth from the lord make order (n. , , , , , , , , ). divine truths are laws of order (n. , ). so far as a man lives according to order, that is, so far as he lives in good in accordance with divine truths, he is a man, and the church and heaven are in him (n. , , , [ ]). . finally it should be said that he who has heaven in himself has it not only in the largest or most general things pertaining to him but also in every least or particular thing, and that these least things repeat in an image the greatest. this comes from the fact that everyone is his own love, and is such as his ruling love is. that which reigns flows into the particulars and arranges them, and every where induces a likeness of itself.{ } in the heavens love to the lord is the ruling love, for there the lord is loved above all things. hence the lord there is the all-in-all, flowing into all and each, arranging them, clothing them with a likeness of himself, and making it to be heaven wherever he is. this is what makes an angel to be a heaven in the smallest form, a society to be a heaven in a larger form, and all the societies taken together a heaven in the largest form. that the divine of the lord is what makes heaven, and that he is the all-in-all, may be seen above (n. - ). {footnote } the ruling or dominant love with everyone is in each thing and all things of his life, thus in each thing and all things of his thought and will (n. , , , ). man is such as is the ruling quality of his life (n. , , , , , , , - , , , , ). when love and faith rule they are in all the particulars of man's life, although he does not know it (n. , , ). . viii. all heaven in the aggregate reflects a single man. that heaven in its whole complex reflects a single man is an arcanum hitherto unknown in the world, but fully recognized in the heavens. to know this and the specific and particular things relating to it is the chief thing in the intelligence of the angels there, and on it many things depend which without it as their general principle would not enter distinctly and clearly into the ideas of their minds. knowing that all the heavens with their societies reflect a single man they call heaven the greatest man and the divine man;{ }--divine because it is the divine of the lord that makes heaven (see above, n. - ). {footnote } heaven in the whole complex appears in form like a man, and for this reason heaven is called the greatest man (n. , , - , - , ). . that into such a form and image celestial and spiritual things are arranged and joined cannot be seen by those who have no right idea of spiritual and heavenly things. such think that the earthy and material things of which man's outmost nature is composed are what makes the man; and that apart from these man is not a man. but let them know that it is not from these that man is a man, but from his ability to understand what is true and to will what is good. such understanding and willing are the spiritual and celestial things of which man is made. moreover, it is known that everyone's quality is determined by the quality of his understanding and will; and it can also be known that his earthly body is formed to serve the understanding and the will in the world, and to skillfully accomplish their uses in the outmost sphere of nature. for this reason the body by itself can do nothing, but is moved always in entire subservience to the bidding of the understanding and will, even to the extent that whatever a man thinks he speaks with his tongue and lips, and whatever he wills he does with his body and limbs, and thus the understanding and the will are what act, while the body by itself does nothing. evidently, then, the things of the understanding and will are what make man; and as these act into the minutest particulars of the body, as what is internal into what is external, they must be in a like form, and on this account man is called an internal or spiritual man. heaven is such a man in its greatest and most perfect form. . such being the angelic idea of man, the angels give no thought to what a man does with his body, but only to the will from which the body acts. this they call the man himself, and the understanding they call the man so far as it acts in unison with the will.{ } {footnote } the will of man is the very being [esse] of his life, and his understanding is the outgo [existere] of his life therefrom (n. , , ). the chief life of man is the life of his will, and from that the life of the understanding proceeds (n. , , , , , , , , ). man is man by virtue of his will and his understanding therefrom (n. , , , , , ). . the angels, it is true, do not see heaven in its whole complex in the human form, for heaven as a whole does not come within view of any angel; but remote societies, consisting of many thousands of angels, they sometimes see as a one in the human form; and from a society, as from a part, they draw their conclusion as to the general, which is heaven. for in the most perfect form generals are like the parts, and parts are like the generals, with simply such a difference as there is between like things of greater or less magnitude; consequently, the angels say that since the divine from what is inmost or highest sees all things, so in the lord's sight heaven as a whole must be in the human form. . heaven being such, it is ruled by the lord as a single man is ruled, thus as a one. for although man, as we know, consists of an innumerable variety of parts, not only as a whole but also in each part-as a whole, of members, organs, and viscera; and in each part, of series of fibers, nerves, and blood-vessels, thus of members within members, and of parts within parts-nevertheless, when he acts he acts as a single man. such likewise is heaven under the auspices and direction of the lord. . so many different things in man act as a one, because there is no least thing in him that does not do something for the general welfare and perform some use. the general performs a use for its parts, and the parts for the general, for the general is composed of the parts and the parts constitute the general; therefore they provide for each other, have regard for each other, and are joined together in such a form that each thing and all things have reference to the general and its good; thus it is that they act as one. [ ] in the heavens there are like affiliations. those there are conjoined according to uses in a like form; and consequently those who do not perform uses for the common good are cast out of heaven as something heterogeneous. to perform use is to will well to others for the sake of the common good; but to will well to others not for the sake of the common good but for the sake of self is not to perform use. these latter are such as love themselves supremely, while the former are such as love the lord supremely. thence it is that those who are in heaven act as a one; and this they do from the lord, not from themselves, for they look to him as the only one, the source of all things, and they regard his kingdom as the general, the good of which is to be sought. this is what is meant by the lord's words, seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you (matt. : ). "to seek his righteousness" means to seek his good.{ } [ ] those who in the world love their country's good more than their own, and their neighbor's good as their own, are they who in the other life love and seek the lord's kingdom; for there the lord's kingdom takes the place of country; and those who love doing good to others, not with self as an end but with good as an end, love the neighbor; for in heaven good is the neighbor.{ } all such are in the greatest man, that is, heaven. {footnote } in the wood "righteousness" is predicated of good, and "judgment" of truth; therefore "to do righteousness and judgment" is to do what is good and true (n. , ). {footnote } in the highest sense the lord is the neighbor; consequently to love the lord is to love that which is from him, that is to love good and truth because the lord is in everything that is from him (n. , , , , , ). therefore all good that is from the lord is the neighbor, and to will and do that good is to love the neighbor (n. , ). . as the whole heaven reflects a single man, and is a divine spiritual man in the largest form, even in figure, so heaven like a man is arranged into members and parts, and these are similarly named. moreover, angels know in what member this or that society is. this society, they say, is in a certain part or province of the head, that in a certain part or province of the breast, that in a certain part or province of the loins, and so on. in general, the highest or third heaven forms the head down to the neck; the middle or second heaven forms the breast down to the loins and knees; the lowest or first heaven forms the feet down to the soles, and also the arms down to the fingers. for the arms and hands belong to the lowest parts of man, although at the sides. from this again it is plain why there are three heavens. . the spirits that are beneath heaven are greatly astonished when they hear that heaven is not only above but below, for they have a like faith and opinion as men in the world, that heaven is nowhere but above, for they do not know that the arrangement of the heavens is like the arrangement of the members, organs, and viscera in man, some of which are above and some below; or like the arrangement of the parts in each of the members, organs, and viscera, some of which are within and some without. hence their confused notions about heaven. . these things about heaven as the greatest man are set forth, because what follows in regard to heaven cannot be at all comprehended until these things are known, neither can there be any clear idea of the form of heaven, of the conjunction of the lord with heaven, of the conjunction of heaven with man, of the influx of the spiritual world into the natural, or any idea at all of correspondence-subjects to be treated of in their proper order in what now follows. to throw some light on these subjects, therefore, the above has been premised. . ix. each society in heaven reflects a single man. i have frequently been permitted to see that each society of heaven reflects a single man, and is in the likeness of a man. there was a society into which several had insinuated themselves who knew how to counterfeit angels of light. these were hypocrites. when these were being separated from the angels i saw that the entire society appeared at first like a single indistinct body, then by degrees in a human form, but still indistinctly, and at last clearly as a man. those that were in that man and made up the man were such as were in the good of that society; the others who were not in the man and did not make up the man were hypocrites; these were cast out and the former were retained; and thus a separation was effected. hypocrites are such as talk well and also do well, but have regard to themselves in everything. they talk as angels do about the lord, heaven, love, and heavenly life, and also act rightly, so that they may appear to be what they profess to be. but their thinking is different; they believe nothing; and they wish good to none but themselves. their doing good is for the sake of self, or if for the sake of others it is only for the appearance, and thus still for the sake of self. . i have also been permitted to see that an entire angelic society, where the lord is visibly present, appears as a one in the human form. there appeared on high towards the east something like a cloud, from glowing white becoming red, and with little stars round about, which was descending; and as it gradually descended it became brighter, and at last appeared in a perfect human form. the little stars round about the cloud were angels, who so appeared by virtue of light from the lord. . it must be understood that although all in a heavenly society when seen together as one appear in the likeness of a man; yet no one society is just such a man as another. societies differ from one another like the faces of different individuals of the same family, for the reason given above (n. ), that is, they differ in accordance with the varieties of good in which they are and which determines their form. the societies of the inmost or highest heaven, and in the center there, are those that appear in the most perfect and beautiful human form. . it is worthy of mention that the greater the number in any society in heaven and the more these make a one, the more perfect is its human form, for variety arranged in a heavenly form is what constitutes perfection, as has been shown above (n. ), and number gives variety. moreover, every society of heaven increases in number daily, and as it increases it becomes more perfect. thus not only the society becomes more perfect, but also heaven in general, because it is made up of societies. as heaven gains in perfection by increase of numbers, it is evident how mistaken those are who believe that heaven may be closed by becoming full; for the opposite is true, that it will never be closed, but is perfected by greater and greater fullness. therefore, the angels desire nothing so much as to have new angel guests come to them. . each society, when it appears as one whole is in the form of a man, for the reason that heaven as a whole has that form (as has been shown in the preceding chapter); moreover, in the most perfect form, such as the form of heaven is, there is a likeness of the parts to the whole, and of lesser forms to the greatest. the lesser forms and parts of heaven are the societies of which it consists, which are also heavens in lesser form (see - ). this likeness is perpetual because in the heavens the goods of all are from a single love, that is, from a single origin. the single love, which is the origin of the good of all in heaven, is love to the lord from the lord. it is from this that the entire heaven in general, each society less generally, and each angel in particular, is a likeness of the lord, as has been shown above (n. ). . x. therefore every angel is in a complete human form. in the two preceding chapters it has been shown that heaven in its whole complex, and likewise each society in heaven, reflects a single man. from the sequence of reasons there set forth it follows that this is equally true of each angel. as heaven is a man in largest form, and a society of heaven in a less form, so is an angel in least. for in the most perfect form, such as the form of heaven is, there is a likeness of the whole in the part and of the part in the whole. this is so for the reason that heaven is a common sharing, for it shares all it has with each one, and each one receives all he has from that sharing. because an angel is thus a recipient he is a heaven in least form, as shown above in its chapter; and a man also, so far as he receives heaven, is a recipient, a heaven, and an angel (see above, n. ). this is thus described in the apocalypse: he measured the wall of the holy jerusalem, a hundred and forty and four cubits, the measure of a man, which is that of an angel ( : ). "jerusalem" means here the lord's church, and in a more eminent sense, heaven;{ } the "wall" means truth, which is a defence against the assault of falsities and evils;{ } "a hundred and forty and four" means all goods and truths in the complex;{ } "measure" means what a thing is,{ } a "man" means one in whom are goods and truths in general and in particular, thus in whom is heaven. and as it is from this that an angel is a man, it is said "the measure of a man, which is that of an angel." this is the spiritual meaning of these words. without that meaning how could it be seen that "the wall of the holy jerusalem" is "the measure of a man, which is that of an angel?"{ } {footnote } "jerusalem" means the church (n. , , ). {footnote } the "wall" means truth defending against the assault of falsities and evils (n. ). {footnote } "twelve" means all truths and goods in the complex (n. , , , , , , ). likewise "seventy-two," and "a hundred and forty-four," since this comes from twelve multiplied into itself (n. ). all numbers in the word signify things (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). multiplied numbers have a like signification as the simple numbers from which they arise by multiplication (n. , , , ). {footnote } "measure" in the word signifies the quality of a thing in respect to truth and good (n. , ). {footnote } in regard to the spiritual or internal sense of the word see the explanation of the white horse in the apocalypse, and the appendix to the heavenly doctrine. . let us now turn to experience. that angels are human forms, or men, has been seen by me a thousand times. i have talked with them as man with man, sometimes with one, sometimes with many together; and i have seen nothing whatever in their form different from the human form; and have occasionally been surprised to find them such. and that this might not be said to be a delusion or a vision of fancy, i have been permitted to see angels when fully awake or in possession of all my bodily senses, and in a state of clear perception. and i have often told them that men in the christian world are in such blind ignorance in regard to angels and spirits as to believe them to be minds without form, even pure thoughts, of which they have no idea except as something ethereal in which there is some vitality. and as they thus ascribe to angels nothing human except a thinking faculty, they believe that having no eyes they do not see, having no ears they do not hear, and having no mouth or tongue they do not speak. [ ] to this the angels replied that they are aware that such a belief is held by many in the world, and is prevalent among the learned, and to their surprise, even among the clergy. the reason, they said, is that the learned, who were the leaders and who first concocted such an idea of angels and spirits, conceived of them from the sense-conceptions of the external man; and those who think from these, and not from interior light and from the general idea implanted in everyone, must needs fabricate such notions, since the sense-conceptions of the external man take in only what belongs to nature, and nothing above nature, thus nothing whatever of the spiritual world.{ } from these leaders as guides this falsity of thought about angels extended to others who did not think from themselves but adopted the thoughts of their leaders; and those who first take their thoughts from others and make that thought their belief, and then view it with their own understanding, cannot easily recede from it, and are therefore in most cases satisfied with confirming it. [ ] the angels said, furthermore, that the simple in faith and heart have no such idea about angels, but think of them as the men of heaven, and for the reason that they have not extinguished by learning what is implanted in them from heaven, and have no conception of anything apart from form. this is why angels in churches, whether sculptured or painted, are always depicted as men. in respect to this insight from heaven they said that it is the divine flowing into such as are in the good of faith and life. {footnote } unless man is raised above the sense-conceptions of the external man he has very little wisdom (n. ). the wise man thinks above these sense-conceptions (n. , ). when man is raised above these, he comes into clearer light, and finally into heavenly light (n. , , , , , ). elevation and withdrawal from these was known to the ancients (n. ). . from all my experience, which is now of many years, i am able to say and affirm that angels are wholly men in form, having faces, eyes, ears, bodies, arms, hands, and feet; that they see and hear one another, and talk together, and in a word lack nothing whatever that belongs to men except that they are not clothed in material bodies. i have seen them in their own light, which exceeds by many degrees the noonday light of the world, and in that light all their features could be seen more distinctly and clearly than the faces of men are seen on the earth. it has also been granted me to see an angel of the inmost heaven. he had a more radiant and resplendent face than the angels of the lower heavens. i observed him attentively, and he had a human form in all completeness. . but it must be remembered that a man cannot see angels with his bodily eyes, but only with the eyes of the spirit within him,{ } because his spirit is in the spiritual world, and all things of the body are in the natural world. like sees like from being like. moreover, as the bodily organ of sight, which is the eye, is too gross, as everyone knows, to see even the smaller things of nature except through magnifying glasses, still less can it see what is above the sphere of nature, as all things in the spiritual world are. nevertheless these things can be seen by man when he has been withdrawn from the sight of the body, and the sight of his spirit has been opened; and this can be effected instantly whenever it is the pleasure of the lord that man should see these things; and in that case man does not know but what he is seeing them with his bodily eyes. thus were angels seen by abraham, lot, manoah, and the prophets; and thus, too, the lord was seen by the disciples after the resurrection; and in the same way angels have been seen by me. because the prophets saw in this way they were called "seers," and were said "to have their eyes opened" ( sam. : ; num. : ); and enabling them to see thus was called "opening their eyes," as with elisha's servant, of whom we read: elisha prayed and said, jehovah, i pray thee open his eyes that he may see; and jehovah opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about elisha ( kings : ). {footnote } in respect to his interiors man is a spirit (n. ). and that spirit is the man himself, and it is from that spirit that the body lived (n. , , ). . good spirits, with whom i have spoken about this matter, have been deeply grieved at such ignorance in the church about the condition of heaven and of spirits and angels; and in their displeasure they charged me to declare positively that they are not formless minds nor ethereal breaths, but are men in very form, and see, hear, and feel equally with those who are in this world.{ } {footnote } inasmuch as each angel is a recipient of divine order from the lord, he is in a human form, perfect and beautiful in the measure of his reception (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). it is by means of divine truth that order exists; and divine good is the essential of order (n. , , , , , , , ). . xi. it is from the lord's divine human that heaven as a whole and in part reflects man. that it is from the lord's divine human that heaven as a whole and in part reflects man, follows as a conclusion from all that has been stated and shown in the preceding chapters, namely: (i) that the god of heaven is the lord. (ii) it is the divine of the lord that makes heaven. (iii) heaven consists of innumerable societies; and each society is a heaven in a smaller form, and each angel in the smallest form. (iv) all heaven in the aggregate reflects a single man. (v) each society in the heavens reflects a single man. (vi) therefore every angel is in a complete human form. all this leads to the conclusion that as it is the divine that makes heaven, heaven must be human in form. that this divine is the lord's divine human can be seen still more clearly, because in a compendium, in what has been collected, brought together and collated from the arcana coelestia and placed as a supplement at the end of this chapter. that the lord's human is divine, and that it is not true that his human is not divine, as those with in the church believe, may also be seen in the same extracts, also in the chapter on the lord, in the new jerusalem and its heavenly doctrine, at the end. . that this is true has been proved to me by much experience, about which something shall now be said. no angel in the heavens ever perceives the divine as being in any other than a human form; and what is remarkable, those in the higher heavens are unable to think of the divine in any other way. the necessity of thinking in this way comes from the divine itself that flows in, and also from the form of heaven in harmony with which their thoughts spread forth. for every thought of an angel spreads forth into heaven; and the angels have intelligence and wisdom in the measure of that extension. it is in consequence of this that all in heaven acknowledge the lord, because only in him does the divine human exist. not only have i been told all this by angels, but when elevated into the inner sphere of heaven i have been able to perceive it. from this it is evident that the wiser the angels are the more clearly they perceive this truth; and it is from this that the lord is seen by them; for the lord is seen in a divine angelic form, which is the human form, by those who acknowledge and believe in a visible divine being, but not by those who believe in an invisible divine. for the former can see their divine being, but the latter cannot. . because the angels have no perception of an invisible divine, which they call a divine devoid of form, but perceive only a visible divine in human form, they are accustomed to say that the lord alone is man, and that it is from him that they are men, and that each one is a man in the measure of his reception of the lord. by receiving the lord they understand receiving good and truth which are from him, since the lord is in his good and in his truth, and this they call wisdom and intelligence. everyone knows, they say, that intelligence and wisdom make man, and not a face without these. the truth of this is made evident from the appearance of the angels of the interior heavens, for these, being in good and truth from the lord and in consequent wisdom and intelligence, are in a most beautiful and most perfect human form; while the angels of the lower heavens are in human form of less perfection and beauty. on the other hand, those who are in hell appear in the light of heaven hardly as men, but rather as monsters, since they are not in good and truth but in evil and falsity, and consequently in the opposites of wisdom and intelligence. for this reason their life is not called life, but spiritual death. . because heaven as a whole and in part, from the lord's divine human, reflects a man, the angels say that they are in the lord; and some say that they are in his body, meaning that they are in the good of his love. and this the lord himself teaches, saying, abide in me and i in you. as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. for apart from me ye can do nothing. abide in my love. if ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love (john : - ). . because such a perception of the divine exists in the heavens, to think of god as in a human form is implanted in every man who receives any influx from heaven. thus did the ancients think of him; and thus do the moderns think of him both outside of the church and within it. the simple see him in thought as the ancient one in shining light. but this insight has been extinguished in all those that by self-intelligence and by a life of evil have rejected influx from heaven. those that have extinguished it by self-intelligence prefer an invisible god; while those that have extinguished it by a life of evil prefer no god. neither of these are aware that such an insight exists, because they do not have it; and yet it is the divine heavenly itself that primarily flows into man out of heaven, because man is born for heaven, and no one without a conception of a divine can enter heaven. . for this reason he that has no conception of heaven, that is, no conception of the divine from which heaven is, cannot be raised up to the first threshold of heaven. as soon as such a one draws near to heaven a resistance and a strong repulsion are perceived; and for the reason that his interiors, which should be receptive of heaven, are closed up from their not being in the form of heaven, and the nearer he comes to heaven the more tightly are they closed up. such is the lot of those within the church who deny the lord, and of those who, like the socinians, deny his divinity. but the lot of those who are born out of the church, and who are ignorant of the lord because they do not have the word, will be described hereafter. . that the men of old time had an idea of the divine as human is evident from the manifestation of the divine to abraham, lot, joshua, gideon, manoah and his wife, and others. these saw god as a man, but nevertheless adored him as the god of the universe, calling him the god of heaven and earth, and jehovah. that it was the lord who was seen by abraham he himself teaches in john ( : ); and that it was he who was seen by the rest is evident from his words: no one hath seen the father, nor heard his voice, nor seen his form (john : ; : ). . but that god is man can scarcely be comprehended by those who judge all things from the sense-conceptions of the external man, for the sensual man must needs think of the divine from the world and what is therein, and thus of a divine and spiritual man in the same way as of a corporeal and natural man. from this he concludes that if god were a man he would be as large as the universe; and if he ruled heaven and earth it would be done through many others, after the manner of kings in the world. if told that in heaven there is no extension of space as in the world, he would not in the least comprehend it. for he that thinks only from nature and its light must needs think in accord with such extension as appears before his eyes. but it is the greatest mistake to think in this way about heaven. extension there is not like extension in the world. in the world extension is determinate, and thus measurable; but in heaven it is not determinate, and thus not measurable. but extension in heaven will be further treated of hereafter in connection with space and time in the spiritual world. furthermore, everyone knows how far the sight of the eye extends, namely, to the sun and to the stars, which are so remote; and whoever thinks deeply knows that the internal sight, which is of thought, has a still wider extension, and that a yet more interior sight must extend more widely still. what then must be said of divine sight, which is the inmost and highest of all? because thoughts have such extension, all things of heaven are shared with everyone there, so, too, are all things of the divine which makes heaven and fills it, as has been shown in the preceding chapters. . those in heaven wonder that men can believe themselves to be intelligent who, in thinking of god, think about something invisible, that is, inconceivable under any form; and that they can call those who think differently unintelligent and simple, when the reverse is the truth. they add, "let those who thus believe themselves to be intelligent examine themselves, whether they do not look upon nature as god, some the nature that is before their eyes, others the invisible side of nature; and whether they are not so blind as not to know what god is, what an angel is, what a spirit is, what their soul is which is to live after death, what the life of heaven in man is, and many other things that constitute intelligence; when yet those whom they call simple know all these things in their way, having an idea of their god that he is the divine in a human form, of an angel that he is a heavenly man, of their soul that is to live after death that it is like an angel, and of the life of heaven in man that it is living in accord with the divine commandments." such the angels call intelligent and fitted for heaven; but the others, on the other hand, they call not intelligent. extracts from the arcana coelestia relating to the lord and his divine human. [ ] the divine was in the lord from very conception (n. , , , , , ). the lord alone had a divine seed (n. ). his soul was jehovah (n. , , , , ). thus the lord's inmost was the divine itself, while the clothing was from the mother (n. ). the divine itself was the being [esse] of the lord's life, and from this the human afterwards went forth and became the outgo [existere] from that being [esse] (n. , , , ). [ ] within the church where the word is and by it the lord is known, the lord's divine ought not to be denied, nor the holy that goes forth from him (n. ). those within the church who do not acknowledge the lord have no conjunction with the divine; but it is otherwise with those outside of the church (n. ). the essential of the church is to acknowledge the lord's divine and his union with the father (n. , , , , , - ). [ ] the glorification of the lord is treated of in the word in many passages (n. ). and in the internal sense of the word everywhere (n. , , ). the lord glorified his human, but not the divine, since this was glorified in itself (n. ). the lord came into the world to glorify his human (n. , , ). the lord glorified his human by means of the divine love that was in him from conception (n. ). the lord's life in the world was his love towards the whole human race (n. ). the lord's love transcends all human understanding (n. ). the lord saved the human race by glorifying his human (n. , ; , , ). otherwise the whole human race would have perished in eternal death (n. ). the state of the lord's glorification and humiliation (n. , , , ). glorification in respect to the lord is the uniting of his human with the divine; and to glorify is to make divine (n. , , ). when the lord glorified his human he put off everything human that was from the mother, until at last he was not her son (n. , , , , ). [ ] the son of god from eternity was the divine truth in heaven (n. , , , , ). when the lord was in the world he made his human divine truth from the divine good that was in him (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). the lord then arranged all things in himself into a heavenly form, which is in accord with divine truth (n. , ). for this reason the lord was called the word, which is divine truth (n. , , , , , ). the lord alone had perception and thought from himself, and this was above all angelic perception and thought (n. , , ). the divine truth which was himself, the lord united with divine good which was in himself (n. , , ). the union was reciprocal (n. , ). [ ] in passing out of the world the lord also made his human divine good (n. , , , , , , ). this is what is meant by his coming forth from the father and returning to the father (n. , ). thus he became one with the father (n. , , ). since that union divine truth goes forth from the lord (n. , , , , , , , , , ). how divine truth goes forth, illustrated (n. , ). it was from his own power that the lord united the human with the divine (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). from this it is clear that the lord's human was not like the human of any other man, in that it was conceived from the divine itself (n. , , ). his union with the father, from whom was his soul, was not as between two persons, but as between soul and body (n. , ). [ ] the most ancient people could not worship the divine being [esse], but could worship only the divine outgo [existere], which is the divine human; therefore the lord came into the world in order to become the divine existere from the divine esse (n. , ). the ancients acknowledged the divine because he appeared to them in a human form, and this was the divine human (n. , , , ). the infinite being [esse] could flow into heaven with the angels and with men only by means of the divine human (n. , , , ). in heaven no other divine than the divine human is perceived (n. , , , ). the divine human from eternity was the divine truth in heaven and the divine passing through heaven; thus it was the divine outgo [existere] which afterwards in the lord became the divine being [esse] per se, from which is the divine existere in heaven (n. , , , ). what the state of heaven was before the lord's coming (n. - ). the divine was not perceptible except when it passed through heaven (n. , , ). [ ] the inhabitants of all the earth worship the divine under a human form, that is, the lord (n. , - , - ). they rejoice when they hear that god actually became man (n. ). all who are in good and who worship the divine under the human form, are received by the lord (n. ). god cannot be thought of except in human form; and what is incomprehensible does not fall into any idea, so neither into belief (n. , ). man is able to worship that of which he has some idea, but not that of which he has no idea (n. , , , , , , ). therefore the divine is worshiped under a human form by most of the inhabitants of the entire globe, and this is the effect of influx from heaven (n. ). all who are in good in regard to their life, when they think of the lord, think of the divine human, and not of the human separate from the divine; it is otherwise with those who are not in good in regard to their life (n. , , , , , , ). in the church at this day those that are in evil in regard to their life, and those that are in faith separate from charity, think of the human of the lord apart from the divine, and do not even comprehend what the divine human is,-why they do not (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). the lord's human is divine because it is from the being [esse] of the father, and this was his soul,--illustrated by a father's likeness in children (n. , , ). also because it was from the divine love, which was the very being [esse] of his life from conception (n. ). every man is such as his love is, and is his love (n. , , ). the lord made all his human, both internal and external, divine (n. , , , , , ). therefore, differently from any man, he rose again as to his whole body (n. , , , ). [ ] that the lord's human is divine is acknowledged from his omnipresence in the holy supper (n. , ). also from his transfiguration before his three disciples (n. ). also from the word of the old testament, in that he is called god (n. ); and is called jehovah (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). in the sense of the letter a distinction is made between the father and the son, that is, between jehovah and the lord, but not in the internal sense of the word, in which the angels of heaven are (n. ). in the christian world the lord's human has been declared not to be divine; this was done in a council for the pope's sake, that he might be acknowledged as the lord's vicar (n. ). [ ] christians were examined in the other life in regard to their idea of one god, and it was found they held an idea of three gods (n. , , - , ). a divine trinity or trine in one person, constituting one god, is conceivable, but not in three persons (n. , , ). a divine trine in the lord is acknowledged in heaven (n. , , , , , ). the trine in the lord is the divine itself, called the father, the divine human, called the son, and the divine going forth, called the holy spirit and this divine trine is a one (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). the lord himself teaches that the father and he are one (n. , , , , , , , , ); also that the holy divine goes forth from him and is his (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). [ ] the divine human flows into heaven and makes heaven (n. ). the lord is the all in heaven and is the life of heaven (n. , ). in the angels the lord dwells in what is his own (n. , , , ). consequently those who are in heaven are in the lord (n. , ). the lord's conjunction with angels is measured by their reception of the good of love and charity from him (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). the entire heaven has reference to the lord (n. , ). the lord is the common center of heaven (n. , ). all in heaven turn themselves to the lord, who is above the heavens (n. , , ). nevertheless angels do not turn themselves to the lord, but the lord turns them to himself (n. ). it is not a presence of angels with the lord, but the lord's presence with angels (n. ). in heaven there is no conjunction with the divine itself, but conjunction with the divine human (n. , , ). [ ] heaven corresponds to the divine human of the lord; consequently heaven in general is as a single man, and for this reason heaven is called the greatest man (n. , , - , - , ). the lord is the only man, and those only are men who receive the divine from him (n. ). so far as they receive are they men and images of him (n. ). therefore angels are forms of love and charity in human form, and this from the lord (n. , , , , , , , ). [ ] the whole heaven is the lord's (n. , ). he has all power in the heavens and on earth (n. , , ). as the lord rules the whole heaven he also rules all things depending thereon, thus all things in the world (n. , , , ). the lord alone has the power to remove the hells, to withhold from evils, and to hold in good, thus to save (n. ). . xii. there is a correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man. what correspondence is is not known at the present day, for several reasons, the chief of which is that man has withdrawn himself from heaven by the love of self and love of the world. for he that loves self and the world above all things gives heed only to worldly things, since these appeal to the external senses and gratify the natural longings; and he does not give heed to spiritual things, since these appeal to the internal senses and gratify the mind, therefore he casts them aside, saying that they are too high for his comprehension. this was not so with the ancient people. to them the knowledge of correspondences was the chief of knowledges. by means of it they acquired intelligence and wisdom; and by means of it those who were of the church had communication with heaven; for the knowledge of correspondences is angelic knowledge. the most ancient people, who were celestial men, thought from correspondence itself, as the angels do. and therefore they talked with angels, and the lord frequently appeared to them, and they were taught by him. but at this day that knowledge has been so completely lost that no one knows what correspondence is.{ } {footnote } how far the knowledge of correspondences excels other knowledges (n. ). the knowledge of correspondences was the chief knowledge of the ancient people; but at the present day it is wholly forgotten (n. , , , , , , , , , ). the knowledge of correspondences flourished among the eastern nations and in egypt ( , , , , , ). . since, then, without a perception of what correspondence is there can be no clear knowledge of the spiritual world or of its inflow into the natural world, neither of what the spiritual is in its relation to the natural, nor any clear knowledge of the spirit of man, which is called the soul, and its operation into the body, neither of man's state after death, it is necessary to explain what correspondence is and the nature of it. this will prepare the way for what is to follow. . first, what correspondence is. the whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world, and not merely the natural world in general, but also every particular of it; and as a consequence everything in the natural world that springs from the spiritual world is called a correspondent. it must be understood that the natural world springs from and has permanent existence from the spiritual world, precisely like an effect from its effecting cause. all that is spread out under the sun and that receives heat and light from the sun is what is called the natural world; and all things that derive their subsistence therefrom belong to that world. but the spiritual world is heaven; and all things in the heavens belong to that world. . since man is both a heaven and a world in least form after the image of the greatest (see above, n. ), there is in him both a spiritual and a natural world. the interior things that belong to his mind, and that have relation to understanding and will, constitute his spiritual world; while the exterior things that belong to his body, and that have relation to its senses and activities, constitute his natural world. consequently, everything in his natural world (that is, in his body and its senses and activities), that has its existence from his spiritual world (that is, from his mind and its understanding and will) is called a correspondent. . from the human face it can be seen what correspondence is. in a face that has not been taught to dissemble, all the affections of the mind present themselves to view in a natural form, as in their type. this is why the face is called the index of the mind; that is, it is man's spiritual world presented in his natural world. so, too, what pertains to the understanding is presented in speech, and what pertains to the will is presented in the movements of the body. so whatever effects are produced in the body, whether in the face, in speech, or in bodily movements, are called correspondences. . all this shows also what the internal man is and what the external, namely, that the internal is what is called the spiritual man, and the external what is called the natural man; also that the one is distinct from the other as heaven is from the world; also that all things that take place and come forth in the external or natural man take place and come forth from the internal or spiritual man. . this much has been said about the correspondence of man's internal or spiritual with his external or natural; now the correspondence of the whole heaven with everything pertaining to man shall be treated of. . it has been shown that the entire heaven reflects a single man, and that it is in image a man and is therefore called the greatest man. it has also been shown that the angelic societies, of which heaven consists, are therefore arranged as the members, organs, and viscera are in man, that is, some are in the head, some in the breast, some in the arms, and some in each of their particulars (see above, n. - ); consequently the societies in any member there correspond to the like member in man; those in the head corresponding to the head in man, those in the breast to the breast in man, those in the arms to the arms in man; and so with all the rest. it is from this correspondence that man has permanent existence, for from heaven alone does man have permanent existence. . that heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom, may be seen above in its own chapter. the celestial kingdom corresponds in general to the heart and all things of the heart in the whole body, and the spiritual kingdom to the lungs and to all things of the lungs in the whole body. likewise in man heart and lungs form two kingdoms, the heart ruling there through the arteries and veins, and the lungs through the tendinous and motor fibers, both together in every exertion and movement. so in every man, in his spiritual world, which is called his spiritual man, there are two kingdoms, one of the will and the other of the understanding, the will ruling through affections for good, and the understanding through affections for truth; and these kingdoms correspond to the kingdoms of the heart and of the lungs in the body. it is the same in the heavens; the celestial kingdom is the voluntary part of heaven, and in it good of love reigns; the spiritual kingdom is the intellectual part of heaven, and in it truth reigns. these are what correspond to the functions of the heart and lungs in man. it is on account of this correspondence that in the word the "heart" signifies the will and also good of love, and the "breath" of the lungs signifies the understanding and the truth of faith. for the same reason affections are ascribed to the heart, although they are neither in it nor from it.{ } {footnote } the correspondence of the heart and lungs with the greatest man, which is heaven, from experience (n. - ), the heart corresponds to those in the celestial kingdom, and the lungs to those in the spiritual kingdom (n. - ). there is in heaven a pulse like that of the heart, and a respiration like that of the lungs but interior (n. , , ). there the pulse of the heart varies in conformity to states of love, and the respiration in conformity to states of charity and faith (n. , , ). in the word the "heart" means the will, and "from the heart" means from the will (n. , , , , ). in the word the "heart" also signifies love, and "from the heart" means from love ( , , ). . the correspondence of the two kingdoms of heaven with the heart and lungs is the general correspondence of heaven with man. there is a less general correspondence with each one of his members, organs, and viscera; and what this is shall also be explained. in the greatest man, which is heaven, those that are in the head excel all others in every good, being in love, peace, innocence, wisdom, intelligence, and consequent joy and happiness. these flow into the head of man and the things belonging to the head and corresponding thereto. in the greatest man, or heaven, those that are in the breast are in the good of charity and of faith, and these flow into the breast of man and correspond to it. in the greatest man, or heaven, those that are in the loins and the organs devoted to generation are in marriage love. those in the feet are in the lowest good of heaven, which is called spiritual natural good. those in the arms and hands are in the power of truth from good. those that are in the eyes are in understanding; those in the ears are in attention and obedience; those in the nostrils are in perception; those in the mouth and tongue are in the ability to converse from understanding and perception; those in the kidneys are in truths searching, separating, and correcting; those in the liver, pancreas, and spleen are in various purifications of good and truth; and so with the rest. all these flow into the like things of man and correspond to them. this inflow of heaven is into the functions and uses of the bodily members; and the uses, since they are from the spiritual world, take on a form by means of such things as are in the natural world, and thus present themselves in effect. from this is the correspondence. . for the same reason these same members, organs, and viscera have a like significance in the word; for everything there has a meaning in accordance with correspondence. thus the "head" signifies intelligence and wisdom; the "breast" charity; the "loins" marriage love; the "arms and hands" power of truth; the "feet" what is natural; the "eyes" understanding; the "nostrils" perception; the "ears" obedience, the "kidneys" the scrutiny of truth, and so on.{ } so, too, in the common speech of man it is said of one who is intelligent and wise that he has a good head; of one who is charitable that he is a bosom friend; of one who has clear perception that he is keen scented; of one who is intelligent that he is sharp sighted; of one who is powerful that he is long handed; of one who exercises his will from love that it is done from the heart. these and many other expressions in the speech of men are from correspondence, for they are from the spiritual world, although man is ignorant of it. {footnote } in the word the "breast" signifies charity (n. , , ). the "loins" and organs of generation signify marriage love (n. , , , - ). the "arms" and "hands" signify the power of truth (n. , , - , , , ). the "feet" signify the natural (n. , , , , , - ). the "eye" signifies understanding (n. , - , - , , , ). the "nostrils" signify perception (n. , , , , , , , ). the "ears" signify obedience (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). the "kidneys" signify the scrutiny and correction of truth (n. - , ). . that there is such a correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man has been made clear to me by much experience, by so much that i am as convinced of it as of any evident fact that admits of no doubt. but it is not necessary to describe all this experience here; nor would it be permissible on account of its abundance. it may be seen set forth in the arcana coelestia, where correspondences, representations, the influx of the spiritual world into the natural world, and the interaction between soul and body, are treated of.{ } {footnote } the correspondence of all the members of the body with the greatest man, or heaven, in general and in particular, from experience (n. , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , ). the influx of the spiritual world into the natural world or of heaven into the world, and the influx of the soul into all things of the body, from experience (n. - , - , - , - , - ). the interaction between soul and body, from experience (n. - , - , - , - , - ). . but notwithstanding that all things of man's body correspond to all things of heaven, it is not in respect to his external form that man is an image of heaven, but in respect to his internal form; for man's interiors are what receive heaven, while his exteriors receive the world. so far, therefore, as his interiors receive heaven man is in respect to them a heaven in least form, after the image of the greatest. but so far as his interiors do not receive heaven he is not a heaven and an image of the greatest, although his exteriors, which receive the world, may be in a form in accordance with the order of the world, and thus variously beautiful. for the source of outward beauty which pertains to the body is in parents and formation in the womb, and it is preserved afterwards by general influx from the world. for this reason the form of one's natural man differs greatly from the form of his spiritual man. what the form of a man's spirit is i have been shown occasionally; and in some who were beautiful and charming in appearance the spirit was seen to be so deformed, black and monstrous that it might be called an image of hell, not of heaven; while in others not beautiful there was a spirit beautifully formed, pure, and angelic. moreover, the spirit of man appears after death such as it has been in the body while it lived therein in the world. . but correspondence applies far more widely than to man; for there is a correspondence of the heavens with one another. to the third or inmost heaven the second or middle heaven corresponds, and to the second or middle heaven the first or outmost heaven corresponds, and this corresponds to the bodily forms in man called his members, organs, and viscera. thus it is the bodily part of man in which heaven finally terminates, and upon which it stands as upon its base. but this arcanum will be more fully unfolded elsewhere. . especially it must be understood that all correspondence with heaven is with the lord's divine human, because heaven is from him, and he is heaven, as has been shown in previous chapters. for if the divine human did not flow into all things of heaven, and in accordance with correspondences into all things of the world, no angel or man could exist. from this again it is evident why the lord became man and clothed his divine from first to last with a human. it was because the divine human, from which heaven existed before the lord's coming, was no longer sufficient to sustain all things, for the reason that man, who is the foundation of the heavens, had subverted and destroyed order. what the divine human was before the lord's coming, and what the condition of heaven was at that time may be seen in the extracts appended to the preceding chapter. . angels are amazed when they hear that there are men who attribute all things to nature and nothing to the divine, and who also believe that their body, into which so many wonders of heaven are gathered, is a product of nature. still more are they amazed that the rational part of man is believed to be from nature, when, if men will but lift their minds a little, they can see that such effects are not from nature but from the divine; and that nature has been created simply for clothing the spiritual and for presenting it in a correspondent form in the outmost of order. such men they liken to owls, which see in darkness, but in light see nothing. . xiii. there is a correspondence of heaven with all things of the earth. what correspondence is has been told in the preceding chapter, and it has there been shown that each thing and all things of the animal body are correspondences. the next step is to show that all things of the earth, and in general all things of the universe, are correspondences. . all things of the earth are distinguished into three kinds, called kingdoms, namely, the animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. the things of the animal kingdom are correspondences in the first degree, because they live; the things of the vegetable kingdom are correspondences in the second degree, because they merely grow; the things of the mineral kingdom are correspondences in the third degree, because they neither live nor grow. correspondences in the animal kingdom are living creatures of various kinds, both those that walk and creep on the ground and those that fly in the air; these need not be specially named, as they are well known. correspondences in the vegetable kingdom are all things that grow and abound in gardens, forests, fields, and meadows; these, too, need not be named, because they are well known. correspondences in the mineral kingdom are metals more and less noble, stones precious and not precious, earths of various kinds, and also the waters. besides these the things prepared from them by human activity for use are correspondences, as foods of every kind, clothing, dwellings and other buildings, with many other things. . also the things above the earth, as the sun, moon, and stars, and those in the atmosphere, as clouds, mists, rain, lightning and thunder, are likewise correspondences. things resulting from the presence and absence of the sun, as light and shade, heat and cold, are also correspondences, as well as those that follow in succession therefrom, as the seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and the times of day, morning, noon, evening, and night. . in a word, all things that have existence in nature, from the least to the greatest thereof, are correspondences.{ } they are correspondences because the natural world with all things in it springs forth and subsists from the spiritual world, and both worlds from the divine. they are said to subsist also, because everything subsists from that from which it springs forth, subsistence being a permanent springing forth; also because nothing can subsist from itself, but only from that which is prior to itself, thus from a first, and if separated from that it would utterly perish and vanish. {footnote } all things that are in the world and its three kingdoms correspond to the heavenly things that are in heaven, that is, the things in the natural world correspond to the things in the spiritual world (n. , , , - , - , - , , - , , , , , , , , , , ). by correspondences the natural world is conjoined to the spiritual world (n. ). for this reason all nature is a theatre representative of the lord's kingdom (n. , , , , , , , ). . everything in nature that springs forth and subsists in accordance with divine order is a correspondence. divine order is caused by the divine good that flows forth from the lord. it begins in him, goes forth from him through the heavens in succession into the world, and is terminated there in outmosts; and everything there that is in accordance with order is a correspondence. everything there is in accordance with order that is good and perfect for use, because everything good is good in the measure of its use; while its form has relation to truth, truth being the form of good. and for this reason everything in the whole world and of the nature thereof that is in divine order has reference to good and truth.{ } {footnote } everything in the universe, both in heaven and in the world, that is in accordance with order, has reference to good and truth (n. , , , , , , ); and to the conjunction of these, in order to be anything (n. ). . that all things in the world spring from the divine, and are clothed with such things in nature as enable them to exist there and perform use, and thus to correspond, is clearly evident from the various things seen in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. in both there are things that any one who thinks interiorly can see to be from heaven. for illustration a few things out of a countless number may be mentioned; and first some things from the animal kingdom. many are aware what knowledge there is engrafted as it were in every animal. bees know how to gather honey from flowers, to build cells out of wax in which to store their honey, and thus provide food for themselves and their families, even for a coming winter. that a new generation may be born their queen lays eggs, and the rest take care of them and cover them. they live under a sort of government which all know by instinct. they preserve the working bees and cast out the drones, depriving them of their wings; besides other wonderful things implanted in them from heaven for the sake of their use, their wax everywhere serving the human race for candles, their honey for adding sweetness to food. [ ] again, what wonders do we see in worms, the meanest creatures in the animal kingdom! they know how to get food from the juice of the leaves suited to them, and afterward at the appointed time to invest themselves with a covering and enter as it were into a womb, and thus hatch offspring of their own kind. some are first turned into nymphs and chrysalides, spinning threads about themselves; and this travail being over they come forth clad with a different body, furnished with wings with which they fly in the air as in their heaven, and celebrate marriages and lay eggs and provide posterity for themselves. [ ] besides these special instances all creatures in general that fly in the air know the proper food for their nourishment, not only what it is but where to find it; they know how to build nests for themselves, one kind in one way and another kind in another way; how to lay their eggs in the nests, how to sit upon them, how to hatch their young and feed them, and to turn them out of their home when they are able to shift for themselves. they know, too, their enemies that they must avoid and their friends with whom they may associate, and this from early infancy; not to mention the wonders in the eggs themselves, in which all things lie ready in their order for the formation and nourishment of the chicks; besides numberless other things. [ ] who that thinks from any wisdom of reason will ever say that these instincts are from any other source than the spiritual world, which the natural serves in clothing what is from it with a body, or in presenting in effect what is spiritual in the cause? the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air are born into all this knowledge, while man, who is far superior to them, is not; for the reason that animals are in the order of their life, and have not been able to destroy what is in them from the spiritual world, because they have no rational faculty. man, on the other hand, whose thought is from the spiritual world, having perverted what is in him from that world by a life contrary to order, which his rational faculty has favored, must needs be born into mere ignorance and afterwards be led back by divine means into the order of heaven. . how the things in the vegetable kingdom correspond can be seen from many instances, as that little seeds grow into trees, put forth leaves, produce flowers, and then fruit, in which again they deposit seed, these things taking place in succession and existing together in an order so wonderful as to be indescribable in a few words. volumes might be filled, and yet there would be still deeper arcana, relating more closely to their uses, which science would be unable to exhaust. since these things, too, are from the spiritual world, that is, from heaven, which is in the human form (as has been shown above in its own chapter), so all the particulars in this kingdom have a certain relation to such things as are in man, as some in the learned world know. that all things in this kingdom also are correspondences has been made clear to me by much experience. often when i have been in gardens and have been looking at the trees, fruits, flowers, and plants there, i have recognized their correspondences in heaven, and have spoken with those with whom these were, and have been taught whence and what they were. . but at the present day no one can know the spiritual things in heaven to which the natural things in the world correspond except from heaven, since the knowledge of correspondences is now wholly lost. but the nature of the correspondence of spiritual things with natural i shall be glad to illustrate by some examples. the animals of the earth correspond in general to affection, mild and useful animals to good affections, fierce and useless ones to evil affections. in particular, cattle and their young correspond to the affections of the natural mind, sheep and lambs to the affections of the spiritual mind; while birds correspond, according to their species, to the intellectual things of the natural or the spiritual mind.{ } for this reason various animals, as cattle and their young, rams, sheep, he-goats, and she-goats, he-lambs and she-lambs, also pigeons and turtledoves, were devoted to a sacred use in the israelitish church, which was a representative church, and sacrifices and burnt offerings were made of them. for they correspond in that use to spiritual things, and in heaven these were understood in accordance with the correspondences. moreover, animals according to their kinds and species, because they have life, are affections; and the life of each one is solely from affection and in accordance with affection; consequently every animal has an innate knowledge that is in accord with its life's affection. man is like an animal so far as his natural man is concerned, and is therefore likened to animals in common speech; for example, if he is gentle he is called a sheep or lamb, if fierce a bear or wolf, if cunning a fox or serpent, and so on. {footnote } from correspondence animals signify affections; mild and useful animals good affections, fierce and useless ones evil affections (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , ); illustrated by experience from the spiritual world (n. , , ). influx of the spiritual world into the lives of animals (n. , ). cattle and their young from correspondence signify affections of the natural mind (n. , , , , ). what sheep signify (n. , ); and lambs (n. , ). flying creatures signify intellectual things (n. , , , , , , , , ); with a difference according to their genera and species, from experience in the spiritual world (n. ). . there is a like correspondence with things in the vegetable kingdom. in general, a garden corresponds to the intelligence and wisdom of heaven; and for this reason heaven is called the garden of god, and paradise;{ } and men call it the heavenly paradise. trees, according to their species, correspond to the perceptions and knowledges of good and truth which are the source of intelligence and wisdom. for this reason the ancient people, who were acquainted with correspondences, held their sacred worship in groves;{ } and for the same reason trees are so often mentioned in the word, and heaven, the church, and man are compared to them; as the vine, the olive, the cedar, and others, and the good works done by men are compared to fruits. also the food derived from trees, and more especially from the grain harvests of the field, corresponds to affections for good and truth, because these affections feed the spiritual life, as the food of the earth does the natural life;{ } and bread from grain, in a general sense, because it is the food that specially sustains life, and because it stands for all food, corresponds to an affection for all good. it is on account of this correspondence that the lord calls himself the bread of life; and that loaves of bread had a holy use in the israelitish church, being placed on the table in the tabernacle and called "the bread of faces;" also the divine worship that was performed by sacrifices and burnt offerings was called "bread." moreover, because of this correspondence the most holy act of worship in the christian church is the holy supper, in which bread is given, and wine.{ } from these few examples the nature of correspondence can be seen. {footnote } from correspondence a garden and a paradise signify intelligence and wisdom (n. , ); from experience (n. ). all things that have a correspondence have in the word the same significance (n. , , , , , , ). {footnote } trees signify perceptions and knowledges (n. , , , , , ). for this reason the ancient people held divine worship in groves under trees according to their correspondence (n. , ). influx of heaven into subjects of the vegetable kingdom, as into trees and plants (n. ). {footnote } from correspondence foods signify such things as nourish the spiritual life (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } bread signifies every good that nourishes the spiritual life of man (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). such was the signification of the loaves that were on the table in the tabernacle (n. , ). sacrifices in general were called bread (n. ). bread includes all food (n. ). thus it signifies all heavenly and spiritual food (n. , , , , , , ). . how conjunction of heaven with the world is effected by means of correspondences shall also be told in a few words. the lord's kingdom is a kingdom of ends, which are uses; or what is the same thing, a kingdom of uses which are ends. for this reason the universe has been so created and formed by the divine that uses may be every where clothed in such a way as to be presented in act, or in effect, first in heaven and afterwards in the world, thus by degrees and successively, down to the outmost things of nature. evidently, then, the correspondence of natural things with spiritual things, or of the world with heaven, is through uses, and uses are what conjoin; and the form in which uses are clothed are correspondences and are conjunctions just to the extent that they are forms of uses. in the nature of the world in its threefold kingdom, all things that exist in accordance with order are forms of uses, or effects formed from use for use, and this is why the things in nature are correspondences. but in the case of man, so far as he is in accordance with divine order, that is, so far as he is in love to the lord and in charity towards the neighbor, are his acts uses in form, and correspondences, and through these he is conjoined to heaven. to love the lord and the neighbor means in general to perform uses.{ } furthermore, it must be understood that man is the means by which the natural world and the spiritual world are conjoined, that is, man is the medium of conjunction, because in him there is a natural world and there is a spiritual world (see above, n. ); consequently to the extent that man is spiritual he is the medium of conjunction; but to the extent that a man is natural, and not spiritual, he is not a medium of conjunction. nevertheless, apart from this mediumship of man, a divine influx into the world and into the things pertaining to man that are of the world goes on, but not into man's rational faculty. {footnote } every good has its delight as well as its quality from use and in accordance with use; therefore such as the use is, such is the good (n. , , ). angelic life consists in the goods of love and charity, that is, in performing uses (n. ). the lord, and consequently the angels, look only, in regard to man, to ends, which are uses (n. , , ). the lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses that is, of ends (n. , , , , , ). serving the lord is performing uses (n. ). each thing and all things in man have been formed for use (n. , , ; also from use, that is, the use is prior to the organic forms in man through which the use is performed, because use is from the inflowing of the lord through heaven (n. , ). moreover man's interiors, which constitute his mind, when he grows to maturity are formed from use and for use (n. , , ). consequently man is such as are the uses with him (n. , , , , , , ). uses are the ends for the sake of which (n. , , , ). use is the first and the last, thus the all of man (n. ). . as all things that are in accord with divine order correspond to heaven, so all things contrary to divine order correspond to hell. all things that correspond to heaven have relation to good and truth; but those that correspond to hell have relation to evil and falsity. . something shall now be said about the knowledge of correspondences and its use. it has been said above that the spiritual world, which is heaven, is conjoined with the natural world by means of correspondences; therefore by means of correspondences communication with heaven is granted to man. for the angels of heaven do not think from natural things, as man does; but when man has acquired a knowledge of correspondences he is able, in respect to the thoughts of his mind, to be associated with the angels, and thus in respect to his spiritual or internal man to be conjoined with them. that there might be such a conjunction of heaven with man the word was written wholly by correspondences, each thing and all things in it being correspondent.{ } if man, therefore, had a knowledge of correspondences he would understand the spiritual sense of the word, and from that it would be given him to know arcana of which he sees nothing in the sense of the letter. for there is a literal sense and there is a spiritual sense in the word, the literal sense made up of such things as are in the world, and the spiritual sense of such things as are in heaven. and such a word, in which everything down to the least jot is a correspondence, was given to men because the conjunction of heaven with the world is effected by means of correspondences.{ } {footnote } the word was written wholly by correspondences (n. ). by means, of the word man has conjunction with heaven (n. , , , , , , ). {footnote } concerning the spiritual sense of the word see the little work on the white horse referred to in the apocalypse. . i have been taught from heaven that the most ancient men on our earth, who were celestial men, thought from correspondences themselves, the natural things of the world before their eyes serving them as means of thinking in this way; and that they could be in fellowship with angels and talk with them because they so thought, and that thus through them heaven was conjoined to the world. for this reason that period was called the golden age, of which it is said by ancient writers that the inhabitants of heaven dwelt with men and associated with them as friends with friends. but after this there followed a period when men thought, not from correspondences themselves, but from a knowledge of correspondences, and there was then also a conjunction of heaven with man, but less intimate. this period was called the silver age. after this there followed men who had a knowledge of correspondences but did not think from that knowledge, because they were in natural good, and not, like those before them in spiritual good. this period was called the copper age. after this man gradually became external, and finally corporeal, and then the knowledge of correspondences was wholly lost, and with it a knowledge of heaven and of the many things pertaining to heaven. it was from correspondence that these ages were named from gold, silver, and copper,{ } and for the reason that from correspondence gold signifies celestial good in which were the most ancient people, silver spiritual good in which were the ancient people that followed, and copper natural good in which were the next posterity; while iron, from which the last age takes its name, signifies hard truth apart from good. {footnote } gold from correspondence signifies celestial good (n. , , , , , , , , ). silver signifies spiritual good, that is, truth from a celestial origin (n. , , , ). copper signifies natural good (n. , ). iron signifies truth in the outmost of order (n. , ). . xiv. the sun in heaven. in heaven neither the sun of the world, nor anything from that sun, is seen, because it is wholly natural. for nature has its beginning from that sun, and whatever is produced by means of it is called natural. but the spiritual, to which heaven belongs, is above nature and wholly distinct from what is natural; and there is no communication between the two except by correspondences. what the distinction between them is may be understood from what has been already said about degrees (n. ), and what the communication is from what has been said in the two preceding chapters about correspondences. . although the sun of the world is not seen in heaven, nor anything from that sun, there is nevertheless a sun there, and light and heat, and all things that are in the world, with innumerable others, but not from a like origin; since the things in heaven are spiritual, and those in the world are natural. the sun of heaven is the lord; the light there is the divine truth and the heat the divine good that go forth from the lord as a sun. from this origin are all things that spring forth and are seen in the heavens. this light and heat and things existing therefrom in heaven will be treated of in the following chapters; in this chapter we will speak only of the sun there. in heaven the lord is seen as a sun, for the reason that he is divine love, from which all spiritual things, and by means of the sun of the world all natural things, have their existence. that love is what shines as a sun. . that the lord is actually seen in heaven as a sun i have not only been told by angels, but it has occasionally been granted me to see it; and therefore what i have heard and seen respecting the lord as a sun i shall be glad to tell in a few words. the lord is seen as a sun, not in heaven, but high above the heavens; and not directly overhead or in the zenith, but before the faces of the angels at a middle height. he is seen at a considerable distance, in two places, one before the right eye and the other before the left eye. before the right eye he is seen exactly like a sun, as it were, with a glow and size like that of the sun of the world. but before the left eye he is not seen as a sun, but as a moon, glowing white like the moon of our earth, and of like size, but more brilliant, and surrounded with many little moons, as it were, each of them of similar whiteness and splendor. the lord is seen so differently in two places because every person sees the lord in accordance with the quality of his reception of the lord, thus he is seen in one way by those that receive him with the good of love, and in another by those that receive him with the good of faith. those that receive him with the good of love see him as a sun, fiery and flaming, in accordance with their reception of him; these are in his celestial kingdom; while those that receive him with the good of faith see him as a moon, white and brilliant in accordance with their reception of him, and these are in his spiritual kingdom.{ } this is so because good of love corresponds to fire; therefore in the spiritual sense fire is love; and the good of faith corresponds to light, and in the spiritual sense light is faith.{ } and the lord appears before the eyes because the interiors, which belong to the mind, see through the eyes, from good of love through the right eye, and from good of faith through the left eye;{ } since with angels and also with men all things at the right correspond to good from which truth is derived, and all at the left to truth that is from good.{ } good of faith is in its essence truth from good. {footnote } the lord is seen in heaven as a sun, and is the sun of heaven (n. , , , ). the lord is seen as a sun by those who are in his celestial kingdom, where love to him reigns, and as a moon by those who are in his spiritual kingdom, where charity to the neighbor and faith reign (n. , - , , ). the lord is seen as a sun at a middle height before the right eye, and an a moon before the left eye (n. , , - , , , , , , , , , , ). the lord is seen as a sun and as a moon (n. , ). the lord's divine itself is far above his divine in heaven (n. , ). {footnote } "fire" in the word signifies love, both in a good sense and in a bad sense (n. , , ). holy or heavenly fire signifies the divine love (n. , , ). infernal fire signifies love of self and of the world and every lust of those loves (n. , , , , , ). love is the fire of life and life itself is really from it (n. , , , ). "light" signifies the truth of faith (n. , , , , , , , , , ). {footnote } the sight of the left eye corresponds to truths of faith, and the sight of the right eye to their goods (n. , ). {footnote } the things on man's right have relation to good from which is truth, and those on his left to truth from good (n. , ). . this is why in the word the lord in respect to love is likened to the sun, and in respect to faith to the moon; also that the "sun" signifies love from the lord to the lord, and the "moon" signifies faith from the lord in the lord, as in the following passages: the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days (isa. : ). and when i shall extinguish thee i will cover the heavens and make the stars thereof dark; i will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not make her light to shine. all luminaries of light in the heavens will i make dark over thee, and i will set darkness upon thy land (ezek. : , ). i will darken the sun in his going forth, and the moon shall not make her light to shine (isa. : ) the sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood (joel : , , ; : ). the sun became black as sackcloth and hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars fell unto the earth (apoc. : , ). immediately after the affliction of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven (matt. : ). and elsewhere. in these passages the "sun" signifies love, and the "moon" faith, and the "stars" knowledges of good and truth.{ } these are said to be darkened, to lose their light, and to fall from heaven, when they are no more. that the lord is seen as a sun in heaven is evident also from his appearance when transfigured before peter, james, and john, that his face did shine as the sun (matt. : ). these disciples thus saw the lord when they were withdrawn from the body, and were in the light of heaven. it was because of this correspondence that the ancient people, with whom was a representative church, turned the face to the sun in the east when they were in divine worship; and for the same reason they gave to their temples an eastern aspect. {footnote } "stars" and "constellations" in the word signify knowledges of good and truth (n. , , ). . how great the divine love is and what it is can be seen by comparison with the sun of the world, that it is most ardent, if you will believe it, much more ardent than that sun. for this reason the lord as a sun does not flow without mediums into the heavens, but the ardor of his love is gradually tempered on the way. these temperings appear as radiant belts about the sun; furthermore, the angels are veiled with a thin adapting cloud to prevent their being harmed by the influx.{ } for this reason the heavens are more or less near in accordance with reception. as the higher heavens are in good of love they are nearest to the lord as the sun; and as the lower heavens are in good of faith they are farther away from him. but those that are in no good, like those in hell, are farthest away, at different distances in accordance with their opposition to good.{ } {footnote } what the lord's divine love is, and how great it is, illustrated by comparison with the fire of this world's sun (n. , , ). the lord's divine love is love toward the whole human race to save it (n. , , , ). the love that first goes forth from the fire of the lord's love does not enter heaven, but is seen as radiant belts about the sun (n. ). the angels are veiled with a corresponding thin cloud, to prevent their being harmed by the glow of burning love (n. ). {footnote } the lord's presence with the angels is in proportion to their reception of good of love and faith from him (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). the lord appears to each one in accordance with what he is (n. , , , ). the hells are at a distance from the heavens because they cannot bear the presence of divine love from the lord (n. , , , , , , ). for this reason the hells are very far away from the heavens, and this is the "great gulf" (n. , ). . when, however, the lord appears in heaven, which often occurs, he does not appear encompassed with a sun, but in the form of an angel, yet distinguished from angels by the divine shining through from his face, since he is not there in person, for in person the lord is constantly encompassed by the sun, but he is present by look. for it is a common occurrence in heaven for persons to appear to be present in a place where their look is fixed or is terminated, even when this place is far away from where they really are. this presence is called the presence of internal sight, which will be treated of further on. i have also seen the lord out of the sun in an angelic form, at a height a little below the sun; also near by in a like form, with shining face, and once in the midst of angels as a flame-like radiance. . to the angels the sun of the world appears like a dense darkness opposite to the sun of heaven, and the moon like a darkness opposite to the moon of heaven, and this constantly; and for the reason that the world's fieriness corresponds to the love of self, and the light from it corresponds to what is false from that love; and the love of self is the direct opposite of the divine love; and what is false from that love is the direct opposite of the divine truth; and the opposite of the divine love and the divine truth is to the angels thick darkness. therefore, in the word, to worship the sun and moon of this world and bow down to them, signifies to love self and the falsities that spring from the love of self, and it is said that such would be cut off. (deut. : ; : - ; jer. : , ; ezek. : , , ; apoc. : ; matt. : ).{ } {footnote } the sun of the world is not seen by the angels, but in its place something dark behind, opposite to the sun of heaven or the lord (n. , ). in the opposite sense the sun signifies the love of self (n. ); and in this sense "to worship the sun" signifies to worship what is contrary to heavenly love or to the lord (n. , ). to those in the hells the sun of heaven is thick darkness (n. ). . as it is from the divine love that is in and from him that the lord appears in heaven like a sun, so all in the heavens are turned constantly to him those in the celestial kingdom to him as a sun and those in the spiritual kingdom to him as a moon. but those that are in hell turn themselves to an opposite darkness and dense darkness, that is, they turn backwards, away from the lord; and for the reason that all in the hells are in love of self and the world, thus antagonistic to the lord. those who turn themselves to the dense darkness that is in the place where this world's sun is are in the hells behind, and are called genii; while those that turn themselves to the darkness that is in the place of the moon are in the hells more in front, and are called spirits. this is why those in the hells are said to be in darkness, and those in the heavens in light, "darkness" signifying falsity from evil, and "light" truth from good. they so turn themselves because all in the other life look towards what rules in their interiors, thus to their loves; and with angels and spirits the interiors determine the face; and in the spiritual world quarters are not fixed, as in the natural world, but are determined by the face. in respect to his spirit man turns himself in like manner as a spirit does, backwards from the lord if he is in love of self and the world, and towards the lord if he is in love to the lord and the neighbor. but of this man is ignorant, because he is in the natural world where quarters are determined by the rising and setting of the sun. but as this cannot be easily comprehended by men it will be elucidated hereafter when quarters, space, and time in heaven are treated of. . because the lord is the sun of heaven and everything that is from him looks to him, he is also the common center, the source of all direction and determination.{ } so, too, all things beneath are in his presence and under his auspices, both in the heavens and on the earths. {footnote } the lord is the common center to which all things of heaven turn (n. , ). . from all this what has been said and shown in previous chapters about the lord may now be seen in clearer light, namely: that he is the god of heaven (n. - ). that it is his divine that makes heaven (n. - ). that the lord's divine in heaven is love to him and charity towards the neighbor (n. - ). that there is a correspondence of all things of the world with heaven, and through heaven with the lord (n. - ). also that the sun and moon of the world are correspondences (n. ). . xv. light and heat in heaven. that there is light in the heavens those who think from nature alone cannot comprehend; and yet such is the light in the heavens that it exceeds by many degrees the noon-day light of the world. that light i have often seen, even during the evening and night. at first i wondered when i heard the angels say that the light of this world is little more than a shadow in comparison with the light of heaven; but having seen it i can testify that it is so. the brightness and splendor of the light of heaven are such as cannot be described. all things that i have seen in the heavens have been seen in that light, thus more clearly and distinctly than things in this world. . the light of heaven is not a natural light, like the light of the world, but a spiritual light, because it is from the lord as a sun, and that sun is the divine love (as has been shown in the foregoing chapter). that which goes forth from the lord as a sun is called in the heavens divine truth, but in its essence it is divine good united to divine truth. from this the angels have light and heat, light from divine truth, and heat from divine good. as the light of heaven, and the heat also, are from such a source, it is evident that they are spiritual and not natural.{ } {footnote } all light in the heavens is from the lord as a sun (n. , , , , , , , , , ). the divine truth that goes forth from the lord appears in heaven as light, and furnishes all the light of heaven (n. , , , , , , , ). . the divine truth is light to the angels because the angels are spiritual and not natural. spiritual beings see from their sun, and natural beings from theirs. it is from divine truth that angels have understanding, and their understanding is their inner sight, which flows into and produces their outer sight; therefore in heaven whatever is seen from the lord as the sun is seen in light.{ } this being the source of light in heaven the light is varied there in accordance with the reception of divine truth from the lord; or what is the same, in accordance with the intelligence and wisdom in which the angels are, thus differently in the celestial kingdom and in the spiritual kingdom, and differently in each society. in the celestial kingdom the light appears flaming because the angels there receive light from the lord as a sun; but in the spiritual kingdom the light is shining white, because the angels there receive light from the lord as a moon (see above, n. ). so, too, the light differs in different societies, and again in each society, those that are at the center being in greater light and those in the circumference in less light (see n. ). in a word, the angels have light in the same degree in which they are recipients of divine truth, that is, are in intelligence and wisdom from the lord;{ } and this is why the angels of heaven are called angels of light. {footnote } the light of heaven illumines both the sight and the understanding of angels and spirits (n. , ). {footnote } the light in heaven is in harmony with the intelligence and wisdom of the angels (n. , , , ). differences of light in the heavens are as many as there are angelic societies; and as there are in the heavens endless varieties of good and truth, so are there of wisdom and intelligence (n. , , , , , , , , , ). . as the lord in the heavens is divine truth, and the divine truth there is light, so in the word he is called light, likewise all truth is from him, as in the following passages: jesus said, i am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (john : ). as long as i am in the world i am the light of the world (john : ). jesus said, yet a little while is the light with you. walk while ye have the light, lest darkness overtake you. while ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light. i have come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me may not abide in darkness (john : , , ). light has come into the world, but men have loved the darkness rather than the light (john : ). john says of the lord: this is the true light which lighteneth every man (john : ). the people that sit in darkness have seen a great light, and to them that were sitting in the shadow of death light is sprung up (matt. : ). i will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the gentiles (isa. : ). i have established thee for a light of the gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth (isa. : ). the nations of them that are saved shall walk in his light (apoc. : ). send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me (psalm : ). in these and other passages the lord is called light from divine truth, which is from him; and the truth itself is likewise called light. as light in the heavens is from the lord as a sun, so when he was transfigured before peter, james, and john: his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light (matt. : ). and his garments became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them (mark : ; matt. : ). the lord's garments had this appearance because they represented divine truth which is from him in the heavens, "garments" also in the word signifying truths,{ } consequently it is said in david: o jehovah, thou coverest thyself with light as with a garment (psalm : ). {footnote } in the word "garments" signify truths, because truths clothe good (n. , , , , , , , ). the lord's garments when he was transfigured signified divine truth going forth from his divine love (n. , ). . that light in the heavens is spiritual and that this light is divine truth may be inferred also from the fact that men as well as angels have spiritual light, and have enlightenment from that light so far as they are in intelligence and wisdom from divine truth. man's spiritual light is the light of his understanding, and the objects of that light are truths, which he arranges analytically into groups, forms into reason, and from them draws conclusions in series.{ } the natural man does not know that the light from which the understanding sees such things is a real light, for he neither sees it with his eyes nor perceives it by thought. and yet there are many who recognize this light, and distinguish it from the natural light in which those are who think naturally and not spiritually. those think naturally who take account of the world only, and attribute all things to nature; while those think spiritually who take account of heaven and attribute all things to the divine. it has often been granted me to perceive and also to see that there is a true light that enlightens the mind, wholly distinct from the light that is called natural light [lumen]. i have been raised up interiorly into that light by degrees; and as i was raised up my understanding became so enlightened as to enable me to perceive what i did not perceive before, and finally such things as i could not even comprehend by thought from natural light. sometimes i felt indignant that i could not comprehend these things when they were so clearly and plainly perceived in the light of heaven.{ } because there is a light that belongs to the understanding, the same things are said of it as of the eye, as that it sees and is in light when it perceives, and is in obscurity and shade when it does not perceive, and so on. {footnote } man is rational because his understanding is illumined by the light of heaven (n. , , , , , , , , ). the understanding is enlightened because it is a recipient of truth (n. , , ). the understanding is enlightened to the extent that man receives truth in good from the lord (n. ). the understanding is such as are the truths from good by which it is formed (n. ). the understanding has light from heaven, as the sight has light from the world (n. , , , ). the light of heaven from the lord is always present with man, but it flows in only in the degree that man is in truth from good (n. , ). {footnote } when man is raised up from the sensual he comes into a milder light, and at length into heavenly light (n. , , ). when man is raised up into intelligence there is an actual elevation into the light of heaven (n. ). how great a light was perceived when i was withdrawn from worldly ideas (n. , ). . as the light of heaven is divine truth, that light is also divine wisdom and intelligence; therefore to be raised up into the light of heaven means the same as to be raised up into intelligence and wisdom and enlightened. for this reason the angels have light in just the same degree as they have intelligence and wisdom. because the light of heaven is divine wisdom, in that light the character of everyone is recognized. the interiors of everyone lie open to view in his face just as they are, with not the least thing hidden. and interior angels love to have all things that pertain to them lying open, since they will nothing but good. it is otherwise with those beneath heaven, who do not will what is good, and for that reason fear greatly to be seen in the light of heaven. and wonderful to tell, while those in hell appear to one another as men, in the light of heaven they appear as monsters, with a horrid face and body, the exact form of their own evil.{ } in respect to his spirit man appears, when seen by angels, in a like way; if good as a man, beautiful in accord with his good; if evil as a monster, ugly in accord with his evil. from this it is clear that in the light of heaven all things are made manifest, and for the reason that the light of heaven is divine truth. {footnote } those in the hells, in their own light, which is like the light from burning coals, appear to themselves as men but in the light of heaven they appear as monsters (n. , , , , , , ). . as divine truth is light in the heavens, so all truths wherever they are, whether within an angel or outside of him, or whether within the heavens or outside of them, emit light. nevertheless, truths outside of the heavens do not shine as truths within the heavens do. truths outside of the heavens shine coldly, like something snowy, without heat, because they do not draw their essence from good, as truths within the heavens do; therefore that cold light vanishes as soon as the light of heaven falls on it, and if there is evil underneath it it is turned into darkness. this i have occasionally seen, with many other noteworthy things about the shining of truth, which must be omitted here. . something shall now be said about the heat of heaven. that heat in its essence is love. it goes forth from the lord as a sun, which is divine love in the lord and from the lord, as has been shown in the preceding chapter. it is evident, therefore, that the heat of heaven, like the light of heaven, is spiritual, because from the same source.{ } there are two things that go forth from the lord as a sun, divine truth and divine good; divine truth is manifested in the heavens as light, and divine good as heat; and yet divine truth and divine good are so united that they are not two, but one. nevertheless, with angels they are separate, for there are angels that receive more of divine good than of divine truth, and there are those that receive more of divine truth than of divine good. those who receive more of divine good are in the lord's celestial kingdom, and those who receive more of divine truth are in his spiritual kingdom. those that receive both in a like degree are the most perfect angels. {footnote } there are two sources of heat and also two sources of light, the sun of the world and the sun of heaven (n. , , ). heat from the lord as a sun is affection of love (n. , ). therefore spiritual heat in its essence is love (n. , , , ). . the heat of heaven, like the light of heaven, is everywhere different. it is different in the celestial kingdom from what it is in the spiritual kingdom, and it is different in each society therein. it differs both in degree and in quality. it is more intense and more pure in the lord's celestial kingdom, because the angels there receive more of divine good; and it is less intense and pure in his spiritual kingdom, because the angels there receive more of divine truth. also in each society the heat differs in accordance with reception. there is heat in the hells, but it is unclean heat.{ } the heat in heaven is what is meant by holy and heavenly fire, and the heat of hell by profane and infernal fire. both mean love--heavenly fire meaning love to the lord and love to the neighbor and every affection of those loves, and infernal fire meaning love of self and love of the world and every lust of those loves. that love is heat from a spiritual source is shown from one's growing warm with love; for in accordance with the strength and nature of his love a man is inflamed and grows warm; and the heat of his love is made manifest when it is opposed. from this also it is customary to speak of being inflamed, growing hot, burning, boiling, being on fire, both in regard to the affections of the love of good and the lusts of the love of evil. {footnote } there is heat in the hells, but it is unclean (n. , , ). the odor from it is like the odor from dung and excrement in the world and in the worst hells like the odor of dead bodies (n. , , , , , , , ). . love going forth from the lord as a sun is felt in heaven as heat, because the interiors of the angels are in a state of love from the divine good that is from the lord; and in consequence their exteriors which grow warm therefrom are in a state of heat. for this reason heat and love so correspond to each other in heaven that everyone there is in heat such as his love is, according to what has been said just above. this world's heat does not enter heaven at all, because it is too gross, and is natural, and not spiritual; but with men it is otherwise, because they are in both the spiritual world and the natural world. as to their spirits they grow warm in exact accordance with their loves; but as to the body they grow warm both from the heat of their spirit and from the heat of the world. the former flows into the latter, because they correspond. the nature of the correspondence of the two kinds of heat can be seen from animal life, in that the love of animals-the chief of which is the love of propagating offspring of their kind-bursts forth and becomes active in accordance with the presence and influence of heat from the sun of the world, which is the heat of the spring and the summer seasons. those who believe that the world's heat flows in and excites these loves are greatly mistaken, for there can be no influx from the natural into the spiritual, but only from the spiritual into the natural. this influx is of divine order, but the other would be contrary to divine order.{ } {footnote } there is spiritual influx, but not physical, that is, there is influx from the spiritual world into the natural, but not from the natural world into the spiritual (n. , , , , , , , , , ). . angels, like men, have understanding and will. the light of heaven constitutes the life of their understanding, because that light is divine truth and divine wisdom therefrom; and the heat of heaven constitutes the life of their will, because that heat is divine good and divine love therefrom. the veriest life of the angels is from heat, and from light only so far as heat is in it. that life is from heat is shown by the fact that when heat is taken away life perishes. the same is true of faith without love or of truth without good; since the truth that is called truth of faith is light, and the good that is called good of love is heat. { } this is more clearly shown by the heat and light of the world, to which the heat and light of heaven correspond. by the world's heat when conjoined with light, as in spring and summer, all things on the earth are quickened and grow, but by light separate from heat nothing is quickened or grows, but everything lies torpid and dies. they are not conjoined in winter, when heat is absent though light remains. from this correspondence heaven is called paradise, since truth is there joined with good, or faith with love, as light is with heat in springtime on the earth. all this makes more clear the truth set forth in its own chapter (n. - ), that the divine of the lord in heaven is love to him and charity towards the neighbor. {footnote } truths apart from good are not in themselves truths because they have no life; for truths have all their life from good (n. ). thus truths apart from good are like a body without a soul (n. , ). truths apart from good are not accepted by the lord (n. ). what truth apart from good, that is, what faith apart from love is, and what truth from good or faith from love is (n. - , , , ). it amounts to the same thing whether you say truth or faith, or whether you say good or love, since truth is of faith and good is of love (n. , , , , , , , ). . it is said in john: in the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and god was the word. all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that hath been made. in him was life, and the life was the light of men. he was in the world, and the world was made through him. and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory ( : - ). evidently the lord is here meant by "the word," for it is said that "the word became flesh." but what is specifically meant by "the word" is not known and shall therefore be explained. here "the word" means the divine truth which is in the lord and from the lord;{ } and this is why it is also called "the light," which is the divine truth, as has been already shown in this chapter. that it was by means of divine truth that all things were created and made shall now be explained. [ ] in heaven divine truth has all power, and apart from it there is no power whatever.{ } from the divine truth angels are called powers, and are powers to the extent that they are recipients or receptacles of it. by means of it they prevail over the hells and over all that oppose them. a thousand enemies there cannot stand against a single ray of the light of heaven, which is divine truth. as angels are angels by their reception of divine truth it follows that the entire heaven is from no other source, since heaven consists of angels. [ ] that there is such power in divine truth those cannot believe that have no other idea of truth than that it is thought or speech, which has in it no power except as others do it from obedience. but divine truth has power in itself, and such power that by means of it heaven was created and the world with all things therein. that there is such power in divine truth may be shown by two comparisons-by the power of truth and good in man, and by the power of light and heat from the sun in the world. by the power of good and truth in man, in that everything that a man does he does from his understanding and will-from his will by means of good and from his understanding by means of truth; for all things in the will have relation to good and all things in the understanding have relation to truth.{ } therefore it is from good and truth that man moves his whole body, and a thousand things therein rush with one accord to do their will and pleasure. this makes clear that the whole body is formed for subservience to good and truth, consequently is formed by good and truth. [ ] by the power of heat and light from the sun in the world, in that all things that grow in the world, as trees, cereals, flowers, grasses, fruits, and seeds, come into existence wholly by means of the heat and light of the sun; which shows what power of producing there is in them. what, then, must be the power in divine light, which is divine truth, and in divine heat, which is divine good? because heaven has its existence from these, so does the world have its existence therefrom, since the world has its existence by means of heaven, as has been already shown. from all this the meaning of these words can be seen that "all things were made through the word, and without the word was not anything made that has been made;" also that "the world was made through him," that is, through divine truth from the lord.{ } for the same reason, in the book of creation, light is first spoken of, and then the things that are from light (gen. : , ). for this reason also all things in the universe, both in heaven and in the world, have relation to good and truth and to their conjunction, in order to be anything. {footnote } in the sacred scripture word signifies various things, namely, speech, thought of the mind, any thing that really exists, also something, and in the highest sense divine truth, and the lord (n. ). "word" signifies divine truth (n. , , , , , , ). "word" signifies the lord (n. , ). {footnote } divine truth going forth from the lord has all power (n. , ). truth from good has all power in heaven (n. , , , , , , , ). angels are called powers, and are powers by the reception of divine truth from the lord (n. ). angels are recipients of divine truth from the lord and therefore in the word are sometimes called gods (n. , , , , ). {footnote } the understanding is a recipient of truth, and the will a recipient of good (n. , , , , ). therefore all things in the understanding have relation to truths, whether they are really truths or are believed by man to be truths, and all things in the will in like manner have relation to goods (n. , ). {footnote } divine truth going forth from the lord is the only real thing (n. , , ). by means of divine truth all things were created and made (n. , , , ). .{ } it must be understood that the divine good and the divine truth that are from the lord as a sun in the heavens are not in the lord, but are from the lord. in the lord there is only divine love, which is the being [esse] from which the divine good and the divine truth spring. outgo [existere] from being [esse] is meant by going forth [procedere]. this, too, can be made clear by comparison with the world's sun. the heat and light that are in the world are not in the sun, but are from the sun. in the sun there is fire only, and it is from this that heat and light spring and go forth. {footnote } [there is no n. in the original. -- editor.] . since the lord as a sun is divine love, and divine love is divine good itself, the divine that goes forth from the lord, which is his divine in heaven, is called, for the sake of distinction, divine truth, although it is in fact divine good united to divine truth. this divine truth is what is called the holy that goes forth from him. . xvi. the four quarters in heaven. both in heaven and in the world there are four quarters, east, south, west, and north, determined in each world by its own sun; in heaven by the sun of heaven, which is the lord, in the world by the sun of the world. and yet there are great differences between them. in the first place, in the world that is called the south where the sun is in its greatest altitude above the earth, north where it is in its opposite position beneath the earth, east where it rises at an equinox, and west where it then sets. thus in the world it is from the south that all the quarters are determined. but in heaven that is called the east where the lord is seen as a sun, opposite to this is the west, at the right is the south in heaven, and at the left the north; and this in whatever direction the face and the body are turned. thus in heaven it is from the east that all the quarters are determined. that is called the east [oriens] where the lord is seen as a sun, because all origin [origo] of life is from him as a sun; moreover, so far as angels receive heat and light or love and intelligence from the lord he is said to arise [exoriri] upon them. for the same reason the lord is called the east [oriens] in the word.{ } {footnote } in the highest sense the lord is the east [oriens], because he is the sun of heaven, which is always rising and never setting (n. , , ). . another difference is that to the angels the east is always before the face, the west behind, the south to the right, and the north to the left. but since this cannot be easily comprehended in the world, for the reason that men turn the face to every quarter, it shall be explained. the entire heaven turns itself to the lord as to its common center; to that center do all the angels turn themselves. also on the earth, as is well known, there is a directing of all things towards a common center; but there is this difference between this directing in the world and that in heaven, that in heaven the front parts are turned to the common center, but in the world the lower parts of the body. in the world this directing is called centripetal force, also gravitation. the interiors of angels are actually turned forwards; and since interiors manifest themselves in the face it is the face that determines the quarters.{ } {footnote } in heaven all turn themselves to the lord (n. , , , ). nevertheless, it is not the angels that turn themselves to the lord, but the lord turns the angels to himself (n. ). it is not that the angels are present with the lord, but the lord is present with the angels (n. ). . it is still more difficult to comprehend in the world that in every turning of their face and body the angels have the east before the face, since man according as he turns, has every quarter before his face. this shall also be explained. although angels, like men, turn and direct their faces and bodies in every direction, they nevertheless have the east always before their eyes. but the turnings of angels are unlike the turnings of men, because they are from a different origin. they appear alike, but they are not. the origin of these turnings is their ruling love, and from this all directions with angels and spirits are determined, for, as just said, their interiors are actually turned towards their common center, which in heaven is the lord as a sun; consequently their ruling love is always before their face, because their love is always before their interiors, and the face has existence from the interiors, for it is their outward form; and in the heavens this love is the lord as a sun because it is from him that they have their love.{ } and as the lord himself is in angels in his love, it is the lord who causes them to look to him whithersoever they turn. this cannot be explained any farther now; but it will be made clearer to the understanding in subsequent chapters, especially where representations and appearances, and time and space in heaven, are treated of. that the angels have the lord constantly before their faces it has been granted me to know and also to perceive from much experience; for whenever i have been in company with angels i have noticed the lord's presence before my face, not actually seen, and yet perceptible in a light; and angels have often testified that this is so. as the lord is constantly before the faces of the angels, so it is said in the world of those who believe in the lord and love him that they have god before their eyes and their face, and that they look to god, and see god. these expressions have their origin in the spiritual world, from which are many things in human speech, although their source is unknown to men. {footnote } in the spiritual world all constantly turn themselves to their loves; and the quarters there have their beginning in the face and are determined by it (n. , , , ). the face is formed to a correspondence with the interiors (n. - , ). therefore the interiors shine forth from the face (n. , , ). with angels the face makes one with the interiors (n. , , , , ). the influx of the interiors into the face and its muscles (n. , ). . this turning to the lord is among the wonderful things in heaven. there may be many together in one place, some turning the face and body one way and some another, and yet all see the lord before them, and have everyone has the south at his right, the north at his left, and the west behind him. another wonderful thing is that, although the angels look only to the east they have also a look towards the other three quarters; but the look to these is from their interior sight, which pertains to their thought. and it is yet another wonderful thing that in heaven no one is ever permitted to stand behind another and look at the back of his head, for this would disturb the influx of good and truth from the lord. . the lord is seen by the angels, and the angels are seen by the lord in another way. angels see the lord through their eyes; but the lord sees the angels in the forehead, and this for the reason that the forehead corresponds to love, and it is through love that the lord flows into their will, while it is through the understanding, to which the eyes correspond, that he causes himself to be seen.{ } {footnote } the forehead corresponds to heavenly love; therefore in the word the "forehead" signifies that love (n. ). the eye corresponds to the understanding, because the understanding is internal sight (n. , , , , ). for this reason "to lift up the eyes" and "to see" signifies to understand, perceive, and observe (n. , , , , , , , ). . the quarters in the heavens that give form to the lord's celestial kingdom differ from the quarters in the heavens that give form to his spiritual kingdom, for the reason that he is seen by the angels in his celestial kingdom as a sun, but by the angels in his spiritual kingdom as a moon; and where the lord is seen is the east. the distance there between the position of the sun and that of the moon is thirty degrees, and there is a like difference in the position of the quarters. that heaven is divided into two kingdoms, called the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom, may be seen in its own chapter (n. - ); and that the lord is seen in the celestial kingdom as a sun, and in the spiritual kingdom as a moon (n. ). but it does not follow that the quarters of heaven become confused on this account, for neither can the spiritual angels ascend among the celestial angels, nor the celestial descend among the spiritual, as may be seen above (n. ). . this makes clear the nature of the lord's presence in the heavens, that he is every where and with everyone in the good and truth that go forth from him; consequently he is with angels in what is his own, as has been said above (n. ). the perception of the lord's presence is in their interiors; and it is from these that their eyes see, and it is by this continuity that they see the lord outside of themselves. this shows what is meant by the lord's being in them and they in him, according to his own words: abide in me and i in you (john : ). he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and i in him (john : ). "the lord's flesh" signifies divine good and "his blood" divine truth.{ } {footnote } in the word "the lord's flesh" signifies his divine human, and the divine good of his love (n. , , , ). and "the lord's blood" signifies divine truth and the holy of faith (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). . all in the heavens have their own places of abode in accordance with the quarters. those who are in the good of love dwell towards the east and west, those who are in clear perception of it towards the east, and those who are in obscure perception of it towards the west. those who are in wisdom from the good of love dwell towards the south and north-those who are in the clear light of wisdom towards the south, and those who are in obscure light of it towards the north. the angels of the lord's spiritual kingdom and those of his celestial kingdom dwell in a like order, but differently as their good of love and light of truth from good differ; for in the celestial kingdom the love is love to the lord, and the light of truth therefrom is wisdom; while in the spiritual kingdom there is love towards the neighbor, which is called charity, and the light of truth therefrom is intelligence, which is also called faith (see above, n. ). the quarters differ also in the two kingdoms by thirty degrees, as has been said just above (n. ). . in like order the angels in each society in heaven dwell in relation to one another-towards the east there those who are in greater degree of love and charity, towards the west those who are in less degree; towards the south those who are in greater light of wisdom and intelligence, and towards the north those who are in less. this arrangement prevails because each society represents heaven, and is a heaven in a smaller form (see above, n. - ). the same arrangement prevails in their assemblies. they are brought into this order by virtue of the form of heaven, from which everyone knows his own place. the lord also provides that there be in each society those of every kind, for the reason that in form heaven is every where like itself; and yet the arrangement of the whole heaven differs from the arrangement of a society as what is general from its parts, since the societies towards the east surpass those towards the west, and those towards the south surpass those towards the north. . because of this the quarters in the heavens signify such things as pertain to those that dwell in them,--the east signifying love and its good clearly perceived, the west the same obscurely perceived, the south wisdom and intelligence in clear light, and the north the same in obscure light. and because of this signification of the quarters in heaven they have a like signification in the internal or spiritual sense of the word,{ } since the internal or spiritual sense of the word is in entire accord with what is in heaven. {footnote } in the word the "east" signifies love clearly perceived (n. , ); the "west" love obscurely perceived (n. , ); the "south" a state of light, that is, of wisdom and intelligence (n. , , ); and the "north" that state in obscurity (n. ). . the reverse is true of those in the hells. those who are there do not look to the lord as a sun nor as a moon; but they look backward away from the lord to that dense darkness that is in the place of the sun of the world, and to the darkness that is in the place of the earth's moon. those that are called genii look to that dense darkness that is in the place of the world's sun, and those called spirits look to the darkness that is in the place of the earth's moon.{ } it has been shown above (n. ) that the world's sun and the earth's moon are not seen in the spiritual world, but in place of that sun a dense darkness over against the sun of heaven, and in place of that moon a darkness over against the moon of heaven. for this reason the quarters with those in the hells are opposite to the quarters of heaven. the east to them is where that dense darkness and darkness are, the west is where the sun of heaven is, the south is to their right, and the north to their left, and this also in every turning of their bodies. nor can they face otherwise, because the whole bent and consequent determination of their interiors tends and strives that way. it has been shown above (n. ) that the bent and consequent actual determination of the interiors of all in the other life are in harmony with their love. the love of those in the hells is the love of self and the world, and these loves are what are signified by the world's sun and the earth's moon (see n. ); and these loves are opposite to love to the lord and love towards the neighbor;{ } and this is the cause of their turning themselves backwards away from the lord to this dense darkness. moreover, those in the hells dwell likewise in accordance with their quarters, those who are in evil from love of self dwelling from their east to their west, and those who are in the falsities of evil from their south to their north. but more will be said about this below, where the hells are treated of. {footnote } who and what those are who are called genii, and who and what those are who are called spirits (n. , , , , , ). {footnote } those that are in the loves of self and of the world turn themselves backwards from the lord (n. , , , ). love to the lord and charity towards the neighbor make heaven, while love of self and love of the world make hell, because the two are opposite (n. , , , , , , , , , , - ). . when an evil spirit comes among good spirits the quarters are usually so confused that the good scarcely know where their east is. this i have sometimes seen take place, and have also heard about it from spirits who complained of it. . evil spirits are sometimes seen turned towards the quarters of heaven; and they then have intelligence and perception of truth, but no affection for good; but as soon as they turn back to their own quarters they have no intelligence or perception of truth; and then they declare that the truths they heard and perceived are falsities and not truths, and they wish falsities to be truths. in respect to this turning i have been told that with the evil the intellectual part of the mind can be so turned, but not the voluntary part; and that this is provided by the lord to the end that everyone may have the ability to see and acknowledge truths, but that no one can receive truths unless he is in good, since it is good, and never evil, that receives them; also that man has a like ability to the end that he may be made better by means of truths. nevertheless, he is made better only so far as he is in good; consequently a man can in like manner be turned to the lord; but if his life is evil he immediately turns himself back and confirms in himself the falsities of his evil, which are contrary to the truths he had understood and seen; and this takes place when he thinks in himself from his interior states. . xvii. changes of state of the angels in heaven. by changes of state of angels their changes in respect to love and faith, and wisdom and intelligence therefrom, are meant, thus their changes in respect to states of life. states are predicated of life and of what belongs to life; and as angelic life is a life of love and faith, and of wisdom and intelligence therefrom, states are predicated of these and are called states of love and faith, and states of wisdom and intelligence. how with angels these states are changed shall now be told. . angels are not constantly in the same state in respect to love, and in consequence in the same state in respect to wisdom; for all their wisdom is from their love and in accordance with their love. sometimes they are in a state of intense love, sometimes in a state of love not so intense. the state decreases by degrees from its greatest degree to its least. when in their greatest degree of love they are in the light and warmth of their life, or in a clear and delightful state; but in their least degree they are in shade and cold, or in an obscure and undelightful state. from this last state they return again to the first, and so on, these alternations following one after another with variety. there is a sequence of these states like the varied states of light and shade, or of heat and cold, or like morning, noon, evening, and night, day after day in the world, with unceasing variety throughout the year. there is also a correspondence, morning corresponding to the state of their love in its clearness, noon to the state of their wisdom in its clearness, evening to the state of their wisdom in its obscurity, and night to a state of no love or wisdom. but it must be understood that there is no correspondence of night with the states of life of those in heaven, although there is what corresponds to the dawn that precedes morning; what corresponds to night is with those in hell.{ } from this correspondence "day" and "year" signify in the word states of life in general; "heat" and "light" signify love and wisdom; "morning" the first and highest degree of love "noon" wisdom in its light; "evening" wisdom in its shade; "dawn" the obscurity that precedes the morning; and "night" the absence of love and wisdom.{ } {footnote } in heaven there is a state corresponding to the dawn that precedes morning, but no state corresponding to night (n. ). the "dawn" signifies a middle state between the last and the first (n. ). {footnote } alternations of state in respect to enlightenment and perception occur in heaven, like the times of day in the world (n. , , , , , ). in the word "day" and "year" signify all states in general (n. , , , , , , , , ). "morning" signifies the beginning of a new state, and a state of love (n. , , , , ). "evening" signifies a state of declining light and love (n. , ). "night" signifies a state of no love or faith (n. , , , , , , ). . together with the state of the angels' interiors which pertain to their love and wisdom, the states of various things that are outside of them and that they see with their eyes are changed; for the things outside of them take on an appearance that is in accord with the things within them. but what things these are, and what kind of things they are, shall be told presently in the chapter on representatives and appearances in heaven. . every angel undergoes and passes through such changes of state, and also every society in general, and yet each one differently, for the reason that they differ in love and wisdom, those in the middle being in a more perfect state than those round about even to the circumference (see above, n. , ). but it would be tedious to specify the differences, since the changes each one undergoes are in accord with the quality of his love and faith. from this it happens that while one may be in clearness and delight another may be in obscurity and lack of delight, and this at the same time within the same society. so, too, the state differs in different societies; it is different in the societies of the celestial kingdom from what it is in those of the spiritual kingdom. these differences in the changes of state are in general like the variations of the states of days in different climates on the earth, for with some it is morning when with others it is evening, and with some it is hot when with others it is cold. . i have been taught from heaven why there are such changes of state there. the angels said that there are many reasons-first, the delight of life and of heaven, which they have from love and wisdom from the lord, would gradually lose its value if they were in it continually, as happens with those that are in allurements and pleasures without variety. a second reason is that angels, as well as men, have what is their own [proprium], which is loving self; and all that are in heaven are withheld from what is their own, and so far as they are withheld from it by the lord are in love and wisdom; but so far as they are not withheld they are in the love of self; and because everyone loves what is his own and is drawn by it{ } they have changes of state or successive alternations. a third reason is that they are in this way perfected, for they thus become accustomed to being held in love to the lord and withheld from love of self; also that by alternations between delight and lack of delight the perception and sense of good becomes more exquisite.{ } the angels added that their changes of state are not caused by the lord, since the lord as a sun is unceasingly flowing in with heat and light, that is, with love and wisdom; but the cause is in themselves, in that they love what is their own, and this continually leads them away. this was illustrated by comparison with the sun of the world, that the cause of the changes of state of heat and cold and of light and shade, year by year and day by day, is not in that sun, since it stands unchanged, but the cause is in the earth. {footnote } man's own [proprium] is loving self (n. , , , ). the lord cannot be present unless what is man's own is set aside (n. , ). it is actually set aside when one is held in good by the lord (n. - , , - , ). {footnote } the angels are being perfected to eternity (n. , ). in the heavens one state is never just like another, and from this there is an unceasing process of perfection (n. ). . i have been shown how the lord as a sun appears to the angels of the celestial kingdom in their first state, in their second state, and in their third state. i saw the lord as a sun, at first glowing and brilliant with a splendor that cannot be described; and i was told that such is the appearance of the lord as a sun to the angels in their first state. afterwards there appeared a great obscure belt about the sun, and by this its first glow and brilliancy, which gave it such splendor, began to be dulled, and i was told that such is the appearance of the sun to them in their second state. then the belt seemed by degrees to grow darker, and the sun to appear less glowing, and this by degrees until at length it took on a shining whiteness; and i was told that such is the appearance of the sun to them in their third state. after this, that shining whiteness was seen to move to the left towards the moon of heaven, and to add itself to her light; and in consequence the moon shone forth with unwonted splendor; and i was told that such is the fourth state of those in the celestial kingdom and the first state of those in the spiritual kingdom, and that in both kingdoms changes of state have such alternations; yet not in the whole kingdom at once, but in one society after another. furthermore, i was told that these alternations are not fixed, but come upon them sooner or later without their knowledge. and it was added that the sun in itself is not thus changed or moved; but it takes on this appearance in accord with their successive progressions of state, since the lord appears to everyone in accord with what his state is, thus glowing when one is in intense love and less glowing and finally shining white as his love subsides; and the quality of each one's state was represented by the obscure belt that induced upon the sun these apparent variations in its glow and light. . when angels are in the last of these states, which is when they are in what is their own, they begin to be sad. i have talked with them when they were in that state and have seen their sadness; but they said that they hoped to return soon to their former state, and thus into heaven again, as it were; for to them it is heaven to be withheld from what is their own. . there are also changes of state in the hells, but these will be described later when hell is treated of. . xviii. time in heaven. although there is a succession and a progression of all things in heaven, as in the world, yet angels have no notion or idea of time and space; and this so completely that they do not even know at all what time and space are. time in heaven will here be considered, and space in its own chapter. . angels do not know what time is, although with them there is a successive progression of all things, as there is in the world, and this so completely that there is no difference whatever; and the reason is that in heaven instead of years and days there are changes of state; and where there are years and days there are times, but where there are changes of state there are states. . in the world there are times because the sun of the world seemingly advances in succession from one degree to another, producing times that are called seasons of the year; and besides, it revolves about the earth, producing times that are called times of day; both of these by fixed alternations. with the sun of heaven it is different. this does not mark years and days by successive progressions and revolutions, but in its appearance it marks changes of state; and this, as has been shown in the preceding chapter, is not done by fixed alternations. consequently no idea of time is possible to angels; but in its place they have an idea of state (see above n. ). . as angels have no idea derived from time, such as men in the world have, so neither do they have any idea about time and what pertains to it. they do not even know what is meant by the terms of time, such as year, month, week, day, hour, to-day, to-morrow, yesterday. when angels hear these terms used by man (for angels are always associated with man by the lord) in place of them they perceive state and what pertains to states. thus the natural thought of man is turned into spiritual thought with angels. this is why times in the word signify states, and the terms of time, as enumerated above, signify corresponding spiritual things.{ } {footnote } times in the word signify states (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). angels think apart from the idea of time and space (n. ); the reasons why (n. , , , , , , , ). what a "year" signifies in the word (n. , , , , , , ). what a "month" (n. ). what a "week" (n. , ). what a "day" (n. , , , , , , , , ). what "today" (n. , , , , , ). what "to-morrow" (n. , ). what "yesterday" (n. , , ). . the like is true of all things that exist from time, as the four seasons of the year, called spring, summer, autumn, and winter; the four periods of the day, morning, noon, evening, and night; and the four ages of man, infancy, youth, manhood, and old age; and all other things that either exist from time or have a succession in accordance with time. in thinking of these a man thinks from time, but an angel from state; and in consequence what there is in them from time with man is with the angels turned into an idea of state. spring and morning are turned into an idea of the state of love and wisdom such as they are in angels in their first state; summer and noon are turned into an idea of love and wisdom such as they are in the second state; autumn and evening such as they are in the third state; night and winter into an idea of such a state as exists in hell. this is why these periods have a like significance in the word (see above, n. ). this makes clear how natural things in the thought of man become spiritual with the angels who are with man. . as angels have no notion of time so they have an idea of eternity different from that which men on the earth have. eternity means to the angels infinite state, not infinite time.{ } i was once thinking about eternity, and was able, with the idea of time, to perceive what to eternity means, namely, without end, but not what from eternity means, thus not what god did from eternity before creation. when anxiety on this account arose in my mind i was raised up into the sphere of heaven, and thus into the perception that angels have in respect to eternity; and it was then made clear to me that eternity must be thought of, not from time but from state; and then the meaning of from eternity can be seen. this then happened to me. {footnote } men have an idea of eternity associated with time, but angels apart from time (n. , , ). . when angels speak with men they never express themselves in natural ideas proper to man, all of which are from time, space, matter, and things analogous thereto, but in spiritual ideas, all of which are from states and their various changes within the angels and outside of them. nevertheless, when these angelic ideas, which are spiritual, flow into men, they are turned in a moment and of themselves into natural ideas proper to man, that correspond perfectly to the spiritual ideas. neither angels nor men know that this takes place; but such is all influx of heaven into man. certain angels were permitted to enter more nearly into my thoughts, even into the natural thoughts in which there were many things from time and space; but as they then understood nothing they suddenly withdrew; and after they had withdrawn i heard them talking, and saying that they had been in darkness. [ ] it has been granted me to know by experience how ignorant the angels are about time. there was a certain one from heaven who was able to enter into natural ideas, such as man has; and after he had done this i talked with him as man with man. at first he did not know what it was that i called time, and i was therefore obliged to tell him all about it, how the sun appears to be carried about our earth, and to produce years and days, and how years are thereby divided into four seasons, and also into months and weeks, and days into twenty-four hours; and how these times recur by fixed alternations, and how this is the source of times. on hearing this he was surprised, saying that he knew nothing about such things, but only what states are. [ ] in speaking with him i added that it is known in the world, for men speak as if they knew that there is no time in heaven, saying of those who die that they "leave the things of time," and that they "pass out of time," meaning by this out of the world. i said also that some know that times in their origin are states, for they know that times are in exact accord with the states of their affections, short to those who are in pleasant and joyous states, long to those who are in unpleasant and sorrowful states, and various in a state of hope and expectation; and this therefore leads learned men to inquire what time and space are, and some know that time belongs to the natural man. . the natural man might think that he would be deprived of all thought if the ideas of time, space, and material things were taken away; for upon these all the thought of man rests.{ } but let him know that so far as thoughts partake of time, space, and matter they are limited and confined, but are unlimited and extended so far as they do not partake of these, since the mind is in that measure raised above bodily and worldly things. this is the source of wisdom to the angels; and such wisdom as is called incomprehensible, because it does not fall into ideas that are wholly made up of what is material. {footnote } man does not think, as angels do, apart from the idea of time (n. ). . xix. representatives and appearances in heaven. the man who thinks from natural light alone is unable to comprehend that there is any thing in heaven like what is in the world; and for the reason that from natural light he has previously thought, and established himself in the idea, that angels are nothing but minds, and that minds are like ethereal breaths, having no senses like those of men, thus no eyes, and if no eyes no objects of sight; and yet the angels have every sense that a man has, and far more exquisite senses; and the light by which angels see is far brighter than the light by which man sees. that angels are men in the most complete form, and enjoy every sense, may be seen above (n. - ); and that the light in heaven is far brighter than the light in the world (n. - ). . the nature of the objects that are visible to angels in heaven cannot be described in a few words. for the most part they are like things on earth, but in form far more perfect, and in number more abundant. that such things exist in the heavens is evident from things seen by the prophets,--as by ezekiel in relation to the new temple and the new earth (as described from chaps. to ); by daniel (from chap. to ); by john (from the first chapter of the apocalypse to the last); and by others, as described both in the historic and the prophetic part of the word. these things were seen by them when heaven was open to them, and heaven is said to be opened when the interior sight, which is the sight of man's spirit, is opened. for what is in the heavens cannot be seen by the eyes of a man's body, but are seen by the eyes of his spirit; and when it seems good to the lord these are opened, and man is then withdrawn from the natural light that he is in from the bodily senses and is raised up into spiritual light, which he is in from his spirit. in that light the things in heaven have been seen by me. . but although the things seen in heaven are in large part like those on the earth, in essence they are unlike them; for the things in heaven come forth from the sun of heaven, and those on the earth from the sun of the world. the things that come forth from the sun of heaven are called spiritual; those that come forth from the sun of the world are called natural. . the things that come forth in heaven do not come forth in the same manner as those on the earth. all things in heaven come forth from the lord in correspondence with the interiors of the angels. for angels have both interiors and exteriors. all things in their interiors have relation to love and faith, thus to the will and understanding, since the will and understanding are their receptacles; while their exteriors correspond to their interiors. that exterior things correspond to interior things may be seen above (n. - ). this is illustrated by what has been said above about the heat and light of heaven, that angels have heat in accordance with the quality of their love, and light in accordance with the quality of their wisdom (n. - ). the like is true of all other things that present themselves to the senses of angels. . when i have been permitted to be in company with angels, the things there appeared precisely the same as those in the world; and so plainly that i would not have known that i was not in the world and in a king's palace. i also talked with the angels as man with man. . as all things that correspond to interiors also represent them they are called representatives; and as they differ in each case in accordance with the state of the interiors they are called appearances. nevertheless, the things that appear before the eyes of angels in heaven and are perceived by their senses appear to their eyes and senses as fully living as things on earth appear to man, and even much more clearly, distinctly and perceptibly. appearances from this source in heaven are called real appearances, because they have real existence. there are appearances also that are not real, which are things that become visible, but do not correspond to interiors.{ } these will be treated of further on. {footnote } all things that are visible to the angels are representative (n. , - , , , , , , , , ). the heavens are full of representatives (n. , , ). the representatives are more beautiful as they are more interior in the heavens (n. ). as the representatives there are from the light of heaven they are real appearances (n. ). the divine influx is turned into representatives in the higher heavens, and therefrom in the lower heavens also (n. , , , , , ). those things are called representative that appear before the eyes of the angels in such form as are in nature, that is, such as are in the world (n. ). internal things are thus turned into external (n. , - ). what representatives in the heavens are; this made clear by various examples (n. , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). all things seen in the heavens are in accordance with correspondences and are called representatives (n. - , , , , , , , ). all things that correspond also represent and likewise signify what they correspond to (n. , , - , , ). . to show what the things are that appear to the angels in accordance with correspondences, i will here mention one only for the sake of illustration. by those who are intelligent, gardens and parks full of trees and flowers of every kind are seen. the trees are planted in a most beautiful order, combined to form arbors with arched approaches and encircling walks, all more beautiful than words can describe. there the intelligent walk, and gather flowers and weave garlands with which they adorn little children. moreover, there are kinds of trees and flowers there that are never seen and cannot exist on earth. the trees bear fruit that are in accordance with the good of love, in which the intelligent are. these things are seen by them because a garden or park and fruit trees and flowers correspond to intelligence and wisdom.{ } that there are such things in heaven is known also on the earth, but only to those who are in good, and who have not extinguished in themselves the light of heaven by means of natural light and its fallacies; for when such think about heaven they think and say that there are such things there as ear hath not heard and eye hath not seen. {footnote } a "garden" or "park" signifies intelligence and wisdom (n. , , ). what is meant by "the garden of eden" and "the garden of jehovah" (n. , , ). how magnificent the things seen in parks are in the other life (n. , , , , ). "trees" signify perceptions and knowledges, from which wisdom and intelligence are derived (n. , , , , , ). "fruits" signify goods of love and goods of charity (n. , , ). . xx. the garments with which angels appear clothed. since angels are men, and live among themselves as men do on the earth, they have garments and dwellings and other such things, with the difference, however, that as they are in a more perfect state all things with them are in greater perfection. for as angelic wisdom surpasses human wisdom to such a degree as to be called ineffable, so is it with all things that are perceived and seen by angels, inasmuch as all things perceived and seen by them correspond to their wisdom (see above, n. ). . the garments with which angels are clothed, like all other things with them, correspond; and because they correspond they have real existence (see above n. ). their garments correspond to their intelligence, and therefore all in the heavens appear clothed in accordance with their intelligence; and as one is more intelligent than another so the garments of one surpass those of another. the most intelligent have garments that blaze as if with flame, others have garments that glisten as if with light; the less intelligent have garments that are glistening white or white without the effulgence; and the still less intelligent have garments of various colors. but the angels of the inmost heaven are not clothed. . as the garments of angels correspond to their intelligence they correspond also to truth, since all intelligence is from divine truth; and therefore it is the same thing whether you say that angels are clothed in accordance with intelligence or in accordance with divine truth. the garments of some blaze as if with flame, and those of others glisten as if with light, because flame corresponds to good, and light corresponds to truth from good.{ } some have garments that are glistening white and white without the effulgence, and others garments of various colors, because with the less intelligent the divine good and truth are less effulgent, and are also received in various ways,{ } glistening white and white corresponding to truth,{ } and colors to its varieties.{ } those in the inmost heaven are not clothed, because they are in innocence, and innocence corresponds to nakedness.{ } {footnote } from correspondence "garments" in the word signify truths (n. , , , , , , , ). for the reason that truths clothe good (n. ). a "covering" signifies something intellectual, because the intellect is the recipient of truth (n. ). "shining garments of fine linen" signify truths from the divine (n. , ). "flame" signifies spiritual good, and the light therefrom truth from that good (n. , ). {footnote } angels and spirits appear clothed with garments in accordance with their truths, thus in accordance with their intelligence (n. , , , , , , , ). the garments of some angels are resplendent, others are not (n. ). {footnote } in the word "glistening white" and "white" signify truth because they are from light in heaven (n. , , ). {footnote } colors in heaven are variegations of the light there (n. , , , , , , , ). colors signify various things pertaining to intelligence and wisdom (n. , , , ). the precious stones in the urim and thummim signified, in accordance with their colors, all things of truth from good in the heavens (n. , , ). so far as colors partake of red they signify good; so far as they partake of white they signify truth (n. ). {footnote } all in the inmost heavens are innocences, and in consequence appear naked (n. , , , , , , ). innocence is presented in heaven as nakedness (n. , , ). to the innocent and the chaste nakedness is no shame, because without offence (n. , , ). . as in heaven the angels are clothed with garments, so when seen in the world they have appeared clothed with garments, as those seen by the prophets and those seen at the lord's sepulchre: whose appearance was as lightning, and their garments glistening and white (matt. : ; mark : ; luke : ; john : , ); and those seen in heaven by john: who had garments of fine linen and white (apoc. : ; : ). and because intelligence is from divine truth: the garments of the lord, when he was transfigured, were radiant and glistening white like the light (matt. : ; mark : ; luke : ). as light is divine truth going forth from the lord (see above, n. ), so in the word garments signify truths and intelligence from truths, as in the apocalypse: those that have not defiled their garments shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. he that overcometh shall be clothed in white garments ( : , ); blessed is he that is awake and keepeth his garments ( : ). and of jerusalem, which means a church that is in truth,{ } it is written in isaiah: awake, put on thy strength, o zion; put on the garments of thy beauty, o jerusalem ( : ). and in ezekiel: jerusalem, i girded thee about with fine linen, and covered thee with silk. thy garments were of fine linen and silk ( : , ); besides many other passages. but he who is not in truths is said "not to be clothed with a wedding garment," as in matthew: when the king came in he saw a man that had not on a wedding garment; and he said unto him, friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? wherefore he was cast out into the outer darkness ( : - ). the house of the wedding feast means heaven and the church because of the conjunction of the lord with heaven and the church by means of his divine truth; and for this reason the lord is called in the word the bridegroom and husband; and heaven, with the church, is called the bride and the wife. {footnote } "jerusalem" signifies a church in which there is genuine doctrine (n. , , ). . that the garments of angels do not merely appear as garments, but are real garments, is evident from the fact that angels both see them and feel them, that they have many garments, and that they put them off and put them on, that they care for those that are not in use, and put them on again when they need them. that they are clothed with a variety of garments i have seen a thousand times. when i asked where they got their garments, they said from the lord, and that they receive them as gifts, and sometimes they are clothed with them unconsciously. they said also that their garments are changed in accordance with their changes of state, that in the first and second state their garments are shining and glistening white, and in the third and fourth state a little less bright; and this likewise from correspondence, because their changes of state have respect to intelligence and wisdom (of which see above, n. , ). . as everyone in the spiritual world has garments in accordance with his intelligence, that is, in accordance with truths which are the source of intelligence, so those in the hells, because they have no truths, appear clothed in garments, but in ragged, squalid, and filthy garments, each one in accordance with his insanity; and they can be clothed in no others. it is granted them by the lord to be clothed, lest they be seen naked. . xxi. the places of abode and dwellings of angels. as there are societies in heaven and the angels live as men, they have also places of abode, and these differ in accordance with each one's state of life. they are magnificent for those in higher dignity, and less magnificent for those in lower condition. i have frequently talked with angels about the places of abode in heaven, saying that scarcely any one will believe at the present day that they have places of abode and dwellings; some because they do not see them, some because they do not know that angels are men, and some because they believe that the angelic heaven is the heaven that they see with their eyes around them, and as this appears empty and they suppose that angels are ethereal forms, they conclude that they live in ether. moreover, they do not comprehend how there can be such things in the spiritual world as there are in the natural world, because they know nothing about the spiritual. [ ] the angels replied that they are aware that such ignorance prevails at this day in the world, and to their astonishment, chiefly within the church, and more with the intelligent than with those whom they call simple. they said also that it might be known from the word that angels are men, since those that have been seen have been seen as men; and the lord, who took all his human with him, appeared in like manner. it might be known also that as angels are men they have dwellings and places of abode, and do not fly about in air, as some think in their ignorance, which the angels call insanity, and that although they are called spirits they are not winds. this they said might be apprehended if men would only think independently of their acquired notions about angels and spirits, as they do when they are not bringing into question and submitting to direct thought whether it is so. for everyone has a general idea that angels are in the human form, and have homes which are called the mansions of heaven, which surpass in magnificence earthly dwellings; but this general idea, which flows in from heaven, at once falls to nothing when it is brought under direct scrutiny and inquiry whether it is so, as happens especially with the learned, who by their own intelligence have closed up heaven to themselves and the entrance of heavenly light. [ ] the like is true of the belief in the life of man after death. when one speaks of it, not thinking at the same time about the soul from the light of worldly learning or from the doctrine of its reunion with the body, he believes that after death he is to live a man, and among angels if he has lived well, and that he will then see magnificent things and perceive joys; but as soon as he turns his thoughts to the doctrine of reunion with the body, or to his theory about the soul, and the question arises whether the soul be such, and thus whether this can be true, his former idea is dissipated. . but it is better to present the evidence of experience. whenever i have talked with angels face to face, i have been with them in their abodes. these abodes are precisely like abodes on the earth which we call houses, but more beautiful. in them there are chambers, parlors, and bedrooms in great number; there are also courts, and there are gardens and flower beds and lawns round about. where they live together their houses are near each other, arranged one next to the other in the form of a city, with avenues, streets, and public squares, exactly like cities on the earth. i have been permitted to pass through them, looking about on every side, and sometimes entering the houses. this occurred when my inner sight was opened, and i was fully awake.{ } {footnote } angels have cities, palaces and houses (n. - , , - , ). . i have seen palaces in heaven of such magnificence as cannot be described. above they glittered as if made of pure gold, and below as if made of precious stones, some more splendid than others. it was the same within. both words and knowledge are inadequate to describe the decorations that adorned the rooms. on the side looking to the south there were parks, where, too, everything shone, in some places the leaves glistening as if made of silver, and fruit as if made of gold; while the flowers in their beds formed rainbows with their colors. beyond the borders, where the view terminated, were seen other palaces. such is the architecture of heaven that you would say that art there is in its art; and no wonder, because the art itself is from heaven. the angels said that such things and innumerable others still more perfect are presented before their eyes by the lord; and yet these things are more pleasing to their minds than to their eyes, because in everyone of them they see a correspondence, and through the correspondences what is divine. . as to these correspondences i have also been told that not only the palaces and houses, but all things and each thing, both inside and outside of them, correspond to the interior things which they have from the lord, the house itself in general corresponding to their good, the particular things inside of a house to the various things of which their good consists,{ } and the things outside to truths derived from good, and also to their perceptions and knowledges { } and as these things correspond to the goods and truths they have from the lord they correspond to their love, and to their wisdom and intelligence from love, since love belongs to good, wisdom to good and truth together, and intelligence to truth from good. these are what the angels perceive when they behold what is around them, and thus their minds are more delighted and moved by them than their eyes. {footnote } "houses," with their contents, signify the things in man that belong to his mind, thus his interiors (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ); consequently the things relating to good and truth (n. , , , , , ). "rooms" and "bed-chambers" signify interior things there (n. , , ). the "roof of a house" signifies what is inmost (n. , ). a "house of wood" signifies what relates to good, and a "house of stone" what relates to truth (n. ). {footnote } a "garden" or "park" signifies intelligence and wisdom (n. , , ). what is meant by "the garden of eden" and "the garden of jehovah" (n. , , ). how magnificent the things seen in parks are in the other life (n. , , , , ). "trees" signify perceptions and knowledges, from which wisdom and intelligence are derived (n. , , , , , ). "fruits" signify goods of love and goods of charity (n. , , ). . this makes clear why the lord called himself the temple at jerusalem (john : , ),{ } namely, because the temple represented his divine human; also why the new jerusalem was seen to be of pure gold, its gates of pearls, and its foundations of precious stones (apoc. ), namely, because the new jerusalem signifies the church which was afterwards to be established, the twelve gates its truths leading to good, and the foundations the truths on which the church is founded.{ } {footnote } in the highest sense "the house of god" signifies the lord's divine human in respect to divine good, and "the temple" the same in respect to divine truth; and in a relative sense, heaven and the church in respect to good and truth (n. ). {footnote } "jerusalem" signifies the church in which is genuine doctrine (n. , , ). "gates" signify introduction to the doctrine of the church, and through doctrine introduction into the church (n. , , ). "foundation" signifies the truth on which heaven, the church, and doctrine are founded (n. ). . the angels of whom the lord's celestial kingdom consists dwell for the most part in elevated places that appear as mountains of soil; the angels of whom the lord's spiritual kingdom consists dwell in less elevated places that appear like hills; while the angels in the lowest parts of heaven dwell in places that appear like ledges of stone. these things spring from correspondence, for interior things correspond to higher things, and exterior things to lower things;{ } and this is why in the word "mountains" signify celestial love, "hills" spiritual love, and "rocks" faith.{ } {footnote } in the word what is interior is expressed by what is higher and what is higher signifies what is interior (n. , , , , ). what is "high" signifies what is internal, and likewise heaven (n. , , , , ). {footnote } in heaven, mountains, hills, rocks, valleys, and lands are seen exactly the same as in the world (n. ). on the mountains angels who are in the good of love dwell, on the hills those who are in the good of charity, on the rocks those who are in the good of faith (n. ). therefore in the word "mountains" signify the good of love (n. , , , , , , ). "hills" signify the good of charity (n. , ). "rocks" signify the good and truth of faith (n. , ). "stone," of which rock consists, in like manner signifies the truth of faith (n. , , , , , , ). this is why "mountains" signify heaven (n. , , ). and "the summit of a mountain" signifies the highest part of heaven (n. , , ). also why the ancients had their holy worship on mountains (n. , ). . there are also angels who do not live associated together, but apart, house by house. these dwell in the midst of heaven, since they are the best of angels. . the houses in which angels dwell are not erected, as houses in the world are, but are given to them gratuitously by the lord, to everyone in accordance with his reception of good and truth. they also change a little in accordance with changes of the state of interiors of the angels (of which above, n. - ). everything whatsoever that the angels possess they hold as received from the lord; and everything they have need of is given them. . xxii. space in heaven. all things in heaven appear, just as in the world, to be in place and in space, and yet the angels have no notion or idea of place and space. as this must needs sounds like a paradox, i will endeavor to present the matter in a clear light, as it is of great importance. . all changes of place in the spiritual world are effected by changes of state of the interiors, which means that change of place is nothing else than change of state.{ } in this way i have been taken by the lord into the heavens and also to the earths in the universe; and it was my spirit that so journeyed, while my body remained in the same place.{ } such are all movements of the angels; and in consequence they have no distances, and having no distances they have no spaces, but in place of spaces they have states and their changes. {footnote } in the word places and spaces signify states (n. , , , , , ); from experience (n. , , - , , , , ). distance signifies difference of state of life (n. , ). in the spiritual world movements and changes of place are changes of the state of life, because they originate in these (n. - , , , ). the same is true of journeyings (n. , ); illustrated by experience (n. - , ). for this reason "to journey" signifies in the word to live and progress in life; and "to sojourn has a like meaning (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). to go with the lord means to live with him (n. ). {footnote } man may be led a long distance in respect to his spirit by means of changes of state, while his body remains in its place, also from experience (n. , , ). what it is to be "led by the spirit to another place" (n. ). . as changes of place are thus effected it is evident that approaches are likenesses of state of the interiors, and separations are unlikenesses; and for this reason those are near each other who are in like states, and those are at a distance who are in unlike states; and spaces in heaven are simply the external conditions corresponding to the internal states. for the same reason the heavens are distinct from each other, also the societies of each heaven and the individuals in each society; and this is why also that the hells are entirely separated from the heavens, because they are in a contrary state. . for the same reason, again, any one in the spiritual world who intensely desires the presence of another comes into his presence, for he thereby sees him in thought, and puts himself in his state; and conversely, one is separated from another so far as he is averse to him. and since all aversion comes from contrariety of affection and from disagreement of thought, whenever in that world several are together in one place they are visible [to one another] so long as they agree, but vanish as soon as they disagree. . again, when any one goes from one place to another, whether it be in his own city, or in courts or in gardens, or to others out of his own society, he arrives more quickly when he eagerly desires it, and less quickly when he does not, the way itself being lengthened and shortened in accordance with the desire, although it remains the same. this i have often seen to my surprise. all this again makes clear how distances, and consequently spaces, are wholly in accord with states of the interiors of the angels;{ } and this being so, no notion or idea of space can enter their thought, although there are spaces with them equally as in the world. {footnote } places and spaces are presented to the sight in accordance with the states of the interiors of angels and spirits (n. , , ). . this can be illustrated by the thoughts of man, in that space does not pertain to thought, for whatever is thought of intently is set before one as present. again, whoever reflects about it knows that his sight recognizes space only by intermediate objects on the earth that are seen at the same time, or by recalling what he already knows about the distance. this happens because of the continuity; and in what is continuous there is no appearance of distance except from things not continuous. this is even more true of the angels, because their sight acts as one with their thought, and their thought acts as one with their affection, and things appear near or remote, and also varied, in accordance with the states of their interiors, as has been said above. . it follows from this that in the word places and spaces, and all things that in any way relate to space, signify such things as relate to states, such as distances, near, far off, ways, journeys, sojourning, miles and furlongs, plains, fields, gardens, cities and streets, motions, measures of various kinds, long, broad, high, and deep, and innumerable other things; for most things in man's thought from the world take on something from space and time. [ ] i will mention here only what is signified in the word by length, breadth, and height. in this world, that is called long or broad which is long or broad in relation to space, and the same is true of height. but in heaven, where there is no thought from space, length means a state of good, breadth a state of truth, and height the distinction between them in accordance with degrees (see n. ). such is the meaning of these three dimensions, because length in heaven is from east to west, and those that dwell there are in good of love; while breadth in heaven is from south to north, and those that dwell there are in truth from good (see n. ); while height in heaven applies to both of these in respect to degrees. this is why length, breadth, and height have these significations in the word, as in ezekiel (from chap. to ), where the new temple and the new earth, with the courts, chambers, gates, doors, windows, and surroundings are described by measures giving the length, breadth, and height, by which a new church, and the goods and truths that are in it are signified. otherwise to what purpose would be all those measures? [ ] in like manner the new jerusalem is described in the apocalypse in these words: the city lieth foursquare, and the length thereof is as great as the breadth; and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs; the length, the breadth, and the height are equal ( : ). because "the new jerusalem" here signifies a new church these measures signify the things of the church, "length" its good of love, "breadth" truth from that good, "height" good and truth in respect to degrees, "twelve thousand furlongs" all good and truth in the complex. otherwise, how could there be said to be a height of twelve thousand furlongs, the same as the length and the breadth? that "breadth" in the word signifies truth is evident from david:- jehovah, thou hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy, thou hast made my feet to stand in a broad place (psalm : ). out of straitness i called upon jah; he answereth me in a broad place (psalm : ). besides other passages (as in isaiah : ; and in habakkuk : ). so in all other cases. . from all this it can be seen that although there are spaces in heaven as in the world, still nothing there is reckoned in accordance with spaces but in accordance with states; and in consequence spaces there cannot be measured as in the world, but can be seen only from the state and in accordance with the state of the interiors there.{ } {footnote } in the word length signifies good (n. , ). "breadth" signifies truth (n. , , , , , ). height signifies good and truth in respect to their degrees (n. , , ). . the primary and veriest cause of this is that the lord is present with everyone in the measure of his love and faith,{ } and that it is in accordance with the lord's presence that all things appear near or far away, for it is from this that all things in the heavens are determined. also it is through this that angels have wisdom, for it is through this that they have extension of thought and through this a sharing of all things in the heavens; in a word, it is through this that they think spiritually, and not naturally like men. {footnote } the conjunction and presence of the lord with the angels is according to their reception of love and charity from him (n. , , , , , , , , - , , , , ). . xxiii. the form of heaven which determines affiliations and communications there. what the form of heaven is can be seen in some measure from what has been shown in the preceding chapters; as that heaven is like itself both in its greatest and in its least divisions (n. ); that consequently each society is a heaven in a lesser form, and each angel in the least form (n. - ); that as the entire heaven reflects a single man, so each society of heaven reflects a man in a lesser form, and each angel in the least form (n. - ); that the wisest are at the center, and the less wise are round about even to the borders, and the like is true of each society (n. ); and that those who are in the good of love dwell from the east to the west in heaven, and those who are in truths from good from the south to the north; and the same is true of each society (n. , ). all this is in accord with the form of heaven; consequently it may be concluded from this what this form is in general.{ } {footnote } the entire heaven in respect to all angelic societies, is arranged by the lord in accordance with his divine order, since it is the divine of the lord with the angels that makes heaven (n. , , , , , , ). concerning the heavenly form (n. - , , ). . it is important to know what the form of heaven is, because not only is all affiliation there in accordance with it, but also all mutual communication, and in consequence of this all extension of thoughts and affections, and thus all the intelligence and wisdom of angels. from this it follows that each one there is wise just to the extent that he is in the form of heaven, and is thus a form of heaven. it makes no difference whether you say in the form of heaven, or in the order of heaven, since the form of any thing is from its order and in accordance with its order.{ } {footnote } the form of heaven is a form in accordance with the divine order (n. - , , ). . let us consider first what is meant by being in the form of heaven. man was created both in the image of heaven and in the image of the world; his internal in the image of heaven, and his external in the image of the world (see above, n. ); and in the image means the same thing as in accordance with the form. but as man by the evils of his will and consequent falsities of thought has destroyed in himself the image of heaven, that is, the form of heaven, and in place of it has brought in the image and form of hell, his internal is closed up from his very birth; and this is why man is born into pure ignorance, while animals of every kind are not. and that man may have the image of heaven or form of heaven restored to him he must be taught the things that pertain to order; since form, as has been said, is in accord with order. the word contains all the laws of divine order, for its precepts are the laws of divine order; therefore to the extent that man knows these and lives in accordance with them his internal is opened and the order or image of heaven is there formed anew. this makes clear what is meant by being in the form of heaven, namely, that it is to live in accordance with those things that are in the word.{ } {footnote } divine truths are the laws of order (n. , ). man is a man to the extent that he lives in accordance with order, that is, to the extent that he is in good in accordance with divine truths (n. , , ). all things of divine order are gathered up in man and he is from creation divine order in form (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). man is not born into good and truth, but into evil and falsity, that is, into the opposite of divine order, and consequently into pure ignorance; and for this reason he must needs be born anew that is, be regenerated, which is effected by means of divine truths from the lord, that he may be introduced into order (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). when the lord forms man anew, that is, regenerates him, he arranges all things in him in accordance with order, which means, into the form of heaven (n. , , , ). . so far as any one is in the form of heaven he is in heaven, and is, in fact, a heaven in the least form (n. ); consequently he is to the same extent in intelligence and wisdom; for as has been said above, all the thought of his understanding and all the affection of his will extend themselves on every side into heaven in accord with its form, and wonderfully communicate with the societies there, and these in turn with him.{ } [ ] there are some who do not believe that thoughts and affections really extend themselves around about them, but believe that they are within them, because whatever they think they see within in themselves, and not as distant; but such are greatly mistaken. for as the sight of the eye has extension to remote objects, and is affected in accordance with the order of the things seen in that extension, so the interior sight, which is that of the understanding, has a like extension in the spiritual world, although not perceived by man, for the reason given above (n. ). the only difference is that the sight of the eye is affected in a natural way, because it is affected by the things in the natural world, while the sight of the understanding is affected in a spiritual way, because by the things in the spiritual world, all of which have relation to good and truth; and man's ignorance of this is because of his not knowing that there is any light that enlightens the understanding; and yet without the light that enlightens the understanding man could not think at all (of which light see above, n. - ). [ ] there was a certain spirit who believed that his thought was from himself, thus without any extension outside of himself and communication thereby with societies outside of him. that he might learn that this was not true his communication with neighboring societies was cut off, and in consequence, not only was he deprived of thought but he fell down as if lifeless, although tossing his arms about like a new-born infant. after a while the communication was restored to him, and then as it was gradually restored he returned into the state of his thought. [ ] when other spirits had seen this they confessed that all thought and affection, and in consequence, everything of life, flow in in accordance with communication, since everything of man's life consists in his ability to think and be moved by affection, or what is the same, in his ability to understand and will.{ } {footnote } everyone in heaven has communication of life, which may be called its extension into angelic societies round about, according to the quantity and quality of his good (n. , ). thoughts and affections have such extension (n. , - ). they are united and separated in accordance with the ruling affections (n. ). {footnote } there is only one life, from which all, both in heaven and in the world, live (n. , , , , - , , , , , ). that life is from the lord above (n. - , , , , , , , , , - , , ). it flows into angels, spirits, and men, in a wonderful manner (n. - , , , , ). the lord flows in from his divine love, which is such that what is its own it wills should be another's (n. , ). for this reason life appears to be in man, and not flowing in (n. , ). of the joy of angels, perceived and confirmed by what they told me, because of their not living from themselves but from the lord (n. ). the evil are unwilling to be convinced that life flows in (n. ). life from the lord flows in also with the evil (n. , , , ). but they turn good into evil, and truth into falsity; for such as man is such is his reception of life illustrated (n. , , ). . but let it be understood that intelligence and wisdom vary with everyone in accordance with this communication, those whose intelligence and wisdom are formed out of genuine truths and goods having communication with societies in accordance with the form of heaven; while those whose intelligence and wisdom are not formed out of genuine truths and goods, and yet out of what is in accord therewith, have a broken and variously coherent communication, since it is not with societies that are in a series in which there is a form of heaven. on the other hand, those that are not in intelligence and wisdom, because they are in falsities from evil, have communication with societies in hell; and their extension is determined by the degree of their confirmation. let it also be known that this communication with societies is not such a communication with them as is clearly perceptible to those there, but is a communication with what they really are, which is in them and flows from them.{ } {footnote } thought pours itself into societies of spirits and of angels round about (n. - ). still it does not move or disturb the thoughts of the societies (n. , ). . there is an affiliation of all in heaven in accordance with spiritual relationships, that is, relationships of good and truth in their order. it is so in the whole heaven; so in each society, and so in each house. because of this angels who are in like good and truth recognize each other, as relatives by blood and marriage do on the earth, precisely as if they had been acquainted from infancy. the good and truth in each angel, which constitute his wisdom and intelligence, are affiliated in like manner; they recognize each other in like manner, and as they recognize each other they join themselves together;{ } and in consequence those in whom truths and goods are thus joined in accordance with a form of heaven see things following one another in series, and how they cohere widely round about; but those in whom goods and truths are not conjoined in accordance with the form of heaven do not see this. {footnote } good recognizes its truth, and truth its good (n. , , , , , , , , , ). in this way good and truth are conjoined (n. , , , , , , , , , - , - , , , ). this is effected by influx from heaven (n. ). . in each heaven there is such a form, and in accordance with it the angels have communication and extension of thoughts and affections, and thus in accordance with it they have intelligence and wisdom. but the communication of one heaven with another is different, that is, of the third or inmost with the second or middle, and of this with the first or outmost. but the communication between the heavens should not be called communication but influx. about this something shall now be said. that there are three heavens distinct from each other can be seen above in its own chapter (n. - ). . that between one heaven and another there is influx but not communication can be seen from their relative position. the third or inmost heaven is above, the second or middle heaven is below, and the first or outmost heaven is still lower. there is a like arrangement in all the societies in each heaven, for example, some dwell on elevated places that appear like mountains (n. ); on the top of which those of the inmost heaven dwell; below these are the societies of the second heaven, below these again the societies of the outmost heaven. the same is true every where, both in elevated places and in those not elevated. a society of a higher heaven has no communication with a society of a lower except by correspondences (see above, n. ); and communication by correspondences is what is called influx. . one heaven is joined with another, or a society of one heaven with the society of another, by the lord alone, both by direct and by mediate influx, directly from himself, and mediately through the higher heavens in order into the lower.{ } as the conjunction of the heavens by this inflowing is from the lord alone there is a most careful precaution against any angel of a higher heaven looking down into a society of a lower heaven and talking with any one there; for the angel is thus immediately deprived of his intelligence and wisdom. the reason of this also shall be told. as there are three degrees of heaven, so each angel has three degrees of life, those in the inmost heaven having the third or inmost degree open, while the second and first degrees are closed; those in the middle heaven have the second degree opened and the first and third closed; and those in the lowest heaven have the first degree opened and the second and third closed. consequently, as soon as an angel of the third heaven looks down into a society of the second heaven and talks with any one there his third degree is at once closed; and as his wisdom resides in that degree, if that is closed he is deprived of his wisdom, for he has none in the second or first degree. this is what is meant by the words of the lord in matthew: he that is on the housetop, let him not go down to take what is in his house; and he that is in the field, let him not turn back to take his garment ( : , ). and in luke: in that day he that shall be on the housetop and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away; and he that is in the field let him not turn back. remember lot's wife ( : , ). {footnote } there is direct influx from the lord and mediate influx through heaven (n. , , , , ). there is a direct influx of the lord into the minutest parts of all things (n. , - , , ). of the mediate influx of the lord through the heavens (n. , , , ). . no influx is possible from the lower heavens into the higher, because this is contrary to order; but there is influx from the higher heavens into the lower. moreover, the wisdom of the angels of a higher heaven surpasses the wisdom of the angels of a lower heaven as a myriad to one; and this is another reason why the angels of a lower heaven cannot converse with those of a higher heaven; and in fact when they look towards them they do not see them, the higher heaven appearing like a cloudy something over their heads. but the angels of a higher heaven can see those in a lower heaven, although if permitted to talk with them they would lose their wisdom, as has been said above. . the thoughts and affections as well as the speech of the angels of the inmost heaven are never perceived in the middle heaven, because they so transcend what is there. but when it pleases the lord there is seen in the lower heavens from that source something like a flame, and from the thoughts and affections in the middle heaven there is seen in the outmost heaven something luminous, and sometimes a cloud glowing white and variegated. from that cloud, its ascent, descent, and form, what is being said there is in some measure known. . from all this it can be seen what the form of heaven is, namely, that it is the most perfect of all in the inmost heaven; in the middle heaven it is also perfect, but in a lower degree, and in the outmost heaven in a degree still lower; also that the form of one heaven has its permanent existence from another by means of influx from the lord. but what communication by influx is cannot be understood unless it is known what degrees of height are, and how they differ from degrees of length and breadth. what these different degrees are may be seen above (n ). . when it comes to the particulars of the form of heaven and how it proceeds and flows, this not even the angels can comprehend. some conception of it can be gained from the form of all things in the human body, when this is scanned and investigated by an acute and wise man; for it has been shown above, in their respective chapters, that the entire heaven reflects a single man (see n. - ) and that all things in man correspond to the heavens (n. - ). how incomprehensible and inexplicable that form is is evident only in a general way from the nervous fibers, by which each part and all parts of the body are woven together. what these fibers are, and how they proceed and flow in the brain, the eye cannot at all perceive; for innumerable fibers are there so interwoven that taken together they appear like a soft continuous mass; and yet it is in accord with these that each thing and all things of the will and understanding flow with the utmost distinctness into acts. how again they interweave themselves in the body is clear from the various plexuses, such as those of the heart, the mesentery, and others; and also from the knots called ganglions, into which many fibers enter from every region and there intermingle, and when variously joined together go forth to their functions, and this again and again; besides like things in every viscus, member, organ, and muscle. whoever examines these fibers and their many wonders with the eye of wisdom will be utterly bewildered. and yet the things seen with the eye are few, and those not seen are still more wonderful because they belong to an inner realm of nature. it is clearly evident that this form corresponds to the form of heaven, because all the workings of the understanding and the will are within it and are in accordance with it; for it is in accordance with this form that whatever a man wills passes spontaneously into act, and whatever he thinks spreads through the fibers from their beginnings even to their terminations, which is the source of sensations; and inasmuch as it is the form of thought and will, it is the form of intelligence and wisdom. such is the form that corresponds to the form of heaven. and from this it can be known that such is the form in accordance with which every affection and thought of angels extends itself, and that so far as the angels are in that form they are in intelligence and wisdom. that this form of heaven is from the divine human of the lord can be seen above (n. - ). all this has been said to make clear also that the heavenly form is such that even as to its generals it can never be completely known, thus that it is incomprehensible even to the angels, as has been said above. . xxiv. governments in heaven. as heaven is divided into societies, and the larger societies consist of some hundreds of thousands of angels (n. ), and all within a society, although in like good, are not in like wisdom (n. ), it must needs follow that governments exist there, since order must be observed, and all things of order must be guarded. but the governments in the heavens differ; they are of one sort in societies that constitute the lord's celestial kingdom, and of another sort in the societies that constitute his spiritual kingdom; they differ also in accordance with the functions of the several societies. nevertheless, no other government than the government of mutual love is possible in the heavens, and the government of mutual love is heavenly government. . government in the lord's celestial kingdom is called righteousness because all in that kingdom are in the good of love to the lord from the lord, and whatever is from that good is called righteous. government there belongs to the lord alone. he leads them and teaches them in the affairs of life. the truths that are called truths of judgment are written on their hearts; everyone knows them, perceives them, and sees them;{ } and in consequence matters of judgment there never come into question, but only matters of righteousness, which belong to the life. about these matters the less wise consult the more wise, and these consult the lord and receive answers. their heaven, that is, their inmost joy, is to live rightly from the lord. {footnote } the celestial angels do not think and speak from truths, as the spiritual angels do, because they have from the lord a perception of all things of truth (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). in respect to truths the celestial angels say, yea, yea, or nay, nay; but the spiritual angels reason about them whether they are true or not (n. , , , , , where the lord's words, let your speech be yea, yea, nay, nay; what is beyond these is from evil (matt. : ). are explained). . in the lord's spiritual kingdom the government is called judgment; because those in that kingdom are in spiritual good, which is the good of charity towards the neighbor, and that good in its essence is truth;{ } and truth pertains to judgment, as good pertains to righteousness.{ } these, too, are led by the lord, but mediately (n. ); and in consequence they have governors, few or many according to the need of the society in which they are. they also have laws according to which they live together. the governors administer all things in accordance with the laws, which they understand because they are wise, and in doubtful matters they are enlightened by the lord. {footnote } those in the spiritual kingdom are in truths, and those in the celestial kingdom are in good (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). the good of the spiritual kingdom is the good of charity towards the neighbor and this good in its essence is truth (n. , ). {footnote } in the word "righteousness" is predicated of good, and "judgment" of truth therefore "to do righteousness and judgment" means good and truth (n. , ). "great judgments" means the law of divine order, thus divine truths (n. ). . as government from good, which is the kind of government that exists in the lord's celestial kingdom, is called righteousness; and government from truth, which is the kind of government that exists in the lord's spiritual kingdom, is called judgment, so the terms "righteousness and judgment" are used in the word when heaven and the church are treated of, "righteousness" signifying celestial good, and "judgment" spiritual good, which good, as has been said above, is in its essence truth, as in the following passages: of peace there shall be no end upon the throne of david and upon his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it in judgment and in righteousness from henceforth and even to eternity (isaiah : ). by "david" here the lord is meant;{ } and by "his kingdom" heaven, as is evident from the following passage: i will raise unto david a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king, and shall deal intelligently and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land (jer. : ). jehovah is exalted, for he dwelleth on high; he hath filled zion with judgment and righteousness (isaiah : ). "zion" also means heaven and the church.{ } i, jehovah, doing judgment and righteousness on the earth, for in these things i delight (jer. : ). i will betroth thee unto me forever, and i will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and judgment (hosea : ). o jehovah, in the heavens thy righteousness is like the mountains of god, and thy judgments are like the great deep (psalm : , ). they ask of me the judgments of righteousness, they long for an approach unto god (isaiah : ). so in other places. {footnote } by "david" in the prophetic parts of the word, the lord is meant (n. , ). {footnote } in the word "zion" means the church, and specifically the celestial church (n. , ). . in the lord's spiritual kingdom there are various forms of government, differing in different societies, the variety being in accord with the functions performed by the societies; and the functions of these are in accord with the functions of all things in man to which they correspond. that these are various is well known, the heart having one function, the lungs another, the liver another, the pancreas and spleen another, and each sensory organ another. as in the body these organs perform various services, so there are various services pertaining to the societies in the greatest man, which is heaven for the societies there correspond to these organs. that there is a correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man may be seen in its own chapter above (n. - ). but all these forms of government agree in this, that they look to the public good as their end, and in that good to the good of the individual.{ } and this is so because everyone in the whole heaven is under the auspices of the lord, who loves all, and from divine love ordains that there shall be a common good, from which each individual shall receive his own good. each one, moreover, receives good according as he loves the common good; for so far as he loves the common good he loves all and everyone; and as that love is love of the lord he is to that extent loved by the lord, and good comes to him. {footnote } every man and every community, also one's country and the church and in the universal sense the kingdom of the lord, is a neighbor, and to do good to these from love of good in accordance with their state is to love the neighbor; that is, the neighbor is the good of these, which is the common good that must be consulted (n. - , ). civil good also, which is justice, is a neighbor (n. , , - ). therefore charity towards the neighbor extends itself to all things and each thing of the life of man; and loving good and doing good from love of good and truth, and also doing what is just from a love of what is just in every function and in every work, is loving the neighbor (n. , - ). . from all this it can be seen what the governors there are, namely, that they are such as are preeminent in love and wisdom, and therefore desire the good of all, and from wisdom know how to provide for the realization of that good. such governors do not domineer or dictate, but they minister and serve (to serve meaning to do good to others from a love of the good, and to minister meaning to see to it that the good is done); nor do they make themselves greater than others, but less, for they put the good of society and of the neighbor in the first place, and put their own good last; and whatever is in the first place is greater and what is last is less. nevertheless, the rulers have honor and glory; they dwell in the midst of the society, in higher position than the rest, and also in magnificent palaces; and this glory and honor they accept not for the sake of themselves but for the sake of obedience; for all there know that they have this honor and glory from the lord, and on that account should be obeyed. this is what is meant by the lord's words to his disciples: whosoever would become great among you let him be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you let him be your servant; as the son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister (matt. : , ). he that is greatest among you let him be as the least, and he that is chief as he that doth minister (luke : ). . also in each house there is a like government in a lesser form. in every house there is a master and there are servants; the master loves the servants and the servants love the master, consequently they serve each other from love. the master teaches how they ought to live, and tells what is to be done; the servants obey and perform their duties. to perform use is the delight of everyone's life. this shows that the lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses. . also in the hells there are governments, for without governments they could not be kept in restraint; but the governments there are opposite to the governments in the heavens; they are governments of the love of self. everyone there wishes to dictate to others and to be over others. they hate those that do not favor them, and make them objects of their vengeance and fury, for such is the nature of the love of self. therefore the more malignant are set over them as governors, and these they obey from fear.{ } but of this below, where the hells are treated of. {footnote } there are two kinds of rule, one from love towards the neighbor the other from love of self (n. ). from the rule that is from love towards the neighbor flow all goods and all happinesses (n. , ). in heaven no one desires to rule from the love of self, but all desire to minister, which means to rule from love to the neighbor; this is the source of their great power (n. ). from rule from the love of self all evils flow in (n. ). when the loves of self and the world had begun to prevail men were compelled to subject themselves to governments as a means of security (n. , , ). . xxv. divine worship in heaven. divine worship in the heavens is not unlike in externals divine worship on the earth, but in internals it is different. in the heavens, as on the earth, there are doctrines, preachings, and church edifices. in essentials the doctrines there are everywhere the same; but in the higher heavens they contain more interior wisdom than in the lower. the preachings are in harmony with the doctrines; and as they have houses and palaces (n. - ), so they have also church edifices, in which there is preaching. such things exist in heaven, because the angels are being perfected continually in wisdom and love. for they possess, as men do, understanding and will; and both their understanding and their will are capable of being continually perfected, the understanding by means of truths of intelligence, and the will by means of the goods of love.{ } {footnote } the understanding is receptive of truth, and the will of good (n. , , , , ). as all things have relation to truth and good, so everything of man's life has relation to understanding and will (n. , ). angels are perfected to eternity (n. , ). . but essential divine worship in the heavens does not consist in going to church and hearing preaching, but in a life of love, charity, and faith, in accordance with doctrine; preachings in churches serve solely as means of instruction in matters of life. i have talked with angels on this subject, and have told them that it is believed in the world that divine worship consists solely in attending church, listening to the preaching, observing the sacrament of the supper three or four times a year, and performing other acts of worship according to the requirements of the church; also devoting special times to prayers, and at such times, behaving devoutly. the angels said that these are outward acts that ought to be done, but are of no avail unless there is an internal from which they proceed, which is a life in accordance with the precepts that doctrine teaches. . that i might learn about their meeting in places of worship, i have been permitted at times to attend and to hear the preaching. the preacher stands in a pulpit at the east. those who are in the light of wisdom more than others sit in front of him; those who are in less light sit to the right and left of these. there is a circular arrangement of the seats, so that all are in the preacher's view, no one so sitting at either side as to be out of his view. at the entrance, which is at the east of the building and on the left of the pulpit, those stand who are being initiated. no one is permitted to stand behind the pulpit; when there is any one there the preacher becomes confused. it is the same if any one in the congregation dissents; and for this reason the dissenter must needs turn away his face. the wisdom of the preachings is such as to be above all comparison with the preachings of this world, for those in the heavens are in interior light. the church edifices in the spiritual kingdom are apparently built of stone, and those in the celestial kingdom of wood; because stone corresponds to truth, and those who are in the spiritual kingdom are in truth, while wood corresponds to good, and those in the celestial kingdom are in good.{ } in that kingdom the sacred edifices are not called churches but houses of god. in that kingdom they are without magnificence; but in the spiritual kingdom they are more or less magnificent. {footnote } "stone" signifies truth (n. , , , , , , ). "wood" signifies good (n. , , ). for this reason the most ancient people, who were in celestial good, had sacred buildings of wood (n. ). . i have also talked with one of the preachers about the holy state in which those are who listen to the preaching in the churches. he said that everyone is pious, devout, and holy in harmony with his interiors, which pertain to love and faith, for holiness itself is in love and faith, because the divine of the lord is in them. he also said that he did not know what outward holiness is apart from love and faith; and when he thought about it he said that perhaps it is something counterfeiting holiness in outward appearance, either conventional or hypocritical; and that such holiness is kindled and sustained by spurious fire from the love of self and the world. . all the preachers are from the lord's spiritual kingdom; none are from the celestial kingdom. they are from the spiritual kingdom because the angels there are in truths from good, and all preaching must be from truths. there are no preachers from the celestial kingdom because those who are there are in the good of love, and they see and perceive truths from good, but do not talk about them. but although the angels in the celestial kingdom perceive and see truths there are preachings there, since by means of preachings they are enlightened in the truths that they already know, and are perfected by many truths that they did not know before. as soon as they hear truths they acknowledge them and thus perceive them; and the truths they perceive they love, and by living in accordance with them they make them to be of their life, declaring that living in accordance with truths is loving the lord.{ } {footnote } loving the lord and the neighbor is living in accordance with the lord's commandments (n. , , , , , ). . all preachers are appointed by the lord, and have therefrom a gift for preaching. no others are permitted to preach in the churches. they are not called priests, but preachers. they are not called priests because the celestial kingdom is the priesthood of heaven; for priesthood signifies the good of love to the lord, and those in the celestial kingdom are in that good; while the spiritual kingdom is the kingship of heaven, for kingship signifies truth from good, and those in the spiritual kingdom are in that truth (see above, n. ).{ } {footnote } priests represented the lord in respect to the divine good, kings in respect to divine truth (n. , ). therefore, in the word a "priest" signifies those who are in the good of love to the lord, and the priesthood signifies that good (n. , ). a "king" in the word signifies those who are in divine truth, and therefrom kingship signifies truth from good (n. , , , , , , ). . the doctrines with which their preachings are in accord all look to life as their end, and none look to faith separate from the life. the doctrine of the inmost heaven is more full of wisdom than the doctrine of the middle heaven, and this more full of intelligence than the doctrine of the outmost heaven; for in each heaven the doctrines are adapted to the perceptions of the angels. the essential of all doctrines is acknowledging the divine human of the lord. . xxvi. the power of the angels of heaven. that the angels possess power cannot be comprehended by those who know nothing about the spiritual world and its influx into the natural world. such think that angels can have no power because they are spiritual and are even so pure and unsubstantial that no eye can see them. but those who look more interiorly into the causes of things take a different view. such know that all the power that a man has is from his understanding and will (for apart from these he is powerless to move a particle of his body), and his understanding and will are his spiritual man. this moves the body and its members at its pleasure; for whatever it thinks the mouth and tongue speak, and whatever it wills the body does; and it bestows its strength at pleasure. as man's will and understanding are ruled by the lord through angels and spirits, so also are all things of his body, because these are from the will and understanding; and if you will believe it, without influx from heaven man cannot even move a step. that this is so has been shown me by much experience. angels have been permitted to move my steps, my actions, and my tongue and speech, as they pleased, and this by influx into my will and thought; and i have learned thereby that of myself i could do nothing. i was afterwards told by them that every man is so ruled, and that he can know this from the doctrine of the church and from the word, for he prays that god may send his angels to lead him, direct his steps, teach him, and inspire in him what to think and what to say, and other like things; although he says and believes otherwise when he is thinking by himself apart from doctrine. all this has been said to make known what power angels have with man. . but so great is the power of angels in the spiritual world that if i should make known all that i have witnessed in regard to it it would exceed belief. any obstruction there that ought to be removed because it is contrary to divine order the angels cast down or overthrow merely by an effort of the will and a look. thus i have seen mountains that were occupied by the evil cast down and overthrown, and sometimes shaken from end to end as in earthquakes; also rocks cleft asunder to their bottoms, and the evil who were upon them swallowed up. i have seen also hundreds of thousands of evil spirits dispersed by angels and cast down into hell. numbers are of no avail against them; neither are devices, cunning, or combinations; for they see through them all, and disperse them in a moment. (but more may be seen on this subject in the account of the destruction of babylon.) such power do angels have in the spiritual world. it is evident from the word that they have like power in the natural world also when it is permitted; for instance, that they have given to destruction entire armies; and that they brought on a pestilence from which seventy thousand men died. of this angel it is said: the angel stretched out his hand against jerusalem to destroy it but jehovah repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, it is enough, now stay thy hand. and david saw the angel that smote the people ( samuel : , ); besides other passages. because the angels have such power they are called powers; as in david: bless jehovah, ye angels, mighty in power (psalm : ). . but it must be understood that the angels have no power whatever from themselves, but that all their power is from the lord; and that they are powers only so far as they acknowledge this. whoever of them believes that he has power from himself instantly becomes so weak as not to be able to resist even a single evil spirit. for this reason angels ascribe no merit whatever to themselves, and are averse to all praise and glory on account of any thing they do, ascribing all the praise and glory to the lord. . it is the divine truth that goes forth from the lord that has all power in the heavens, for the lord in heaven is divine truth united to divine good (see n. - ). to the extent that angels are receptions of this truth they are powers.{ } moreover each one is his own truth and his own good because each one is such as his understanding and will are. the understanding pertains to truth because everything of it is from truths, and the will pertains to good because everything of it is from goods; for whatever any one understands he calls truth, and whatever he wills he calls good. from this it is that everyone is his own truth and his own good.{ } therefore so far as an angel is truth from the divine and good from the divine he is a power, because to that extent the lord is in him. and as no one's good and truth are wholly like or the same as another's, since in heaven, as in the world, there is endless variety (n. ), so the power of one angel is not like the power of another. those who constitute the arms in the greatest man, or heaven, have the greatest power because such are more in truths than others, and into their truths good flows from the entire heaven. moreover, the power of the whole man passes into the arms, and by means of these the whole body exercises its powers. it is for this reason that in the word "arms" and "hand" signify powers.{ } sometimes on this account a naked arm is seen in heaven so powerful as to be able to break in pieces everything in its way, even though it were a great rock on the earth. once it was moved towards me, and i perceived that it was able to crush my bones to atoms. {footnote } angels are called powers and are powers from their reception of divine truth from the lord (n. ). angels are recipients of divine truth from the lord and on this account are sometimes called "gods" in the word (n. , , , , , , ). {footnote } a man or an angel is his own good and his own truth, thus his own love and his own faith (n. , ). he is his own understanding and his own will, for everything of life is there from; the life of good is from the will, and the life of truth is from the understanding (n. , , , ). {footnote } the correspondence of the hands, arms, and shoulders, with the greatest man or heaven (n. - ). in the word, "arms" and hands signify power (n. , , , , , ). . it has been shown above (n. ) that the divine truth that goes forth from the lord has all power, and that angels have power to the extent that they are receptions of divine truth from the lord. but angels are so far receptions of divine truth as they are receptions of divine good, for truths have all their power from good, and none apart from good. so, too, good has all its power through truths, and none apart from truths. power springs from the conjunction of these two. the same is true of faith and love; for it is the same whether you say truth or faith, since everything of faith is truth; also it is the same whether you say good or love, since everything of love is good.{ } the great power that angels have by means of truths from good is shown also from this, that when an evil spirit is merely looked at by the angels he falls into a swoon, and does not appear like a man, and this until the angel turns away his eyes. such an effect is produced by the look of the eyes of angels, because the sight of angels is from the light of heaven, and the light of heaven is divine truth (see above, n. - ). moreover, the eyes correspond to truths from good.{ } {footnote } all power in heaven is the power of truth from good, thus of faith from loves (n. , , , , , , ). all power is from the lord, because from him is every truth of faith and every good of love (n. , ). this power is meant by the keys given to peter (n. ). it is divine truth going forth from the lord that has all power (n. , ). this power of the lord is what is meant by "sitting at the right hand of jehovah" (n. , , , , , , ). the right had means power (n. ). {footnote } the eyes correspond to truths from good (n. - , - , ). . as truths from good have all power, so falsities from evil have no power at all;{ } and as all in hell are in falsities from evil they have no power against truth and good. but what power they have among themselves, and what power evil spirits have before they are cast into hell, will be told hereafter. {footnote } falsity from evil has no power, because truth from food has all power (n. , ). . xxvii. the speech of angels. angels talk with each other just as men do in the world, and on various subjects, as on domestic matters, and on matters of the civil state, and of moral, and spiritual life. and there is no difference except that their talk is more intelligent than that of men, because it is from more interior thought. i have been permitted to associate with them frequently, and to talk with them as friend with friend, and sometimes as stranger with stranger; and as i was then in a state like theirs i knew no otherwise than that i was talking with men on the earth. . angelic speech, like human speech, is distinguished into words; it is also audibly uttered and heard; for angels, like men, have mouth, tongue, and ears, and an atmosphere in which the sound of their speech is articulated, although it is a spiritual atmosphere adapted to angels, who are spiritual. in their atmosphere angels breathe and utter words by means of their breath, as men do in their atmosphere.{ } {footnote } in the heavens there is respiration, but it is of an interior kind (n. , ) from experience (n. , , , ). there are differing respirations there, varying in accordance with their states (n. , , , , , ). the evil are wholly unable to breathe in heaven, and they are suffocated if they go there (n. ). . in the entire heaven all have the same language, and they all understand one another, to whatever society, near or remote, they belong. language there is not learned but is instinctive with everyone, for it flows from their very affection and thought, the tones of their speech corresponding to their affections, and the vocal articulations which are words corresponding to the ideas of thought that spring from the affections; and because of this correspondence the speech itself is spiritual, for it is affection sounding and thought speaking. [ ] any one who gives any thought to it can see that all thought is from affection which pertains to love, and that the ideas of thought are the various forms into which the general affection is distributed; for no thought or idea is possible apart from affection-the soul and life of thought is from affection. this enables angels to know, merely from another's speech, what he is-from the tone what his affection is, and from the vocal articulations or words what his mind is. the wiser angels know what the ruling affection is from a single series of words, for that affection is what they chiefly attend to. [ ] it is known that each individual has a variety of affections, one affection when in joy, another when in grief, another when in sympathy and compassion, another when in sincerity and truth, another when in love and charity, another when in zeal or in anger, another when in simulation and deceit, another when in quest of honor and glory, and so on. but the ruling affection or love is in all of these; and for this reason the wiser angels, because they perceive that love, know from the speech the whole state of another. [ ] this it has been granted me to know from much experience. i have heard angels disclosing the character of another's life merely from hearing him speak. they also said that from any ideas of another's thought they could know all things of his life, because from those ideas they know his ruling love, in which are all things in their order. they know also that man's book of life is nothing else. . angelic language has nothing in common with human languages except certain words that are the sounds of a specific affection; yet this is true not of the words themselves but of their sounds; on which subject something will be said in what follows that angelic language has nothing in common with human languages is evident from the fact that angels are unable to utter a single word of human language. this was tried but they could not do it, because they can utter nothing except what is in entire agreement with their affections; whatever is not in agreement is repugnant to their very life, for life belongs to affection, and their speech is from their life. i have been told that the first language of men on our earth coincided with angelic language because they had it from heaven; and that the hebrew language coincides with it in some respects. . as the speech of angels corresponds to their affection, and their affection belongs to their love, and as the love of heaven is love to the lord and love towards the neighbor (see above, n. - ), it is evident how choice and delightful their talk must be, affecting not the ears only but also the interiors of the mind of those who listen to it. there was a certain hard-hearted spirit with whom an angel spoke. at length he was so affected by what was said that he shed tears, saying that he had never wept before, but he could not refrain, for it was love speaking. . the speech of angels is likewise full of wisdom because it proceeds from their interior thoughts, and their interior thought is wisdom, as their interior affection is love, and in their speech their love and wisdom unite. for this reason their speech is so full of wisdom that they can express in a single word what man cannot express in a thousand words also the ideas of their thought include things that are beyond man's comprehension, and still more his power of expression. this is why the things that have been heard and seen in heaven are said to be ineffable, and such as ear hath never heard nor eye seen. [ ] that this is true i have also been permitted to learn by experience. at times i have entered into the state in which angels are, and in that state have talked with them, and i then understood everything. but when i was brought back into my former state, and thus into the natural thought proper to man, and wished to recall what i had heard i could not; for there were thousands of things unadapted to the ideas of natural thought, and therefore inexpressible except by variegations of heavenly light, and thus not at all by human words. [ ] also the ideas of thought of the angels from which their words spring are modifications of the light of heaven, and the affections from which the tones of the words spring are variations of the heat of heaven, the light of heaven being divine truth or wisdom, and the heat of heaven the divine good or love (see above, n. - ); and the angels have their affection from the divine love, and their thought from the divine wisdom.{ } {footnote } the ideas of angels, from which they speak, are expressed by wonderful variegations of the light of heaven (n. , , ). . because the speech of angels proceeds directly from their affection, and the ideas of their thought are the various forms into which their general affection is distributed (see above, n. ), angels can express in a moment what a man cannot express in half an hour; also they can set forth in a few words what has been expressed in writing on many pages; and this, too, has been proved to me by much experience.{ } thus the angels' ideas of thought and the words of their speech make one, like effecting cause and effect; for what is in the ideas of thought as cause is presented in the words as effect, and this is why every word comprehends in itself so many things. also all the particulars of angelic thought, and thus of angelic speech, appear when presented to view like a thin wave or circumfluent atmosphere, in which are innumerable things in their order derived from angelic wisdom, and these enter another's thought and affect him. the ideas of thought of everyone, both angel and man, are presented to view in the light of heaven, whenever the lord pleases.{ } {footnote } angels can express by their speech in a moment more than a man can express by his in half an hour; and they can also express things that do not fall into the expressions of human speech (n. - , , , ). {footnote } the innumerable things contained in one idea of thought (n. , , , - ). the ideas of man's thought are opened in the other life, and what they are is presented to view to the life (n. , , ). what their appearance is (n. , ). the ideas of angels of the inmost heaven present an appearance of flamy light (n. ). the ideas of angels of the outmost heaven present an appearance of thin white clouds (n. ). an angelic idea seen, from which there was a radiation towards the lord (n. ). ideas of thought extend themselves widely into the societies of angels round about (n. - ). . the speech of angels of the lord's celestial kingdom resembles the speech of the angels of his spiritual kingdom, but it is from more interior thought. celestial angels are in good of love to the lord, and therefore speak from wisdom; while spiritual angels are in the good of charity towards the neighbor, which in its essence is truth (n. ), and therefore speak from intelligence, for wisdom is from good, and intelligence is from truth. for this reason the speech of celestial angels is like a gentle stream, soft, and as it were continuous; but the speech of spiritual angels is slightly vibratory and divided. the speech of celestial angels has much of the tones of the vowels u and o; while the speech of spiritual angels has much of the tones of e and i;{ } for the vowels stand for tone, and in the tone there is affection, the tone of the speech of angels corresponding to their affection, as has been said above (n. ); while the vocal articulations, which are words, correspond to the ideas of thought which spring from affection. as the vowels are not essential to a language, but serve by means of tones to elevate the words to the various affections according to each one's state, so in the hebrew tongue the vowels are not expressed, and are also variously pronounced. from this a man's quality in respect to his affection and love is known to the angels. also in the speech of celestial angels there are no hard consonants, and it rarely passes from one consonant to another without the interposition of a word beginning with a vowel. this is why in the word the particle "and" is so often interposed, as can be seen by those who read the word in the hebrew, in which this particle is soft, beginning and ending with a vowel sound. again, in the word, in hebrew, it can in some measure be seen from the words used whether they belong to the celestial class or the spiritual class, that is, whether they involve good or truth. those involving good partake largely of the sounds of u and o, and also somewhat of a, while those involving truth partake of the sounds of e and i. because it is especially in tones that affections express themselves, so in human speech, when great subjects are discussed, such as heaven [caelum] and god [deus], those words are preferred that contain the vowels u and o; and musical tones, whenever such themes are to be expressed, rise to the same fullness; but not when less exalted themes are rendered. by such means musical art is able to express affections of various kinds. {footnote } [as these vowels are pronounced in european language. -- tr.] . in angelic speech there is a kind of symphony that cannot be described;{ } which comes from the pouring forth and diffusion of the thoughts and affections from which speech flows, in accordance with the form of heaven, and all affiliation and all communication in heaven is in accordance with that form. that angels are affiliated in accordance with the form of heaven, and that their thoughts and affections flow in accordance with it may be seen above (n. - ). {footnote } in angelic speech there is a symphony with harmonious cadence (n. , , ). . speech like that in the spiritual world is inherent in every man in his interior intellectual part; but man does not know this, because this speech does not with man, as with angels, fall into words analogous to affection; nevertheless this is what causes man, when he enters the other life, to come into the same speech as spirits and angels, and thus to know how to speak without instruction.{ } but more on this subject hereafter. {footnote } there is spiritual or angelic speech belonging to man, though he does not know it (n. ). the ideas of the internal man are spiritual, but during his life in the world man perceives them naturally, because he then thinks in what is natural (n. , , ). man comes after death into his interior ideas (n. , , , , ). those ideas then form his speech (n. - ). . in heaven, as has been said above, all have one speech; but it is varied in this respect, that the speech of the wise is more interior and more full of variations of affections and ideas of thought, while the speech of the less wise is more external and less full; and the speech of the simple is still more external, consisting of words from which the meaning is to be gathered in the same way as when men are talking to one another. there is also speech by the face, terminating in something sonorous modified by ideas. again, there is speech in which heavenly representatives are mingled with the ideas, and go forth from ideas to sight. there is also speech by gestures that correspond to affections, and represent things like those expressed by their words. there is speech by means of the generals of affections and the generals of thoughts. there is speech like thunder; besides other kinds. . the speech of evil and infernal spirits is likewise natural to them because it is from affections; but it is from evil affections and consequent filthy ideas, to which angels are utterly averse. thus the modes of speaking in hell are opposite to those of heaven; and in consequence evil spirits cannot endure angelic speech, and angels cannot endure infernal speech. to the angels infernal speech is like a bad odor striking the nostrils. the speech of hypocrites, who are such as are able to feign themselves angels of light, resembles in respect to words the speech of angels, but in respect to affections and consequent ideas of thought it is the direct opposite. consequently, when the inner nature of their speech is perceived as wise angels perceive it, it is heard as the gnashing of teeth, and strikes with horror. . xxviii. the speech of angels with man. angels who talk with man do not talk in their own language, nor in any language unknown to man, but in the man's own language, or in some other language with which he is acquainted. this is so because when angels speak with man they turn themselves to him and conjoin themselves with him; and this conjunction of angel with man causes the two to be in like thought; and as man's thought coheres to his memory, and this is the source of his speech, the two have the same language. moreover, when an angel or a spirit comes to a man, and by turning to him is conjoined to him, he so enters into the entire memory of the man that he is scarcely conscious that he does not himself know whatever the man knows, including his languages. [ ] i have talked with angels about this, and have said that perhaps they thought that they were addressing me in my mother tongue, since it is so perceived; and yet it was i and not they that spoke; and that this is evident from the fact that angels cannot utter a single word of human language (see n. ); furthermore, human language is natural and they are spiritual, and spiritual beings cannot give expression to any thing in a natural way. to this they replied that they are aware that their conjunction with the man with whom they are speaking is with his spiritual thought; but because his spiritual thought flows into his natural thought, and his natural thought coheres to his memory, the language of the man and all his knowledge appear to them to be their own; and that this is so for this reason, that while it is the lord's pleasure that there should be such a conjunction with and sort of insertion of man into heaven, yet the state of man is now such that there can no longer be such conjunction with angels, but only with spirits who are not in heaven. [ ] when i talked about this with spirits also they were unwilling to believe that it is the man that speaks, insisting that they spoke in man, also that man's knowledge is their knowledge and not the man's knowledge, consequently that everything that man knows is from them. i tried to convince them by many proofs that this is not true, but in vain. who are meant by spirits and who are meant by angels will be told further on when the world of spirits is treated of. . there is another reason why angels and spirits conjoin themselves so closely with man as not to know but that what is man's is their own, namely, that there is such conjunction between the spiritual world and the natural world in man that the two are seemingly one. but inasmuch as man has separated himself from heaven the lord has provided that there should be angels and spirits with each individual, and that man should be ruled by the lord through these. this is the reason for such close conjunction. it would have been otherwise if man had not separated himself; for in that case he might have been ruled by the lord through the general influx from heaven, without spirits and angels being adjoined to him. but this subject will be specially considered in what follows when the conjunction of heaven with man is treated of. . the speech of an angel or spirit with man is heard by him as audibly as the speech of man with man, yet by himself only, and not by others who stand near; and for the reason that the speech of an angel or spirit flows first into a man's thought, and by an inner way into his organ of hearing, and thus moves it from within; while the speech of man with man flows first into the air and by an outward way into his organ of hearing, and moves it from without. evidently, then, the speech of an angel or spirit with man is heard within him; but as the organs of hearing are thus equally moved, the speech is equally audible. that the speech of an angel or a spirit flows down from within even into the ear has been made clear to me by the fact that it flows also into the tongue, causing a slight vibration, but without any such motion as when the man himself by means of the tongue forms the sound of speech into words. . but at the present day to talk with spirits is rarely granted because it is dangerous;{ } for then the spirits know, what otherwise they do not know, that they are with man; and evil spirits are such that they hold man in deadly hatred, and desire nothing so much as to destroy him both soul and body, and this they do in the case of those who have so indulged themselves in fantasies as to have separated from themselves the enjoyments proper to the natural man. some also who lead a solitary life sometimes hear spirits talking with them, and without danger; but that the spirits with them may not know that they are with man they are at intervals removed by the lord; for most spirits are not aware that there is any other world than that in which they live, and therefore are unaware that there are men anywhere else; and this is why man is not permitted to speak with them in return. if he did they would know. again, those who meditate much on religious subjects, and are so intent upon them as to see them as it were inwardly within themselves, begin to hear spirits speaking with them; for religious persuasions, whatever they are, when man dwells upon them by himself and does not adapt them to the various things of use in the world, penetrate to the interiors and rest there, and occupy the whole spirit of the man, and even enter into the spiritual world and act upon the spirits there. but such persons are visionaries and enthusiasts; and whatever spirit they hear they believe to be the holy spirit, when, in fact, such spirits are enthusiastic spirits. such spirits see falsities as truths, and so seeing them they induce not themselves only but also those they flow into to believe them. such spirits, however, have been gradually removed, because they began to lure others into evil and to gain control over them. enthusiastic spirits are distinguished from other spirits by their believing themselves to be the holy spirit, and believing what they say to be divine. as man honors such spirits with divine worship they do not attempt to harm him. i have sometimes talked with them, and the wicked things they infused into their worshipers were then disclosed. they dwell together towards the left, in a desert place. {footnote } man is able to talk with spirits and angels; and the ancient people frequently talked with them (n. - , , , , ). in some earths angels and spirits appear in human form and talk with the inhabitants (n. , ). but on this earth at this day it is dangerous to talk with spirits, unless man is in true faith, and is led by the lord (n. , , ). . but to speak with the angels of heaven is granted only to those who are in truths from good, especially to those who are in the acknowledgment of the lord and of the divine in his human, because this is the truth in which the heavens are. for, as it has been shown above, the lord is the god of heaven (n. - ); it is the divine of the lord that makes heaven (n. - ); the divine of the lord in heaven is love to him and charity towards the neighbor from him (n. - ); the whole heaven in one complex reflects a single man; also every society of heaven; and every angel is in complete human form, and this from the divine human of the lord (n. - ). all of which makes evident that only those whose interiors are opened by divine truths, even to the lord, are able to speak with the angels of heaven, since it is into these truths with man that the lord flows, and when the lord flows in heaven also flows in. divine truths open the interiors of man because man was so created as to be in respect to his internal man an image of heaven, and in respect to his external an image of the world (n. ); and the internal man is opened only by means of divine truth going forth from the lord, because that is the light of heaven and the life of heaven (n. - ). . the influx of the lord himself into man is into his forehead, and from that into the whole face, because the forehead of man corresponds to love, and the face corresponds to all his interiors.{ } the influx of spiritual angels into man is into his head every where, from the forehead and temples to the whole part that contains the cerebrum, because that region of the head corresponds to intelligence; but the influx of celestial angels is into that part of the head that contains the cerebellum, and is called the occiput, from the ears all around even to the neck, for that region corresponds to wisdom. all the speech of angels with man enters by these ways into his thought; and by this means i have perceived what angels they were that spoke with me. {footnote } the "forehead" corresponds to heavenly love, and consequently in the word signifies that love (n. ). the "face" corresponds to the interiors of man, which belong to thought and affection (n. , , , , , , , , , ). the face is formed to correspondence with the interiors (n. - , ). consequently the "face," in the word, signifies the interiors (n. , , , , ). . those who talk with the angels of heaven also see the things that exist in heaven, because they are then seeing in the light of heaven, for their interiors are in that light; also the angels through them see the things that are on the earth,{ } because in them heaven is conjoined to the world and the world is conjoined to heaven. for (as has been said above n. ), when the angels turn themselves to man they so conjoin themselves to him as to be wholly unaware that what pertains to the man is not theirs--not only what pertains to his speech but also to his sight and hearing; while man, on the other hand, is wholly unaware that the things that flow in through the angels are not his. such was the conjunction that existed between angels of heaven and the most ancient people on this earth, and for this reason their times were called the golden age. because this race acknowledged the divine under a human form, that is, the lord, they talked with the angels of heaven as with their friends, and angels of heaven talked with them as with their friends; and in them heaven and the world made one. but after those times man gradually separated himself from heaven by loving himself more than the lord and the world more than heaven, and in consequence began to feel the delights of the love of self and the world as separate from the delights of heaven, and finally to such an extent as to be ignorant of any other delight. then his interiors that had been open into heaven were closed up, while his exteriors were open to the world; and when this takes place man is in light in regard to all things of the world, but in thick darkness in regard to all things of heaven. {footnote } spirits are unable to see through man any thing that is in this solar world, but they have seen through my eyes; the reason (n. ). . since those times it is only rarely that any one has talked with the angels of heaven; but some have talked with spirits who are not in heaven. this is so because man's interior and exterior faculties are such that they are turned either towards the lord as their common center (n. ), or towards self, that is, backwards from the lord. those that are turned towards the lord are also turned towards heaven. but those that are turned towards self, are turned also towards the world. and to elevate these is a difficult matter; nevertheless the lord elevates them as much as is possible, by turning the love about; which is done by means of truths from the word. . i have been told how the lord spoke with the prophets through whom the word was given. he did not speak with them as he did with the ancients, by an influx into their interiors, but through spirits who were sent to them, whom he filled with his look, and thus inspired with the words which they dictated to the prophets; so that it was not influx but dictation. and as the words came forth directly from the lord, each one of them was filled with the divine and contains within it an internal sense, which is such that the angels of heaven understand the words in a heavenly and spiritual sense, while men understand them in a natural sense. thus has the lord conjoined heaven and the world by means of the word. how the lord fills spirits with the divine by his look has also been made clear. a spirit that has been filled by the lord with the divine does not know otherwise than that he is the lord, and that it is the divine that is speaking; and this continues until he has finished speaking. after that he perceives and acknowledges that he is a spirit, and that he spoke from the lord and not from himself. because this was the state of the spirits who spoke with the prophets they said that it was jehovah that spoke; the spirits even called themselves jehovah, as can be seen both from the prophetical and historical parts of the word. . that the nature of the conjunction of angels and spirits with man may be understood i am permitted to mention some notable things by which it may be elucidated and verified. when angels and spirits turn themselves to man they do not know otherwise than that the man's language is their own and that they have no other language; and for the reason that they are there in the man's language, and not in their own, which they have forgotten. but as soon as they turn themselves away from the man they are in their own angelic and spiritual language, and know nothing about the man's language. i have had a like experience when in company with angels and in a state like theirs. i then talked with them in their language and knew nothing of my own, having forgotten it; but as soon as i ceased to be present with them i was in my own language. [ ] another notable fact is that when angels and spirits turn themselves to a man they are able to talk with him at any distance; they have talked with me at a considerable distance as audibly as when they were near. but when they turn themselves away from man and talk with each other man hears nothing at all of what they are saying, even if it be close to his ear. from this it was made clear that all conjunction in the spiritual world is determined by the way they turn. [ ] another notable fact is that many spirits together can talk with a man, and the man with them; for they send one of their number to the man with whom they wish to speak, and the spirit sent turns himself to the man and the rest of them turn to their spirit and thus concentrate their thoughts, which the spirit utters; and the spirit then does not know otherwise than that he is speaking from himself, and they do not know otherwise than that they are speaking. thus also is the conjunction of many with one effected by turning.{ } but of these emissary spirits, who are also called subjects, and of communication by means of them, more will be said hereafter. {footnote } spirits sent from one society of spirits to other societies are called subjects (n. , ). communications in the spiritual world are effected by such emissary spirits (n. , , ). a spirit when he is sent forth, and serves as a subject thinks from those by whom he is sent forth and not from himself (n. - ). . an angel or spirit is not permitted to speak with a man from his own memory, but only from the man's memory; for angels and spirits have a memory as well as man. if a spirit were to speak from his own memory with a man the man would not know otherwise than that the thoughts then in his mind were his own, although they were the spirit's thoughts. this would be like the recollection of something which the man had never heard or seen. that this is so has been given me to know from experience. this is the source of the belief held by some of the ancients that after some thousands of years they were to return into their former life, and into everything they had done, and in fact, had returned. this they concluded because at times there came to them a sort of recollection of things that they had never seen or heard. this came from an influx from the memory of spirits into their ideas of thought. . there are also spirits called natural and corporeal spirits. when these come to a man they do not conjoin themselves with his thought, like other spirits, but enter into his body, and occupy all his senses, and speak through his mouth, and act through his members, believing at the time that all things of the man are theirs. these are the spirits that obsess man. but such spirits have been cast into hell by the lord, and thus wholly removed; and in consequence such obsessions are not possible at the present time.{ } {footnote } external or bodily obsessions are not permitted at the present time, as they were formerly (n. ). but at present internal obsessions, which pertain to the mind, are permitted more than formerly (n. , ). man is inwardly obsessed when he has filthy and scandalous thoughts about god and the neighbor, and is withheld from making them known only by external consideration, which are fear of the loss of reputation, honor, gain and fear of the law and of loss of life (n. ). of the devilish spirits who chiefly obsess the interiors of man (n. ). of the devilish spirits who long to obsess the exteriors of man; that such are shut up in hell (n. , ). . xxix. writings in heaven. as the angels have speech, and their speech consists of words, they also have writings; and by writing as well as by speech they give expression to what is in their minds. at times i have had papers sent to me, traced with written words precisely like manuscripts in the world, and others like printed sheets; and i was able to read them in a like way, but was allowed to get from them only an idea here and there; for the reason that it is not in accordance with divine order for man to be taught by writings from heaven; but he must be taught by means of the word only; for it is only by means of the word that there is communication and conjunction of heaven with the world, thus of the lord with man. that papers written in heaven were seen also by the prophets is shown in ezekiel: when i looked, behold a hand was put forth by a spirit unto me, and a roll of a book was therein which he unrolled in my sight; it was written on the front and on the back ( : , ). and in john: i saw upon the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back, sealed up with seven seals (apoc. : ). . the existence of writings in the heavens is a provision of the lord for the sake of the word; for the word in its essence is divine truth, and from it is all heavenly wisdom, both with men and with angels; for the word was dictated by the lord, and what is dictated by the lord passes through all the heavens in order and terminates with man. thereby it is adapted both to the wisdom of angels and the intelligence of men. thereby, too, the angels have a word, and read it the same as men do on the earth, and also draw from it their doctrinals, and preach from it (n. ). it is the same word; but its natural sense, which is the sense of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven, but only the spiritual sense, which is its internal sense. what this sense is can be seen in the small treatise on the white horse spoken of in the apocalypse. . a little paper was at one time sent to me from heaven, on which there were a few words only written in hebrew letters, and i was told that every letter involved arcana of wisdom, and that these arcana were contained in the inflections and curvatures of the letters, and thus also in the sounds. this made clear to me what is signified by these words of the lord: verily i say unto you, until heaven and earth pass away, one iota or one tittle shall not pass away from the law (matt. : ). that the word in every tittle of it is divine is known in the church; but just where the divine lies hid in every tittle has not been known heretofore, and therefore shall be told. in the inmost heaven the writing consists of various inflected and circumflected forms, and the inflections and circumflections are in accordance with the forms of heaven. by means of these angels express the arcana of their wisdom, and also many things that they are unable to express in spoken words; and what is wonderful, the angels know this writing without training or a teacher, it being implanted in them like their speech (see n. ); therefore this writing is heavenly writing. it is implanted because all extension of thoughts and affections and consequent communication of intelligence and wisdom of the angels proceeds in accordance with the form of heaven (n. ); and for the same reason their writing flows into that form. i have been told that the most ancient people on this earth, before letters were invented, had such writing; and that it was transferred into the letters of the hebrew language, and these letters in ancient times were all inflected, and none of them, as at present, were bounded by straight lines. thus it is that in the word divine things and arcana of heaven are contained even in its iotas, points and tittles. . this writing in characters of a heavenly form is in use in the inmost heaven, the angels of which surpass all others in wisdom. by means of these characters they express the affections, from which thoughts flow and follow in order in accordance with the subject treated of. consequently these writings, which i have also been permitted to see, involve arcana which thought cannot exhaust. but such writings do not exist in the lower heavens. the writings there resemble the writings in the world, having like characters, and yet they are not intelligible to man, because they are in angelic language; and angelic language is such that it has nothing in common with human languages (n. ), since by the vowels they express affections, and by the consonants the ideas of thought from the affections, and by the words from these the sense of the matter (see above, n. , ). moreover, in this writing, which i have also seen, more is involved in a few words than a man can express in several pages. in this way they have the word written in the lower heavens; but in the inmost heaven in heavenly characters. . it is a notable fact that the writings in the heavens flow naturally from their very thoughts, and this so easily that the thought puts itself forth, as it were, and the hand never hesitates in the choice of a word, because both the words they speak and those they write correspond to the ideas of their thought; and all correspondence is natural and spontaneous. there are also writings in the heavens that exist without the aid of the hand, from mere correspondence with the thoughts; but these are not permanent. . i have also seen writings from heaven made up of mere numbers set down in order and in a series, just as in writings made up of letters and words; and i have been taught that this writing is from the inmost heaven, and that their heavenly writing (spoken of above, n. , ), when the thought from it flows down, is set forth before the angels of the lower heavens in numbers, and that this numerical writing likewise involves arcana, some of which can neither be comprehended by thought nor expressed by words. for all numbers correspond, and have a meaning, the same as words do, in accordance with the correspondence;{ } yet with the difference that in numbers generals are involved, and in words particulars; and as one general involves innumerable particulars, so more arcana are involved in numerical writing than in literal writing. from this i could see that in the word numbers as well as words signify things. what the simple numbers signify, as , , , , , , , , , , and what the compound numbers, as , , , , , , , , , , , and others, may be seen in the arcana celestia, where they are treated of. in this writing in heaven, a number is always prefixed on which those following in a series depend as on their subject; for that number is as it were an index to the matter treated of, and from it is the determination of the numbers that follow to the particular point. {footnote } all numbers in the word signify things (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). shown from heaven (n. , ). composite numbers have the same signification as the simple numbers from which they result by multiplication (n. , , , ). the most ancient people possessed heavenly arcana expressed in numbers forming a kind of computation of states of the church (n. ). . those who know nothing about heaven, and who are unwilling to have any other idea of it than as of something purely atmospherical, in which the angels fly about as intellectual minds, having no sense of hearing or seeing, are unable to conceive that the angels have speech and writing; for they place the existence of everything real in what is material; and yet the writings in heaven have as real an existence as those in the world, and the angels there have everything that is useful for life and useful for wisdom. . xxx. the wisdom of the angels of heaven. the nature of angelic wisdom can scarcely be comprehended, because it so greatly transcends human wisdom that the two cannot be compared; and whatever is thus transcendent does not seem to be any thing. moreover, some truths that must enter into a description of it are as yet unknown, and until these become known they exist in the mind as shadows, and thus hide the thing as it is in itself. nevertheless, these truths can be known, and when known be comprehended, provided the mind takes any interest in them; for interest carries light with it because it is from love; and upon those who love the things pertaining to divine and heavenly wisdom light shines forth from heaven and gives enlightenment. . what the wisdom of the angels is can be inferred from the fact that they are in the light of heaven, and the light of heaven in its essence is divine truth or divine wisdom; and this light enlightens at the same time their inner sight, or sight of the mind, and their outer sight, or sight of the eyes. (that the light of heaven is divine truth or divine wisdom may be seen above, n. - .) the angels are also in heavenly heat, which in its essence is divine good or divine love, and from that they have an affection and longing to become wise. (that the heat of heaven is divine good or divine love may be seen above, n. - .) that the angels are in wisdom, even to the extent that they may be called wisdoms, follows from the fact that their thoughts and affections all flow in accordance with the heavenly form, and this form is the form of divine wisdom; also that their interiors, which are recipients of wisdom, are arranged in that form. (that the thoughts and affections of angels flow in accordance with the form of heaven, and consequently their intelligence and wisdom, may be seen above, n. - .) [ ] that the angels have supereminent wisdom is shown also by the fact that their speech is the speech of wisdom, for it flows directly and spontaneously from thought, and their thought from their affection, thus their speech is thought from affection in outward form; consequently there is nothing to withdraw them from the divine influx, and nothing from without such as enters into the speech of man from other thoughts. (that the speech of angels is the speech of their thought and affection may be seen above, n. - .) that the angels have such wisdom is in accord with the fact that all things that they behold with their eyes and perceive by their senses agree with their wisdom, since they are correspondences of it, and thus the objects perceived are representative forms of the things that constitute their wisdom. (that all things seen in the heavens are correspondences with the interiors of angels and representations of their wisdom may be seen above, n. - .) [ ] furthermore, the thoughts of angels are not limited and contracted by ideas from space and time, as human thoughts are, for spaces and times belong to nature, and the things that belong to nature withdraw the mind from spiritual things, and deprive intellectual sight of its proper range. (that the ideas of angels are apart from time and space, and thus less limited than human ideas, may be seen above, n. - and - .) again, the thoughts of angels are neither brought down to earthly and material things, nor interrupted by anxieties about the necessities of life; thus they are not withdrawn by such things from the delights of wisdom, as the thoughts of men in the world are; for all things come to them gratuitously from the lord; they are clothed gratuitously, are fed gratuitously, are housed gratuitously (n. - ), and besides this they receive delights and pleasures in the degree of their reception of wisdom from the lord. these things have been said to make clear why it is that angels have so great wisdom.{ } {footnote } the wisdom of angels, that it is incomprehensible and ineffable (n. , , , , , , , ). . angels are capable of receiving such wisdom because their interiors are open; and wisdom, like every other perfection, increases towards the interiors, thus to the extent that interiors are opened.{ } in every angel there are three degrees of life, corresponding to the three heavens (see n. - )--those in whom the first degree has been opened are in the first or outmost heaven; those in whom the second degree has been opened are in the second or middle heaven; while those in whom the third degree has been opened are in the third or inmost heaven. the wisdom of angels in the heavens is in accordance with these degrees. therefore the wisdom of the angels of the inmost heaven immeasurably surpasses the wisdom of angels of the middle heaven, and the wisdom of these immeasurably surpasses the wisdom of angels of the outmost heaven (see above, n. , ; and what degrees are, n. ). there are such differences because the things which are in the higher degree are particulars, and those in the lower degree are generals, and generals are containants of particulars. particulars compared with generals are as thousands or myriads to one; and such is the wisdom of the angels of a higher heaven compared with the wisdom of the angels of a lower heaven. in like manner the wisdom of the latter surpasses the wisdom of man, for man is in a bodily state and in those things that belong to the bodily senses, and man's bodily sense belongs to the lowest degree. this makes clear what kind of wisdom those possess who think from things of sense, that is, who are called sensual men, namely, that they have no wisdom, but merely knowledge.{ } but it is otherwise with men whose thoughts are raised above the things of sense, and especially with those whose interiors have been opened even into the light of heaven. {footnote } so far as man is raised up from outward towards inward things he comes into light, that is, into intelligence (n. , ). there is an actual elevation (n. , ). elevation from outward to inward things is like elevation out of a mist into light (n. ). as outer things in man are farther removed from the divine they are relatively obscure (n. ). likewise relatively confused (n. , ). inner things are more perfect because they are nearer to the divine (n. , ). in what is internal there are thousands and thousands of things that appear in what is external as one general thing (n. ). consequently as thought and perception are more interior they are clearer (n. ). {footnote } the sensual is the outmost of man's life adhering to and inhering in his bodily part (n. , , , , , ). he is called a sensual man who judges all things and draws all his conclusions from the bodily senses, and believes nothing except what he sees with his eyes and touches with his hands (n. , ). such a man thinks in externals, and not interiorly in himself (n. , , , ). his interiors are so closed up that he sees nothing of spiritual truth in them (n. , , ). in a word, he is in gross natural light and thus perceives nothing that is from the light of heaven (n. , , , , , , , , , ). interiorly he is antagonistic to the things of heaven and the church (n. , , , , , ). the learned who have confirmed themselves against the truths of the church come to be such (n. ). sensual men are more cunning and malicious than others (n. , ). they reason keenly and cunningly, but from the bodily memory, in which they place all intelligence (n. , , , ). but they reason from the fallacies of the senses (n. , , , ). . it can be seen how great the wisdom of angels is from the fact that in the heavens there is a communication of all things; intelligence and wisdom are communicated from one to another, and heaven is a common sharing of all goods; and this for the reason that heavenly love is such that it wishes what is its own to be another's; consequently no one in heaven perceives his own good in himself to be good unless it is also in another; and this is the source of the happiness of heaven. this the angels derive from the lord, for such is his divine love. that there is such a communication of all things in the heavens it has been permitted me to know by experience. certain simple spirits were at one time taken up into heaven, and when there they entered into angelic wisdom, and then understood things that they were never before able to comprehend, and spoke things that they were unable to utter in their former state. . the wisdom of the angels is indescribable in words; it can only be illustrated by some general things. angels can express in a single word what a man cannot express in a thousand words. again, a single angelic word contains innumerable things that cannot be expressed in the words of human language; for in each of the things uttered by angels there are arcana of wisdom in continuous connection that human knowledges never reach. again, what the angels fail to express in the words of their speech they make up by the tone, in which there is an affection for the things in their order; for (as has been said above, n. , ) tones express affections, as words express ideas of thought from the affections; and for this reason the things heard in heaven are said to be ineffable. so, too, the angels are able to express in a few words every least thing written in an entire volume, and give to every word meanings that elevate the mind to interior wisdom; for their speech is such as to be in accord with their affections, and each word is in accord with their ideas; and their words are varied in infinite ways in accord with the series of things which in complex are in the thought. [ ] still again, the interior angels are able to perceive from the tone and from a few words the entire life of one speaking; for from the tone as varied by the ideas in the words they perceive his ruling love upon which, as it were, every particular of his life is inscribed.{ } all this makes clear the nature of angelic wisdom. in comparison with human wisdom it is as a myriad to one, or as the moving forces of the whole body, which are numberless, to the activities from them which appear to human sense as a single thing, or as the thousand particulars of an object seen under a perfect microscope to the one obscure thing seen by the naked eye. [ ] let me illustrate the subject by an example. an angel from his wisdom was describing regeneration, and brought forward arcana respecting it in their order even to some hundreds, filling each of them with ideas in which there were interior arcana, and this from beginning to end; for he explained how the spiritual man is conceived anew, is carried as it were in the womb, is born, grows up and is gradually perfected. he said that the number of arcana could be increased even to thousands, and that those told were only about the regeneration of the external man, while there were numberless more about the regeneration of the internal man. from these and other like things heard from the angels it has been made clear to me how great is their wisdom, and how great in comparison is the ignorance of man, who scarcely knows what regeneration is, and is ignorant of every least step of the process when he is being regenerated. {footnote } that which universally rules or is dominant in man is in every particular of his life, thus in each thing and all things of his thought and affection (n. , , , , , , - ). a man is such as his ruling love is (n. , , ); illustrated by examples (n. , ). that which rules universally constitutes the life of the spirit of man (n. ). it is his very will, his very love, and the end of his life, since that which a man will he loves, and that which he loves he has as an end (n. , , , , , , ). therefore man is such as his will is, or such as his ruling love is, or such as the end of his life is (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). . the wisdom of the angels of the third or inmost heaven shall now be described, and also how far it surpasses the wisdom of the angels of the first or outmost heaven. the wisdom of the angels of the third or inmost heaven is incomprehensible even to those who are in the outmost heaven, for the reason that the interiors of the angels of the third heaven have been opened to the third degree, while the interiors of angels of the first heaven have been opened only to the first degree; and all wisdom increases towards interiors and is perfected as these are opened (n. , ). [ ] because the interiors of the angels of the third or inmost heaven have been opened to the third degree, divine truths are as it were inscribed on them; for the interiors of the third degree are more in the form of heaven than the interiors of the second and first degrees, and the form of heaven is from the divine truth, thus in accord with the divine wisdom, and this is why the truth is as it were inscribed on these angels, or are as it were instinctive or inborn in them. therefore as soon as these angels hear genuine divine truths they instantly acknowledge and perceive them, and afterwards see them as it were inwardly in themselves. as the angels of that heaven are such they never reason about divine truths, still less do they dispute about any truth whether it is so or not; nor do they know what it is to believe or to have faith. they say, "what is faith? for i perceive and see that a thing is so." this they illustrate by comparisons; for example, that it would be as when any one with a companion, seeing a house and the various things in it and around it, should say to his companion that he ought to believe that these things exist, and that they are such as he sees them to be; or seeing a garden and trees and fruit in it, should say to his companion that he ought to have faith that there is a garden and trees and fruits, when yet he is seeing them clearly with his eyes. for this reason these angels never mention faith, and have no idea what it is; neither do they reason about divine truths, still less do they dispute about any truth whether it is so or not.{ } [ ] but the angels of the first or outmost heaven do not have divine truths thus inscribed on their interiors, because with them only the first degree of life is opened; therefore they reason about truths, and those who reason see almost nothing beyond the fact of the matter about which they are reasoning, or go no farther beyond the subject than to confirm it by certain considerations, and having confirmed it they say that it must be a matter of faith and must be believed. [ ] i have talked with angels about this, and they said that the difference between the wisdom of the angels of the third heaven and the wisdom of the angels of the first heaven is like that between what is clear and what is obscure; and the former they compared to a magnificent palace full of all things for use, surrounded on all sides by parks, with magnificent things of many kinds round about them; and as these angels are in the truths of wisdom they can enter into the palace and behold all things, and wander about in the parks in every direction and delight in it all. but it is not so with those who reason about truths, especially with those who dispute about them, as such do not see truths from the light of truth, but accept truths either from others or from the sense of the letter of the word, which they do not interiorly understand, declaring that truths must be believed, or that one must have faith, and are not willing to have any interior sight admitted into these things. the angels said that such are unable to reach the first threshold of the palace of wisdom, still less to enter into it and wander about in its grounds, for they stop at the first step. it is not so with those that are in truths themselves; nothing impedes these from going on and progressing without limit, for the truths they see lead them wherever they go, and into wide fields, for every truth has infinite extension and is in conjunction with manifold others. [ ] they said still further that the wisdom of the angels of the inmost heaven consists principally in this, that they see divine and heavenly things in every single object, and wonderful things in a series of many objects; for everything that appears before their eyes is a correspondent; as when they see palaces and gardens their view does not dwell upon the things that are before their eyes, but they see the interior things from which they spring, that is, to which they correspond, and this with all variety in accordance with the aspect of the objects; thus they see innumerable things at the same time in their order and connection; and this so fills their minds with delight that they seem to be carried away from themselves. that all things that are seen in the heavens correspond to the divine things that are in the angels from the lord may be seen above (n. - ). {footnote } the celestial angels know innumerable things, and are immeasurably wiser than the spiritual angels (n. ). the celestial angels do not think and talk from faith, as the spiritual angels do, for they have from the lord a perception of all things that constitute faith (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). in regard to the truths of faith they say only "yea, yea, or nay, nay," while the spiritual angels reason about whether a thing is true (n. , , , , , where the lord's words, "let your discourse be yea, yea, nay nay" (matt. : ), are explained). . such are the angels of the third heaven because they are in love to the lord, and that love opens the interiors of the mind to the third degree, and is a receptacle of all things of wisdom. it must be understood also that the angels of the inmost heaven are still being continually perfected in wisdom, and this differently from the angels of the outmost heaven. the angels of the inmost heaven do not store up divine truths in the memory and thus make out of them a kind of science; but as soon as they hear them they perceive them and apply them to the life. for this reason divine truths are as permanent with them as if they were inscribed on them, for what is committed in such a way to the life is contained in it. but it is not so with the angels of the outmost heaven. these first store up divine truths in the memory and stow them away with their knowledge, and draw them out therefrom to perfect their understanding by them, and will them and apply them to the life, but with no interior perception whether they are truths; and in consequence they are in comparative obscurity. it is a notable fact that the angels of the third heaven are perfected in wisdom by hearing and not by seeing. what they hear from preachings does not enter into their memory, but enters directly into their perception and will, and comes to be a matter of life; but what they see with their eyes enters into their memory, and they reason and talk about it; which shows that with them the way of hearing is the way of wisdom. this, too, is from correspondence, for the ear corresponds to obedience, and obedience belongs to the life; while the eye corresponds to intelligence, and intelligence is a matter of doctrine.{ } the state of these angels is described in different parts of the word, as in jeremiah: i will put my law in their mind, and write it on their heart. they shall teach no more everyone his friend and everyone his brother, saying, know ye jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them even unto the greatest of them ( : , ). and in matthew, let your speech be yea, yea, nay, nay; what is more than these is from evil ( : ). "what is more than these is from evil" because it is not from the lord; and inasmuch as the angels of the third heaven are in love to the lord the truths that are in them are from the lord. in that heaven love to the lord is willing and doing divine truth, for divine truth is the lord in heaven. {footnote } of the correspondence of the ear and of hearing (n. - ). the ear corresponds to and therefore signifies perception and obedience (n. , , , , , , , , ). the ear signifies the reception of truths (n. , , ). the correspondence of the eye and its sight (n. - , - ); from which the sight of the eye signifies the intelligence that belongs to faith, and also faith (n. , , , , ). . there is a still further reason, and this is in heaven the primary reason, why the angels are able to receive so great wisdom, namely, that they are without the love of self; for to the extent that any one is without the love of self he can become wise in divine things. it is that love that closes up the interiors against the lord and heaven, and opens the exteriors and turns them toward itself; and in consequence all in whom that love rules are in thick darkness in respect to the things of heaven, however much light they may have in worldly matters. the angels, on the other hand, are in the light of wisdom because they are without the love of self, for the heavenly loves in which they are, which are love to the lord and love towards the neighbor, open the interiors, because these loves are from the lord and the lord himself is in them. (that these loves constitute heaven in general, and form heaven in each one in particular, may be seen above, n. - ). as heavenly loves open the interiors to the lord so all angels turn their faces towards the lord (n. ); because in the spiritual world the love turns the interiors of everyone to itself, and whichever way it turns the interiors it also turns the face, since the face there makes one with the interiors, for it is their outward form. because the love turns the interiors and the face to itself, it also conjoins itself to them (love being spiritual conjunction), and shares its own with them. from that turning and consequent conjunction and sharing the angels have their wisdom. that all conjunction and all turning in the spiritual world are in accord may be seen above (n. ). . although the angels are continually perfected in wisdom,{ } their wisdom, even to eternity, cannot become so perfect that there can be any ratio between it and the lord's divine wisdom; for the lord's divine wisdom is infinite and the wisdom of angels finite; and between what is infinite and what is finite no ratio is possible. {footnote } angels are perfected to eternity (n. , ). . as it is wisdom that makes the angels perfect and constitutes their life, and as heaven with its goods flows into everyone in accordance with his wisdom, so all in heaven desire and hunger for wisdom much as a hungry man hungers for food. so, too, knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom are spiritual nutriment, as food is natural nutriment; and the one corresponds to the other. . the angels in the same heaven, or in the same society of heaven, are not all in like wisdom; their wisdom differs. those at the center are in the greatest wisdom, and those round about even to the borders are in less wisdom. the decrease of wisdom in accord with the distance from the center is like the decrease of light verging to shade (see n. and ). their light is in the same degree as their wisdom, since the light of heaven is the divine wisdom, and everyone is in light in the measure of his reception of wisdom. respecting the light of heaven and the varying kinds of reception of it see above (n. - ). . xxxi. the state of innocence of angels in heaven. what innocence is and its nature few in the world know, and those who are in evil know nothing about it. it is, indeed, visible to the eyes, as seen in the face, speech and movements, particularly of children; and yet what innocence is, and especially that it is that in which heaven is stored up in man is unknown. in making this known let us proceed in order, and consider first the innocence of childhood, then the innocence of wisdom, and lastly the state of heaven in regard to innocence. . the innocence of childhood or of children is not genuine innocence, for it is innocence not in internal form but only in external form. nevertheless one may learn from it what innocence is, since it shines forth from the face of children and from some of their movements and from their first speech, and affects those about them. it can be seen that children have no internal thought, for they do not yet know what is good and what is evil, or what is true and what is false, of which such thought consists. [ ] consequently they have no prudence from what is their own, no purpose or deliberation, thus no end that looks to evil; neither have they anything of their own acquired from love of self and the world; they do not attribute anything to themselves, regarding all that they have as received from their parents; they are content with the few and paltry things presented to them, and find delight in them; they have no solicitude about food and clothing, and none about the future; they do not look to the world and covet many things from it; they love their parents and nurses and their child companions with whom they play in innocence; they suffer themselves to be led; they give heed and obey. [ ] and being in this state they receive everything as a matter of life; and therefore, without knowing why, they have becoming manners, and also learn to talk, and have the beginning of memory and thought, their state of innocence serving as a medium whereby these things are received and implanted. but this innocence, as has been said above, is external because it belongs to the body alone, and not to the mind;{ } for their minds are not yet formed, the mind being understanding and will and thought and affection therefrom. [ ] i have been told from heaven that children are specially under the lord's auspices, and that they receive influx from the inmost heaven, where there is a state of innocence that this influx passes through their interiors, and that in its passing through, their interiors are affected solely by the innocence; and for this reason innocence is shown in their faces and in some of their movements and becomes evident; and that it is this innocence by which parents are inmostly affected, and that gives rise to the love that is called storge. {footnote } the innocence of children is not true innocence, but true innocence has its abode in wisdom (n. , , , , , , , , ). the good of childhood is not spiritual good, but it becomes such by the implantation of truth (n. ). nevertheless the good of childhood is a medium whereby intelligence is implanted (n. , , , ). without the good of innocence in childhood man would be a wild man (n. ). whatever the mind is imbued with in childhood appears natural (n. ). . the innocence of wisdom is genuine innocence, because it is internal, for it belongs to the mind itself, that is, to the will itself and from that to the understanding. and when there is innocence in these there is also wisdom, for wisdom belongs to the will and understanding. this is why it is said in heaven that innocence has its abode in wisdom, and that an angel has just so much of innocence as he has of wisdom. this is confirmed by the fact that those who are in a state of innocence attribute nothing of good to themselves, but regard all things as received and ascribe them to the lord; that they wish to be led by him and not by themselves; that they love everything that is good and find delight in everything that is true, because they know and perceive that loving what is good, that is, willing and doing it, is loving the lord, and loving truth is loving the neighbor; that they live contented with their own, whether it be little or much, because they know that they receive just as much as is good for them-those receiving little for whom a little is useful, and those receiving much for whom much is useful; also that they do not themselves know what is good for them, the lord alone knowing this, who looks in all things that he provides to what is eternal. [ ] neither are they anxious about the future; anxiety about the future they call care for the morrow, which they define as grief on account of losing or not receiving things that are not necessary for the uses of life. with companions they never act from an evil end but from what is good, just, and sincere. acting from an evil end they call cunning, which they shun as the poison of a serpent, since it is wholly antagonistic to innocence. as they love nothing so much as to be led of the lord, attributing all things they receive to him, they are kept apart from what is their own [proprium]; and to the extent that they are kept apart from what is their own the lord flows into them; and in consequence of this whatever they hear from the lord, whether through the word or by means of preaching, they do not store up in the memory, but instantly obey it, that is, will it and do it, their will being itself their memory. these for the most part outwardly appear simple, but inwardly they are wise and prudent. these are meant by the lord in the words, be ye prudent as serpents and simple as doves (matt. : ). such is the innocence that is called the innocence of wisdom. [ ] because innocence attributes nothing of good to itself, but ascribes all good to the lord, and because it thus loves to be led by the lord, and is the source of the reception of all good and truth, from which wisdom comes,--because of this man is so created as to be during his childhood in external innocence, and when he becomes old in internal innocence, to the end that he may come by means of the former into the latter, and from the latter return into the former. for the same reason when a man becomes old he dwindles in body and becomes again like a child, but like a wise child, that is, an angel, for a wise child is in an eminent sense an angel. this is why in the word, "a little child" signifies one who is innocent, and "an old man" signifies one who is wise in whom is innocence.{ } {footnote } in the word "little children" signify innocence (n. ); likewise "sucklings" (n. ). an "old man" signifies one who is wise, and in an abstract sense wisdom (n. , ). man is so created that in proportion as he verges towards old age he may become like a little child, and that innocence may then be in his wisdom, and in that state he may pass into heaven and become an angel (n. , ). . the same is true of everyone who is being regenerated. regeneration, as regards the spiritual man, is re-birth. man is first introduced into the innocence of childhood, which is that one knows no truth and can do no good from himself, but only from the lord, and desires and seeks truth only because it is truth, and good only because it is good. as man afterwards advances in age good and truth are given him by the lord. at first he is led into a knowledge of them, then from knowledge into intelligence, and finally from intelligence into wisdom, innocence always accompanying, which consists, as has been said, in his knowing nothing of truth, and being unable to do anything good from himself but only from the lord. without such a belief and such a perception of it no one can receive any thing of heaven. therein does the innocence of wisdom chiefly consist. . as innocence consists in being led by the lord and not by self, so all who are in heaven are in innocence; for all who are there love to be led by the lord, knowing that to lead themselves is to be led by what is their own, and what is one's own is loving oneself, he that loves himself not permitting himself to be led by any one else. therefore, so far as an angel is in innocence he is in heaven, in other words, is in divine good and divine truth, for to be in these is to be in heaven. consequently the heavens are distinguished by degrees of innocence-those who are in the outmost or first heaven are in innocence of the first or outmost degree; those who are in the middle or second heaven are in innocence of the second or middle degree; while those who are in the inmost or third heaven are in innocence of the third or inmost degree, and are therefore the veriest innocences of heaven, for more than all others they love to be led by the lord as little children by their father; and for the same reason the divine truth that they hear immediately from the lord or mediately through the word and preaching they take directly into their will and do it, thus committing it to life. and this is why their wisdom is so superior to that of the angels of the lower heavens (see n. , ). these angels of the inmost heaven, being such are nearest to the lord from whom they receive innocence, and are so separated from what is their own that they live as it were in the lord. externally they appear simple, and before the eyes of the angels of the lower heavens they appear like children, that is, as very small, and not very wise, although they are the wisest of the angels of heaven; since they know that they have nothing of wisdom from themselves, and that acknowledging this is being wise. they know also that what they know is as nothing compared to what they do not know; and they say that knowing, acknowledging, and perceiving this is the first step towards wisdom. these angels have no clothing, because nakedness corresponds to innocence.{ } {footnote } all in the inmost heaven are innocences (n. , , ). therefore they appear to others like children (n. ). they are also naked (n. , , ). nakedness belongs to innocence (n. , ). spirits have a custom of exhibiting innocence by laying aside their garments and presenting themselves naked (n. , , ). . i have talked much with angels about innocence, and have been told that innocence is the being [esse] of all good, and that good is therefore so far good as it has innocence in it, consequently that wisdom is so far wisdom as it partakes of innocence; and the same is true of love, charity, and faith;{ } and therefore no one can enter heaven unless he possesses innocence; and this the lord teaches when he says: suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of the heavens. verily i say unto you, whoever shall not receive the kingdom of the heavens as a little child, he shall not enter into it (mark : , ; luke : , ), here as elsewhere in the word "little children" mean those who are innocent. a state of innocence is also described by the lord in matthew ( : - ), but by correspondences only. good is good so far as it has innocence in it, for the reason that all good is from the lord, and innocence is a willingness to be led by the lord. i have also been told that truth can be conjoined to good and good to truth only by means of innocence, and therefore an angel is not an angel of heaven unless he has innocence in him; for heaven is not in any one until good is conjoined to truth in him; and this is why the conjunction of truth and good is called the heavenly marriage, and the heavenly marriage is heaven. again, i have been told that true marriage love derives its existence from innocence, because it derives its existence from the conjunction of good and truth, and the two minds of husband and wife are in that conjunction, and when that conjunction descends it presents the appearance of marriage love; for consorts are in mutual love, as their minds are. this is why in marriage love there is a playfulness like that of childhood and like that of innocence.{ } {footnote } every good of love and truth of faith, to be good and true must have innocence in it (n. , , , , , , , ). innocence is the essential of good and truth (n. , ). no one is admitted into heaven unless he possesses something of innocence ( ). {footnote } true marriage love is innocence (n. ). marriage love consists in willing what the other wills, thus mutually and reciprocally (n. ). they who are in marriage love dwell together in the inmosts of life (n. ). there is a union of the two minds, and thus from love they are a one (n. , ). true marriage love derives its origin and essence from the marriage of good and truth (n. , ). about angelic spirits who have a perception from the idea of the conjunction of good and truth whether anything of marriage exists (n. ). marriage love is wholly like the conjunction of good and truth (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). therefore in the word "marriage" means the marriage of good and truth, such as there is in heaven and such as there will be in the church (n. , , ). . because innocence with the angels of heaven is the very being [esse] of good, it is evident that the divine good that goes forth from the lord is innocence itself, for it is that good that flows into angels, and affects their inmosts, and arranges and fits them for receiving all the good of heaven. it is the same with children, whose interiors are not only formed by means of innocence flowing through them from the lord, but also are continually being fitted and arranged for receiving the good of heavenly love, since the good of innocence acts from the inmost; for that good, as has been said, is the being [esse] of all good. from all this it can be seen that all innocence is from the lord. for this reason the lord is called in the word a "lamb," a lamb signifying innocence.{ } because innocence is the inmost in all the good of heaven, it so affects minds that when it is felt by any one-as when an angel of the inmost heaven approaches-he seems to himself to be no longer his own master and is moved and as it were carried away by such a delight that no delight of the world seems to be anything in comparison with it. this i say from having perceived it. {footnote } in the word a "lamb" signifies innocence and its good. (n. , ). . everyone who is in the good of innocence is affected by innocence, and is affected to the extent that he is in that good; but those who are not in the good of innocence are not affected by innocence. for this reason all who are in hell are wholly antagonistic to innocence; they do not know what it is; their antagonism is such that so far as any one is innocent they burn to do him mischief; therefore they cannot bear to see little children; and as soon as they see them they are inflamed with a cruel desire to do them harm. from this it is clear that what is man's own, and therefore the love of self, is antagonistic to innocence; for all who are in hell are in what is their own, and therefore in the love of self.{ } {footnote } what is man's own is loving self more than god, and the world more than heaven, and making one's neighbor of no account as compared with oneself; thus it is the love of self and of the world (n. , , , ). the evil are wholly antagonistic to innocence, even to the extent that they cannot endure its presence (n. ). . xxxii. the state of peace in heaven. only those that have experienced the peace of heaven can have any perception of the peace in which the angels are. as man is unable, as long as he is in the body, to receive the peace of heaven, so he can have no perception of it, because his perception is confined to what is natural. to perceive it he must be able, in respect to thought, to be raised up and withdrawn from the body and kept in the spirit, and at the same time be with angels. in this way has the peace of heaven been perceived by me; and for this reason i am able to describe it, yet not in words as that peace is in itself, because human words are inadequate, but only as it is in comparison with that rest of mind that those enjoy who are content in god. . there are two inmost things of heaven, namely, innocence and peace. these are said to be inmost things because they proceed directly from the lord. from innocence comes every good of heaven, and from peace every delight of good. every good has its delight; and both good and delight spring from love, for whatever is loved is called good, and is also perceived as delightful. from this it follows that these two inmost things, innocence and peace, go forth from the lord's divine love and move the angels from what is inmost. that innocence is the inmost of good may be seen in the preceding chapter, where the state of innocence of the angels of heaven is described. that peace is the inmost of delight from the good of innocence shall now be explained. . the origin of peace shall be first considered. divine peace is in the lord; it springs from the union of the divine itself and the divine human in him. the divine of peace in heaven is from the lord, springing from his conjunction with the angels of heaven, and in particular from the conjunction of good and truth in each angel. these are the origins of peace. from this it can be seen that peace in the heavens is the divine inmostly affecting with blessedness everything good therefrom, and from this is every joy of heaven; also that it is in its essence the divine joy of the lord's divine love, resulting from his conjunction with heaven and with everyone there. this joy, felt by the lord in angels and by angels from the lord, is peace. by derivation from this the angels have everything that is blessed, delightful, and happy, or that which is called heavenly joy.{ } {footnote } by peace in the highest sense the lord is meant, because peace is from him, and in the internal sense heaven is meant, because those are in a state of peace (n. , ). peace in the heavens is the divine inmostly affecting with blessedness everything good and true there, and this peace is incomprehensible to man (n. , , , , ). divine peace is in good, but not in truth apart from good (n. ). . because these are the origins of peace the lord is called "the prince of peace," and he declares that from him is peace and in him is peace; and the angels are called angels of peace, and heaven is called a habitation of peace, as in the following passages: unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called wonderful, counsellor, god, mighty, father of eternity, prince of peace. of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end (isa. : , ). jesus said, peace i leave with you, my peace i give unto you; not as the world giveth give i unto you (john : ). these things have i spoken unto you that in me ye may have peace (john : ). jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace (num. : ). the angels of peace weep bitterly, the highways are wasted (isa. : , ). the work of righteousness shall be peace; and my people shall dwell in a habitation of peace (isa. : , ). [ ] that it is divine and heavenly peace that is meant in the word by "peace" can be seen also from other passages where it is mentioned (as isa. : ; : ; : ; jer. : ; : ; : ; hag. : ; zech. : ; psalm : ; and elsewhere.) because "peace" means the lord and heaven, and also heavenly joy and the delight of good, "peace be with you" was an ancient form of salutation that is still in use; and it was ratified by the lord in his saying to the disciples whom he sent forth: into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, peace be to this house; and if a son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it (luke : , ). and when the lord himself appeared to the apostles, he said peace be with you (john : , , ). [ ] a state of peace is also meant in the word where it is said that: jehovah smelled an odor of rest (as exod. : , , ; lev. : , , ; : , ; : , ; : , , ; num, : , , ; : , , ; : , , , , ). "odor of rest" in the heavenly sense signifies a perception of peace.{ } as peace signifies the union of the divine itself and the divine human in the lord, also the conjunction of the lord with heaven and with the church, and with all who are in heaven, and with all in the church who receive him, so the sabbath was instituted as a reminder of these things, its name meaning rest or peace, and was the most holy representative of the church. for the same reason the lord called himself "the lord of the sabbath" (matt. : ; mark : , ; luke : ).{ } {footnote } in the word an "odor" signifies the perception of agreeableness or disagreeableness, according to the quality of the love and faith of which it is predicated (n. , , , , , ). an "odor of rest," in reference to jehovah, means a perception of peace (n. , ). this is why frankincense, incense, and odors in oils and ointments, became representative (n. , , , ). {footnote } the "sabbath" signifies in the highest sense the union of the divine itself and the divine human in the lord; in the internal sense the conjunction of the divine human of the lord with heaven and with the church; in general, the conjunction of good and truth, thus the heavenly marriage (n. , , ). therefore "rest on the sabbath day" signified the state of that union, because then the lord had rest, and thereby there is peace and salvation in the heavens and on the earth; and in a relative sense it signified the conjunction of the lord with man, because man then has peace and salvation (n. , , , , , , , ). . because the peace of heaven is the divine inmostly affecting with blessedness the veriest good in angels, it can be clearly perceived by them only in the delight of their hearts when they are in the good of their life, in the pleasure with which they hear truth that agrees with their good, and in gladness of mind when they perceive the conjunction of good and truth. from this it flows into all the acts and thoughts of their life, and there presents itself as joy, even in outward appearance. [ ] but peace in the heavens differs in quality and quantity in agreement with the innocence of those who are there; since innocence and peace walk hand in hand; for every good of heaven, as said above, is from innocence, and every delight of that good is from peace. evidently, then, the same that has been said in the foregoing chapter about the state of innocence in the heavens may be said here of the state of peace there, since innocence and peace are conjoined like good and its delight; for good is felt in its delight, and delight is known from its good. this being so, it is evident that angels of the inmost or third heaven are in the third or inmost degree of peace, because they are in the third or inmost degree of innocence; and that angels of the lower heavens are in a less degree of peace, because they are in a less degree of innocence (see above n. ). [ ] that innocence and peace go together like good and its delight can be seen in little children, who are in peace because they are in innocence, and because they are in peace are in their whole nature full of play. yet the peace of little children is external peace; while internal peace, like internal innocence, is possible only in wisdom, and for this reason only in the conjunction of good and truth, since wisdom is from that conjunction. heavenly or angelic peace is also possible in men who are in wisdom from the conjunction of good and truth, and who in consequence have a sense of content in god; nevertheless, while they live in the world this peace lies hidden in their interiors, but it is revealed when they leave the body and enter heaven, for their interiors are then opened. . as the divine peace springs from the conjunction of the lord with heaven, and specially from the conjunction of good and truth in each angel, so when the angels are in a state of love they are in a state of peace; for then good and truth are conjoined in them. (that the states of angels undergo successive changes may be seen above, n. - .) the like is true also of a man who is being regenerated. as soon as good and truth come to be conjoined in him, which takes place especially after temptations, he comes into a state of delight from heavenly peace.{ } this peace may be likened to morning or dawn in spring time, when, the night being passed, with the rising of the sun all things of the earth begin to live anew, the fragrance of growing vegetation is spread abroad with the dew that descends from heaven, and the mild vernal temperature gives fertility to the ground and imparts pleasure to the minds of men, and this because morning or dawn in the time of spring corresponds to the state of peace of angels in heaven (see n. ).{ } {footnote } the conjunction of good and truth in a man who is being regenerated is effected in a state of peace (n. , ). {footnote } the state of peace in the heavens is like a state of dawn or springtime on the earth (n. , , ). . i have talked with the angels about peace, saying that what is called peace in the world is when wars and hostilities cease between kingdoms, and when enmities or hostilities cease among men; also that internal peace is believed to consist in rest of mind when cares are removed, especially in tranquility and enjoyment from success in affairs. but the angels said that rest of mind and tranquility and enjoyment from the removal of cares and success in affairs seem to be constituents of peace, but are so only with those who are in heavenly good, for only in that good is peace possible. for peace flows in from the lord into the inmost of such, and from their inmost descends and flows down into the lower faculties, producing a sense of rest in the mind, tranquility of disposition, and joy therefrom. but to those who are in evil peace is impossible.{ } there is an appearance of rest, tranquility, and delight when things succeed according to their wishes; but it is external peace and not at all internal, for inwardly they burn with enmity, hatred, revenge, cruelty, and many evil lusts, into which their disposition is carried whenever any one is seen to be unfavorable to them, and which burst forth when they are not restrained by fear. consequently the delight of such dwells in insanity, while the delight of those who are in good dwells in wisdom. the difference is like that between hell and heaven. {footnote } the lusts that originate in love of self and of the world wholly take away peace (n. , ). there are some who think to find peace in restlessness, and in such things as are contrary to peace (n. ). peace is possible only when the lusts of evil are removed (n. ). . xxxiii. the conjunction of heaven with the human race. it is well known in the church that all good is from god, and that nothing of good is from man, consequently that no one ought to ascribe any good to himself as his own. it is also well known that evil is from the devil. therefore those who speak from the doctrine of the church say of those who behave well, and of those who speak and preach piously, that they are led by god; but the opposite of those who do not behave well and who speak impiously. for this to be true man must have conjunction with heaven and with hell; and this conjunction must be with man's will and with his understanding; for it is from these that the body acts and the mouth speaks. what this conjunction is shall now be told. . with every individual there are good spirits and evil spirits. through good spirits man has conjunction with heaven, and through evil spirits with hell. these spirits are in the world of spirits, which lies midway between heaven and hell. this world will be described particularly hereafter. when these spirits come to a man they enter into his entire memory, and thus into his entire thought, evil spirits into the evil things of his memory and thought, and good spirits into the good things of his memory and thought. these spirits have no knowledge whatever that they are with man; but when they are with him they believe that all things of his memory and thought are their own; neither do they see the man, because nothing that is in our solar world falls into their sight.{ } the lord exercises the greatest care that spirits may not know that they are with man; for if they knew it they would talk with him, and in that case evil spirits would destroy him; for evil spirits, being joined with hell, desire nothing so much as to destroy man, not alone his soul, that is, his faith and love, but also his body. it is otherwise when spirits do not talk with man, in which case they are not aware that what they are thinking and also what they are saying among themselves is from man; for although it is from man that they talk with one another, they believe that what they are thinking and saying is their own, and everyone esteems and loves what is their own. in this way spirits are constrained to love and esteem man, although they do not know it. that such is the conjunction of spirits with man has become so well known to me from a continual experience of many years that nothing is better known to me. {footnote } there are angels and spirits with every man, and by means of them man has communication with the spiritual world (n. , , , , , , - , - ). man without spirits attending him cannot live (n. ). man is not seen by spirits, even as spirits are not seen by man (n. ). spirits can see nothing in our solar world pertaining to any man except the one with whom they are speaking (n. ). . the reason why spirits that communicate with hell are also associated with man is that man is born into evils of every kind, consequently his whole life is wholly from evil; and therefore unless spirits like himself were associated with him he could not live, nor indeed could he be withdrawn from his evils and reformed. he is therefore both held in his own life by means of evil spirits and withheld from it by means of good spirits; and by the two he is kept in equilibrium; and being in equilibrium he is in freedom, and can be drawn away from evils and turned towards good, and thus good can be implanted in him, which would not be possible at all if he were not in freedom; and freedom is possible to man only when the spirits from hell act on one side and spirits from heaven on the other, and man is between the two. again, it has been shown that so far as a man's life is from what he inherits, and thus from self, if he were not permitted to be in evil he would have no life; also if he were not in freedom he would have no life; also that he cannot be forced to what is good, and that what is forced does not abide; also that the good that man receives in freedom is implanted in his will and becomes as it were his own.{ } these are the reasons why man has communication with hell and communication with heaven. {footnote } all freedom pertains to love and affection, since what a man loves, that he does freely (n. , , , , , ). as freedom belongs to man's love, so it belongs to man's life (n. ). nothing appears as man's own except what is from freedom (n. ). man must have freedom that he may be reformed (n. , , , , , , , , ). otherwise no love of good and truth can be implanted in man and be appropriated seemingly as his own (n. , , , , ). nothing that comes from compulsion is conjoined to man (n. , ). if man could be reformed by compulsion everyone would be reformed (n. ). compulsion in reformation is harmful (n. ). what states of compulsion are (n. ). . what the communication of heaven is with good spirits, and what the communication of hell is with evil spirits, and the consequent conjunction of heaven and hell with man, shall also be told. all spirits who are in the world of spirits have communication with heaven or with hell, evil spirits with hell, and good spirits with heaven. heaven is divided into societies, and hell also. every spirit belongs to some society, and continues to exist by influx from it, thus acting as one with it. consequently as man is conjoined with spirits so is he conjoined with heaven or with hell, even with the society there to which he is attached by his affection or his love; for the societies of heaven are all distinguished from each other in accordance with their affections for good and truth, and the societies of hell in accordance with their affections for evil and falsity. (as to the societies of heaven see above, n. - also n. - .) . the spirits associated with man are such as he himself is in respect to his affection or love; but the lord associates good spirits with him, while evil spirits are invited by the man himself. the spirits with man, however, are changed in accordance with the changes of his affections; thus there are some spirits that are with him in early childhood, others in boyhood, others in youth and manhood, and others in old age. in early childhood those spirits are present who are in innocence and who thus communicate with the heaven of innocence, which is the inmost or third heaven; in boyhood those spirits are present who are in affection for knowing, and who thus communicate with the outmost or first heaven; in youth and manhood spirits are present who are in affection for what is true and good, and in consequent intelligence, and who thus communicate with the second or middle heaven; while in old age spirits are present who are in wisdom and innocence, and who thus communicate with the inmost or third heaven. but the lord maintains this association with such as can be reformed and regenerated. it is otherwise with such as cannot be reformed or regenerated. while with these also good spirits are associated, that they may be thereby withheld from evil as much as possible, they are directly conjoined with evil spirits who communicate with hell, whereby they have such spirits with them as are like themselves. if they are lovers of self or lovers of gain, or lovers of revenge, or lovers of adultery, like spirits are present, and as it were dwell in their evil affections; and man is incited by these, except so far as he can be kept from evil by good spirits, and they cling to him, and do not withdraw, so far as the evil affection prevails. thus it is that a bad man is conjoined to hell and a good man is conjoined to heaven. . man is governed by the lord through spirits because he is not in the order of heaven, for he is born into evils which are of hell, thus into the complete opposite of divine order; consequently he needs to be brought back into order, and this can only be done mediately by means of spirits. it would be otherwise if man were born into the good that is in accord with the order of heaven; then he would be governed by the lord not through spirits, but by means of the order itself, thus by means of general influx. by means of this influx man is governed in respect to whatever goes forth from his thought and will into act, that is, in respect to speech and acts; for both of these proceed in harmony with natural order, and therefore with these the spirits associated with man have nothing in common. animals also are governed by means of this general influx from the spiritual world, because they are in the order of their life, and animals have not been able to pervert and destroy that order because they have no rational faculty.{ } what the difference between man and beasts is may be seen above (n. ). {footnote } the difference between men and beasts is, that men are capable of being raised up by the lord to himself, of thinking about the divine, loving it, and being thereby conjoined to the lord, from which they have eternal life; but it is otherwise with beasts (n. , , ). beasts are in the order of their life, and are therefore born into things suitable to their nature, but man is not, and he must therefore be led into the order of his life by intellectual means (n. , , ). according to general influx thought with man falls into speech and will into movements (n. , , , ). the general influx of the spiritual world into the lives of beasts (n. , ). . as to what further concerns the conjunction of heaven with the human race, let it be noted that the lord himself flows into each man, in accord with the order of heaven, both into his inmosts and into his outmosts, and arranges him for receiving heaven, and governs his outmosts from his inmosts, and at the same time his inmosts from his outmosts, thus holding in connection each thing and all things in man. this influx of the lord is called direct influx; while the other influx that is effected through spirits is called mediate influx. the latter is maintained by means of the former. direct influx, which is that of the lord himself, is from his divine human, and is into man's will and through his will into his understanding, and thus into his good and through his good into his truth, or what is the same thing, into his love and through his love into his faith; and not the reverse, still less is it into faith apart from love or into truth apart from good or into understanding that is not from will. this divine influx is unceasing, and in the good is received in good, but not in the evil; for in them it is either rejected or suffocated or perverted; and in consequence they have an evil life which in a spiritual sense is death.{ } {footnote } there is direct influx from the lord, and also mediate influx through the spiritual world (n. , , , , ). the lord's direct influx is into the least particulars of all things (n. , - , , ). the lord flows in into firsts and at the same time into lasts-in what manner (n. , , , , , ). the lord's influx is into the good in man, and through the good into truth and not the reverse (n. , , , , , ). the life that flows in from the lord varies in accordance with the state of man and in accordance with reception (n. , , , ). with the evil the good that flows in from the lord is turned into evil and the truth into falsity; from experience (n. , ). the good and the truth therefrom that continually flow in from the lord are received just to the extent that evil and falsity therefrom do not obstruct (n. , , , ). . the spirits who are with man, both those conjoined with heaven and those conjoined with hell, never flow into man from their own memory and its thought, for if they should flow in from their own thought, whatever belonged to them would seem to man to be his (see above n. ). nevertheless there flows into man through them out of heaven an affection belonging to the love of good and truth, and out of hell an affection belonging to the love of evil and falsity. therefore as far as man's affection agrees with the affection that flows in, so far that affection is received by him in his thought, since man's interior thought is wholly in accord with his affection or love; but so far as man's affection does not agree with that affection it is not received. evidently, then, since thought is not introduced into man through spirits, but only an affection for good and an affection for evil, man has choice, because he has freedom; and is thus able by his thought to receive good and reject evil, since he knows from the word what is good and what is evil. moreover, whatever he receives by thought from affection is appropriated to him; but whatever he does not receive by thought from affection is not appropriated to him. all this makes evident the nature of the influx of good out of heaven with man, and the nature of the influx of evil out of hell. . i have also been permitted to learn the source of human anxiety, grief of mind, and interior sadness, which is called melancholy. there are spirits not as yet in conjunction with hell, because they are in their first state; these will be described hereafter when treating of the world of spirits. such spirits love things undigested and pernicious, such as pertain to food becoming foul in the stomach; consequently they are present with man in such things because they find delight in them; and they talk there with one another from their own evil affection. the affection that is in their speech flows in from this source into man; and when this affection is the opposite of man's affection there arises in him sadness and melancholy anxiety; but when it agrees with it it becomes in him gladness and cheerfulness. these spirits appear near to the stomach, some to the left and some to the right of it, and some beneath and some above, also nearer and more remote, thus variously in accordance with their affections. that this is the source of anxiety of mind has been shown and proved to me by much experience. i have seen these spirits, i have heard them, i have felt the anxieties arising from them, and i have talked with them; when they have been driven away the anxiety ceased; when they returned the anxiety returned; and i have noted the increase and decrease of it according to their approach and removal. from this it has been made clear to me why some who do not know what conscience is, because they have no conscience, ascribe its pangs to the stomach.{ } {footnote } those who have no conscience do not know what conscience is (n. , ). there are some who laugh at conscience when they hear what it is (n. ). some believe that conscience is nothing; some that it is something natural that is sad and mournful, arising either from causes in the body or from causes in the world; some that it is something that the common people get from their religion (n. , , ; [tcr n. ]). there is true conscience, spurious conscience, and false conscience (n. ). pain of conscience is an anxiety of mind on account of what is unjust, insincere, or in any respect evil, which man believes to be against god and against the good of the neighbor (n. ). those have conscience who are in love to god and in charity towards the neighbor, but those who are not so have no conscience (n. , , , ). . the conjunction of heaven with man is not like the conjunction of one man with another, but the conjunction is with the interiors of man's mind, that is, with his spiritual or internal man; although there is a conjunction with his natural or external man by means of correspondences, which will be described in the next chapter where the conjunction of heaven with man by means of the word will be treated of. . it will also be shown in the next chapter that the conjunction of heaven with the human race and of the human race with heaven is such that one has its permanent existence with the other. . i have talked with angels about the conjunction of heaven with the human race, saying that while the man of the church declares that all good is from god, and that angels are with man, yet few believe that angels are conjoined to man, still less that they are in his thought and affection. the angels replied that they knew that such a belief and such a mode of speaking still exist in the world, and especially, to their surprise, within the church, where the word is present to teach men about heaven and its conjunction with man; nevertheless, there is such a conjunction that man is unable to think the least thing unless spirits are associated with him, and on this his spiritual life depends. they said that the cause of ignorance in this matter is man's belief that he lives from himself, and that he has no connection with the first being [esse] of life; together with his not knowing that this connection exists by means of the heavens; and yet if that connection were broken man would instantly fall dead. if man only believed, as is really true, that all good is from the lord and all evil from hell, he would neither make the good in him a matter of merit nor would evil be imputed to him; for he would then look to the lord in all the good he thinks and does, and all the evil that flows in would be cast down to hell from which it comes. but because man does not believe that anything flows into him either from heaven or from hell, and therefore supposes that all things that he thinks and wills are in himself and therefore from himself, he appropriates the evil to himself, and the good that flows in he defiles with merit. . xxxiv. conjunction of heaven with man by means of the word. those who think from interior reason can see that there is a connection of all things through intermediates with the first, and that whatever is not in connection is dissipated. for they know, when they think about it, that nothing can have permanent existence from itself, but only from what is prior to itself, thus all things from a first; also that the connection with what is prior is like the connection of an effect with its effecting cause; for when the effecting cause is taken away from its effect the effect is dissolved and dispersed. because the learned thought thus they saw and said that permanent existence is a perpetual springing forth; thus that all things have permanent existence from a first; and as they sprang from that first so they perpetually spring forth, that is, have permanent existence from it. but what the connection of everything is with that which is prior to itself, thus with the first which is the source of all things, cannot be told in a few words, because it is various and diverse. it can only be said in general that there is a connection of the natural world with the spiritual world, and that in consequence there is a correspondence of all things in the natural world with all things in the spiritual (see n. - ); also that there is a connection and consequently a correspondence of all things of man with all things of heaven (see n. - ). . man is so created as to have a conjunction and connection with the lord, but with the angels of heaven only an affiliation. man has affiliation with the angels, but not conjunction, because in respect to the interiors of his mind man is by creation like an angel, having a like will and a like understanding. consequently if a man has lived in accordance with the divine order he becomes after death an angel, with the same wisdom as an angel. therefore when the conjunction of man with heaven is spoken of his conjunction with the lord and affiliation with the angels is meant; for heaven is heaven from the lord's divine, and not from what is strictly the angels' own [proprium]. that it is the lord's divine that makes heaven may be seen above (n. - ). [ ] but man has, beyond what the angels have, that he is not only in respect to his interiors in the spiritual world, but also at the same time in respect to his exteriors in the natural world. his exteriors which are in the natural world are all things of his natural or external memory and of his thought and imagination therefrom; in general, knowledges and sciences with their delights and pleasures so far as they savor of the world, also many pleasures belonging to the senses of the body, together with his senses themselves, his speech, and his actions. and all these are the outmosts in which the lord's divine influx terminates; for that influx does not stop midway, but goes on to its outmosts. all this shows that the outmost of divine order is in man; and being the outmost it is also the base and foundation. [ ] as the lord's divine influx does not stop midway but goes on to its outmosts, as has been said, and as this middle part through which it passes is the angelic heaven, while the outmost is in man, and as nothing can exist unconnected, it follows that the connection and conjunction of heaven with the human race is such that one has its permanent existence from the other, and that the human race apart from heaven would be like a chain without a hook; and heaven without the human race would be like a house without a foundation.{ } {footnote } nothing springs from itself, but from what is prior to itself, thus all things from a first, and they also have permanent existence from him from whom they spring forth, and permanent existence is a perpetual springing forth (n. , , , , , , , , ). divine order does not stop midway, but terminates in an outmost, and that outmost is man, thus divine order terminates in man (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). interior things flow into external things, even into the extreme or outmost in successive order, and there they spring forth and have permanent existence (n. , , , , ). interior things spring forth and have permanent existence in what is outmost in simultaneous order (n. , , , ). therefore all interior things are held together in connection from a first by means of a last (n. ). therefore "the first and the last" signify all things and each thing, that is, the whole (n. , , ). consequently in outmosts there is strength and power (n. ). . but man has severed this connection with heaven by turning his exteriors away from heaven, and turning them to the world and to self by means of his love of self and of the world, thereby so withdrawing himself that he no longer serves as a basis and foundation for heaven; therefore the lord has provided a medium to serve in place of this base and foundation for heaven, and also for the conjunction of heaven with man. this medium is the word. how the word serves as such a medium has been shown in many places in the arcana coelestia, all of which may be seen gathered up in the little work on the white horse mentioned in the apocalypse; also in the appendix to the new jerusalem and its heavenly doctrine, from which some notes are here appended.{ } {footnote } the word in the sense of the letter is natural (n. ). for the reason that the natural is the outmost in which spiritual and heavenly things, which are interior things, terminate and on which they rest, like a house upon its foundation (n. , , , , ). that the word may be such it is composed wholly of correspondences (n. , , , , , , , , , ). because the word is such in the sense of the letter it is the containant of the spiritual and heavenly sense (n. ). and it is adapted both to men and to angels (n. - , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). and it is what makes heaven and earth one (n. , , , , , , ). the conjunction of the lord with man is through the word, by means of the internal sense (n. ). there is conjunction by means of all things and each particular thing of the word, and in consequence the word is wonderful above all other writing (n. - ). since the word was written the lord speaks with men by means of it (n. ). the church, where the word is and the lord is known by means of it, in relation to those who are out of the church where there is no word and the lord is unknown is like the heart and lungs in man in comparison with the other parts of the body, which live from them as from the fountains of their life (n. , , , ). before the lord the universal church on the earth is as a single man (n. , ). consequently unless there were on this earth a church where the word is, and where the lord is known by means of it, the human race here would perish (n. , , , , ). . i have been told from heaven that the most ancient people, because their interiors were turned heavenwards, had direct revelation, and by this means there was at that time a conjunction of the lord with the human race. after their times, however, there was no such direct revelation, but there was a mediate revelation by means of correspondences, inasmuch as all their divine worship then consisted of correspondences, and for this reason the churches of that time were called representative churches. for it was then known what correspondence is and what representation is, and that all things on the earth correspond to spiritual things in heaven and in the church, or what is the same, represent them; and therefore the natural things that constituted the externals of their worship served them as mediums for thinking spiritually, that is, thinking with the angels. when the knowledge of correspondences and representations had been blotted out of remembrance a word was written, in which all the words and their meanings are correspondences, and thus contain a spiritual or internal sense, in which are the angels; and in consequence, when a man reads the word and perceives it according to the sense of the letter or the outer sense the angels perceive it according to the internal or spiritual sense; for all the thought of angels is spiritual while the thought of man is natural. these two kinds of thought appear diverse; nevertheless they are one because they correspond. thus it was that when man had separated himself from heaven and had severed the bond the lord provided a medium of conjunction of heaven with man by means of the word. . how heaven is conjoined with man by means of the word i will illustrate by some passages from it. "the new jerusalem" is described in the apocalypse in these words: i saw a new heaven and a new earth, and the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. and i saw the holy city new jerusalem coming down from god out of heaven. the city was foursquare, its length as great as its breadth; and an angel measured the city with a reed, twelve thousand furlongs; the length, the breadth, and the height of it are equal. and he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. the building of the wall was of jasper; but the city itself was pure gold, and like unto pure glass; and the foundations of the wall were adorned with every precious stone. the twelve gates were twelve pearls; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass ( : , , - , ). when man reads these words he understands them merely in accordance with the sense of the letter, namely, that the visible heaven with the earth is to perish, and a new heaven is to come into existence; and upon the new earth the holy city jerusalem is to descend, with all its dimensions as here described. but the angels that are with man understand these things in a wholly different way, that is, everything that man understands naturally they understand spiritually. [ ] by "the new heaven and the new earth" they understand a new church; by "the city jerusalem coming down from god out of heaven" they understand its heavenly doctrine revealed by the lord; by "its length, breadth, and height, which are equal," and "twelve thousand furlongs," they understand all the goods and truths of that doctrine in the complex; by its "wall" they understand the truths protecting it; by "the measure of the wall, a hundred and forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel," they understand all those protecting truths in the complex and their character; by its "twelve gates, which were of pearls," they understand introductory truths, "pearls" signifying such truths; by "the foundations of the wall, which were of precious stones," they understand the knowledge on which that doctrine is founded; by "the gold like unto pure glass," of which the city and its street were made, they understand the good of love which makes the doctrine and its truths transparent. thus do the angels perceive all these things; and therefore not as man perceives them. the natural ideas of man thus pass into the spiritual ideas with the angels without their knowing anything of the sense of the letter of the word, that is, about "a new heaven and a new earth," "a new city jerusalem," its "wall, the foundations of the wall, and its dimensions." and yet the thoughts of angels make one with the thoughts of man, because they correspond; they make one almost the same as the words of a speaker make one with the understanding of them by a hearer who attends solely to the meaning and not to the words. all this shows how heaven is conjoined with man by means of the word: [ ] let us take another example from the word: in that day there shall be a highway from egypt to assyria, and assyria shall come into egypt and egypt into assyria; and the egyptians shall serve assyria. in that day shall israel be a third to egypt and to assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, which jehovah of hosts shall bless, saying, blessed be my people the egyptian, and the assyrian the work of my hands, and israel mine inheritance (isaiah : - ). what man thinks when these words are read, and what the angels think, can be seen from the sense of the letter of the word and from its internal sense. man from the sense of the letter thinks that the egyptians and assyrians are to be converted to god and accepted, and are then to become one with the israelitish nation; but angels in accordance with the internal sense think of the man of the spiritual church who is here described in that sense, whose spiritual is "israel," whose natural is the "egyptian," and whose rational, which is the middle, is the "assyrian."{ } nevertheless, these two senses are one because they correspond; and therefore when the angels thus think spiritually and man naturally they are conjoined almost as body and soul are; in fact, the internal sense of the word is its soul and the sense of the letter is its body. such is the word throughout. this shows that it is a medium of conjunction of heaven with man, and that its literal sense serves as a base and foundation. {footnote } in the word "egypt" and "egyptian" signify the natural and its knowledge (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). "assyria" signifies the rational (n. , ). "israel" signifies the spiritual (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). . there is also a conjunction of heaven by means of the word with those who are outside of the church where there is no word; for the lord's church is universal, and is with all who acknowledge the divine and live in charity. moreover, such are taught after death by the angels and receive divine truths;{ } on which subject more may be seen below, in the chapter on the heathen. the universal church on the earth in the sight of the lord resembles a single man, just as heaven does (see n. - ); but the church where the word is and where the lord is known by means of it is like the heart and lungs in that man. it is known that all the viscera and members of the entire body draw their life from the heart and lungs through various derivations; and it is thus that those of the human race live who are outside of the church where the word is, and who constitute the members of that man. again, the conjunction of heaven with those who are at a distance by means of the word may be compared to light radiating from a center all around. the divine light is in the word, and there the lord with heaven is present, and from that presence those at a distance are in light; but it would be otherwise if there were no word. this may be more clearly seen from what has been shown above respecting the form of heaven in accordance with which all who are in heaven have affiliation and communication. but while this arcanum may be comprehended by those who are in spiritual light, it cannot be comprehended by those who are only in natural light; for innumerable things are clearly seen by those who are in spiritual light that are not seen or are seen obscurely as a single thing by those who are only in natural light. {footnote } the church specifically is where the word is and where the lord is known by means of it, thus where divine truths from heaven are revealed (n. , ). the lord's church is with all in the whole globe who live in good in accordance with the principles of their religion (n. , , ). all wherever they are who live in good in accordance with the principles of their religion and who acknowledge the divine are accepted of the lord (n. - , , , , , , , ). and besides these all children wheresoever they are born (n. - , ). . unless such a word had been given on this earth the man of this earth would have been separated from heaven; and if separated from heaven he would have ceased to be rational, for the human rational exists by an influx of the light of heaven. again, the man of this earth is such that he is not capable of receiving direct revelation and of being taught about divine truths by such revelation, as the inhabitants of other earths are, that have been especially described in another small work. for the man of this earth is more in worldly things, that is, in externals, than the men of other earths, and it is internal things that are receptive of revelation; if it were received in external things the truth would not be understood. that such is the man of this earth is clearly evident from the state of those who are within the church, which is such that while they know from the word about heaven, about hell, about the life after death, still in heart they deny these things; although among them there are some who have acquired a pre-eminent reputation for learning, and who might for that reason be supposed to be wiser than others. . i have at times talked with angels about the word, saying that it is despised by some on account of its simple style; and that nothing whatever is known about its internal sense, and for this reason it is not believed that so much wisdom lies hid in it. the angels said that although the style of the word seems simple in the sense of the letter, it is such that nothing can ever be compared to it in excellence, since divine wisdom lies concealed not only in the meaning as a whole but also in each word; and that in heaven this wisdom shines forth. they wished to declare that this wisdom is the light of heaven, because it is divine truth, for that which shines in heaven is the divine truth (see n. ). again, they said that without such a word there would be no light of heaven with the men of our earth, nor would there be any conjunction of heaven with them; for there is conjunction only so far as the light of heaven is present with man, and that light is present only so far as divine truth is revealed to man by means of the word. this conjunction by means of the correspondence of the spiritual sense of the word with its natural sense is unknown to man, because the man of this earth knows nothing about the spiritual thought and speech of angels, and how it differs from the natural thought and speech of men; and until this is known it cannot in the least be known what the internal sense is, and that such conjunction is therefore possible by means of that sense. they said, furthermore, that if this sense were known to man, and if man in reading the word were to think in accordance with some knowledge of it, he would come into interior wisdom, and would be still more conjoined with heaven, since by this means he would enter into ideas like the ideas of the angels. . xxxv. heaven and hell are from the human race. in the christian world it is wholly unknown that heaven and hell are from the human race, for it is believed that in the beginning angels were created and heaven was thus formed; also that the devil or satan was an angel of light, but having rebelled he was cast down with his crew, and thus hell was formed. the angels never cease to wonder at such a belief in the christian world, and still more that nothing is really known about heaven, when in fact that is the primary principle of all doctrine in the church. but since such ignorance prevails they rejoice in heart that it has pleased the lord to reveal to mankind at this time many things about heaven and about hell, thereby dispelling as far as possible the darkness that has been daily increasing because the church has come to its end. [ ] they wish for this reason that i should declare from their lips that in the entire heaven there is not a single angel who was created such from the beginning, nor in hell any devil who was created an angel of light and cast down; but that all, both in heaven and in hell, are from the human race; in heaven those who lived in the world in heavenly love and belief, in hell those who lived in infernal love and belief, also that it is hell taken as a whole that is called the devil and satan-the name devil being given to the hell that is behind, where those are that are called evil genii, and the name satan being given to the hell that is in front, where those are that are called evil spirits.{ } the character of these hells will be described in the following pages. [ ] the angels said that the christian world had gathered such a belief about those in heaven and those in hell from some passages in the word understood according to the mere sense of the letter not illustrated and explained by genuine doctrine from the word; although the sense of the letter of the word until illuminated by genuine doctrine, draws the mind in different directions, and this begets ignorance, heresies, and errors.{ } {footnote } the hells taken together, or the infernals taken together, are called the devil and satan (n. ). those that have been devils in the world become devils after death (n. ). {footnote } the doctrine of the church must be derived from the word (n. , , , , , ). without doctrine the word is not understood (n. , , , , , , ). true doctrine is a lamp to those who read the word (n. ). genuine doctrine must be from those who are enlightened by the lord (n. , , , , ). those who are in the sense of the letter without doctrine come into no understanding of divine truths (n. , , ). and they are led away into many errors (n. ). the difference between those who teach and learn from the doctrine of the church derived from the word and those who teach and learn from the sense of the letter alone (n. ). . the man of the church also derives this belief from his believing that no man comes into heaven or into hell until the time of the final judgment; and about that he has accepted the opinion that all visible things will perish at that time and new things will come into existence, and that the soul will then return into its body, and from that union man will again live as a man. this belief involves the other-that angels were created such from the beginning; for it is impossible to believe that heaven and hell are from the human race when it is believed that no man can go there until the end of the world. [ ] but that men might be convinced that this is not true it has been granted me to be in company with angels, and also to talk with those who are in hell, and this now for some years, sometimes continuously from morning until evening, and thus be informed about heaven and hell. this has been permitted that the man of the church may no longer continue in his erroneous belief about the resurrection at the time of judgment, and about the state of the soul in the meanwhile, also about angels and the devil. as this belief is a belief in what is false it involves the mind in darkness, and with those who think about these things from their own intelligence it induces doubt and at length denial, for they say in heart, "how can so vast a heaven, with so many constellations and with the sun and moon, be destroyed and dissipated; and how can the stars which are larger than the earth fall from heaven to the earth; and can bodies eaten up by worms, consumed by corruption, and scattered to all the winds, be gathered together again to their souls; and where in the meantime is the soul, and what is it when deprived of the senses it had in the body?" [ ] with many other like things, which being incomprehensible cannot be believed, and which destroy the belief of many in the life of the soul after death, and their belief in heaven and hell, and with these other matters pertaining to the faith of the church. that this belief has been destroyed is evident from its being said, "who has ever come to us from heaven and told us that there is a heaven? what is hell? is there any? what is this about man's being tormented with fire to eternity? what is the day of judgment? has it not been expected in vain for ages?" with other things that involve a denial of everything. [ ] therefore lest those who think in this way-as many do who from their worldly wisdom are regarded as erudite and learned-should any longer confound and mislead the simple in faith and heart, and induce infernal darkness respecting god and heaven and eternal life, and all else that depends on these, the interiors of my spirit have been opened by the lord, and i have thus been permitted to talk with all after their decease with whom i was ever acquainted in the life of the body-with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year, and also with so many others that i should not exaggerate if i should say a hundred thousand; many of whom were in heaven, and many in hell. i have also talked with some two days after their decease, and have told them that their funeral services and obsequies were then being held in preparation for their interment; to which they replied that it was well to cast aside that which had served them as a body and for bodily functions in the world; and they wished me to say that they were not dead, but were living as men the same as before, and had merely migrated from one world into the other, and were not aware of having lost anything, since they had a body and its senses just as before, also understanding and will just as before, with thoughts and affections, sensations and desires, like those they had in the world. [ ] most of those who had recently died, when they saw themselves to be living men as before, and in a like state (for after death everyone's state of life is at first such as it was in the world, but there is a gradual change in it either into heaven or into hell), were moved by new joy at being alive, saying that they had not believed that it would be so. but they greatly wondered that they should have lived in such ignorance and blindness about the state of their life after death; and especially that the man of the church should be in such ignorance and blindness, when above all others in the whole world he might be clearly enlightened in regard to these things.{ } then they began to see the cause of that blindness and ignorance, which is, that external things which are things, relating to the world and the body, had so occupied and filled their minds that they could not be raised into the light of heaven and look into the things of the church beyond its doctrinals; for when matters relating to the body and the world are loved, as they are at the present day, nothing but darkness flows into the mind when men go beyond those doctrines. {footnote } there are few in christendom at this day who believe that man rises again immediately after death (preface to genesis, chap. and n. , ); but it is believed that he will rise again at the time of the final judgment, when the visible world will perish (n. ). the reason of this belief (n. , ). nevertheless man does rise again immediately after death, and then he is a man in all respects, and in every least respect (n. , , , , , , ). the soul that lives after death is the spirit of man, which in man is the man himself, and in the other life is in a complete human form (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ); from experience (n. , , ); from the word (n. ). what is meant by the dead seen in the holy city (matt. : ) explained (n. ). in what manner man is raised from the dead, from experience (n. - ). his state after his resurrection (n. - , , , ). false opinions about the soul and its resurrection (n. , , , , ). . very many of the learned from the christian world are astonished when they find themselves after death in a body, in garments, and in houses, as in the world. and when they recall what they had thought about the life after death, the soul, spirits, and heaven and hell, they are ashamed and confess that they thought foolishly, and that the simple in faith thought much more wisely than they. when the minds of learned men who had confirmed themselves in such ideas and had ascribed all things to nature were examined, it was found that their interiors were wholly closed up and their exteriors were opened, that they looked towards the world and thus towards hell and not towards heaven. for to the extent that man's interiors are opened he looks towards heaven, but to the extent that his interiors are closed and his exteriors opened he looks towards hell, because the interiors of man are formed for the reception of all things of heaven, but the exteriors for the reception of all things of the world; and those who receive the world, and not heaven also, receive hell.{ } {footnote } in man the spiritual world and the natural world are conjoined (n. ). the internal of man is formed after the image of heaven, but the external after the image of the world (n. , , , , , , , ). . that heaven is from the human race can be seen also from the fact that angelic minds and human minds are alike, both enjoying the ability to understand, perceive and will, and both formed to receive heaven; for the human mind is just as capable of becoming wise as the angelic mind; and if it does not attain to such wisdom in the world it is because it is in an earthly body, and in that body its spiritual mind thinks naturally. but it is otherwise when the mind is loosed from the bonds of that body; then it no longer thinks naturally, but spiritually, and when it thinks spiritually its thoughts are incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man; thus it becomes wise like an angel, all of which shows that the internal part of man, called his spirit, is in its essence an angel (see above, n. );{ } and when loosed from the earthly body is, equally with the angel, in the human form. (that an angel is in a complete human form may be seen above, n. - .) when, however, the internal of man is not open above but only beneath, it is still, after it has been loosed from the body, in a human form, but a horrible and diabolical form, for it is able only to look downwards towards hell, and not upwards towards heaven. {footnote } there are as many degrees of life in man as there are heavens, and they are opened after death in accordance with his life (n. , ). heaven is in man (n. ). men who are living a life of love and charity have in them angelic wisdom, although it is for the time hidden, but they come into that wisdom after death (n. ). the man who receives from the lord the good of love and of faith is called in the word an angel (n. ). . moreover, any one who has been taught about divine order can understand that man was created to become an angel, because the outmost of order is in him (n. ), in which what pertains to heavenly and angelic wisdom can be brought into form and can be renewed and multiplied. divine order never stops midway to form there a something apart from an outmost, for it is not in its fullness and completion there; but it goes on to the outmost; and when it is in its outmost it takes on its form, and by means there collected it renews itself and produces itself further, which is accomplished through procreations. therefore the seed-ground of heaven is in the outmost. . the lord rose again not as to his spirit alone but also as to his body, because when he was in the world he glorified his whole human, that is, made it divine; for his soul which he had from the father was of itself the very divine, while his body became a likeness of the soul, that is, of the father, thus also divine. this is why he, differently from any man, rose again as to both;{ } and this he made manifest to the disciples (who when they saw him believed that they saw a spirit), by saying: see my hands and my feet, that it is i myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold me having (luke : - ); indicating thereby that he was a man both in respect to his spirit and in respect to his body. {footnote } man rises again only as to his spirit (n. , ). the lord alone rose again in respect also to his body (n. , , , ). . that it might be made clear that man lives after death and enters in accordance with his life in the world either into heaven or into hell, many things have been disclosed to me about the state of man after death, which will be presented in due order in the following pages, where the world of spirits is treated of. . xxxvi. the heathen, or peoples outside of the church, in heaven. there is a general opinion that those born outside of the church, who are called the nations, or heathen, cannot be saved, because not having the word they know nothing about the lord, and apart from the lord there is no salvation. but that these also are saved this alone makes certain, that the mercy of the lord is universal, that is, extends to every individual; that these equally with those within the church, who are few in comparison, are born men, and that their ignorance of the lord is not their fault. any one who thinks from any enlightened reason can see that no man is born for hell, for the lord is love itself and his love is to will the salvation of all. therefore he has provided a religion for everyone, and by it acknowledgment of the divine and interior life; for to live in accordance with one's religion is to live interiorly, since one then looks to the divine, and so far as he looks to the divine he does not look to the world but separates himself from the world, that is, from the life of the world, which is exterior life.{ } {footnote } the heathen equally with the christians are saved (n. , , , , , , , , ). the lot of the nations and peoples outside of the church in the other life (n. - ). the church is specifically where the word is, and by it the lord is known (n. , ). nevertheless, those born where the word is and where the lord is known are not on that account of the church, but only those who live a life of charity and of faith (n. , , , , , ). the lord's church is with all in the whole world who live in good in accordance with their religion and acknowledge a divine, and such are accepted of the lord and come into heaven (n. - , , , , , , , ). . that the heathen equally with christians are saved any one can see who knows what it is that makes heaven in man; for heaven is within man, and those that have heaven within them come into heaven. heaven with man is acknowledging the divine and being led by the divine. the first and chief thing of every religion is to acknowledge the divine. a religion that does not acknowledge the divine is no religion. the precepts of every religion look to worship; thus to the way in which the divine is to be worshiped that the worship may be acceptable to him; and when this has been settled in one's mind, that is, so far as one wills this or so far as he loves it, he is led by the lord. everyone knows that the heathen as well as christians live a moral life, and many of them a better life than christians. moral life may be lived either out of regard to the divine or out of regard to men in the world; and a moral life that is lived out of regard to the divine is a spiritual life. in outward form the two appear alike, but in inward form they are wholly different; the one saves man, the other does not. for he who lives a moral life out of regard to the divine is led by the divine; while he who leads a moral life out of regard to men in the world is led by himself. [ ] but this may be illustrated by an example. he that refrains from doing evil to his neighbor because it is antagonistic to religion, that is, antagonistic to the divine, refrains from doing evil from a spiritual motive; but he that refrains from doing evil to another merely from fear of the law, or the loss of reputation, of honor, or gain, that is, from regard to self and the world, refrains from doing evil from a natural motive, and is led by himself. the life of the latter is natural, that of the former is spiritual. a man whose moral life is spiritual has heaven within him; but he whose moral life is merely natural does not have heaven within him; and for the reason that heaven flows in from above and opens man's interiors, and through his interiors flows into his exteriors; while the world flows in from beneath and opens the exteriors but not the interiors. for there can be no flowing in from the natural world into the spiritual, but only from the spiritual world into the natural; therefore if heaven is not also received, the interiors remain closed. all this makes clear who those are that receive heaven within them, and who do not. [ ] and yet heaven is not the same in one as in another. it differs in each one in accordance with his affection for good and its truth. those that are in an affection for good out of regard to the divine, love divine truth, since good and truth love each other and desire to be conjoined.{ } this explains why the heathen, although they are not in genuine truths in the world, yet because of their love receive truths in the other life. {footnote } between good and truth there is a kind of marriage (n. , , ). good and truth are in a perpetual endeavor to be conjoined, and good longs for truth and for conjunction with it (n. , , ). how the conjunction of good and truth takes place, and in whom (n. , , , , , , , , , , - , ). . a certain spirit from among the heathen who had lived in the world in good of charity in accordance with his religion, hearing christian spirits reasoning about what must be believed, (for spirits reason with each other far more thoroughly and acutely than men, especially about what is good and true,) wondered at such contentions, and said that he did not care to listen to them, for they reasoned from appearances and fallacies; and he gave them this instruction: "if i am good i can know from the good itself what is true; and what i do not know i can receive." . i have been taught in many ways that the heathen who have led a moral life and have lived in obedience and subordination and mutual charity in accordance with their religion, and have thus received something of conscience, are accepted in the other life, and are there instructed with solicitous care by the angels in the goods and truths of faith; and that when they are being taught they behave themselves modestly, intelligently, and wisely, and readily accept truths and adopt them. they have not worked out for themselves any principles of falsity antagonistic to the truths of faith that will need to be shaken off, still less cavils against the lord, as many christians have who cherish no other idea of him than that he is an ordinary man. the heathen on the contrary when they hear that god has become a man, and has thus manifested himself in the world, immediately acknowledge it and worship the lord, saying that because god is the god of heaven and of earth, and because the human race is his, he has fully disclosed himself to men.{ } it is a divine truth that apart from the lord there is no salvation; but this is to be understood to mean that there is no salvation except from the lord. there are many earths in the universe, and all of them full of inhabitants, scarcely any of whom know that the lord took on the human on our earth. yet because they worship the divine under a human form they are accepted and led by the lord. on this subject more may be seen in the little work on the earths in the universe. {footnote } difference between the good in which the heathen are and that in which christians are (n. , ). truths with the heathen (n. , , ). the interiors cannot be so closed up with the heathen as with christians (n. ). neither can so thick a cloud exist with the heathen who live in mutual charity in accordance with their religion as with christians who live in no charity; the reasons (n. , ). the heathen cannot profane the holy things of the church as the christians do, because they are ignorant of them (n. , , ). they have a fear of christians on account of their lives (n. , ). those that have lived well in accordance with their religion are taught by angels and readily accept the truths of faith and acknowledge the lord (n. , , , , , , , , ). . among the heathen, as among christians, there are both wise and simple. that i might learn about them i have been permitted to speak with both, sometimes for hours and days. but there are no such wise men now as in ancient times, especially in the ancient church, which extended over a large part of the asiatic world, and from which religion spread to many nations. that i might wholly know about them i have been permitted to have familiar conversation with some of these wise men. there was with me one who was among the wiser of his time, and consequently well known in the learned world, with whom i talked on various subjects, and had reason to believe that it was cicero. knowing that he was a wise man i talked with him about wisdom, intelligence, order, and the word, and lastly about the lord. [ ] of wisdom he said that there is no other wisdom than the wisdom of life, and that wisdom can be predicated of nothing else; of intelligence that it is from wisdom; of order, that it is from the supreme god, and that to live in that order is to be wise and intelligent. as to the word, when i read to him something from the prophets he was greatly delighted, especially with this, that every name and every word signified interior things; and he wondered greatly that learned men at this day are not delighted with such study. i saw plainly that the interiors of his thought or mind had been opened. he said that he was unable to hear more, as he perceived something more holy than he could bear, being affected so interiorly. [ ] at length i spoke with him about the lord, saying that while he was born a man he was conceived of god, and that he put off the maternal human and put on the divine human, and that it is he that governs the universe. to this he replied that he knew some things concerning the lord, and perceived in his way that if mankind were to be saved it could not have been done otherwise. in the meantime some bad christians infused various cavils; but to these he gave no attention, remarking that this was not strange, since in the life of the body they had imbibed unbecoming ideas on the subject, and until they got rid of these they could not admit ideas that confirmed the truth, as the ignorant can. . it has also been granted me to talk with others who lived in ancient times, and who were then among the more wise. at first they appeared in front at a distance, and were able then to perceive the interiors of my thoughts, thus many things fully. from one idea of thought they were able to discern the entire series and fill it with delightful things of wisdom combined with charming representations. from this they were perceived to be among the more wise, and i was told that they were some of the ancient people; and when they came nearer i read to them something from the word, and they were delighted beyond measure. i perceived the essence of their delight and gratification, which arose chiefly from this, that all things and each thing they heard from the word were representative and significative of heavenly and spiritual things. they said that in their time, when they lived in the world, their mode of thinking and speaking and also of writing was of this nature, and that this was their pursuit of wisdom. . but as regards the heathen of the present day, they are not so wise, but most of them are simple in heart. nevertheless, those of them that have lived in mutual charity receive wisdom in the other life, and of these one or two examples may be cited. when i read the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of judges (about micah, and how the sons of dan carried away his graven image and teraphim and levite) a heathen spirit was present who in the life of the body had worshiped a graven image. he listened attentively to the account of what was done to micah, and his grief on account of his graven image which the danites took away, and such grief came upon him and moved him that he scarcely knew, by reason of inward distress, what to think. not only was this grief perceived, but also the innocence that was in all his affections. the christian spirits that were present watched him and wondered that a worshiper of a graven image should have so great a feeling of sympathy and innocence stirred in him. afterwards some good spirits talked with him, saying that graven images should not be worshiped, and that being a man he was capable of understanding this; that he ought, apart from a graven image, to think of god the creator and ruler of the whole heaven and the whole earth, and that god is the lord. when this was said i was permitted to perceive the interior nature of his adoration, which was communicated to me; and it was much more holy than is the case of christians, this makes clear that at the present day the heathen come into heaven with less difficulty than christians, according to the lord's words in luke: then shall they come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, and shall recline in the kingdom of god. and behold, there are last who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last ( : , ). for in the state in which that spirit was he could be imbued with all things of faith and receive them with interior affection; there was in him the mercy of love, and in his ignorance there was innocence; and when these are present all things of faith are received as it were spontaneously and with joy. he was afterwards received among angels. . a choir at a distance was heard one morning, and from the choir's representations i was permitted to know that they were chinese, for they exhibited a kind of woolly goat, then a cake of millet, and an ebony spoon, also the idea of a floating city. they desired to come nearer to me, and when they had joined me they said that they wished to be alone with me, that they might disclose their thoughts. but they were told that they were not alone, and that some were displeased at their wishing to be alone, although they were guests. when they perceived this displeasure they began to think whether they had transgressed against the neighbor, and whether they had claimed any thing to themselves that belonged to others. all thought in the other life being communicated i was permitted to perceive the agitation of their minds. it consisted of a recognition that possibly they had injured those who were displeased, of shame on that account, together with other worthy affections; and it was thus known that they were endowed with charity. soon after i spoke with them, and at last about the lord. when i called him "christ" i perceived a certain repugnance in them; but the reason was disclosed, namely, that they had brought this from the world, from their having learned that christians lived worse lives than they did, and were destitute of charity. but when i called him simply "lord" they were interiorly moved. afterwards, they were taught by the angels that the christian doctrine beyond every other in the world prescribes love and charity, but that there are few who live in accordance with it. there are heathen who have come to know while they lived in the world, both from interaction and report, that christians lead bad lives, are addicted to adultery, hatred, quarreling, drunkenness, and the like, which they themselves abhor because such things are contrary to their religion. these in the other life are more timid than others about accepting the truths of faith; but they are taught by the angels that the christian doctrine, as well as the faith itself, teaches a very different life, but that the lives of christians are less in accord with their doctrine than the lives of heathen. when they recognize this they receive the truths of faith, and adore the lord, but less readily than others. . it is a common thing for heathen that have worshiped any god under an image or statue, or any graven thing to be introduced, when they come into the other life, to certain spirits in place of their gods or idols, in order that they may rid themselves of their fantasies. when they have been with these for some days, the fantasies are put away. also those that have worshiped men are sometimes introduced to the men they have worshiped, or to others in their place--as many of the jews to abraham, jacob, moses, and david-but when they come to see that they are human the same as others, and that they can give them no help, they become ashamed, and are carried to their own places in accordance with their lives. among the heathen in heaven the africans are most beloved, for they receive the goods and truths of heaven more readily than others. they especially wish to be called obedient, but not faithful. they say that as christians possess the doctrine of faith they may be called faithful; but not they unless they accept that doctrine, or as they say, have the ability to accept it. . i have talked with some who were in the ancient church. that is called the ancient church that was established after the deluge, and extended through many kingdoms, namely, assyria, mesopotamia, syria, ethiopia, arabia, libya, egypt, philistia as far as tyre and zidon, and through the land of canaan on both sides of the jordan.{ } the men of this church knew about the lord that he was to come, and were imbued with the goods of faith, and yet they fell away and became idolaters. these spirits were in front towards the left, in a dark place and in a miserable state. their speech was like the sound of a pipe of one tone, almost without rational thought. they said they had been there for many centuries, and that they are sometimes taken out that they may serve others for certain uses of a low order. from this i was led to think about many christians--who are inwardly though not outwardly idolaters, since they are worshipers of self and of the world, and in heart deny the lord-what lot awaits such in the other life. {footnote } the first and most ancient church on this earth was that which is described in the first chapters of genesis, and that church above all others was celestial (n. , , , - , , , , , ). what the celestial are in heaven (n. - ). there were various churches after the flood which are called ancient churches (n. - , , ). what the men of the ancient church were (n. , ). the ancient churches were representative churches (n. , , ). in the ancient church there was a word, but it has been lost (n. ). the character of the ancient church when it began to decline (n. ). the difference between the most ancient church and the ancient church (n. , , , , , , , ). the statutes, the judgments, and the laws, which were commanded in the jewish church, were in part like those in the ancient church (n. , , ). the god of the most ancient church and of the ancient church was the lord, and he was called jehovah (n. , ). . that the church of the lord is spread over all the globe, and is thus universal; and that all those are in it who have lived in the good of charity in accordance with their religion; and that the church, where the word is and by means of it the lord is known, is in relation to those who are out of the church like the heart and lungs in man, from which all the viscera and members of the body have their life, variously according to their forms, positions, and conjunctions, may be seen above (n. ). . xxxvii. little children in heaven. it is a belief of some that only such children as are born within the church go to heaven, and that those born out of the church do not, and for the reason that the children within the church are baptized and by baptism are initiated into faith of the church. such are not aware that no one receives heaven or faith through baptism; for baptism is merely for a sign and memorial that man should be regenerated, and that those born within the church can be regenerated because the word is there, and in the word are the divine truths by means of which regeneration is effected, and there the lord who regenerates is known.{ } let them know therefore that every child, wherever he is born, whether within the church or outside of it, whether of pious parents or impious, is received when he dies by the lord and trained up in heaven, and taught in accordance with divine order, and imbued with affections for what is good, and through these with knowledges of what is true; and afterwards as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom is introduced into heaven and becomes an angel. everyone who thinks from reason can be sure that all are born for heaven and no one for hell, and if man comes into hell he himself is culpable; but little children cannot be held culpable. {footnote } baptism signifies regeneration by the lord by means of the truths of faith from the word (n. , , , , - , ). baptism is a sign that the man baptized is of the church in which the lord, who regenerates, is acknowledged, and where the word is from which are the truths of faith, by means of which regeneration is effected (n. - ). baptism confers neither faith nor salvation, but it is a witness that those who are being regenerated will receive faith and salvation (n. ). . when children die they are still children in the other life, having a like infantile mind, a like innocence in ignorance, and a like tenderness in all things. they are merely in the rudiments of a capacity to become angels, for children are not angels but become angels. for everyone passing out of this world enters the other in the same state of life, a little child in the state of a little child, a boy in the state of a boy, a youth, a man, an old man, in the state of a youth, a man, or an old man; but subsequently each one's state is changed. the state of little children surpasses the state of all others in that they are in innocence, and evil has not yet been rooted in them by actual life; and in innocence all things of heaven can be implanted, for it is a receptacle of the truth of faith and of the good of love. . the state of children in the other life far surpasses their state in the world, for they are not clothed with an earthly body, but with such a body as the angels have. the earthly body is in itself gross, and receives its first sensations and first motions not from the inner or spiritual world, but from the outer or natural world; and in consequence in this world children must be taught to walk, to guide their motions, and to speak; and even their senses, as seeing and hearing, must be opened by use. it is not so with children in the other life. as they are spirits they act at once in accordance with their interiors, walking without practice, and also talking, but at first from general affections not yet distinguished into ideas of thought; but they are quickly initiated into these also, for the reason that their exteriors are homogeneous with their interiors. the speech of angels (as may be seen above, n, - ) so flows forth from affection modified by ideas of thought that their speech completely conforms to their thoughts from affection. . as soon as little children are resuscitated, which takes place immediately after death, they are taken into heaven and confided to angel women who in the life of the body tenderly loved little children and at the same time loved god. because these during their life in the world loved all children with a kind of motherly tenderness, they receive them as their own; while the children, from an implanted instinct, love them as their own mothers. there are as many children in each one's care as she desires from a spiritual parental affection. this heaven appears in front before the forehead, directly in the line or radius in which the angels look to the lord. it is so situated because all little children are under the immediate auspices of the lord; and the heaven of innocence, which is the third heaven, flows into them. . little children have various dispositions, some that of the spiritual angels and some that of the celestial angels. those who are of a celestial disposition are seen in that heaven to the right, and those of a spiritual disposition to the left. all children in the greatest man, which is heaven, are in the province of the eyes-those of a spiritual disposition in the province of the left eye, and those of a celestial disposition in the province of the right eye. this is because the angels who are in the spiritual kingdom see the lord before the left eye, and those who are in the celestial kingdom before the right eye (see above, n. ). this fact that in the greatest man or heaven children are in the province of the eyes is a proof that they are under the immediate sight and auspices of the lord. . how children are taught in heaven shall also be briefly told. from their nurses they learn to talk. their earliest speech is simply a sound of affection; this by degrees becomes more distinct as ideas of thought enter; for ideas of thought from affections constitute all angelic speech (as may be seen in its own chapter, n. - ). into their affections, all of which proceed from innocence, such things as appear before their eyes and cause delight are first instilled; and as these things are from a spiritual origin the things of heaven at once flow into them, and by means of these heavenly things their interiors are opened, and they are thereby daily perfected. but when this first age is completed they are transferred to another heaven, where they are taught by masters; and so on. . children are taught chiefly by representatives suited to their capacity. these are beautiful and full of wisdom from within, beyond all belief. in this way an intelligence that derives its soul from good is gradually instilled into them. i will here describe two representatives that i have been permitted to see, from which the nature of others may be inferred. first there was a representation of the lord's rising from the sepulchre, and at the same time of the uniting of his human with the divine. this was done in a manner so wise as to surpass all human wisdom, and at the same time in an innocent infantile manner. an idea of a sepulchre was presented, and with it an idea of the lord, but in so remote a way that there was scarcely any perception of its being the lord, except seemingly afar off; and for the reason that in the idea of a sepulchre there is something funereal, and this was thus removed, after wards they cautiously admitted into the sepulchre something atmospheric, with an appearance of thin vapor, by which with proper remoteness they signified spiritual life in baptism. afterwards i saw a representation by the angels of the lord's descent to those that are "bound," and of his ascent with these into heaven, and this with incomparable prudence and gentleness. in adaptation to the infantile mind they let down little cords almost invisible, very soft and tender, by which they lightened the lord's ascent, always with a holy solicitude that there should be nothing in the representation bordering upon anything that did not contain what is spiritual and heavenly. other representations are there given, whereby, as by plays adapted to the minds of children, they are guided into knowledges of truth and affections for good. . it was also shown how tender their understanding is. when i was praying the lord's prayer, and from their under standing they flowed into the ideas of my thought, their influx was perceived to be so tender and soft as to be almost solely a matter of affection; and at the same time it was observed that their understanding was open even from the lord, for what flowed forth from them was as if it simply flowed through them. moreover, the lord flows into the ideas of little children chiefly from inmosts, for there is nothing, as with adults, to close up their ideas, no principles of falsity to close the way to the understanding of truth, nor any life of evil to close the way to the reception of good, and thereby to the reception of wisdom. all this makes clear that little children do not come at once after death into an angelic state, but are gradually brought into it by means of knowledges of good and truth, and in harmony with all heavenly order; for the least particulars of their nature are known to the lord, and thus they are led, in accord with each and every movement of their inclination, to receive the truths of good and the goods of truth. . i have also been shown how all things are instilled into them by delightful and pleasant means suited to their genius. i have been permitted to see children most charmingly attired, having garlands of flowers resplendent with most beautiful and heavenly colors twined about their breasts and around their tender arms; and once to see them accompanied by those in charge of them and by maidens, in a park most beautifully adorned, not so much with trees, as with arbors and covered walks of laurel, with paths leading inward; and when the children entered attired as they were the flowers over the entrance shone forth most joyously. this indicates the nature of their delights, also how they are led by means of pleasant and delightful things into the goods of innocence and charity, which goods the lord continually instilled into these delights and pleasures. . it was shown me, by a mode of communication common in the other life, what the ideas of children are when they see objects of any kind. each and every object seemed to them to be alive; and thus in every least idea of their thought there is life. and it was perceived that children on the earth have nearly the same ideas when they are at their little plays; for as yet they have no such reflection as adults have about what is inanimate. . it has been said above that children are of a genius either celestial or spiritual. those of a celestial genius are easily distinguished from those of a spiritual genius. their thought, speech, and action, is so gentle that hardly anything appears except what flows from a love of good to the lord and from a love for other children. but those of a spiritual genius are not so gentle; but in everything with them there appears a sort of vibration, as of wings. the difference is seen also in their ill-feeling and in other things. . many may suppose that in heaven little children remain little children, and continue as such among the angels. those who do not know what an angel is may have had this opinion confirmed by paintings and images in churches, in which angels are represented as children. but it is wholly otherwise. intelligence and wisdom are what constitute an angel, and as long as children do not possess these they are not angels, although they are with the angels; but as soon as they become intelligent and wise they become angels; and what is wonderful, they do not then appear as children, but as adults, for they are no longer of an infantile genius, but of a more mature angelic genius. intelligence and wisdom produce this effect. the reason why children appear more mature, thus as youths and young men, as they are perfected in intelligence and wisdom, is that intelligence and wisdom are essential spiritual nourishment;{ } and thus the things that nourish their minds also nourish their bodies, and this from correspondence; for the form of the body is simply the external form of the interiors. but it should be understood that in heaven children advance in age only to early manhood, and remain in this to eternity. that i might be assured that this is so i have been permitted to talk with some who had been educated as children in heaven, and had grown up there; with some also while they were children, and again with the same when they had become young men; and i have heard from them about the progress of their life from one age to another. {footnote } spiritual food is knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, thus the good and truth from which these are (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). therefore in a spiritual sense everything that comes forth from the mouth of the lord is food (n. ). because bread means all food in general it signifies every good, celestial and spiritual (n. , , , , , , ). and for the reason that these nourish the mind, which belongs to the internal man (n. , , , , ). . that innocence is a receptacle of all things of heaven, and thus the innocence of children is a plane for all affections for good and truth, can be seen from what has been shown above (n. - ) in regard to the innocence of angels in heaven, namely, that innocence is a willingness to be led by the lord and not by oneself; consequently so far as a man is in innocence he is separated from what is his own, and so far as one is separated from what is his own he is in what is the lord's own. the lord's own is what is called his righteousness and merit. but the innocence of children is not genuine innocence, because as yet it is without wisdom. genuine innocence is wisdom, since so far as any one is wise he loves to be led by the lord; or what is the same, so far as any one is led by the lord he is wise. [ ] therefore children are led from the external innocence in which they are at the beginning, and which is called the innocence of childhood, to internal innocence, which is the innocence of wisdom. this innocence is the end that directs all their instruction and progress; and therefore when they have attained to the innocence of wisdom, the innocence of childhood, which in the meanwhile has served them as a plane, is joined to them. [ ] the innocence of children has been represented to me as a wooden sort of thing, almost devoid of life, which becomes vivified as they are perfected by knowledges of truth and affections for good. afterwards genuine innocence was represented by a most beautiful child, naked and full of life; for the really innocent, who are in the inmost heaven and thus nearest to the lord, always appear before the eyes of other angels as little children, and some of them naked; for innocence is represented by nakedness unaccompanied by shame, as is said of the first man and his wife in paradise (gen. : ); so when their state of innocence perished they were ashamed of their nakedness, and hid themselves (chap. : , , ). in a word, the wiser the angels are the more innocent they are, and the more innocent they are the more they appear to themselves as little children. this is why in the word "childhood" signifies innocence (see above, n. ). . i have talked with angels about little children, whether they are free from evils, inasmuch as they have no actual evil as adults have; and i was told that they are equally in evil, and in fact are nothing but evil;{ } but, like all angels, they are so withheld from evil and held in good by the lord as to seem to themselves to be in good from themselves. for this reason when children have become adults in heaven, that they may not have the false idea about themselves that the good in them is from themselves and not from the lord, they are now and then let down into their evils which they inherited, and are left in them until they know, acknowledge and believe the truth of the matter. [ ] there was one, the son of a king, who died in childhood and grew up in heaven, who held this opinion. therefore he was let down into that life of evils into which he was born, and he then perceived from the sphere of his life that he had a disposition to domineer over others, and regarded adulteries as of no account; these evils he had inherited from his parents; but after he had been brought to recognize his real character he was again received among the angels with whom he had before been associated. [ ] in the other life no one ever suffers punishment on account of his inherited evil, because it is not his evil, that is, it is not his fault that he is such; he suffers only on account of actual evil that is his, that is, only so far as he has appropriated to himself inherited evil by actual life. when, therefore, the children that have become adults are let down into the state of their inherited evil it is not that they may suffer punishment for it, but that they may learn that of themselves they are nothing but evil, and that it is by the mercy of the lord that they are taken up into heaven from the hell in which they are, and that it is from the lord that they are in heaven and not from any merit of their own; and therefore they may not boast before others of the good that is in them, since this is contrary to the good of mutual love, as it is contrary to the truth of faith. {footnote } all kinds of men are born into evils of every kind, even to the extent that what is their own is nothing but evil (n. , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). consequently man must needs be reborn, that is, regenerated (n. ). man's inherited evil consists in his loving himself more than god, and the world more than heaven and in making his neighbor, in comparison with himself, of no account, except for the sake of self, that is, himself alone, thus it consists in the love of self and of the world (n. , , , ). all evils are from the love of self and of the world, when those loves rule (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). these evils are contempt of others, enmity, hatred revenge, cruelty, deceit (n. , - , , , ). and from these evils comes all falsity (n. , , , ). these loves, so far as the reins are given them, rush headlong; and the love of self aspires even to the throne of god (n. , ). . several times when a number of children that were in a purely infantile state have been with me in choirs, they were heard as a tender unarranged mass, that is, as not yet acting as one, as they do later when they have become more mature. to my surprise the spirits with me could not refrain from inducing them to talk. this desire is innate in spirits. but i noticed, each time, that the children resisted, unwilling to talk in this way. this refusal and resistance, which were accompanied by a kind of indignation, i have often perceived; and when an opportunity to talk was given them they would say nothing except that "it is not so." i have been taught that little children are so tempted in order that they may get accustomed to resisting, and may begin to resist falsity and evil, and also that they may learn not to think, speak, and act, from another, and in consequence may learn to permit themselves to be led by no one but the lord. . from what has been said it can be seen what child education is in heaven, namely, that it is leading them by means of an understanding of truth and the wisdom of good into the angelic life, which is love to the lord and mutual love, in which is innocence. but how different in many cases is the education of children on the earth can be seen from this example. i was in the street of a large city, and saw little boys fighting with each other; a crowd flocked around and looked on with much pleasure; and i was told that little boys are incited to such fights by their own parents. good spirits and angels who saw this through my eyes so revolted at it that i felt their horror; and especially that parents should incite their children to such things, saying that in this way parents extinguish in the earliest age all the mutual love and all the innocence that children have from the lord, and initiate them into the spirit of hatred and revenge; consequently by their own endeavors they shut their children out of heaven, where there is nothing but mutual love. let parents therefore who wish well to their children beware of such things. . what the difference is between those who die in childhood and those who die in mature life shall also be told. those dying in mature life have a plane acquired from the earthly and material world, and this they carry with them. this plane is their memory and its bodily natural affection. this remains fixed and becomes quiescent, but still serves their thought after death as an outmost plane, since the thought flows into it. consequently such as this plane is, and such as the correspondence is between the things that are in it and the rational faculty, such is the man after death. but the children who die in childhood and are educated in heaven have no such plane, since they derive nothing from the material world and the earthly body; but they have a spiritual-natural plane. for this reason they cannot be in such gross affections and consequent thoughts, since they derive all things from heaven. moreover, these children do not know that they were born in the world, but believe that they were born in heaven. neither do they know about any other than spiritual birth, which is effected through knowledges of good and truth and through intelligence and wisdom, from which man is a man; and as these are from the lord they believe themselves to be the lord's own, and love to be so. nevertheless it is possible for the state of men who grow up on the earth to become as perfect as the state of children who grow up in heaven, provided they put away bodily and earthly loves, which are the loves of self and the world, and receive in their place spiritual loves. . xxxviii. the wise and the simple in heaven. it is believed that in heaven the wise will have more glory and eminence than the simple, because it is said in daniel: they that are intelligent shall shine as with the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever ( : ). but few know who are meant by the "intelligent" and by those that "turn many to righteousness." the common belief is that they are such as are called the accomplished and learned, especially such as have taught in the church and have surpassed others in acquirements and in preaching, and still more such among them as have converted many to the faith. in the world all such are regarded as the intelligent; nevertheless such are not the intelligent in heaven that are spoken of in these words, unless their intelligence is heavenly intelligence. what this is will now be told. . heavenly intelligence is interior intelligence, arising from a love for truth, not with any glory in the world nor any glory in heaven as an end, but with the truth itself as an end, by which they are inmostly affected and with which they are inmostly delighted. those who are affected by and delighted with the truth itself are affected by and delighted with the light of heaven; and those who are affected by and delighted with the light of heaven are also affected by and delighted with divine truth, and indeed with the lord himself; for the light of heaven is divine truth, and divine truth is the lord in heaven (see above, n. - ). this light enters only into the interiors of the mind; for the interiors of the mind are formed for the reception of that light, and are affected by and delighted with that light as it enters; for whatever flows in and is received from heaven has in it what is delightful and pleasant. from this comes a genuine affection for truth, which is an affection for truth for truth's sake. those who are in this affection, or what is the same thing, in this love, are in heavenly intelligence, and "shine in heaven as with the brightness of the firmament." they so shine because divine truth, wherever it is in heaven, is what gives light (see above, n. ); and the "firmament" of heaven signifies from correspondence the intellectual faculty, both with angels and men, that is in the light of heaven. [ ] but those that love the truth, either with glory in the world or glory in heaven as an end, cannot shine in heaven, since they are delighted with and affected by the light of the world, and not with the very light of heaven; and the light of the world without the light of heaven is in heaven mere thick darkness.{ } for the glory of self is what rules, because it is the end in view; and when that glory is the end man puts himself in the first place, and such truths as can be made serviceable to his glory he looks upon simply as means to the end and as instruments of service. for he that loves divine truths for the sake of his own glory regards himself and not the lord in divine truths, thereby turning the sight pertaining to his understanding and faith away from heaven to the world, and away from the lord to himself. such, therefore, are in the light of the world and not in the light of heaven. [ ] in outward form or in the sight of men they appear just as intelligent and learned as those who are in the light of heaven, because they speak in a like manner; and sometimes to outward appearance they even appear wiser, because they are moved by love of self, and are skilled in counterfeiting heavenly affections; but in their inward form in which they appear before the angels they are wholly different. all this shows in some degree who those are that are meant by "the intelligent that will shine in heaven as with the brightness of the firmament." who are meant by those that "turn many to righteousness," who will shine as the stars, shall now be told. {footnote } the light of the world is for the external man, the light of heaven for the internal man (n. - , ). the light of heaven flows into the natural light, and so far as the natural man receives the light of heaven he becomes wise (n. , ). the things that are in the light of heaven can be seen in the light of heaven but not in the light of the world, which is called natural light (n. ). therefore those who are solely in the light of the world do not perceive those things that are in the light of heaven (n. ). to the angels the light of the world is thick darkness (n. , , ). . by those who "turn many to righteousness" are meant those who are wise, and in heaven those are called wise who are in good, and those are in good that apply divine truths at once to the life; for as soon as divine truth comes to be of the life it becomes good, since it comes to be of will and love, and whatever is of will and love is called good; therefore such are called wise because wisdom is of the life. but those that do not commit divine truths at once to the life, but first to the memory, from which they afterwards draw them and apply them to the life, are called the "intelligent." what and how great the difference is between the wise and the intelligent in the heavens can be seen in the chapter that treats of the two kingdoms of heaven, the celestial and the spiritual (n. - ), and in the chapter that treats of the three heavens (n. - ). those who are in the lord's celestial kingdom, and consequently in the third or inmost heaven, are called "the righteous" because they attribute all righteousness to the lord and none to themselves. the lord's righteousness in heaven is the good that is from the lord.{ } such, then, are here meant by those that "turn to righteousness;" and such are meant also in the lord's words, the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father (matt. : ). such "shine forth as the sun" because they are in love to the lord from the lord, and that love is meant by the "sun" (see above, n. - ). the light of such is flame-colored; and the ideas of their thought are so tinged with what is flaming because they receive the good of love directly from the lord as the sun in heaven. {footnote } the merit and righteousness of the lord is the good that rules in heaven (n. , ). he that is "righteous" or "made righteous" is one to whom the merit and righteousness of the lord is ascribed; and he is "unrighteous" who holds to his own righteousness and merit (n. , ). the quality of those in the other life who claim righteousness to themselves (n. , ). in the word "righteousness" is predicated of good and judgment of truth; therefore "doing righteousness and judgment" is doing good and truth (n. , ). . all who have acquired intelligence and wisdom in the world are received in heaven and become angels, each in accordance with the quality and degree of his intelligence and wisdom. for whatever a man acquires in the world abides, and he takes it with him after death; and it is further increased and filled out, but within and not beyond the degree of his affection and desire for truth and its good, those with but little affection and desire receiving but little, and yet as much as they are capable of receiving within that degree; while those with much affection and desire receive much. the degree itself of affection and desire is like a measure that is filled to the full, he that has a large measure receiving more, and he that has a small measure receiving less. this is so because man's love, to which affection and desire belong, receives all that accords with itself; consequently reception is measured by the love. this is what is meant by the lord's words, to him that hath it shall be given, that he may have more abundantly (matt. : ; : ). good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall be given into your bosom (luke : ). . all are received into heaven who have loved truth and good for the sake of truth and good; therefore those that have loved much are called the wise, and those that have loved little are called the simple. the wise in heaven are in much light, the simple in less light, everyone in accordance with the degree of his love for good and truth. to love truth and good for the sake of truth and good is to will and do them; for those love who will and do, while those who do not will and do do not love. such also love the lord and are loved by the lord, because good and truth are from the lord. and inasmuch as good and truth are from the lord the lord is in good and truth; and he is in those who receive good and truth in their life by willing and doing. moreover, when man is viewed in himself he is nothing but his own good and truth, because good is of his will and truth of his understanding, and man is such as his will and understanding are. evidently, then, man is loved by the lord just to the extent that his will is formed from good and his understanding from truth. also to be loved by the lord is to love the lord, since love is reciprocal; for upon him who is loved the lord bestows ability to love. . it is believed in the world that those who have much knowledge, whether it be knowledge of the teachings of the church and the word or of the sciences, have a more interior and keen vision of truth than others, that is, are more intelligent and wise; and such have this opinion of themselves. but what true intelligence and wisdom are, and what spurious and false intelligence and wisdom are, shall be told in what now follows. [ ] true intelligence and wisdom is seeing and perceiving what is true and good, and thereby what is false and evil, and clearly distinguishing between them, and this from an interior intuition and perception. with every man there are interior faculties and exterior faculties; interior faculties belonging to the internal or spiritual man, and exterior faculties belonging to the exterior or natural man. accordingly as man's interiors are formed and made one with his exteriors man sees and perceives. his interiors can be formed only in heaven, his exteriors are formed in the world. when his interiors have been formed in heaven the things they contain flow into his exteriors which are from the world, and so form them that they correspond with, that is, act as one with, his interiors; and when this is done man sees and perceives from what is interior. the interiors can be formed only in one way, namely, by man's looking to the divine and to heaven, since, as has been said, the interiors are formed in heaven; and man looks to the divine when he believes in the divine, and believes that all truth and good and consequently all intelligence and wisdom are from the divine; and man believes in the divine when he is willing to be led by the divine. in this way and none other are the interiors of man opened. [ ] the man who is in that belief and in a life that is in accordance with his belief has the ability and capacity to understand and be wise; but to become intelligent and wise he must learn many things, both things pertaining to heaven and things pertaining to the world--things pertaining to heaven from the word and from the church, and things pertaining to the world from the sciences. to the extent that man learns and applies to life he becomes intelligent and wise, for to that extent the interior sight belonging to his understanding and the interior affection belonging to his will are perfected. the simple of this class are those whose interiors have been opened, but not so enriched by spiritual, moral, civil and natural truths. such perceive truths when they hear them, but do not see them in themselves. but the wise of this class are those whose interiors have been both opened and enriched. such both see truths inwardly and perceive them. all this makes clear what true intelligence is and what true wisdom is. . spurious intelligence and wisdom is failing to see and perceive from within what is true and what is good, and thereby what is false and what is evil, but merely believing that to be true and good and that to be false and evil which is said by others to be so, and then confirming it. because such see truth from some one else, and not from the truth itself, they can seize upon and believe what is false as readily as what is true, and can confirm it until it appears true; for whatever is confirmed puts on the appearance of truth; and there is nothing that can not be confirmed. the interiors of such are opened only from beneath; but their exteriors are opened to the extent that they have confirmed themselves. for this reason the light from which they see is not the light of heaven but the light of the world, which is called natural light [lumen]; and in that light falsities can shine like truths; and when confirmed they can even appear resplendent, but not in the light of heaven. of this class those are less intelligent and wise who have strongly confirmed themselves, and those are more intelligent and wise who have less strongly confirmed themselves. all this shows what spurious intelligence and wisdom are. [ ] but those are not included in this class who in childhood supposed what they heard from their masters to be true, if in a riper age, when they think from their own understanding, they do not continue to hold fast to it, but long for truth, and from that longing seek for it, and when they find it are interiorly moved by it. because such are moved by the truth for the truth's sake they see the truth before they confirm it.{ } [ ] this may be illustrated by an example. there was a discussion among spirits why animals are born into all the knowledge suited to their nature, but man is not; and the reason was said to be that animals are in the order of their life, and man is not, consequently man must needs be led into order by means of what he learns of internal and external things. but if man were born into the order of his life, which is to love god above all things and his neighbor as himself, he would be born into intelligence and wisdom, and as knowledges are acquired would come into a belief in all truth. good spirits saw this at once and perceived it to be true, and this merely from the light of truth; while the spirits who had confirmed themselves in faith alone, and had thereby set aside love and charity, were unable to understand it, because the light of falsity which they had confirmed had made obscure to them the light of truth. {footnote } it is the part of the wise to see and perceive whether a thing is true before it is confirmed and not merely to confirm what is said by others (n. , , , , ). only those can see and perceive whether a thing is true before it is confirmed who are affected by truth for the sake of truth and for the sake of life (n. ). the light of confirmation is not spiritual light but natural light, and is even sensual light which the wicked may have (n. ). all things, even falsities, may be so confirmed as to appear like truths (n. , , , , ). . false intelligence and wisdom is all intelligence and wisdom that is separated from the acknowledgment of the divine; for all such as do not acknowledge the divine, but acknowledge nature in the place of the divine, think from the bodily-sensual, and are merely sensual, however highly they may be esteemed in the world for their accomplishments and learning.{ } for their learning does not ascend beyond such things as appear before their eyes in the world; these they hold in the memory and look at them in an almost material way, although the same knowledges serve the truly intelligent in forming their understanding. by sciences the various kinds of experimental knowledge are meant, such as physics, astronomy, chemistry, mechanics, geometry, anatomy, psychology, philosophy, the history of kingdoms and of the literary world, criticism, and languages. [ ] the clergy who deny the divine do not raise their thoughts above the sensual things of the external man; and regard the things of the word in the same way as others regard the sciences, not making them matters of thought or of any intuition by an enlightened rational mind; and for the reason that their interiors are closed up, together with those exteriors that are nearest to their interiors. these are closed up because they have turned themselves away from heaven, and have retroverted those faculties that were capable of looking heavenward, which are, as has been said above, the interiors of the human mind. for this reason they are incapable of seeing anything true or good, this being to them in thick darkness, while whatever is false and evil is in light. [ ] and yet sensual men can reason, some of them more cunningly and keenly than any one else; but they reason from the fallacies of the senses confirmed by their knowledges; and because they are able to reason in this way they believe themselves to be wiser than others.{ } the fire that kindles with affection their reasonings is the fire of the love of self and the world. such are those who are in false intelligence and wisdom, and who are meant by the lord in matthew: seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand ( : - ). and again: these things are hid from the intelligent and wise, and revealed unto babes ( : , ). {footnote } the sensual is the outmost of man's life, clinging to and inhering in his bodily part (n. , , , , , ). he is called a sensual man who forms all his judgments and conclusions from the bodily senses, and who believes nothing except what he sees with his eyes and touches with his hands (n. , ). such a man thinks in things outermost and not interiorly in himself (n. , , , ). his interiors are so closed up that he sees nothing of divine truth (n. , , ). in a word he is in gross natural light and thus perceives nothing that is from the light of heaven (n. , , , , , , , , , ). therefore he is inwardly opposed to all things pertaining to heaven and the church (n. , , , , , ). the learned that have confirmed themselves against the truths of the church are sensual (n. ). a description of the sensual man (n. ). {footnote } sensual men reason keenly and cunningly, since they place all intelligence in speaking from the bodily memory (n. , , , ). but they reason from the fallacies of the senses (n. , , , ). sensual men are more cunning and malicious than others (n. , ). by the ancients such were called serpents of the tree of knowledge (n. - , , , ). . it has been granted me to speak with many of the learned after their departure from the world; with some of distinguished reputation and celebrated in the literary world for their writings, and with some not so celebrated, although endowed with profound wisdom. those that in heart had denied the divine, whatever their professions may have been, had become so stupid as to have little comprehension even of anything truly civil, still less of anything spiritual. i perceived and also saw that the interiors of their minds were so closed up as to appear black (for in the spiritual world such things become visible), and in consequence they were unable to endure any heavenly light or admit any influx from heaven. this blackness which their interiors presented was more intense and extended with those that had confirmed themselves against the divine by the knowledges they had acquired. in the other life such accept all falsity with delight, imbibing it as a sponge does water; and they repel all truth as an elastic bony substance repels what falls upon it. in fact, it is said that the interiors of those that have confirmed themselves against the divine and in favor of nature become bony, and their heads down to the nose appear callous like ebony, which is a sign that they no longer have any perception. those of this description are immersed in quagmires that appear like bogs; and there they are harassed by the fantasies into which their falsities are turned. their infernal fire is a lust for glory and reputation, which prompts them to assail one another, and from an infernal ardor to torment those about them who do not worship them as deities; and this they do one to another in turns. into such things is all the learning of the world changed that has not received into itself light from heaven through acknowledgment of the divine. . that these are such in the spiritual world when they come into it after death may be inferred from this alone, that all things that are in the natural memory and are in immediate conjunction with the things of bodily sense (which is true of such knowledges as are mentioned above) then become quiescent; and only such rational principles as are drawn from these then serve for thought and speech. for man carries with him his entire natural memory, but its contents are not then under his view, and do not come into his thought as when he lived in the world. he can take nothing from that memory and bring it forth into spiritual light because its contents are not objects of that light. but those things of the reason and understanding that man has acquired from knowledges while living in the body are in accord with the light of the spiritual world; consequently so far as the spirit of man has been made rational in the world through knowledge and science it is to the same extent rational after being loosed from the body; for man is then a spirit, and it is the spirit that thinks in the body.{ } {footnote } knowledges belong to the natural memory that man has while he is in the body (n. , ). man carries with him after death his whole natural memory (n. ) from experience (n. - ). but he is not able, as he was in the world, to draw anything out of that memory, for several reasons (n. , , ). . but in respect to those that have acquired intelligence and wisdom through knowledge and science, who are such as have applied all things to the use of life, and have also acknowledged the divine, loved the word, and lived a spiritual moral life (of which above, n. ), to such the sciences have served as a means of becoming wise, and also of corroborating the things pertaining to faith. the interiors of the mind of such have been perceived by me, and were seen as transparent from light of a glistening white, flamy, or blue color, like that of translucent diamonds, rubies, and sapphires; and this in accordance with confirmations in favor of the divine and divine truths drawn from science. such is the appearance of true intelligence and wisdom when they are presented to view in the spiritual world. this appearance is derived from the light of heaven; and that light is divine truth going forth from the lord, which is the source of all intelligence and wisdom (see above, n. - ). [ ] the planes of that light, in which variegations like those of colors exist, are the interiors of the mind; and these variegations are produced by confirmations of divine truths by means of such things as are in nature, that is, in the sciences.{ } for the interior mind of man looks into the things of the natural memory, and the things there that will serve as proofs it sublimates as it were by the fire of heavenly love, and withdraws and purifies them even into spiritual ideas. this is unknown to man as long as he lives in the body, because there he thinks both spiritually and naturally, and he has no perception of the things he then thinks spiritually, but only of those he thinks naturally. but when he has come into the spiritual world he has no perception of what he thought naturally in the world, but only of what he thought spiritually. thus is his state changed. [ ] all this makes clear that it is by means of knowledges and sciences that man is made spiritual, also that these are the means of becoming wise, but only with those who have acknowledged the divine in faith and life. such also before others are accepted in heaven, and are among those there who are at the center (n. ), because they are in light more than others. these are the intelligent and wise in heaven, who "shine as with the brightness of the firmament" and "who shine as the stars," while the simple there are those that have acknowledged the divine, have loved the word, and have lived a spiritual and moral life, but the interiors of their minds have not been so enriched by knowledges and sciences. the human mind is like soil which is such as it is made by cultivation. {footnote } most beautiful colors are seen in heaven (n. , ). colors in heaven are from the light there, and are modifications or variegations of that light (n. , , , , , , , ). thus they are manifestations of truth from good, and they signify such things as pertain to intelligence and wisdom (n. , , , ). extracts from the arcana coelestia respecting knowledges. [in these extracts scientia, scientificum and cognitio are alike rendered knowledge, because any distinction between them intended by the author is not sufficiently obvious to be uniformly indicated in english. -- tr.] man ought to be fully instructed in knowledges [scientiis et cognitionibus], since by means of them he learns to think [cogitare], afterwards to understand what is true and good, and finally to be wise (n. , , , , , ). knowledges [scientifica] are the first things on which the life of man, civil, moral, and spiritual, is built and founded, and they are to be learned for the sake of use as an end (n. , ). knowledges [cognitiones] open the way to the internal man, and afterwards conjoin that man with the external in accordance with uses (n. , ). the rational faculty has its birth by means of knowledges [scientias et cognitiones] (n. , , ). but not by means of knowledges [cognitiones] themselves, but by means of affection for the uses derived from them (n. ). [ ] there are knowledges [scientifica] that give entrance to divine truths, and knowledges [scientifica] that do not (n. ). empty knowledges [scientifica] are to be destroyed (n. , , , ). empty knowledges [scientifica] are such as have the loves of self and of the world as an end, and sustain those loves, and withdraw from love to god and love towards the neighbor, because such knowledges close up the internal man, even to the extent that man becomes unable to receive any thing from heaven (n. , ). knowledges [scientifica] are means to becoming wise and means to becoming insane and by them the internal man is either opened or closed, and thus the rational is either enriched or destroyed (n. , , ). [ ] the internal man is opened and gradually perfected by means of knowledges [scientifica] if man has good use as an end, especially use that looks to external life (n. ). then knowledges [scientificis], which are in the natural man, are met by spiritual and heavenly things from the spiritual man, and these adopt such of them as are suitable (n. ). then the uses of heavenly life are drawn forth by the lord and perfected and raised up out of the knowledges [scientificis] in the natural man by means of the internal man (n. , , , , , , , ). while incongruous and opposing knowledges [scientifica] are rejected to the sides and banished (n. , , ). [ ] the sight of the internal man calls forth from the knowledges [scientificis] of the external man only such things as are in accord with its love (n. ). as seen by the internal man what pertains to the love is at the center and in brightness, but what is not of the love is at the sides and in obscurity (n. , ). suitable knowledges [scientifica] are gradually implanted in man's loves and as it were dwell in them (n. ). if man were born into love towards the neighbor he would be born into intelligence, but because he is born into the loves of self and of the world he is born into total ignorance (n. , ). knowledge [scientia], intelligence, and wisdom are sons of love to god and of love towards the neighbor (n. , , ). [ ] it is one thing to be wise, another thing to understand, another to know [scire], and another to do; nevertheless, in those that possess spiritual life these follow in order, and exist together in doing or deeds (n. ). also it is one thing to know [scire], another to acknowledge, and another to have faith (n. ). [ ] knowledges [scientifica], which pertain to the external or natural man, are in the light of the world, but truths that have been made truths of faith and of love, and have thus acquired life, are in the light of heaven (n. ). the truths that have acquired spiritual life are comprehended by means of natural ideas (n. ). spiritual influx is from the internal or spiritual man into the knowledges [scientifica] that are in the external or natural man (n. , ). knowledges [scientifica] are receptacles, and as it were vessels, for the truth and good that belong to the internal man (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). knowledges [scientifica] are like mirrors in which the truths and goods of the internal man appear as an image (n. ). there they are together as in their outmost (n. , , , , , , , ). [ ] influx is not physical but spiritual, that is, influx is from the internal man into the external, thus into the knowledges of the external; and not from the external into the internal, thus not from the knowledges [scientificis] of the external into truths of faith (n. , , , , , , , ). a beginning must be made from the truths of doctrine of the church, which are from the word, and those truths must first be acknowledged, and then it is permissible to consult knowledges [scientifica] (n. ). thus it is permissible for those who are in an affirmative state in regard to truths of faith to confirm them intellectually by means of knowledges [scientifica], but not for those who are in a negative state (n. , , , ). he that will not believe divine truths until he is convinced by means of knowledges [scientificis] will never believe (n. , ). to enter from knowledge [scientificis] into the truths of faith is contrary to order (n. ). those who do so become demented respecting the things of heaven and the church (n. , , ). they fall into the falsities of evil (n. , , ). in the other life when they think about spiritual matters they become as it were drunken (n. ). more respecting the character of such (n. ). examples showing that things spiritual cannot be comprehended when entered into through knowledges [scientifica] (n. , , , , ). in spiritual things many of the learned are more demented than the simple, for the reason that they are in a negative state, which they confirm by means of the knowledges [scientifica] which they have continually and in abundance before their sight (n. , ). [ ] those who reason from knowledges [scientificis] against the truths of faith reason keenly because they reason from the fallacies of the senses, which are engaging and convincing, because they cannot easily be dispelled (n. ). what things are fallacies of the senses, and what they are (n. , , , ). those that have no understanding of truth, and also those that are in evil, are able to reason about the truths and goods of faith, but are not able to understand them (n. ). intelligence does not consist in merely confirming dogma but in seeing whether it is true or not before it is confirmed (n. , ). [ ] knowledges [scientiae] are of no avail after death, but only that which man has imbibed in his understanding and life by means of knowledges [scientias] (n. ). still all knowledge [scientifica] remains after death, although it is quiescent (n. - , - ). [ ] knowledge [scientifica] with the evil are falsities, because they are adapted to evils, but with the good the same knowledges are truths, because applied to what is good (n. ). true knowledges [scientifica] with the evil are not true, however much they may appear to be true when uttered, because there is evil within them (n. ). [ ] an example of the desire to know [sciendi], which spirits have (n. ). angels have an illimitable longing to know [sciendi] and to become wise, since learning [scientia], intelligence, and wisdom are spiritual food (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). the knowledge [scientia] of the ancients was the knowledge [scientia] of correspondences and representations, by which they gained entrance into the knowledge [cognitionem] of spiritual things; but that knowledge [scientia] at this day is wholly lost (n. , , , ). [ ] for spiritual truths to be comprehended the following universals must be known [scientur]. (i) all things in the universe have relation to good and truth and to their conjunction that they may be anything, thus to love and faith and their conjunction. (ii) man has understanding and will; and the understanding is the receptacle of truth and the will of good; and all things in man have relation to these two and to their conjunction, as all things have relation to truth and good and their conjunction. (iii) there is an internal man and an external man, which are as distinct from each other as heaven and the world are, and yet for a man to be truly a man, these must make one. (iv) the internal man is in the light of heaven, and the external man is in the light of the world; and the light of heaven is divine truth itself, from which is all intelligence. (v) between the things in the internal man and those in the external there is a correspondence, therefore the different aspect they present is such that they can be distinguished only by means of a knowledge [scientiam] of correspondences. unless these and many other things are known [scientur], nothing but incongruous ideas of spiritual and heavenly truths can be conceived and formed; therefore without these universals the knowledges [scientifica et cognitiones] of the natural man can be of but little service to the rational man for understanding and growth. this makes clear how necessary knowledges [scientifica] are. . xxxix. the rich and the poor in heaven. there are various opinions about reception into heaven. some are of the opinion that the poor are received and the rich are not; some that the rich and the poor are equally received; some that the rich can be received only by giving up their wealth and becoming like the poor; and proofs are found in the word for all of these opinions. but those who make a distinction in regard to heaven between the rich and the poor do not understand the word. in its interiors the word is spiritual, but in the letter it is natural; consequently those who understand the word only in accordance with its literal sense, and not according to any spiritual sense, err in many respects, especially about the rich and the poor; for example, that it is as difficult for the rich to enter into heaven as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; and that it is easy for the poor because they are poor, since it is said, blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens (matt. : ; luke : , ). but those who know anything of the spiritual sense of the word think otherwise; they know that heaven is for all who live a life of faith and love, whether rich or poor. but who are meant in the word by "the rich" and who by "the poor" will be told in what follows. from much conversation and interaction with angels it has been granted me to know with certainty that the rich enter heaven just as easily as the poor, and that no man is shut out of heaven on account of his wealth, or received into heaven on account of his poverty. both the rich and the poor are in heaven, and many of the rich in greater glory and happiness than the poor. . it should be said to begin with that a man may acquire riches and accumulate wealth as far as opportunity is given, if it is not done by craft or fraud; that he may enjoy the delicacies of food and drink if he does not place his life therein; that he may have a palatial dwelling in accord with his condition, have interaction with others in like condition, frequent places of amusement, talk about the affairs of the world, and need not go about like a devotee with a sad and sorrowful countenance and drooping head, but may be joyful and cheerful; nor need he give his goods to the poor except so far as affection leads him; in a word, he may live outwardly precisely like a man of the world; and all this will be no obstacle to his entering heaven, provided that inwardly in himself he thinks about god as he ought, and acts sincerely and justly in respect to his neighbor. for a man is such as his affection and thought are, or such as his love and faith are, and from these all his outward acts derive their life; since acting is willing, and speaking is thinking, acting being from the will, and speaking from the thought. so where it is said in the word that man will be judged according to his deeds, and will be rewarded according to his works, it is meant that he will be judged and rewarded in accordance with his thought and affection, which are the source of his deeds, or which are in his deeds; for deeds are nothing apart from these, and are precisely such as these are.{ } all this shows that the man's external accomplishes nothing, but only his internal, which is the source of the external. for example: if a man acts honestly and refrains from fraud solely because he fears the laws and the loss of reputation and thereby of honor or gain, and if that fear did not restrain him would defraud others whenever he could; although such a man's deeds outwardly appear honest, his thought and will are fraud; and because he is inwardly dishonest and fraudulent he has hell in himself. but he who acts honestly and refrains from fraud because it is against god and against the neighbor would have no wish to defraud another if he could; his thought and will are conscience, and he has heaven in himself. the deeds of these two appear alike in outward form, but inwardly they are wholly unlike. {footnote } it is frequently said in the word that man will be judged and will be rewarded according to his deeds and works (n. ). by "deeds and works" deeds and works in their internal form are meant, not in their external form, since good works in external form are likewise done by the wicked, but in internal and external form together only by the good (n. , ). works, like all activities, have their being and outgo [esse et existere] and their quality from the interiors of man, which pertain to his thought and will, since they proceed from these; therefore such as the interiors are such are the works (n. , , ). that is, such as the interiors are in regard to love and faith (n. , , , ). thus works contain love and faith, and are love and faith in effect (n. ). therefore to be judged and rewarded in accordance with deeds and works, means in accordance with love and faith (n. , , , , , ). so far as works look to self and the world they are not good, but they are good so far as they look to the lord and the neighbor (n. ). . since a man can live outwardly as others do, can grow rich, keep a plentiful table, dwell in an elegant house and wear fine clothing according to his condition and function, can enjoy delights and gratifications, and engage in worldly affairs for the sake of his occupation and business and for the life both of the mind and body, provided he inwardly acknowledges the divine and wishes well to the neighbor, it is evident that to enter upon the way to heaven is not so difficult as many believe. the sole difficulty lies in being able to resist the love of self and the world, and to prevent their becoming dominant; for this is the source of all evils.{ } that this is not so difficult as is believed is meant by these words of the lord: learn of me, for i am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light (matt. : , ). the lord's yoke is easy and his burden light because a man is led by the lord and not by self just to the extent that he resists the evils that flow forth from love of self and of the world; and because the lord then resists these evils in man and removes them. {footnote } all evils are from the love of self and of the world (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). these are contempt of others, enmities, hatred, revenge, cruelty, deceit (n. , - , , , ). into such loves man is born, thus in them are his inherited evils (n. , , ). . i have spoken with some after death who, while they lived in the world, renounced the world and gave themselves up to an almost solitary life, in order that by an abstraction of the thoughts from worldly things they might have opportunity for pious meditations, believing that thus they might enter the way to heaven. but these in the other life are of a sad disposition; they despise others who are not like themselves; they are indignant that they do not have a happier lot than others, believing that they have merited it; they have no interest in others, and turn away from the duties of charity by which there is conjunction with heaven. they desire heaven more than others; but when they are taken up among the angels they induce anxieties that disturb the happiness of the angels; and in consequence they are sent away; and when sent away they betake themselves to desert places, where they lead a life like that which they lived in the world. [ ] man can be formed for heaven only by means of the world. in the world are the outmost effects in which everyone's affection must be terminated; for unless affection puts itself forth or flows out into acts, which is done in association with others, it is suffocated to such a degree finally that man has no longer any regard for the neighbor, but only for himself. all this makes clear that a life of charity towards the neighbor, which is doing what is just and right in every work and in every employment, is what leads to heaven, and not a life of piety apart from charity;{ } and from this it follows that only to the extent that man is engaged in the employments of life can charity be exercised and the life of charity grow; and this is impossible to the extent that man separates himself from those employments. [ ] on this subject i will speak now from experience. of those who while in the world were employed in trade and commerce and became rich through these pursuits there are many in heaven, but not so many of those who were in stations of honor and became rich through those employments; and for the reason that these latter by the gains and honors that resulted from their dispensing justice and equity, and also by the lucrative and honorable positions bestowed on them were led into loving themselves and the world, and thereby separating their thoughts and affections from heaven and turning them to themselves. for to the extent that a man loves self and the world and looks to self and the world in everything, he alienates himself from the divine and separates himself from heaven. {footnote } charity towards the neighbor is doing what is good, just, and right, in every work and every employment (n. - ). thus charity towards the neighbor extends to all things and each thing that a man thinks, wills, and does (n. ). a life of piety apart from a life of charity is of no avail, but together they are profitable for all things (n. , ). . as to the lot of the rich in heaven, they live more splendidly than others. some of them dwell in palaces within which everything is resplendent as if with gold and silver. they have an abundance of all things for the uses of life, but they do not in the least set their heart on these things, but only on uses. uses are clearly seen as if they were in light, but the gold and silver are seen obscurely, and comparatively as if in shade. this is because while they were in the world they loved uses, and loved gold and silver only as means and instruments. it is the uses that are thus resplendent in heaven, the good of use like gold and the truth of use like silver.{ } therefore their wealth in heaven is such as their uses were in the world, and such, too, are their delight and happiness. good uses are providing oneself and one's own with the necessaries of life; also desiring wealth for the sake of one's country and for the sake of one's neighbor, whom a rich man can in many ways benefit more than a poor man. these are good uses because one is able thereby to withdraw his mind from an indolent life which is harmful, since in such a life man's thoughts run to evil because of the evil inherent in him. these uses are good to the extent that they have the divine in them, that is, to the extent that man looks to the divine and to heaven, and finds his good in these, and sees in wealth only a subservient good. {footnote } every good has its delight from use and in accordance with use (n. , , ); also its quality; and in consequence such as the use is such is the good (n. ). all the happiness and delight of life is from uses (n. ). in general, life is a life of uses (n. ). angelic life consists in the goods of love and charity, thus in performing uses (n. ). the ends that man has in view, which are uses, are the only things that the lord, and thus the angels, consider (n. , , ). the kingdom of the lord is a kingdom of uses (n. , , , , , ). performing uses is serving the lord (n. ). everyone's character is such as are the uses he performs (n. , ); illustrated (n. ). . but the lot of the rich that have not believed in the divine, and have cast out of their minds the things pertaining to heaven and the church, is the opposite of this. such are in hell, where filth, misery, and want exist; and into these riches that are loved as an end are changed; and not only riches, but also their very uses, which are either a wish to live as they like and indulge in pleasures, and to have opportunity to give the mind more fully and freely to shameful practices, or a wish to rise above others whom they despise. such riches and such uses, because they have nothing spiritual, but only what is earthly in them, become filthy; for a spiritual purpose in riches and their uses is like a soul in the body, or like the light of heaven in moist ground; and such riches and uses become putrid as a body does without a soul, or as moist ground does without the light of heaven. such are those that have been led and drawn away from heaven by riches. . every man's ruling affection or love remains with him after death, nor is it rooted out to eternity, since a man's spirit is wholly what his love is, and what is unknown, the body of every spirit and angel is the outward form of his love, exactly corresponding to his inward form, which is the form of his disposition and mind; consequently the quality of his spirit is known from his face, movements, and speech. while a man is living in the world the quality of the spirit would be known if he had not learned to counterfeit in his face, movements, and speech what is not his own. all this shows that man remains to eternity such as his ruling affection or love is. it has been granted me to talk with some who lived seventeen hundred years ago, and whose lives are well known from writings of that time, and it was found that the same love still rules them as when they were on the earth. this makes clear also that the love of riches, and of uses from riches, remains with everyone to eternity, and that it is exactly the same as the love acquired in the world, yet with the difference that in the case of those who devoted their riches to good uses riches are changed in the other world into delights which are in accord with the uses performed; while in the case of those who devoted their riches to evil uses riches are turned into mere filth, in which they then take the same delight as they did in the world in their riches devoted to evil uses. such then take delight in filth because filthy pleasures and shameful acts, which had been the uses to which they had devoted their riches, and also avarice, which is a love of riches without regard to use, correspond to filth. spiritual filth is nothing else. . the poor come into heaven not on account of their poverty but because of their life. everyone's life follows him, whether he be rich or poor. there is no peculiar mercy for one in preference to another;{ } he that has lived well is received, while he that has not lived well is rejected. moreover, poverty leads and draws man away from heaven just as much as wealth does. there are many among the poor who are not content with their lot, who strive after many things, and believe riches to be blessings;{ } and when they do not gain them are much provoked, and harbor ill thoughts about the divine providence; they also envy others the good things they possess, and are as ready as any one to defraud others whenever they have opportunity, and to indulge in filthy pleasures. but this is not true of the poor who are content with their lot, and are careful and diligent in their work, who love labor better than idleness, and act sincerely and faithfully, and at the same time live a christian life. i have now and then talked with those belonging to the peasantry and common people, who while living in the world believed in god and did what was just and right in their occupations. since they had an affection for knowing truth they inquired about charity and about faith, having heard in this world much about faith and in the other life much about charity. they were therefore told that charity is everything that pertains to life, and faith everything that pertains to doctrine; consequently charity is willing and doing what is just and right in every work, and faith is thinking justly and rightly; and faith and charity are conjoined, the same as doctrine and a life in accordance with it, or the same as thought and will; and faith becomes charity when that which a man thinks justly and rightly he also wills and does, and then they are not two but one. this they well understood, and rejoiced, saying that in the world they did not understand believing to be anything else but living. {footnote } there can be no mercy apart from means, but only mercy through means, that is, to those who live in accordance with the commandments of the lord; such the lord by his mercy leads continually in the world, and afterwards to eternity (n. , ). {footnote } dignities and riches are not real blessings, therefore they are granted both to the wicked and to the good (n. , , ). the real blessing is reception of love and faith from the lord, and conjunction thereby, for this is the source of eternal happiness (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). . all this makes clear that the rich and the poor alike come into heaven, the one as easily as the other. the belief that the poor enter heaven easily and the rich with difficulty comes from not understanding the word where the rich and the poor are mentioned. in the word those that have an abundance of knowledges of good and truth, thus who are within the church where the word is, are meant in the spiritual sense by the "rich;" while those who lack these knowledges, and yet desire them, thus who are outside of the church and where there is no word, are meant by the "poor." [ ] the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, and cast into hell, means the jewish nation, which is called rich because it had the word and had an abundance of knowledges of good and truth therefrom, "garments of purple" signifying knowledges of good, and "garments of fine linen" knowledges of truth.{ } but the poor man who lay at the rich man's gate and longed to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and who was carried by angels into heaven, means the nations that have no knowledges of good and truth and yet desired them (luke : - ). also the rich that were called to a great supper and excused themselves mean the jewish nation, and the poor brought in in their place mean the nations outside of the church (luke : - ). [ ] by the rich man of whom the lord says: it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god (matt. : ), the rich in both the natural sense and the spiritual sense are meant. in the natural sense the rich are those that have an abundance of riches and set their heart upon them; but in the spiritual sense they are those that have an abundance of knowledges and learning, which are spiritual riches, and who desire by means of these to introduce themselves into the things of heaven and the church from their own intelligence. and because this is contrary to divine order it is said to be "easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye," a "camel" signifying in general in the spiritual sense the knowing faculty and things known, and a "needle's eye" signifying spiritual truth.{ } that such is the meaning of a "camel" and a "needle's eye" is not at present known, because the knowledge that teaches what is signified in the spiritual sense by the things said in the literal sense of the word has not up to this time been disclosed. in every particular of the word there is a spiritual sense and also a natural sense; for the word was made to consist wholly of correspondences between natural and spiritual things in order that conjunction of heaven with the world, or of angels with men might thereby be effected, direct conjunction having ceased. this makes clear who in particular are meant in the word by the "rich man." [ ] that the "rich" in the word mean in the spiritual sense those who are in knowledges of truth and good, and "riches" the knowledges themselves, which are spiritual riches, can be seen from various passages (as in isa. : - ; : , ; : ; jer. : ; : ; : , ; : ; dan. : - ; ezek. : , ; : to the end; zech. : , ; psalm : ; hosea : ; apoc. : , ; luke : ; and elsewhere). also that the "poor" in the spiritual sense signify those who do not possess knowledges of good and of truth, and yet desire them (matt. : ; luke : , ; : ; isa. : ; : ; : , ; zeph. : , ). all these passages may be seen explained in accordance with the spiritual sense in the arcana coelestia (n. ). {footnote } "garments" signify truths, thus knowledges (n. , , , , , , , ). "purple" signifies celestial good (n. ). "fine linen" signifies truth from a celestial origin (n. , , ). {footnote } a "camel" signifies in the word the knowing faculty and knowledge in general (n. , , , ). what is meant by "needlework, working with a needle," and therefore by a "needle" (n. ). to enter from knowledge into the truths of faith is contrary to divine order (n. ). those that do this become demented in respect to the thing of heaven and the church (n. - , , , ). and in the other life, when they think about spiritual things they become as it were drunken (n. ). further about such (n. ). examples showing that when spiritual things are entered into through knowledges they cannot be comprehended (n. , , , , ). it is permissible to enter from spiritual truth into knowledges which pertain to the natural man, but not the reverse, because there can be spiritual influx into the natural, but not natural influx into the spiritual (n. , , , , , , , ). the truths of the word and of the church must first be acknowledged, after which it is permissible to consider knowledges, but not before (n. ). . xl. marriages in heaven. as heaven is from the human race, and angels therefore are of both sexes, and from creation woman is for man and man is for woman, thus the one belongs to the other, and this love is innate in both, it follows that there are marriages in heaven as well as on the earth. but marriages in heaven differ widely from marriages on the earth. therefore what marriages in heaven are, and how they differ from marriages on the earth and wherein they are like them, shall now be told. . marriage in heaven is a conjunction of two into one mind. it must first be explained what this conjunction is. the mind consists of two parts, one called the understanding and the other the will. when these two parts act as one they are called one mind. in heaven the husband acts the part called the understanding and the wife acts the part called the will. when this conjunction, which belongs to man's interiors, descends into the lower parts pertaining to the body, it is perceived and felt as love, and this love is marriage love. this shows that marriage love has its origin in the conjunction of two into one mind. this in heaven is called cohabitation; and the two are not called two but one. so in heaven a married pair is spoken of, not as two, but as one angel.{ } {footnote } it is not known at this day what marriage love is, or whence it is (n. ). marriage love is willing what another wills, thus willing mutually and reciprocally (n. ). those that are in marriage love dwell together in the inmosts of life (n. ). it is such a union of two minds that from love they are one (n. , ). for the love of minds, which is spiritual love, is a union (n. , , , , , , - , , ). . moreover, such a conjunction of husband and wife in the inmosts of their minds comes from their very creation; for man is born to be intellectual, that is, to think from the understanding, while woman is born to be affectional, that is, to think from her will; and this is evident from the inclination or natural disposition of each, also from their form; from the disposition, in that man acts from reason and woman from affection; from the form in that man has a rougher and less beautiful face, a deeper voice and a harder body; while woman has a smoother and more beautiful face, a softer voice, and a more tender body. there is a like difference between understanding and will, or between thought and affection; so, too, between truth and good and between faith and love; for truth and faith belong to the understanding, and good and love to the will. from this it is that in the word "youth" or "man" means in the spiritual sense the understanding of truth, and "virgin" or "woman" affection for good; also that the church, on account of its affection for good and truth, is called a "woman" and a "virgin;" also that all those that are in affection for good are called "virgins" (as in apoc. : ).{ } {footnote } in the word "young men" signify understanding of truth, or the intelligent (n. ). "men" have the same signification (n. , , , , , , , , , ). "woman" signifies affection for good and truth (n. , , , , ); likewise the church (n. , , , ); "wife" has the same signification (n. , , , , ); with what difference (n. , , , , ). in the highest sense "husband and wife" are predicated of the lord and of his conjunction with heaven and the church (n. ). a "virgin" signifies affection for good (n. , , , , , ); likewise the church (n. , , , , , , ). . everyone, whether man or woman, possesses understanding and will; but with the man the understanding predominates, and with the woman the will predominates, and the character is determined by that which predominates. yet in heavenly marriages there is no predominance; for the will of the wife is also the husband's will, and the understanding of the husband is also the wife's understanding, since each loves to will and to think like the other, that is mutually and reciprocally. thus are they conjoined into one. this conjunction is actual conjunction, for the will of the wife enters into the understanding of the husband, and the understanding of the husband into the will of the wife, and this especially when they look into one another's faces; for, as has been repeatedly said above, there is in the heavens a sharing of thoughts and affections, more especially with husband and wife, because they reciprocally love each other. this makes clear what the conjunction of minds is that makes marriage and produces marriage love in the heavens, namely, that one wishes what is his own to be the others, and this reciprocally. . i have been told by angels that so far as a married pair are so conjoined they are in marriage love, and also to the same extent in intelligence, wisdom and happiness, because divine truth and divine good which are the source of all intelligence, wisdom, and happiness, flow chiefly into marriage love; consequently marriage love, since it is also the marriage of good and truth, is the very plane of divine influx. for that love, as it is a conjunction of the understanding and will, is also a conjunction of truth and good, since the understanding receives divine truth and is formed out of truths, and the will receives divine good and is formed out of goods. for what a man wills is good to him, and what he understands is truth to him; therefore it is the same whether you say conjunction of understanding and will or conjunction of truth and good. conjunction of truth and good is what makes an angel; it makes his intelligence, wisdom, and happiness; for an angel is an angel accordingly as good in him is conjoined with truth and truth with good; or what is the same, accordingly as love in him is conjoined with faith and faith with love. . the divine that goes forth from the lord flows chiefly into marriage love because marriage love descends from a conjunction of good and truth; for it is the same thing as has been said above, whether you say conjunction of understanding and will or conjunction of good and truth. conjunction of good and truth has its origin in the lord's divine love towards all who are in heaven and on earth. from divine love divine good goes forth, and divine good is received by angels and men in divine truths. as truth is the sole receptacle of good nothing can be received from the lord and from heaven by any one who is not in truths; therefore just to the extent that the truths in man are conjoined to good is man conjoined to the lord and to heaven. this, then, is the very origin of marriage love, and for this reason that love is the very plane of divine influx. this shows why the conjunction of good and truth in heaven is called the heavenly marriage, and heaven is likened in the word to a marriage, and is called a marriage; and the lord is called the "bridegroom" and "husband," and heaven and also the church are called the "bride" and the "wife."{ } {footnote } the origin, cause, and essence of true marriage love is the marriage of good and truth; thus it is from heaven (n. , ). respecting angelic spirit, who have a perception whether there is anything of marriage from the idea of a conjunction of good and truth (n. ). it is with marriage love in every respect the same as it is with the conjunction of good and truth (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). how and with whom the conjunction of good and truth is effected (n. , , , , , , , , , - , ). only those that are in good and truth from the lord know what true marriage love is (n. ). in the word "marriage" signifies the marriage of good and truth (n. , , ). the kingdom of the lord and heaven are in true marriage love (n. ). . good and truth conjoined in an angel or a man are not two but one, since good is then good of truth and truth is truth of good. this conjunction may be likened to a man's thinking what he wills and willing what he thinks, when the thought and will make one, that is, one mind; for thought forms, that is, presents in form that which the will wills, and the will gives delight to it; and this is why a married pair in heaven are not called two, but one angel. this also is what is meant by the lord's words: have ye not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall become one flesh? therefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. what, therefore, god hath joined together let not man put asunder. not all can receive this word but they to whom it is given (matt. : - , ; mark : - ; gen. : ). this is a description both of the heavenly marriage in which the angels are and of the marriage of good and truth, "man's not putting asunder what god has joined together" meaning that good is not to be separated from truth. . from all this the origin of true marriage love is made clear, namely, that it is formed first in the minds of those who are in marriage, and descends therefrom and is derived into the body, where it is perceived and felt as love; for whatever is felt and perceived in the body has its origin in the spiritual, because it is from the understanding and the will. the understanding and the will constitute the spiritual man. whatever descends from the spiritual man into the body presents itself there under another aspect, although it is similar and accordant, like soul and body, and like cause and effect; as can be seen from what has been said and shown in the two chapters on correspondences. . i heard an angel describing true marriage love and its heavenly delights in this manner: that it is the lord's divine in the heavens, which is divine good and divine truth so united in two persons, that they are not as two but as one. he said that in heaven the two consorts are marriage love, since everyone is his own good and his own truth in respect both to mind and to body, the body being an image of the mind because it is formed after its likeness. from this he drew the conclusion that the divine is imaged in the two that are in true marriage love; and as the divine is so imaged so is heaven, because the entire heaven is divine good and divine truth going forth from the lord; and this is why all things of heaven are inscribed on marriage love with more blessings and delights than it is possible to number. he expressed the number by a term that involved myriads of myriads. he wondered that the man of the church should know nothing about this, seeing that the church is the lord's heaven on the earth, and heaven is a marriage of good and truth. he said he was astounded to think that within the church, even more than outside of it, adulteries are committed and even justified; the delight of which in itself is nothing else in a spiritual sense, and consequently in the spiritual world, than the delight of the love of falsity conjoined to evil, which delight is infernal delight, because it is the direct opposite of the delight of heaven, which is the delight of the love of truth conjoined with good. . everyone knows that a married pair who love each other are interiorly united, and that the essential of marriage is the union of dispositions and minds. and from this it can be seen that such as their essential dispositions or minds are, such is their union and such their love for each other. the mind is formed solely out of truths and goods, for all things in the universe have relation to good and truth and to their conjunction; consequently such as the truths and goods are out of which the minds are formed, exactly such is the union of minds; and consequently the most perfect union is the union of minds that are formed out of genuine truths and goods. let it be known that no two things mutually love each other more than truth and good do; and therefore it is from that love that true marriage love descends.{ } falsity and evil also love each other, but this love is afterwards changed into hell. {footnote } all things in the universe, both in heaven and in the world, have relation to good and truth (n. , , , , , , ). and to the conjunction of these (n. ). between good and truth there is marriage (n. , , ). good loves truth, and from love longs for truth and for the conjunction of truth with itself, and from this they are in a perpetual endeavor to be conjoined (n. , , ). the life of truth is from good (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). truth is the form of good (n. , , , ). truth is to good as water is to bread (n. ). . from what has now been said about the origin of marriage love one may conclude who are in that love and who are not; namely, that those are in marriage love who are in divine good from divine truths; and that marriage love is genuine just to the extent that the truths are genuine with which the good is conjoined. and as all the good that is conjoined with truths is from the lord, it follows that no one can be in true marriage love unless he acknowledges the lord and his divine; for without that acknowledgment the lord cannot flow in and be conjoined with the truths that are in man. . evidently, then, those that are in falsities, and especially those that are in falsities from evil, are not in marriage love. moreover, those that are in evil and in falsities therefrom have the interiors of their minds closed up; and in such, therefore, there can be no source of marriage love; but below those interiors, in the external or natural man separated from the internal, there can be a conjunction of falsity and evil, which is called infernal marriage. i have been permitted to see what this marriage is between those that are in the falsities of evil, which is called infernal marriage. such converse together, and are united by a lustful desire, but inwardly they burn with a deadly hatred towards each other, too intense to be described. . nor can marriage love exist between two partners belonging to different religions, because the truth of the one does not agree with the good of the other; and two unlike and discordant kinds of good and truth cannot make one mind out of two; and in consequence the love of such does not have its origin in any thing spiritual. if they live together in harmony it is solely on natural grounds.{ } and this is why in the heavens marriages are found only with those who are in the same society, because such are in like good and truth and not with those outside of the society. it may be seen above (n. , seq.) that all there in a society are in like good and truth, and differ from those outside the society. this was represented in the israelitish nation by marriages being contracted within tribes, and particularly within families, and not outside of them. {footnote } marriages between those of different religions are not permissible, because there can be no conjunction of like good and truth in the interiors (n. ). . nor is true marriage love possible between one husband and several wives; for its spiritual origin, which is the formation of one mind out of two, is thus destroyed; and in consequence interior conjunction, which is the conjunction of good and truth, from which is the very essence of that love, is also destroyed. marriage with more than one is like an understanding divided among several wills; or it is like a man attached not to one but to several churches, since his faith is so distracted thereby as to come to naught. the angels declare that marrying several wives is wholly contrary to divine order, and that they know this from several reasons, one of which is that as soon as they think of marriage with more than one they are alienated from internal blessedness and heavenly happiness, and become like drunken men, because good is separated from its truth in them. and as the interiors of their mind are brought into such a state merely by thinking about it with some intention, they see clearly that marriage with more than one would close up their internal mind, and cause marriage to be displaced by lustful love, which love withdraws from heaven.{ } [ ] they declare further that this is not easily comprehended by men because there are few who are in genuine marriage love, and those who are not in it know nothing whatever of the interior delight that is in that love, knowing only the delight of lust, and this delight is changed into what is undelightful after living together a short time; while the delight of true marriage love not only endures to old age in the world, but after death becomes the delight of heaven and is there filled with an interior delight that grows more and more perfect to eternity. they said also that the varieties of blessedness of true marriage love could be enumerated even to many thousands, not even one of which is known to man, or could enter into the comprehension of any one who is not in the marriage of good and truth from the lord. {footnote } as husband and wife should be one, and should live together in the inmost of life, and as they together make one angel in heaven, so true marriage love is impossible between one husband and several wives (n. , ). to marry several wives at the same time is contrary to divine order (n. ). that there is no marriage except between one husband and one wife is clearly perceived by those who are in the lord's celestial kingdom (n. , , , ). for the reason that the angels there are in the marriage of good and truth (n. ). the israelitish nation were permitted to marry several wives, and to add concubines to wives, but not christians, for the reason that that nation was in externals separate from internals, while christians are able to enter into internals, thus into the marriage of good and truth (n. , , .) . the love of dominion of one over the other entirely takes away marriage love and its heavenly delight, for as has been said above, marriage love and its delight consists in the will of one being that of the other, and this mutually and reciprocally. this is destroyed by love of dominion in marriage, since he that domineers wishes his will alone to be in the other, and nothing of the other's will to be reciprocally in himself, which destroys all mutuality, and thus all sharing of any love and its delight one with the other. and yet this sharing and consequent conjunction are the interior delight itself that is called blessedness in marriage. this blessedness, with everything that is heavenly and spiritual in marriage love, is so completely extinguished by love of dominion as to destroy even all knowledge of it; and if that love were referred to it would be held in such contempt that any mention of blessedness from that source would excite either laughter or anger. [ ] when one wills or loves what the other wills or loves each has freedom, since all freedom is from love; but where there is dominion no one has freedom; one is a servant, and the other who rules is also a servant, for he is led as a servant by the lust of ruling. but all this is wholly beyond the comprehension of one who does not know what the freedom of heavenly love is. nevertheless from what has been said above about the origin and essence of marriage love it can be seen that so far as dominion enters, minds are not united but divided. dominion subjugates, and a subjugated mind has either no will or an opposing will. if it has no will it has also no love; and if it has an opposing will there is hatred in place of love. [ ] the interiors of those who live in such marriage are in mutual collision and strife, as two opposites are wont to be, however their exteriors may be restrained and kept quiet for the sake of tranquillity. the collision and antagonism of the interiors of such are disclosed after their death, when commonly they come together and fight like enemies and tear each other; for they then act in accordance with the state of the interiors. frequently i have been permitted to see them fighting and tearing one another, sometimes with great vengeance and cruelty. for in the other life everyone's interiors are set at liberty; and they are no longer restrained by outward bounds or by worldly considerations, everyone then being just such as he is interiorly. . to some a likeness of marriage love is granted. yet unless they are in the love of good and truth there is no marriage love, but only a love which from several causes appears like marriage love, namely, that they may secure good service at home; that they may be free from care, or at peace, or at ease; that they may be cared for in sickness or in old age; or that the children whom they love may be attended to. some are constrained by fear of the other consort, or by fear of the loss of reputation, or other evil consequences, and some by a controlling lust. moreover, in the two consorts marriage love may differ, in one there may be more or less of it, in the other little or none; and because of this difference heaven may be the portion of one and hell the portion of the other. . [a.] in the inmost heaven there is genuine marriage love because the angels there are in the marriage of good and truth, and also in innocence. the angels of the lower heavens are also in marriage love, but only so far as they are in innocence; for marriage love viewed in itself is a state of innocence; and this is why consorts who are in the marriage love enjoy heavenly delights together, which appear before their minds almost like the sports of innocence, as between little children; for everything delights their minds, since heaven with its joy flows into every particular of their lives. for the same reason marriage love is represented in heaven by the most beautiful objects. i have seen it represented by a maiden of indescribable beauty encompassed with a bright white cloud. it is said that the angels in heaven have all their beauty from marriage love. affections and thought flowing from that love are represented by diamond-like auras with scintillations as if from carbuncles and rubies, which are attended by delights that affect the interiors of the mind. in a word, heaven itself is represented in marriage love, because heaven with the angels is the conjunction of good and truth, and it is this conjunction that makes marriage love. . [b.] marriages in heaven differ from marriages on the earth in that the procreation of offspring is another purpose of marriages on the earth, but not of marriages in heaven, since in heaven the procreation of good and truth takes the place of procreation of offspring. the former takes the place of the latter because marriage in heaven is a marriage of good and truth (as has been shown above); and as in that marriage good and truth and their conjunction are loved above all things so these are what are propagated by marriages in heaven. and because of this, in the word births and generations signify spiritual births and generations, which are births and generations of good and truth; mother and father signify truth conjoined to good, which is what procreates; sons and daughters signify the truths and goods that are procreated; and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law conjunction of these, and so on.{ } all this makes clear that marriages in heaven are not like marriages on earth. in heaven marryings are spiritual, and cannot properly be called marryings, but conjunctions of minds from the conjunction of good and truth. but on earth there are marryings, because these are not of the spirit alone but also of the flesh. and as there are no marryings in heaven, consorts there are not called husband and wife; but from the angelic idea of the joining of two minds into one, each consort designates the other by a name signifying one's own, mutually and reciprocally. this shows how the lord's words in regard to marrying and giving in marriage (luke : , ), are to be understood. {footnote } conceptions, pregnancies, births, and generations signify those that are spiritual, that is, such as pertain to good and truth, or to love and faith (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , ). therefore generation and birth signify regeneration and rebirth through faith and love (n. , , , ). mother signifies the church in respect to truth, and thus the truth of the church; father the church in respect to good, and thus the good of the church (n. , , , , ). sons signify affections for truth, and thus truths (n. , , , , , , , ). daughters signify affections for good, and the goods (n. - , , , , , , ). son-in-law signifies truth associated with affection for good (n. ). daughter-in-law signifies good associated with its truth (n. ). . i have also been permitted to see how marriages are contracted in the heavens. as everywhere in heaven those who are alike are united and those who are unlike are separated, so every society in heaven consists of those who are alike. like are brought to like not by themselves but by the lord (see above, n. , , , seq.); and equally consort to consort whose minds can be joined into one are drawn together; and consequently at first sight they inmostly love each other, and see themselves to be consorts, and enter into marriage. for this reason all marriages in heaven are from the lord alone. they have also marriage feasts; and these are attended by many; but the festivities differ in different societies. . marriages on the earth are most holy in the sight of the angels of heaven because they are seminaries of the human race, and also of the angels of heaven (heaven being from the human race, as already shown under that head), also because these marriages are from a spiritual origin, namely, from the marriage of good and truth, and because the lord's divine flows especially into marriage love. adulteries on the other hand are regarded by the angels as profane because they are contrary to marriage love; for as in marriages the angels behold the marriage of good and truth, which is heaven, so in adulteries they behold the marriage of falsity and evil, which is hell. if, then, they but hear adulteries mentioned they turn away. and this is why heaven is closed up to man when he commits adultery from delight; and when heaven is closed man no longer acknowledges the divine nor any thing of the faith of church.{ } that all who are in hell are antagonistic to marriage love i have been permitted to perceive from the sphere exhaling from hell, which was like an unceasing endeavor to dissolve and violate marriages; which shows that the reigning delight in hell is the delight of adultery, and the delight of adultery is a delight in destroying the conjunction of good and truth, which conjunction makes heaven. from this it follows that the delight of adultery is an infernal delight directly opposed to the delight of marriage, which is a heavenly delight. {footnote } adulteries are profane (n. , ). heaven is closed to adulterers (n. ). those that have experienced delight in adulteries cannot come into heaven (n. , , - , , ). adulterers are unmerciful and destitute of religion (n. , , ). the ideas of adulterers are filthy (n. , ). in the other life they love filth and are in filthy hells (n. , , ). in the word adulteries signify adulterations of good, and whoredoms perversions of truth (n. , , , , , ). . there were certain spirits who, from a practice acquired in the life of the body, infested me with peculiar craftiness, and this by a very gentle wave-like influx like the usual influx of well disposed spirits; but i perceived that there was craftiness and other like evils in them prompting them to ensnare and deceive. finally, i talked with one of them who, i was told, had been when he lived in the world the leader of an army; and perceiving that there was a lustfulness in the ideas of his thought i talked with him about marriage, using spiritual speech with representatives, which fully expresses all that is meant and many things in a moment. he said that in the life of the body he had regarded adulteries as of no account. but i was permitted to tell him that adulteries are heinous, although to those like himself they do not appear to be such, and even appear permissible, on account of their seductive and enticing delights. that they are heinous he might know from the fact that marriages are the seminaries of the human race, and thus also the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom; consequently they must on no account be violated, but must be esteemed holy. this he might know from the fact, which he ought to know because of his being in the other life and in a state of perception, that marriage love descends from the lord through heaven, and from that love, as from a parent, mutual love, which is the foundation of heaven is derived; and again from this, that if adulterers merely draw near to heavenly societies they perceive their own stench and cast themselves down therefrom towards hell. at least he must have known that to violate marriages is contrary to divine laws, and contrary to the civil laws of all kingdoms, also contrary to the genuine light of reason, because it is contrary to both divine and human order; not to mention other considerations. but he replied that he had not so thought in the life of the body. he wished to reason about whether it were so, but was told that truth does not admit of such reasonings; for reasonings defend what one delights in, and thus one's evils and falsities; that he ought first to think about the things that had been said because they are truths; or at least think about them from the principle well known in the world, that no one should do to another what he is unwilling that another should do to him; thus he should consider whether he himself would not have detested adulteries if any one had in that way deceived his wife, whom he had loved as everyone loves in the first period of marriage, and if in his state of wrath he had expressed himself on the subject; also whether being a man of talent he would not in that case have confirmed himself more decidedly than others against adulteries, even condemning them to hell. . i have been shown how the delights of marriage love advance towards heaven, and the delights of adultery towards hell. the advance of the delights of marriage love towards heaven is into states of blessedness and happiness continually increasing until they become innumerable and ineffable, and the more interiorly they advance the more innumerable and more ineffable they become, until they reach the very states of blessedness and happiness of the inmost heaven, or of the heaven of innocence, and this through the most perfect freedom; for all freedom is from love, thus the most perfect freedom is from marriage love, which is heavenly love itself. on the other hand, the advance of adultery is towards hell, and by degrees to the lowest hell, where there is nothing but what is direful and horrible. such a lot awaits adulterers after their life in the world, those being meant by adulterers who feel a delight in adulteries, and no delight in marriages. . xli. the employments of angels in heaven. it is impossible to enumerate the employments in the heavens, still less to describe them in detail, but something may be said about them in a general way; for they are numberless, and vary in accordance with the functions of the societies. each society has its peculiar function, for as societies are distinct in accordance with goods (see above, n. ), so they are distinct in accordance with uses, because with all in the heavens goods are goods in act, which are uses. everyone there performs a use, for the lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses.{ } {footnote } the lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses (n. , , , , , ). performing uses is serving the lord (n. ). in the other life all must perform uses (n. ); even the wicked and infernal, but in what manner (n. ). all are such as are the uses they perform (n. , ); illustrated (n. ). angelic blessedness consists in the goods of charity, that is, in performing uses (n. ). . in the heavens as on the earth there are many forms of service, for there are ecclesiastical affairs, there are civil affairs, and there are domestic affairs. that there are ecclesiastical affairs is evident from what has been said and shown above, where divine worship is treated of (n. - ); civil affairs, where governments in heaven are treated of (n. - ); and domestic affairs, where the dwellings and homes of angels are treated of (n. - ); and marriages in heaven (n. - ); all of which show that in every heavenly society there are many employments and services. . all things in the heavens are organized in accordance with divine order, which is everywhere guarded by the services performed by angels, those things that pertain to the general good or use by the wiser angels, those that pertain to particular uses by the less wise, and so on. they are subordinated just as uses are subordinated in the divine order; and for this reason a dignity is connected with every function according to the dignity of the use. nevertheless, an angel does not claim dignity to himself, but ascribes all dignity to the use; and as the use is the good that he accomplishes, and all good is from the lord, so he ascribes all dignity to the lord. therefore he that thinks of honor for himself and subsequently for the use, and not for the use and subsequently for himself, can perform no function in heaven, because this is looking away backwards from the lord, and putting self in the first place and use in the second. when use is spoken of the lord also is meant, because, as has just been said, use is good, and good is from the lord. . from this it may be inferred what subordinations in the heavens are, namely, that as any one loves, esteems, and honors the use he also loves, esteems, and honors the person with whom the use is connected; also that the person is loved, esteemed and honored in the measure in which he ascribes the use to the lord and not to himself; for to that extent he is wise, and the uses he performs he performs from good. spiritual love, esteem, and honor are nothing else than the love, esteem, and honor of the use in the person, together with the honor to the person because of the use, and not honor to the use because of the person. this is the way, moreover, in which men are regarded when they are regarded from spiritual truth, for one man is then seen to be like another, whether he be in great or in little dignity, the only perceptible difference being a difference in wisdom; and wisdom is loving use, that is, loving the good of a fellow citizen, of society, of one's country, and of the church. it is this that constitutes love to the lord, because every good that is a good of use is from the lord; and it constitutes also love towards the neighbor, because the neighbor means the good that is to be loved in a fellow citizen, in society, in one's country, and in the church, and that is to be done in their behalf.{ } {footnote } loving the neighbor is not loving the person, but loving that which is in him and which constitutes him (n. , ). those who love the person, and not that which is in him, and which constitutes him, love equally an evil man and a good man (n. ); and do good alike to the evil and to the good; and yet to do good to the evil is to do evil to the good and that is not loving the neighbor (n. , , ). the judge who punishes the evil that they may be reformed, and may not contaminate or injure the good, loves his neighbor (n. , , ). every individual and every community also one's country and the church, and in the most general sense the kingdom of the lord, are the neighbor, and to do good to these from a love of good in accord with the quality of their state, is loving the neighbor; that is, the neighbor is their good, which is to be consulted (n. - , ). . as all the societies in the heavens are distinct in accordance with their goods (as said above, n. , seq.) so they are distinct in accordance with their uses, goods being goods in act, that is, goods of charity which are uses. some societies are employed in taking care of little children; others in teaching and training them as they grow up; others in teaching and training in like manner the boys and girls that have acquired a good disposition from their education in the world, and in consequence have come into heaven. there are other societies that teach the simple good from the christian world, and lead them into the way to heaven; there are others that in like manner teach and lead the various heathen nations. there are some societies that defend from infestations by evil spirits the newly arrived spirits that have just come from the world; there are some that attend upon the spirits that are in the lower earth; also some that attend upon spirits that are in the hells, and restrain them from tormenting each other beyond prescribed limits; and there are some that attend upon those who are being raised from the dead. in general, angels from each society are sent to men to watch over them and to lead them away from evil affections and consequent thoughts, and to inspire them with good affections so far as they will receive them in freedom; and by means of these they also direct the deeds or works of men by removing as far as possible evil intentions. when angels are with men they dwell as it were in their affections; and they are near to man just in the degree in which he is in good from truths, and are distant from him just in the degree in which his life is distant from good.{ } but all these employments of angels are employments of the lord through the angels, for the angels perform them from the lord and not from themselves. for this reason, in the word in its internal sense "angels" mean, not angels, but something belonging to the lord; and for the same reason angels are called "gods" in the word.{ } {footnote } of the angels that are with little children and afterwards with boys, and thus in succession (n. ). man is raised from the dead by means of angels; from experiences (n. - ). angels are sent to those who are in hell to prevent their tormenting each other beyond measure (n. ). of the services rendered by the angels to men on their coming into the other life (n. ). there are spirits and angels with all men and man is led by the lord by means of spirits and angels (n. , , , , , - , - , ). angels have dominion over evil spirits (n. ). {footnote } in the word by angels something divine from the lord is signified (n. , , , , , ). in the word angels are called "gods," because of their reception of divine truth and good from the lord (n. , , , ). . these employments of the angels are their general employments; but each one has his particular charge; for every general use is composed of innumerable uses which are called mediate, ministering, and subservient uses, all and each coordinated and subordinated in accordance with divine order, and taken together constituting and perfecting the general use, which is the general good. . those are concerned with ecclesiastical affairs in heaven who in the world loved the word and eagerly sought in it for truths, not with honor or gain as an end, but uses of life both for themselves and for others. these in heaven are in enlightenment and in the light of wisdom in the measure of their love and desire for use; and this light of wisdom they receive from the word in heaven, which is not a natural word, as it is in the world, but a spiritual word (see above, n. .) these minister in the preaching office; and in accordance with divine order those are in higher positions who from enlightenment excel others in wisdom. [ ] those are concerned with civil affairs who in the world loved their country, and loved its general good more than their own, and did what is just and right from a love for what is just and right. so far as these from the eagerness of love have investigated the laws of justice and have thereby become intelligent, they have the ability to perform such functions in heaven, and they perform these in that position or degree that accords with their intelligence, their intelligence being in equal degree with their love of use for the general good. [ ] furthermore, there are in heaven more functions and services and occupations than can be enumerated; while in the world there are few in comparison. but however many there may be that are so employed, they are all in the delight of their work and labor from a love of use, and no one from a love of self or of gain; and as all the necessaries of life are furnished them gratuitously they have no love of gain for the sake of a living. they are housed gratuitously, clothed gratuitously, and fed gratuitously. evidently, then, those that have loved themselves and the world more than use have no lot in heaven; for his love or affection remains with everyone after his life in the world, and is not extirpated to eternity (see above, n. ). . in heaven everyone comes into his own occupation in accordance with correspondence, and the correspondence is not with the occupation but with the use of each occupation (see above, n. ); for there is a correspondence of all things (see n. ). he that in heaven comes into the employment or occupation corresponding to his use is in much the same condition of life as when he was in the world; since what is spiritual and what is natural make one by correspondences; yet there is this difference, that he then comes into an interior delight, because into spiritual life, which is an interior life, and therefore more receptive of heavenly blessedness. . xlii. heavenly joy and happiness. hardly any one at present knows what heaven is or what heavenly joy is. those who have given any thought to these subjects have had so general and so gross an idea about them as scarcely to amount to anything. from spirits that have come from the world into the other life i have been able to learn fully what idea they had of heaven and heavenly joy; for when left to themselves, as they were in the world, they think as they then did. there is this ignorance about heavenly joy for the reason that those who have thought about it have formed their opinion from the outward joys pertaining to the natural man, and have not known what the inner and spiritual man is, nor in consequence the nature of his delight and blessedness; and therefore even if they had been told by those who are in spiritual or inward delight what heavenly joy is, would have had no comprehension of it, for it could have fallen only into an idea not yet recognized, thus into no perception; and would therefore have been among the things that the natural man rejects. yet everyone can understand that when a man leaves his outer or natural man he comes into the inner or spiritual man, and consequently can see that heavenly delight is internal and spiritual, not external and natural; and being internal and spiritual, it is more pure and exquisite, and affects the interiors of man which pertain to his soul or spirit. from these things alone everyone may conclude that his delight is such as the delight of his spirit has previously been and that the delight of the body, which is called the delight of the flesh, is in comparison not heavenly; also that whatever is in the spirit of man when he leaves the body remains after death, since he then lives a man-spirit. . all delights flow forth from love, for that which a man loves he feels to be delightful. no one has any delight from any other source. from this it follows that such as the love is such is the delight. the delights of the body or of the flesh all flow forth from the love of self and love of the world; consequently they are lusts and their pleasures; while the delights of the soul or spirit all flow forth from love to the lord and love towards the neighbor, consequently they are affections for good and truth and interior satisfactions. these loves with their delights flow in out of heaven from the lord by an inner way, that is, from above, and affect the interiors; while the former loves with their delights flow in from the flesh and from the world by an external way, that is, from beneath, and affect the exteriors. therefore as far as the two loves of heaven are received and make themselves felt, the interiors of man, which belong to his soul or spirit and which look from the world heavenwards, are opened, while so far as the two loves of the world are received and make themselves felt, his exteriors, which belong to the body or flesh and look away from heaven towards the world, are opened. as loves flow in and are received their delights also flow in, the delights of heaven into the interiors and the delights of the world into the exteriors, since all delight, as has just been said above, belongs to love. . heaven in itself is so full of delights that viewed in itself it is nothing else than blessedness and delight; for the divine good that flows forth from the lord's divine love is what makes heaven in general and in particular with everyone there, and the divine love is a longing for the salvation of all and the happiness of all from inmosts and in fullness. thus whether you say heaven or heavenly joy it is the same thing. . the delights of heaven are both ineffable and innumerable; but he that is in the mere delight of the body or of the flesh can have no knowledge of or belief in a single one of these innumerable delights; for his interiors, as has just been said, look away from heaven towards the world, thus backwards. for he that is wholly in the delight of the body or of the flesh, or what is the same, in the love of self and of the world, has no sense of delight except in honor, in gain, and in the pleasures of the body and the senses; and these so extinguish and suffocate the interior delights that belong to heaven as to destroy all belief in them; consequently he would be greatly astonished if he were told that when the delights of honor and of gain are set aside other delights are given, and still more if he were told that the delights of heaven that take the place of these are innumerable, and are such as cannot be compared with the delights of the body and the flesh, which are chiefly the delights of honor and of gain. all this makes clear why it is not known what heavenly joy is. . one can see how great the delight of heaven must be from the fact that it is the delight of everyone in heaven to share his delights and blessings with others; and as such is the character of all that are in the heavens it is clear how immeasurable is the delight of heaven. it has been shown above (n. ), that in the heavens there is a sharing of all with each and of each with all. such sharing goes forth from the two loves of heaven, which are, as has been said, love to the lord and love towards the neighbor; and to share their delights is the very nature of these loves. love to the lord is such because the lord's love is a love of sharing everything it has with all, since it wills the happiness of all. there is a like love in everyone of those who love the lord, because the lord is in them; and from this comes the mutual sharing of the delights of angels with one another. love towards the neighbor is of such a nature, as will be seen in what follows. all this shows that it is the nature of these loves to share their delights. it is otherwise with the loves of self and of the world. the love of self takes away from others and robs others of all delight, and directs it to itself, for it wishes well to itself alone; while the love of the world wishes to have as its own what belongs to the neighbor. therefore these loves are destructive of the delights of others; or if there is any disposition to share, it is for the sake of themselves and not for the sake of others. thus in respect to others it is the nature of those loves not to share but to take away, except so far as the delights of others have some relation to self. that the loves of self and of the world, when they rule, are such i have often been permitted to perceive by living experience. whenever the spirits that were in these loves during their life as men in the world drew near, my delight receded and vanished; and i was told that at the mere approach of such to any heavenly society the delight of those in the society diminished just in the degree of their proximity; and what is wonderful, the evil spirits are then in their delight. all this indicates the state of the spirit of such a man while he is in the body, since it is the same as it is after it is separated from the body, namely, that it longs for or lusts after the delights or goods of another, and finds delight so far as it secures them. all this makes clear that the loves of self and of the world tend to destroy the joys of heaven, and are thus direct opposites of heavenly loves, which desire to share. . but it must be understood that the delight of those who are in the loves of self and of the world, when they draw near to any heavenly society, is the delight of their lust, and thus is directly opposite to the delight of heaven. and such enter into this delight of their lust in consequence of their taking away and dispelling heavenly delight in those that are in such delight. when the heavenly delight is not taken away or dispelled it is different, for they are then unable to draw near; for so far as they draw near they bring upon themselves anguish and pain; and for this reason they do not often venture to come near. this also i have been permitted to learn by repeated experience, something of which i would like to add. [ ] spirits who go from this world into the other life desire more than any thing else to get into heaven. nearly all seek to enter, supposing that heaven consists solely in being admitted and received. because of this desire they are brought to some society of the lowest heaven. but as soon as those who are in the love of self and of the world draw near the first threshold of that heaven they begin to be distressed and so tortured inwardly as to feel hell rather than heaven to be in them; and in consequence they cast themselves down headlong therefrom, and do not rest until they come into the hells among their like. [ ] it has also frequently occurred that such spirits have wished to know what heavenly joy is, and having heard that it is in the interiors of angels, they have wished to share in it. this therefore was granted; for whatever a spirit who is not yet in heaven or hell wishes is granted if it will benefit him. but as soon as that joy was communicated they began to be so tortured as not to know how to twist or turn because of the pain. i saw them thrust their heads down to their feet and cast themselves upon the ground, and there writhe into coils like serpents, and this in consequence of their interior agony. such was the effect produced by heavenly delight upon those who are in the delights of the love of self and of the world; and for the reason that these loves are directly opposite to heavenly loves, and when opposite acts against opposite such pain results. and since heavenly delight enters by an inward way and flows into the contrary delight, the interiors which are in the contrary delight are twisted backwards, thus into the opposite direction, and the result is such tortures. [ ] they are opposite for the reason given above, that love to the lord and love to the neighbor wish to share with others all that is their own, for this is their delight, while the loves of self and of the world wish to take away from others what they have, and take it to themselves; and just to the extent that they are able to do this they are in their delight. from this, too, one can see what it is that separates hell from heaven; for all that are in hell were, while they were living in the world, in the mere delights of the body and of the flesh from the love of self and of the world; while all that are in the heavens were, while they lived in the world, in the delights of the soul and spirit from love to the lord and love to the neighbor; and as these are opposite loves, so the hells and the heavens are entirely separated, and indeed so separated that a spirit in hell does not venture even to put forth a finger from it or raise the crown of his head, for if he does this in the least he is racked with pain and tormented. this, too, i have frequently seen. . one who is in the love of self and love of the world perceives while he lives in the body a sense of delight from these loves and also in the particular pleasures derived from these loves. but one who is in love to god and in love towards the neighbor does not perceive while he lives in the body any distinct sense of delight from these loves or from the good affections derived from them, but only a blessedness that is hardly perceptible, because it is hidden away in his interiors and veiled by the exteriors pertaining to the body and dulled by the cares of the world. but after death these states are entirely changed. the delights of love of self and of the world are then turned into what is painful and direful, because into such things as are called infernal fire, and by turns into things defiled and filthy corresponding to their unclean pleasures, and these, wonderful to tell, are then delightful to them. but the obscure delight and almost imperceptible blessedness of those that had been while in the world in love to god and in love to the neighbor are then turned into the delight of heaven, and become in every way perceived and felt, for the blessedness that lay hidden and unrecognized in their interiors while they lived in the world is then revealed and brought forth into evident sensation, because such had been the delight of their spirit, and they are then in the spirit. . in uses all the delights of heaven are brought together and are present, because uses are the goods of love and charity in which angels are; therefore everyone has delights that are in accord with his uses, and in the degree of his affection for use. that all the delights of heaven are delights of use can be seen by a comparison with the five bodily senses of man. there is given to each sense a delight in accordance with its use; to the sight, the hearing, the smell, the taste, and the touch, each its own delight; to the sight a delight from beauty and from forms, to the hearing from harmonious sounds, to the smell from pleasing odors, to taste from fine flavors. these uses which the senses severally perform are known to those who study them, and more fully to those who are acquainted with correspondences. sight has such a delight because of the use it performs to the understanding, which is the inner sight; the hearing has such a delight because of the use it performs both to the understanding and to the will through giving attention; the smell has such a delight because of the use it performs to the brain, and also to the lungs; the taste has such a delight because of the use it performs to the stomach, and thus to the whole body by nourishing it. the delight of marriage, which is a purer and more exquisite delight of touch, transcends all the rest because of its use, which is the procreation of the human race and thereby of angels of heaven. these delights are in these sensories by an influx of heaven, where every delight pertains to use and is in accordance with use. . there were some spirits who believed from an opinion adopted in the world that heavenly happiness consists in an idle life in which they would be served by others; but they were told that happiness never consists in abstaining from work and getting satisfaction therefrom. this would mean everyone's desiring the happiness of others for himself, and what everyone wished for no one would have. such a life would be an idle not an active life, and would stupefy all the powers of life; and everyone ought to know that without activity of life there can be no happiness of life, and that rest from this activity should be only for the sake of recreation, that one may return with more vigor to the activity of his life. they were then shown by many evidences that angelic life consists in performing the good works of charity, which are uses, and that the angels find all their happiness in use, from use, and in accordance with use. to those that held the opinion that heavenly joy consists in living an idle life and drawing breaths of eternal joy in idleness, a perception was given of what such a life is, that they might become ashamed of the idea; and they saw that such a life is extremely sad, and that all joy thus perishing they would in a little while feel only loathing and disgust for it. . there were some spirits who thought themselves better instructed than others, and who said that they had believed in the world that heavenly joy would consist solely in praising and giving glory to god, and that this would be an active life. but these were told that praising and giving glory to god is not a proper active life, also that god has no need of praises and glorification, but it is his will that they should perform uses, and thus the good works that are called goods of charity. but they were unable to associate with goods of charity any idea of heavenly joy, but only of servitude, although the angels testified that this joy is most free because it comes from an interior affection and is conjoined with ineffable delight. . almost all who enter the other life think that hell is the same to everyone, and heaven the same; and yet in both there are infinite varieties and diversities, and in no case is hell or heaven wholly the same to one as to another; as it is impossible that any one man, spirit or angel should ever be wholly like another even as to the face. at my mere thought of two being just alike or equal the angels expressed horror, saying that everyone thing is formed out of the harmonious concurrence of many things, and that the one thing is such as that concurrence is; and that it is thus that a whole society in heaven becomes a one, and that all the societies of heaven together become a one, and this from the lord alone by means of love.{ } uses in the heavens are likewise in all variety and diversity, and in no case is the use of one wholly the same as and identical with the use of another; so neither is the happiness of one the same as and identical with the happiness of another. furthermore, the delights of each use are innumerable, and these innumerable delights are likewise various, and yet conjoined in such order that they mutually regard each other, like the uses of each member, organ, and viscus, in the body, and still more like the uses of each vessel and fiber in each member, organ and viscus; each and all of which are so affiliated as to have regard to another's good in their own good, and thus each in all, and all in each. from this universal and individual aspect they act as one. {footnote } one thing consists of various things, and receives thereby its form and quality and perfection in accordance with the quality of the harmony and concurrence (n. , , ). there is an infinite variety and never any one thing the same as another (n. , ). it is the same in the heavens (n. , , , , , ). in consequence all the societies in the heavens and all the angels in a society are distinct from each other because they are in different goods and uses (n. , , , , , , , , , ). the lord's divine love arranges all into a heavenly form, and so conjoins them that they are as a single man (n. , , ). . i have talked at times with spirits that had recently come from the world about the state of eternal life, saying that it is important to know who the lord of the kingdom is, and what kind and what form of government it has. as nothing is more important for those entering another kingdom in the world than to know who and what the king is, and what the government is, and other particulars in regard to the kingdom, so is it of still greater consequence in regard to this kingdom in which they are to live to eternity. therefore they should know that it is the lord who governs both heaven and the universe, for he who governs the one governs the other; thus that the kingdom in which they now are is the lord's; and that the laws of this kingdom are eternal truths, all of which rest upon the law that the lord must be loved above all things and the neighbor as themselves; and even more than this, if they would be like the angels they must love the neighbor more than themselves. on hearing this they could make no reply, for the reason that although they had heard in the life of the body something like this they had not believed it, wondering how there could be such love in heaven, and how it could be possible for any one to love his neighbor more than himself. but they were told that every good increases immeasurably in the other life, and that while they cannot go further in the life of the body than to love the neighbor as themselves, because they are immersed in what concerns the body, yet when this is set aside their love becomes more pure, and finally becomes angelic, which is to love the neighbor more than themselves. for in the heavens there is joy in doing good to another, but no joy in doing good to self unless with a view to its becoming another's, and thus for another's sake. this is loving the neighbor more than oneself. they were told that the possibility of such a love is shown in the world in the marriage love of some who have suffered death to protect a consort from injury, in the love of parents for their children, as in a mother's preferring to go hungry rather than see her child go hungry; in sincere friendship, in which one friend will expose himself to danger for another; and even in polite and pretended friendship that wishes to emulate sincere friendship, in offering the better things to those to whom it professes to wish well, and bearing such good will on the lips though not in the heart; finally, in the nature of love, which is such that its joy is to serve others, not for its own sake but for theirs. but all this was incomprehensible to those who loved themselves more than others, and in the life of the body had been greedy of gain; most of all to the avaricious. . there was one who in the life of the body had exercised power over others, and who had retained in the other life the desire to rule; but he was told that he was now in another kingdom, which is eternal, and that his rule on earth had perished, and that he was now where no one is esteemed except in accordance with his goodness and truth, and that measure of the lord's mercy which he enjoyed by virtue of his life in the world; also that the same is true in this kingdom as on the earth, where men are esteemed for their wealth and for their favor with the prince, wealth here being good and truth, and favor with the prince the mercy bestowed on man by the lord in accordance with his life in the world. any wish to rule otherwise would make him a rebel, since he is in another's kingdom. on hearing these things he was ashamed. . i have talked with spirits who believed heaven and heavenly joy to consist in their being great; but such were told that in heaven he that is least is greatest, since he is called least who has, and wishes to have, no power or wisdom from himself, but only from the lord, he that is least in that sense having the greatest happiness, and as he has the greatest happiness, it follows that he is greatest; for he has thereby from the lord all power and excels all in wisdom. what is it to be the greatest unless to be the most happy? for to be the most happy is what the powerful seek through power and the rich through riches. it was further said that heaven does not consist in a desire to be least for the purpose of being greatest, for that would be aspiring and longing to be the greatest; but it consists in desiring from the heart the good of others more than one's own, and in serving others with a view to their happiness, not with recompense as an end, but from love. . heavenly joy itself, such as it is in its essence, cannot be described, because it is in the inmost of the life of angels and therefrom in everything of their thought and affection, and from this in every particular of their speech and action. it is as if the interiors were fully opened and unloosed to receive delight and blessedness, which are distributed to every least fiber and thus through the whole. thus the perception and sensation of this joy is so great as to be beyond description, for that which starts from the inmosts flows into every particular derived from the inmosts, propagating itself away with increase towards the exteriors. good spirits who are not yet in that joy, because not yet raised up into heaven, when they perceive a sense of that joy from an angel from the sphere of his love, are filled with such delight that they come as it were into a delicious trance. this sometimes happens with those who desire to know what heavenly joy is. . when certain spirits wished to know what heavenly joy is they were allowed to feel it to such a degree that they could no longer bear it; and yet it was not angelic joy; it was scarcely in the least degree angelic, as i was permitted to perceive by sharing it, but was so slight as to be almost frigid; nevertheless they called it most heavenly, because to them it was an inmost joy. from this it was evident, not only that there are degrees of the joys of heaven, but also that the inmost joy of one scarcely reaches to the outmost or middle joy of another; also that when any one receives his own inmost joy he is in his heavenly joy, and cannot endure what is still more interior, for such a joy becomes painful to him. . certain spirits, not evil, sinking into a quiescence like sleep, were taken up into heaven in respect to the interiors of their minds; for before their interiors are opened spirits can be taken up into heaven and be taught about the happiness of those there. i saw them in the quiescent state for about half an hour, and afterwards they relapsed into their exteriors in which they were before, and also into a recollection of what they had seen. they said that they had been among the angels in heaven, and had there seen and perceived amazing things, all of which were resplendent as if made of gold, silver, and precious stones, in exquisite forms and in wonderful variety; also that angels are not delighted with the outward things themselves, but with the things they represented, which were divine, ineffable, and of infinite wisdom, and that these were their joy; with innumerable other things that could not be described in human language even as to a ten-thousandth part, or fall into ideas which partake of any thing material. . scarcely any who enter the other life know what heavenly blessedness and happiness are, because they do not know what internal joy is, deriving their perception of it solely from bodily and worldly gladness and joy; and in consequence what they are ignorant of they suppose to be nothing, when in fact bodily and worldly joys are of no account in comparison. in order, therefore, that the well disposed, who do not know what heavenly joy is, may know and realize what it is, they are taken first to paradisal scenes that transcend every conception of the imagination. they then think that they have come into the heavenly paradise; but they are taught that this is not true heavenly happiness; and they are permitted to realize such interior states of joy as are perceptible to their inmost. they are then brought into a state of peace even to their inmost, when they confess that nothing of it is in the least expressible or conceivable. finally they are brought into a state of innocence even to their inmost sense. thus they are permitted to learn what true spiritual and heavenly good is. . but that i might learn the nature of heaven and heavenly joy i have frequently and for a long time been permitted by the lord to perceive the delights of heavenly joys; but while i have been enabled to know by living experience what they are i am not at all able to describe them. nevertheless, that some idea of them may be formed, something shall be said about them. heavenly joy is an affection of innumerable delights and joys, which together present something general, and in this general, that is, this general affection, are harmonies of innumerable affections that come to perception obscurely, and not distinctly, because the perception is most general. nevertheless i was permitted to perceive that there are innumerable things in it, in such order as cannot be at all described, those innumerable things being such as flow from the order of heaven. the order in the particulars of the affection even to the least, is such that these particulars are presented and perceived only as a most general whole, in accordance with the capacity of him who is the subject. in a word, each general affection contains infinite affections arranged in a most orderly form, with nothing therein that is not alive, and that does not affect all of them from the inmosts; for heavenly joys go forth from inmosts. i perceived also that the joy and ecstasy came as from the heart, diffusing most softly through all the inmost fibers, and from these into the bundles of fibers, with such an inmost sense of delight that the fiber seemed to be nothing but joy and ecstasy, and everything perceptive and sensitive therefrom seemed in like manner to be alive with happiness. compared with these joys the joy of bodily pleasures is like a gross and pungent dust compared with a pure and most gentle aura. i have noticed that when i wished to transfer all my delight to another, a more interior and fuller delight continually flowed in in its place, and the more i wished this, the more flowed in; and this was perceived to be from the lord. . those that are in heaven are continually advancing towards the spring of life, with a greater advance towards a more joyful and happy spring the more thousands of years they live; and this to eternity, with increase according to the growth and degree of their love, charity, and faith. women who have died old and worn out with age, if they have lived in faith in the lord, in charity to the neighbor, and in happy marriage love with a husband, advance with the succession of years more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty that transcends every conception of any such beauty as is seen on the earth. goodness and charity are what give this form and thus manifest their own likeness, causing the joy and beauty of charity to shine forth from every least particular of the face, and causing them to be the very forms of charity. some who beheld this were struck with amazement. the form of charity that is seen in a living way in heaven, is such that it is charity itself that both forms and is formed; and this in such a manner that the whole angel is a charity, as it were, especially the face; and this is both clearly seen and felt. when this form is beheld it is beauty unspeakable, affecting with charity the very inmost life of the mind. in a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. such forms or such beauties do those become in the other life who have lived in love to the lord and in charity towards the neighbor. all angels are such forms in endless variety; and of these heaven is constituted. . xliii. the immensity of heaven. the immensity of the heaven of the lord is evident from many things that have been said and shown in the foregoing chapters, especially from this, that heaven is from the human race (n. - ), both from those born within the church and from those born out of it (n. - ); thus it consists of all from the beginning of this earth that have lived a good life. how great a multitude of men there is in this entire world any one who knows anything about the divisions, the regions, and kingdoms of the earth may conclude. whoever goes into a calculation will find that several thousands of men die every day, that is, some myriads of millions every year; and this from the earliest times, since which several thousands of years have elapsed. all of these after death have gone into the other world, which is called the spiritual world, and they are constantly going into it. but how many of these have become or are becoming angels of heaven cannot be told. this i have been told, that in ancient times the number was very great, because men then thought more interiorly and spiritually, and from such thought were in heavenly affection; but in the following ages not so many, because in the process of time man became more external and began to think more naturally, and from such thought to be in earthly affection. all of this shows how great heaven is even from the inhabitants of this earth alone. . the immensity of the heaven of the lord is shown also by this, that all children, whether born within the church or out of it, are adopted by the lord and become angels; and the number of these amounts to a fourth or fifth part of the whole human race on the earth. that every child, wherever born, whether within the church or out of it, whether of pious or impious parents, is received by the lord when it dies, and is brought up in heaven, and is taught and imbued with affections for good, and through these with knowledges of truth, in accordance with divine order, and as he becomes perfected in intelligence and wisdom is brought into heaven and becomes an angel, can be seen above (n. - ). from all this a conclusion may be formed of the multitude of angels of heaven, derived from this source alone, from the first creation to the present time. . again, how immense the heaven of the lord is can be seen from this, that all the planets visible to the eye in our solar system are earths, and moreover, that in the whole universe there are innumerable earths, all of them full of inhabitants. these have been treated of particularly in a small work on those earths from which i will quote the following passage: it is fully known in the other life that there are many earths inhabited by men from which spirits and angels come; for everyone there who desires from a love of truth and of use to do so is permitted to talk with spirits of other earths, and thus be assured that there is a plurality of worlds, and learn that the human race is not from one earth alone, but from innumerable earths. i have frequently talked about this with spirits of our earth, and was told that any intelligent person ought to know from many things that he does know that there are many earths inhabited by men; for it may be reasonably inferred that immense bodies like the planets, some of which exceed this earth in magnitude, are not empty masses created merely to be borne through space and to be carried around the sun, and to shine with their scanty light for the benefit of a single earth, but must have a more important use. he that believes, as everyone must believe, that the divine created the universe for no other end than that the human race might exist, and heaven therefrom, for the human race is a seminary of heaven, must needs believe that wherever there is an earth there are men. that the planets visible to us because they are within the limits of our solar system are earths is evident from their being bodies of earthy matters, which is known from their reflecting the sun's light, and from their not appearing, when viewed through telescopes, like stars, sparkling with flame, but like earths varied with darker portions; also from their passing like our earth around the sun and following in the path of the zodiac, thus making years and seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, also revolving on their axes like our earth, making days and times of the day, morning, mid-day, evening, and night; also from some of them having moons, called satellites, that revolve around their earth at stated times, as the moon does around ours; while the planet saturn, being at a greater distance from the sun, has also a large luminous belt which gives much light, though reflected, to that earth. who that knows all this and thinks rationally can ever say that the planets are empty bodies? moreover, i have said to spirits that man might believe that there are more earths in the universe than one, from the fact that the starry heaven is so immense, and the stars there so innumerable, and each of them in its place or in its system a sun, resembling our sun, although of a varying magnitude. any one who duly weighs the subject must conclude that such an immense whole must needs be a means to an end that is the final end of creation; and this end is a heavenly kingdom in which the divine may dwell with angels and men. for the visible universe or the heaven illumined by stars so numberless, which are so many suns, is simply a means for the existence of earths with men upon them from whom the heavenly kingdom is derived. from all this a rational man must needs conclude that so immense a means to so great an end could not have been provided merely for the human race on a single earth. what would this be for a divine that is infinite, to which thousands and even myriads of earths, all of them full of inhabitants, would be little and scarcely anything? there are spirits whose sole pursuit is the acquisition of knowledges, because their delight is in this alone; and for this reason they are permitted to wander about, and even to pass out of our solar system into others, in acquiring knowledge. these spirits, who are from the planet mercury, have told me that there are earths with men upon them not only in this solar system but also beyond it in the starry heaven in immense numbers. it was calculated that with a million earths in the universe, and on each earth three hundred millions of men, and two hundred generations in six thousand years, and a space of three cubic ells allowed to each man or spirit, the total number of so many men or spirits would not fill the space of this earth, and scarcely more than the space of one of the satellites about one of the planets--a space in the universe so small as to be almost invisible, since a satellite can scarcely be seen by the naked eye. what is this for the creator of the universe, to whom it would not be sufficient if the whole universe were filled, since he is infinite? i have talked with angels about this, and they said that they had a similar idea of the fewness of the human race compared with the infinity of the creator, although their thought is from states, not from spaces, and that in their thought earths amounting to as many myriads as could possibly be conceived of would still be nothing at all to the lord. the earths in the universe, with their inhabitants, and the spirits and angels from them, are treated of in the above mentioned work. what is there related has been revealed and shown to me to the intent that it may be known that the heaven of the lord is immense, and that it is all from the human race; also that our lord is every where acknowledged as the god of heaven and earth. . again, the immensity of the heaven of the lord is shown in this, that heaven in its entire complex reflects a single man, and corresponds to all things and each thing in man, and that this correspondence can never be filled out, since it is a correspondence not only with each of the members, organs, and viscera of the body in general, but also with all and each of the little viscera and little organs contained in these in every minutest particular, and even with each vessel and fiber; and not only with these but also with the organic substances that receive interiorly the influx of heaven, from which come man's interior activities that are serviceable to the operations of his mind; since everything that exists interiorly in man exists in forms which are substances, for anything that does not exist in a substance as its subject is nothing. there is a correspondence of all these things with heaven, as can be seen from the chapter treating of the correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man (n. - ). this correspondence can never be filled out because the more numerous the angelic affiliations are that correspond to each member the more perfect heaven becomes; for every perfection in the heavens increases with increase of number; and this for the reason that all there have the same end, and look with one accord to that end. that end is the common good; and when that reigns there is, from the common good, good to each individual, and from the good of each individual there is good to the whole community. this is so for the reason that the lord turns all in heaven to himself (see above, n. ), and thereby makes them to be one in himself. that the unanimity and concord of many, especially from such an origin and held together by such a bond, produces perfection, everyone with a reason at all enlightened can see clearly. . i have also been permitted to see the extent of the inhabited and also of the uninhabited heaven; and the extent of the uninhabited heaven was seen to be so great that it could not be filled to eternity even if there were many myriads of earths, and as great a multitude of men on each earth as on ours. (on this also see the treatise on the earths in the universe, n. .) . that heaven is not immense, but it is of limited extent, is a conclusion that some have derived from certain passages in the word understood according to the sense of its letter; for example, where it is said that only the poor are received into heaven, or only the elect, or only those within the church, and not those outside of it, or only those for whom the lord intercedes; that heaven is closed when it is filled, and that this time is predetermined. but such are unaware that heaven is never closed, and that there is no time predetermined, or any limit of number; and that those are called the "elect" who are in a life of good and truth;{ } and those are called "poor" who are lacking in knowledges of good and truth and yet desire them; and such from that desire are also called hungry.{ } those that have conceived an idea of the small extent of heaven from the word not understood believe it to be in one place, where all are gathered together; when, in fact, heaven consists of innumerable societies (see above, n. - ). such also have no other idea than that heaven is granted to everyone from mercy apart from means, and thus that there is admission and reception from mere favor; and they fail to understand that the lord from mercy leads everyone who accepts him, and that he accepts him who lives in accordance with the laws of divine order, which are the precepts of love and of faith, and that the mercy that is meant is to be thus led by the lord from infancy to the last period of life in the world and afterwards to eternity. let them know, therefore, that every man is born for heaven, and that he is received that receives heaven in himself in the world, and he that does not receive it is shut out. {footnote } those are the elect who are in a life of good and truth (n. , ). election and reception into heaven are not from mercy, as that term is understood, but are in accordance with the life (n. , ). there is no mercy of the lord apart from means, but only through means, that is, to those that live in accordance with his precepts; such the lord from his mercy leads continually in the world, and afterwards to eternity (n. , ). {footnote } by the "poor," in the word, those are meant who are spiritually poor, that is, who are ignorant of truth and yet wish to be taught (n. , , ). such are said to hunger and thirst, which is to desire knowledges of good and of truth, by which there is introduction into the church and into heaven (n. , ). . xliv. what the world of spirits is. the world of spirits is not heaven, nor is it hell, but it is the intermediate place or state between the two; for it is the place that man first enters after death; and from which after a suitable time he is either raised up into heaven or cast down into hell in accord with his life in the world. . the world of spirits is an intermediate place between heaven and hell and also an intermediate state of the man after death. it has been shown to me not only that it is an intermediate place, having the hells below it and the heavens above it, but also that it is in an intermediate state, since so long as man is in it he is not yet either in heaven or in hell. the state of heaven in man is the conjunction of good and truth in him; and the state of hell is the conjunction of evil and falsity in him. whenever good in a man-spirit is conjoined to truth he comes into heaven, because that conjunction, as just said, is heaven in him; but whenever evil in a man-spirit is conjoined with falsity he comes into hell, because that conjunction is hell in him. that conjunction is effected in the world of spirits, man then being in an intermediate state. it is the same thing whether you say the conjunction of the understanding and the will, or the conjunction of good and truth. . let something first be said about the conjunction of the understanding and the will, and its being the same thing as the conjunction of good and truth, that being the conjunction that is effected in the world of spirits. man has an understanding and a will. the understanding receives truths and is formed out of them, and the will receives goods and is formed out of them; therefore whatever a man understands and thinks from his understanding he calls true, and whatever a man wills and thinks from his will he calls good. from his understanding man can think and thus perceive both what is true and what is good; and yet he thinks what is true and good from the will only when he wills it and does it. when he wills it and from willing does it, it is both in his understanding and in his will, consequently in the man. for neither the understanding alone nor the will alone makes the man, but the understanding and will together; therefore whatever is in both is in the man, and is appropriated to him. that which is in the understanding alone is in man, and yet not really in him; it is only a thing of his memory, or a matter of knowledge in his memory about which he can think when in company with others and outside of himself, but not in himself; that is, about which he can speak and reason, and can simulate affections and gestures that are in accord with it. . this ability to think from the understanding and not at the same time from the will is provided that man may be capable of being reformed; for reformation is effected by means of truths, and truths pertain to the understanding, as just said. for in respect to his will man is born into every evil, and therefore of himself wills good to no one but himself; and one who wills good to himself alone delights in the misfortunes that befall another, especially when they tend to his own advantage; for his wish is to divert to himself the goods of all others, whether honors or riches, and so far as he succeeds in this he inwardly rejoices. to the end that this will of man may be corrected and reformed, an ability to understand truths, and an ability to subdue by means of truths the affections of evil that spring from the will, are given to man. this is why man has this ability to think truths with his understanding, and to speak them and do them. but until man is such that he wills truths and does them from himself, that is, from the heart, he is not able to think truths from his will. when he becomes such, whatever he thinks from his understanding belongs to his faith, and whatever he thinks from his will belongs to his love; and in consequence his faith and his love, like his understanding and his will, are conjoined in him. . to the extent, therefore, that the truths of the understanding and the goods of the will are conjoined, that is, to the extent that a man wills truths and does them from his will, he has heaven in himself, since the conjunction of good and truth, as just said, is heaven. and on the other hand, just to the extent that the falsities of the understanding and the evils of the will are conjoined man has hell in himself, since the conjunction of falsity and evil is hell. but so long as the truths of the understanding and the goods of the will are not conjoined man is in an intermediate state. at the present time nearly everyone is in such a state that he has some knowledge of truths, and from his knowledge and understanding gives some thought to them, and conforms to them either much or little or not at all, or acts contrary to them from a love of evil and consequent false belief. in order, therefore, that man may have in him either heaven or hell, he is first brought after death into the world of spirits, and there with those who are to be raised up into heaven good and truth are conjoined, and with those who are to be cast down into hell evil and falsity are conjoined. for neither in heaven nor in hell is any one permitted to have a divided mind, that is, to understand one thing and to will another; but everyone must understand what he wills, and will what he understands. therefore in heaven he who wills good understands truth, while in hell he who wills evil understands falsity. so in the intermediate state the falsities that the good have are put away, and truths that agree and harmonize with their good are given them; while the truths that the evil have are put away, and falsities that agree and harmonize with their evil are given them. this shows what the world of spirits is. . in the world of spirits there are vast numbers, because the first meeting of all is there, and all are there explored and prepared. the time of their stay in that world is not fixed; some merely enter it, and are soon either taken into heaven or are cast down into hell; some remain only a few weeks, some several years, but not more than thirty. these differences in the time they remain depend on the correspondence or lack of correspondence of man's interiors with his exteriors. how man is led in that world from one state into another and prepared shall now be told. . as soon as men after death enter the world of spirits the lord clearly discriminates between them; and the evil are at once attached to the infernal society in which they were, as to their ruling love while in the world; and the good are at once attached to the heavenly society in which they were as to their love, charity and faith while in the world. but although they are thus divided, all that have been friends and acquaintances in the life of the body, especially wives and husbands, and also brothers and sisters, meet and converse together whenever they so desire. i have seen a father talking with six sons, whom he recognized, and have seen many others with their relatives and friends; but having from their life in the world diverse dispositions, after a short time they separate. but those who have passed from the world of spirits into heaven or into hell, unless they have a like disposition from a like love, no longer see or know each other. the reason that they see each other in the world of spirits, but not in heaven or in hell, is that those who are in the world of spirits are brought into one state after another, like those they experienced in the life of the body; but afterwards all are brought into a permanent state in accord with their ruling love, and in that state one recognizes another only by similarity of love; for then similarity joins and dissimilarity disjoins (see above, n. - ). . as the world of spirits is an intermediate state between heaven and hell with man, so it is an intermediate place with the hells below and the heavens above. all the hells are shut towards that world, being open only through holes and clefts like those in rocks and through wide openings that are so guarded that no one can come out except by permission, which is granted in cases of urgent necessity (of which hereafter). heaven, too, is enclosed on all sides; and there is no passage open to any heavenly society except by a narrow way, the entrance to which is also guarded. these outlets and entrances are what are called in the word the gates and doors of hell and of heaven. . the world of spirits appears like a valley between mountains and rocks, with windings and elevations here and there. the gates and doors of the heavenly societies are visible to those only who are prepared for heaven; others cannot find them. there is one entrance from the world of spirits to each heavenly society, opening through a single path which branches out in its ascent into several. the gates and doors of the hells also are visible only to those who are about to enter, to whom they are then opened. when these are opened gloomy and seemingly sooty caverns are seen tending obliquely downwards to the abyss, where again there are many doors. through these caverns nauseous and fetid stenches exhale, which good spirits flee from because they abominate them, but evil spirits seek for them because they delight in them. for as everyone in the world has been delighted with his own evil, so after death he is delighted with the stench to which his evil corresponds. in this respect the evil may be likened to rapacious birds and beasts, like ravens, wolves, and swine, which fly or run to carrion or dunghills when they scent their stench. i heard a certain spirit crying out loudly as if from inward torture when struck by a breath flowing forth from heaven; but he became tranquil and glad as soon as a breath flowing forth from hell reached him. . with every man there are two gates; one that leads to hell and that is open to evils and their falsities; while the other leads to heaven and is open to goods and their truths. those that are in evil and its falsity have the gate to hell opened in them, and only through chinks from above does something of light from heaven flow into them, and by that inflowing they are able to think, to reason, and to speak; but the gate to heaven is opened in those that are in good and its truth. for there are two ways that lead to the rational mind of man; a higher or internal way through which good and truth from the lord enter, and a lower or external way through which evil and falsity enter from hell. the rational mind itself is at the middle point to which the ways tend. consequently, so far as light from heaven is admitted man is rational; but so far as it is not admitted he is not rational, however rational he may seem to himself to be. this has been said to make known the nature of the correspondence of man with heaven and with hell. while man's rational mind is being formed it corresponds to the world of spirits, what is above it corresponding to heaven and what is below to hell. with those preparing for heaven the regions above the rational mind are opened, but those below are closed to the influx of evil and falsity; while with those preparing for hell the parts below it are opened, and the parts above it are closed to the influx of good and truth. thus the latter can look only to what is below themselves, that is, to hell; while the former can look only to what is above themselves, that is, to heaven. to look above themselves is to look to the lord, because he is the common center to which all things of heaven look; while to look below themselves is to look backwards from the lord to the opposite center, to which all things of hell look and tend (see above, n. , ). . in the preceding pages whenever spirits are mentioned those that are in the world of spirits are meant; but when angels are mentioned those that are in heaven are meant. . xlv. in respect to his interiors every man is a spirit. whoever duly considers the subject can see that as the body is material it is not the body that thinks, but the soul, which is spiritual. the soul of man, upon the immortality of which many have written, is his spirit, for this as to everything belonging to it is immortal. this also is what thinks in the body, for it is spiritual, and what is spiritual receives what is spiritual and lives spiritually, which is to think and to will. therefore, all rational life that appears in the body belongs to the soul, and nothing of it to the body; for the body, as just said, is material, and the material, which is the property of the body, is added to and apparently almost joined to the spirit, in order that the spirit of man may be able to live and perform uses in the natural world, all things of which are material and in themselves devoid of life. and as it is the spiritual only that lives and not the material, it can be seen that whatever lives in man is his spirit, and that the body merely serves it, just as what is instrumental serves a moving living force. an instrument is said indeed to act, to move, or to strike; but to believe that these are acts of the instrument, and not of him who acts, moves, or strikes by means of the instrument, is a fallacy. . as everything in the body that lives, and that acts and feels from that life, belongs exclusively to the spirit, and nothing of it to the body, it follows that the spirit is the man himself; or what is the same thing, that a man viewed in himself is a spirit possessing a like form; for whatever lives and feels in man belongs to his spirit and everything in man, from his head to the sole of his foot, lives and feels; and in consequence when the body is separated from its spirit, which is what is called dying, man continues to be a man and to live. i have heard from heaven that some who die, while they are lying upon the bier, before they are resuscitated, continue to think even in their cold body, and do not know that they are not still alive, except that they are unable to move a particle of matter belonging to the body. . unless man were a subject which is a substance that can serve a source and containant he would be unable to think and will. any thing that is supposed to exist apart from a substantial subject is nothing. this can be seen from the fact that a man is unable to see without an organ which is the subject of his sight, or to hear without an organ which is the subject of his hearing. apart from these organs, sight and hearing are nothing and have no existence. the same is true of thought, which is inner sight, and of perception, which is inner hearing; unless these were in substances and from substances which are organic forms and subjects, they would have no existence at all. all this shows that man's spirit as well as his body is in a form, and that it is in a human form, and enjoys sensories and senses when separated from the body the same as when it was in it, and that all the life of the eye and all the life of the ear, in a word, all the life of sense that man has, belongs not to his body but to his spirit, which dwells in these organs and in their minutest particulars. this is why spirits see, hear, and feel, as well as men. but when the spirit has been loosed from the body, these senses are exercised in the spiritual world, not in the natural world. the natural sensation that the spirit had when it was in the body it had by means of the material part that was added to it; but it then had also spiritual sensations in its thinking and willing. . all this has been said to convince the rational man that viewed in himself man is a spirit, and that the corporeal part that is added to the spirit to enable it to perform its functions in the natural and material world is not the man, but only an instrument of his spirit. but evidences from experience are preferable, because there are many that fail to comprehend rational deductions; and those that have established themselves in the opposite view turn such deductions into grounds of doubt by means of reasonings from the fallacies of the senses. those that have established themselves in the opposite view are accustomed to think that beasts likewise have life and sensations and thus have a spiritual part, the same as man has, and yet that part dies with the body. but the spiritual of beasts is not the same as the spiritual of man is; for man has what beasts have not, an inmost, into which the divine flows, raising man up to itself, and thereby conjoining man to itself. because of this, man, in contrast with beasts, has the ability to think about god and about the divine things of heaven and the church, and to love god from these and in these, and thus be conjoined to him; and whatever can be conjoined to the divine cannot be dissipated, but whatever cannot be conjoined is dissipated. the inmost that man has, in contrast with beasts, has been treated of above (n. ), and what was there said will here be repeated, since it is important to have the fallacies dispelled that have been engendered in the minds of many who from lack of knowledge and trained intellect are unable to form rational conclusions on the subject. the words are these: i will mention a certain arcanum respecting the angels of the three heavens, which has not hitherto come into any one's mind, because degrees have not been understood. in every angel and in every man there is an inmost or highest degree, or an inmost or highest something, into which the divine of the lord first or most directly flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that succeed in accordance with the degrees of order. this inmost or highest degree may be called the entrance of the lord to the angel or man, and his veriest dwelling-place in them. it is by virtue of this inmost or highest that a man is a man, and distinguished from the animals, which do not have it. from this it is that man, unlike the animals, is capable, in respect to all his interiors which pertain to his mind and disposition, of being raised up by the lord to himself, of believing in the lord, of being moved by love to the lord, and thereby beholding him, and of receiving intelligence and wisdom, and speaking from reason. also it is by virtue of this that he lives to eternity. but what is arranged and provided by the lord in this inmost does not distinctly fall into the perception of any angel, because it is above his thought and transcends his wisdom. . that in respect to his interiors man is a spirit i have been permitted to learn from much experience, which, to employ a common saying, would fill volumes if i were to describe it all. i have talked with spirits as a spirit, and i have talked with them as a man in the body; and when i talked with them as a spirit they knew no otherwise than that i myself was a spirit and in a human form as they were. thus did my interiors appear before them, for when talking with them as a spirit my material body was not seen. . that in respect to his interiors man is a spirit can be seen from the fact that after his separation from the body, which takes place when he dies, man goes on living as a man just as before. that i might be convinced of this i have been permitted to talk with nearly everyone i had ever known in their life in the body; with some for hours, with some for weeks and months, and with some for years, and this chiefly that i might be sure of it and might testify to it. . to this may be added that every man in respect to his spirit, even while he is living in the body, is in some society with spirits, although he does not know it; if a good man he is by means of spirits in some angelic society; if an evil man in some infernal society; and after death he comes into that same society. this has been often told and shown to those who after death have come among spirits. man, to be sure, does not appear in that society as a spirit while he is living in the world, for the reason that he then thinks naturally; but when one is thinking abstractly from the body, because he is then in the spirit, he sometimes appears in his society; and when seen he is easily distinguished from the spirits there, for he goes about meditating and in silence, not looking at others, and apparently not seeing them; and as soon as any spirit speaks to him he vanishes. . to make clear that man in respect to his interiors is a spirit i will relate from experience what happens when man is withdrawn from the body, and what it is to be carried away by the spirit to another place. . first, as to withdrawal from the body, it happens thus. man is brought into a certain state that is midway between sleeping and waking, and when in that state he seems to himself to be wide awake; all the senses are as perfectly awake as in the completest bodily wakefulness, not only the sight and the hearing, but what is wonderful, the sense of touch also, which is then more exquisite than is ever possible when the body is awake. in this state spirits and angels have been seen to the very life, and have been heard, and what is wonderful, have been touched, with almost nothing of the body intervening. this is the state that is called being withdrawn from the body, and not knowing whether one is in the body or out of it. i have been admitted into this state only three or four times, that i might learn what it is, and might know that spirits and angels enjoy every sense, and that man does also in respect to his spirit when he is withdrawn from the body. . as to being carried away by the spirit to another place, i have been shown by living experience what it is, and how it is done, but only two or three times. i will relate a single instance. walking through the streets of a city and through fields, talking at the same time with spirits, i knew no otherwise than that i was fully awake, and in possession of my usual sight. thus i walked on without going astray, and all the while with clear vision, seeing groves, rivers, palaces, houses, men, and other objects. but after walking thus for some hours, suddenly i saw with my bodily eyes, and noted that i was in another place. being greatly astonished i perceived that i had been in the same state as those who were said to have been led away by the spirit into another place. for in this state the distance, even though it be many miles, and the time, though it be many hours or days, are not thought of; neither is there any feeling of fatigue; and one is led unerringly through ways of which he himself is ignorant, even to the destined place. . but these two states of man, which are his states when he is in his interiors, or what is the same, when he is in the spirit, are extraordinary; but as they are states known about in the church, they were exhibited to me only that i might know what they are. but it has been granted to me now for many years to speak with spirits and to be with them as one of them, even in full wakefulness of the body. . that in respect to his interiors man is a spirit there are further evidences in what has been said and shown above (n. - ), where it is explained that heaven and hell are from the human race. . that man is a spirit in respect to his interiors means in respect to the things pertaining to his thought and will, for these are the interiors themselves that make man to be man, and such a man as he is in respect to these interiors. . xlvi. the resuscitation of man from the dead and his entrance into eternal life. when the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit's thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. this takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. but the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. it is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. and this is why in the word in its internal sense "death" signifies resurrection and continuation of life.{ } {footnote } in the word "death" signifies resurrection, for when man dies his life still goes on (n. , , , , , ). . there is an inmost communication of the spirit with the breathing and with the beating of the heart, the spirit's thought communicating with the breathing, and its affection, which is of love, with the heart;{ } consequently when these two motions cease in the body there is at once a separation. these two motions, the respiration of the lungs and the beating of heart, are the very bond on the sundering of which the spirit is left to itself; and the body being then deprived of the life of its spirit grows cold and begins to decay. this inmost communication of the spirit of man is with the respiration and with the heart, because on these all vital motions depend, not only in general but in every particular.{ } {footnote } the heart corresponds to the will, thus to the affection which belongs to the love, while the respiration of the lungs corresponds to the understanding, thus to the thought (n. ). from this the "heart" in the word signifies the will and love (n. , , ). the "soul" signifies understanding, faith, and truth; therefore "from the soul and from the heart" signifies what is from the understanding, faith, and truth, and what is from the will, love, and good (n. , ). the correspondence of the heart and lungs with the greatest man, or heaven (n. - ). {footnote } the beating of the heart and the respiration of the lungs reign in the body throughout, and flow mutually into every part (n. , , ). . after the separation the spirit of man continues in the body for a short time, but only until the heart's action has wholly ceased, which happens variously in accord with the diseased condition that causes death, with some the motion of the heart continuing for some time, with others not so long. as soon as this motion ceases the man is resuscitated; but this is done by the lord alone. resuscitation means the drawing forth of the spirit from the body, and its introduction into the spiritual world; this is commonly called the resurrection. the spirit is not separated from the body until the motion of the heart has ceased, for the reason that the heart corresponds to the affection of love, which is the very life of man, for it is from love that everyone has vital heat;{ } consequently as long as this conjunction continues correspondence continues, and thereby the life of the spirit in the body. {footnote } love is the being [esse] of the life of man (n. ). love is spiritual heat, and therefore the very vital itself of man (n. , , , , - , , ). affection is a continuation of love (n. ). . how this resuscitation is effected has both been told to me and shown to me in living experience. the actual experience was granted to me that i might have a complete knowledge of the process. . as to the senses of the body i was brought into a state of insensibility, thus nearly into the state of the dying; but with the interior life and thought remaining unimpaired, in order that i might perceive and retain in the memory the things that happened to me, and that happen to those that are resuscitated from the dead. i perceived that the respiration of the body was almost wholly taken away; but the interior respiration of the spirit went on in connection with a slight and tacit respiration of the body. then at first a communication of the pulse of the heart with the celestial kingdom was established, because that kingdom corresponds to the heart in man.{ } angels from that kingdom were seen, some at a distance, and two sitting near my head. thus all my own affection was taken away although thought and perception continued. [ ] i was in this state for some hours. then the spirits that were around me withdrew, thinking that i was dead; and an aromatic odor like that of an embalmed body was perceived, for when the celestial angels are present everything pertaining to the corpse is perceived as aromatic, and when spirits perceive this they cannot approach; and in this way evil spirits are kept away from man's spirit when he is being introduced into eternal life. the angels seated at my head were silent, merely sharing their thoughts with mine; and when their thoughts are received the angels know that the spirit of man is in a state in which it can be drawn forth from the body. this sharing of their thoughts was effected by looking into my face, for in this way in heaven thoughts are shared. [ ] as my thought and perception continued, that i might know and remember how resuscitation is effected, i perceived the angels first tried to ascertain what my thought was, whether it was like the thought of those who are dying, which is usually about eternal life; also that they wished to keep my mind in that thought. afterwards i was told that the spirit of man is held in its last thought when the body expires, until it returns to the thoughts that are from its general or ruling affection in the world. especially was i permitted to see and feel that there was a pulling and drawing forth, as it were, of the interiors of my mind, thus of my spirit, from the body; and i was told that this is from the lord, and that the resurrection is thus effected. {footnote } the heart corresponds to the lord's celestial kingdom, the lungs to his spiritual kingdom (n. , , ). . the celestial angels who are with the one that is resuscitated do not withdraw from him, because they love everyone; but when the spirit comes into such a state that he can no longer be affiliated with celestial angels, he longs to get away from them. when this takes place angels from the lord's spiritual kingdom come, through whom is given the use of light; for before this he saw nothing, but merely thought. i was shown how this is done. the angels appeared to roll off, as it were, a coat from the left eye towards the bridge of the nose, that the eye might be opened and be enabled to see. this is only an appearance, but to the spirit it seemed to be really done. when the coat thus seems to have been rolled off there is a slight sense of light, but very dim, like what is seen through the eyelids on first awakening from sleep. to me this dim light took on a heavenly hue, but i was told afterwards that the color varies. then something is felt to be gently rolled off from the face, and when this is done spiritual thought is awakened. this rolling off from the face is also an appearance, which represents the spirit's passing from natural thought into spiritual thought. the angels are extremely careful that only such ideas as savor of love shall proceed from the one resuscitated. they now tell him that he is a spirit. when he has come into the enjoyment of light the spiritual angels render to the new spirit every service he can possibly desire in that state; and teach him about the things of the other life so far as he can comprehend them. but if he has no wish to be taught the spirit longs to get away from the company of the angels. nevertheless, the angels do not withdraw from him, but he separates himself from them; for the angels love everyone, and desire nothing so much as to render service, to teach, and to lead into heaven; this constitutes their highest delight. when the spirit has thus withdrawn he is received by good spirits, and as long as he continues in their company everything possible is done for him. but if he had lived such a life in the world as would prevent his enjoying the company of the good he longs to get away from the good, and this experience is repeated until he comes into association with such as are in entire harmony with his life in the world; and with such he finds his own life, and what is surprising, he then leads a life like that which he led in the world. . this opening state of man's life after death lasts only a few days. how he is afterwards led from one state to another, and finally either into heaven or into hell, will be told in what follows. this, too, i have been permitted to learn by much experience. . i have talked with some on the third day after their decease, when the process described above (n. , ) had been completed, especially with three whom i had known in the world, to whom i mentioned that arrangements were now being made for burying their bodies; i said, for burying them; on hearing which they were smitten with a kind of surprise, saying that they were alive, and that the thing that had served them in the world was what was being buried. afterwards they wondered greatly that they had not believed in such a life after death while they lived in the body, and especially that scarcely any within the church so believed. those that have not believed in the world in any life of the soul after the life of the body are greatly ashamed when they find themselves to be alive. but those that have confirmed themselves in that disbelief seek affiliation with their like, and are separated from those that have had faith. such are for the most part attached to some infernal society, because they have also denied the divine and have despised the truths of the church; for so far as any one confirms himself against the eternal life of his soul he confirms himself also against whatever pertains to heaven and the church. . xlvii. man after death is in a complete human form it has already been shown in several previous chapters that the form of the spirit of man is the human form, that is, that the spirit is a man even in form, especially where it is shown that every angel has a complete human form (n. - ) that in respect to his interiors every man is a spirit (n. - ); and that the angels in heaven are from the human race (n. - ). [ ] this can be seen still more clearly from the fact that it is by virtue of his spirit, and not by virtue of his body that man is a man, and that the bodily form is added to the spirit in accordance with the spirit's form, and not the reverse, for it is in accordance with its own form that the spirit is clothed with a body. consequently the spirit of man acts into every part of the body, even the minutest, insomuch that if any part is not actuated by the spirit, or the spirit is not active in it, it does not live. any one can see that this is true from this fact alone, that thought and will actuate all things and each thing of the body with such entire command that everything concurs, and any thing that does not concur is not a part of the body, but is cast out as something without life; and thought and will belong, not to the body, but to the spirit of man. [ ] a spirit that has been loosed from the body or the spirit in another man, is not visible in the human form to man, because the body's organ of sight, or its eye, so far as it sees in the world, is a material organ, and what is material can see only what is material, while what is spiritual sees what is spiritual. when, therefore, the material part of the eye becomes darkened and is deprived of its cooperation with the spiritual, the eye sees spirits in their own form, which is the human form, not only the spirits that are in the spiritual world, but also the spirit of another man while it is yet in its body. . the form of the spirit is the human form because man is created in respect to his spirit in the form of heaven, for all things of heaven and of the order of heaven are brought together in the things that constitute the mind of man;{ } and from this comes his capacity to receive intelligence and wisdom. whether you say the capacity to receive intelligence and wisdom or the capacity to receive heaven it is the same thing, as can be seen from what has been shown about the light and heat of heaven (n. - ); the form of heaven (n. - ); the wisdom of angels (n. - ); and in the chapter that the form of heaven as a whole and in part reflects a single man (n. - ); and this by virtue of the divine human of the lord, which is the source of heaven and its form (n. - ). {footnote } man is the being into whom are brought together all things of divine order, and by creation he is divine order in form (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , ). so far as a man lives in accordance with divine order he is seen in the other life as a man, complete and beautiful (n. , , ). . that which has now been said can be understood by the rational man, for he can see it from the connection of causes and from truths in their order; but it is not understood by a man who is not rational, and for several reasons, the chief of which is that he has no desire to understand it because it is opposed to the falsities that he has made his truths; and he that is unwilling to understand for this reason has closed to his rational faculty the way to heaven, although that way can still be opened whenever the will's resistance ceases (see above, n. ). that man is able to understand truths and be rational whenever he so wishes has been made clear to me by much experience. evil spirits that have become irrational in the world by rejecting the divine and the truths of the church, and confirming themselves against them, have frequently been turned by divine power towards those who were in the light of truth, and they then comprehended all things as the angels did, and acknowledged them to be true, and also that they comprehended them all. but the moment these spirits relapsed into themselves, and turned back to the love of their will, they had no comprehension of truths and affirmed the opposite. [ ] i have also heard certain dwellers in hell saying that they knew and perceived that which they did to be evil and that which they thought to be false; but that they were unable to resist the delight of their love, that is, their will, and that it is their will that drives their thought to see evil as good and falsity as truth. evidently, then, those that are in falsity from evil have the ability to understand and be rational, but have no wish to; and they have no wish to for the reason that they have loved falsities more than truths, because these agree with the evils in which they are. to love and to will is the same thing, for what a man wills he loves, and what he loves he wills. [ ] because the state of men is such that they are able to understand truths if they wish to, i have been permitted to confirm spiritual truths, which are truths of heaven and the church, even by reasonings, and this in order that the falsities by which the rational mind in many has been closed up may be dispersed by reasonings, and thus the eye may perhaps in some degree be opened; for to confirm spiritual goods by reasonings is permitted to all that are in truths. who could ever understand the word from the sense of its letter, unless he saw from an enlightened reason the truths it contains? is not this the source of so many heresies from the same word?{ } {footnote } the truths of doctrine of the church derived from the word must be the starting-point, and these must first be acknowledged, and afterwards it is permissible to consult knowledges (n. ). thus it is permissible for those that are in an affirmative state towards the truths of faith to confirm them rationally by knowledges, but it is not permissible for those who are in a negative state (n. , , , ). it is in accordance with divine order to enter rationally from spiritual truths into knowledges, which are natural truths, but not to enter from the latter into the former, because spiritual influx into natural things is possible, but not natural or physical influx into spiritual things (n. , , , , , , , , ). . that the spirit of man, when it has been loosed from the body, is still a man and in a like form, has been proved to me by the daily experience of many years; for i have seen such and have listened to them a thousand times, and have talked with them about this fact, that men in the world do not believe them to be men, and that those that do believe this are regarded by the learned as simple. spirits are grieved at heart that such ignorance still continues in the world, and above all within the church. [ ] but this belief they said had emanated chiefly from the learned, who had thought about the soul from ideas derived from bodily sense; and from such ideas the only conception they formed of the soul was as being mere thought; and when this is regarded apart from any subject as its containant and source it is merely a fleeting breath of pure ether that must needs be dissipated when the body dies. but as the church believes from the word in the immortality of the soul they are compelled to ascribe to it something vital, such as pertains to thought, but they deny to it any thing of sense, such as man possesses, until it has again been joined to the body. on this opinion the doctrine in regard to the resurrection is based, with the belief that the soul and body will be joined again at the time of the final judgment. for this reason when any one thinks about the soul in accordance with this doctrine and these conjectures, he has no conception that it is a spirit, and in a human form. and still further, scarcely any one at this day knows what the spiritual is, and still less that spiritual beings, as all spirits and angels are, have any human form. [ ] consequently, nearly all that go from this world are greatly surprised to find that they are alive, and are as much men as before, that they see, hear, and speak, and that their body enjoys the sense of touch as before, with no difference whatever (see above, n. ). and when they cease to be astonished at themselves they are astonished that the church should know nothing about this state of men after death, thus nothing about heaven or hell, when in fact all that have ever lived in the world are in the other life and live as men. and as they wondered also why this had not been disclosed to man by visions, being an essential of the faith of the church, they were told from heaven that although this might have been done, since nothing is easier when it is the lord's good pleasure, yet those that have confirmed themselves in the opposite falsities would not believe even if they themselves should behold it; also that there is danger in confirming any thing by visions when men are in falsities, for they would then first believe and afterwards deny, and thus would profane the truth itself, since to believe and afterwards deny is to profane; and those who profane truths are cast down into the lowest and most grievous of all the hells.{ } [ ] this danger is what is meant by the lord's words: he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts lest they should see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and should turn and i should heal them (john : ). and that those that are in falsities would not believe [even if visions were given] is meant by these words: abraham said to the rich man in hell, they have moses and the prophets, let them hear them. but he said, nay, father abraham, but if one came to them from the dead they would be converted. but abraham said to him, if they hear not moses and the prophets, neither will they believe though one should rise from the dead (luke : - ). {footnote } profanation is the mixing of good and evil and of truth and falsity in man (n. ). only those can profane truth and good, or the holy things of the word and the church, who first acknowledge them, and still more who live according to them, and who afterwards recede from the belief and reject it, and live for themselves and the world (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). if man after repentance of heart relapses to former evils he profanes, and his latter state is then worse than his former (n. ). those that have not acknowledged holy things, still less those that have no knowledge of them, cannot profane them (n. , , , , ). the heathen who are out of the church and do not have the word cannot profane it (n. , , , ). on this account interior truths were not disclosed to the jews, for if they had been disclosed and acknowledged that people would have profaned them (n. , , ). the lot of profaners in the other life is the worst of all, because not only the good and truth they have acknowledged, but also their evil and falsity remain, and as these cling together, the life is rent asunder (n. , , ). consequently most careful provision is made by the lord to prevent profanation (n. , ). . when the spirit of man first enters the world of spirits, which takes place shortly after his resuscitation, as described above, his face and his tone of voice resemble those he had in the world, because he is then in the state of his exteriors, and his interiors are not as yet uncovered. this is man's first state after death. but subsequently his face is changed, and becomes entirely different, resembling his ruling affection or ruling love, in conformity with which the interiors of his mind had been while he was in the world and his spirit while it was in the body. for the face of a man's spirit differs greatly from the face of his body. the face of his body is from his parents, but the face of his spirit is from his affection, and is an image of it. when the life of the spirit in the body is ended, and its exteriors are laid aside and its interiors disclosed, it comes into this affection. this is man's second state. i have seen some that have recently arrived from the world, and have recognized them from their face and speech; but seeing them afterwards i did not recognize them. those that had been in good affections appeared with beautiful faces; but those that had been in evil affections with misshapen faces; for man's spirit, viewed in itself, is nothing but his affection; and the face is its outward form. another reason why faces are changed is that in the other life no one is permitted to counterfeit affections that are not his own, and thus assume looks that are contrary to his love. all in the other life are brought into such a state as to speak as they think, and to manifest in their looks and gestures the inclinations of their will. and because of this the faces of all become forms and images of their affections; and in consequence all that have known each other in the world know each other in the world of spirits, but not in heaven nor in hell (as has been said above, n. ).{ } {footnote } the face is so formed as to correspond with the interiors (n. - , ). the correspondence of the face and its expressions with the affections of the mind (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). with the angels of heaven the face makes one with the interiors that belong to the mind (n. - , , ). therefore in the word the face signifies the interiors that belong to the mind, that is, to the affection and thought (n. , , , , , , , ). in what manner the influx from the brain into the face has been changed in process of time and with it the face itself as regards its correspondence with the interiors (n. , ). . the faces of hypocrites are changed more slowly than those of others, because by practice they had formed a habit of so managing their interiors as to imitate good affections; consequently for a long time they appear not unbeautiful. but as that which they had assumed is gradually put off, and the interiors of the mind are brought into accord with the form of their affections, they become after awhile more misshapen than others. hypocrites are such as have been accustomed to talk like angels, but interiorly have acknowledged nature alone and not the divine, and have therefore denied what pertains to heaven and the church. . it should be known that everyone's human form after death is the more beautiful in proportion as he has more interiorly loved divine truths and lived according to them; for everyone's interiors are opened and formed in accordance with his love and life; therefore the more interior the affection is the more like heaven it is, and in consequence the more beautiful the face is. this is why the angels in the inmost heaven are the most beautiful, for they are forms of celestial love. but those that have loved divine truths more exteriorly, and thus have lived in accordance with them in a more external way, are less beautiful; for exterior affections only shine forth from their faces; and through these no interior heavenly love shines, consequently nothing of the form of heaven as it is in itself. there is seen in the faces of such something comparatively obscure, not vivified by any thing of interior life shining through it. in a word, all perfection increases toward interiors and decreases toward exteriors, and as perfection increases and decreases so does beauty. i have seen angelic faces of the third heaven of such radiance that no painter with all his art could possibly give any such light to his colors as to equal a thousandth part of the brightness and life that shone forth from their countenances. but the faces of the angels of the lowest heaven may in some measure be equalled. . in conclusion i will mention a certain arcanum hitherto unknown to any one, namely, that every good and truth that goes forth from the lord and makes heaven is in the human form; and this not only as a whole and in what is greatest, but also in every part and what is least; also that this form affects everyone who receives good and truth from the lord, and causes everyone who is in heaven to be in the human form in accordance with his reception of good and truth. it is in consequence of this that heaven is like itself in general and in particular, and that the human form is the form of the whole, of every society, and of every angel (as has been shown in the four chapters from n. to ); to which let it be added that it is the form of the least things of thought derived from heavenly love with the angels. no man, however, can easily comprehend this arcanum; but it is clearly comprehended by the angels, because they are in the light of heaven. . xlviii. after death man is possessed of every sense, and of all the memory, thought, and affection, that he had in the world, leaving nothing behind except his earthly body. it has been proved to me by manifold experience that when man passes from the natural world into the spiritual, as he does when he dies, he carries with him all his possessions, that is, everything that belongs to him as a man, except his earthly body. for when man enters the spiritual world or the life after death, he is in a body as he was in the world, with no apparent difference, since he neither sees nor feels any difference. but his body is then spiritual, and thus separated or purified from all that is earthly; and when what is spiritual touches or sees what is spiritual, it is just the same as when what is natural touches or sees what is natural. so when a man has become a spirit he does not know otherwise than that he is in the same body that he had in the world and thus does not know that he has died. [ ] moreover, a man's spirit enjoys every sense, both outer and inner, that he enjoyed in the world; he sees as before, he hears and speaks as before, smells and tastes, and when touched, he feels the touch as before; he also longs, desires, craves, thinks, reflects, is stirred, loves, wills, as before; and one who takes delight in studies, reads and writes as before. in a word, when a man passes from one life into the other, or from one world into the other, it is like passing from one place into another, carrying with him all things that he had possessed in himself as a man; so that by death, which is only the death of the earthly body, man cannot be said to have lost anything really his own. [ ] furthermore, he carries with him his natural memory, retaining everything that he has heard, seen, read, learned, or thought, in the world from earliest infancy even to the end of life; although the natural objects that are contained in the memory, since they cannot be reproduced in the spiritual world, are quiescent, just as they are when one is not thinking of them. nevertheless, they are reproduced when the lord so wills. but more will be said presently about this memory and its state after death. a sensual man finds it impossible to believe that such is the state of man after death, because he cannot comprehend it; for a sensual man must needs think naturally even about spiritual things; therefore, any thing that does not appeal to his senses, that is, that he does not see with his bodily eyes and touch with his hands (as is said of thomas, john : , , ) he denies the existence of. (what the sensual man is may be seen above, n. and notes.) . [a.] and yet there is a great difference between man's life in the spiritual world and his life in the natural world, in regard both to his outer senses and their affections and his inner senses and their affections. those that are in heaven have more exquisite senses, that is, a keener sight and hearing, and also think more wisely than when they were in the world; for they see in the light of heaven, which surpasses by many degrees the light of the world (see above, n. ); and they hear by means of a spiritual atmosphere, which likewise surpasses by many degrees the earthly atmosphere (n. ). this difference in respect to the outward senses is like the difference between clear sunshine and dark cloudiness in the world, or between noonday light and evening shade. for the light of heaven, since it is divine truth, enables the eyes of angels to perceive and distinguish most minute things. [ ] moreover, their outer sight corresponds to their inner sight or understanding; for with angels one sight so flows into the other as to act as one with it; and this gives them their great keenness of vision. in like manner, their hearing corresponds to their perception, which pertains both to the understanding and to the will, and in consequence they perceive in the tone and words of one speaking the most minute things of his affection and thought; in the tone what pertains to his affection, and in the words what pertains to his thought (see above, n. - ). but the rest of the senses with the angels are less exquisite than the senses of seeing and hearing, for the reason that seeing and hearing serve their intelligence and wisdom, and the rest do not; and if the other senses were equally exquisite they would detract from the light and joy of their wisdom, and would let in the delight of pleasures pertaining to various appetites and to the body; and so far as these prevail they obscure and weaken the understanding. this takes place in the world, where men become gross and stupid in regard to spiritual truths so far as they indulge the sense of taste and yield to the allurements of the sense of touch. [ ] from what has already been said and shown in the chapter on the wisdom of the angels of heaven (n. - ), it can be seen that the inner senses also of the angels of heaven, which pertain to their thought and affection, are more exquisite and perfect than the senses they had in the world. but as regards the state of those that are in hell as compared with the state of those in the world there is also a great difference, for as great as is the perfection and excellence of the outer and inner senses of the angels in heaven, with those who are in hell the imperfection is equally great. but the state of these will be treated of hereafter. . [b.] that when a man leaves the world he takes with him all his memory has been shown to me in many ways, and many of the things i have seen and heard are worthy of mention, some of which i will relate in order. there were some who denied their crimes and villainies which they had perpetrated in the world; and in consequence, that they might not be believed innocent, all their deeds were disclosed and reviewed from their memory in order, from their earliest to their latest years; these were chiefly adulteries and whoredoms. [ ] there were some who had deceived others by wicked arts and had committed thefts. the deceits and thefts of these were also enumerated in detail, many of which were known to scarcely any in the world except themselves. these deeds they confessed, because they were plainly set forth, with every thought, intention, pleasure, and fear which occupied their minds at the time. [ ] there were others who had accepted bribes, and had rendered venal judgments, who were similarly explored from their memory and from it everything they had done from the beginning to the end of their office was reviewed. every detail in regard to what and how much they had received, as well as the time, and their state of mind and intention, were brought to their recollection and made visibly clear to the number of many hundreds. this was done with several and what is wonderful, in some cases their memorandum-books, in which they had recorded these things, were opened and read before them page by page. [ ] others who had enticed maidens to shame or had violated chastity were called to a like judgment; and the details of their crimes were drawn forth from their memory and reviewed. the very faces of the maidens and women were also exhibited as if present, with the places, words and intentions, and this as suddenly as when a scene is presented to the sight, the exhibitions continuing sometimes for hours. [ ] there was one who had made light of slandering others; and i heard his slanders recounted in order, and his defamations, with the very words, and the persons about whom and before whom they were uttered; all of which were produced and presented to the very life, although while he lived in the world he had most carefully concealed everything. [ ] there was one who had deprived a relative of his inheritance under a fraudulent pretext; and he was in like manner convicted and judged; and what is wonderful, the letters and papers that passed between them were read in my hearing, and it was said that not a word was lacking. [ ] the same person shortly before his death had also secretly poisoned his neighbor. this was disclosed in this way. he appeared to be digging a trench under his feet, from which a man came forth as out of a grave, and cried out to him, "what have you done to me?" then everything was revealed, how the poisoner had talked with him in a friendly manner, and had held out the cup, also what he thought beforehand, and what happened afterwards. when all this had been disclosed he was sentenced to hell. [ ] in a word, to each evil spirit all his evils, villainies, robberies, artifices, and deceits are made clear, and are brought forth from his very memory, and his guilt is fully established; nor is there any possible room for denial, because all the circumstances are exhibited together. moreover, i have learned from a man's memory, when it was seen and inspected by angels, what his thoughts had been for a month, one day after another, and this without mistake, the thoughts being recalled just as they arose from day to day. [ ] from these examples it can be seen that man carries with him all of his memory, and that nothing can be so concealed in the world as not to be disclosed after death, which is done in the presence of many, according to the lord's words: there is nothing concealed that shall not be uncovered, and nothing secret that shall not be known; therefore what ye have spoken in the dark shall be heard in the light and what ye have spoken in the ear shall be proclaimed on the housetops (luke : , ). . in disclosing his acts to a man after death, the angels to whom the office of searching is assigned look into his face, and their search extends through the whole body, beginning with the fingers of each hand, and thus proceeding through the whole. as i wondered at this the reason was given, namely, that as all things of the thought and will are inscribed on the brain, for their beginnings are there, so are they likewise inscribed on the whole body, since all things of thought and will extend from their beginnings into all things of the body and there terminate as in their outmosts; and this is why the things that are inscribed on the memory from the will and consequent thought are inscribed not only on the brain, but also upon the whole man, and there exist in order in accordance with the order of the parts of the body. it was thus made clear that man as a whole is such as he is in his will and its thought, even to the extent that an evil man is his own evil, and a good man his own good.{ } this shows what is meant by the book of man's life spoken of in the word, namely, that all things that he has done and all things that he has thought are inscribed on the whole man, and when they are called forth from the memory they appear as if read in a book, and when the spirit is viewed in the light of heaven, they appear as in an image. to all this i would add something remarkable in regard to the continuance of the memory after death, by which i was assured that not only things in general but also the minutest particulars that have entered the memory remain and are never obliterated. i saw books there containing writings as in the world, and was told that they were from the memory of those who wrote, and that there was not a single word lacking in them that was in a book written by the same person in the world; and thus all the minutest particulars might be drawn from one's memory, even those that he had forgotten in the world. and the reason was given, namely, that man has an external and an internal memory, an external memory belonging to his natural man, and an internal memory belonging to his spiritual man; and that every least thing that a man has thought, willed, spoken, done or even heard and seen, is inscribed on his internal or spiritual memory;{ } and that what is there is never erased, since it is also inscribed on the spirit itself and on the members of its body, as has been said above; and that the spirit is thus formed in accordance with the thoughts and acts of its will. i know that this sounds like a paradox, and is therefore difficult to believe; but still it is true. let no one believe, then, that there is any thing that a man has ever thought in himself or done in secret that can be concealed after death; but let him believe that all things and each single thing are then laid open as clear as day. {footnote } a good man, spirit, or angel, is his own good and his own truth, that is, he is wholly such as his good and truth are (n. , ). this is because good is what makes the will and truth the understanding; and the will and understanding make everything of life in man, spirit, or angel (n. , , ). it is the same thing to say that a man, spirit, or angel is his own love (n. , , ). {footnote } man has two memories an outer and an inner, or a natural and a spiritual memory (n. - ). man does not know that he has an inner memory (n. , ). how far the inner memory surpasses the outer (n. ). the things contained in the outer memory are in the light of the world, but the things contained in the inner are in the light of heaven (n. ). it is from the inner memory that man is able to think and speak intellectually and rationally (n. ). all things and each thing that a man has thought, spoken, and done, and that he has seen and heard, are inscribed on the inner memory (n. , ). that memory is the book of his life (n. , , , ). in the inner memory are the truths that have been made truths of faith, and the goods that have been made goods of love (n. , ). those things that have become matters of habit and have come to be things of the life, and have thus disappeared from the outer memory, are in the inner memory (n. , , ). spirits and angels speak from the inner memory and consequently have a universal language (n. , , , ). the languages of the world belong to the outer memory (n. , ). . although the external or natural memory remains in man after death, the merely natural things in it are not reproduced in the other life, but only the spiritual things adjoined to the natural by correspondences; but when these are present to the sight they appear in exactly the same form as they had in the natural world; for all things seen in the heavens have just the same appearance as in the world, although in their essence they are not natural but spiritual (as may be seen in the chapter on representatives and appearances in heaven, n. - ). [ ] but the external or natural memory in respect to the things in it that are derived from the material, and from time and space, and from other properties of nature, is not serviceable to the spirit in the way that it was serviceable to it in the world, for whenever man thinks in the world from his external sensual, and not at the same time from his internal or intellectual sensual, he thinks naturally and not spiritually; but in the other life when he is a spirit in the spiritual world he does not think naturally but spiritually, and to think spiritually is to think intellectually or rationally. for this reason the external or natural memory in respect to its material contents is then quiescent, and only those things that man has imbibed in the world by means of material things, and has made rational, come into use. the external memory becomes quiescent in respect to material things because these cannot then be brought forth, since spirits and angels speak from those affections and thoughts that are proper to their minds; and are therefore unable to give expression to any thing that is not in accord with their affections and thoughts as can be seen in what is said about the speech of angels in heaven and their speech with man (n. - ). [ ] because of this man after death is rational, not in the degree that he was skilled in languages and sciences in the world, but in the degree in which he became rational by means of these. i have talked with many who were believed in the world to be learned because they were acquainted with ancient languages, such as the hebrew, greek, and latin, but had not cultivated their rational faculty by what is written in those languages. some of them were seen to be just as simple as those who knew nothing of those languages, and some even stupid, and yet they retained the conceit of being wiser than others. [ ] i have talked with some who had believed in the world that man is wise in the measure of the contents of his memory, and who had stored up many things in their memory, speaking almost solely from the memory, and therefore not from themselves but from others, and their rationality had not been at all perfected by means of the things in their memory. some of these were stupid and some sottish, not in the least comprehending whether a truth is true or not, and seizing upon all falsities that are passed off for truths by those who called themselves learned; for from themselves they are unable to see any thing, whether it be true or not, and consequently are unable to see any thing rationally when listening to others. [ ] i have also talked with some who had written much in the world on scientific subjects of every kind, and had thereby acquired a worldwide reputation for learning. some of these, indeed, had the ability to reason about truths, whether they are true or not; and some, when they had turned to those who were in the light of truth, had some comprehension that truths are true, but still had no wish to comprehend them, and therefore when they were in their own falsities, and thus in themselves, denied them. some had no more wisdom than the unlearned common people. thus each differed from the other according as he had cultivated his rational faculty by means of the knowledges he had written about or collated. but those who were opposed to the truths of the church, and who thought from mere knowledges and confirmed themselves thereby in falsities, did not cultivate their rational faculty, but cultivated only an ability to reason, which in the world is believed to be rationality. but this ability is wholly different from rationality; it is an ability to prove any thing it pleases, and from preconceived principles and from fallacies to see falsities and not truths. such persons can never be brought to acknowledge truths, since truths cannot be seen from falsities; but falsities may be seen from truths. [ ] the rational faculty of man is like a garden or shrubbery, or like fresh ground; the memory is the soil, truths known and knowledges are the seeds, the light and heat of heaven cause them to grow; without light and heat there is no germination; so is it with the mind when the light of heaven, which is divine truth, and the heat of heaven, which is divine love, are not admitted; rationality is solely from these. it is a great grief to the angels that learned men for the most part ascribe all things to nature, and have thereby so closed up the interiors of their minds as to be unable to see any thing of truth from the light of truth, which is the light of heaven. in consequence of this such in the other life are deprived of their ability to reason that they may not disseminate falsities among the simple good and lead them astray; and are sent away into desert places. . a certain spirit was indignant because he was unable to remember many things that he knew in the life of the body, grieving over the lost pleasure which he had so much enjoyed, but he was told that he had lost nothing at all, that he still knew each and everything that he had known, although in the world where he now was no one was permitted to call forth such things from the memory, and that he ought to be satisfied that he could now think and speak much better and more perfectly than before, and that his rational was not now immersed as before in gross, obscure, material and corporeal things, which are of no use in the kingdom into which he had now come; also that he now possessed everything conducive to the uses of eternal life, and that this is the only way of becoming blessed and happy; and therefore it is the part of ignorance to believe that in this kingdom intelligence perishes with the removal or quiescence of the material things in the memory; for the real fact is that so far as the mind can be withdrawn from things of sense pertaining to the external man or the body, so far it is elevated to things spiritual and heavenly. . what these two memories are is sometimes presented to view in the other life in forms not elsewhere seen; for many things which in man take the form of ideas are there presented as objects of sight. the external memory there presents the appearance of a callus, the internal the appearance of a medullary substance like that in the human brain; and from this what they are can be known. with those that have devoted themselves in the life of the body to the cultivation of the memory alone, and have not cultivated their rational faculty, the callosity appears hard and streaked within as with tendons. with those that have filled the memory with falsities it appears hairy and rough, because of the confused mass of things in it. with those that have cultivated the memory with the love of self and the world as an end it appears glued together and ossified. with those that have wished to penetrate into divine arcana by means of learning, especially of a philosophical kind, with an unwillingness to believe until convinced by such proofs, the memory appears like a dark substance, of such a nature as to absorb the rays of light and turn them into darkness. with those that have practiced deceit and hypocrisy it appears hard and bony like ebony, which reflects the rays of light. but with those that have been in the good of love and the truths of faith there is no such callous appearance, because their inner memory transmits the rays of light into the outer; and in its objects or ideas as in their basis or their ground, the rays terminate and find delightful receptacles; for the outer memory is the out most of order in which, when goods and truths are there, the spiritual and heavenly things are gently terminated and find their seat. . men living in the world who are in love to the lord and charity toward the neighbor have with them and in them angelic intelligence and wisdom, but it is then stored up in the inmosts of the inner memory; and they are not at all conscious of it until they put off corporeal things. then the natural memory is laid asleep and they awake into their inner memory, and then gradually into angelic memory itself. . how the rational faculty may be cultivated shall also be told in a few words. the genuine rational faculty consists of truths and not of falsities; whatever consists of falsities is not rational. there are three kinds of truths, civil, moral, and spiritual. civil truths relate to matters of judgment and of government in kingdoms, and in general to what is just and equitable in them. moral truths pertain to the matters of everyone's life which have regard to companionships and social relations, in general to what is honest and right, and in particular to virtues of every kind. but spiritual truths relate to matters of heaven and of the church, and in general to the good of love and the truth of faith. [ ] in every man there are three degrees of life (see above, n. ). the rational faculty is opened to the first degree by civil truths, to the second degree by moral truths, and to the third degree by spiritual truths. but it must be understood that the rational faculty that consists of these truths is not formed and opened by man's knowing them, but by his living according to them; and living according to them means loving them from spiritual affection; and to love truths from spiritual affection is to love what is just and equitable because it is just and equitable, what is honest and right because it is honest and right, and what is good and true because it is good and true; while living according to them and loving them from the bodily affection is loving them for the sake of self and for the sake of one's reputation, honor or gain. consequently, so far as man loves these truths from a bodily affection he fails to become rational, for he loves, not them, but himself; and the truths are made to serve him as servants serve their lord; and when truths become servants they do not enter the man and open any degree of life in him, not even the first, but merely rest in the memory as knowledges under a material form, and there conjoin themselves with the love of self, which is a bodily love. [ ] all this shows how man becomes rational, namely, that he becomes rational to the third degree by a spiritual love of the good and truth which pertain to heaven and the church; he becomes rational to the second degree by a love of what is honest and right; and to the first degree by a love of what is just and equitable. these two latter loves also become spiritual from a spiritual love of good and truth, because that love flows into them and conjoins itself to them and forms in them as it were its own semblance. . spirits and angels, equally with men, have a memory, whatever they hear, see, think, will and do, remaining with them, and thereby their rational faculty is continually cultivated even to eternity. thus spirits and angels, equally with men, are perfected in intelligence and wisdom by means of knowledges of truth and good. that spirits and angels have a memory i have been permitted to learn by much experience, having seen everything that they have thought and done, both in public and in private, called forth from their memories when they were with other spirits; and i have seen those that were in some truth from simple good imbued with knowledges, and thereby with intelligence, and afterwards raised up into heaven. but it must be understood that such are not imbued with knowledges and thereby with intelligence beyond the degree of affection for good and for truth that they have attained to while in the world; for such and so much of affection as any spirit or angel had in the world remains with him; and this affection is afterwards perfected by being filled out, which goes on to eternity. for everything is capable of being filled out to eternity, since everything is capable of infinite variation, thus of enrichment by various things, and consequently of multiplication and fructification. to any thing good there is no limit because it is from the infinite. that spirits and angels are being perfected unceasingly in intelligence and wisdom by means of knowledges of truth and good may be seen above, in the chapters on the wisdom of the angels of heaven (n. - ); on the heathen or people outside the church in heaven (n. - ); and on little children in heaven (n. - ); and that this is done to that degree of affection for good and for truth in which they had been in the world, and not beyond it, may be seen in n. . . xlix. man after death is such as his life had been in the world. every christian knows from the word that one's own life awaits him after death; for it is there said in many passages that man will be judged and rewarded according to his deeds and works; and no one who thinks from good and from real truth can help seeing that he who lives well goes to heaven and that he who lives wickedly goes to hell. but the evil man is unwilling to believe that his state after death is according to his life in the world; he thinks, especially when he is sick, that heaven is granted to everyone out of pure mercy, whatever his life may have been, and that this is done in accordance with his faith, which he separates from life. . that man will be judged and rewarded according to his deeds and works is declared in many passages in the word, some of which i will here quote: the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels and then he will render unto everyone according to his works (matt. : ). blessed are the dead that die in the lord; yea, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow them (apoc. : ). i will give to everyone according to his works (apoc. : ). i saw the dead, small and great, standing before god; and the books were opened and the dead were judged out of the things that were written in the books according to their works. the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up those that were in them, and they were judged everyone according to their works (apoc. : , ). behold i come, and my reward is with me, to give to everyone according to his works (apoc. : ). everyone that heareth my words and doeth them i will liken to a prudent man; but everyone that heareth my words and doeth them not is likened to a foolish man (matt. : , ). not everyone that saith unto me, lord, lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens; but he that doeth the will of my father who is in the heavens. many will say unto me in that day, lord, lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and through thy name cast out demons, and in thy name done many mighty works? but then will i confess to them, i know you not: depart from me, ye workers of iniquity (matt. : - ). then shall ye begin to say, we have eaten and drunk before thee; thou hast taught in our streets. but he will say, i tell you i know you not, ye workers of iniquity (luke : - ). i will recompense them according to their work and according to the doing of their hands (jer. : ). jehovah, whose eyes are open upon all the ways of men, to give to everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his works (jer. : ). i will visit upon his ways and recompense to him his works (hosea : ). jehovah doeth with us according to our ways and according to our works (zech. : ). in foretelling the last judgment the lord recounts nothing but works, teaching that those that have done good works will enter into eternal life, and those that have done evil works will enter into damnation, as in matthew ( : - ), and in many other passages that treat of the salvation and condemnation of man. it is clear that works and deeds constitute the outward life of man, and that the quality of his inward life is made evident in them. . but by deeds and works, what they are inwardly is here meant, and not the way they outwardly appear; for everyone knows that every deed and work goes forth from the man's will and thought; otherwise it would be nothing but a movement like that of an automaton or image. consequently, a deed or work viewed in itself is merely an effect that derives its soul and life from will and thought, even to the extent that it is nothing but will and thought in effect, and thus is will and thought in outward form. from this it follows that a deed or work is in quality such as are the will and thought that produce it. if the thought and will are good the deeds and works are good; but if the thought and will are evil the deeds and works are evil, although in outward form they appear alike. a thousand men may act alike, that is, may do like deeds, so alike in outward form as to be almost undistinguishable, and yet each one regarded in itself be different, because from an unlike will. [ ] for example, when one acts honestly and justly with a companion, one person may do it for the purpose of appearing to be honest and just out of regard to himself and his own honor; another out of regard to the world and gain; a third out of regard to reward and merit; a fourth out of regard to friendship; a fifth from fear of the law and the loss of reputation or employment; a sixth that he may draw some one to his own side, even when he is in the wrong; a seventh that he may deceive; and others from other motives. in all these instances although the deeds are good in appearance, since it is a good thing to act honestly and justly with a companion, they are nevertheless evil, because they are done, not out of regard to honesty and justice and for the love of these, but out of regard to love of self and the world which are loved; and honesty and justice are made to serve that love as servants serve a lord, whom the lord despises and dismisses when they fail to serve him. [ ] in outward form those act in a like way who act honestly and justly with a companion because they love what is honest and just. some of these act from the truth of faith or from obedience, because the word so commands; some from the good of faith or from conscience, because from a religious motive; some from good of charity towards the neighbor because his good should be regarded; some from the good of love to the lord because good should be done for the sake of good, as also what is honest and just should be done for the sake of honesty and justice; and this they love because it is from the lord, and because the divine that goes forth from the lord is in it, and consequently regarded in its very essence it is divine. the deeds or works of such are inwardly good, and therefore are outwardly good also; for, as has been said above, deeds or works are precisely such in quality as the thought and will from which they proceed, and apart from thought and will they are not deeds and works, but only inanimate movements. all this explains what is meant in the word by works and deeds. . as deeds and works are from the will and thought, so are they from the love and faith, consequently they are such as the love and faith are; for it is the same thing whether you say one's love or his will, and it is the same thing whether you say one's faith or his established thought; for that which a man loves he wills, and that which a man believes he thinks; and when a man loves what he believes he also wills it and as far as possible does it. everyone may know that love and faith are within man's will and thought, and not outside of them, for love is what kindles the will, and the thought is what it enlightens in matters of faith; therefore only those that are able to think wisely are enlightened, and in the measure of their enlightenment they think what is true and will it, or what is the same, they believe what is true and love it.{ } {footnote } as all things that exist according to order in the universe have relation to good and truth, so in man all things have relation to will and understanding (n. , ). for the reason that the will is a recipient of good and the understanding a recipient of truth (n. , , , , , , , ). it amounts to the same whether you say truth or faith, for faith belongs to truth and truth belongs to faith; and it amounts to the same whether you say good or love for love belongs to good and good belongs to love (n. , , , , ). from this it follows that the understanding is a recipient of faith, and the will a recipient of love (n. , , ). and since the understanding of man is capable of receiving faith in god and the will is capable of receiving love to god, man is capable of being conjoined with god in faith and love, and he that is capable of being conjoined with god in love and faith can never die (n. , , ). . but it must be understood that it is the will that makes the man, while thought makes the man only so far as it goes forth from the will; and deeds and works go forth from both; or what is the same, it is love that makes the man, and faith only so far as it goes forth from love; and deeds or works go forth from both. consequently, the will or love is the man himself, for whatever goes forth belongs to that from which it goes forth. to go forth is to be brought forth and presented in suitable form for being perceived and seen.{ } all this makes clear what faith is when separated from love, namely, that it is no faith, but mere knowledge, which has no spiritual life in it; likewise what a deed or work is apart from love, namely, that it is not a deed or work of life, but a deed or work of death, which possesses an appearance of life from an evil love and a belief in what is false. this appearance of life is what is called spiritual death. {footnote } the will of man is the very being [esse] of his life, because it is the receptacle of love or good, and the understanding is the outgo [existere] of life therefrom, because it is the receptacle of faith or truth (n. , , ). thus the life of the will is the chief life of man, and the life of the understanding proceeds therefrom (n. , , , , , , , , ). in the same way as light proceeds from fire or flame (n. , ). from this it follows that man is man by virtue of his will and his understanding therefrom (n. , , , , , ). every man is loved and esteemed by others in accordance with the good of his will and of his understanding therefrom, for he that wills well and understands well is loved and esteemed; and he that understands well and does not will well is set aside and despised (n. , ). after death man continues to be such as his will is, and his understanding therefrom (n, , , , ). consequently after death man continues to be such as his love is, and his faith therefrom; and whatever belongs to his faith and not also to his love then vanishes, because it is not in the man, thus not of the man (n. , , ). . again, it must be understood that in deeds or works the whole man is exhibited, and that his will and thought or his love and faith, which are his interiors, are not complete until they exist in deeds or works, which are his exteriors, for these are the outmosts in which the will and thought terminate, and without such terminations they are interminate, and have as yet no existence, that is, are not yet in the man. to think and to will without doing, when there is opportunity, is like a flame enclosed in a vessel and goes out; also like seed cast upon the sand, which fails to grow, and so perishes with its power of germination. but to think and will and from that to do is like a flame that gives heat and light all around, or like a seed in the ground that grows up into a tree or flower and continues to live. everyone can know that willing and not doing, when there is opportunity, is not willing; also that loving and not doing good, when there is opportunity, is not loving, but mere thought that one wills and loves; and this is thought separate, which vanishes and is dissipated. love and will constitute the soul itself of a deed or work, and give form to its body in the honest and just things that the man does. this is the sole source of man's spiritual body, or the body of his spirit; that is, it is formed solely out of the things that the man does from his love or will (see above, n. ). in a word, all things of man and his spirit are contained in his deeds or works.{ } {footnote } interior things flow in successively into exterior things even down to the extreme or outmost, and there they come forth and have permanent existence (n. , , , , ). they not only flow in, but in the outmost they form the simultaneous, in what order (n. , , , ). thereby all interior things are held together in connection, and have permanent existence (n. ). deeds or works are the outmosts which contain the interiors (n. ). therefore being recompensed and judged according to deeds and works is being recompensed and judged in accordance with all things of one's love and faith, or of his will and thought because these are the interiors contained in deeds and works (n. , , , , , ). . all this makes clear what the life is that awaits man after death, namely, that it is his love and his faith therefrom, not only in potency, but also in act; thus that it is his deeds or works, because in these all things of man's love and faith are contained. . it is man's ruling love that awaits him after death, and this is in no way changed to eternity. everyone has many loves; but they are all related to his ruling love, and make one with it or together compose it. all things of the will that are in harmony with the ruling love are called loves, because they are loved. these loves are both inner and outer; some directly connected and some mediately; some nearer and some more remote; they are subservient in various ways. taken together they constitute a kingdom, as it were, such being the order in which they are arranged in man, although man knows nothing what ever about that arrangement. and yet something of it is made manifest to him in the other life, for the spread of his thought and affection there is in accordance with the arrangement of his loves, his thought and affection extending into heavenly societies when the ruling love is made up of the loves of heaven, but into infernal societies when it is made up of the loves of hell. that all the thought and affection of spirits and of angels has extension into societies may be seen above, in the chapters on the wisdom of the angels of heaven, and on the form of heaven which determines affiliations and communications there. . but what has been said thus far appeals only to the thought of the rational man. that it may also be presented to the perception derived from the senses, i will add some experiences by which it may be illustrated and confirmed. first, man after death is his own love or his own will. second, man continues to eternity such as his will or ruling love is. third, the man who has heavenly and spiritual love goes to heaven, while the man who has corporeal and worldly love, and no heavenly and spiritual love, goes to hell. fourth, unless faith is from heavenly love it does not endure in man. fifth, love in act, that is, the life of man, is what endures. . (i) man after death is his own love or his own will. this has been proved to me by manifold experience. the entire heaven is divided into societies according to differences of good of love; and every spirit who is taken up into heaven and becomes an angel is taken to the society where his love is; and when he arrives there he is, as it were, at home, and in the house where he was born; this the angel perceives, and is affiliated with those there that are like himself. when he goes away to another place he feels constantly a kind of resistance, and a longing to return to his like, thus to his ruling love. thus are affiliations brought about in heaven; and in a like manner in hell, where all are affiliated in accordance with loves that are the opposites of heavenly loves. it has been shown above (n. - and - ) that both heaven and hell are composed of societies, and that they are all distinguished according to differences of love. [ ] that man after death is his own love might also be seen from the fact that whatever does not make one with his ruling love is then separated and as it were taken away from him. from one who is good everything discordant or inharmonious is separated and as it were taken away, and he is thus let into his own love. it is the same with an evil spirit, with the difference that from the evil truths are taken away, and from the good falsities are taken away, and this goes on until each becomes his own love. this is effected when the man-spirit is brought into the third state, which will be described hereafter. when this has been done he turns his face constantly to his own love, and this he has continually before his eyes, in whatever direction he turns (see above, n. , ). [ ] all spirits, provided they are kept in their ruling love, can be led wherever one pleases, and are incapable of resistance, however clearly they may see that this is being done, and however much they may think that they will resist. they have often been permitted to try whether they could do anything contrary to their ruling love, but in vain. their love is like a bond or a rope tied around them, by which they may be led and from which they cannot loose themselves. it is the same with men in the world who are also led by their love, or are led by others by means of their love; but this is more the case when they have become spirits, because they are not then permitted to make a display of any other love, or to counterfeit what is not their own. [ ] all interaction in the other life proves that the spirit of man is his ruling love, for so far any one is acting or speaking in accord with the love of another, to the same extent is the other plainly present, with full, joyous, and lively countenance; but when one is speaking or acting contrary to another's love, to that extent the other's countenance begins to be changed, to be obscured and undiscernible, until at length he wholly disappears as if he had not been there. i have often wondered how this could be, for nothing of the kind can occur in the world; but i have been told that it is the same with the spirit in man, which when it turns itself away from another ceases to be within his view. [ ] another proof that a spirit is his ruling love is that every spirit seizes and appropriates all things that are in harmony with his love, and rejects and repudiates all that are not. everyone's love is like a spongy or porous wood, which imbibes such fluids as promote its growth, and repels others. it is also like animals of every kind, which know their proper food and seek the things that agree with their nature, and avoid what disagrees; for every love wishes to be nourished on what belongs to it, evil love by falsities and good love by truths. i have sometimes been permitted to see certain simple good spirits desiring to instruct the evil in truths and goods; but when the instruction was offered them they fled far away, and when they came to their own they seized with great pleasure upon the falsities that were in agreement with their love. i have also seen good spirits talking together about truths, and the good who were present listened eagerly to the conversation, but the evil who were present paid no attention to it, as if they did not hear it. in the world of spirits ways are seen, some leading to heaven, some to hell, and each to some particular society. good spirits go only in the ways that lead to heaven, and to the society there that is in the good of their love; and do not see the ways that lead elsewhere; while evil spirits go only in the ways that lead to hell, and to the society there that is in the evil of their love; and do not see the ways that lead elsewhere; or if they see them have no wish to enter them. in the spiritual world these ways are real appearances, which correspond to truths or falsities; and this is why ways have this signification in the word.{ } by this evidence from experience what has previously been affirmed on the ground of reason is made more certain, namely, that every man after death is his own love and his own will. it is said one's own will because everyone's will is his love. {footnote } a "way," a "path," a "road," a "street," and a "broad street," signify truths leading to good, or falsities leading to evil (n. , , ). "to sweep [or prepare] a way" means to prepare for the reception of truths (n. ). "to make known the way" means, in respect to the lord, to instruct in truths that lead to good (n. ). . (ii) man after death continues to eternity such as his will or ruling love is. this, too, has been confirmed by abundant experience. i have been permitted to talk with some who lived two thousand years ago, and whose lives are described in history, and thus known; and i found that they continued to be just the same as they were described, that is, in respect to the love out of which and according to which their lives were formed. there were others known to history, that had lived seventeen centuries ago, others that had lived four centuries ago, and three, and so on, with whom i was permitted to talk; and i found that the same affection still ruled in them, with no other difference than that the delights of their love were turned into such things as correspond. the angels declare that the life of the ruling love is never changed in any one even to eternity, since everyone is his love; consequently to change that love in a spirit is to take away or extinguish his life; and for the reason that man after death is no longer capable of being reformed by instruction, as in the world, because the outmost plane, which consists of natural knowledges and affections, is then quiescent and not being spiritual cannot be opened (see above, n. ); and upon that plane the interiors pertaining to the mind and disposition rest as a house rests on its foundation; and on this account such as the life of one's love had been in the world such he continues to be to eternity. the angels are greatly surprised that man does not know that everyone is such as his ruling love is, and that many believe that they may be saved by mercy apart from means, or by faith alone, whatever their life may be; also that they do not know that divine mercy works by means, and that it consists in man's being led by the lord, both in the world and afterwards to eternity, and that those who do not live in evils are led by the divine mercy; and finally that faith is affection for truth going forth from heavenly love, which is from the lord. . (iii) the man who has heavenly and spiritual love goes to heaven; while the man who has corporeal and worldly love and no heavenly and spiritual love goes to hell. this has been made evident to me from all whom i have seen taken up into heaven or cast into hell. the life of those taken up into heaven had been derived from a heavenly and spiritual love, while the life of those cast into hell had been derived from a corporeal and worldly love. heavenly love consists in loving what is good, honest, and just, because it is good, honest and just, and in doing this from love; and those that have this love have a life of goodness, honesty, and justice, which is the heavenly life. those that love what is good, honest, and just, for its own sake, and who do this or live it, love the lord above all things, because this is from him; they also love the neighbor, because this is the neighbor who is to be loved.{ } but corporeal love is loving what is good, honest, and just, not for its own sake but for the sake of self, because reputation, honor, and gain can thus be acquired. such, in what is good, honest, and just, do not look to the lord and to the neighbor, but to self and the world, and find delight in fraud; and the goodness, honesty and justice that spring forth from fraud are evil, dishonesty, and injustice, and these are what are loved by such in their practice of goodness, honesty, and justice. [ ] as the life of everyone is determined by these different kinds of love, as soon as men after death enter the world of spirits they are examined to discover their quality, and are joined to those that are in a like love; those that are in heavenly love to those that are in heaven, and those that are in corporeal love to those that are in hell; and after they have passed through the first and second state they are so separated as to no longer see or know each other; for each one becomes his own love, both in respect to his interiors pertaining to his mind, and in respect to his exteriors pertaining to his face, body, and speech; for everyone becomes an image of his own love, even in externals. those that are corporeal loves appear gross, dusky, black and misshapen; while those that are heavenly loves appear fresh, bright, fair and beautiful. also in their minds and thoughts they are wholly unlike, those that are heavenly loves being intelligent and wise, while those that are corporeal loves are stupid and as it were silly. [ ] when it is granted to behold the interiors and exteriors of thought and affection of those that are in heavenly love, their interiors appear like light, and some like a flamy light, while their exteriors appear in various beautiful colors like rainbows. but the interiors of those that are in corporeal love appear as if black, because they are closed up; and the interiors of some who were interiorly in malignant deceit appear like a dusky fire. but their exteriors appear of a dirty color, and disagreeable to the sight. (the interiors and exteriors of the mind and disposition are made visible in the spiritual world whenever the lord pleases.) [ ] those that are in corporeal love see nothing in the light of heaven; to them the light of heaven is thick darkness; but the light of hell, which is like light from burning coals, is to them as clear light. moreover, in the light of heaven their inward sight is so darkened that they become insane; consequently they shun that light and hide themselves in dens and caverns, more or less deeply in accordance with the falsities in them derived from their evils. on the other hand those who are in heavenly love, the more interiorly and deeply they enter into the light of heaven, see all things more clearly and all things appear more beautiful to them, and they perceive truths more intelligently and wisely. [ ] again, it is impossible for those who are in corporeal love to live at all in the heat of heaven, for the heat of heaven is heavenly love; but they can live in the heat of hell, which is the love of raging against others that do not favor them. the delights of that love are contempt of others, enmity, hatred and revenge; and when they are in these delights they are in their life, and have no idea what it is to do good to others from good itself and for the sake of good itself, knowing only what it is to do good from evil and for the sake of evil. [ ] those who are in corporeal love are unable to breathe in heaven. when any evil spirit is brought into heaven he draws his breath like one struggling in a contest; while those that are in heavenly love have a freer respiration and a fuller life the more interiorly they are in heaven. all this shows that heaven with man is heavenly and spiritual love, because on that love all things of heaven are inscribed; also that hell in man is corporeal and worldly love apart from heavenly and spiritual love, because on such loves all things of hell are inscribed. evidently, then, he whose love is heavenly and spiritual enters heaven, and he whose love is corporeal and worldly apart from heavenly and spiritual love enters hell. {footnote } in the highest sense, the lord is the neighbor, because he is to be loved above all things; but loving the lord is loving what is from him, because he himself is in everything that is from him, thus it is loving what is good and true (n. , , , , , , ). loving what is good and true which is from the lord is living in accordance with good and truth, and this is loving the lord (n. , , , , , ). every man and every society, also one's country and the church, and in a universal sense the lord's kingdom, are the neighbor, and doing good to these from a love of good in accord with their state is loving the neighbor; that is, their good that should be consulted is the neighbor (n. - , ). moral good also, which is honesty, and civil good, which is justice, are the neighbor; and to act honestly and justly from the love of honesty and justice is loving the neighbor (n. , , - ). thus charity towards the neighbor extends to all things of the life of man, and loving the neighbor is doing what is good and just, and acting honestly from the heart, in every function and in every work (n. , , ). the doctrine in the ancient church was the doctrine of charity, and from that they had wisdom (n. , , , , , ). . (iv) unless faith is from heavenly love it does not endure in man. this has been made clear to me by so much experience that if everything i have seen and heard respecting it were collected, it would fill a volume. this i can testify, that those who are in corporeal and worldly love apart from heavenly and spiritual love have no faith whatever, and are incapable of having any; they have nothing but knowledge or a persuasion that a thing is true because it serves their love. some of those who claimed that they had faith were brought to those who had faith, and when they communicated with them they perceived that they had no faith at all; and afterwards they confessed that merely believing what is true and believing the word is not faith, but that faith is loving truth from heavenly love, and willing and doing it from interior affection. moreover, they were shown that their persuasion which they called faith was merely like the light of winter, in which light, because it has no heat in it, all things on the earth are bound up in frost, become torpid, and lie buried under the snow. as soon, therefore, as the light of persuasive faith in them is touched by the rays of the light of heaven it is not only extinguished but is turned into a dense darkness, in which no one can see himself; and at the same time their interiors are so obscured that they can understand nothing at all, and at length become insane from falsities. consequently with such, all the truths that they have known from the word and from the doctrine of the church, and have called the truths of their faith, are taken away; and they imbibe in their place every falsity that is in accord with the evil of their life. for they are all let down into their loves and into the falsities agreeing with them; and they then hate and abhor and therefore reject truths, because they are repugnant to the falsities of evil in which they are. from all my experience in what pertains to heaven and hell i can bear witness that all those who from their doctrine have professed faith alone, and whose life has been evil, are in hell. i have seen many thousands of them cast down to hell. (respecting these see the treatise on the last judgment and the destruction of babylon.) . (v) love in act, that is, the life of man, is what endures. this follows as a conclusion from what has just been shown from experience, and from what has been said about deeds and works. love in act is work and deed. . it must be understood that all works and deeds pertain to moral and civil life, and therefore have regard to what is honest and right, and what is just and equitable, what is honest and right pertaining to moral life, and what is just and equitable to civil life. the love from which deeds are done is either heavenly or infernal. works and deeds of moral and civil life, when they are done from heavenly love, are heavenly; for what is done from heavenly love is done from the lord, and everything done from the lord is good. but the deeds and works of moral and civil life when done from infernal love are infernal; for what is done from this love, which is the love of self and of the world, is done from man himself, and everything that is done from man himself is in itself evil; for man regarded in himself, that is, in regard to what is his own, is nothing but evil.{ } {footnote } man's own consists in loving himself more than god, and the world more than heaven, and in making nothing of his neighbor in comparison with himself, thus it consists in the love of self and of the world (n. , , ). man is born into this own, and it is dense evil (n. , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). from what is man's own not only every evil but also every falsity is derived (n. , , , ). the evils that are from what is man's own are contempt for others, enmity, hatred, revenge, cruelty, deceit (n. , , , , , , ). so far as what is man's own rules, the good of love and the truth of faith are either rejected or suffocated or perverted (n. , , , , , , ). what is man's own is hell in him (n. , ). the good that man does from what is his own is not good, but in itself is evil (n. ). . l. the delights of every one's life are changed after death into things that correspond. it has been shown in the preceding chapter that the ruling affection or dominant love in everyone continues to eternity. it shall now be explained how the delights of that affection or love are changed into things that correspond. being changed into corresponding things means into things spiritual that correspond to the natural. that they are changed into things spiritual can be seen from this, that so long as man is in his earthly body he is in the natural world, but when he leaves that body he enters the spiritual world and is clothed with a spiritual body. it has already been shown that angels, and men after death, are in a complete human form, and that the bodies with which they are clothed are spiritual bodies (n. - and - ); also what the correspondence is of spiritual things with natural (n. - ). . all the delights that a man has are the delights of his ruling love, for he feels nothing to be delightful except what he loves, thus especially that which he loves above all things. it means the same whether you say the ruling love or that which is loved above all things. these delights are various. in general, there are as many as there are ruling loves; consequently as many as there are men, spirits, and angels; for no one's ruling love is in every respect like that of another. for this reason no one has a face exactly like that of any other; for each one's face is an image of his mind; and in the spiritual world it is an image of his ruling love. in particular, everyone's delights are of infinite variety. it is impossible for any one delight to be exactly like another, or the same as another, either those that follow one after another or those that exist together at the same time, no one ever being the same as another. nevertheless, the particular delights in everyone have reference to his one love, which is his ruling love, for they compose it and thus make one with it. likewise all delights in general have reference to one universally ruling love, which in heaven is love to the lord, and in hell is the love of self. . only from a knowledge of correspondences can it be known what spiritual delights everyone's natural delights are changed into after death, and what kind of delights they are. in general, this knowledge teaches that nothing natural can exist without something spiritual corresponding to it. in particular it teaches what it is that corresponds, and what kind of a thing it is. therefore, any one that has this knowledge can ascertain and know what his own state after death will be, if he only knows what his love is, and what its relation is to the universally ruling loves spoken of above, to which all loves have relation. but it is impossible for those who are in the love of self to know what their ruling love is, because they love what is their own, and call their evils goods; and the falsities that they incline to and by which they confirm their evils they call truths. and yet if they were willing they might know it from others who are wise, and who see what they themselves do not see. this however, is impossible with those who are so enticed by the love of self that they spurn all teaching of the wise. [ ] on the other hand, those who are in heavenly love accept instruction, and as soon as they are brought into the evils into which they were born, they see them from truths, for truths make evils manifest. from truth which is from good any one can see evil and its falsity; but from evil none can see what is good and true; and for the reason that falsities of evil are darkness and correspond to darkness; consequently those that are in falsities from evil are like the blind, not seeing the things that are in light, but shunning them instead like birds of night.{ } but as truths from good are light, and correspond to light (see above, n. - ), so those that are in truths from good have sight and open eyes, and discern the things that pertain to light and shade. [ ] this, too, has been proved to me by experience. the angels in heaven both see and perceive the evils and falsities that sometimes arise in themselves, also the evils and falsities in spirits in the world of spirits that are connected with the hells, although the spirits themselves are unable to see their own evils and falsities. such spirits have no comprehension of the good of heavenly love, of conscience, of honesty and justice, except such as is done for the sake of self; neither what it is to be led by the lord. they say that such things do not exist, and thus are of no account. all this has been said to the intent that man may examine himself and may recognize his love by his delights; and thus so far as he can make it out from a knowledge of correspondences may know the state of his life after death. {footnote } from correspondence "darkness" in the word signifies falsities, and "thick darkness" the falsities of evil (n. , , , ). to the evil the light of heaven is thick darkness (n. , , ). those that are in the hells are said to be in darkness because they are in falsities of evil; of such (n. , , ). in the word "the blind" signify those that are in falsities and are not willing to be taught (n. , ). . how the delights of everyone's life are changed after death into things that correspond can be known from a knowledge of correspondences; but as that knowledge is not as yet generally known i will try to throw some light on the subject by certain examples from experience. all who are in evil and who have established themselves in falsities in opposition to the truths of the church, especially those that have rejected the word, flee from the light of heaven and take refuge in caves that appear at their openings to be densely dark, also in clefts of rocks, and there they hide themselves; and this because they have loved falsities and hated truths; for such caves and clefts of rocks,{ } well as darkness, correspond to falsities, as light corresponds to truths. it is their delight to dwell in such places, and undelightful to dwell in the open country. [ ] those that have taken delight in insidious and secret plots and in treacherous machinations do the same thing. they are also in such caves; and they frequent rooms so dark that they are even unable to see one another; and they whisper together in the ears in corners. into this is the delight of their love changed. those that have devoted themselves to the sciences with no other end than to acquire a reputation for learning, and have not cultivated their rational faculty by their learning, but have taken delight in the things of memory from a pride in such things, love sandy places, which they choose in preference to fields and gardens, because sandy places correspond to such studies. [ ] those that are skilled in the doctrines of their own and other churches, but have not applied their knowledge to life, choose for themselves rocky places, and dwell among heaps of stones, shunning cultivated places because they dislike them. those that have ascribed all things to nature, as well as those that have ascribed all things to their own prudence, and by various arts have raised themselves to honors and have acquired wealth, in the other life devote themselves to the study of magic arts, which are abuses of divine order, and find in these the chief delight of life. [ ] those that have adapted divine truths to their own loves, and thereby have falsified them, love urinous things because these correspond to the delights of such loves.{ } those that have been sordidly avaricious dwell in cells, and love swinish filth and such stenches as are exhaled from undigested food in the stomach. [ ] those that have spent their life in mere pleasures and have lived delicately and indulged their palate and stomach, loving such things as the highest good that life affords, love in the other life excrementitious things and privies, in which they find their delight, for the reason that such pleasures are spiritual filth. places that are clean and free from filth they shun, finding them undelightful. [ ] those that have taken delight in adulteries pass their time in brothels, where all things are vile and filthy; these they love, and chaste homes they shun, falling into a swoon as soon as they enter them. nothing is more delightful to them than to break up marriages. those that have cherished a spirit of revenge, and have thereby contracted a savage and cruel nature, love cadaverous substances, and are in hells of that nature; and so on. {footnote } in the word a "hole" or "the cleft of a rock" signifies obscurity and falsity of faith (n. ). because a "rock" signifies faith from the lord (n. , ); and a "stone" the truth of faith (n. , , , , , , ). {footnote } the defilements of truth correspond to urine (n. ). . but the delights of life of those that have lived in the world in heavenly love are changed into such corresponding things as exist in the heavens, which spring from the sun of heaven and its light, that light presenting to view such things as have what is divine inwardly concealed in them. the things that appear in that light affect the interiors of the minds of the angels, and at the same time the exteriors pertaining to their bodies; and as the divine light, which is divine truth going forth from the lord, flows into their minds opened by heavenly love, it presents outwardly such things as correspond to the delights of their love. it has already been shown, in the chapter on representatives and appearances in heaven (n. - ), and in the chapter on the wisdom of the angels (n. - ), that the things that appear to the sight in the heavens correspond to the interiors of angels, or to the things pertaining to their faith and love and thus to their intelligence and wisdom. [ ] having already begun to establish this point by examples from experience, to make clearer what has been previously said on the ground of causes of things i will state briefly some particulars respecting the heavenly delightful things into which the natural delights of those that have lived in heavenly love in the world are changed. those that have loved divine truths and the word from an interior affection, or from an affection for truth itself, dwell in the other life in light, in elevated places that appear like mountains, where they are continually in the light of heaven. they do not know what darkness is, like that of night in the world; they live also in a vernal temperature; there are presented to their view fields filled with grain and vine-yards; in their houses everything glows as if from precious stones; and looking through the windows is like looking through pure crystal. such are the delights of their vision; but these same things are interiorly delightful because of their being correspondences of divine heavenly things, for the truths from the word which they have loved correspond to fields of grain, vineyards, precious stones, windows, and crystals.{ } [ ] those that have applied the doctrinals of the church which are from the word immediately to life, are in the inmost heaven, and surpass all others in their delights of wisdom. in every object they see what is divine; the objects they see indeed with their eyes; but the corresponding divine things flow in immediately into their minds and fill them with a blessedness that affects all their sensations. thus before their eyes all things seem to laugh, to play, and to live (see above, n. ). [ ] those that have loved knowledges and have thereby cultivated their rational faculty and acquired intelligence, and at the same time have acknowledged the divine-these in the other life have their pleasure in knowledges, and their rational delight changed into spiritual delight, which is delight in knowing good and truth. they dwell in gardens where flower beds and grass plots are seen beautifully arranged, with rows of trees round about, and arbors and walks, the trees and flowers changing from day to day. the entire view imparts delight to their minds in a general way, and the variations in detail continually renew the delight; and as everything there corresponds to something divine, and they are skilled in the knowledge of correspondences, they are constantly filled with new knowledges, and by these their spiritual rational faculty is perfected. their delights are such because gardens, flower beds, grass plots, and trees correspond to sciences, knowledges, and the resulting intelligence.{ } [ ] those that have ascribed all things to the divine, regarding nature as relatively dead and merely subservient to things spiritual, and have confirmed themselves in this view, are in heavenly light; and all things that appear before their eyes are made by that light transparent, and in their transparency exhibit innumerable variegations of light, which their internal sight takes in as it were directly, and from this they perceive interior delights. the things seen within their houses are as if made of diamonds, with similar variegations of light. the walls of their houses, as already said, are like crystal, and thus also transparent; and in them seemingly flowing forms representative of heavenly things are seen also with unceasing variety, and this because such transparency corresponds to the understanding when it has been enlightened by the lord and when the shadows that arise from a belief in and love for natural things have been removed. with reference to such things and infinite others, it is said by those that have been in heaven that they have seen what eye has never seen; and from a perception of divine things communicated to them by those who are there, that they have heard what ear has never heard. [ ] those that have not acted in secret ways, but have been willing to have all that they have thought made known so far as civil life would permit, because their thoughts have all been in accord with what is honest and just from the divine-these in heaven have faces full of light; and in that light every least affection and thought is seen in the face as in its form, and in their speech and actions they are like images of their affections. such, therefore, are more loved than others. while they are speaking the face becomes a little obscured; but as soon as they have spoken, the things they have said become plainly manifest all at once in the face. and as all the objects that exist round about them correspond to their interiors, these assume such an appearance that others can clearly perceive what they represent and signify. spirits that have found delight in clandestine acts, when they see such at a distance flee from them, and appear to themselves to creep away from them like serpents. [ ] those that have regarded adulteries as abominable, and have lived in a chaste love of marriage, are more than all others in the order and form of heaven, and therefore in all beauty, and continue unceasingly in the flower of youth. the delights of their love are ineffable, and increase to eternity; for all the delights and joys of heaven flow into that love, because that love descends from the conjunction of the lord with heaven and with the church, and in general from the conjunction of good and truth, which conjunction is heaven itself in general, and with each angel in particular (see above, n. - ). what their outward delights are it is impossible to describe in human words. these are only a few of the things that have been told me about the correspondences of the delights of those that are in heavenly love. {footnote } in the word a "field of corn" signifies a state of the reception and growth of truth from good (n. ). "standing corn" signifies truth in conception (n. ), "vineyards" signify the spiritual church and the truths of that church (n. , ). "precious stones" signify the truths of heaven and of the church transparent from good (n. , , , , , ). a "window" signifies the intellectual faculty which pertains to the internal sight (n. , , ). {footnote } a "garden," a "grove," and a "park," signify intelligence (n. , , ). this is why the ancients celebrated holy worship in groves (n. , ). "flowers" and "flower beds" signify truths learned and knowledges (n. ). "herbs," "grasses," and "grass plots" signify truths learned (n. ). "trees" signify perception and knowledges (n. , , , , , ). . all this makes evident that everyone's delights are changed after death into their correspondences, while the love itself continues to eternity. this is true of marriage love, of the love of justice, honesty, goodness and truth, the love of sciences and of knowledges, the love of intelligence and wisdom, and the rest. from these loves delights flow like streams from their fountain; and these continue; but when raised from natural to spiritual delights they are exalted to a higher degree. . li. the first state of man after death. there are three states that man passes through after death before he enters either heaven or hell. the first state is the state of his exteriors, the second state the state of his interiors, and the third his state of preparation. these states man passes through in the world of spirits. there are some, however, that do not pass through them; but immediately after death are either taken up into heaven or cast into hell. those that are immediately taken up into heaven are those that have been regenerated in the world and thereby prepared for heaven. those that have been so regenerated and prepared that they need simply to cast off natural impurities with the body are at once taken up by the angels into heaven. i have seen them so taken up soon after the hour of death. on the other hand, those that have been inwardly wicked while maintaining an outward appearance of goodness, and have thus filled up the measure of their wickedness by artifices, using goodness as a means of deceiving-these are at once cast into hell. i have seen some such cast into hell immediately after death, one of the most deceitful with his head downward and feet upward, and others in other ways. there are some that immediately after death are cast into caverns and are thus separated from those that are in the world of spirits, and are taken out from these and put back again by turns. they are such as have dealt wickedly with the neighbor under civil pretences. but all these are few in comparison with those that are retained in the world of spirits, and are there prepared in accordance with divine order for heaven or for hell. . in regard to the first state, which is the state of the exteriors, it is that which man comes into immediately after death. every man, as regards his spirit, has exteriors and interiors. the exteriors of the spirit are the means by which it adapts the man's body in the world, especially the face, speech, and movements, to fellowship with others; while the interiors of the spirit are what belong to its own will and consequent thought; and these are rarely manifested in face, speech, and movement. for man is accustomed from childhood to maintain a semblance of friendship, benevolence, and sincerity, and to conceal the thoughts of his own will, thereby living from habit a moral and civil life in externals, whatever he may be internally. as a result of this habit man scarcely knows what his interiors are, and gives little thought to them. . the first state of man after death resembles his state in the world, for he is then likewise in externals, having a like face, like speech, and a like disposition, thus a like moral and civil life; and in consequence he is made aware that he is not still in the world only by giving attention to what he encounters, and from his having been told by the angels when he was resuscitated that he had become a spirit(n. ). thus is one life continued into the other, and death is merely transition. . the state of man's spirit that immediately follows his life in the world being such, he is then recognized by his friends and by those he had known in the world; for this is something that spirits perceive not only from one's face and speech but also from the sphere of his life when they draw near. whenever any one in the other life thinks about another he brings his face before him in thought, and at the same time many things of his life; and when he does this the other becomes present, as if he had been sent for or called. this is so in the spiritual world because thoughts there are shared, and there is no such space there as in the natural world (see above, n. - ). so all, as soon as they enter the other life, are recognized by their friends, their relatives, and those in any way known to them; and they talk with one another, and afterward associate in accordance with their friendships in the world. i have often heard that those that have come from the world were rejoiced at seeing their friends again, and that their friends in turn were rejoiced that they had come. very commonly husband and wife come together and congratulate each other, and continue together, and this for a longer or shorter time according to their delight in living together in the world. but if they had not been united by a true marriage love, which is a conjunction of minds by heavenly love, after remaining together for a while they separate. or if their minds had been discordant and were inwardly adverse, they break forth into open enmity, and sometimes into combat; nevertheless they are not separated until they enter the second state, which will be treated of presently. . as the life of spirits recently from the world is not unlike their life in the natural world and as they know nothing about their state of life after death and nothing about heaven and hell except what they have learned from the sense of the letter of the word and preaching from it, they are at first surprised to find themselves in a body and in every sense that they had in the world, and seeing like things; and they become eager to know what heaven is, what hell is, and where they are. therefore their friends tell them about the conditions of eternal life, and take them about to various places and into various companies, and sometimes into cities, and into gardens and parks, showing them chiefly such magnificent things as delight the externals in which they are. they are then brought in turn into those notions about the state of their soul after death, and about heaven and hell, that they had entertained in the life of the body, even until they feel indignant at their total ignorance of such things, and at the ignorance of the church also. nearly all are anxious to know whether they will get to heaven. most of them believe that they will, because of their having lived in the world a moral and civil life, never considering that the bad and the good live a like life outwardly, alike doing good to others, attending public worship, hearing sermons, and praying; and wholly ignorant that external deeds and external acts of worship are of no avail, but only the internals from which the externals proceed. there is hardly one out of thousands who knows what internals are, and that it is in them that man must find heaven and the church. still less is it known that outward acts are such as the intentions and thoughts are, and the love and faith in these from which they spring. and even when taught they fail to comprehend that thinking and willing are of any avail, but only speaking and acting. such for the most part are those that go at this day from the christian world into the other life. . such, however, are explored by good spirits to discover what they are, and this in various ways; since in this the first state the evil equally with the good utter truths and do good acts, and for the reason mentioned above, that like the good they have lived morally in outward respects, since they have lived under governments, and subject to laws, and have thereby acquired a reputation for justice and honesty, and have gained favor, and thus been raised to honors, and have acquired wealth. but evil spirits are distinguished from good spirits chiefly by this, that the evil give eager attention to whatever is said about external things, and but little attention to what is said about internal things, which are the truths and goods of the church and of heaven. these they listen to, but not with attention and joy. the two classes are also distinguished by their turning repeatedly in specific directions, and following, when left to themselves, the paths that lead in those directions. from such turning to certain quarters and going in certain ways it is known by what love they are led. . all spirits that arrive from the world are connected with some society in heaven or some society in hell, and yet only as regards their interiors; and so long as they are in exteriors their interiors are manifested to no one, for externals cover and conceal internals, especially in the case of those who are in interior evil. but afterwards, when they come into the second state, their evils become manifest, because their interiors are then opened and their exteriors laid asleep. . this first state of man after death continues with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year; but seldom with any one beyond a year; for a shorter or longer time with each one according to the agreement or disagreement of his interiors with his exteriors. for with everyone the exteriors and interior must make one and correspond. in the spiritual world no one is permitted to think and will in one way and speak and act in another. everyone there must be an image of his own affection or his own love, and therefore such as he is inwardly such he must be outwardly; and for this reason a spirit's exteriors are first disclosed and reduced to order that they may serve the interiors as a corresponding plane. . lii. the second state of man after death. the second state of man after death is called the state of his interiors, because he is then let into the interiors of his mind, that is, of his will and thought; while his exteriors, which he has been in during his first state, are laid asleep. whoever gives any thought to man's life and speech and action can see that everyone has exteriors and interiors, that is, exterior and interior thoughts and intentions. this is shown by the fact that in civil life one thinks about others in accordance with what he has heard and learned of them by report or conversation; but he does not talk with them in accordance with his thought; and if they are evil he nevertheless treats them with civility. that this is so is seen especially in the case of pretenders and flatterers, who speak and act in one way and think and will in a wholly different way; also in the case of hypocrites, who talk about god and heaven and the salvation of souls and the truths of the church and their country's good and their neighbor as if from faith and love, although in heart they believe otherwise and love themselves alone. [ ] all this makes clear that there are two kinds of thought, one exterior and the other interior; and that there are those who speak from exterior thought, while from their interior thought they have other sentiments, and that these two kinds of thought are kept separate, since the interior is carefully prevented from flowing into the exterior and becoming manifest in any way. by creation man is so formed as to have his interior and exterior thought make one by correspondence; and these do make one in those that are in good, for such both think and speak what is good only. but in those that are in evil interior and exterior thought do not make one, for such think what is evil and say what is good. with such there is an inversion of order, for good with them is on the outside and evil within; and in consequence evil has dominion over good, and subjects it to itself as a servant, that it may serve it as a means for gaining its ends, which are of the same nature as their love. with such an end contained in the good that they seek and do, their good is evidently not good, but is infected with evil, however good it may appear in outward form to those not acquainted with their interiors. [ ] it is not so with those that are in good. with such order is not inverted; but good from interior thought flows into exterior thought, and thus into word and act. into this order man was created; and in heaven, and in the light of heaven, his interiors are in this order. and as the light of heaven is the divine truth that goes forth from the lord, and consequently is the lord in heaven (n. - ), therefore such are led by the lord. all this has been said to make known that every man has interior thought and exterior thought, and that these are distinct from each other. the term thought includes also the will, for thought is from the will, and thought apart from willing is impossible. all this makes clear what is meant by the state of man's exteriors and the state of his interiors. . when will and thought are mentioned will includes affection and love, and all the delight and pleasure that spring from affection and love, since all these relate to the will as to their subject; for what a man wills he loves and feels to be delightful or pleasurable; and on the other hand, what a man loves and feels to be delightful or pleasurable, that he wills. but by thought is then meant everything by which affection or love is confirmed, for thought is simply the will's form, or that whereby what is willed may appear in light. this form is made apparent through various rational analyses, which have their origin in the spiritual world and belong properly to the spirit of man. . let it be understood that man is wholly such as his interiors are, and not such as his exteriors are separate from his interiors. this is because his interiors belong to his spirit, and the life of his spirit is the life of man, for from it his body lives; and because of this such as a man's interiors are such he continues to be to eternity. but as the exteriors pertain to the body they are separated after death, and those of them that adhere to the spirit are laid asleep, and serve purely as a plane for the interiors, as has been shown above in treating of the memory of man which continues after death. this makes evident what is man's own and what is not his own, namely, that with the evil man nothing that belongs to his exterior thought from which he speaks, or to the exterior will from which he acts, is his own, but only that which belongs to his interior thought and will. . when the first state, which is the state of the exteriors treated of in the preceding chapter, has been passed through, the man-spirit is let into the state of his interiors, or into the state of his interior will and its thought, in which he had been in the world when left to himself to think freely and without restraint. into this state he unconsciously glides, just as when in the world he withdraws the thought nearest to his speech, that is, from which he speaks, towards his interior thought and abides in the latter. therefore in this state of his interiors the man-spirit is in himself and in his very life; for to think freely from his own affection is the very life of man, and is himself. . in this state the spirit thinks from his very will, thus from his very affection, or from his very love; and thought and will then make one, and one in such a manner that he seems scarcely to think but only to will. it is nearly the same when he speaks, yet with the difference that he speaks with a kind of fear that the thoughts of the will may go forth naked, since by his social life in the world this has come to be a part of his will. . all men without exception are let into this state after death, because it is their spirit's own state. the former state is such as the man was in regard to his spirit when in company; and that is not his own state. that this state, namely, the state of the exteriors into which man first comes after death (as shown in the preceding chapter) is not his own state, many things show, for example, that spirits not only think but also speak from their affection, since their speech is from their affection (as has been said and shown in the chapter on the speech of angels, n. - ). it was in this way that man had thought while in the world when he was thinking within himself, for at such times his thought was not from his bodily words, but he [mentally] saw the things, and in a minute of time saw more than he could afterwards utter in half an hour. again that the state of the exteriors is not man's own state or the state of his spirit is evident from the fact that when he is in company in the world he speaks in accord with the laws of moral and civil life, and at such times interior thought rules the exterior thought, as one person rules another, to keep him from transgressing the limits of decorum and good manners. it is evident also from the fact that when a man thinks within himself, he thinks how he must speak and act in order to please and to secure friendship, good will, and favor, and this in extraneous ways, that is, otherwise than he would do if he acted in accordance with his own will. all this shows that the state of the interiors that the spirit is let into is his own state, and was his own state when he was living in the world as a man. . when the spirit is in the state of his interiors it becomes clearly evident what the man was in himself when he was in the world, for at such times he acts from what is his own. he that had been in the world interiorly in good then acts rationally and wisely, and even more wisely than in the world, because he is released from connection with the body, and thus from those earthly things that caused obscurity and interposed as it were a cloud. but he that was in evil in the world then acts foolishly and insanely, and even more insanely than in the world, because he is free and under no restraint. for while he lived in the world he was sane in outward appearance, since by means of externals he made himself appear to be a rational man; but when he has been stripped of his externals his insanities are revealed. an evil man who in externals takes on the semblance of a good man may be likened to a vessel shining and polished on the outside and covered with a lid, within which filth of all kinds is hidden, in accordance with the lord's saying: ye are like whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness (matt. : ). . all that have lived a good life in the world and have acted from conscience, who are such as have acknowledged the divine and have loved divine truths, especially such as have applied those truths to life, seem to themselves, when let into the state of their interiors, like one aroused from sleep into full wakefulness, or like one passing from darkness into light. they then think from the light of heaven, thus from an interior wisdom, and they act from good, thus from an interior affection. heaven flows into their thoughts and affections with an interior blessedness and delight that they had previously had no knowledge of; for they have communication with the angels of heaven. they then acknowledge the lord and worship him from their very life, for being in the state of their interiors they are in their proper life (as has been said just above, n. ); and as freedom pertains to interior affection they then acknowledge and worship the lord from freedom. thus, too, they withdraw from external sanctity and come into that internal sanctity in which worship itself truly consists. such is the state of those that have lived a christian life in accordance with the commandments in the word. [ ] but the state of those that have lived an evil life in the world and who have had no conscience, and have in consequence denied the divine, is the direct opposite of this. for everyone who lives an evil life, inwardly in himself denies the divine, however much he may suppose when in external thought that he acknowledges the lord and does not deny him; for acknowledging the divine and living an evil life are opposites. when such in the other life enter into the state of their interiors, and are heard speaking and seen acting, they appear foolish; for from their evil lusts they burst forth into all sorts of abominations, into contempt of others, ridicule and blasphemy, hatred and revenge; they plot intrigues, some with a cunning and malice that can scarcely be believed to be possible in any man. for they are then in a state of freedom to act in harmony with the thoughts of their will, since they are separated from the outward conditions that restrained and checked them in the world. in a word, they are deprived of their rationality, because their reason while they were in the world did not have its seat in their interiors, but in their exteriors; and yet they seemed to themselves to be wiser than others. [ ] this being their character, while in the second state they are let down by short intervals into the state of their exteriors, and into a recollection of their actions when they were in the state of their interiors; and some of them then feel ashamed, and confess that they have been insane; some do not feel ashamed; and some are angry because they are not permitted to remain permanently in the state of their exteriors. but these are shown what they would be if they were to continue in that state, namely, that they would attempt to accomplish in secret ways the same evil ends, and by semblances of goodness, honesty, and justice, would mislead the simple in heart and faith, and would utterly destroy themselves; for their exteriors would at length burn with the same fire as their interiors, and their whole life would be consumed. . when in this second state spirits become visibly just what they had been in themselves while in the world, what they then did and said secretly being now made manifest; for they are now restrained by no outward considerations, and therefore what they have said and done secretly they now say and endeavor to do openly, having no longer any fear of loss of reputation, such as they had in the world. they are also brought into many states of their evils, that what they are may be evident to angels and good spirits. thus are hidden things laid open and secret things uncovered, in accordance with the lord's words: there is nothing covered up that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known. whatsoever ye have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light, and what ye have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall be proclaimed on the housetops (luke : , ). and elsewhere: i say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment (matt. : ). . the nature of the wicked in this state cannot be described in a few words, for each one is insane in accord with his own lusts, and these are various; therefore i will merely mention some special instances from which conclusions may be formed respecting the rest. those that have loved themselves above everything, and in their occupations and employments have looked to their own honor, and have performed uses and found delight in them not for the use's sake but for the sake of reputation, that they might because of them be esteemed more worthy than others, and have thus been fascinated by their reputation for honor, are more stupid in this second state than others; for so far as one loves himself he is separated from heaven, and so far as he is separated from heaven he is separated from wisdom. [ ] but those that have not only been in self-love but have been crafty also, and have raised themselves to honors by means of crafty practices, affiliate themselves with the worst of spirits, and learn magic arts, which are abuses of divine order, and by means of these they assail and infest all who do not honor them, laying snares, fomenting hatred, burning with revenge, and are eager to vent their rage on all who do not yield to them; and they rush into all these enormities so far as their fiendish companions favor them; and at length they meditate upon how they can climb up into heaven to destroy it, or be worshiped there as gods. to such length does their madness carry them. [ ] papists of this character are more insane than the rest, for they cherish the notion that heaven and hell are subject to their power, and that they can remit sins at pleasure, claiming to themselves all that is divine, and calling themselves christ. this persuasion is such with them that wherever it flows in it disturbs the mind and induces darkness even to pain. such are nearly the same in both the first and the second state; but in the second they are without rationality. of their insanities and their lot after this state some particulars will be given in the treatise on the last judgement and the destruction of babylon. [ ] those that have attributed creation to nature, and have therefore in heart if not with the lips denied the divine, and thus all things of the church and of heaven, affiliate with their like in this second state, and call everyone a god who excels in craftiness, worshiping him even with divine honors. i have seen such in an assembly adoring a magician, debating about nature, and behaving like fools, as if they were beasts under a human form, while among them there were some who in the world had been in stations of dignity, and some who had been esteemed learned and wise. so with others in other states. [ ] from these few instances it may be inferred what those are who have the interiors of their minds closed heaven-wards, as is the case with all who have received no influx out of heaven through acknowledgment of the divine and a life of faith. everyone can judge from himself how he would act if, being such, he were left free to act with no fear of the law and no fear in regard to his life, and with no outward restraints, such as fear of injury to one's reputation or of loss of honor and gain and consequent pleasures. [ ] nevertheless, the insanity of such is restrained by the lord that it may not rush beyond the limits of use; for even such spirits perform some use. in them good spirits see what evil is and its nature, and what man is when he is not led by the lord. another of their uses is their collecting together evil spirits like themselves and separating them from the good; and another, that the truths and goods that the evil had outwardly professed and feigned are taken away from them, and they are brought into the evils of their life and the falsities of their evil, and are thus prepared for hell. [ ] for no one enters hell until he is in his own evil and the falsities of evil, since no one is permitted there to have a divided mind, that is, to think and speak one thing and to will another. every evil spirit there must think what is false from evil, and speak from the falsity of evil, in both respects from the will, thus from his own essential love and its delight and pleasure, in the same way that he thought while in the world when he was in his spirit, that is, in the same way as he thought in himself when he thought from interior affection. the reason is that the will is the man himself, and not the thought except so far as it partakes of the will, the will being the very nature itself or disposition of the man. therefore man's being let into his will is being let into his nature or disposition, and likewise into his life; for by his life man puts on a nature; and after death he continues to be such as the nature is that he has acquired by his life in the world; and with the evil this nature can no longer be amended and changed by means of the thought or by the understanding of truth. . when evil spirits are in this second state, as they rush into evils of every kind they are subjected to frequent and grievous punishments. in the world of spirits there are many kinds of punishment; and there is no regard for person, whether one had been in the world a king or a servant. every evil carries its punishment with it, the two making one; therefore whoever is in evil is also in the punishment of evil. and yet no one in the other world suffers punishment on account of the evils that he had done in this world, but only on account of the evils that he then does; although it amounts to the same and is the same thing whether it be said that men suffer punishment on account of their evils in the world or that they suffer punishment on account of the evils they do in the other life, since everyone after death returns into his own life and thus into like evils; and the man continues the same as he had been in the life of the body (n. - ). men are punished for the reason that the fear of punishment is the sole means of subduing evils in this state. exhortation is no longer of any avail, neither is instruction or fear of the law and of the loss of reputation, since everyone then acts from his nature; and that nature can be restrained and broken only by punishments. but good spirits, although they had done evils in the world, are never punished, because their evils do not return. moreover, i have learned that the evils they did were of a different kind or nature, not being done purposely in opposition to the truth, or from any other badness of heart than that which they received by inheritance from their parents, and that they were borne into this by a blind delight when they were in externals separate from internals. . everyone goes to his own society in which his spirit had been in the world; for every man, as regards his spirit, is conjoined to some society, either infernal or heavenly, the evil man to an infernal society and the good man to a heavenly society, and to that society he is brought after death (see n. ). the spirit is led to his society gradually, and at length enters it. when an evil spirit is in the state of his interiors he is turned by degrees toward his own society, and at length, before that state is ended, directly to it; and when that state is ended he himself casts himself into the hell where those are who are like himself. this act of casting down appears to the sight like one falling headlong with the head downwards and the feet upwards. the cause of this appearance is that the spirit himself is in an inverted order, having loved infernal things and rejected heavenly things. in this second state some evil spirits enter the hells and come out again by turns; but these do not appear to fall headlong as those do that are fully vastated. moreover, the society itself in which they had been as regards their spirit while in the world is shown to them when they are in the state of their exteriors, that they may thus learn that even while in the life of the body they were in hell, although not in the same state as those that are in hell itself, but in the same state as those who are in the world of spirits. of this state, as compared with those that are in hell, more will be said hereafter. . in this second state the separation of evil spirits from good spirits takes place. for in the first state they are together, since while a spirit is in his exteriors he is as he was in the world, thus the evil with the good and the good with the evil; but it is otherwise when he has been brought into his interiors and left to his own nature or will. the separation of evil spirits from good spirits is effected by various means; in general by their being taken about to those societies with which in their first state they had communication by means of their good thoughts and affections, thus to those societies that they had induced to believe by outward appearances that they were not evil. usually they are led about through a wide circle, and everywhere what they really are is made manifest to good spirits. at the sight of them the good spirits turn away; and at the same time the evil spirits who are being led about turn their faces away from the good towards that quarter where their infernal society is, into which they are about to come. other methods of separation, which are many, will not now be mentioned. . liii. third state of man after death, which is a state of instruction for those who enter heaven. the third state of man after death, that is, of his spirit, is a state of instruction. this state is for those who enter heaven and become angels. it is not for those who enter hell, because such are incapable of being taught, and therefore their second state is also their third, ending in this, that they are wholly turned to their own love, thus to that infernal society which is in a like love. when this has been done they will and think from that love and as that love is infernal they will nothing but what is evil and think nothing but what is false; and in such thinking and willing they find their delights, because these belong to their love; and in consequence of this they reject everything good and true which they had previously adopted as serviceable to their love as means. [ ] good spirits, on the other hand, are led from the second state into the third, which is the state of their preparation for heaven by means of instruction. for one can be prepared for heaven only by means of knowledges of good and truth, that is, only by means of instruction, since one can know what spiritual good and truth are, and what evil and falsity are, which are their opposites, only by being taught. one can learn in the world what civil and moral good and truth are, which are called justice and honesty, because there are civil laws in the world that teach what is just, and there is interaction with others whereby man learns to live in accordance with moral laws, all of which have relation to what is honest and right. but spiritual good and truth are learned from heaven, not from the world. they can be learned from the word and from the doctrine of the church that is drawn from the word and yet unless man in respect to his interiors which belong to his mind is in heaven spiritual good and truth cannot flow into his life; and man is in heaven when he both acknowledges the divine and acts justly and honestly for the reason that he ought so to act because it is commanded in the word. this is living justly and honestly for the sake of the divine, and not for the sake of self and the world, as ends. [ ] but no one can so act until he has been taught, for example, that there is a god, that there is a heaven and a hell, that there is a life after death, that god ought to be loved supremely, and the neighbor as oneself, and that what is taught in the word, ought to be believed because the word is divine. without a knowledge and acknowledgment of these things man is unable to think spiritually; and if he has no thought about them he does not will them; for what a man does not know he cannot think, and what he does not think he cannot will. so it is when man wills these things that heaven flows into his life, that is, the lord through heaven, for the lord flows into the will and through the will into the thought, and through both into the life, and the whole life of man is from these. all this makes clear that spiritual good and truth are learned not from the world but from heaven, and that one can be prepared for heaven only by means of instruction. [ ] moreover, so far as the lord flows into the life of any one he instructs him, for so far he kindles the will with the love of knowing truths and enlightens the thought to know them; and so far as this is done the interiors of man are opened and heaven is implanted in them; and furthermore, what is divine and heavenly flows into the honest things pertaining to moral life and into the just things pertaining to civil life in man, and makes them spiritual, since man then does these things from the divine, which is doing them for the sake of the divine. for the things honest and just pertaining to moral and civil life which a man does from that source are the essential effects of spiritual life; and the effect derives its all from the effecting cause, since such as the cause is such is the effect. . instruction is given by the angels of many societies, especially those in the northern and southern quarters, because those angelic societies are in intelligence and wisdom from a knowledge of good and truth. the places of instruction are towards the north and are various, arranged and distinguished according to the kinds and varieties of heavenly goods, that all and each may be instructed there according to their disposition and ability to receive; the places extending round about to a great distance. the good spirits who are to be instructed are brought by the lord to these places when they have completed their second state in the world of spirits, and yet not all; for there are some that have been instructed in the world, and have been prepared there by the lord for heaven, and these are taken up into heaven by another way-some immediately after death, some after a short stay with good spirits, where the grosser things of their thoughts and affections which they had contracted from honors and riches in the world are removed, and in that way they are purified. some first endure vastations, which is effected in places under the soles of the feet, called the lower earth, where some suffer severely. these are such as had confirmed themselves in falsities and yet had led good lives, for when falsities have been confirmed they inhere with much force, and until they have been dispersed truths cannot be seen, and thus cannot be accepted. but vastations and how they are effected have been treated of in the arcana coelestia, from which the notes below have been collected.{ } {footnote } vastations are effected in the other life, that is, those that pass into the other life from the world are vastated (n. , , , ). the well disposed are vastated in respect to falsities, while the evil are vastated in respect to truths (n, , , ). the well disposed undergo vastations that they also may be divested of what pertains to the earth and the world, which they had contracted while living in the world (n. , ). also that evils and falsities may be removed, and thus there may be room for the influx of goods and truths out of heaven from the lord, and ability to accept these (n. , ). elevation into heaven is impossible until such things have been removed, because they obstruct heavenly things and are not in harmony with them (n. , , , , , ). those who are to be raised up into heaven are thus prepared for it (n. , ). it is dangerous to come into heaven before being prepared (n. , ). the state of enlightenment and the joy of those who come out of vastation and are raised up into heaven, and their reception there (n. , , ). the region where those vastations are effected is called the lower earth (n. , ). that region is under the soles of the feet surrounded by the hells; its nature described (n. - , ); from experience (n. ). what the hells are which more than others infest and vastate (n. , , ). those that have infested and vastated the well disposed are afterwards afraid of them, shun them, and turn away from them (n. ). these infestations and vastations are effected in different ways in accordance with the adhesion of evils and falsities, and they continue in accordance with their quality and quantity (n. - ). some are quite willing to be vastated (n. ). some are vastated by fears (n. ). some by being infested with the evils they have done in the world, and with the falsities they have thought in the world, from which they have anxieties and pangs of conscience (n. ). some by spiritual captivity, which is ignorance of truth and interception of truth, combined with a longing to know truths (n. , ). some by sleep; some by a middle state between wakefulness and sleep (n. ). those that have placed merit in works seem to themselves to be cutting wood (n. ). others in other ways, with great variety (n. ). . all who are in places of instruction dwell apart; for each one is connected in regard to his interiors with that society of heaven which he is about to enter; thus as the societies of heaven are arranged in accord with the heavenly form (see above, n. - ), so are the places there where instruction is given; and for this reason when those places are viewed from heaven something like a heaven in a smaller form is seen. they are spread out in length from east to west, and in breadth from south to north; but the breadth appears to be less than the length. the arrangement in general is as follows. in front are those who died in childhood and have been brought up in heaven to the age of early youth; these after passing the state of their infancy with those having charge of them, are brought hither by the lord and instructed. behind these are the places where those are taught who died in adult age, and who in the world had an affection for truth derived from good of life. again, behind these are those who in the world were connected with the mohammedan religion, and lived a moral life and acknowledged one divine, and the lord as the very prophet. when these withdraw from mohammed, because he can give them no help, they approach the lord and worship him and acknowledge his divinity, and they are then instructed in the christian religion. behind these more to the north are the places of instruction of various heathen nations who in the world have lived a good life in conformity with their religion, and have thereby acquired a kind of conscience, and have done what is just and right not so much from a regard to the laws of their government, as from a regard to the laws of religion, which they believed ought to be sacredly observed, and in no way violated by their doings. when these have been taught they are all easily led to acknowledge the lord, because it is impressed on their hearts that god is not invisible, but is visible under a human form. these in number exceed all the rest, and the best of them are from africa. . but all are not taught in the same way, nor by the same societies of heaven. those that have been brought up from childhood in heaven, not having imbibed falsities from the falsities of religion or defiled their spiritual life with the dregs pertaining to honors and riches in the world, receive instruction from the angels of the interior heavens; while those that have died in adult age receive instruction mainly from angels of the lowest heaven, because these angels are better suited to them than the angels of the interior heavens, who are in interior wisdom which is not yet acceptable to them. but the mohammedans receive instruction from angels who had been previously in the same religion and had been converted to christianity. the heathen, too, are taught by their angels. . all teaching there is from doctrine drawn from the word, and not from the word apart from doctrine. christians are taught from heavenly doctrine, which is in entire agreement with the internal sense of the word. all others, as the mohammedans and heathen, are taught from doctrines suited to their apprehension, which differ from heavenly doctrine only in this, that spiritual life is taught by means of moral life in harmony with the good tenets of their religion from which they had derived their life in the world. . instruction in the heavens differs from instruction on earth in that knowledges are not committed to memory, but to life; for the memory of spirits is in their life, for they receive and imbibe everything that is in harmony with their life, and do not receive, still less imbibe, what is not in harmony with it; for spirits are affections, and are therefore in a human form that is similar to their affections. [ ] being such they are constantly animated by an affection for truth that looks to the uses of life; for the lord provides for everyone's loving the uses suited to his genius; and that love is exalted by the hope of becoming an angel. and as all the uses of heaven have relation to the general use, which is the good of the lord's kingdom, which in heaven is the fatherland, and as all special and particular uses are to be valued in proportion as they more closely and fully have regard to that general use, so all of these special and particular uses, which are innumerable, are good and heavenly; therefore in everyone an affection for truth is so conjoined with an affection for use that the two make one; and thereby truth is so implanted in use that the truths they acquire are truths of use. in this way are angelic spirits taught and prepared for heaven. [ ] an affection for truth that is suited to the use is insinuated by various means, most of which are unknown in the world; chiefly by representatives of uses which in the spiritual world are exhibited in a thousand ways, and with such delights and pleasures that they permeate the spirit from the interiors of its mind to the exteriors of its body, and thus affect the whole; and in consequence the spirit becomes as it were his use; and therefore when he comes into his society, into which he is initiated by instruction, he is in his life by being in his use.{ } from all this it is clear that knowledges, which are external truths, do not bring any one into heaven; but the life itself, which is a life of uses implanted by means of knowledges. {footnote } every good has both its delight and its quality from uses and in accordance with uses; therefore such as the good is such the use is (n. , , ). angelic life consists in the goods of love and charity, thus in performing uses (n. ). the lord and therefore the angels, have regard to nothing in man but ends which are uses (n. , , ). the kingdom of the lord is a kingdom of uses (n. , , , , , ). serving the lord is performing uses (n. ). what man is, such are his uses (n. , , , , , , ). . there were some spirits who had convinced themselves, by thinking about it in the world, that they would go to heaven and be received before others because of their learning and their great knowledge of the word and of the doctrines of their churches, believing that they were wise in consequence, and were such as are meant by those of whom it is said that they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars (daniel : ). but these were examined to see whether their knowledges resided in the memory or in the life. such of them as had a genuine affection of truth, that is, who had uses separated from what pertains to the body and the world as their end, which are essentially spiritual uses--these, when they had been instructed, were received into heaven; and it was then given them to know what it is that shines in heaven, namely, divine truth (which is the light of heaven) in use, which is a plane that receives the rays of that light and turns them into various splendors. but those in whom knowledges resided merely in the memory, and who had acquired therefrom an ability to reason about truths and to prove what they had already accepted as principles, seeing such principles, after they had confirmed them, as truths, although they were falsities, these, as they were in no heavenly light, and yet were in a belief derived from the conceit that usually adheres to such intelligence that they were more learned than others, and would for that reason enter heaven and be served by the angels, in order that they might be withdrawn from their delusive faith, were taken up to the first or outmost heaven to be introduced into an angelic society. but at the very threshold their eyes began to be darkened by the inflowing of the light of heaven, and their understanding to be disturbed, and at length they began to gasp as if at the point of death; and as soon as they felt the heat of heaven, which is heavenly love, they began to be inwardly tormented. they were therefore cast down, and afterwards were taught that knowledges do not make an angel, but the life itself, which is gained by means of knowledges, for knowledges regarded in themselves are outside of heaven; but life acquired by means of knowledges is within heaven. . when spirits have been prepared for heaven by instruction in the places above described, which is effected in a short time on account of their being in spiritual ideas that comprehend many particulars together, they are clothed with angelic garments, which are mostly glowing white as if made of fine linen; and they are thus brought to the way that leads upwards towards heaven, and are delivered there to angel guards, and afterwards are received by other angels and introduced into societies and into many blessednesses there. after this each one is led by the lord into his own society, which is also effected by various ways, sometimes by winding paths. the ways by which they are led are not known to any angel, but are known to the lord alone. when they come to their own society their interiors are opened; and as these are in conformity with the interiors of the angels who are in that society they are immediately recognized and received with joy. . to this i will add a memorable fact respecting the ways that lead from these places to heaven, by which the newly arrived angels are introduced. there are eight ways, two from each place of instruction, one going up in an eastern direction the other towards the west. those that enter the lord's celestial kingdom are introduced by the eastern way, while those that enter the spiritual kingdom are introduced by the western way. the four ways that lead to the lord's celestial kingdom appear adorned with olive trees and fruit trees of various kinds; but those that lead to the lord's spiritual kingdom appear adorned with vines and laurels. this is from correspondence, because vines and laurels correspond to affection for truth and its uses, while olives and fruits correspond to affection for good and its uses. . liv. no one enters heaven by mercy apart from means. those that have not been instructed about heaven and the way to heaven, and about the life of heaven in man, suppose that being received into heaven is a mere matter of mercy, and is granted to those that have faith, and for whom the lord intercedes; thus that it is an admission from mere favor; consequently that all men without exception might be saved if the lord so pleased, and some even believe that all in hell might be so saved. but those who so think know nothing about man, that he is just such as his life is, and that his life is such as his love is, both in respect to the interiors pertaining to his will and understanding and in respect to the exteriors pertaining to his body; also that his bodily form is merely the external form in which the interiors exhibit themselves in effect; consequently that one's love is the whole man (see above, n. ). nor do they know that the body lives not from itself, but from its spirit, and that a man's spirit is his essential affection, and his spiritual body is nothing else than his affection in human form, and in such a form it appears after death (see above, n. - ). so long as man remains ignorant of all this he may be induced to believe that salvation involves nothing but the divine good pleasure, which is called mercy and grace. . but first let us consider what the divine mercy is. the divine mercy is pure mercy towards the whole human race, to save it; and it is also unceasing towards every man, and is never withdrawn from any one; so that everyone is saved who can be saved. and yet no one can be saved except by divine means, which means the lord reveals in the word. the divine means are what are called divine truths, which teach how man must live in order to be saved. by these truths the lord leads man to heaven, and by them he implants in man the life of heaven. this the lord does for all. but the life of heaven can be implanted in no one unless he abstains from evil, for evil obstructs. so far, therefore, as man abstains from evil he is led by the lord out of pure mercy by his divine means, and this from infancy to the end of his life in the world and afterwards to eternity. this is what is meant by the divine mercy. and from this it is evident that the mercy of the lord is pure mercy, but not apart from means, that is, it does not look to saving all out of mere good pleasure, however they may have lived. . the lord never does anything contrary to order, because he himself is order. the divine truth that goes forth from the lord is what constitutes order; and divine truths are the laws of order. it is in accord with these laws that the lord leads man. consequently to save man by mercy apart from means would be contrary to divine order, and what is contrary to divine order is contrary to the divine. divine order is heaven in man, and man has perverted this in himself by a life contrary to the laws of order, which are divine truths. into this order man is brought back by the lord out of pure mercy by means of the laws of order; and so far as he is brought back into this order he receives heaven in himself; and he that receives heaven in himself enters heaven. this again makes evident that the lord's divine mercy is pure mercy, and not mercy apart from means.{ } {footnote } divine truth going forth from the lord is the source of order, and divine good is the essential of order (n. , , , ). thus the lord is order (n. , , , , , ). divine truths are the laws of order (n. , ). the whole heaven is arranged by the lord in accordance with his divine order (n. , , , , , , ). therefore the form of heaven is a form in accord with the divine order (n. - , , ). so far as a man is living in accordance with order, that is, so far as he is living in good in accordance with divine truths, he is receiving heaven in himself (n. ). man is the being in whom are brought together all things of divine order, and by creation he is divine order in form, because he is a recipient of divine order (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). man is not born into good and truth but into evil and falsity, thus not into divine order but into the opposite of order, and for this reason he is born into pure ignorance; consequently it is necessary for him to be born anew, that is, to be regenerated, which is effected by the lord by means of divine truths, that he may be brought back into order (n. , , , , , , , , , ). when the lord forms man anew, that is, regenerates him, he arranges all things in him in harmony with order, that is, in the form of heaven (n. , , , ). evils and falsities are contrary to order; nevertheless those who are in them are ruled by the lord not in accordance with order but from order (n. , , ). it is impossible for a man who lives in evil to be saved by mercy alone, for that would be contrary to divine order (n. ). . if men could be saved by mercy apart from means all would be saved, even those in hell; in fact, there would be no hell, because the lord is mercy itself, love itself, and goodness itself. therefore it is inconsistent with his divine to say that he is able to save all apart from means and does not save them. it is known from the word that the lord wills the salvation of all, and the damnation of no one. . most of those who enter the other life from the christian world bring with them this belief that they can be saved by mercy apart from means, and pray for that mercy; but when examined they are found to believe that entering heaven is merely gaining admission, and that those who are let in are in heavenly joy. they are wholly ignorant of what heaven is and what heavenly joy is, and consequently are told that the lord denies heaven to no one, and that they can be admitted and can stay there if they desire it. those who so desired were admitted; but as soon as they reached the first threshold they were seized with such anguish of heart from a draught of heavenly heat, which is the love in which angels are, and from an inflow of heavenly light, which is divine truth, that they felt in themselves infernal torment instead of heavenly joy, and struck with dismay they cast themselves down headlong. thus they were taught by living experience that it is impossible to grant heaven to any one from mercy apart from means. . i have occasionally talked with angels about this, and have told them that most of those in the world who live in evil, when they talk with others about heaven and eternal life, express no other idea than that entering heaven is merely being admitted from mercy alone. and this is believed by those especially who make faith the only medium of salvation. for such from the principles of their religion have no regard to the life and the deeds of love that make life, and thus to none of the other means by which the lord implants heaven in man and renders him receptive of heavenly joy; and as they thus reject every actual mediation they conclude, as a necessary consequence of the principle, that man enters heaven from mercy alone, to which mercy god the father is believed to be moved by the intercession of the son. [ ] to all this the angels said that they knew such a tenet follows of necessity from the assumption that man is saved by faith alone, and since that tenet is the head of all the rest, and since into it, because it is not true, no light from heaven can flow, this is the source of the ignorance that prevails in the church at this day in regard to the lord, heaven, the life after death, heavenly joy, the essence of love and charity, and in general, in regard to good and its conjunction with truth, consequently in regard to the life of man, whence it is and what it is; when it should be known that thought never constitutes any one's life, but the will and the consequent deeds; and that the life is from the thought only to the extent that the thought is derived from the will; neither is life from the faith except so far as the faith is derived from love. angels are grieved that these persons do not know that faith alone is impossible in any one, since faith apart from its origin, which is love, is nothing but knowledge, and in some is merely a sort of persuasion that has the semblance of faith (see above, n. ). such a persuasion is not in the life of man, but outside of it, since it is separated from man unless it coheres with his love. [ ] the angels said further that those who hold to this principle concerning the essential means of salvation in man must needs believe in mercy apart from means, for they perceive both from natural light and from the experience of sight that faith separate does not constitute the life of man, since those who lead an evil life are able to think and to be persuaded the same as others; and from this comes the belief that the evil as well as the good can be saved, provided that at the hour of death they talk with confidence about intercession, and about the mercy that is granted through that intercession. the angels declared that they had never yet seen any one who had lived an evil life received into heaven from mercy apart from means, whatever trust or confidence (which is preeminently meant by faith) he had exhibited in his talk in the world. [ ] when asked about abraham, isaac, jacob, david, and the apostles, whether they were not received into heaven from mercy apart from means, the angels replied that not one of them was so received, but everyone in accordance with his life in the world; that they knew where these were, and that they were no more esteemed there than others. they said that these persons are mentioned with honor in the word for the reason that in the internal sense the lord is meant by them--by abraham, isaac, and jacob, the lord in respect to the divine and the divine human; by david the lord in respect to the divine royalty; and by the apostles the lord in respect to divine truths; also that when the word is read by man the angels have no perception whatever of these men, for their names do not enter heaven; but they have instead a perception of the lord as he has just been described; consequently in the word that is in heaven (see above, n. ) there are no such names mentioned, since that word is the internal sense of the word that is in the world.{ } {footnote } in the internal sense of the word by abraham, isaac, and jacob, the lord in respect to the divine itself and the divine human is meant (n. , , , , , , ). in heaven abraham is unknown (n. , , ). by david the lord in respect to the divine royalty is meant (n. , ). the twelve apostles represented the lord in respect to all things of the church, that is, all things pertaining to faith and love (n. , , , , ). peter represented the lord in respect to faith, james in respect to charity, and john in respect to the works of charity (n. , ). the twelve apostles sitting on twelve thrones and judging the twelve tribes of israel, signified that the lord will judge in accord with the truths and goods of faith and love (n. , ). the names of persons and of places in the word do not enter heaven, but are changed into things and states; and in heaven these names cannot even be uttered (n. , , , , , ). moreover, the angels think abstractedly from persons (n. , , ). . i can testify from much experience that it is impossible to implant the life of heaven in those who in the world have lived a life opposite to the life of heaven. there were some who had believed that when after death they should hear divine truths from the angels they would readily accept them and believe them, and consequently live a different life, and could thus be received into heaven. but this was tried with very many, although it was confined to those who held this belief, and was permitted in their case to teach them that repentance is not possible after death. some of those with whom the experiment was made understood truths and seemed to accept them; but as soon as they turned to the life of their love they rejected them, and even spoke against them. others were unwilling to hear them, and at once rejected them. others wished to have the life of love that they had contracted from the world taken away from them, and to have the angelic life, or the life of heaven, infused in its place. this, too, was permitted to be done; but as soon as the life of their love was taken away they lay as if dead, with their powers gone. by these and other experiments the simple good were taught that no one's life can by any means be changed after death; and that an evil life can in no way be converted into a good life, or an infernal life into an angelic life, for every spirit from head to heel is such as his love is, and therefore such as his life is; and to convert his life into its opposite is to destroy the spirit completely. the angels declare that it would be easier to change a night-owl into a dove, or a horned-owl into a bird of paradise, than to change an infernal spirit into an angel of heaven. that man after death continues to be such as his life had been in the world can be seen above in its own chapter (n. - ). from all this it is evident that no one can be received into heaven from mercy apart from means. . lv. it is not so difficult to live the life that leads to heaven as is believed. there are some who believe that to live the life that leads to heaven, which is called the spiritual life, is difficult, because they have been told that man must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually; and they understand this to mean that they must discard worldly things, which consist chiefly in riches and honors; that they must walk continually in pious meditation on god, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the word and pious books. such is their idea of renouncing the world, and living in the spirit and not in the flesh. but that this is not at all true it has been given me to know by much experience and from conversation with the angels. i have learned, in fact, that those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a sorrowful life that is not receptive of heavenly joy, since everyone's life continues the same after death. on the contrary, to receive the life of heaven a man must needs live in the world and engage in its business and employments, and by means of a moral and civil life there receive the spiritual life. in no other way can the spiritual life be formed in man, or his spirit prepared for heaven; for to live an internal life and not at the same time an external life is like dwelling in a house that has no foundation, that gradually sinks or becomes cracked and rent asunder, or totters till it falls. . when the life of man is scanned and explored by rational insight it is found to be threefold, namely, spiritual, moral, and civil, with these three lives distinct from each other. for there are men who live a civil life and not as yet a moral and spiritual life; and there are men who live a moral life and not as yet a spiritual life; and there are those who live a civil life, a moral life, and a spiritual life at the same time. these live the life of heaven; but the former live the life of the world separated from the life of heaven. this shows, in the first place, that the spiritual life is not a life separated from natural life or the life of the world, but is joined with it as the soul is joined with its body, and if it were separated it would be, as was said, like living in a house that has no foundation. for moral and civil life is the active plane of the spiritual life, since to will well is the province of the spiritual life, and to act well of the moral and civil life, and if the latter is separated from the former the spiritual life consists solely of thought and speech, and the will, left with no support, recedes; and yet the will is the very spiritual part of man. . that it is not so difficult as some believe to live the life that leads to heaven will now be shown. who cannot live a civil and moral life? for everyone from his childhood is initiated into that life, and learns what it is by living in the world. moreover, everyone, whether evil or good, lives that life; for who does not wish to be called honest, and who does not wish to be called just? almost everyone practices honesty and justice outwardly, so far as to seem to be honest and just at heart, or to seem to act from real honesty and justice. the spiritual man ought to live in like manner, and can do so as easily as the natural man can, with this difference only, that the spiritual man believes in the divine, and acts honestly and justly, not solely because to so act is in accord with civil and moral laws, but also because it is in accord with divine laws. as the spiritual man, in whatever he is doing, thinks about divine things, he has communication with the angels of heaven; and so far as this takes place he is conjoined with them; and thereby his internal man, which regarded in itself is the spiritual man, is opened. when man comes into this state he is adopted and led by the lord, although himself unconscious of it, and then whatever he does that is honest and just pertaining to moral and civil life, is done from a spiritual motive; and doing what is honest and just from a spiritual motive is doing it from honesty and justice itself, or doing it from the heart. [ ] his justice and honesty appear outwardly precisely the same as the justice and honesty of natural men and even of evil and infernal men; but in inward form they are wholly unlike. for evil men act justly and honestly solely for the sake of themselves and the world; and therefore if they had no fear of laws and penalties, or the loss of reputation, of honor, of gain, and of life, they would act in every respect dishonestly and unjustly, since they neither fear god nor any divine law, and therefore are not restrained by any internal bond; consequently they would use every opportunity to defraud, plunder, and spoil others, and this from delight. that inwardly they are such can be clearly seen from those of the same character in the other life, while everyone's externals are taken away, and his internals in which he at last lives to eternity are opened (see above, n. - ). as such then act without external restraints, which are, as just said, fear of the law, of the loss of reputation, of honor, of gain, and of life, they act insanely, and laugh at honesty and justice. [ ] but those who have acted honestly and justly from regard to divine laws, when their externals are taken away and they are left to their internals, act wisely, because they are conjoined to the angels of heaven, from whom wisdom is communicated to them. from all this it can now be seen, in the first place, that when the internal man, that is, the will and thought, are conjoined to the divine, the civil and moral life of the spiritual man may be wholly like the civil and moral life of the natural man (see above, n. - ). . furthermore, the laws of spiritual life, the laws of civil life, and the laws of moral life are set forth in the ten commandments of the decalogue; in the first three the laws of spiritual life, in the four that follow the laws of civil life, and in the last three the laws of moral life. outwardly the merely natural man lives in accordance with the same commandments in the same way as the spiritual man does, for in like manner he worships the divine, goes to church, listens to preachings, and assumes a devout countenance, refrains from committing murder, adultery, and theft, from bearing false witness, and from defrauding his companions of their goods. but all this he does merely for the sake of himself and the world, to keep up appearances; while inwardly such a person is the direct opposite of what he appears outwardly, since in heart he denies the divine, in worship acts the hypocrite, and when left to himself and his own thoughts laughs at the holy things of the church, believing that they merely serve as a restraint for the simple multitude. [ ] consequently he is wholly disjoined from heaven, and not being a spiritual man he is neither a moral man nor a civil man. for although he refrains from committing murder he hates everyone who opposes him, and from his hatred burns with revenge, and would therefore commit murder if he were not restrained by civil laws and external bonds, which he fears; and as he longs to do so it follows that he is continually committing murder. although he does not commit adultery, yet as he believes it to be allowable he is all the while an adulterer, since he commits adultery to the extent that he has the ability and as often as he has opportunity. although he does not steal, yet as he covets the goods of others and does not regard fraud and wicked devices as opposed to what is lawful, in intent he is continually acting the thief. the same is true of the commandments relating to moral life, which forbid false witness and coveting the goods of others. such is every man who denies the divine, and who has no conscience derived from religion. that he is such is clearly evident from those of like character in the other life when their externals have been removed and they are let into their internals. as they are then separated from heaven they act in unity with hell, and in consequence are affiliated with those who are in hell. [ ] it is not so with those who in heart have acknowledged the divine, and in the actions of their lives have had respect to divine laws, and have lived as fully in accord with the first three commandments of the decalogue as they have in accordance with the others. when the externals of such are removed and they are let into their internals they are wiser than they were in the world; for entering into their internals is like entering from darkness into light, from ignorance into wisdom, and from a sorrowful life into a happy life, because they are in the divine, thus in heaven. this has been said to make known what the one kind of man is and what the other is, although they have both lived the same external life. . everyone may know that thoughts are led or tend in accord with the intentions, that is, in the directions that one intends; for thought is man's internal sight, and resembles the external sight in this, that to whatever point it is directed or aimed, thither it turns and there it rests. therefore when the internal sight or the thought is turned towards the world and rests there, the thought in consequence becomes worldly; when it turns to self and self-honor it becomes corporeal; but when it is turned heavenwards it becomes heavenly. so, too, when turned heavenwards it is elevated; but when turned selfward it is drawn down from heaven and immersed in what is corporeal; and when turned towards the world it is also turned down-wards from heaven, and is spent upon those objects that are presented to the natural sight. [ ] man's love is what constitutes his intention and determines his internal sight or thought to its objects; thus the love of self fixes it upon self and its objects, the love of the world upon worldly objects, and the love of heaven upon heavenly objects; and when the love is known the state of the interiors which constitute the mind can be known, that is, the interiors of one who loves heaven are raised towards heaven and are opened above; while the interiors of one who loves the world or who loves himself are closed above and are opened outwardly. from this the conclusion follows that when the higher regions of the mind are closed above, man can no longer see the objects pertaining to heaven and the church, but those objects are in thick darkness to him; and what is in thick darkness is either denied or not understood. and this is why those that love themselves and the world above all things since the higher regions of their minds are closed, in heart deny divine truths; and if from their memory they say anything about them they nevertheless do not understand them. moreover, they regard them in the same way as they regard worldly and corporeal things. and being such they are able to direct the mind to those things only that enter through the senses of the body, and in these alone do they find delight. among these are also many things that are filthy, obscene, profane and wicked; and these cannot be removed, because into the minds of such no influx from heaven is possible, since their minds, as just now said, are closed above. [ ] man's intention, by which his internal sight or thought is determined, is his will; for what a man wills he intends, and what he intends he thinks. therefore when his intention is heavenward his thought is determined heavenward, and with it his whole mind, which is thus in heaven; and from heaven he beholds the things of the world beneath him like one looking down from the roof of a house. so the man that has the interiors of his mind open can see the evils and falsities that are in him, for these are beneath the spiritual mind. on the other hand, the man whose interiors are not open is unable to see his evils and falsities, because he is not above them but in them. from all this one may conclude whence man has wisdom and whence insanity, also what a man will be after death when he is left to will and think and to act and speak in accordance with his interiors. all this also has been said in order to make clear what constitutes a man's interior character, however he may seem outwardly to resemble others. . that it is not so difficult to live the life of heaven as some believe can now be seen from this, that when any thing presents itself to a man that he knows to be dishonest and unjust, but to which his mind is borne, it is simply necessary for him to think that it ought not to be done because it is opposed to the divine precepts. if a man accustoms himself so to think, and from so doing establishes a habit of so thinking, he is gradually conjoined to heaven; and so far as he is conjoined to heaven the higher regions of his mind are opened; and so far as these are opened he sees whatever is dishonest and unjust, and so far as he sees these evils they can be dispersed, for no evil can be dispersed until it is seen. into this state man is able to enter because of his freedom, for is not any one able from his freedom to so think? and when man has made a beginning the lord quickens all that is good in him, and causes him not only to see evils to be evils, but also to refrain from willing them, and finally to turn away from them. this is meant by the lord's words, my yoke is easy and my burden is light (matt. : ). but it must be understood that the difficulty of so thinking and of resisting evils increases so far as man from his will does evils, for in the same measure he becomes accustomed to them until he no longer sees them, and at length loves them and from the delight of his love excuses them, and confirms them by every kind of fallacy, and declares them to be allowable and good. this is the fate of those who in early youth plunge into evils without restraint, and also reject divine things from the heart. . the way that leads to heaven, and the way that leads to hell were once represented to me. there was a broad way tending towards the left or the north, and many spirits were seen going in it; but at a distance a large stone was seen where the broad way came to an end. from that stone two ways branched off, one to the left and one in the opposite direction to the right. the way that went to the left was narrow or straitened, leading through the west to the south, and thus into the light of heaven; the way that went to the right was broad and spacious, leading obliquely downwards towards hell. all at first seemed to be going the same way until they came to the large stone at the head of the two ways. when they reached that point they divided; the good turned to the left and entered the straitened way that led to heaven; while the evil, not seeing the stone at the fork of the ways fell upon it and were hurt; and when they rose up they ran on in the broad way to the right which went towards hell. [ ] what all this meant was afterwards explained to me. the first way that was broad, wherein many both good and evil went together and talked with each other as friends, because there was no visible difference between them, represented those who externally live alike honestly and justly, and between whom seemingly there is no difference. the stone at the head of the two ways or at the corner, upon which the evil fell and from which they ran into the way leading to hell, represented the divine truth, which is rejected by those who look towards hell; and in the highest sense this stone signified the lord's divine human. but those who acknowledged the divine truth and also the divine of the lord went by the way that led to heaven. by this again it was shown that in externals the evil lead the same kind of life as the good, or go the same way, that is, one as readily as the other; and yet those who from the heart acknowledge the divine, especially those within the church who acknowledge the divine of the lord, are led to heaven; while those who do not are led to hell. [ ] the thoughts of man that proceed from his intention or will are represented in the other life by ways; and ways are visibly presented there in exact accord with those thoughts of intention; and in accord with his thoughts that proceed from intention everyone walks. for this reason the character of spirits and their thoughts are known from their ways. this also makes clear what is meant by the lord's words: enter ye in through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby; for straitened is the way and narrow the gate that leadeth to life, and few be they who find it (matt. : , ). the way that leads to life is straitened not because it is difficult but because there are few who find it, as is said here. the stone seen at the corner where the broad and common way ended, and from which two ways were seen to lead in opposite directions, illustrated what is signified by these words of the lord: have ye not read what is written? the stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken (luke. : , ). "stone" signifies divine truth, and "the stone of israel" the lord in respect to his divine human; the "builders" mean those who are of the church; "the head of the corner" is where the two ways are; "to fall" and "to be broken" is to deny and perish.{ } {footnote } "stone" signifies truth (n. , , , , , , ). for this reason the law was inscribed on tables of stone (n. ). "the stone of israel" means the lord in respect to the divine truth and his divine human (n. ). . i have been permitted to talk with some in the other life who had withdrawn from worldly affairs that they might live in a pious and holy manner, also with some who had afflicted themselves in various ways, believing that they were thereby renouncing the world and subduing the lusts of the flesh. but as most of these have thus acquired a sorrowful life and had withdrawn from the life of charity, which life can be lived only in the midst of the world, they are incapable of being affiliated with angels, because the life of angels is a life of joy resulting from a state of blessedness, and consists in performing good deeds, which are works of charity. moreover, those who have lived a life withdrawn from worldly employments are inflamed with the idea of their own merit, and are continually desiring heaven on that account, and thinking of heavenly joy as a reward, utterly ignorant of what heavenly joy is. when such are admitted into the company of angels and into their joy, which discards merit and consists in active labors and practical services, and in a blessedness resulting from the good thereby accomplished, they are astonished like one who has found out something quite foreign to his belief; and since they are not receptive of that joy they go away and ally themselves with spirits of their own kind that have lived in the world a life like their own. [ ] but those who have lived an outwardly holy life, constantly attending church and praying and afflicting their souls, and at the same time have thought constantly of themselves that they would be esteemed and honored for all this above others, and finally after death would be accounted saints-- such in the other life are not in heaven because they have done all this for the sake of themselves. and as they have defiled divine truths by the self-love in which they have immersed them, some of them are so insane as to think themselves gods; and are consequently in hell among those like themselves. some are cunning and deceitful, and are in the hells of the deceitful. these are such as by means of cunning arts and devices have maintained such pious conduct as induced the common people to believe that they possessed a divine sanctity. [ ] of this character are many of the roman catholic saints. i have been permitted to talk with some of them, and their life was then plainly disclosed, such as it had been in the world and as it was afterwards. all this has been said to make known that the life that leads to heaven is not a life withdrawn from the world, but a life in the world; and that a life of piety separated from a life of charity, which is possible only in the world, does not lead to heaven; but a life of charity does; and a life of charity consists in acting honestly and justly in every employment, in every business, and in every work, from an interior, that is, from a heavenly, motive; and this motive is in that life whenever man acts honestly and justly because doing so is in accord with the divine laws. such a life is not difficult. but a life of piety separate from a life of charity is difficult; and as much as such a life is believed to lead towards heaven so much it leads away from heaven.{ } {footnote } a life of piety separated from a life of charity is of no avail, but united with charity it is profitable for all things (n. , ). charity to the neighbor consists in doing what is good, just, and right in every work and in every employment (n. - ). charity to the neighbor takes in all things and each thing that a man thinks, wills, and does (n. ). a life of charity is a life in accordance with the lord's commandments (n. ). living in accordance with the lord's commandments is loving the lord (n. , , , , ). genuine charity claims no merit, because it is from interior affection and consequent delight (n. , , , , , - ). man continues to be after death such as was his life of charity in the world (n. ). heavenly blessedness flows in from the lord into a life of charity (n. ). mere thinking admits no one into heaven; it must be accompanied by willing and doing good (n. , ). unless doing good is joined with willing good and thinking good there is no salvation nor any conjunction of the internal man with the external (n. ). . lvi. the lord rules the hells. above, in treating of heaven it has been everywhere shown (especially in n. - ) that the god of heaven is the lord, thus that the whole government of the heavens is the lord's government. and as the relation of heaven to hell and of hell to heaven is like the relation between two opposites which mutually act contrary to each other, and from the action and re-action of which an equilibrium results, which gives permanence to all things of their action and reaction, so in order that all things and each thing may be kept in equilibrium it is necessary that he who rules the one should rule the other; for unless the same lord restrained the uprisings from the hells and checked insanities there the equilibrium would perish and everything with it. . but something about that equilibrium shall first be told. it is acknowledged that when two things mutually act against each other, and as much as one reacts and resists the other acts and impels, since there is equal power on either side, neither has any effect, and both can then be acted upon freely by a third. for when the force of the two is neutralized by equal opposition the force of a third has full effect, and acts as easily as if there were no opposition. [ ] such is the equilibrium between heaven and hell. yet it is not an equilibrium like that between two bodily combatants whose strength is equal; but it is a spiritual equilibrium, that is, an equilibrium of falsity against truth and of evil against good. from hell falsity from evil continually exhales, and from heaven truth from good. it is this spiritual equilibrium that causes man to think and will in freedom; for whatever a man thinks and wills has reference either to evil and falsity therefrom or to good and truth therefrom. [ ] therefore when he is in that equilibrium he is in freedom either to admit or accept evil and its falsity from hell or to admit or accept good and its truth from heaven. every man is held in this equilibrium by the lord, because the lord rules both heaven and hell. but why man is held in this freedom by such an equilibrium, and why evil and falsity are not taken away from him and good and truth implanted in him by divine power will be told hereafter in its own chapter. . a perception of the sphere of falsity from evil that flows forth from hell has often been granted me. it was like a perpetual effort to destroy all that is good and true, combined with anger and a kind of fury at not being able to do so, especially an effort to annihilate and destroy the divine of the lord, and this because all good and truth are from him. but out of heaven a sphere of truth from good was perceived, whereby the fury of the effort ascending from hell was restrained. the result of this was an equilibrium. this sphere from heaven was perceived to come from the lord alone, although it appeared to come from the angels in heaven. it is from the lord alone, and not from the angels, because every angel in heaven acknowledges that nothing of good and of truth is from himself, but all is from the lord. . in the spiritual world truth from good is the source of all power, and falsity from evil has no power whatever. this is because the divine itself in heaven is divine good and divine truth, and all power belongs to the divine. falsity from evil is powerless because truth from good is the source of all power, and in falsity from evil there is nothing of truth from good. consequently in heaven there is all power, and none in hell; for everyone in heaven is in truths from good, and everyone in hell is in falsities from evil. for no one is admitted into heaven until he is in truths from good, neither is any one cast down into hell until he is in falsities from evil, (that this is so can be seen in the chapters treating of the first, second, and third states of man after death, n. - ; and that all power belongs to truth from good can be seen in the chapter on the power of angels in heaven, n. - .) . such, then, is the equilibrium between heaven and hell. those who are in the world of spirits are in that equilibrium, for the world of spirits is midway between heaven and hell. from the same source all men in the world are kept in a like equilibrium, since men in the world are ruled by the lord by means of spirits in the world of spirits, as will be shown hereafter in its own chapter. no such equilibrium would be possible unless the lord ruled both heaven and hell and regulated both sides. otherwise falsities from evil would preponderate, and would affect the simple good who are in the outmosts regions of heaven, and who can be more easily perverted than the angels themselves; and thereby equilibrium would perish, and with it freedom in men. . hell, like heaven, is divided into societies, and into as many societies as there are in heaven; for every society in heaven has a society opposite to it in hell, and this for the sake of equilibrium. but evils and falsities therefrom are what distinguish the societies in hell, as goods and truths therefrom are what distinguish the societies in heaven. that for every good there is an opposite evil, and for every truth an opposite falsity may be known from this, that nothing can exist without relation to its opposite, and what anything is in kind and degree can be known from its opposite, and from this all perception and sensation is derived. for this reason the lord continually provides that every society in heaven shall have an opposite in some society of hell, and that there shall be an equilibrium between the two. . as hell is divided into the same number of societies as heaven, there are as many hells as there are societies of heaven; for as each society of heaven is a heaven in smaller form (see above, n. - ), so each society in hell is a hell in smaller form. as in general there are three heavens, so in general there are three hells, a lowest, which is opposite to the inmost or third heaven, a middle, which is opposite to the middle or second heaven, and a higher, which is opposite to the outmost or first heaven. . how the hells are ruled by the lord shall be briefly explained. in general the hells are ruled by a general outflow from the heavens of divine good and divine truth whereby the general endeavor flowing forth from the hells is checked and restrained; also by a particular outflow from each heaven and from each society of heaven. the hells are ruled in particular by means of the angels, to whom it is granted to look into the hells and to restrain insanities and disturbances there; and sometimes angels are sent to them who moderate these insanities and disturbances by their presence. but in general all in the hells are ruled by means of their fears. some are ruled by fears implanted in the world and still inherent in them; but as these fears are not sufficient, and gradually subside, they are ruled by fears of punishments; and it is especially by these that they are deterred from doing evil. the punishments in hell are manifold, lighter or more severe in accordance with the evils. for the most part the more wicked, who excel in cunning and in artifices, and who are able to hold the rest in subjection and servitude by means of punishments and consequent terror, are set over them; but these governors dare not pass beyond the limits prescribed to them. it must be understood that the sole means of restraining the violence and fury of those who are in the hells is the fear of punishment. there is no other way. . it has been believed heretofore in the world that there is one devil that presides over the hells; that he was created an angel of light; but having become rebellious he was cast down with his crew into hell. this belief has prevailed because the devil and satan, and also lucifer, are mentioned by name in the word, and the word in those places has been understood according to the sense of the letter. but by "the devil" and "satan" there hell is meant, "devil" meaning the hell that is behind, where the worst dwell, who are called evil genii; and "satan" the hell that is in front, where the less wicked dwell, who are called evil spirits; and "lucifer" those that belong to babel, or babylon, who would extend their dominion even into heaven. that there is no one devil to whom the hells are subject is evident also from this, that all who are in the hells, like all who are in the heavens, are from the human race (see n. - ); and that those who have gone there from the beginning of creation to this time amount to myriads of myriads, and everyone of them is a devil in accord with his opposition to the divine while he lived in the world (see above, n. , ). . lvii. the lord casts no one into hell; the spirit casts himself down. an opinion has prevailed with some that god turns away his face from man, casts man away from himself, and casts him into hell, and is angry with him on account of his evil; and some believe also that god punishes man and does evil to him. in this opinion they establish themselves by the sense of the letter of the word, where such things are declared, not knowing that the spiritual sense of the word, by which the sense of the letter is made clear, is wholly different; and consequently that the genuine doctrine of the church, which is from the spiritual sense of the word, teaches otherwise, namely, that god never turns away his face from man, and never casts man away from himself, that he casts no one into hell and is angry with no one.{ } everyone, moreover, whose mind is enlightened perceives this to be true when he reads the word, from the simple truth that god is good itself, love itself, and mercy itself; and that good itself cannot do evil to any one, and love itself and mercy itself can not cast man away from itself, because this is contrary to the very essence of mercy and love, thus contrary to the divine itself. therefore those who think from an enlightened mind clearly perceive, when they read the word, that god never turns himself away from man; and as he never turns himself away from him he deals with him from goodness, love, and mercy, that is, wills good to him, loves him, and is merciful to him. and from this they see that the sense of the letter of the word, in which such things are declared, has stored up within itself a spiritual sense, and that these expressions that are used in the sense of the letter in accommodation to man's apprehension and according to his first and general ideas are to be explained in accordance with the spiritual sense. {footnote } in the word anger and wrath are attributed to the lord, but they are in man, and it is so expressed because such is the appearance to man when he is punished and damned (n. , , , , , , , ). evil also is attributed to the lord, although nothing but good is from him (n. , , , , , , , , , , , ). why it is so expressed in the word (n. , , , , , , , , , , ). the lord is pure mercy and clemency (n. , ). . those who are enlightened see further that good and evil are two opposites, and are therefore opposed as heaven and hell are, and that all good is from heaven and all evil from hell; and as it is the divine of the lord that makes heaven (n. - ), nothing but good flows into man from the lord, and nothing but evil from hell; thus the lord is continually withdrawing man from evil and leading him to good, while hell is continually leading man into evil. unless man were between these two, he could have no thought nor any will, still less any freedom or any choice; for all these man has by virtue of the equilibrium between good and evil; consequently if the lord should turn himself away, leaving man to evil alone, man would cease to be man. all this shows that the lord flows into every man with good, into the evil man as well as the good; but with the difference that the lord is continually withdrawing the evil man from evil and is continually leading the good man to good; and this difference lies in the man himself, because he is the recipient. . from this it is clear that it is from hell that man does evil, and from the lord that he does good. but man believes that whatever he does he does from himself, and in consequence of this the evil that he does sticks to him as his own; and for this reason man is the cause of his own evil, and in no way the lord. evil in man is hell in him, for it is the same thing whether you say evil or hell. and since man is the cause of his own evil he is led into hell, not by the lord but by himself. for so far is the lord from leading man into hell that it is he who delivers man from hell, and this he does so far as man does not will and love to be in his own evil. all of man's will and love continues with him after death (n. - ). he who wills and loves evil in the world wills and loves the same evil in the other life, but he no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it. if, therefore, a man is in evil he is tied to hell, and in respect to his spirit is actually there, and after death desires nothing so much as to be where his evil is; consequently it is man who casts himself into hell after death, and not the lord. . how this comes about shall also be explained. when man enters the other life he is received first by angels, who perform for him all good offices, and talk with him about the lord, heaven, and the angelic life, and instruct him in things that are true and good. but if the man, now a spirit, be one who knew about these things in the world, but in heart denied or despised them, after some conversation he desires and seeks to get away from these angels. as soon as the angels perceive this they leave him. after some interaction with others he at length unites himself with those who are in evil like his own (see above, n. - ). when this takes place he turns himself away from the lord and turns his face towards the hell to which he had been joined in the world, in which those abide who are in a like love of evil. all this makes clear that the lord draws every spirit to himself by means of angels and by means of influx from heaven; but those spirits that are in evil completely resist, and as it were tear themselves away from the lord, and are drawn by their own evil, thus by hell, as if by a rope. and as they are so drawn, and by reason of their love of evil are eager to follow, it is evident that they themselves cast themselves into hell by their own free choice. men in the world because of their idea of hell are unable to believe that this is so. in fact, in the other life before the eyes of those who are outside of hell it does not so appear; but only so to those who cast themselves into hell, for such enter of their own accord. those who enter from a burning love of evil appear to be cast headlong, with the head downwards and the feet upwards. it is because of this appearance that they seem to be cast into hell by divine power. (but about this more will be said below, n. .) from all this it can be seen that the lord casts no one into hell, but everyone casts himself into hell, both while he is living in the world and also after death when he comes among spirits. . the lord from his divine essence, which is goodness, love, and mercy, is unable to deal in the same way with every man, because evils and their falsities prevent, and not only quench his divine influx but even reject it. evils and their falsities are like black clouds which interpose between the sun and the eye, and take away the sunshine and the serenity of its light; although the unceasing endeavor of the sun to dissipate the opposing clouds continues, for it is operating behind them; and in the meantime transmits something of obscure light into the eye of man by various roundabout ways. it is the same in the spiritual world. the sun there is the lord and the divine love (n. - ); and the light there is the divine truth (n. - ); black clouds there are falsities from evil; the eye there is the understanding. so far as any one in that world is in falsities from evil he is encompassed by such a cloud, which is black and dense according to the degree of his evil. from this comparison it can be seen that the lord is unceasingly present with everyone, but that he is received variously. . evil spirits are severely punished in the world of spirits in order that by means of punishments they may be deterred from doing evil. this also appears to be from the lord; and yet nothing of punishment there is from the lord, but is from the evil itself; since evil is so joined with its own punishment that the two cannot be separated. for the infernal crew desire and love nothing so much as doing evil, especially inflicting punishments and torment upon others; and they maltreat and inflict punishments upon everyone who is not protected by the lord. when, therefore, evil is done from an evil heart, because it thereby discards all protection from the lord, infernal spirits rush upon the one who does the evil, and inflict punishment. this may be partly illustrated by evils and their punishments in the world, where the two are also joined. for laws in the world prescribe a penalty for every evil; therefore he that rushes into evil rushes also into the penalty of evil. the only difference is that in the world the evil may be concealed; but in the other life it cannot be concealed. all this makes clear that the lord does evil to no one; and that it is the same as it is in the world, where it is not the king nor the judge nor the law that is the cause of punishment to the guilty, because these are not the cause of the evil in the evil doer. . lviii. all who are in the hells are in evils and in falsities therefrom derived from the loves of self and of the world. all who are in the hells are in evils and in falsities therefrom, and no one there is in evils and at the same time in truths. in the world evil men for the most part have some knowledge of spiritual truths, which are the truths of the church, having been taught them from childhood and later by preaching and by reading the word; and afterwards they have talked about them. some have even led others to believe that they are christians at heart because of their knowing how to talk with pretended affection in harmony with the truth, also how to act uprightly as if from spiritual faith. but those of this class whose interior thoughts have been hostile to these truths, and who have refrained from doing the evils that were in harmony with their thoughts only because of the civil laws, or with a view to reputation, honors, and gain, are all of them evil in heart, and are in truths and goods not in respect to their spirit but only in respect to their body; and consequently, when their externals are taken away from them in the other life, and their internals which pertain to their spirit are revealed, they are wholly in evils and falsities, and not at all in truths and goods; and it is thus made clear that truths and goods resided only in their memory merely as things known about, and that they brought them forth therefrom when talking, putting on a semblance of good seemingly from spiritual love and faith. when such are let into their internals and thus into their evils they are no longer able to speak what is true, but only what is false; since they speak from evils; for to speak what is true from evils is then impossible, since the spirit is nothing but his own evil, and from evil what is false goes forth. every evil spirit is reduced to this state before he is cast into hell (see above, n. - ). this is called being vastated in respect to truths and goods.{ } vastation is simply being let into one's internals, that is, into what is the spirit's own, or into the spirit itself (see above, n. ). {footnote } before the evil are cast down into hell they are devastated of truths and goods, and when these have been taken away they are of themselves carried into hell (n. , , , , , ). the lord does not devastate them, but they devastate themselves (n. , ). every evil has in it what is false; therefore those who are in evil are also in falsity, although some do not know it (n. , ). those who are in evil must needs think what is false when they think from themselves (n. ). all who are in hell speak falsities from hell (n. , , , , , ). . when man after death comes into this state he is no longer a man-spirit, as he was in his first state (of which above, n. - ), but is truly a spirit; for he is truly a spirit who has a face and body that correspond to his internals which pertain to his mind, that is, has an external form that is a type or effigy of his internals. a spirit is such after he has passed through the first and second states spoken of above; consequently when he is looked upon his character is at once known, not only from his face and from his body, but also from his speech and movements; and as he is then in himself he can be nowhere else than where his like are. [ ] for in the spiritual world there is a complete sharing of affections and their thoughts, and in consequence a spirit is conveyed to his like as if of himself, since it is done from his affection and its delight. in fact, he turns himself in that direction; for thus he inhales his own life or draws his breath freely, which he cannot do when he turns another way. it must be understood that this sharing with others in the spiritual world is effected in accordance with the turning of the face, and that each one has constantly before his face those who are in a love like his own, and this in every turning of the body (see above, n. ) [ ] in consequence of this all infernal spirits turn themselves away from the lord toward the densely dark body and the dark body that are there in place of the sun and moon of this world, while all the angels of heaven turn themselves to the lord as the sun of heaven and as the moon of heaven (see above, n. , , , ). from all this it is clear that all who are in the hells are in evils and in falsities therefrom; also that they are turned to their own loves. . all spirits in the hells, when seen in any light of heaven, appear in the form of their evil; for everyone there is an image of his evil, since his interiors and his exteriors act as a one, the interiors making themselves visible in the exteriors, which are the face, body, speech and movements; thus the character of the spirit is known as soon as he is seen. in general evil spirits are forms of contempt of others and of menaces against those who do not pay them respect; they are forms of hatreds of various kinds, also of various kinds of revenge. fierceness and cruelty from their interiors show through these forms. but when they are commended, venerated, and worshiped by others their faces are restrained and take on an expression of gladness from delight. [ ] it is impossible to describe in a few words how all these forms appear, for no one is like another, although there is a general likeness among those who are in the same evil, and thus in the same infernal society, from which, as from a plane of derivation, the faces of all are seen to have a certain resemblance. in general their faces are hideous, and void of life like those of corpses; the faces of some are black, others fiery like torches, others disfigured with pimples, warts, and ulcers; some seem to have no face, but in its stead something hairy or bony; and with some only the teeth are seen; their bodies also are monstrous; and their speech is like the speech of anger or of hatred or of revenge; for what everyone speaks is from his falsity, while his tone is from his evil. in a word, they are all images of their own hell. [ ] i have not been permitted to see what the form of hell itself in general is; i have only been told that as the entire heaven in one complex reflects a single man (n. - ), so the entire hell in one complex reflects a single devil, and might be exhibited in an image of a single devil (see above, n. ). but the forms of particular hells or infernal societies i have often been permitted to see; for at their entrances, which are called the gates of hell, a monster commonly appears that represents in a general way the form of those within. the fierce passions of those who dwell there are represented at the same time in horrible and hideous ways that i forbear to describe. [ ] but it must be understood that this is the way infernal spirits appear in the light of heaven, while among themselves they appear as men. this is of the lord's mercy, that they may not appear as loathsome to one another as they appear before the angels. but this appearance is a fallacy, for as soon as any ray of light from heaven is let in, their human forms appear changed into monstrous forms, such as they are in themselves (as has been described above). for in the light of heaven everything appears as it is in itself. for this reason they shun the light of heaven and cast themselves down into their own light, which is like that from lighted coals, and in some cases like that from burning sulphur; but this light also is turned into mere thick darkness when any light from heaven flows in upon it. this is why the hells are said to be in thick darkness and in darkness; and why "thick darkness" and "darkness" signify falsities derived from evil, such as are in hell. . from an inspection of these monstrous forms of spirits in the hells (which, as i have said, are all forms of contempt of others and of menaces against those who do not pay them honor and respect, also forms of hatred and revenge against those who do not favor them), it became evident that in general they were all forms of the love of self and the love of the world; and that the evils of which these are the specific forms have their origin in these two loves. moreover, i have been told from heaven, and it has been proved to me by much experience, that these two loves, the love of self and the love of the world, rule in the hells and constitute the hells as love to the lord and love towards the neighbor rule in the heavens and constitute the heavens; also that the two loves that are the loves of hell and the two loves that are the loves of heaven are diametrically opposite to each other. . at first i wondered how it is that love of self and love of the world could be so diabolical, and how those who are in these loves could be such monsters in appearance; for in the world not much thought is given to love of self, but only to that elated state of mind in external matters which is called haughtiness, and that alone, being so apparent to the sight, is regarded as love of self. furthermore, love of self, when it is not so displayed, is believed in the world to be the very fire of life by which man is stimulated to seek employment and to perform uses, and if he found no honor or glory in these his mind would grow torpid. it is asked, who has ever done any worthy, useful, and distinguished deed except for the sake of being praised and honored by others, or regarded with esteem and honor by others? and can this be from any other source than the fire of love for glory and honor, consequently for self. for this reason, it is unknown in the world that love of self, regarded in itself, is the love that rules in hell and constitutes hell in man. this being so i will first describe what the love of self is, and then will show that all evils and their falsities spring from that love as their fountain. . the love of self is wishing well to oneself alone, and to others only for the sake of self, even to the church, one's country, or any human society. it consists also in doing good to all these solely for the sake of one's own reputation, honor, and glory; and unless these are seen in the uses he performs in behalf of others he says in his heart, how does it concern me? why should i do this? what shall i get from it? and therefore he does not do it. evidently, then, he who is in the love of self does not love the church or his country or society, nor any use, but himself alone. his delight is solely the delight of the love of self; and as the delight that comes forth from his love is what constitutes the life of man, his life is a life of self; and a life of self is a life from what is man's own, and what is man's own, regarded in itself, is nothing but evil. he who loves himself loves also those who belong to him, that is, in particular, his children and grandchildren, and in general, all who are at one with him, whom he calls his. to love these is to love himself, for he regards them as it were in himself, and himself in them. among those whom he calls his are also all who commend, honor, and pay their court to him. . what love of self is can be seen by comparing it with heavenly love. heavenly love consists in loving uses for the sake of uses, or goods for the sake of goods, which are done by man in behalf of the church, his country, human society, and a fellow-citizen; for this is loving god and loving the neighbor, since all uses and all goods are from god, and are the neighbor who is to be loved. but he who loves these for the sake of himself loves them merely as servants, because they are serviceable to him; consequently it is the will of one who is in self-love that the church, his country, human societies, and his fellow citizens, should serve him, and not he them, for he places himself above them and places them beneath himself. therefore so far as any one is in love of self he separates himself from heaven, because he separates himself from heavenly love. . [a.] furthermore, so far as any one is in heavenly love, which consists in loving uses and goods and being moved by delight of heart when doing them for the sake of the church, country, human society, and ones fellow-citizens, he is so far led by the lord, because that love is the love in which the lord is, and which is from him. but so far as any one is in the love of self, which consists in performing uses and goods for the sake of himself, so far he is led by himself; and so far as any one is led by himself he is not led by the lord. and from this it also follows that so far as any one loves himself he separates himself from the divine, thus also from heaven. to be led by one's self is to be led by what is one's own; and what is man's own is nothing but evil; for man's inherited evil consists in loving self more than god, and the world more than heaven.{ } whenever man looks to himself in the good that he does he is let into what is his own, that is, into his inherited evils for he then looks from good to himself and from himself to good, and therefore he presents an image of himself in his good, and not an image of the divine. that this is so has also been proved to me by experience. there are evil spirits whose dwelling places are in the middle quarter between the north and the west, beneath the heavens, who are skilled in the art of leading well-disposed spirits into their nature [proprium] and thus into evils of various kinds. this they do by leading them into thoughts about themselves, either openly by praises and honors, or secretly by directing their affections to themselves; and so far as this is done they turn the faces of the well-disposed spirits away from heaven, and to the same extent they obscure their understanding and call forth evils from what is their own. {footnote } man's own, which he derives by inheritance from his parents, is nothing but dense evil (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). man's own is loving self more than god, and the world more than heaven, and making nothing of one's neighbor in comparison with oneself, except for the sake of self, that is one's own self; thus it consists in love of self and of the world (n. , , , ). all evils flow from the love of self and the love of the world when these predominate (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). these evils are contempt of others, enmity, hatred, revenge, cruelty, deceit (n. , , , , , ). from these evils all falsity flows (n. , , , ). . [b.] that the love of self is the opposite of love to the neighbor can be seen from the origin and essence of both. the love of the neighbor of one who is in the love of self begins with oneself, for he claims that everyone is neighbor to himself; and it goes forth from him as its center to all who make one with him, diminishing in accordance with the degree of their conjunction with him by love. all outside of this circle are regarded as of no account; and those who are opposed to those in the circle and to their evils are accounted as enemies, whatever their character may be, however wise, upright, honest, or just. but spiritual love to the neighbor begins with the lord, and goes forth from him as its center to all who are conjoined to him by love and faith, going forth in accordance with the quality of their love and faith.{ } evidently, then, the love of the neighbor that has its beginning in man is the opposite of the love to the neighbor that has its beginning in the lord; and the former proceeds from evil because it proceeds from what is man's own, while the latter proceeds from good because it proceeds from the lord, who is good itself. evidently, also, the love of the neighbor that proceeds from man and from what is his own is corporeal, while the love to the neighbor that proceeds from the lord is heavenly. in a word, in the man in whom love of self prevails that love constitutes the head, and heavenly love constitutes the feet. on that love he stands; and if it does not serve him he tramples it under foot. this is the cause of the appearance that those who are cast down into hell fall with the head downward towards hell, and with the feet upwards towards heaven (see above, n. ). {footnote } those who do not know what it is to love the neighbor imagine every man to be a neighbor, and that good is to be done to everyone who is in need of help (n. ). they also believe that everyone is neighbor to himself, and thus that love to the neighbor begins with self (n. ). those who love themselves above all things, that is, with whom self-love prevails, also make love to the neighbor to begin with themselves (n. ). in what manner everyone is neighbor to himself, explained (n. - ). but those who are christians and who love god above all things make love to the neighbor to begin with the lord, because he is to be loved above all things (n. , , , ). the distinctions of neighbor are as many as the distinctions of good from the lord, and there should be distinction in doing good to everyone in accordance with the quality of his state, and this is a matter of christian prudence (n. , , , ). these distinctions are innumerable, and for this reason the ancients, who knew what is meant by the neighbor, reduced the exercises of charity into classes, which they denoted by suitable names, and from this knew in what respect everyone was a neighbor, and in what manner good was to be done to everyone with prudence (n. , , , - ). the doctrine in the ancient churches was the doctrine of charity towards the neighbor, and from this they had wisdom (n. , , , , , ). . again, love of self is such that so far as the reins are given it, that is, so far as external bonds are removed, which are fears of the law and its penalties, and of the loss of reputation, honor, gain, employment, and life, so far it rushes on until it finally longs to rule not only over the entire world but also over the entire heaven, and over the divine himself, knowing no limit or end. this propensity lurks hidden in everyone who is in love of self, although it is not manifest to the world, where it is held in check by such bonds as have been mentioned. everyone can see examples of this in potentates and kings who are subject to no such restraints and bonds, but rush on and subjugate provinces and kingdoms so far as they are successful, and aspire to power and glory without limit; and still more strikingly in the babylon of this day, which has extended its dominion into heaven, and has transferred to itself all the divine power of the lord, and continually lusts for more. that such men, when they have entered after death the other life, are directly opposed to the divine and to heaven, and are on the side of hell, can be seen in the little work on the last judgment and the destruction of babylon. . picture to yourself a society of such persons, all of whom love themselves alone and love others only so far as they make one with themselves, and you will see that their love is precisely like the love of thieves for each other, who embrace and call one another friends so long as they are acting together; but when they cease to act together and discard their subordination to one another, they rise up against and murder one another. when the interiors or the minds of such are explored they will be seen to be full of bitter hatred one against another, and at heart will laugh at all justice and honesty, and likewise at the divine, which they reject as of no account. this is still more evident in the societies of such in the hells treated of below. . the interiors pertaining to the thoughts and affections of those who love themselves above all things are turned towards themselves and the world, and thus are turned away from the lord and from heaven; and consequently they are obsessed with evils of every kind, and the divine cannot flow in; for if it does flow in it is instantly submerged in thoughts of self, and is defiled, and is also mingled with the evils that flow from what is their own. this is why all such in the other life look backwards away from the lord, and towards the densely dark body that is there in the place of the sun of the world, and is diametrically opposite to the sun of heaven, which is the lord (see above, n. ). "thick darkness" signifies evil, and the "sun of the world" the love of self.{ } {footnote } "the sun of the world" signifies the love of self (n. ). in this sense "to worship the sun" signifies to worship those things that are antagonistic to heavenly love and to the lord (n. , ). "the sun's growing hot" means an increasing lust of evil (n. ). . the evils of those who are in the love of self are, in general, contempt of others, envy, enmity against all who do not favor them, and consequent hostility, hatred of various kinds, revenge, cunning, deceit, unmercifulness, and cruelty; and in respect to religious matters there is not merely a contempt for the divine and for divine things, which are the truths and goods of the church, but also hostility to them. when man becomes a spirit this hostility is turned into hatred; and then he not only cannot endure to hear these truths and goods mentioned, he even burns with hatred against all who acknowledge and worship the divine. i once talked with a certain spirit who in the world had been a man in authority, and had loved self to an unusual degree; and when he simply heard some one mention the divine, and especially when he heard him mention the lord, he was so excited by hatred arising from anger as to burn with the desire to kill; and when the reins of his love were loosened he wished to be the devil himself, that from his love of self he might continually infest heaven. this is the desire also of some of the papist religion when they perceive in the other life that the lord has all power and they have none. . certain spirits were seen by me in the western quarter towards the south, who said that they had been in positions of great dignity in the world, and that they deserved to be more highly esteemed than others and to rule over others. their interior character was explored by angels, and it was found that in their offices in the world they had not looked to uses but to themselves, and thus that they had set themselves before uses. but as they were very eager and importunate to be set over others they were allowed to associate with those who were consulting about matters of great importance; but it was perceived that they were unable to give any thought to the business under discussion, or to see matters as they are in themselves, or to speak with reference to the use of the thing, but were able to speak only with reference to self, and that they wished to act from what is pleasing on the ground of favor. they were therefore dismissed from that duty, and left to seek employment for themselves elsewhere. therefore they went further into the western quarter, where they were received here and there, but everywhere were told that they thought only of themselves, and of no business except with reference to self, and for this reason were stupid and like merely sensual corporeal spirits. on this account wheresoever they went they were sent away. some time afterwards they were seen reduced to a destitute state and asking alms. thus it was made clear that those who are in the love of self, however from the fire of that love they may seem to speak in the world wisely, speak merely from the memory, and not from any rational light. therefore in the other life, when they are no longer permitted to bring forth the things of the natural memory, they are more stupid than others, and for the reason that they are separated from the divine. . there are two kinds of dominion, one of love towards the neighbor and the other of love of self. these two dominions in their essence are direct opposites. one who rules from love towards the neighbor wills good to all, and loves nothing so much as uses, that is, serving others; which is willing good to others and performing uses, either to the church, or to the country, or to society, or to a fellow citizen. this is his love and the delight of his heart. moreover, so far as he is exalted to dignities above others he rejoices, not for the sake of the dignities but for the sake of the uses he is then able to perform in greater abundance and of a higher order. such dominion exists in the heavens. [ ] but one who rules from the love of self wills good to no one except himself; the uses he performs are for the sake of his own honor and glory, which to him are the only uses; his end in serving others is that he may himself be served, honored, and permitted to rule; he seeks dignities not for the sake of the good offices he may render to his country and the church, but that he may gain eminence and glory and thereby the delight of his heart. [ ] moreover this love of dominion continues with everyone after his life in the world. those that have ruled from love towards the neighbor are entrusted with authority in the heavens; but then it is not they who rule, but the uses which they love; and when uses rule the lord rules. but those who have ruled while in the world are in hell, and are there vile slaves. i have seen those who had power in the world, but who exercised dominion from love of self, cast out among the most vile, and some among those who are in excrementitious places. . but in respect to the love of the world: it is a love opposed to heavenly love in a less degree than love of self, because the evils hidden within it are lesser evils. the love of the world consists in one's desiring to secure to himself, by any kind of artifice, the wealth of others, and in setting his heart upon riches, and permitting the world to draw him and lead him away from spiritual love, which is love towards the neighbor, and thus from heaven and from the divine. but this love is manifold. there is a love of wealth for the sake of being exalted to honors, when these alone are loved. there is a love of honors and dignities with a view to the increase of wealth. there is a love of wealth for the sake of various uses that give delight in the world. there is a love of wealth merely for the sake of wealth, which is a miserly love; and so on. the end for the sake of which wealth is sought is called its use; and it is the end or use that gives to love its quality; for the love is such as is the end in view, and all other things merely serve it as means. . lviv. what hell fire is and what the gnashing of teeth is. what eternal fire is, and what the gnashing of teeth is, which are mentioned in the word in reference to those who are in hell, scarcely any one as yet has known, because the contents of the word have been thought about only in a material way, and nothing has been known about its spiritual sense. so fire has been understood by some to mean material fire, by others to mean torment in general, by others remorse of conscience, and others have held that it is mentioned merely to excite terror in the wicked. likewise some have supposed the gnashing of teeth to mean actual gnashing, and some only a horror, such as is excited when such a collision of teeth is heard. but any one who is acquainted with the spiritual meaning of the word may know what eternal fire is, and what the gnashing of teeth is; for every expression and every meaning of the expressions in the word contains a spiritual meaning, since the word in its bosom is spiritual; and what is spiritual can be set before man only in natural forms of expression, because man is in the natural world and thinks from the things of that world. therefore it shall now be told what is meant by "eternal fire" and "the gnashing of teeth" into which the spirits of evil men enter after death, or which their spirits, then in the spiritual world, endure. . there are two origins of heat, one the sun of heaven which is the lord, and the other the sun of the world. the heat that is from the sun of heaven, that is, the lord, is spiritual heat; and this in its essence is love (see above, n. - ); but the heat from the sun of the world is natural heat, and this in its essence is not love, but serves spiritual heat or love as a receptacle. evidently love in its essence is heat, since it is love, in accord with its degree and quality, that gives heat to the mind, and thence to the body; and this man experiences as well in the winter as in the summer. the heating of the blood is from the same source. that the natural heat that springs from the sun of the world serves spiritual heat as a receptacle is evident from the heat of the body, which is excited by the heat of its spirit, and is a kind of substitute for that heat in the body. it is especially evident from the spring and summer heat in animals of every kind which then annually renew their loves. [ ] it is not the natural heat that produces this effect, but it disposes their bodies to receive the heat that flows into them from the spiritual world; for the spiritual world flows into the natural as cause into effect. whoever believes that natural heat produces these loves is much deceived, for influx is from the spiritual world into the natural world, and not from the natural world into the spiritual; and as all love belongs to the life itself it is spiritual. [ ] again, he who believes that any thing comes forth in the natural world without influx from the spiritual world is deceived, for what is natural comes forth and continues to exist only from what is spiritual. furthermore, the subjects of the vegetable kingdom derive their germinations from influx out of the spiritual world. the natural heat of spring time and summer merely disposes the seeds into their natural forms by expanding and opening them so that influx from the spiritual world can there act as a cause. these things are mentioned to make clear that there are two kinds of heat, spiritual heat and natural heat; and that spiritual heat is from the sun of heaven and natural heat from the sun of the world, and that influx and consequent cooperation produce the effects that appear before the eyes in the world.{ } {footnote } there is an influx from the spiritual world into the natural world (n. - , - , - , - , - ). there is also an influx into the lives of animals (n. ). and into the subjects of the vegetable kingdom (n. ). this influx is a continual endeavor to act in accordance with the divine order (n. at the end). . spiritual heat in man is the heat of his life, because, as was said above, it is in its essence love. this heat is what is meant in the word by "fire," love to the lord and love towards the neighbor by "heavenly fire," and love of self and love of the world by "infernal fire." . infernal fire or love springs from a like origin as heavenly fire or love, namely, the sun of heaven, or the lord; but it is made infernal by those who receive it. for all influx from the spiritual world varies in accordance with reception, that is, in accordance with the forms into which it flows, just as it is with the heat and light from the sun of the world. the heat from that sun flowing into shrubberies and beds of flowers produces vegetation, and draws forth grateful and sweet odors; but the same heat flowing into excrementitious and decaying substances produces putrefactions, and draws forth rank and disgusting stenches. in like manner the light from the same sun produces in one subject beautiful and pleasing colors, in another unbeautiful and disagreeable colors. the same is true of the heat and light from the sun of heaven, which is love. when the heat, or love, from that sun flows into good, as it does in good men and angels, it makes their good fruitful; but when it flows into the evil it produces a contrary effect, for their evils either suffocate it or pervert it. in like manner when the light of heaven flows into the truths of good it imparts intelligence and wisdom; but when it flows into the falsities of evil it is turned into insanities and phantasies of various kinds. thus in every instance the result is in accordance with reception. . as infernal fire is the love of self and of the world it is also every lust of these loves, since lust is love in its continuity, for what a man loves he continually lusts after. infernal fire is also delight, since what a man loves and lusts after he perceives, when he obtains it, to be delightful. man's delight of heart is from no other source. infernal fire, therefore, is the lust and delight that spring from these two loves as their origins. the evils flowing from these loves are contempt of others, enmity, and hostility against those who do not favor them, envy, hatred, and revenge, and from these fierceness and cruelty; and in respect to the divine they are denial and consequent contempt, derision, and detraction of the holy things of the church; and after death, when man becomes a spirit, these evils are changed to anger and hatred against these holy things (see above, n. ). and as these evils breathe forth continually the destruction and murder of those whom they account as enemies, and against whom they burn with hatred and revenge, so it is the delight of their life to will to destroy and kill, and so far as they are unable to do this, to will to do mischief, to injure, and to exercise cruelty. [ ] such is the meaning of "fire" in the word, where the evil and the hells are treated of, some passages from which i will here quote in the way of proof: everyone is a hypocrite and an evil doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. for wickedness burneth as the fire; it devoureth the briers and thorns, and kindleth in the thickets of the forests, and they roll upward in the rising of smoke; and the people is become like food for fire; no man spareth his brother (isa. : - ). 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 (joel : , ). the land shall become burning pitch; it shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever (isa. : , ). behold the day cometh burning as a furnace, and all the proud and every worker of wickedness shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall set them on fire (mal. : ). babylon is become a habitation of demons. they cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning. her smoke goeth up unto the ages of the ages (apoc. : , ; : ). he opened the pit of the abyss, and there went up a smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun was darkened, and the air, by the smoke of the pit (apoc. : ). out of the mouth of the horses went forth fire and smoke and brimstone; by these was the third part of men killed, by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone (apoc. : , ). if any one adores the beast he shall drink of the wine of the wrath of god mixed with unmixed wine in the cup of his anger, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone (apoc. : , ). the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given unto it to scorch men with fire; therefore men were scorched with great heat (apoc. : , ). they were cast into a lake burning with fire and brimstone (apoc. : ; : , ; : ). every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire (matt. : ; luke : ). the son of man shall send his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire (matt. : , , ). the king shall say to them that are on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (matt. : ). they shall be sent into everlasting fire, into the hell of fire, where their worm shall not die, and the fire shall not be quenched (matt. : , ; mark : - ). the rich man in hell said to abraham that he was tormented in flame (luke : ). in these and in many other passages "fire" means the lust pertaining to love of self and love of the world, and the "smoke" therefrom means falsity from evil. . as the lust of doing the evils that are from the love of self and of the world is meant by "infernal fire," and as such is the lust of all in the hells (as shown in the foregoing chapter) so when the hells are opened there is an appearance of fire with smoke, such as is seen in conflagrations, a dense fire from the hells where the love of self prevails, and a flaming fire from the hells where love of the world prevails. but when the hells are closed this fiery appearance is not seen, but in its place there is a kind of obscurity like a condensation of smoke; although the fire still rages within, as can be seen by the heat exhaling therefrom, which is like the heat from the burnt ruins after a fire, and in some places like the heat from a heated furnace, in others like the heat from a hot bath. when this heat flows into man it excites lusts in him, and in evil men hatred and revenge, and in the sick insanities. such is the fire or such the heat that affects those who are in the above-mentioned loves, because in respect to their spirit they are attached to those hells, even while living in the body. but it must be understood that those who are in the hells are not in fire; the fire is an appearance; those there are conscious of no burning, but only of a warmth like that which they had felt when in the world. this appearance of fire is from correspondence, since love corresponds to fire, and all things seen in the spiritual world are seen in accordance with correspondences. . it must be noted that this infernal fire or heat is changed into intense cold when heat from heaven flows in; and those who are in it then shiver like those seized with chills and fever, and are inwardly distressed; and for the reason that they are in direct opposition to the divine; and the heat of heaven (which is divine love) extinguishes the heat of hell (which is the love of self), and with it the fire of their life; and this is the cause of such cold and consequent shivering and distress. this is accompanied by thick darkness and by infatuation and mutual blindness therefrom. but this rarely happens, and only when outbreaks that have increased beyond measure need to be repressed. . since infernal fire means every lust for doing evil that flows forth from the love of self, this fire means also such torment as exists in the hells. for the lust from that love is a lust for injuring others who do not honor, venerate and worship oneself; and in proportion to the anger thereby excited, and the hatred and revenge from that anger, is there a lust for venting one's rage upon them. when such lust is active in everyone in a society, and is restrained by no external bond, such as the fear of the law, and of the loss of reputation, honor, gain, and life, everyone from the impulse of his own evil rushes upon another; and so far as he prevails subjugates the rest and subjects them to his dominion, and vents his rage with delight upon those who do not submit themselves. this delight is so intimately united with the delight of bearing rule that they exist in the same measure, since the delight of doing harm is contained in all enmity, envy, hatred, and revenge, which as said above, are the evils of that love. all the hells are such societies, and in consequence everyone there bears hatred in his heart against others, and from hatred bursts forth into cruelty so far as he has power. these cruelties and their torments are also meant by infernal fire, since they are the effects of lusts. . it has been shown above (n. ) that an evil spirit casts himself into hell of his own accord. it shall now be told in a few words how this comes about, when yet there are in hell such torments. from every hell there exhales a sphere of the lusts of those who are in it. whenever this sphere is perceived by one who is in a like lust he is affected at heart and filled with delight, for lust and its delight make one, since whatever one lusts after is delightful to him; and because of this a spirit turns himself hellwards, and from delight of heart lusts to go thither, since he does not yet know that such torments exist there, although he who knows it still lusts to go there. for no one in the spiritual world can resist his lust, because his lust belongs to his love, and his love belongs to his will, and his will belongs to his nature, and everyone there acts from his nature. [ ] when, therefore, a spirit of his own accord and from his freedom drifts towards his hell and enters it, he is received at first in a friendly manner, which makes him believe that he has come among friends. but this continues for a few hours only. in the meanwhile he is explored in respect to his astuteness and consequent ability; and when this has been done they begin to infest him, and this by various methods, and with gradually greater severity and vehemence. this is accomplished by introducing him more interiorly and deeply into hell; for the more interior and deeper the hell the more malignant are the spirits. after these infestations they begin to treat him cruelly by punishments, and this goes on until he is reduced to the condition of a slave. [ ] but rebellious movements are continually springing up there, since everyone wishes to be greatest, and burns with hatred against the others; and in consequence new uprisings occur, and thus one scene is changed into another, and those who are made slaves are delivered that they may assist some new devil to subjugate others; and again those who refuse to submit and render implicit obedience are tormented in various ways; and so on continually. such torments are the torments of hell, which are called hell fire. . gnashing of teeth is the continual contention and combat of falsities with each other, consequently of those who are in falsities, joined with contempt of others, with enmity, mockery, ridicule, blaspheming; and these evils burst forth into lacerations of various kinds; since everyone fights for his own falsity and calls it truth. these contentions and combats are heard outside of these hells like the gnashings of teeth; and are also turned into gnashings of teeth when truths from heaven flow in among them. in these hells are all who have acknowledged nature and have denied the divine. in the deeper of these hells are those that have confirmed themselves in such denials. as such are unable to receive any thing of light from heaven, and are thus unable to see any thing inwardly in themselves, they are for the most part corporeal sensual spirits, who believe nothing except what they see with their eyes and touch with their hands. therefore all the fallacies of the senses are truths to them; and it is from these that they dispute. this is why their contentions are heard as gnashings of teeth; for in the spiritual world all falsities give a grating sound, and the teeth correspond to the outmost things in nature and to the outmost things in man, which are corporeal sensual.{ } (that there is gnashing of teeth in the hells may be seen in matthew : ; : , ; : ; : ; : ; luke : .) {footnote } the correspondence of the teeth (n. - ). those who are purely sensual and have scarcely anything of spiritual light correspond to the teeth (n. ). in the word a tooth signifies the sensual, which is the outmost of the life of man (n. , ). gnashing of teeth in the other life comes from those who believe that nature is everything and the divine nothing (n. ). . lx. the malice and heinous artifices of infernal spirits in what way spirits are superior to men everyone can see and comprehend who thinks interiorly and knows any thing of the operation of his own mind; for in his mind he can consider, evolve, and form conclusions upon more subjects in a single moment than he can utter or express in writing in half an hour. this shows the superiority of man when he is in his spirit, and therefore when he becomes a spirit. for it is the spirit that thinks, and it is the body by which the spirit expresses its thoughts in speech or writing. in consequence of this, when man after death becomes an angel he is in intelligence and wisdom ineffable in comparison with his intelligence and wisdom while he lived in the world; for while he lived in the world his spirit was bound to his body, and was thereby in the natural world; and therefore whatever he thought spiritually flowed into natural ideas, which are comparatively general, gross, and obscure, and which are incapable of receiving innumerable things that pertain to spiritual thought; and which infold spiritual thought in the obscurities that arise from worldly cares. it is otherwise when the spirit is released from the body and comes into its spiritual state, which takes place when it passes out of the natural world into the spiritual world to which it belongs. from what has already been said it is evident that the state of its thoughts and affections is then immeasurably superior to its former state. because of this the thoughts of angels are ineffable and inexpressible, and are therefore incapable of entering into the natural thoughts of man; and yet every angel was born a man, and has lived as a man, and he then seemed to himself to be no wiser than any other like man. . in the same degree in which angels have wisdom and intelligence infernal spirits have malice and cunning; for the case is the same, since the spirit of man when released from the body is in his good or in his evil--if an angelic spirit in his good, and if an infernal spirit in his evil. every spirit is his own good or his own evil because he is his own love, as has been often said and shown above. therefore as an angelic spirit thinks, wills, speaks, and acts, from his good, an infernal spirit does this from his evil; and to think, will, speak, and act from evil itself, is to think, will, speak, and act from all things included in the evil. [ ] so long as man lived in the body it was different, since the evil of the spirit was then under the restraints that every man feels from the law, from hope of gain, from honor, from reputation, and from the fear of losing these; and therefore the evil of his spirit could not then burst forth and show what it was in itself. moreover, the evil of the spirit of man then lay wrapped up and veiled in outward probity, honesty, justice, and affection for truth and good, which such a man professes and counterfeits for the sake of the world; and under these semblances the evil has lain so concealed and obscured that he himself scarcely knew that his spirit contained so much malice and craftiness, that is, that in himself he was such a devil as he becomes after death, when his spirit comes into itself and into its own nature. [ ] such malice then manifests itself as exceeds all belief. there are thousands of evils that then burst forth from evil itself, among which are such as cannot be described in the words of any language. what they are has been granted me to know and also to perceive by much experience, since it has been granted me by the lord to be in the spiritual world in respect to my spirit and at the same time in the natural world in respect to my body. this i can testify, that their malice is so great that it is hardly possible to describe even a thousandth part of it; and so great that if man were not protected by the lord he could never be rescued from hell; for with every man there are spirits from hell as well as angels from heaven (see above, n. , ); and yet the lord cannot protect man unless he acknowledges the divine and lives a life of faith and charity; for otherwise man turns himself away from the lord and turns himself to infernal spirits, and thus his spirit becomes imbued with a malice like theirs. [ ] nevertheless, man is continually withdrawn by the lord from the evils that he attaches and as it were attracts to himself by his affiliation with infernal spirits. if he is not withdrawn by the internal bonds of conscience, which he fails to receive if he denies a divine, he is nevertheless withdrawn by external bonds, which are, as said above, fears in respect to the law and its penalties, and fears of the loss of gain and the deprivation of honor and reputation. in fact, such a man may be withdrawn from evils by means of the delights of his love and through fear of the loss or deprivation of those delights; but he cannot be led thereby into spiritual goods. for as soon as such a man is led into these he begins to give his thought to pretenses and devices by simulating or counterfeiting what is good, honest, and just, for the purpose of persuading and thus deceiving. such cunning adjoins itself to the evil of his spirit and gives form to it, causing his evil to be of the same nature as itself. . those are the worst of all who have been in evils from love of self and at the same time inwardly in themselves have acted from deceit; for deceit penetrates more deeply into the thoughts and intentions than other evils, and infects them with poison and thus wholly destroys the spiritual life of man. most of these spirits are in the hells behind the back, and are called genii; and there they delight to make themselves invisible, and to flutter about others like phantoms secretly infusing evil into them, which they spread around like the poison of a viper. these are more direfully tormented than others. but those who are not deceitful, and who have not been so filled with malignant craftiness, and yet are in the evils derived from the love of self, are also in the hells behind, but in those less deep. on the other hand, those that have been in evils from the love of the world are in the hells in front, and are called spirits. these spirits are not such forms of evil, that is, of hatred and revenge, as those are who are in evils from the love of self; and therefore do not have such malice and cunning; and in consequence their hells are milder. . i have been permitted to learn by experience what kind of malice those possess who are called genii. genii act upon and flow into the affections, and not the thoughts. they perceive and smell out the affections as dogs do wild beasts in the forest. good affections, when they perceive them in another, they turn instantly into evil affections, leading and bending them in a wonderful manner by means of the other's delights; and this so secretly and with such malignant skill that the other knows nothing of it, for they most carefully guard against anything entering into the thought, as thereby they would be manifested. the seat of these in man is beneath the back part of the head. in the world they were such as deceitfully captivated the minds of others, leading and persuading them by the delights of their affections or lusts. but such spirits are not permitted by the lord to come near to any man of whose reformation there is any hope; for they have the ability not only to destroy the conscience, but also to stir up in man his inherited evils, which otherwise lie hidden. therefore to prevent man's being led into these evils, these hells, by the lord's provision, are entirely closed up; and when any man of such a character comes after death into the other life, he is at once cast into their hell. when the deceit and craftiness of these spirits are clearly seen they appear as vipers. . the kind of malice infernal spirits possess is evident from their nefarious arts, which are so many that to enumerate them would fill a volume, and to describe them would fill many volumes. these arts are mostly unknown in the world. one kind relates to abuses of correspondences; a second to abuses of the outmosts of divine order; a third to the communication and influx of thoughts and affections by means of turning towards another, fixing the sight upon another, and by the instrumentality of other spirits apart from themselves, and spirits sent out by themselves; a fourth to operations by phantasies; a fifth to a kind of casting themselves out beyond themselves and consequent presence elsewhere than where they are in the body; a sixth to pretenses, persuasion, and lies. the spirit of an evil man enters of itself into these arts when he is released from his body, for they are inherent in the nature of the evil in which he then is. by these arts they torment each other in the hells. but as all of these arts, except those that are effected by pretenses, persuasions, and lies, are unknown in the world, i will not here describe them in detail, both because they would not be comprehended, and because they are too abominable to be told. . the lord permits torments in the hells because in no other way can evils be restrained and subdued. the only means of restraining and subduing evils and of keeping the infernal crew in bonds is the fear of punishment. it can be done in no other way; for without the fear of punishment and torment evil would burst forth into madness, and everything would go to pieces, like a kingdom on earth where there is no law and there are no penalties. . lxi. the appearance, situation, and number of the hells. in the spiritual world, that is, in the world where spirits and angels are, the same objects appear as in the natural world, that is, where men are. in external appearance there is no difference. in that world plains and mountains, hills and rocks, and valleys between them are seen; also waters, and many other things that are seen on earth. and yet all these things are from a spiritual origin, and all are therefore seen by the eyes of spirits and angels, and not by the eyes of men, because men are in the natural world. spiritual beings see such things as are from a spiritual origin, and natural beings such things as are from a natural origin. consequently man with his eyes can in no way see the objects that are in the spiritual world unless he is permitted to be in the spirit, or after death when he becomes a spirit. on the other hand, an angel or a spirit is unable to see any thing at all in the natural world unless he is with a man who is permitted to speak with him. for the eyes of man are fitted to receive the light of the natural world, and the eyes of angels and spirits are fitted to receive the light of the spiritual world; although the eyes of the two are exactly alike in appearance. that the spiritual world is such the natural man cannot comprehend, and least of all the sensual man, who believes nothing except what he sees with his bodily eyes and touches with his hands, and therefore takes in by sight and touch. as his thought is from such things it is material and not spiritual. such being the likeness between the spiritual world and the natural world, man can hardly believe after death that he is not in the world where he was born, and from which he has departed. for this reason death is called simply a translation from one world into another like it. (that the two worlds are thus alike can be seen above, where representatives and appearances in heaven have been treated of, n. - .) . the heavens are in the higher parts of the spiritual world, the world of spirits in the lower parts, and under both are the hells. the heavens are visible to spirits in the world of spirits only when their interior sight is opened; although they sometimes see them as mists or as bright clouds. this is because the angels of heaven are in an interior state in respect to intelligence and wisdom; and for this reason they are above the sight of those who are in the world of spirits. but spirits who dwell in the plains and valleys see one another; and yet when they are separated there, which takes place when they are let into their interiors, the evil spirits do not see the good spirits; but the good spirits can see the evil spirits. nevertheless, the good spirits turn themselves away from the evil spirits; and when spirits turn themselves away they become invisible. but the hells are not seen because they are closed up. only the entrances, which are called gates, are seen when they are opened to let in other like spirits. all the gates to the hells open from the world of spirits, and none of them from heaven. . the hells are everywhere, both under the mountains, hills, and rocks, and under the plains and valleys. the openings or gates to the hells that are under the mountains, hills, and rocks, appear to the sight like holes and clefts in the rocks, some extended and wide, and some straitened and narrow, and many of them rugged. they all, when looked into, appear dark and dusky; but the infernal spirits that are in them are in such a luminosity as arises from burning coals. their eyes are adapted to the reception of that light, and for the reason that while they lived in the world they were in thick darkness in respect to divine truths, because of their denying them, and were in a sort of light in respect to falsities because of their affirming them. in this way did the sight of their eyes become so formed. and for the same reason the light of heaven is thick darkness to them, and therefore when they go out of their dens they see nothing. all this makes it abundantly clear that man comes into the light of heaven just to the extent that he acknowledges the divine, and establishes in himself the things of heaven and the church; and that he comes into the thick darkness of hell just to the extent that he denies the divine, and establishes in himself what is contrary to the truths of heaven and the church. . the openings or gates to the hells that are beneath the plains and valleys present to the sight different appearances. some resemble those that are beneath the mountains, hills and rocks; some resemble dens and caverns, some great chasms and whirlpools; some resemble bogs, and some standing water. they are all covered, and are opened only when evil spirits from the world of spirits are cast in; and when they are opened there bursts forth from them either something like the fire and smoke that is seen in the air from burning buildings, or like a flame without smoke, or like soot such as comes from a burning chimney, or like a mist and thick cloud. i have heard that the infernal spirits neither see nor feel these things, because when they are in them they are as in their own atmosphere, and thus in the delight of their life; and this for the reason that these things correspond to the evils and falsities in which they are, fire corresponding to hatred and revenge, smoke and soot to the falsities therefrom, flame to the evils of the love of self, and a mist or thick cloud to falsities from that love. . i have also been permitted to look into the hells and to see what they are within; for when the lord wills, the sight of a spirit or angel from above may penetrate into the lowest depths beneath and explore their character, notwithstanding the coverings. in this way i have been permitted to look into them. some of the hells appeared to the view like caverns and dens in rocks extending inward and then downward into an abyss, either obliquely or vertically. some of the hells appeared to the view like the dens and caves of wild beasts in forests; some like the hollow caverns and passages that are seen in mines, with caverns extending towards the lower regions. most of the hells are threefold, the upper one appearing within to be in dense darkness, because inhabited by those who are in the falsities of evil; while the lower ones appear fiery, because inhabited by those who are in evils themselves, dense darkness corresponding to the falsities of evil, and fire to evils themselves. those that have acted interiorly from evil are in the deeper hells, and those that have acted exteriorly from evil, that is, from the falsities of evil, are in the hells that are less deep. some hells present an appearance like the ruins of houses and cities after conflagrations, in which infernal spirits dwell and hide themselves. in the milder hells there is an appearance of rude huts, in some cases contiguous in the form of a city with lanes and streets, and within the houses are infernal spirits engaged in unceasing quarrels, enmities, fightings, and brutalities; while in the streets and lanes robberies and depredations are committed. in some of the hells there are nothing but brothels, disgusting to the sight and filled with every kind of filth and excrement. again, there are dark forests, in which infernal spirits roam like wild beasts and where, too, there are underground dens into which those flee who are pursued by others. there are also deserts, where all is barren and sandy, and where in some places there are ragged rocks in which there are caverns, and in some places huts. into these desert places those are cast out from the hells who have suffered every extremity of punishment, especially those who in the world have been more cunning than others in undertaking and contriving intrigues and deceits. such a life is their final lot. . as to the positions of the hells in detail, it is something wholly unknown even to the angels in heaven; it is known to the lord alone. but their position in general is known from the quarters in which they are. for the hells, like the heavens, are distinguished by their quarters; and in the spiritual world quarters are determined in accordance with loves; for in heaven all the quarters begin from the lord as the sun, who is the east; and as the hells are opposite to the heavens their quarters begin from the opposite point, that is, from the west. (on this see the chapter on the four quarters in heaven, n. - .) [ ] for this reason the hells in the western quarter are the worst of all, and the most horrible, becoming gradually worse and more horrible by degrees the more remote they are from the east. in the western hells are those who in the world were in the love of self, and in consequent contempt of others, and in enmity against those who did not favor them, also in hatred and revenge against those who did not render them respect and homage. in the most remote hells in that quarter are those that had belonged to the catholic religion, so called, and that had wished to be worshiped as gods, and consequently had burned with hatred and revenge against all who did not acknowledge their power over the souls of men and over heaven. these continue to have the same disposition, that is, the same hatred and revenge against those who oppose them, that they had in the world. their greatest delight is to practice cruelties; but in the other life this delight is turned against themselves; for in their hells, with which the western quarter is filled, one rages against everyone who detracts from his divine power. (but more will be said about this in the treatise on the last judgment and the destruction of babylon.) [ ] nevertheless, no one can know how the hells in that quarter are arranged, except that the most dreadful hells of that kind are at the sides towards the northern quarter, and the less dreadful towards the southern quarter; thus the dreadfulness of the hells decreases from the northern quarter to the southern, and likewise by degrees towards the east. towards the east are the dwelling places of the haughty, who have not believed in the divine, and yet have not been in such hatred and revenge, or in such deceit, as those have who are in a greater depth in the western quarter. [ ] in the eastern quarter there are at present no hells, those that were there having been transferred to the western quarter in front. in the northern and southern quarters there are many hells; and in them are those who while in the world were in love of the world, and in various kinds of evil therefrom, such as enmity, hostility, theft, robbery, cunning, avarice, and unmercifulness. the worst hells of this kind are in the northern quarter, the milder in the southern. their dreadfulness increases as they are nearer to the western quarter, and also as they are farther away from the southern quarter, and decreases towards the eastern quarter and towards the southern quarter. behind the hells that are in the western quarter there are dark forests, in which malignant spirits roam like wild beasts; and it is the same behind the hells in the northern quarter. but behind the hells in the southern quarter there are deserts, which have been described just above. this much respecting the situation of the hells. . in regard to the number of the hells, there are as many of them as there are angelic societies in the heavens, since there is for every heavenly society a corresponding infernal society as its opposite. that the heavenly societies are numberless, and are all distinguished in accordance with the goods of love, charity, and faith, may be seen in the chapter that treats of the societies of which the heavens consist (n. - ), and in the chapter on the immensity of heaven (n. - ). the like is true, therefore, of the infernal societies, which are distinguished in accordance with the evils that are the opposites of those goods. [ ] every evil, as well as every good, is of infinite variety. that this is true is beyond the comprehension of those who have only a simple idea regarding every evil, such as contempt, enmity, hatred, revenge, deceit, and other like evils. but let them know that each one of these evils contains so many specific differences, and each of these again so many specific or particular differences, that a volume would not suffice to enumerate them. the hells are so distinctly arranged in order in accordance with the differences of every evil that nothing could be more perfectly ordered or more distinct. evidently, then, the hells are innumerable, near to and remote from one another in accordance with the differences of evils generically, specifically, and particularly. [ ] there are likewise hells beneath hells. some communicate with others by passages, and more by exhalations, and this in exact accordance with the affinities of one kind or one species of evil with others. how great the number is of the hells i have been permitted to realize from knowing that there are hells under every mountain, hill, and rock, and likewise under every plain and valley, and that they stretch out beneath these in length and in breadth and in depth. in a word, the entire heaven and the entire world of spirits are, as it were, excavated beneath, and under them is a continuous hell. thus much regarding the number of the hells. . lxii. the equilibrium between heaven and hell. for any thing to have existence there must be an equilibrium of all things. without equilibrium is no action and reaction; for equilibrium is between two forces, one acting and the other reacting, and the state of rest resulting from like action and reaction is called equilibrium. in the natural world there is an equilibrium in all things and in each thing. it exists in a general way even in the atmosphere, wherein the lower parts react and resist in proportion as the higher parts act and press down. again, in the natural world there is an equilibrium between heat and cold, between light and shade, and between dryness and moisture, the middle condition being the equilibrium. there is also an equilibrium in all the subjects of the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal; for without equilibrium in them nothing can come forth and have permanent existence. everywhere there is a sort of effort acting on the one side and reacting on the other. [ ] all existence or all effect is produced in equilibrium, that is, by one force acting and another suffering itself to be acted upon, or when one force by acting flows in, the other receives and harmoniously submits. in the natural world that which acts and reacts is called force, and also endeavor [or effort]; but in the spiritual world that which acts and reacts is called life and will. life in that world is living force, and will is living effort; and the equilibrium itself is called freedom. thus spiritual equilibrium or freedom has its outcome and permanence in the balance between good acting on the one side and evil reacting on the other side; or between evil acting on the one side and good reacting on the other side. [ ] with the good the equilibrium is between good acting and evil reacting; but with the evil the equilibrium is between evil acting and good reacting. spiritual equilibrium is between good and evil, because the whole life of man has reference to good and to evil, and the will is the receptacle. there is also an equilibrium between truth and falsity, but this depends on the equilibrium between good and evil. the equilibrium between truth and falsity is like that between light and shade, in that light and shade affect the objects of the vegetable kingdom only so far as heat and cold are in them. that light and shade themselves have no effect, but only the heat that acts through them, is evident from the fact that light and shade are the same in winter time and in spring time. this comparison of truth and falsity with light and shade is from correspondence, for truth corresponds to light, falsity to shade, and heat to the good of love; in fact, spiritual light is truth, spiritual shade is falsity, and spiritual heat is good of love (see the chapter where light and heat in heaven are treated of, n. - ). . there is a perpetual equilibrium between heaven and hell. from hell there continually breathes forth and ascends an endeavor to do evil, and from heaven there continually breathes forth and descends an endeavor to do good. in this equilibrium is the world of spirits; which world is intermediate between heaven and hell (see above, n. - ). the world of spirits is in this equilibrium because every man after death enters first the world of spirits, and is kept there in a state like that which he was in while in the world, and this would be impossible if there were not a perfect equilibrium there; for by means of this the character of everyone is explored, since they then remain in the same freedom as they had in the world. spiritual equilibrium is freedom in man and spirit (as has been said just above, n. ). what each one's freedom is the angels recognize by a communication of affections and thoughts therefrom; and it becomes visible to the sight of angelic spirits by the ways in which the spirits go. good spirits there travel in the ways that go towards heaven, but evil spirits in the ways that go towards hell. ways actually appear in that world; and that is the reason why ways in the word signify the truths that lead to good, or in the opposite sense the falsities that lead to evil; and for the same reason going, walking, and journeying in the word signify progressions of life.{ } such ways i have often been permitted to see, also spirits going and walking in them freely, in accord with their affections and thoughts. {footnote } in the word "to journey," as well as "to go," signifies progression of life (n. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). "to go (and to walk) with the lord" means to receive spiritual life, and to live with him (n. ). "to walk" means to live (n. , , , ). . evil continually breathes forth and ascends out of hell, and good continually breathes forth and descends out of heaven, because everyone is encompassed by a spiritual sphere; and that sphere flows forth and pours out from the life of the affections and the thoughts therefrom.{ } and as such a sphere flows forth from every individual, it flows forth also from every heavenly society and from every infernal society, consequently from all together, that is, from the entire heaven and from the entire hell. good flows forth from heaven because all there are in good; and evil flows forth from hell because all there are in evil. the good that is from heaven is all from the lord; for the angels in the heavens are all withheld from what is their own, and are kept in what is the lord's own, which is good itself. but the spirits in the hells are all in what is their own, and everyone's own is nothing but evil; and because it is nothing but evil it is hell.{ } evidently, then, the equilibrium in which angels are kept in the heavens and spirits in the hells is not like the equilibrium in the world of spirits. the equilibrium of angels in the heavens exists in the degree in which they have been willing to be in good, or in the degree in which they have lived in good in the world, and thus also in the degree in which they have held evil in aversion; but the equilibrium of spirits in hell exists in the degree in which they have been willing to be in evil, or have lived in evil in the world, and thus in heart and spirit have been opposed to good. {footnote } a spiritual sphere, which is a sphere of life, flows forth and pours forth from every man, spirit, and angel, and encompasses him (n. , , , ). it flows forth from the life of their affections and thoughts (n. , , ). the quality of spirits is recognized at a distance from their spheres (n. , , , ). spheres from the evil are the opposites of spheres from the good (n. , , ). such spheres extend far into angelic societies in accordance with the quality and quantity of good (n. - , , , ). and into infernal societies in accordance with the quality and quantity of evil (n. ). {footnote } man's self is nothing but evil (n. , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). man's self is hell in him (n. , ). . unless the lord ruled both the heavens and the hells there would be no equilibrium; and if there were no equilibrium there would be no heaven or hell; for all things and each thing in the universe, that is, both in the natural world and in the spiritual world, endure by means of equilibrium. every rational man can see that this is true. if there were a preponderance on one part and no resistance on the other would not both perish? so would it be in the spiritual world if good did not react against evil and continually restrain its uprising; and unless this were done by the divine itself both heaven and hell would perish, and with them the whole human race. it is said unless the divine itself did this, because the self of everyone, whether angel, spirit, or man, is nothing but evil (see above, n. ); consequently neither angels nor spirits are able in the least to resist the evils continually exhaling from the hells, since from self they all tend towards hell. it is evident, then, that unless the lord alone ruled both the heavens and the hells no one could ever be saved. moreover, all the hells act as one; for evils in the hells are connected as goods are in the heavens; and the divine alone, which goes forth solely from the lord, is able to resist all the hells, which are innumerable, and which act together against heaven and against all who are in heaven. . the equilibrium between the heavens and the hells is diminished or increased in accordance with the number of those who enter heaven and who enter hell; and this amounts to several thousands daily. the lord alone, and no angel, can know and perceive this, and regulate and equalize it with precision; for the divine that goes forth from the lord is omnipresent, and sees everywhere whether there is any wavering, while an angel sees only what is near himself, and has no perception in himself of what is taking place even in his own society. . how all things are so arranged in the heavens and in the hells that each and all of those who are there may be in their equilibrium, can in some measure be seen from what has been said and shown above respecting the heavens and the hells, namely, that all the societies of heaven are distinctly arranged in accordance with goods and their kinds and varieties, and all the societies of hell in accordance with evils, and their kinds and varieties; and that beneath each society of heaven there is a society of hell corresponding to it from opposition, and from this opposing correspondence equilibrium results; and in consequence of this the lord unceasingly provides that no infernal society beneath a heavenly society shall gain any preponderance, and as soon as it begins to do so it is restrained by various means, and is reduced to an exact measure of equilibrium. these means are many, only a few of which i will mention. some of these means have reference to the stronger presence of the lord; some to the closer communication and conjunction of one or more societies with others; some to the casting out of superabundant infernal spirits into deserts; some to the transference of certain spirits from one hell to another; some to the reducing of those in the hells to order, and this also is effected in various ways; some to the screening of certain hells under denser and thicker coverings, also letting them down to greater depths; besides other means; and still others that are employed in the heavens above the hells. all this has been said that it may in some measure be perceived that the lord alone provides that there shall be an equilibrium everywhere between good and evil, thus between heaven and hell; for on such equilibrium the safety of all in the heavens and of all on the earth rests. . it should be known that the hells are continually assaulting heaven and endeavoring to destroy it, and that the lord continually protects the heavens by withholding those who are in it from the evils derived from their self, and by holding them in the good that is from himself. i have often been permitted to perceive the sphere that flows forth from the hells, which was wholly a sphere of effort to destroy the divine of the lord, and thus heaven. the ebullitions of some hells have also at times been perceived, which were efforts to break forth and to destroy. but on the other hand the heavens never assault the hells, for the divine sphere that goes forth from the lord is a perpetual effort to save all; and as those who are in the hells cannot be saved, (since all who are there are in evil and are antagonistic to the divine of the lord,) so as far as possible outrages in the hells are subdued and cruelties are restrained to prevent their breaking out beyond measure one against another. this also is effected by innumerable ways in which the divine power is exercised. . there are two kingdoms into which the heavens are divided, the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom (of which see above, n. - ). in like manner the hells are divided into two kingdoms, one of which is opposite to the celestial kingdom and the other opposite to the spiritual kingdom. that which is opposite to the celestial kingdom is in the western quarter, and those who are in it are called genii; and that which is opposite to the spiritual kingdom is in the northern and southern quarters, and those which are in it are called spirits. all who are in the celestial kingdom are in love to the lord, and all who are in the hells opposite to that kingdom are in the love of self; while all who are in the spiritual kingdom are in love towards the neighbor, and all who are in the hells opposite to that kingdom are in love of the world. evidently, then, love to the lord and the love of self are opposites; and in like manner love towards the neighbor and love of the world are opposites. the lord continually provides that there shall be no outflowing from the hells that are opposite the lord's celestial kingdom towards those who are in the spiritual kingdom; for if this were done the spiritual kingdom would perish (for the reason given above, n. , ). these are the two general equilibriums that are unceasingly maintained by the lord. . lxiii. by means of the equilibrium between heaven and hell man is in freedom. the equilibrium between heaven and hell has now been described, and it has been shown that it is an equilibrium between the good that is from heaven and the evil that is from hell, thus that it is a spiritual equilibrium, which in its essence is freedom. a spiritual equilibrium in its essence is freedom because it is an equilibrium between good and evil, and between truth and falsity, and these are spiritual. therefore to be able to will either what is good or what is evil and to think either what is true or what is false, and to choose one in preference to the other, is the freedom which is here treated of. this freedom is given to every man by the lord, and is never taken away; in fact, by virtue of its origin it is not man's but the lord's, since it is from the lord. nevertheless, it is given to man with his life as if it were his; and this is done that man may have the ability to be reformed and saved; for without freedom there can be no reformation or salvation. with any rational intuition any one can see that it is a part of man's freedom to be able to think wrongly or rightly, sincerely or insincerely, justly or unjustly; also that he is free to speak and act rightly, honestly, and justly; but not to speak and act wrongly, insincerely, and unjustly, because of the spiritual, moral, and civil laws whereby his external is held in restraint. evidently, then, it is man's spirit, which thinks and wills, that is in freedom, and not his external which speaks and acts, except in agreement with the above mentioned laws. . man cannot be reformed unless he has freedom, for the reason that he is born into evils of every kind; and these must be removed in order that he may be saved; and they cannot be removed unless he sees them in himself and acknowledges them, and afterwards ceases to will them, and finally holds them in aversion. not until then are they removed. and this cannot be done unless man is in good as well as in evil, since it is from good that he is able to see evils, while from evil he cannot see good. the spiritual goods that man is capable of thinking he learns from childhood by reading the word and from preaching; and he learns moral and civil good from his life in the world. this is the first reason why man ought to be in freedom. [ ] another reason is that nothing is appropriated to man except what is done from an affection of his love. other things may gain entrance, but no farther than the thought, not reaching the will; and whatever does not gain entrance into the will of man does not become his, for thought derives what pertains to it from memory, while the will derives what pertains to it from the life itself. only what is from the will, or what is the same, from the affection of love, can be called free, for whatever a man wills or loves that he does freely; consequently man's freedom and the affection of his love or of his will are a one. it is for this reason that man has freedom, in order that he may be affected by truth and good or may love them, and that they may thus become as if they were his own [ ] in a word, whatever does not enter into man's freedom has no permanence, because it does not belong to his love or will, and what does not belong to man's love or will does not belong to his spirit; for the very being [esse] of the spirit of man is love or will. it is said love or will, since a man wills what he loves. this, then, is why man can be reformed only in freedom. but more on the subject of man's freedom may be seen in the arcana coelestia in the passages referred to below. . in order that man may be in freedom, to the end that he may be reformed, he is conjoined in respect to his spirit both with heaven and with hell. for with every man there are spirits from hell and angels from heaven. it is by means of hell that man is in his own evil, while it is by means of angels from heaven that man is in good from the lord; thus is he in spiritual equilibrium, that is, in freedom. that angels from heaven and spirits from hell are joined to every man may be seen in the chapter on the conjunction of heaven with the human race (n. - ). . it must be understood that the conjunction of man with heaven and with hell is not a direct conjunction with them, but a mediate conjunction by means of spirits who are in the world of spirits. these spirits, and none from hell itself or from heaven itself, are with man. by means of evil spirits in the world of spirits man is conjoined with hell, and by means of good spirits there he is conjoined with heaven. because of this the world of spirits is intermediate between heaven and hell, and in that world is equilibrium itself. (that the world of spirits is intermediate between heaven and hell may be seen in the chapter on the world of spirits, n. - ; and that the essential equilibrium between heaven and hell is there may be seen in the preceding chapter, n. - .) from all this the source of man's freedom is evident. . something more must be said about the spirits that are joined with man. an entire society can have communication with another society, or with an individual wherever he is; by means of a spirit sent forth from the society; this spirit is called the subject of the many. the same is true of man's conjunction with societies in heaven, and with societies in hell, by means of spirits from the world of spirits that are joined with man. (on this subject see also the arcana coelestia in the passages referred to below.) . finally something must be said respecting man's intuition in regard to his life after death which is derived from the influx of heaven into man. there were some of the simple common people who had lived in the world in the good of faith who were brought back into a state like that in which they had been in the world, which can be done with any one when the lord grants it; and it was then shown what opinion they had held about the state of man after death. they said that some intelligent persons had asked them in the world what they thought about their soul after the life on earth; and they replied that they did not know what the soul is. they were then asked what they believed about their state after death; and they said that they believed that they would live as spirits. again they were asked what belief they had respecting a spirit; and they said that he is a man. they were asked how they knew this; and they said that they knew it because it is so. those intelligent men were surprised that the simple had such a faith, which they themselves did not have. this is a proof that in every man who is in conjunction with heaven there is an intuition respecting his life after death. this intuition is from no other source than an influx out of heaven, that is, through heaven from the lord by means of spirits from the world of spirits who are joined with man. this intuition those have who have not extinguished their freedom of thinking by notions previously adopted and confirmed by various arguments respecting the soul of man, which is held to be either pure thought, or some vital principle the seat of which is sought for in the body; and yet the soul is nothing but the life of man, while the spirit is the man himself; and the earthly body which he carries about with him in the world is merely an agent whereby the spirit, which is the man himself, is enabled to act fitly in the natural world. . what has been said in this work about heaven, the world of spirits, and hell, will be obscure to those who have no interest in learning about spiritual truths, but will be clear to those who have such an interest, and especially to those who have an affection for truth for the sake of truth, that is, who love truth because it is truth; for whatever is then loved enters with light into the mind's thought, especially truth that is loved, because all truth is in light. extracts from the arcana coelestia respecting the freedom of man, influx, and the spirits through whom communications are effected. freedom. all freedom pertains to love or affection, since whatever a man loves he does freely (n. , , , , , ). since freedom pertains to love it is the life of everyone (n. ). nothing appears to be man's own except what is from freedom (n. ). there is heavenly freedom and infernal freedom (n. , , , , ). [ ] heavenly freedom pertains to heavenly love, or the love of good and truth (n. , , ). and as the love of good and truth is from the lord freedom itself consists in being led by the lord (n. , , , , - , , , , - ). man is led into heavenly freedom by the lord through regeneration (n. , , , ). man must have freedom in order to be regenerated (n. , , , , , , , , ). in no other way can the love of good and truth be implanted in man, and appropriated by him seemingly as his own (n. , , , ). nothing is conjoined to man in a state of compulsion (n. , ). if man could be reformed by compulsion all would be saved (n. ). in reformation compulsion is harmful (n. ). all worship from freedom is worship, but worship from compulsion is not worship (n. , , , ). repentance must be effected in a free state, and repentance effected in a state of compulsion is of no avail (n. ). states of compulsion, what they are (n. ). [ ] it is granted to man to act from the freedom of reason, to the end that good may be provided for him, and this is why man has the freedom to think and will even what is evil, and to do it so far as the laws do not forbid (n. ). man is kept by the lord between heaven and hell, and thus in equilibrium, that he may be in freedom for the sake of reformation (n. , , , ). what is implanted in freedom endures, but not what is implanted under compulsion (n. ). for this reason no one is ever deprived of his freedom (n. , ). the lord compels no one (n. , ). compelling one's self is from freedom, but not being compelled (n. , ). a man ought to compel himself to resist evil (n. , , ). also to do good as if from himself, and yet to acknowledge that it is from the lord (n. , , , ). man has a stronger freedom in the temptation combats in which he conquers, since he then compels himself more interiorly to resist, although it appears otherwise (n. , , ). [ ] infernal freedom consists in being led by the loves of self and of the world and their lusts (n. , ). those who are in hell know no other freedom (n. ). heavenly freedom is as far removed from infernal freedom as heaven is from hell (n. , ). infernal freedom, which consists in being led by the loves of self and of the world, is not freedom but servitude (n. , ). for servitude is in being led by hell (n. , - ). influx. [ ] all things that man thinks and wills flow into him from experience (n. , - , , , , , , , , , - , , , ). man's capacity to give attention to subjects, to think, and to draw conclusions analytically, is from influx (n. , , ). man could not live a single moment if influx from the spiritual world were taken away from him; from experience (n. , , , ). the life that flows in from the lord varies in accordance with the state of man and in accordance with reception (n. , , , ). with those who are evil the good that flows in from the lord is changed into evil, and the truth into falsity; from experience (n. , ). the good and truth that continually flow in from the lord are received just to the extent that they are not hindered by evil and falsity (n. , , , ). [ ] all good flows in from the lord, and all evil from hell (n. , ). at the present day man believes that all things are in himself and are from himself, when in fact they flow in; and this he might know from the doctrine of the church, which teaches that all good is from god, and all evil from the devil (n. , , ). but if man's belief were in accord with this doctrine he would not appropriate evil to himself nor would he make good to be his own (n. , , ). how happy man's state would be if he believed that all good flows in from the lord and all evil from hell. (n. ). those who deny heaven or who know nothing about it do not know that there is any influx from heaven (n. , , , ). what influx is, illustrated by comparisons (n. , , ). [ ] everything of life flows in from the first fountain of life, because that is the source of it; and it continually flows in thus everything of life is from the lord (n. , , , , , , , - , - , , , , , , , - , , , ). influx is spiritual and not physical, that is, influx is from the spiritual world into the natural, and not from the natural into the spiritual (n. , , , , , , , ). influx is through the internal man into the external, or through the spirit into the body, and not the reverse, because the spirit of man is in the spiritual world, and his body in the natural (n. , , , , , , , , ). the internal man is in the spiritual world and the external in the natural world (n. , , , , , , , , - , , ). there is an appearance that there is an influx from the externals of man into internals, but this is a fallacy (n. ). with man there is influx into things rational, and through these into knowledges, and not the reverse (n. , , ). what the order of influx is (n. , , , , ). there is direct influx from the lord, and likewise mediate influx through the spiritual world or heaven (n. , , , , ). the lord's influx is into the good in man, and through good into truth, and not the reverse (n. , , , , , ). good gives the capacity to receive influx from the lord, but truth without good does not (n. ). nothing that flows into the thought is harmful, but only what flows into the will, since this is what is appropriated to man (n. ). [ ] there is a general influx (n. ). this is a continual effort to act in accordance with order (n. ). this influx is into the lives of animals (n. ). also into the subjects of the vegetable kingdom (n. ). it is in accord with this general influx that thought falls into speech with man, and will into acts and movements (n. , , , ). subject spirits. [ ] spirits sent forth from societies of spirits to other societies and to other spirits, are called "subjects" (n. , ). communications in the other life are effected by means of such emissary spirits (n. , , ). a spirit sent forth to serve as a subject does not think from himself, but thinks from those by whom he is sent forth (n. - ). many particulars relating to such spirits (n. , ). eternal life by professor henry drummond philadelphia henry altemus copyright by henry altemus. eternal life. "this is life eternal--that they might know thee, the true god, and jesus christ whom thou has sent."--_jesus christ_. "perfect correspondence would be perfect life. were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence and eternal knowledge."--_herbert spencer_. one of the most startling achievements of recent science is a definition of eternal life. to the religious mind this is a contribution of immense moment. for eighteen hundred years only one definition of life eternal was before the world. now there are two. through all these centuries revealed religion had this doctrine to itself. ethics had a voice, as well as christianity, on the question of the _summum bonum_; philosophy ventured to speculate on the being of a god. but no source outside christianity contributed anything to the doctrine of eternal life. apart from revelation, this great truth was unguaranteed. it was the one thing in the christian system that most needed verification from without, yet none was forthcoming. and never has any further light been thrown upon the question why in its very nature the christian life should be eternal. christianity itself even upon this point has been obscure. its decision upon the bare fact is authoritative and specific. but as to what there is in the spiritual life necessarily endowing it with the element of eternity, the maturest theology is all but silent. it has been reserved for modern biology at once to defend and illuminate this central truth of the christian faith. and hence in the interests of religion, practical and evidential, this second and scientific definition of eternal life is to be hailed as an announcement of commanding interest. why it should not yet have received the recognition of religious thinkers--for already it has lain some years unnoticed--is not difficult to understand. the belief in science as an aid to faith is not yet ripe enough to warrant men in searching there for witnesses to the highest christian truths. the inspiration of nature, it is thought, extends to the humbler doctrines alone. and yet the reverent inquirer who guides his steps in the right direction may find even now in the still dim twilight of the scientific world much that will illuminate and intensify his sublimest faith. here, at least, comes, and comes unbidden, the opportunity of testing the most vital point of the christian system. hitherto the christian philosopher has remained content with the scientific evidence against annihilation. or, with butler, he has reasoned from the metamorphoses of insects to a future life. or again, with the authors of "the unseen universe," the apologist has constructed elaborate, and certainly impressive, arguments upon the law of continuity. but now we may draw nearer. for the first time science touches christianity _positively_ on the doctrine of immortality. it confronts us with an actual definition of an eternal life, based on a full and rigidly accurate examination of the necessary conditions. science does not pretend that it can fulfil these conditions. its votaries make no claim to possess the eternal life. it simply postulates the requisite conditions without concerning itself whether any organism should ever appear, or does now exist, which might fulfil them. the claim of religion, on the other hand, is that there are organisms which possess eternal life. and the problem for us to solve is this: do those who profess to possess eternal life fulfil the conditions required by science, or are they different conditions? in a word, is the christian conception of eternal life scientific? it may be unnecessary to notice at the outset that the definition of eternal life drawn up by science was framed without reference to religion. it must indeed have been the last thought with the thinker to whom we chiefly owe it, that in unfolding the conception of a life in its very nature necessarily eternal, he was contributing to theology. mr. herbert spencer--for it is to him we owe it--would be the first to admit the impartiality of his definition; and from the connection in which it occurs in his writings, it is obvious that religion was not even present to his mind. he is analyzing with minute care the relations between environment and life. he unfolds the principle according to which life is high or low, long or short. he shows why organisms live and why they die. and finally he defines a condition of things in which an organism would never die--in which it would enjoy a perpetual and perfect life. this to him is, of course, but a speculation. life eternal is a biological conceit. the conditions necessary to an eternal life do not exist in the natural world. so that the definition is altogether impartial and independent. a perfect life, to science, is simply a thing which is theoretically possible--like a perfect vacuum. before giving, in so many words, the definition of mr. herbert spencer, it will render it fully intelligible if we gradually lead up to it by a brief rehearsal of the few and simple biological facts on which it is based. in considering the subject of death, we have formerly seen that there are degrees of life. by this is meant that some lives have more and fuller correspondence with environment than others. the amount of correspondence, again, is determined by the greater or less complexity of the organism. thus a simple organism like the amoeba is possessed of very few correspondences. it is a mere sac of transparent structureless jelly for which organization has done almost nothing, and hence it can only communicate with the smallest possible area of environment. an insect, in virtue of its more complex structure, corresponds with a wider area. nature has endowed it with special faculties for reaching out to the environment on many sides; it has more life than the amoeba. in other words, it is a higher animal. man again, whose body is still further differentiated, or broken up into different correspondences, finds himself _en rapport_ with his surroundings to a further extent. and therefore he is higher still, more living still. and this law, that the degree of life varies with the degree of correspondence, holds to the minutest detail throughout the entire range of living things. life becomes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, more and more sensitive and responsive to an ever-widening environment as we rise in the chain of being. now it will speedily appear that a distinct relation exists, and must exist, between complexity and longevity. death being brought about by the failure of an organism to adjust itself to some change in the environment, it follows that those organisms which are able to adjust themselves most readily and successfully will live the longest. they will continue time after time to effect the appropriate adjustment, and their power of doing so will be exactly proportionate to their complexity--that is, to the amount of environment they can control with their correspondences. there are, for example, in the environment of every animal certain things which are directly or indirectly dangerous to life. if its equipment of correspondences is not complete enough to enable it to avoid these dangers in all possible circumstances, it must sooner or later succumb. the organism then with the most perfect set of correspondences, that is, the highest and most complex organism, has an obvious advantage over less complex forms. it can adjust itself more perfectly and frequently. but this is just the biological way of saying that it can live the longest. and hence the relation between complexity and longevity may be expressed thus--the most complex organisms are the longest lived. to state and illustrate the proposition conversely may make the point still further clear. the less highly organized an animal is, the less will be its chance of remaining in lengthened correspondence with its environment. at some time or other in its career circumstances are sure to occur to which the comparatively immobile organism finds itself structurally unable to respond. thus a _medusa_ tossed ashore by a wave, finds itself so out of correspondence with its new surroundings that its life must pay the forfeit. had it been able by internal change to adapt itself to external change--to correspond sufficiently with the new environment, as for example to crawl, as an eel would have done, back into that environment with which it had completer correspondence--its life might have been spared. but had this happened it would continue to live henceforth only so long as it could continue in correspondence with all the circumstances in which it might find itself. even if, however, it became complex enough to resist the ordinary and direct dangers of its environment, it might still be out of correspondence with others. a naturalist for instance, might take advantage of its want of correspondence with particular sights and sounds to capture it for his cabinet, or the sudden dropping of a yacht's anchor or the turn of a screw might cause its untimely death. again, in the case of a bird in virtue of its more complex organization, there is command over a much larger area of environment. it can take precautions such as the _medusa_ could not; it has increased facilities for securing food; its adjustments all round are more complex; and therefore it ought to be able to maintain its life for a longer period. there is still a large area, however, over which it has no control. its power of internal change is not complete enough to afford it perfect correspondence with all external changes, and its tenure of life is to that extent insecure. its correspondence, moreover, is limited even with regard to those external conditions with which it has been partially established. thus a bird in ordinary circumstances has no difficulty in adapting itself to changes of temperature, but if these are varied beyond the point at which its capacity of adjustment begins to fail--for example, during an extreme winter--the organism being unable to meet the condition must perish. the human organism, on the other hand, can respond to this external condition, as well as to countless other vicissitudes under which lower forms would inevitably succumb. man's adjustments are to the largest known area of environment, and hence he ought to be able furthest to prolong his life. it becomes evident, then, that as we ascend in the scale of life we rise also in the scale of longevity. the lowest organisms are, as a rule, shortlived, and the rate of mortality diminishes more or less regularly as we ascend in the animal scale. so extraordinary indeed is the mortality among lowly-organized forms that in most cases a compensation is actually provided, nature endowing them with a marvellously increased fertility in order to guard against absolute extinction. almost all lower forms are furnished not only with great reproductive powers, but with different methods of propagation, by which, in various circumstances, and in an incredibly short time, the species can be indefinitely multiplied. ehrenberg found that by the repeated subdivisions of a single _paramecium_, no fewer than , , similar organisms might be produced in one month. this power steadily decreases as we rise higher in the scale, until forms are reached in which one, two, or at most three, come into being at a birth. it decreases, however because it is no longer needed. these forms have a much longer lease of life. and it may be taken as a rule, although it has exceptions, that complexity in animal organisms is always associated with longevity. it may be objected that these illustrations are taken merely from morbid conditions. but whether the life be cut short by accident or by disease the principle is the same. all dissolution is brought about practically in the same way. a certain condition in the environment fails to be met by a corresponding condition in the organism, and this is death. and conversely the more an organism in virtue of its complexity can adapt itself to all the parts of its environment, the longer it will live. "it is manifest _a priori_," says mr. herbert spencer, "that since changes in the physical state of the environment, as also those mechanical actions and those variations of available food which occur in it, are liable to stop the processes going on in the organism; and since the adaptive changes in the organism have the effects of directly or indirectly counterbalancing these changes in the environment, it follows that the life of the organism will be short or long, low or high, according to the extent to which changes in the environment are met by corresponding changes in the organism. allowing a margin for perturbations, the life will continue only while the correspondence continues; the completeness of the life will be proportionate to the completeness of the correspondence; and the life will be perfect only when the correspondence is perfect." [ ] [ ] "principles of biology," p. . we are now all but in sight of our scientific definition of eternal life. the desideratum is an organism with a correspondence of a very exceptional kind. it must lie beyond the reach of those "mechanical actions" and those "variations of available food," which are "liable to stop the processes going on in the organism." before we reach an eternal life we must pass beyond that point at which all ordinary correspondences inevitably cease. we must find an organism so high and complex, that at some point in its development it shall have added a correspondence which organic death is powerless to arrest. we must, in short, pass beyond that finite region where the correspondences depend on evanescent and material media, and enter a further region where the environment corresponded with is itself eternal. such an environment exists. the environment of the spiritual world is outside the influence of these "mechanical actions," which sooner or later interrupt the processes going on in all finite organisms. if then we can find an organism which has established a correspondence with the spiritual world, that correspondence will possess the elements of eternity-- provided only one other condition be fulfilled. that condition is that the environment be perfect. if it is not perfect, if it is not the highest, if it is endowed with the finite quality of change, there can be no guarantee that the life of its correspondents will be eternal. some change might occur in it which the correspondents had no adaptive changes to meet, and life would cease. but grant a spiritual organism in perfect correspondence with a perfect spiritual environment, and the conditions necessary to eternal life are satisfied. the exact terms of mr. herbert spencer's definition of eternal life may now be given. and it will be seen that they include essentially the conditions here laid down. "perfect correspondence would be perfect life. were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence and eternal knowledge." [ ] reserving the question as to the possible fulfilment of these conditions, let us turn for a moment to the definition of eternal life laid down by christ. let us place it alongside the definition of science, and mark the points of contact. uninterrupted correspondence with a perfect environment is eternal life according to science. "this is life eternal," said christ, "that they may know thee, the only true god, and jesus christ whom thou has sent." [ ] life eternal is to know god. to know god is to "correspond" with god. to correspond with god is to correspond with a perfect environment. and the organism which attains to this, in the nature of things must live for ever. here is "eternal existence and eternal knowledge." [ ] "principles of biology," p. . [ ] john xvii. the main point of agreement between the scientific and the religious definition is that life consists in a peculiar and personal relation defined as a "correspondence." this conception, that life consists in correspondences, has been so abundantly illustrated already that it is now unnecessary to discuss it further. all life indeed consists essentially in correspondences with various environments. the artist's life is a correspondence with art; the musician's with music. to cut them off from these environments is in that relation to cut off their life. to be cut off from all environment is death. to find a new environment again and cultivate relation with it is to find a new life. to live is to correspond, and to correspond is to live. so much is true in science. but it is also true in religion. and it is of great importance to observe that to religion also the conception of life is a correspondence. no truth of christianity has been more ignorantly or wilfully travestied than the doctrine of immortality. the popular idea, in spite of a hundred protests, is that eternal life is to live forever. a single glance at the _locus classicus_, might have made this error impossible. there we are told that life eternal is not to live. this is life eternal--_to know_. and yet--and it is a notorious instance of the fact that men who are opposed to religion will take their conceptions of its profoundest truths from mere vuglar perversions--this view still represents to many cultivated men the scriptural doctrine of eternal life. from time to time the taunt is thrown at religion, not unseldom from lips which science ought to have taught more caution, that the future life of christianity is simply a prolonged existence, an eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite continuance of being. the bible never could commit itself to any such empty platitude; nor could christianity ever offer to the world a hope so colorless. not that eternal life has nothing to do with everlastingness. that is part of the conception. and it is this aspect of the question that first arrests us in the field of science. but even science has more in its definition than longevity. it has a correspondence and an environment; and although it cannot fill up these terms for religion, it can indicate at least the nature of the relation, the kind of thing that is meant by life. science speaks to us indeed of much more than numbers of years. it defines degrees of life. it explains a widening environment. it unfolds the relation between a widening environment and increasing complexity in organisms. and if it has no absolute contribution to the content of religion, its analogies are not limited to a point. it yields to immortality, and this is the most that science can do in any case, the broad framework for a doctrine. the further definition, moreover, of this correspondence as _knowing_ is in the highest degree significant. is not this the precise quality in an eternal correspondence which the analogies of science would prepare us to look for? longevity is associated with complexity. and complexity in organisms is manifested by the successive addition of correspondences, each richer and larger than those which have gone before. the differentiation, therefore, of the spiritual organism ought to be signalized by the addition of the highest possible correspondence. it is not essential to the idea that the correspondence should be altogether novel; it is necessary rather that it should not. an altogether new correspondence appearing suddenly without shadow or prophecy would be a violation of continuity. what we should expect would be something new, and yet something that we were already prepared for. we should look for a further development in harmony with current developments; the extension of the last and highest correspondence in a new and higher direction. and this is exactly what we have. in the world with which biology deals, evolution culminates in knowledge. at whatever point in the zoological scale this correspondence, or set of correspondences, begins, it is certain there is nothing higher. in its stunted infancy merely, when we meet with its rudest beginnings in animal intelligence, it is a thing so wonderful, as to strike every thoughtful and reverent observer with awe. even among the invertebrates so marvellously are these or kindred powers displayed, that naturalists do not hesitate now, on the ground of intelligence at least, to classify some of the humblest creatures next to man himself. [ ] nothing in nature, indeed, is so unlike the rest of nature, so prophetic of what is beyond it, so supernatural. and as manifested in man who crowns creation with his all-embracing consciousness, there is but one word to describe his knowledge; it is divine. if then from this point there is to be any further evolution, this surely must be the correspondence in which it shall take place? this correspondence is great enough to demand development; and yet it is little enough to need it. the magnificence of what it has achieved relatively, is the pledge of the possibility of more; the insignificance of its conquest absolutely involves the probability of still richer triumphs. if anything, in short, in humanity is to go on it must be this. other correspondences may continue likewise; others, again, we can well afford to leave behind. but this cannot cease. this correspondence--or this set of correspondences, for it is very complex--is it not that to which men with one consent would attach eternal life? is there anything else to which they would attach it? is anything better conceivable, anything worthier, fuller, nobler, anything which would represent a higher form of evolution or offer a more perfect ideal for an eternal life? [ ] _vide_ sir john lubbock's "ants, bees, and wasps," pp. , . but these are questions of quality; and the moment we pass from quantity to quality we leave science behind. in the vocabulary of science, eternity is only the fraction of a word. it means mere everlastingness. to religion, on the other hand, eternity has little to do with time. to correspond with the god of science, the eternal unknowable, would be everlasting existence; to correspond with "the true god and jesus christ," is eternal life. the quality of the eternal life alone makes the heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon. even the brief span of the temporal life is too long for those who spend its years in sorrow. time itself, let alone eternity, is all but excruciating to doubt. and many besides schopenhauer have secretly regarded consciousness as the hideous mistake and malady of nature. therefore we must not only have quantity of years, to speak in the language of the present, but quality of correspondence. when we leave science behind, this correspondence also receives a higher name. it becomes communion. other names there are for it, religious and theological. it may be included in a general expression, faith; or we may call it by a personal and specific term, love. for the knowing of a whole so great involves the co-operation of many parts. communion with god--can it be demonstrated in terms of science that this is a correspondence which will never break? we do not appeal to science for such a testimony. we have asked for its conception of an eternal life; and we have received for answer that eternal life would consist in a correspondence which should never cease, with an environment which should never pass away. and yet what would science demand of a perfect correspondence that is not met by this, _the knowing of god?_ there is no other correspondence which could satisfy one at least of the conditions. not one could be named which would not bear on the face of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. but this, to know god, stands alone. to know god, to be linked with god, to be linked with eternity-- if this is not the "eternal existence" of biology, what can more nearly approach it? and yet we are still a great way off--to establish a communication with the eternal is not to secure eternal life. it must be assumed that the communication could be sustained. and to assume this would be to beg the question. so that we have still to prove eternal life. but let it be again repeated, we are not here seeking proofs. we are seeking light. we are merely reconnoitering from the furthest promontory of science if so be that through the haze we may discern the outline of a distant coast and come to some conclusion as to the possibility of landing. but, it may be replied, it is not open to any one handling the question of immortality from the side of science to remain neutral as to the question of fact. it is not enough to announce that he has no addition to make to the positive argument. this may be permitted with reference to other points of contact between science and religion, but not with this. we are told this question is settled--that there is no positive side. science meets the entire conception of immortality with a direct negative. in the face of a powerful consensus against even the possibility of a future life, to content oneself with saying that science pretended to no argument in favor of it would be at once impertinent and dishonest. we must therefore devote ourselves for a moment to the question of possibility. the problem is, with a material body and a mental organization inseparably connected with it, to bridge the grave. emotion, volition, thought itself, are functions of the brain. when the brain is impaired, they are impaired. when the brain is not, they are not. everything ceases with the dissolution of the material fabric; muscular activity and mental activity perish alike. with the pronounced positive statements on this point from many departments of modern science we are all familiar. the fatal verdict is recorded by a hundred hands and with scarcely a shadow of qualification. "unprejudiced philosophy is compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality and of a personal continuance after death. with the decay and dissolution of its material substratum, through which alone it has acquired a conscious existence and become a person, and upon which it was dependent, the spirit must cease to exist." [l] to the same effect, vogt: "physiology decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality, as against any special existence of the soul. the soul does not enter the foetus like the evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a product of the development of the brain, just as muscular activity is a product of muscular development, and secretion a product of glandular development." after a careful review of the position of recent science with regard to the whole doctrine, mr. graham sums up thus: "such is the argument of science, seemingly decisive against a future life. as we listen to her array of syllogisms, our hearts die within us. the hopes of men, placed in one scale to be weighed, seem to fly up against the massive weight of her evidence, placed in the other. it seems as if all our arguments were vain and unsubstantial, as if our future expectations were the foolish dreams of children, as if there could not be any other possible verdict arrived at upon the evidence brought forward." [ ] [ ] büchner: "force and matter," d ed., p. . [ ] "the creed of science," p. . can we go on in the teeth of so real an obstruction? has not our own weapon turned against us, science abolishing with authoritative hand the very truth we are asking it to define? what the philosopher has to throw into the other scale can be easily indicated. generally speaking, he demurs to the dogmatism of the conclusion. that mind and brain react, that the mental and the physiological processes are related, and very intimately related, is beyond controversy. but how they are related, he submits, is still altogether unknown. the correlation of mind and brain do not involve their identity. and not a few authorities accordingly have consistently hesitated to draw any conclusion at all. even büchner's statement turns out, on close examination, to be tentative in the extreme. in prefacing his chapter on personal continuance, after a single sentence on the dependence of the soul and its manifestations upon a material substratum, he remarks, "though we are unable to form a definite idea as to the _how_ of this connection, we are still by these facts justified in asserting, that the mode of this connection renders it _apparently_ impossible that they should continue to exist separately." [ ] there is, therefore, a flaw at this point in the argument for materialism. it may not help the spiritualist in the least degree positively. he may be as far as ever from a theory of how consciousness could continue without the material tissue. but his contention secures for him the right of speculation. the path beyond may lie in hopeless gloom; but it is not barred. he may bring forward his theory if he will. and this is something. for a permission to go on is often the most that science can grant to religion. [ ] "force and matter," p. . men have taken advantage of this loophole in various ways. and though it cannot be said that these speculations offer us more than a probability, this is still enough to combine with the deep-seated expectation in the bosom of mankind and give fresh lustre to the hope of a future life. whether we find relief in the theory of a simple dualism; whether with ulrici we further define the soul as an invisible enswathement of the body, material yet non-atomic; whether, with the "unseen universe," we are helped by the spectacle of known forms of matter shading off into an evergrowing subtilty, mobility, and immateriality; or whether, with wundt, we regard the soul as "the ordered unity of many elements," it is certain that shapes can be given to the conception of a correspondence which shall bridge the grave such as to satisfy minds too much accustomed to weigh evidence to put themselves off with fancies. but whether the possibilities of physiology or the theories of philosophy do or do not substantially assist us in realizing immortality, is to religion, to religion at least regarded from the present point of view, of inferior moment. the fact of immortality rests for us on a different basis. probably, indeed, after all the christian philosopher never engaged himself in a more superfluous task than in seeking along physiological lines to find room for a soul. the theory of christianity has only to be fairly stated to make manifest its thorough independence of all the usual speculations on immortality. the theory is not that thought, volition, or emotion, as such are to survive the grave. the difficulty of holding a doctrine is this form, in spite of what has been advanced to the contrary, in spite of the hopes and wishes of mankind, in spite of all the scientific and philosophical attempts to make it tenable, is still profound. no secular theory of personal continuance, as even butler acknowledged, does not equally demand the eternity of the brute. no secular theory defines the point in the chain of evolution at which organisms become endowed with immortality. no secular theory explains the condition of the endowment, nor indicates its goal. and if we have nothing more to fan hope than the unexplored mystery of the whole region, or the unknown remainders among the potencies of life, then, as those who have "hope only in this world," we are "of all men the most miserable." when we turn, on the other hand, to the doctrine as it came from the lips of christ, we find ourselves in an entirely different region. he makes no attempt to project the material into the immaterial. the old elements, however refined and subtle as to their matter, are not in themselves to inherit the kingdom of god. that which is flesh is flesh. instead of attaching immortality to the natural organism, he introduces a new and original factor which none of the secular, and few even of the theological theories, seem to take sufficiently into account. to christanity, "he that hath the son of god hath life, and he that hath not the son hath not life." this, as we take it, defines the correspondence which is to bridge the grave. this is the clue to the nature of the life that lies at the back of the spiritual organism. and this is the true solution of the mystery of eternal life. there lies a something at the back of the correspondences of the spiritual organism--just as there lies a something at the back of the natural correspondence. to say that life is a correspondence is only to express the partial truth. there is something behind. life manifests itself in correspondences. but what determines them? the organism exhibits a variety of correspondences. what organizes them? as in the natural, so in the spiritual, there is a principle of life. we cannot get rid of that term. however clumsy, however provisional, however much a mere cloak for ignorance, science as yet is unable to dispense with the idea of a principle of life. we must work with the word till we get a better. now that which determines the correspondence of the spiritual organism is a principle of spiritual life. it is a new and divine possession. he that hath the son hath life; conversely, he that hath life hath the son. and this indicates at once the quality and the quantity of the correspondence which is to bridge the grave. he that hath life hath _the son_. he possesses the spirit of the son. that spirit is, so to speak, organized within him by the son. it is the manifestation of the new nature--of which more anon. the fact to note at present is that this is not an organic correspondence, but a spiritual correspondence. it comes not from generation, but from regeneration. the relation between the spiritual man and his environment is, in theological language, a filial relation. with the new spirit, the filial correspondence, he knows the father and this is life eternal. this is not only the real relation, but the only possible relation: "neither knoweth any man the father save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him." and this on purely natural grounds. it takes the divine to know the divine--but in no more mysterious sense than it takes the human to understand the human. the analogy, indeed, for the whole field here has been finely expressed already by paul: "what man," he asks, "knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of god knoweth no man, but the spirit of god. now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of god; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of god." [ ] [ ] cor. ii. , . it were idle, such being the quality of the new relation, to add that this also contains the guarantee of its eternity. here at last is a correspondence which will never cease. its powers in bridging the grave have been tried. the correspondence of the spiritual man possesses the supernatural virtues of the resurrection and the life. it is known by former experiment to have survived the "changes in the physical state of the environment," and those "mechanical actions" and "variations of available food," which mr. herbert spencer tells us are "liable to stop the processes going on in the organism." in short, this is a correspondence which at once satisfies the demands of science and religion. in mere quantity it is different from every other correspondence known. setting aside everything else in religion, everything adventitious, local, and provisional; dissecting into the bone and marrow we find this--a correspondence which can never break with an environment which can never change. here is a relation established with eternity. the passing years lay no limiting hand on it. corruption injures it not. it survives death. it, and it only, will stretch beyond the grave and be found inviolate-- "when the moon is old, and the stars are cold, and the books of the judgment-day unfold." the misgiving which will creep sometimes over the brightest faith has already received its expression and its rebuke: "who shall separate us from the love of christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" shall these "changes in the physical state of the environment" which threaten death to the natural man destroy the spiritual? shall death, or life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, arrest or tamper with his eternal correspondences? "nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. for i am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of god, which is in christ jesus our lord." [ ] [ ] rom. viii. - . it may seem an objection to some that the "perfect correspondence" should come to man in so extraordinary a way. the earlier stages in the doctrine are promising enough ; they are entirely in line with nature. and if nature had also furnished the "perfect correspondence" demanded for an eternal life the position might be unassailable. but this sudden reference to a something outside the natural environment destroys the continuity, and discovers a permanent weakness in the whole theory? to which there is a twofold reply. in the first place, to go outside what we call nature is not to go outside environment. nature, the natural environment, is only a part of environment. there is another large part which, though some profess to have no correspondence with it, is not on that account unreal, or even unnatural. the mental and moral world is unknown to the plant. but it is real. it cannot be affirmed either that it is unnatural to the plant; although it might be said that from the point of view of the vegetable kingdom it was _supernatural_. things are natural or supernatural simply according to where one stands. man is supernatural to the mineral; god is supernatural to the man. when a mineral is seized upon by the living plant and elevated to the organic kingdom, no tresspass against nature is committed. it merely enters a larger environment, which before was supernatural to it, but which now is entirely natural. when the heart of a man, again, is seized upon by the quickening spirit of god, no further violence is done to natural law. it is another case of the inorganic, so to speak, passing into the organic. but, in the second place, it is complained as if it were an enormity in itself that the spiritual correspondence should be furnished from the spiritual world. and to this the answer lies in the same direction. correspondence in any case is the gift of environment. the natural environment gives men their natural faculties; the spiritual affords them their spiritual faculties. it is natural for the spiritual environment to supply the spiritual faculties; it would be quite unnatural for the natural environment to do it. the natural law of biogenesis forbids it; the moral fact that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite is against it; the spiritual principle that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god renders it absurd. not, however, that the spiritual faculties are, as it were, manufactured in the spiritual world and supplied ready-made to the spiritual organism--forced upon it as an external equipment. this certainly is not involved in saying that the spiritual faculties are furnished by the spiritual world. organisms are not added to by accretion, as in the case of minerals, but by growth. and the spiritual faculties are organized in the spiritual protoplasm of the soul, just as other faculties are organized in the protoplasm of the body. the plant is made of materials which have once been inorganic. an organizing principle not belonging to their kingdom lays hold of them and elaborates them until they have correspondences with the kingdom to which the organizing principle belonged. their original organizing principle, if it can be called by this name, was crystallization; so that we have now a distinctly foreign power organizing in totally new and higher directions. in the spiritual world, similarly, we find an organizing principle at work among the materials of the organic kingdom, per forming a further miracle, but not a different kind of miracle, producing organizations of a novel kind, but not by a novel method. the second process, in fact, is simply what an enlightened evolutionist would have expected from the first. it marks the natural and legitimate progress of the development. and this in the line of the true evolution--not the _linear_ evolution, which would look for the development of the natural man through powers already inherent, as if one were to look to crystallization to accomplish the development of the mineral into the plant,--but that larger form of evolution which includes among its factors the double law of biogenesis and the immense further truth that this involves. what is further included in this complex correspondence we shall have opportunity to illustrate afterwards. [ ] meantime let it be noted on what the christian argument for immortality really rests. it stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian rests the whole of historical christianity--the resurrection of jesus christ. [ ] _vide_ "conformity to type," page . it ought to be placed in the forefront of all christian teaching that christ's mission on earth was to give men life. "i am come," he said, "that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." and that he meant literal life, literal spiritual and eternal life, is clear from the whole course of his teaching and acting. to impose a metaphorical meaning on the commonest word of the new testament is to violate every canon of interpretation, and at the same time to charge the greatest of teachers with persistently mystifying his hearers by an unusual use of so exact a vehicle for expressing definite thought as the greek language, and that on the most momentous subject of which he ever spoke to men. it is a canon of interpretation, according to alford, that "a figurative sense of words is never admissible except when required by the context." the context, in most cases, is not only directly unfavorable to a figurative meaning, but in innumerable instances in christ's teaching life is broadly contrasted with death. in the teaching of the apostles, again, we find that, without exception, they accepted the term in its simple literal sense. reuss defines the apostolic belief with his usual impartiality when--and the quotation is doubly pertinent here--he discovers in the apostle's conception of life, first, "the idea of a real existence, an existence such as is proper to god and to the word; an imperishable existence--that is to say, not subject to the vicissitudes and imperfections of the finite world. this primary idea is repeatedly expressed, at least in a negative form; it leads to a doctrine of immortality, or, to speak more correctly, of life, far surpassing any that had been expressed in the formulas of the current philosophy or theology, and resting upon premises and conceptions altogether different. in fact, it can dispense both with the philosophical thesis of the immateriality or indestructibility of the human soul, and with the theologicial thesis of a miraculous corporeal reconstruction of our person; theses, the first of which is altogether foreign to the religion of the bible, and the second absolutely opposed to reason." second, "the idea of life, as it is conceived in this system, implies the idea of a power, an operation, a communication, since this life no longer remains, so to speak, latent or passive in god and in the word, but through them reaches the believer. it is not a mental somnolent thing; it is not a plant without fruit; it is a germ which is to find fullest development." [ ] [ ] "history of christian theology in the apostolic age," vol. ii. p. . if we are asked to define more clearly what is meant by this mysterious endowment of life, we again hand over the difficulty to science. when science can define the natural life and the physical force we may hope for further clearness on the nature and action of the spiritual powers. the effort to detect the living spirit must be at least as idle as the attempt to subject protoplasm to microscopic examination in the hope of discovering life. we are warned, also, not to expect too much. "thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth." this being its quality, when the spiritual life is discovered in the laboratory it will possibly be time to give it up altogether. it may say, as socrates of his soul, "you may bury me--if you can catch me." science never corroborates a spiritual truth without illuminating it. the threshold of eternity is a place where many shadows meet. and the light of science here, where everything is so dark, is welcome a thousand times. many men would be religious if they knew where to begin; many would be more religious if they were sure where it would end. it is not indifference that keeps some men from god, but ignorance. "good master, what must i do to inherit eternal life?" is still the deepest question of the age. what is religion? what am i to believe? what seek with all my heart and soul and mind?--this is the imperious question sent up to consciousness from the depths of being in all earnest hours; sent down again, alas, with many of us, time after time, unanswered. into all our thought and work and reading this question pursues us. but the theories are rejected one by one; the great books are returned sadly to their shelves, the years pass, and the problem remains unsolved. the confusion of tongues here is terrible. every day a new authority announces himself. poets, philosophers, preachers, try their hand on us in turn. new prophets arise, and beseech us for our soul's sake to give ear to them--at last in an hour of inspiration they have discovered the final truth. yet the doctrine of yesterday is challenged by a fresh philosophy to-day; and the creed of to-day will fall in turn before the criticism of to-morrow. increase of knowledge increaseth sorrow. and at length the conflicting truths, like the beams of light in the laboratory experiment, combine in the mind to make total darkness. but here are two outstanding authorities agreed--not men, not philosophers, not creeds. here is the voice of god and the voice of nature. i cannot be wrong if i listen to them. sometimes when uncertain of a voice from its very loudness, we catch the missing syllable in the echo. in god and nature we have voice and echo. when i hear both, i am assured. my sense of hearing does not betray me twice. i recognize the voice in the echo, the echo makes me certain of the voice; i listen and i know. the question of a future life is a biological question. nature may be silent on other problems of religion; but here she has a right to speak. the whole confusion around the doctrine of eternal life has arisen from making it a question of philosophy. we shall do ill to refuse a hearing to any speculation of philosophy; the ethical relations here especially are intimate and real. but in the first instance eternal life, as a question of _life_, is a problem for biology. the soul is a living organism. and for any question as to the soul's life we must appeal to life-science. and what does the life-science teach? that if i am to inherit eternal life, i must cultivate a correspondence with the eternal. this is a simple proposition, for nature is always simple. i take this proposition, and, leaving nature, proceed to fill it in. i search everywhere for a clue to the eternal. i ransack literature for a definition of a correspondence between man and god. obviously that can only come from one source. and the analogies of science permit us to apply to it. all knowledge lies in environment. when i want to know about minerals i go to minerals. when i want to know about flowers i go to flowers. and they tell me. in their own way they speak to me, each in its own way, and each for itself--not the mineral for the flower, which is impossible, nor the flower for the mineral, which is also impossible. so if i want to know about man, i go to his part of the environment. and he tells me about himself, not as the plant or the mineral, for he is neither, but in his own way. and if i want to know about god, i go to his part of the environment. and he tells me about himself, not as a man, for he is not man, but in his own way. and just as naturally as the flower and the mineral and the man, each in their own way, tell me about themselves, he tells me about himself. he very strangely condescends indeed in making things plain to me, actually assuming for a time the form of a man that i at my poor level may better see him. this is my opportunity to know him. this incarnation is god making himself accessible to human thought--god opening to man the possibility of correspondence through jesus christ. and this correspondence and this environment are those i seek. he himself assures me, "this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true god, and jesus christ whom thou has sent." do i not now discern the deeper meaning in "_jesus christ whom thou has sent?_" do i not better understand with what vision and rapture the profoundest of the disciples exclaims, "the son of god is come, and hath given us an understanding that we might know him that is true?" [ ] [ ] john v. . having opened correspondence with the eternal environment, the subsequent stages are in the line of all other normal development. we have but to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the correspondence that has been begun. and we shall soon find to our surprise that this is accompanied by another and parallel process. the action is not all upon our side. the environment also will be found to correspond. the influence of environment is one of the greatest and most substantial of modern biological doctrines. of the power of environment to form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop or suppress function, of its potency in determining growth, and generally of its immense influence in evolution, there is no need now to speak. but environment is now acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors in the evolution of life. the influence of environment, too, seems to increase rather than diminish as we approach the higher forms of being. the highest forms are the most mobile; their capacity of change is the greatest; they are, in short, most easily acted on by environment. and not only are the highest organisms the most mobile, but the highest parts of the highest organisms are more mobile than the lower. environment can do little, comparatively, in the direction of inducing variation in the body of a child; but how plastic is its mind! how infinitely sensitive is its soul! how infallibly can it be tuned to music or to dissonance by the moral harmony or discord of its outward lot! how decisively indeed are we not all formed and moulded, made or unmade, by external circumstance! might we not all confess with ulysses,-- "i am a part of all that i have met?" much more, then, shall we look for the influence of environment on the spiritual nature of him who has opened correspondence with god. reaching out his eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him, shall he not become spiritual? in vital contact with holiness, shall he not become holy? breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable purity, shall he miss becoming pure? walking with god from day to day, shall he fail to be taught of god? growth in grace is sometimes described as a strange, mystical, and unintelligible process. it is mystical, but neither strange nor unintelligible. it proceeds according to natural law, and the leading factor in sanctification is influence of environment. the possibility of it depends upon the mobility of the organism; the result, on the extent and frequency of certain correspondences. these facts insensibly lead on to further suggestion. is it not possible that these biological truths may carry with them the clue to a still profounder philosophy--even that of regeneration? evolutionists tell us that by the influence of environment certain aquatic animals have become adapted to a terrestrial mode of life. breathing normally by gills, as the result and reward of a continued effort carried on from generation to generation to inspire the air of heaven direct, they have slowly acquired the lung-function. in the young organism, true to the ancestral type, the gill still persists--as in the tadpole of the common frog. but as maturity approaches, the true lung appears; the gill gradually transfers its task to the higher organ. it then becomes atrophied and disappears, and finally respiration in the adult is conducted by lungs alone. [ ] we may be far, in the meantime, from saying that this is proved. it is for those who accept it to deny the justice of the spiritual analogy. is religion to them unscientific in its doctrine of regeneration? will the evolutionist who admits the regeneration of the frog under the modifying influence of a continued correspondence with a new environment, care to question the possibility of the soul acquiring such a faculty as that of prayer, the marvellous breathing-function of the new creature, when in contact with the atmosphere of a besetting god? is the change from the earthly to the heavenly more mysterious than the change from the aquatic to the terrestrial mode of life? is evolution to stop with the organic? if it be objected that it has taken ages to perfect the function in the batrachian, the reply is, that it will take ages to perfect the function in the christian. for every thousand years the natural evolution will allow for the development of its organism, the higher biology will grant its product millions. we have indeed spoken of the spiritual correspondence as already perfect--but it is perfect only as the bud is perfect. "it doth not yet appear what it shall be," any more than it appeared a million years ago what the evolving batrachian would be. [ ] _vide_ also the remarkable experiments of fräulein v. chauvin on the transformation of the mexican axoloti into amblystoma.--weismann's "studies in the theory of descent," vol. ii. pt. iii. but to return. we have been dealing with the scientific aspects of communion with god. insensibly, from quantity we have been led to speak of quality. and enough has now been advanced to indicate generally the nature of that correspondence with which is necessarily associated eternal life. there remain but one or two details to which we must lastly, and very briefly, address ourselves. the quality of everlastingness belongs, as we have seen, to a single correspondence, or rather to a single set of correspondences. but it is apparent that before this correspondence can take full and final effect a further process is necessary. by some means it must be separated from all the other correspondences of the organism which do not share its peculiar quality. in this life it is restrained by these other correspondences. they may contribute to it, or hinder it; but they are essentially of a different order. they belong not to eternity but to time, and to this present world; and, unless some provision is made for dealing with them, they will detain the aspiring organism in this present world till time is ended. of course, in a sense, all that belongs to time belongs also to eternity; but these lower correspondences are in their nature unfitted for an eternal life. even if they were perfect in their relation to their environment, they would still not be eternal. however opposed, apparently, to the scientific definition of eternal life, it is yet true that perfect correspondence with environment is not eternal life. a very important word in the complete definition is, in this sentence, omitted. on that word it has not been necessary hitherto, and for obvious reasons, to place any emphasis, but when we come to deal with false pretenders to immortality we must return to it. were the definition complete as it stands, it might, with the permission of the psycho-physiologist, guarantee the immortality of every living thing. in the dog, for instance, the material framework giving way at death might leave the released canine spirit still free to inhabit the old environment. and so with every creature which had ever established a conscious relation with surrounding things. now the difficulty in framing a theory of eternal life has been to construct one which will exclude the brute creation, drawing the line rigidly at man, or at least somewhere within the human race. not that we need object to the immortality of the dog, or of the whole inferior creation. nor that we need refuse a place to any intelligible speculation which would people the earth to-day with the invisible forms of all things that have ever lived. only we still insist that this is not eternal life. and why? because their environment is not eternal. their correspondence, however firmly established, is established with that which shall pass away. an eternal life demands an eternal environment. the demand for a perfect environment as well as for a perfect correspondence is less clear in mr. herbert spencer's definition than it might be. but it is an essential factor. an organism might remain true to its environment, but what if the environment played it false? if the organism possessed the power to change, it could adapt itself to successive changes in the environment. and if this were guaranteed we should also have the conditions for eternal life fulfilled. but what if the environment passed away altogether? what if the earth swept suddenly into the sun? this is a change of environment against which there could be no precaution and for which there could be as little provision. with a changing environment even, there must always remain the dread and possibility of a falling out of correspondence. at the best, life would be uncertain. but with a changeless environment--such as that possessed by the spiritual organism--the perpetuity of the correspondence, so far as the external relation is concerned, is guaranteed. this quality of permanence in the environment distinguishes the religious relation from every other. why should not the musician's life be an eternal life? because, for one thing, the musical world, the environment with which he corresponds, is not eternal. even if his correspondence in itself could last eternally, the environing material things with which he corresponds must pass away. his soul might last forever--but not his violin. so the man of the world might last forever--but not the world. his environment is not eternal; nor are even his correspondences--the world passeth away _and the lust thereof_. we find, then, that man, or the spiritual man, is equipped with two sets of correspondences. one set possesses the quality of everlastingness, the other is temporal. but unless these are separated by some means the temporal will continue to impair and hinder the eternal. the final preparation, therefore, for the inheriting of eternal life must consist in the abandonment of the non-eternal elements. these must be unloosed and dissociated from the higher elements. and this is effected by a closing catastrophe--death. death ensues because certain relations in the organism are not adjusted to certain relations in the environment. there will come a time in each history when the imperfect correspondences of the organism will betray themselves by a failure to compass some necessary adjustment. this is why death is associated with imperfection. death is the necessary result of imperfection, and the necessary end of it. imperfect correspondence gives imperfect and uncertain life. "perfect correspondence," on the other hand, according to mr. herbert spencer, would be "perfect life." to abolish death, therefore, all that would be necessary would be to abolish imperfection. but it is the claim of christianity that it can abolish death. and it is significant to notice that it does so by meeting this very demand of science--it abolishes imperfection. the part of the organism which begins to get out of correspondence with the organic environment is the only part which is in vital correspondence with it. though a fatal disadvantage to the natural man to be thrown out of correspondence with this environment, it is of inestimable importance to the spiritual man. for so long as it is maintained the way is barred for a further evolution. and hence the condition necessary for the further evolution is that the spiritual be released from the natural. that is to say, the condition of the further evolution is death. _mora janua vitæ_, therefore, becomes a scientific formula. death, being the final sifting of all the correspondences, is the indispensable factor of the higher life. in the language of science, not less than of scripture, "to die is gain." the sifting of the correspondences is done by nature. this is its last and greatest contribution to mankind. over the mouth of the grave the perfect and the imperfect submit to their final separation. each goes to its own--earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, spirit to spirit. the dust shall return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto god who gave it" altemus' illustrated holly-tree series --- altemus' illustrated holly-tree series --- a series of good, clean books for young people, by authors whose fame for delightful stories is world-wide. they are well printed on fine paper, handsomely illustrated, have colored frontispieces, and are bound in cloth decorated in gold and colors. cents. .. the holly-tree. _by charles dickens._ .. then marched the brave. _by harriet t. comstock._ .. a modern cinderella. _by louisa m. alcott._ .. the little missionary. _by amanda m. douglas._ .. the rule of three. _by susan coolidge._ .. chuggins. _by h. irving hancock._ .. when the british came. _by harriet t. comstock._ .. little foxes. _by rose terry cooke._ .. an unrecorded miracle. _by florence morse kingsley._ .. the story without an end. _by sarah austin._ .. clover's princess. _by amanda m. douglas._ .. the sweet story of old. _by l. haskeli._ altemus' illustrated one-syllable series --- altemus' illustrated one-syllable series for young readers --- embracing popular works arranged for the young folks in words of one syllable. printed from extra-large, clear type on fine paper, and fully illustrated by the best artists. the handsomest line of books for young children before the public. handsomely bound in cloth and gold, with illuminated sides, cents. .. Ã�sop's fables. illustrations. .. a child's life of christ. illustrations. .. the adventures of robinson crusoe. illustrations. .. bunyan's pilgrim's progress. illustrations. .. swiss family robinson. illustrations. .. gulliver's travels. illustrations. .. a child's story of the old testament. illustrations. .. a child's story of the new testament. illustrations. .. bible stories for little children. illustrations. .. the story of jesus. illustrations [transcriber's note: misspellings have been left as they are in the source material.] the mansion by henry van dyke there was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently applied. standing on a corner of the avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency and half-disdain. the house was not beautiful. there was nothing in its straight front of chocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring windows of plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors at the top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate the imagination. but it was eminently respectable, and in its way imposing. it seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewelers, the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers, the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail traders in luxuries of life, were beneath the notice of a house that had its foundations in the high finance, and was built literally and figuratively in the shadow of st. petronius' church. at the same time there was something self-pleased and congratulatory in the way in which the mansion held its own amid the changing neighborhood. it almost seemed to be lifted up a little, among the tall buildings near at hand, as if it felt the rising value of the land on which it stood. john weightman was like the house into which he had built himself thirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were incrusted. he was a self-made man. but in making himself he had chosen a highly esteemed pattern and worked according to the approved rules. there was nothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him. he was solid, correct, and justly successful. his minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date. at the proper time, pictures of the barbizon masters, old english plate and portraits, bronzes by barye and marbles by rodin, persian carpets and chinese porcelains, had been introduced to the mansion. it contained a louis quinze reception-room, an empire drawing-room, a jacobean dining-room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent of the styles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. that the hallways were too short for the historic perspective did not make much difference. american decorative art is capable de tout, it absorbs all periods. of each period mr. weightman wished to have something of the best. he understood its value, present as a certificate, and prospective as an investment. it was only in the architecture of his town house that he remained conservative, immovable, one might almost say early-victorian-christian. his country house at dulwich-on-the-sound was a palace of the italian renaissance. but in town he adhered to an architecture which had moral associations, the nineteenth-century-brownstone epoch. it was a symbol of his social position, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his business creed. "a man of fixed principles," he would say, "should express them in the looks of his house. new york changes its domestic architecture too rapidly. it is like divorce. it is not dignified. i don't like it. extravagance and fickleness are advertised in most of these new houses. i wish to be known for different qualities. dignity and prudence are the things that people trust. every one knows that i can afford to live in the house that suits me. it is a guarantee to the public. it inspires confidence. it helps my influence. there is a text in the bible about 'a house that hath foundations.' that is the proper kind of a mansion for a solid man." harold weightman had often listened to his father discoursing in this fashion on the fundamental principles of life, and always with a divided mind. he admired immensely his father's talents and the single-minded energy with which he improved them. but in the paternal philosophy there was something that disquieted and oppressed the young man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh air and free action. at times, during his college course and his years at the law school, he had yielded to this impulse and broken away--now toward extravagance and dissipation, and then, when the reaction came, toward a romantic devotion to work among the poor. he had felt his father's disapproval for both of these forms of imprudence; but is was never expressed in a harsh or violent way, always with a certain tolerant patience, such as one might show for the mistakes and vagaries of the very young. john weightman was not hasty, impulsive, inconsiderate, even toward his own children. with them, as with the rest of the world, he felt that he had a reputation to maintain, a theory to vindicate. he could afford to give them time to see that he was absolutely right. one of his favorite scripture quotations was, "wait on the lord." he had applied it to real estate and to people, with profitable results. but to human persons the sensation of being waited for is not always agreeable. sometimes, especially with the young, it produces a vague restlessness, a dumb resentment, which is increased by the fact that one can hardly explain or justify it. of this john weightman was not conscious. it lay beyond his horizon. he did not take it into account in the plan of life which he made for himself and for his family as the sharers and inheritors of his success. "father plays us," said harold, in a moment of irritation, to his mother, "like pieces in a game of chess. "my dear," said that lady, whose faith in her husband was religious, "you ought not to speak so impatiently. at least he wins the game. he is one of the most respected men in new york. and he is very generous, too." "i wish he would be more generous in letting us be ourselves," said the young man. "he always has something in view for us and expects to move us up to it." "but isn't it always for our benefit?" replied his mother. "look what a position we have. no one can say there is any taint on our money. there are no rumors about your father. he has kept the laws of god and of man. he has never made any mistakes." harold got up from his chair and poked the fire. then he came back to the ample, well-gowned, firm-looking lady, and sat beside her on the sofa. he took her hand gently and looked at the two rings--a thin band of yellow gold, and a small solitaire diamond--which kept their place on her third finger in modest dignity, as if not shamed, but rather justified, by the splendor of the emerald which glittered beside them. "mother," he said, "you have a wonderful hand. and father made no mistake when he won you. but are you sure he has always been so inerrant?" "harold," she exclaimed, a little stiffly, "what do you mean? his life is an open book." "oh," he answered, "i don't mean anything bad, mother dear. i know the governor's life is an open book--a ledger, if you like, kept in the best bookkeeping hand, and always ready for inspection--every page correct, and showing a handsome balance. but isn't it a mistake not to allow us to make our own mistakes, to learn for ourselves, to live our own lives? must we be always working for 'the balance,' in one thing or another? i want to be myself--to get outside of this everlasting, profitable 'plan'--to let myself go, and lose myself for a while at least--to do the things that i want to do, just because i want to do them." "my boy," said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do anything wrong or foolish? you know the falsehood of that old proverb about wild oats." he threw back his head and laughed. "yes, mother," he answered, "i know it well enough. but in california, you know, the wild oats are one of the most valuable crops. they grow all over the hillsides and keep the cattle and the horses alive. but that wasn't what i meant--to sow wild oats. say to pick wild flowers, if you like, or even to chase wild geese--to do something that seems good to me just for its own sake, not for the sake of wages of one kind or another. i feel like a hired man, in the service of this magnificent mansion--say in training for father's place as majordomo. i'd like to get out some way, to feel free--perhaps to do something for others." the young man's voice hesitated a little. "yes, it sounds like cant, i know, but sometimes i feel as if i'd like to do some good in the world, if father only wouldn't insist upon god's putting it into the ledger." his mother moved uneasily, and a slight look of bewilderment came into her face. "isn't that almost irreverent?" she asked. "surely the righteous must have their reward. and your father is good. see how much he gives to all the established charities, how many things he has founded. he's always thinking of others, and planning for them. and surely, for us, he does everything. how well he has planned this trip to europe for me and the girls--the court-presentation at berlin, the season on the riviera, the visits in england with the plumptons and the halverstones. he says lord halverstone has the finest old house in sussex, pure elizabethan, and all the old customs are kept up, too--family prayers every morning for all the domestics. by-the-way, you know his son bertie, i believe." harold smiled a little to himself as he answered: "yes, i fished at catalina island last june with the honorable ethelbert; he's rather a decent chap, in spite of his ingrowing mind. but you?--mother, you are simply magnificent! you are father's masterpiece." the young man leaned over to kiss her, and went up to the riding club for his afternoon canter in the park. so it came to pass, early in december, that mrs. weightman and her two daughters sailed for europe, on their serious pleasure trip, even as it had been written in the book of providence; and john weightman, who had made the entry, was left to pass the rest of the winter with his son and heir in the brownstone mansion. they were comfortable enough. the machinery of the massive establishment ran as smoothly as a great electric dynamo. they were busy enough, too. john weightman's plans and enterprises were complicated, though his principle of action was always simple--to get good value for every expenditure and effort. the banking-house of which he was the chief, the brain, the will, the absolutely controlling hand, was so admirably organized that the details of its direction took but little time. but the scores of other interests that radiated from it and were dependent upon it--or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that contributed to its solidity and success--the many investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, ecclesiastical, that had made the name of weightman well known and potent in city, church, and state, demanded much attention and careful steering, in order that each might produce the desired result. there were board meetings of corporations and hospitals, conferences in wall street and at albany, consultations and committee meetings in the brownstone mansion. for a share in all this business and its adjuncts john weightman had his son in training in one of the famous law firms of the city; for he held that banking itself is a simple affair, the only real difficulties of finance are on its legal side. meantime he wished the young man to meet and know the men with whom he would have to deal when he became a partner in the house. so a couple of dinners were given in the mansion during december, after which the father called the son's attention to the fact that over a hundred million dollars had sat around the board. but on christmas eve father and son were dining together without guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though a little slow at times. the elder man was in rather a rare mood, more expansive and confidential than usual; and, when the coffee was brought in and they were left alone, he talked more freely of his personal plans and hopes than he had ever done before. "i feel very grateful to-night," said he, at last; "it must be something in the air of christmas that gives me this feeling of thankfulness for the many divine mercies that have been bestowed upon me. all the principles by which i have tried to guide my life have been justified. i have never made the value of this salted almond by anything that the courts would not uphold, at least in the long run, and yet--or wouldn't it be truer to say and therefore?--my affairs have been wonderfully prospered. there's a great deal in that text 'honesty is the best'--but no, that's not from the bible, after all, is it? wait a moment; there is something of that kind, i know." "may i light a cigar, father," said harold, turning away to hide a smile, "while you are remembering the text?" "yes, certainly," answered the elder man, rather shortly; "you know i don't dislike the smell. but it is a wasteful, useless habit, and therefore i have never practised it. nothing useless is worth while, that's my motto--nothing that does not bring the reward. oh, now i recall the text, 'verily i say unto you they have their reward.' i shall ask doctor snodgrass to preach a sermon on that verse some day." "using you as an illustration?" "well, not exactly that; but i could give him some good materials from my own experience to prove the truth of scripture. i can honestly say that there is not one of my charities that has not brought me in a good return, either in the increase of influence, the building up of credit, or the association with substantial people. of course you have to be careful how you give, in order to secure the best results--no indiscriminate giving--no pennies in beggars' hats! it has been one of my principles always to use the same kind of judgment in charities that i use in my other affairs, and they have not disappointed me." "even the check that you put in the plate when you take the offertory up the aisle on sunday morning?" "certainly; though there the influence is less direct; and i must confess that i have my doubts in regard to the collection for foreign missions. that always seems to me romantic and wasteful. you never hear from it in any definite way. they say the missionaries have done a good deal to open the way for trade; perhaps--but they have also gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. yet i give to them--a little--it is a matter of conscience with me to identify myself with all the enterprises of the church; it is the mainstay of social order and a prosperous civilization. but the best forms of benevolence are the well-established, organized ones here at home, where people can see them and know what they are doing." "you mean the ones that have a local habitation and a name." "yes; they offer by far the safest return, though of course there is something gained by contributing to general funds. a public man can't afford to be without public spirit. but on the whole i prefer a building, or an endowment. there is a mutual advantage to a good name and a good institution in their connection in the public mind. it helps them both. remember that, my boy. of course at the beginning you will have to practise it in a small way; later, you will have larger opportunities. but try to put your gifts where they can be identified and do good all around. you'll see the wisdom of it in the long run." "i can see it already, sir, and the way you describe it looks amazingly wise and prudent. in other words, we must cast our bread on the waters in large loaves, carried by sound ships marked with the owner's name, so that the return freight will be sure to come back to us." the father laughed, but his eyes were frowning a little as if he suspected something irreverent under the respectful reply. "you put it humorously, but there's sense in what you say. why not? god rules the sea; but he expects us to follow the laws of navigation and commerce. why not take good care of your bread, even when you give it away?" "it's not for me to say why not--and yet i can think of cases--" the young man hesitated for a moment. his half-finished cigar had gone out. he rose and tossed it into the fire, in front of which he remained standing--a slender, eager, restless young figure, with a touch of hunger in the fine face, strangely like and unlike the father, at whom he looked with half-wistful curiosity. "the fact is, sir," he continued, "there is such a case in my mind now, and it is a good deal on my heart, too. so i thought of speaking to you about it to-night. you remember tom rollins, the junior who was so good to me when i entered college?" the father nodded. he remembered very well indeed the annoying incidents of his son's first escapade, and how rollins had stood by him and helped to avoid a public disgrace, and how a close friendship had grown between the two boys, so different in their fortunes. "yes," he said, "i remember him. he was a promising young man. has he succeeded?" "not exactly--that is not yet. his business has been going rather badly. he has a wife and little baby, you know. and now he has broken down,--something wrong with his lungs. the doctor says his only chance is a year or eighteen months in colorado. i wish we could help him." "how much would it cost?" "three or four thousand, perhaps, as a loan." "does the doctor say he will get well?" "a fighting chance--the doctor says." the face of the older man changed subtly. not a line was altered, but it seemed to have a different substance, as if it were carved out of some firm, imperishable stuff. "a fighting chance," he said, "may do for a speculation, but it is not a good investment. you owe something to young rollins. your grateful feeling does you credit. but don't overwork it. send him three or four hundred, if you like. you'll never hear from it again, except in the letter of thanks. but for heaven's sake don't be sentimental. religion is not a matter of sentiment; it's a matter of principle." the face of the younger man changed now. but instead of becoming fixed and graven, it seemed to melt into life by the heat of an inward fire. his nostrils quivered with quick breath, his lips were curled. "principle!" he said. "you mean principal--and interest too. well, sir, you know best whether that is religion or not. but if it is, count me out, please. tom saved me from going to the devil, six years ago; and i'll be damned if i don't help him to the best of my ability now." john weightman looked at his son steadily. "harold," he said at last, "you know i dislike violent language, and it never has any influence with me. if i could honestly approve of this proposition of yours, i'd let you have the money; but i can't; it's extravagant and useless. but you have your christmas check for a thousand dollars coming to you to-morrow. you can use it as you please. i never interfere with your private affairs." "thank you," said harold. "thank you very much! but there's another private affair. i want to get away from this life, this town, this house. it stifles me. you refused last summer when i asked you to let me go up to grenfell's mission on the labrador. i could go now, at least as far as the newfoundland station. have you changed your mind?" "not at all. i think it is an exceedingly foolish enterprise. it would interrupt the career that i have marked out for you." "well, then, here's a cheaper proposition. algy vanderhoof wants me to join him on his yacht with--well, with a little party--to cruise in the west indies. would you prefer that?" "certainly not! the vanderhoof set is wild and godless--i do not wish to see you keeping company with fools who walk in the broad and easy way that leads to perdition." "it is rather a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh, turning toward the door. "according to you there's very little difference--a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! well, it's one or the other for me, and i'll toss up for it to-night: heads, i lose; tails, the devil wins. anyway, i'm sick of this, and i'm out of it." "harold," said the older man (and there was a slight tremor in his voice), "don't let us quarrel on christmas eve. all i want is to persuade you to think seriously of the duties and responsibilities to which god has called you--don't speak lightly of heaven and hell--remember, there is another life." the young man came back and laid his hand upon his father's shoulder. "father," he said, "i want to remember it. i try to believe in it. but somehow or other, in this house, it all seems unreal to me. no doubt all you say is perfectly right and wise. i don't venture to argue against it, but i can't feel it--that's all. if i'm to have a soul, either to lose or to save, i must really live. just now neither the present nor the future means anything to me. but surely we won't quarrel. i'm very grateful to you, and we'll part friends. good-night, sir." the father held out his hand in silence. the heavy portiere dropped noiselessly behind the son, and he went up the wide, curving stairway to his own room. meantime john weightman sat in his carved chair in the jacobean dining-room. he felt strangely old and dull. the portraits of beautiful women by lawrence and reynolds and raeburn, which had often seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting. he fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their expression, as if they were staring through him or beyond him. they cared nothing for his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes; they belonged to another world, in which he had no place. at this he felt a vague resentment, a sense of discomfort that he could not have defined or explained. he was used to being considered, respected, appreciated at his full value in every region, even in that of his own dreams. presently he rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library, where the shaded lamps were burning. his eye fell upon the low shelves full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. even the carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost their attraction. he paused for a moment before an idyll of corot--a dance of nymphs around some forgotten altar in a vaporous glade--and looked at it curiously. there was something rapturous and serene about the picture, a breath of spring-time in the misty trees, a harmony of joy in the dancing figures, that wakened in him a feeling of half-pleasure and half-envy. it represented something that he had never known in his calculated, orderly life. he was dimly mistrustful of it. "it is certainly very beautiful," he thought, "but it is distinctly pagan; that altar is built to some heathen god. it does not fit into the scheme of a christian life. i doubt whether it is consistent with the tone of my house. i will sell it this winter. it will bring three or four times what i paid for it. that was a good purchase, a very good bargain." he dropped into the revolving chair before his big library table. it was covered with pamphlets and reports of the various enterprises in which he was interested. there was a pile of newspaper clippings in which his name was mentioned with praise for his sustaining power as a pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of wise and prudent reform movements, for his discretion in making permanent public gifts--"the weightman charities," one very complaisant editor called them, as if they deserved classification as a distinct species. he turned the papers over listlessly. there was a description and a picture of the "weightman wing of the hospital for cripples," of which he was president; and an article on the new professor in the "weightman chair of political jurisprudence" in jackson university, of which he was a trustee; and an illustrated account of the opening of the "weightman grammar-school" at dulwich-on-the-sound, where he had his legal residence for purposes of taxation. this last was perhaps the most carefully planned of all the weightman charities. he desired to win the confidence and support of his rural neighbors. it had pleased him much when the local newspaper had spoken of him as an ideal citizen and the logical candidate for the governorship of the state; but upon the whole it seemed to him wiser to keep out of active politics. it would be easier and better to put harold into the running, to have him sent to the legislature from the dulwich district, then to the national house, then to the senate. why not? the weightman interests were large enough to need a direct representative and guardian at washington. but to-night all these plans came back to him with dust upon them. they were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. the son upon whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back upon the mansion of his father's hopes. the break might not be final; and in any event there would be much to live for; the fortunes of the family would be secure. but the zest of it all would be gone if john weightman had to give up the assurance of perpetuating his name and his principles in his son. it was a bitter disappointment, and he felt that he had not deserved it. he rose from the chair and paced the room with leaden feet. for the first time in his life his age was visibly upon him. his head was heavy and hot, and the thoughts that rolled in it were confused and depressing. could it be that he had made a mistake in the principles of his existence? there was no argument in what harold had said--it was almost childish--and yet it had shaken the elder man more deeply than he cared to show. it held a silent attack which touched him more than open criticism. suppose the end of his life were nearer than he thought--the end must come some time--what if it were now? had he not founded his house upon a rock? had he not kept the commandments? was he not, "touching the law, blameless"? and beyond this, even if there were some faults in his character--and all men are sinners--yet he surely believed in the saving doctrines of religion--the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting. yes, that was the true source of comfort, after all. he would read a bit in the bible, as he did every night, and go to bed and to sleep. he went back to his chair at the library table. a strange weight of weariness rested upon him, but he opened the book at a familiar place, and his eyes fell upon the verse at the bottom of the page. "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." that had been the text of the sermon a few weeks before. sleepily, heavily, he tried to fix his mind upon it and recall it. what was it that doctor snodgrass had said? ah, yes--that it was a mistake to pause here in reading the verse. we must read on without a pause--lay not up treasures upon earth where moth and rust do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal--that was the true doctrine. we may have treasures upon earth, but they must not be put into unsafe places, but into safe places. a most comforting doctrine! he had always followed it. moths and rust and thieves had done no harm to his investments. john weightman's drooping eyes turned to the next verse, at the top of the second column. "but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." now what had the doctor said about that? how was it to be understood--in what sense--treasures--in heaven? the book seemed to float away from him. the light vanished. he wondered dimly if this could be death, coming so suddenly, so quietly, so irresistibly. he struggled for a moment to hold himself up, and then sank slowly forward upon the table. his head rested upon his folded hands. he slipped into the unknown. how long afterward conscious life returned to him he did not know. the blank might have been an hour or a century. he knew only that something had happened in the interval. what is was he could not tell. he found great difficulty in catching the thread of his identity again. he felt that he was himself; but the trouble was to make his connections, to verify and place himself, to know who and where he was. at last it grew clear. john weightman was sitting on a stone, not far from a road in a strange land. the road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. it was more like a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across the open country in the same direction. down in the valley, into which he could look, the road seemed to form itself gradually out of many minor paths; little footways coming across the meadows, winding tracks following along beside the streams, faintly marked trails emerging from the woodlands. but on the hillside the threads were more firmly woven into one clear band of travel, though there were still a few dim paths joining it here and there, as if persons had been climbing up the hill by other ways and had turned at last to seek the road. from the edge of the hill, where john weightman sat, he could see the travelers, in little groups or larger companies, gathering from time to time by the different paths, and making the ascent. they were all clothed in white, and the form of their garments was strange to him; it was like some old picture. they passed him, group after group, talking quietly together or singing; not moving in haste, but with a certain air of eagerness and joy as if they were glad to be on their way to an appointed place. they did not stay to speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one another as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like him to be with them. there was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and receding across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high horizon, and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness against the tender blue, before it vanished over the hill. for a long time he sat there watching and wondering. it was a very different world from that in which his mansion on the avenue was built; and it looked strange to him, but most real--as real as anything he had ever seen. presently he felt a strong desire to know what country it was and where the people were going. he had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to be sure. so he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down through the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group of people. one of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. it was an old man, under whose white beard and brows john weightman thought he saw a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for him years ago, when he was a boy in the country. "welcome," said the old man. "will you come with us?" "where are you going?" "to the heavenly city, to see our mansions there." "and who are these with you?" "strangers to me, until a little while ago; i know them better now. but you i have known for a long time, john weightman. don't you remember your old doctor?" "yes," he cried--"yes; your voice has not changed at all. i'm glad indeed to see you, doctor mclean, especially now. all this seems very strange to me, almost oppressive. i wonder if--but may i go with you, do you suppose?" "surely," answered the doctor, with his familiar smile; "it will do you good. and you also must have a mansion in the city waiting for you--a fine one, too--are you not looking forward to it?" "yes," replied the other, hesitating a moment; "yes--i believe it must be so, although i had not expected to see it so soon. but i will go with you, and we can talk by the way." the two men quickly caught up with the other people, and all went forward together along the road. the doctor had little to tell of his experience, for it had been a plain, hard life, uneventfully spent for others, and the story of the village was very simple. john weightman's adventures and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing history, full of contacts with the great events and personages of the time. but somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it, walking on that wide heavenly moorland, under that tranquil, sunless arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace, where the light was diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all things were luminous. there was only one person besides the doctor in that little company whom john weightman had known before--an old bookkeeper who had spent his life over a desk, carefully keeping accounts--a rusty, dull little man, patient and narrow, whose wife had been in the insane asylum for twenty years and whose only child was a crippled daughter, for whose comfort and happiness he had toiled and sacrificed himself without stint. it was a surprise to find him here, as care-free and joyful as the rest. the lives of others in the company were revealed in brief glimpses as they talked together--a mother, early widowed, who had kept her little flock of children together and labored through hard and heavy years to bring them up in purity and knowledge--a sister of charity who had devoted herself to the nursing of poor folk who were being eaten to death by cancer--a schoolmaster whose heart and life had been poured into his quiet work of training boys for a clean and thoughtful manhood--a medical missionary who had given up a brilliant career in science to take the charge of a hospital in darkest africa--a beautiful woman with silver hair who had resigned her dreams of love and marriage to care for an invalid father, and after his death had made her life a long, steady search for ways of doing kindnesses to others--a poet who had walked among the crowded tenements of the great city, bringing cheer and comfort not only by his songs, but by his wise and patient works of practical aid--a paralyzed woman who had lain for thirty years upon her bed, helpless but not hopeless, succeeding by a miracle of courage in her single aim, never to complain, but always to impart a bit of joy and peace to every one who came near her. all these, and other persons like them, people of little consideration in the world, but now seemingly all full of great contentment and an inward gladness that made their steps light, were in the company that passed along the road, talking together of things past and things to come, and singing now and then with clear voices from which the veil of age and sorrow was lifted. john weightman joined in some of the songs--which were familiar to him from their use in the church--at first with a touch of hesitation, and then more confidently. for as they went on his sense of strangeness and fear at his new experience diminished, and his thoughts began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency. were not these people going to the celestial city? and was not he in his right place among them? he had always looked forward to this journey. if they were sure, each one, of finding a mansion there, could not he be far more sure? his life had been more fruitful than theirs. he had been a leader, a founder of new enterprises, a pillar of church and state, a prince of the house of israel. ten talents had been given him, and he had made them twenty. his reward would be proportionate. he was glad that his companions were going to find fit dwellings prepared for them; but he thought also with a certain pleasure of the surprise that some of them would feel when they saw his appointed mansion. so they came to the summit of the moorland and looked over into the world beyond. it was a vast, green plain, softly rounded like a shallow vase, and circled with hills of amethyst. a broad, shining river flowed through it, and many silver threads of water were woven across the green; and there were borders of tall trees on the banks of the river, and orchards full of roses abloom along the little streams, and in the midst of all stood the city, white and wonderful and radiant. when the travelers saw it they were filled with awe and joy. they passed over the little streams and among the orchards quickly and silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city should vanish. the wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it, for it was made only of precious stones, which are never large. the gate of the city was not like a gate a all, for it was not barred with iron or wood, but only a single pearl, softly gleaming, marked the place where the wall ended and the entrance lay open. a person stood there whose face was bright and grave, and whose robe was like the flower of the lily, not a woven fabric, but a living texture. "come in," he said to the company of travelers; "you are at your journey's end, and your mansions are ready for you." john weightman hesitated, for he was troubled by a doubt. suppose that he was not really, like his companions, at his journey's end, but only transported for a little while out of the regular course of his life into this mysterious experience? suppose that, after all, he had not really passed through the door of death, like these others, but only through the door of dreams, and was walking in a vision, a living man among the blessed dead. would it be right for him to go with them into the heavenly city? would it not be a deception, a desecration, a deep and unforgivable offense? the strange, confusing question had no reason in it, as he very well knew; for if he was dreaming, then it was all a dream; but if his companions were real, then he also was with them in reality, and if they had died then he must have died too. yet he could not rid his mind of the sense that there was a difference between them and him, and it made him afraid to go on. but, as he paused and turned, the keeper of the gate looked straight and deep into his eyes, and beckoned to him. then he knew that it was not only right but necessary that he should enter. they passed from street to street among fair and spacious dwellings, set in amaranthine gardens, and adorned with an infinitely varied beauty of divine simplicity. the mansions differed in size, in shape, in charm: each one seemed to have its own personal look of loveliness; yet all were alike in fitness to their place, in harmony with one another, in the addition which each made to the singular and tranquil splendor of the city. as the little company came, one by one, to the mansions which were prepared for them, and their guide beckoned to the happy inhabitant to enter in and take possession, there was a soft murmur of joy, half wonder and half recognition; as if the new and immortal dwelling were crowned with the beauty of surprise, lovelier and nobler than all the dreams of it had been; and yet also as if it were touched with the beauty of the familiar, the remembered, the long-loved. one after another the travelers were led to their own mansions, and went in gladly; and from within, through the open doorways came sweet voices of welcome, and low laughter, and song. at last there was no one left with the guide but the two old friends, doctor mclean and john weightman. they were standing in front of one of the largest and fairest of the houses, whose garden glowed softly with radiant flowers. the guide laid his hand upon the doctor's shoulder. "this is for you," he said. "go in; there is no more pain here, no more death, nor sorrow, nor tears; for your old enemies are all conquered. but all the good that you have done for others, all the help that you have given, all the comfort that you have brought, all the strength and love that you have bestowed upon the suffering, are here; for we have built them all into this mansion for you." the good man's face was lighted with a still joy. he clasped his old friend's hand closely, and whispered: "how wonderful it is! go on, you will come to your mansion next, it is not far away, and we shall see each other again soon, very soon." so he went through the garden, and into the music within. the keeper of the gate turned to john weightman with level, quiet, searching eyes. then he asked, gravely: "where do you wish me to lead you now?" "to see my own mansion," answered the man, with half-concealed excitement. "is there not one here for me? you may not let me enter it yet, perhaps, for i must confess to you that i am only--" "i know," said the keeper of the gate--"i know it all. you are john weightman." "yes," said the man, more firmly than he had spoken at first, for it gratified him that his name was known. "yes, i am john weightman, senior warden of st. petronius' church. i wish very much to see my mansion here, if only for a moment. i believe that you have one for me. will you take me to it?" the keeper of the gate drew a little book from the breast of his robe and turned over the pages. "certainly," he said, with a curious look at the man, "your name is here; and you shall see your mansion if you will follow me." it seemed as if they must have walked miles and miles, through the vast city, passing street after street of houses larger and smaller, of gardens richer and poorer, but all full of beauty and delight. they came into a kind of suburb, where there were many small cottages, with plots of flowers, very lowly, but bright and fragrant. finally they reached an open field, bare and lonely-looking. there were two or three little bushes in it, without flowers, and the grass was sparse and thin. in the center of the field was a tiny hut, hardly big enough for a shepherd's shelter. it looked as if it had been built of discarded things, scraps and fragments of other buildings, put together with care and pains, by some one who had tried to make the most of cast-off material. there was something pitiful and shamefaced about the hut. it shrank and drooped and faded in its barren field, and seemed to cling only by sufferance to the edge of the splendid city. "this," said the keeper of the gate, standing still and speaking with a low, distinct voice--"this is your mansion, john weightman." an almost intolerable shock of grieved wonder and indignation choked the man for a moment so that he could not say a word. then he turned his face away from the poor little hut and began to remonstrate eagerly with his companion. "surely, sir," he stammered, "you must be in error about this. there is something wrong--some other john weightman--a confusion of names--the book must be mistaken." "there is no mistake," said the keeper of the gate, very calmly; "here is your name, the record of your title and your possessions in this place." "but how could such a house be prepared for me," cried the man, with a resentful tremor in his voice--"for me, after my long and faithful service? is this a suitable mansion for one so well known and devoted? why is it so pitifully small and mean? why have you not built it large and fair, like the others?" "that is all the material you sent us." "what!" "we have used all the material that you sent us," repeated the keeper of the gate. "now i know that you are mistaken," cried the man, with growing earnestness, "for all my life long i have been doing things that must have supplied you with material. have you not heard that i have built a school-house; the wing of a hospital; two--yes, three--small churches, and the greater part of a large one, the spire of st. petro--" the keeper of the gate lifted his hand. "wait," he said; "we know all these things. they were not ill done. but they were all marked and used as foundation for the name and mansion of john weightman in the world. did you not plan them for that?" "yes," answered the man, confused and taken aback, "i confess that i thought often of them in that way. perhaps my heart was set upon that too much. but there are other things--my endowment for the college--my steady and liberal contributions to all the established charities--my support of every respectable--" "wait," said the keeper of the gate again. "were not all these carefully recorded on earth where they would add to your credit? they were not foolishly done. verily, you have had your reward for them. would you be paid twice?" "no," cried the man, with deepening dismay, "i dare not claim that. i acknowledge that i considered my own interest too much. but surely not altogether. you have said that these things were not foolishly done. they accomplished some good in the world. does not that count for something?" "yes," answered he keeper of the gate, "it counts in the world--where you counted it. but it does not belong to you here. we have saved and used everything that you sent us. this is the mansion prepared for you." as he spoke, his look grew deeper and more searching, like a flame of fire. john weightman could not endure it. it seemed to strip him naked and wither him. he sank to the ground under a crushing weight of shame, covering his eyes with his hands and cowering face downward upon the stones. dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt their hardness and coldness. "tell me, then," he cried, brokenly, "since my life has been so little worth, how came i here at all?" "through the mercy of the king"--the answer was like the soft tolling of a bell. "and how have i earned it?" he murmured. "it is never earned; it is only given," came the clear, low reply. "but how have i failed so wretchedly," he asked, "in all the purpose of my life? what could i have done better? what is it that counts here?" "only that which is truly given," answered the bell-like voice. "only that good which is done for the love of doing it. only those plans in which the welfare of others is the master thought. only those labors in which the sacrifice is greater than the reward. only those gifts in which the giver forgets himself." the man lay silent. a great weakness, an unspeakable despondency and humiliation were upon him. but the face of the keeper of the gate was infinitely tender as he bent over him. "think again, john weightman. has there been nothing like that in your life?" "nothing," he sighed. "if there ever were such things, it must have been long ago--they were all crowded out--i have forgotten them." there was an ineffable smile on the face of the keeper of the gate, and his hand made the sign of the cross over the bowed head as he spoke gently: "these are the things that the king never forgets; and because there were a few of them in your life, you have a little place here." the sense of coldness and hardness under john weightman's hands grew sharper and more distinct. the feeling of bodily weariness and lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a lightness, in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the silvery bell-tones. the chimney clock on the mantel had just ended the last stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table. thin, pale strips of the city morning were falling into the room through the narrow partings of the heavy curtains. what was it that had happened to him? had he been ill? had he died and come to life again? or had he only slept, and had his soul gone visiting in dreams? he sat for some time, motionless, not lost, but finding himself in thought. then he took a narrow book from the table drawer, wrote a check, and tore it out. he went slowly up the stairs, knocked very softly at his son's door, and, hearing no answer, entered without noise. harold was asleep, his bare arm thrown above his head, and his eager face relaxed in peace. his father looked at him a moment with strangely shining eyes, and then tiptoed quietly to the writing-desk, found a pencil and a sheet of paper, and wrote rapidly: "my dear boy, here is what you asked me for; do what you like with it, and ask for more if you need it. if you are still thinking of that work with grenfell, we'll talk it over to-day after church. i want to know your heart better; and if i have made mistakes--" a slight noise made him turn his head. harold was sitting up in bed with wide-open eyes. "father!" he cried, "is that you?" "yes, my son," answered john weightman; "i've come back--i mean i've come up--no, i mean come in--well, here i am, and god give us a good christmas together." the book of the dead. by e. a. wallis budge. chapter i the title. "book of the dead" is the title now commonly given to the great collection of funerary texts which the ancient egyptian scribes composed for the benefit of the dead. these consist of spells and incantations, hymns and litanies, magical formulae and names, words of power and prayers, and they are found cut or painted on walls of pyramids and tombs, and painted on coffins and sarcophagi and rolls of papyri. the title "book of the dead" is somewhat unsatisfactory and misleading, for the texts neither form a connected work nor belong to one period; they are miscellaneous in character, and tell us nothing about the lives and works of the dead with whom they were buried. moreover, the egyptians possessed many funerary works that might rightly be called "books of the dead," but none of them bore a name that could be translated by the title "book of the dead." this title was given to the great collection of funerary texts in the first quarter of the nineteenth century by the pioneer egyptologists, who possessed no exact knowledge of their contents. they were familiar with the rolls of papyrus inscribed in the hieroglyphic and the hieratic character, for copies of several had been published, [ ] but the texts in them were short and fragmentary. the publication of the facsimile [ ] of the papyrus of peta-amen-neb-nest-taui [ ] by m. cadet in made a long hieroglyphic text and numerous coloured vignettes available for study, and the french egyptologists described it as a copy of the "rituel funéraire" of the ancient egyptians. among these was champollion le jeune, but later, on his return from egypt, he and others called it "le livre des morts," "the book of the dead," "das todtenbuch," etc. these titles are merely translations of the name given by the egyptian tomb-robbers to every roll of inscribed papyrus which they found with mummies, namely, "kitâb-al-mayyit," "book of the dead man," or "kitâb al-mayyitun," "book of the dead" (plur.). these men knew nothing of the contents of such a roll, and all they meant to say was that it was "a dead man's book," and that it was found in his coffin with him. chapter ii the preservation of the mummified body in the tomb by thoth. the objects found in the graves of the predynastic egyptians, i.e., vessels of food, flint knives and other weapons, etc., prove that these early dwellers in the nile valley believed in some kind of a future existence. but as the art of writing was, unknown to them their graves contain no inscriptions, and we can only infer from texts of the dynastic period what their ideas about the other world were. it is clear that they did not consider it of great importance to preserve the dead body in as complete and perfect state as possible, for in many of their graves the heads, hands and feet have been found severed from the trunks and lying at some distance from them. on the other hand, the dynastic egyptians, either as the result of a difference in religious belief, or under the influence of invaders who had settled in their country, attached supreme importance to the preservation and integrity of the dead body, and they adopted every means known to them to prevent its dismemberment and decay. they cleansed it and embalmed it with drugs, spices and balsams; they anointed it with aromatic oils and preservative fluids; they swathed it in hundreds of yards of linen bandages; and then they sealed it up in a coffin or sarcophagus, which they laid in a chamber hewn in the bowels of the mountain. all these things were done to protect the physical body against damp, dry rot and decay, and against the attacks of moth, beetles, worms and wild animals. but these were not the only enemies of the dead against which precautions had to be taken, for both the mummified body and the spiritual elements which had inhabited it upon earth had to be protected from a multitude of devils and fiends, and from the powers of darkness generally. these powers of evil had hideous and terrifying shapes and forms, and their haunts were well known, for they infested the region through which the road of the dead lay when passing from this world to the kingdom of osiris. the "great gods" were afraid of them, and were obliged to protect themselves by the use of spells and magical names, and words of power, which were composed and written down by thoth. in fact it was believed in very early times in egypt that ra the sun-god owed his continued existence to the possession of a secret name with which thoth had provided him. and each morning the rising sun was menaced by a fearful monster called aapep, which lay hidden under the place of sunrise waiting to swallow up the solar disk. it was impossible, even for the sun-god, to destroy this "great devil," but by reciting each morning the powerful spell with which thoth had provided him he was able to paralyse all aapep's limbs and to rise upon this world. since then the "great gods," even though benevolently disposed towards them, were not able to deliver the dead from the devils that lived upon the "bodies, souls, spirits, shadows and hearts of the dead," the egyptians decided to invoke the aid of thoth on behalf of their dead and to place them under the protection of his almighty spells. inspired by thoth the theologians of ancient egypt composed a large number of funerary texts which were certainly in general use under the ivth dynasty (about b.c.), and were probably well known under the ist dynasty, and throughout the whole period of dynastic history thoth was regarded as the author of the "book of the dead." chapter iii the book per-t em hru, or [the chapters of] coming forth by (or, into) the day, commonly called the "book of the dead." the spells and other texts which were written by thoth for the benefit of the dead, and are directly connected with him, were called, according to documents written under the xith and xviiith dynasties, "chapters of the coming forth by (or, into) the day." one rubric in the papyrus of nu (brit. mus. no. ) states that the text of the work called "per-t em hru," i.e., "coming forth (or, into) the day," was discovered by a high official in the foundations of a shrine of the god hennu during the reign of semti, or hesepti, a king of the ist dynasty. another rubric in the same papyrus says that the text was cut upon the alabaster plinth of a statue of menkaura (mycerinus), a king of the ivth dynasty, and that the letters were inlaid with lapis lazuli. the plinth was found by prince herutataf, a son of king khufu (cheops), who carried it off to his king and exhibited it as a "most wonderful" thing. this composition was greatly reverenced, for it "would make a man victorious upon earth and in the other world; it would ensure him a safe and free passage through the tuat (under world); it would allow him to go in and to go out, and to take at any time any form he pleased; it would make his soul to flourish, and would prevent him from dying the [second] death." for the deceased to receive the full benefit of this text it had to be recited by a man "who was ceremonially pure, and who had not eaten fish or meat, and had not consorted with women." on coffins of the xith dynasty and on papyri of the xviiith dynasty we find two versions of the per-t em hru, one long and one short. as the title of the shorter version states that it is the "chapters of the per-t em hru in a single chapter," it is clear that this work, even under the ivth dynasty, contained many "chapters," and that a much abbreviated form of the work was also current at the same period. the rubric that attributes the "finding" of the chapter to herutataf associates it with khemenu, i.e., hermopolis, and indicates that thoth, the god of this city, was its author. the work per-t em hru received many additions in the course of centuries, and at length, under the xviiith dynasty, it contained about distinct compositions, or "chapters." the original forms of many of these are to be found in the "pyramid texts" (i.e., the funerary compositions cut on the walls of the chambers and corridors of the pyramids of kings unas, teta, pepi i meri-ra, merenra and pepi ii at sakkârah), which were written under the vth and vith dynasties. the forms which many other chapters had under the xith and xiith dynasties are well represented by the texts painted on the coffins of amamu, sen, and guatep in the british museum (nos. , , ), but it is possible that both these and the so-called "pyramid texts" all belonged to the work per-t em hru, and are extracts from it. the "pyramid texts" have no illustrations, but a few of the texts on the coffins of the xith and xiith dynasties have coloured vignettes, e.g., those which refer to the region to be traversed by the deceased on his way to the other world, and the islands of the blessed or the elysian fields. on the upper margins of the insides of such coffins there are frequently given two or more rows of coloured drawings of the offerings which under the vth dynasty were presented to the deceased or his statue during the celebration of the service of "opening the mouth" and the performance of the ceremonies of "the liturgy of funerary offerings." under the xviiith dynasty, when the use of large rectangular coffins and sarcophagi fell somewhat into disuse, the scribes began to write collections of chapters from the per-t em hru on rolls of papyri instead of on coffins. at first the texts were written in hieroglyphs, the greater number of them being in black ink, and an attempt was made to illustrate each text by a vignette drawn in black outline. the finest known example of such a codex is the papyrus of nebseni (brit. mus. no. ), which is feet / inches in length and i foot i / inches in breadth. early in the xviiith dynasty scribes began to write the titles of the chapters, the rubrics, and the catchwords in red ink and the text in black, and it became customary to decorate the vignettes with colours, and to increase their size and number. the oldest codex of this class is the papyrus of nu (brit. mus. no. ) which is feet / inches in length, and foot / inches in breadth. this and many other rolls were written by their owners for their own tombs, and in each roll both text and vignettes were usually, the work of the same hand. later, however, the scribe wrote the text only, and a skilled artist was employed to add the coloured vignettes, for which spaces were marked out and left blank by the scribe. the finest example of this class of roll is the papyrus of ani (brit. mus., no. ). which is feet in length and foot inches in breadth. in all papyri of this class the text is written in hieroglyphs, but under the xixth and following dynasties many papyri are written throughout in the hieratic character; these usually lack vignettes, but have coloured frontispieces. under the rule of the high priests of amen many changes were introduced into the contents of the papyri, and the arrangement cf the texts and vignettes of the per-t em hru was altered. the great confraternity of amen-ra, the "king of the gods," felt it to be necessary to emphasize the supremacy of their god, even in the kingdom of osiris, and they added many prayers, litanies and hymns to the sun-god to every selection of the texts from the per-t em hru that was copied on a roll of papyrus for funerary purposes. the greater number of the rolls of this period are short and contain only a few chapters, e.g., the papyrus of the royal mother netchemet (brit. mus. no. ) and the papyrus of queen netchemet (brit. mus. no. ). in some the text is very defective and carelessly written, but the coloured vignettes are remarkable for their size and beauty; of this class of roll the finest example is the papyrus of anhai (brit. mus. no. ). the most interesting of all the rolls that were written during the rule of the priest-kings over upper egypt is the papyrus of princess nesitanebtashru (brit. mus. no. ), now commonly known as the "greenfield papyrus." it is the longest and widest funerary papyrus [ ] known, for it measures feet by foot / inches, and it contains more chapters, hymns, litanies, adorations and homages to the gods than any other roll. the chapters from the per-t em hru which it contains prove the princess's devotion to the cult of osiris, and the hymns to amen-ra show that she was able to regard this god and osiris not as rivals but as two aspects of the same god. she believed that the "hidden" creative power which was materialized in amen was only another form of the power of procreation, renewed birth and resurrection which was typified by osiris. the oldest copies of the per-t em hru which we have on papyrus contain a few extracts from other ancient funerary works, such as the "book of opening the mouth," the "liturgy of funerary offerings," and the "book of the two ways." but under the rule of the priest-kings the scribes incorporated with the chapters of the per-t em hru extracts from the "book of ami-tuat" and the "book of gates," and several of the vignettes and texts that are found on the walls of the royal tombs of thebes. one of the most remarkable texts written at this period is found in the papyrus of nesi-khensu, which is now in the egyptian museum in cairo. this is really the copy of a contract which is declared to have been made between nesi-khensu and amen-ra, "the holy god, the lord of all the gods." as a reward for the great piety of the queen, and her devotion to the interests of amen-ra upon earth, the god undertakes to make her a goddess in his kingdom, to provide her with an estate there in perpetuity and a never-failing supply of offerings, and happiness of heart, soul and body, and the [daily] recital upon earth of the "seventy songs of ra" for the benefit of her soul in the khert-neter, or under world. the contract was drawn up in a series of paragraphs in legal phraseology by the priests of amen, who believed they had the power of making their god do as they pleased when they pleased. little is known of the history of the per-t em hru after the downfall of the priests of amen, and during the period of the rule of the nubians, but under the kings of the xxvith dynasty the book enjoyed a great vogue. many funerary rolls were written both in hieroglyphs and hieratic, and were decorated with vignettes drawn in black outline; and about this time the scribes began to write funerary texts in the demotic character. but men no longer copied long selections from the per-t em hru as they had done under the xviiith, xixth and xxth dynasties, partly because the religious views of the egyptians had undergone a great change, and partly because a number of books of the dead of a more popular character had appeared. the cult of osiris was triumphant everywhere, and men preferred the hymns and litanies which dealt with his sufferings, death and resurrection to the compositions in which the absolute supremacy of ra and his solar cycle of gods and goddesses was assumed or proclaimed. thus, in the "lamentations of isis" and the "festival songs of isis and nephthys," and the "litanies of seker," and the "book of honouring osiris," etc., the central figure is osiris, and he alone is regarded as the giver of everlasting life. the dead were no longer buried with large rolls of papyrus filled with chapters of the per-t em hru laid in their coffins, but with small sheets or strips of papyrus, on which were inscribed the above compositions, or the shorter texts of the "book of breathings," or the "book of traversing eternity," or the "book of may my name flourish," or a part of the "chapter of the last judgment." ancient egyptian tradition asserts that the book per-t em hru was used early in the ist dynasty, and the papyri and coffins of the roman period afford evidence that the native egyptians still accepted all the essential beliefs and doctrines contained in it. during the four thousand years of its existence many additions were made to it, but nothing of importance seems to have been taken away from it. in the space here available it is impossible to describe in detail the various recensions of this work, viz., ( ) the heliopolitan, ( ) the theban and its various forms, and ( ) the saïte; but it is proposed to sketch briefly the main facts of the egyptian religion which may be deduced from them generally, and especially from the theban recension, and to indicate the contents of the principal chapters. no one papyrus can be cited as a final authority, for no payprus contains all the chapters, in number, of the theban recension, and in no two papyri are the selection and sequence of the chapters identical, or is the treatment of the vignettes the same. chapter iv thoth, the author of the book of the dead. thoth, in egyptian tchehuti or tehuti, who has already been mentioned as the author of the texts that form the per-t em hru, or book of the dead, was believed by the egyptians to have been the heart and mind of the creator, who was in very early times in egypt called by the natives "pautti," and by foreigners "ra." thoth was also the "tongue" of the creator, and he at all times voiced the will of the great god, and spoke the words which commanded every being and thing in heaven and in earth to come into existence. his words were almighty and once uttered never remained without effect. he framed the laws by which heaven, earth and all the heavenly bodies are maintained; he ordered the courses of the sun, moon, and stars; he invented drawing and design and the arts, the letters of the alphabet and the art of writing, and the science of mathematics. at a very early period he was called the "scribe (or secretary) of the great company of the gods," and as he kept the celestial register of the words and deeds of men, he was regarded by many generations of egyptians as the "recording angel." he was the inventor of physical and moral law and became the personification of justice; and as the companies of the gods of heaven, and earth, and the other world appointed him to "weigh the words and deeds" of men, and his verdicts were unalterable, he became more powerful in the other world than osiris himself. osiris owed his triumph over set in the great judgment hall of the gods entirely to the skill of thoth of the "wise mouth" as an advocate, and to his influence with the gods in heaven. and every follower of osiris relied upon the advocacy of thoth to secure his acquittal on the day of judgment, and to procure for him an everlasting habitation in the kingdom of osiris. chapter v thoth and osiris. the egyptians were not satisfied with the mere possession of the texts of thoth, when their souls were being weighed in the great scales in the judgment hall of osiris, but they also wished thoth to act as their advocate on this dread occasion and to prove their innocence as he had proved that of osiris before the great gods in prehistoric times. according to a very ancient egyptian tradition, the god osiris, who was originally the god of the principle of the fertility of the nile, became incarnate on earth as the son of geb, the earth-god, and nut, the sky-goddess. he had two sisters, isis and nephthys, and one brother, set; he married isis and set married nephthys. geb set osiris on the throne of egypt, and his rule was beneficent and the nation was happy and prosperous. set marked this and became very jealous of his brother, and wished to slay him so that he might seize his throne and take possession of isis, whose reputation as a devoted and loving wife and able manager filled the country. by some means or other set did contrive to kill osiris: according to one story he killed him by the side of a canal at netat, near abydos, and according to another he caused him to be drowned. isis, accompanied by her sister nephthys, went to netat and rescued the body of her lord, and the two sisters, with the help of anpu, a son of ra the sun-god, embalmed it. they then laid the body in a tomb, and a sycamore tree grew round it and flourished over the grave. a tradition which is found in the pyramid texts states that before osiris was laid in his tomb, his wife isis, by means of her magical powers, succeeded in restoring him to life temporarily, and made him beget of her an heir, who was called horus. after the burial of osiris, isis retreated to the marshes in the delta, and there she brought forth horus. in order to avoid the persecution of set, who on one occasion succeeded in killing horus by the sting of a scorpion, she fled from place to place in the delta, and lived a very unhappy life for some years. but thoth helped her in all her difficulties and provided her with the words of power which restored horus to life, and enabled her to pass unharmed among the crocodiles and other evil beasts that infested the waters of the delta at that time. when horus arrived at years of maturity, he set out to find set and to wage war against his father's murderer. at length they met and a fierce fight ensued, and though set was defeated before he was finally hurled to the ground, he succeeded in tearing out the right eye of horus and keeping it. even after this fight set was able to persecute isis, and horus was powerless to prevent it until thoth made set give him the right eye of horus which he had carried off. thoth then brought the eye to horus, and replaced it in his face, and restored sight to it by spitting upon it. horus then sought out the body of osiris in order to raise it up to life, and when he found it he untied the bandages so that osiris might move his limbs, and rise up. under the direction of thoth horus recited a series of formulas as he presented offerings to osiris, and he and his sons and anubis performed the ceremonies which opened the mouth, and nostrils, and the eyes and the ears of osiris. he embraced osiris and so transferred to him his ka, i.e., his own living personality and virility, and gave him his eye which thoth had rescued from set and had replaced in his face. as soon as osiris had eaten the eye of horus he became endowed with a soul and vital power, and recovered thereby the complete use of all his mental faculties, which death had suspended. straightway he rose up from his bier and became the lord of the dead and king of the under world. osiris became the type and symbol of resurrection among the egyptians of all periods, because he was a god who had been originally a mortal and had risen from the dead. but before osiris became king of the under world he suffered further persecution from set. piecing together a number of disconnected hints and brief statements in the texts, it seems pretty clear either that osiris appealed to the "great gods" to take notice that set had murdered him, or that set brought a series of charges against osiris. at all events the "great gods" determined to investigate the matter. the greater and the lesser companies of the gods assembled in the celestial anu, or heliopolis, and ordered osiris to stand up and defend himself against the charges brought against him by set. isis and nephthys brought him before the gods, and horus, "the avenger of his father," came to watch the case on behalf of his father, osiris. thoth appeared in the hall of judgment in his official capacity as "scribe," i.e., secretary to the gods, and the hearing of the evidence began. set seems to have pleaded his own cause, and to have repeated the charges which he had made against osiris. the defence of osiris was undertaken by thoth, who proved to the gods that the charges brought against osiris by set were unfounded, that the statements of set were lies, and that therefore set was a liar. the gods accepted thoth's proof of the innocence of osiris and the guilt of set, and ordered that osiris was to be considered a great god and to have rule over the kingdom of the under world, and that set was to be punished. thoth convinced them that osiris was "maa kheru," "true of word," i.e., that he had spoken the truth when he gave his evidence, and in texts of all periods thoth is frequently described as s-maa kheru asar, i.e., he who proved osiris to be "true of word." as for set the liar, he was seized by the ministers of the great gods, who threw him down on his hands and face and made osiris mount upon his back as a mark of his victory and superiority. after this set was bound with cords like a beast for sacrifice, and in the presence of thoth was hacked in pieces. chapter vi osiris as judge of the dead and king of the under world. when set was destroyed osiris departed from this world to the kingdom which the gods had given him and began to reign over the dead. he was absolute king of this realm, just as ra the sun-god was absolute king of the sky. this region of the dead, or dead-land, is called "tat," or "tuat," but where the egyptians thought it was situated is not quite clear. the original home of the cult of osiris was in the delta, in a city which in historic times was called tetu by the egyptians and busiris by the greeks, and it is reasonable to assume that the tuat, over which osiris ruled, was situated near this place. wherever it was it was not underground, and it was not originally in the sky or even on its confines; but it was located on the borders of the visible world, in the outer darkness. the tuat was not a place of happiness, judging from the description of it in the per-t em hru, or book of the dead. when ani the scribe arrived there he said, "what is this to which i have come? there is neither water nor air here, its depth is unfathomable, it is as dark as the darkest night, and men wander about here helplessly. a man cannot live here and be satisfied, and he cannot gratify the cravings of affection" (chapter clxxv). in the tuat there was neither tree nor plant, for it was the "land where nothing grew"; and in primitive times it was a region of destruction and death, a place where the dead rotted and decayed, a place of abomination, and horror and terror, and annihilation. but in very early times, certainly in the neolithic period, the egyptians believed in some kind of a future life, and they dimly conceived that the attainment of that life might possibly depend upon the manner of life which those who hoped to enjoy it led here. the egyptians "hated death and loved life," and when the belief gained ground among them that osiris, the god of the dead, had himself risen from the dead, and had been acquitted by the gods of heaven after a searching trial, and had the power to "make men and women to be born again," and "to renew life" because of his truth and righteousness, they came to regard him as the judge as well as the god of the dead. as time went on, and moral and religious ideas developed among the egyptians, it became certain to them that only those who had satisfied osiris as to their truth-speaking and honest dealing upon earth could hope for admission into his kingdom. when the power of osiris became predominant in the under world, and his fame as a just and righteous judge became well established among the natives of lower and upper egypt, it was universally believed that after death all men would appear before him in his dread hall of judgment to receive their reward or their sentence of doom. the writers of the pyramid texts, more than fifty-five centuries ago, dreamed of a time when heaven and earth and men did not exist, when the gods had not yet been born, when death had not been created, and when anger, speech (?), cursing and rebellion were unknown. [ ] but that time was very remote, and long before the great fight took place between horus and set, when the former lost his eye and the latter was wounded in a vital part of his body. meanwhile death had come into the world, and since the religion of osiris gave man a hope of escape from death, and the promise of everlasting life of the peculiar kind that appealed to the great mass of the egyptian people, the spread of the cult of osiris and its ultimate triumph over all forms of religion in egypt were assured. under the early dynasties the priesthood of anu (the on of the bible) strove to make their sun-god ra pre-eminent in egypt, but the cult of this god never appealed to the people as a whole. it was embraced by the pharaohs, and their high officials, and some of the nobles, and the official priesthood, but the reward which its doctrine offered was not popular with the materialistic egyptians. a life passed in the boat of ra with the gods, being arrayed in light and fed upon light, made no appeal to the ordinary folk since osiris offered them as a reward a life in the field of reeds, and the field of offerings of food, and the field of the grasshoppers, and everlasting existence in a transmuted and beautified body among the resurrected bodies of father and mother, wife and children, kinsfolk and friends. but, as according to the cult of ra, the wicked, the rebels, and the blasphemers of the sun-god suffered swift and final punishment, so also all those who had sinned against the stern moral law of osiris, and who had failed to satisfy its demands, paid the penalty without delay. the judgment of ra was held at sunrise, and the wicked were thrown into deep pits filled with fire, and their bodies, souls, shadows and hearts were consumed forthwith. the judgment of osiris took place near abydos, probably at midnight, and a decree of swift annihilation was passed by him on the damned. their heads were cut off by the headsman of osiris, who was called shesmu, and their bodies dismembered and destroyed in pits of fire. there was no eternal punishment for men, for the wicked were annihilated quickly and completely; but inasmuch as osiris sat in judgment and doomed the wicked to destruction daily, the infliction of punishment never ceased. chapter vii the judgment of osiris. the oldest religious texts suggest that the egyptians always associated the last judgment with the weighing of the heart in a pair of scales, and in the illustrated papyri of the book of the dead great prominence is always given to the vignettes in which this weighing is being carried out. the heart, ab, was taken as the symbol of all the emotions, desires, and passions, both good and evil, and out of it proceeded the issues of life. it was intimately connected with the ka, i.e., the double or personality of a man, and several short spells in the book per-t em hru were composed to ensure its preservation (chapters xxvi-xxxb*). the great chapter of the judgment of osiris, the cxxvth, is divided into three parts, which are sometimes (as in the papyrus of ani) prefaced by a hymn to osiris. the first part contains the following, which was said by the deceased when he entered the hall of maati, in which osiris sat in judgment: "homage to thee, o great god, lord of maati, [ ] i have come to thee, o my lord, that i may behold thy beneficence. i know thee, and i know thy name, and the names of the forty-two who live with thee in the hall of maati, who keep ward over sinners, and feed upon their blood on the day of estimating characters before un-nefer [ ] ... behold, i have come to thee, and i have brought maat (i.e., truth, integrity) to thee. i have destroyed sin for thee. i have not sinned against men. i have not oppressed [my] kinsfolk. i have done no wrong in the place of truth. i have not known worthless folk. i have not wrought evil. i have not defrauded the oppressed one of his goods. i have not done the things that the gods abominate. i have not vilified a servant to his master. i have not caused pain. i have not let any man hunger. i have made no one to weep. i have not committed murder. i have not commanded any to commit murder for me. i have inflicted pain on no man. i have not defrauded the temples of their oblations. i have not purloined the cakes of the gods. i have not stolen the offerings to the spirits (i.e., the dead). i have not committed fornication. i have not polluted myself in the holy places of the god of my city. i have not diminished from the bushel. i did not take from or add to the acre-measure. i did not encroach on the fields [of others]. i have not added to the weights of the scales. i have not misread the pointer of the scales. i have not taken milk from the mouths of children. i have not driven cattle from their pastures. i have not snared the birds of the gods. i have not caught fish with fish of their kind. i have not stopped water [when it should flow]. i have not cut the dam of a canal. i have not extinguished a fire when it should burn. i have not altered the times of the chosen meat offerings. i have not turned away the cattle [intended for] offerings. i have not repulsed the god at his appearances. i am pure. i am pure. i am pure. i am pure...." in the second part of chapter cxxv osiris is seen seated at one end of the hall of maati accompanied by the two goddesses of law and truth, and the forty-two gods who are there to assist him. each of the forty-two gods represents one of the nomes of egypt and has a symbolic name. when the deceased had repeated the magical names of the doors of the hall, he entered it and saw these gods arranged in two rows, twenty-one on each side of the hall. at the end, near osiris, were the great scales, under the charge of anpu (anubis), and the monster amemit, the eater of the dead, i.e., of the hearts of the wicked who were condemned in the judgment of osiris. the deceased advanced along the hall and, addressing each of the forty-two gods by his name, declared that he had not committed a certain sin, thus: "o usekh-nemmit, comer forth from anu, i have not committed sin. "o fenti, comer forth from khemenu, i have not robbed. "o neha-hau, comer forth from re-stau, i have not killed men. "o neba, comer forth in retreating, i have not plundered the property of god. "o set-qesu, comer forth from hensu, i have not lied. "o uammti, comer forth from khebt, i have not defiled any man's wife. "o maa-anuf, comer forth from per-menu, i have not defiled myself. "o tem-sep, comer forth from tetu, i have not cursed the king. "o nefer-tem, comer forth from het-ka-ptah, i have not acted deceitfully; i have not committed wickedness. "o nekhen, comer forth from heqat, i have not turned a deaf ear to the words of the law (or truth)." the names of most of the forty-two gods are not ancient, but were invented by the priests probably about the same time as the names in the book of him that is in the tuat and the book of gates, i.e., between the xiith and the xviiith dynasties. their artificial character is shown by their meanings. thus usekh-nemmit means "he of the long strides"; fenti means "he of the nose"; neha-hau means "stinking-members"; set-qesu means "breaker of bones," etc. the early egyptologists called the second part of the cxxvth chapter the "negative confession," and it is generally known by this somewhat inexact title to this day. in the third part of the cxxvth chapter comes the address which the deceased made to the gods after he had declared his innocence of the sins enumerated before the forty-two gods. he says: "homage to you, o ye gods who dwell in your hall of maati. i know you and i know your names. let me not fall under your slaughtering knives. bring not my wickedness to the notice of the god whose followers ye are. let not the affair [of my judgment] come under your jurisdiction. speak ye the law (or truth) concerning me before neb-er-tcher, [ ] for i performed the law (or, truth) in ta-mera (i.e., egypt). i have not blasphemed the god. no affair of mine came under the notice of the king in his day. homage to you, o ye who are in your hall of maati, who have no lies in your bodies, who live on truth, who eat truth before horus, the dweller in his disk, deliver ye me from babai [ ] who liveth upon the entrails of the mighty ones on the day of the great reckoning (apt aat). behold me! i have come to you without sin, without deceit (?), without evil, without false testimony (?) i have not done an [evil] thing. i live upon truth and i feed upon truth. i have performed the behests of men, and the things that satisfy the gods. [ ] i have propitiated the god [by doing] his will. i have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, and a boat to him that needed one. i have made holy offerings to the gods, and sepulchral offerings to the beautified dead. be ye then my saviours, be ye my protectors, and make no accusation against me before the great god. i am pure of mouth, and clean of hands; therefore it hath been said by those who saw me, 'come in peace, come in peace.'" the deceased then addresses osiris, and says, "hail, thou who art exalted upon thy standard, thou lord of the atefu crown, whose name is 'lord of winds,' save me from thy messengers (or assessors) with uncovered faces, who bring charges of evil and make shortcomings plain, because i have performed the law (or truth) for the lord of the law (or truth). i have purified myself with washings in water, my back hath been cleansed with salt, and my inner parts are in the pool of truth. there is not a member of mine that lacketh truth." from the lines that follow the above in the papyrus of nu it seems as though the judgment of the deceased by the forty-two gods was preliminary to the final judgment of osiris. at all events, after questioning him about the performance of certain ceremonies, they invited him to enter the hall of maati, but when he was about to do so the porter, and the door-bolts, and the various parts of the door and its frame, and the floor, refused to permit him to enter until he had repeated their magical names. when he had pronounced these correctly the porter took him in and presented him to maau (?)-taui, who was thoth himself. when asked by him why he had come the deceased answered, "i have come that report may be made of me." then thoth said, "what is thy condition?" and the deceased replied, "i am purified from evil things, i am free from the wickedness of those who lived in my days; i am not one of them." on this thoth said, "thou shalt be reported. [tell me:] who is he whose roof is fire, whose walls are living serpents, and whose floor is a stream of water? who is he?" the deceased having replied "osiris," thoth then led him forward to the god osiris, who received him, and promised that subsistence should be provided for him from the eye of ra. in great papyri of the book of the dead such as those of nebseni, nu, ani, hunefer, etc., the last judgment, or the "great reckoning," is made the most prominent scene in the whole work, and the vignette in which it is depicted is several feet long. the most complete form of it is given in the papyrus of ani, and may be thus described: at one end of the hall of maati osiris is seated on a throne within a shrine made in the form of a funerary coffer; behind him stand isis and nephthys. along one side of the hall are seated the gods harmachis, tem, shu, tefnut, geb, nut, isis and nephthys, horus, hathor, hu and saa, who are to serve as the divine jury; these formed the "great company of the gods" of anu (heliopolis). by these stands the great balance, and on its pillar sits the dog-headed ape astes, or astenu, the associate of thoth. the pointer of the balance is in the charge of anpu. behind anpu are thoth the scribe of the gods, and the monster amemit, with the head of a crocodile, the forepaws and shoulders of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus; the duty of the last-named was to eat up the hearts that were light in the balance. on the other side of the balance ani, accompanied by his wife, is seen standing with head bent low in adoration, and between him and the balance stand the two goddesses who nurse and rear children, meskhenet and rennet, ani's soul, in the form of a man-headed hawk, a portion of his body, and his luck shai. since the heart was considered to be the seat of all will, emotion, feeling, reason and intelligence, ani's heart, is seen in one pan of the balance, and in the other is the feather, symbolic of truth and righteousness. whilst his heart was in the balance ani, repeating the words of chapter xxxb* of the book of the dead, addressed it, saying, "my heart of my mother! my heart of my mother! my heart of my being! make no stand against me when testifying, thrust me not back before the tchatchaut (i.e., the overseers of osiris), and make no failure in respect of me before the master of the balance. thou art my ka, the dweller in my body, uniting (?) and strengthening my members. thou shalt come forth to the happiness to which we advance. make not my name to stink with the officers [of osiris] who made men, utter no lie against me before the great god, the lord of amentt." then thoth, the judge of truth, of the great company of the gods who are in the presence of osiris, saith to the gods, "hearken ye to this word: in very truth the heart of osiris hath been weighed, and his soul hath borne testimony concerning him; according to the great balance his case is truth (i.e., just). no wickedness hath been found in him. he did not filch offerings from the temples. he did not act crookedly, and he did not vilify folk when he was on earth." and the great company of the gods say to thoth, who dwelleth in khemenu (hermopolis): "this that cometh forth from thy mouth of truth is confirmed (?) the osiris, the scribe ani, true of voice, hath testified. he hath not sinned and [his name] doth not stink before us; amemit (i.e., the eater of the dead) shall not have the mastery over him. let there be given unto him offerings of food and an appearance before osiris, and an abiding homestead in the field of offerings as unto the followers of horus." thus the gods have declared that ani is "true of voice," as was osiris, and they have called ani "osiris," because in his purity of word and deed he resembled that god. in all the copies of the book of the dead the deceased is always called "osiris," and as it was always assumed that those for whom they were written would be found innocent when weighed in the great balance, the words "true of voice," which were equivalent in meaning to "innocent and acquitted," were always written after their names. it may be noted in passing that when ani's heart was weighed against truth, the beam of the great balance remained perfectly horizontal. this suggests that the gods did not expect the heart of the deceased to "kick the beam," but were quite satisfied if it exactly counterbalanced truth. they demanded the fulfilment of the law and nothing more, and were content to bestow immortality upon the man on whom thoth's verdict was "he hath done no evil." in accordance with the command of the gods ani passes from the great balance to the end of the hall of maati where osiris is seated, and as he approaches the god horus, the son of isis, takes him by the hand and leads him forward, and standing before his father osiris says, "i have come to thee, un-nefer, [ ] i have brought to thee the osiris ani. his heart is righteous [and] hath come forth from the balance. it hath no sin before any god or any goddess. thoth hath set down his judgment in writing, and the company of the gods have declared on his behalf that [his] evidence is very true. let there be given unto him of the bread and beer which appear before osiris. let him be like the followers of horus for ever!" next we see ani kneeling in adoration before osiris, and he says, "behold, i am in thy presence, o lord of amentt. there is no sin in my body. i have not uttered a lie knowingly. [i have] no duplicity (?) grant that i may be like the favoured (or rewarded) ones who are in thy train." under favour of osiris ani then became a sahu, or "spirit-body," and in this form passed into the kingdom of osiris. chapter viii the kingdom of osiris. according to the book of gates and the other "guides" to the egyptian under world, the kingdom of osiris formed the sixth division of the tuat; in very early times it was situated in the western delta, but after the xiith dynasty theologians placed it near abydos in upper egypt, and before the close of the dynastic period the tuat of osiris had absorbed the under world of every nome of egypt. when the soul in its beautified or spirit body arrived there, the ministers of osiris took it to the homestead or place of abode which had been allotted to it by the command of osiris, and there it began its new existence. the large vignette to the cxth chapter shows us exactly what manner of place the abode of the blessed was. the country was flat and the fields were intersected by canals of running water in which there were "no fish and no worms" (i.e., water snakes). in one part of it were several small islands, and on one of them osiris was supposed to dwell with his saints. it was called the "island of truth," and the ferry-man of osiris would not convey to it any soul that had not been declared "true of word" by thoth, osiris and the great gods at the "great reckoning." the portion of the kingdom of osiris depicted in the large books of the dead represents in many respects a typical egyptian farm, and we see the deceased engaged in ploughing and reaping and driving the oxen that are treading out the corn. he was introduced into the sekhet heteput (a section of the sekhet aaru, i.e., "field of reeds," or the "elysian fields") by thoth, and there he found the souls of his ancestors, who were joined to the company of the gods. one corner of this region was specially set apart for the dwelling place of the aakhu, i.e., beautified souls, or spirit-souls, who were said to be seven cubits in height, and to reap wheat or barley which grew to a height of three cubits. near this spot were moored two boats that were always ready for the use of the denizens of that region; they appear to have been "spirit boats," i.e., boats which moved of themselves and carried the beautified wheresoever they wanted to go without any trouble or fatigue on their part. how the beautified passed their time in the kingdom of osiris may be seen from the pictures cut on the alabaster sarcophagus of seti i, now preserved in sir john soane's museum in lincoln's inn fields. here we see them occupied in producing the celestial food on which they and the god lived. some are tending the wheat plants as they grow, and others are reaping the ripe grain. in the texts that accompany these scenes the ears of wheat are said to be the "members of osiris," and the wheat plant is called the maat plant. osiris was the wheat-god and also the personification of maat (i.e., truth), and the beautified lived upon the body of their god and ate him daily, and the substance of him was the "bread of everlastingness," which is mentioned in the pyramid texts. the beautified are described as "those who have offered up incense to the gods, and whose kau (i.e., doubles, or persons) have been washed clean. they have been reckoned up and they are maat (i.e., truth) in the presence of the great god who destroyeth sin." osiris says to them, "ye are truth of truth; rest in peace." and of them he says, "they were doers of truth whilst they were upon earth, they did battle for their god, and they shall be called to the enjoyment of the land of the house of life with truth. their truth shall be reckoned to them in the presence of the great god who destroyeth sin." then addressing them again osiris says, "ye are beings of truth, o ye truths. take ye your rest because of what ye have done, becoming even as those who are in my following, and who direct the house of him whose soul is holy. ye shall live there even as they live, and ye shall have dominion over the cool waters of your land. i command that ye have your being to the limit [of that land] with truth and without sin." in these passages we have the two conceptions of osiris well illustrated. as the wheat-god he would satisfy those who wished for a purely material, agricultural heaven, where hunger would be unknown and where the blessed would be able to satisfy every physical desire and want daily; and as the god of truth, of whom the spiritually minded hoped to become the counterpart, he would be their hope, and consolation, and the image of the eternal god. chapter ix a short description of the "doors" or chapters of the book of the dead. all the great papyri of the book of the dead begin with a hymn to ra, who from the period of the ivth dynasty was the "king of the gods" of egypt. his cult was finally "established" under the vth dynasty when the king of egypt began to call himself in official documents and monuments "son of the sun," sa ra. this hymn is supposed to be sung by the deceased, who says:-- "homage to thee, o ra, at thy beauteous rising. thou risest, thou risest; thou shinest, thou shinest at the dawn. thou art king of the gods, and the maati goddesses embrace thee. the company of the gods praise thee at sunrise and at sunset. thou sailest over the heights of heaven and thy heart is glad. thy morning boat meeteth thy evening boat with fair winds. thy father is the sky-god and thy mother is the sky-goddess, and thou art horus of the eastern and western skies. ... o thou only one, o thou perfect one, o thou who art eternal, who art never weak, whom no mighty one can abase; none hath dominion over the things which appertain to thee. homage to thee in thy characters of horus, tem, and khepera, thou great hawk, who makest man to rejoice by thy beautiful face. when thou risest men and women live. thou renewest thy youth, and dost set thyself in the place where thou wast yesterday. o divine youth, who art self-created, i cannot comprehend thee. thou art the lord of heaven and earth, and didst create beings celestial and beings terrestrial. thou art the god one, who camest into being in the beginning of time. thou didst create the earth, and man, thou didst make the sky and the celestial river hep; thou didst make the waters and didst give life unto all that therein is. thou hast knit together the mountains, thou hast made mankind and the beasts of the field to come into being, and hast made the heavens and the earth. the fiend nak is overthrown, his arms are cut off. o thou divine youth, thou heir of everlastingness, self-begotten and self-born, one, might, of myriad forms and aspects, prince of an (i.e., on), lord of eternity, everlasting ruler, the company of the gods rejoice in thee. as thou risest thou growest greater: thy rays are upon all faces. thou art unknowable, and no tongue can describe thy similitude; thou existest alone. millions of years have passed over the world, i cannot tell the number of those through which thou hast passed. thou journeyest through spaces [requiring] millions of years [to pass over] in one little moment of time, and then thou settest and dost make an end of the hours." the subject matter of the above extract is treated at greater length in chapter xv, which contains a long hymn to ra at his rising, or amen-ra, or ra united to other solar gods, e.g., horus and khepera, and a short hymn to ra at his setting. in the latter the welcome which ra receives from the dwellers in amentt (i.e., the hidden place, like the greek "hades") is emphasized thus:-- "all the beautified dead (aakhu) in the tuat receive him in the horizon of amentt. they shout praises of him in his form of tem (i.e., the setting sun). thou didst rise and put on strength, and thou settest, a living being, and thy glories are in amentt. the gods of amentt rejoice in thy beauties (or beneficence). the hidden ones worship thee, the aged ones bring thee offerings and protect thee. the souls of amentt cry out, and when they meet thy majesty (life, strength, health be to thee!) they shout 'hail! hail!' the lords of the mansions of the tuat stretch out their hands to thee from their abodes, and they cry to thee, and they follow in thy bright train, and the hearts of the lords of the tuat rejoice when thou sendest thy light into amentt. their eyes follow thee, they press forward to see thee, and their hearts rejoice at the sight of thy face. thou hearkenest to the petitions of those who are in their tombs, thou dispellest their helplessness and drivest away evil from them. thou givest breath to their nostrils. thou art greatly feared, thy form is majestic, and very greatly art thou beloved by those who dwell in the other world." the introductory hymn to ra is followed by a hymn to osiris, in which the deceased says:-- "glory be to thee, o osiris un-nefer, thou great god in abtu (abydos), king of eternity, lord of everlastingness, god whose existence is millions of years, eldest son of nut, begotten by geb, the ancestor-chief, lord of the crowns of the south and the north, lord of the high white crown. thou art the governor of gods and of men and hast received the sceptre, the whip, and the rank of thy divine fathers. let thy heart in amentt be content, for thy son horus is seated upon thy throne. thou art lord of tetu (busiris) and governor of abtu (abydos). thou makest fertile the two lands (i.e., all egypt) by [thy] true word before the lord to the uttermost limit.... thy power is widespread, and great is the terror of thy name 'osiris.' thou endurest for all eternity in thy name of 'un-nefer' (i.e., beneficent being). homage to thee, king of kings, lord of lords, governor of governors, who from the womb of the sky-goddess hast ruled the world and the under world. thy limbs are as silver-gold, thy hand is blue like lapis-lazuli, and the space on either side of thee is of the colour of turquoise (or emerald). thou god an of millions of years, thy body is all-pervading, o dweller in the land of holiness, thy face is beautiful ... the gods come before thee bowing low. they hold thee in fear. they withdraw and retreat when they see the awfulness of ra upon thee; the [thought] of the conquests of thy majesty is in their hearts. life is with thee. "let me follow thy majesty as when i was on earth, let my soul be summoned, and let it be found near the lords of truth. i have come to the city of god, the region that is eternally old, with my soul (ba), double (ka) and spirit-soul (aakhu), to be a dweller in this land. its god is the lord of truth ... he giveth old age to him that worketh truth, and honour to his followers, and at the last abundant equipment for the tomb, and burial in the land of holiness. i have come unto thee, my hands hold truth, and there is no falsehood in my heart ... thou hast set truth before thee: i know on what thou livest. i have committed no sin in this land, and i have defrauded no man of his possessions." (chapter clxxxiii.) chapter i was recited by the priest who accompanied the mummy to the tomb and performed the burial ceremonies there. in it the priest (kher heb) assumed the character of thoth and promised the deceased to do for him all that he had done for osiris in days of old. chapter ib gave the sahu, or "spirit-body," power to enter the tuat immediately after the burial of the material body, and delivered it from the nine worms that lived on the dead. chapters ii-iv are short spells written to give the deceased power to revisit the earth, to join the gods, and to travel about the sky. chapters v and vi provided for the performance of agricultural labours in the other world. the text of chapter vi was cut on figures made of stone, wood, etc. (ushabtiu), which were placed in the tomb, and when the deceased recited it these figures became alive and did everything he wished. the shabti figure, took the place of the human funerary sacrifice which was common all over egypt before the general adoption of the cult of osiris under the xiith dynasty. about ushabtiu figures were found in the tomb of seti i, and many of them are in the british museum. chapter vii is a spell to destroy the great serpent aapep, the arch-enemy of horus the elder, ra, osiris, horus son of isis, and of every follower of osiris. chapters viii and ix secured a passage for the deceased through the tuat, and chapters x and xi gave him power over the enemies he met there. chapters xii and xiii gave him great freedom of movement in the kingdom of osiris. chapter xiv is a prayer in which osiris is entreated to put away any feeling of dissatisfaction that he may have for the deceased, who says, "wash away my sins, lord of truth; destroy my transgressions, wickedness and iniquity, o god of truth. may this god be at peace with me. destroy the things that are obstacles between us. give me peace, and remove all dissatisfaction from thy heart in respect of me." chapter xv has several forms, and each of them contains hymns to ra, which were sung daily in the morning and evening; specimen paragraphs are given above (pp. , ). chapter xvi is only a vignette that illustrates chapter xv, chapter xvii is a very important chapter, for it contains statements of divine doctrine as understood by the priests of heliopolis. the opening words are, "i am tem in rising. i am the only one. i came into being in nu (the sky). i am ra, who rose in primeval time, ruler of what he had made." following this comes the question, "who is this?" and the answer is, "it is ra who rose in the city of hensu, in primeval time, crowned as king. he existed on the height of the dweller in khemenu (i.e., thoth of hermopolis) before the pillars that support the sky were made." chapter xviii contains the addresses to thoth, who is entreated to make the deceased to be declared innocent before the gods of heliopolis, busiris, latopolis, mendes, abydos, etc. these addresses formed a very powerful spell which was used by horus, and when he recited it four times all his enemies were overthrown and cut to pieces. chapters xix and xx are variant forms of chapter xviii. chapters xxi-xxiii secured the help of thoth in "opening the mouth" of the deceased, whereby he obtained the power to breathe and think and drink and eat. thoth recited spells over the gods whilst ptah untied the bandages and shu forced open their mouths with an iron (?) knife. chapter xxiv gave to the deceased a knowledge of the "words of power" (hekau) which were used by the great god tem-khepera, and chapter xxv restored to him his memory. five chapters, xxvi-xxx, contain prayers and spells whereby the deceased obtained power over his heart and gained absolute possession of it. the most popular prayer is that of chapter xxxb (see above, p. ) which, according to its rubric, was "found," i.e., edited, by herutataf, the son of the great cheops, about b.c. this prayer was still in use in the early years of the christian era. in the papyrus of nu it is associated with chapter lxiv, and the earliest form of it was probably in existence under the ist dynasty. chapters xxxi-xlii were written to deliver the deceased from the great crocodile sui, and the serpents rerek and seksek, and the lynx with its deadly claws, and the beetle apshait, and the terrible merti snake-goddesses, and a group of three particularly venomous serpents, and aapep a personification of set the god of evil, and the eater of the ass, and a series of beings who lived by slaughtering the souls of the dead. in chapter xlii every member of the deceased is put under the protection of, or identified with, a god or goddess, e.g., the hair with nu, the face with aten (i.e., the solar disk), the eyes with hathor, and the deceased exclaims triumphantly, "there is no member of my body which is not the member of a god." chapter xliii. a spell to prevent the decapitation of the deceased, who assumes in it the character of osiris the lord of eternity. chapter xliv. an ancient and mighty spell, the recital of which prevented the deceased from dying a second time. chapters xlv and xlvi preserved the mummy of the deceased from decay, and chapter xlvii prevented the removal of his seat or throne. chapter l enabled the deceased to avoid the block of execution of the god shesmu. chapters li-liii provided the deceased with pure food and clean water from the table of the gods; he lived upon what they lived upon, and so became one with them. chapters liv-lxii gave the deceased power to obtain cool water from the celestial nile and the springs of waters of heaven, and being identified with shu, the god of light and air, he was enabled to pass over all the earth at will. his life was that of the egg of the "great cackler," and the goddess sesheta built a house for him in the celestial anu, or heliopolis. the recital of chapter lxiii enabled the deceased to avoid drinking boiling water in the tuat. the water in some of its pools was cool and refreshing to those who were speakers of the truth, but it turned into boiling water and scalded the wicked when they tried to drink of it. chapter lxiv is an epitome of the whole book of the dead, and it formed a "great and divine protection" for the deceased. the text is of a mystical character and suggests that the deceased could, through its recital, either absorb the gods into his being, or become himself absorbed by them. its rubric orders abstention from meats, fish and women on the part of those who were to recite it. chapter lxv gave the deceased victory over all his enemies, and chapters lxvi and lxvii gave him access to the boat of ra. chapters lxviii-lxx procured him complete freedom of motion in heaven and on earth. chapter lxxi is a series of addresses to the seven spirits who punished the wicked in the kingdom of osiris, and chapter lxxii aided the deceased to be reborn in the mesqet chamber. the mesqet was originally a bull's skin in which the deceased was wrapped. chapter lxxiii is the same as chapter ix. chapters lxxiv and lxxv secured a passage for the deceased in the henu boat of seker the death-god, and chapter lxxvi brought to his help the praying mantis which guided him through the "bush" to the house of osiris. by the recital of chapters lxxvii-lxxxviii, i.e., the "chapters of transformations," the deceased was enabled to assume at will the forms of ( ) the golden hawk, ( ) the divine hawk, ( ) the great self-created god, ( ) the light-god or the robe of nu, ( ) the pure lily, ( ) the son of ptah, ( ) the benu bird, ( ) the heron, ( ) the soul of ra, ( ) the swallow, ( ) the sata or earth-serpent, ( ) the crocodile. chapter lxxxix brought the soul (ba) of the deceased to his body in the tuat, and chapter xc preserved him from mutilation and attacks of the god who "cut off heads and slit foreheads." chapters xci and xcii prevented the soul of the deceased from being shut in the tomb. chapter xciii is a spell very difficult to understand. chapters xciv and xcv provided the deceased with the books of thoth and the power of this god, and enabled him to take his place as the scribe of osiris. chapters xcvi and xcvii also placed him under the protection of thoth. the recital of chapter xcviii provided the deceased with a boat in which to sail over the northern heavens, and a ladder by which to ascend to heaven. chapters xcix-ciii gave him the use of the magical boat, the mystic name of each part of which he was obliged to know, and helped him to enter the boat of ra and to be with hathor. the bebait, or mantis, led him to the great gods (chapter civ), and the uatch amulet from the neck of ra provided his double (ka) and his heart-soul (ba) with offerings (chapters cv, cvi). chapters cvii-cix made him favourably known to the spirits of the east and west, and the gods of the mountain of sunrise. in this region lived the terrible serpent-god ami-hem-f; he was cubits ( feet) long. in the east the deceased saw the morning star, and the two sycamores, from between which the sun-god appeared daily, and found the entrance to the sekhet aaru or elysian fields. chapter cx and its vignette of the elysian fields have already been described (see p. ). chapters cxi and cxii describe how horus lost the sight of his eye temporarily through looking at set under the form of a black pig, and chapter cxiii refers to the legend of the drowning of horus and the recovery of his body by sebek the crocodile-god. chapter cxiv enabled the deceased to absorb the wisdom of thoth and his eight gods. chapters cxv-cxxii made him lord of the tuats of memphis and heliopolis, and supplied him with food, and chapter cxxiii enabled him to identify himself with thoth. chapters cxxiv and cxxv, which treat of the judgment, have already been described. chapter cxxvi contains a prayer to the four holy apes, chapter cxxvii a hymn to the gods of the "circles" in the tuat, and chapter cxxviii a hymn to osiris. chapters cxxx and cxxxi secured for the deceased the use of the boats of sunrise and sunset, and chapter cxxxii enabled him to return to earth and visit the house he had lived in. chapters cxxxiii (or cxxxix)-cxxxvi resemble in contents chapter cxxxi. chapter cxxxvii describes a series of magical ceremonies that were to be performed for the deceased daily in order to make him to become a "living soul for ever." the formulae are said to have been composed under the ivth dynasty. chapter cxxxviii refers to the ceremony of reconstituting osiris, and chapters cxl-cxlii deal with the setting up of twelve altars, and the making of offerings to all the gods and to the various forms of osiris. chapter cxliii consists of a series of vignettes, in three of which solar boats are represented. chapters cxliv and cxlvii deal with the seven great halls (arit) of the kingdom of osiris. the gate of each hall was guarded by a porter, a watchman, and a messenger; the first kept the door, the second looked out for the arrival of visitors, and the third took their names to osiris. no one could enter a hall without repeating the name of it, of the porter, of the watchman, and of the messenger. according to a late tradition the gates of the kingdom of osiris were twenty-one in number (chapters cxlv and cxlvi), and each had a magical name, and each was guarded by one or two gods, whose names had to be repeated by the deceased before he could pass. chapter cxlviii supplied the deceased with the names of the seven cows and their bull on which the "gods" were supposed to feed. chapters cxlix and cl give the names of the fourteen aats, or districts, of the kingdom of osiris. chapter *cli-a and *cli-b give a picture of the mummy chamber and the magical texts that were necessary for the protection of both the chamber and the mummy in it. chapter clii provided a house for the deceased in the celestial anu, and chapter *cliii-a and *cliii-b enabled his soul to avoid capture in the net of the snarer of souls. chapter cliv is an address to osiris in which the deceased says, "i shall not decay, nor rot, nor putrefy, nor become worms, nor see corruption. i shall have my being, i shall live, i shall flourish, i shall rise up in peace." chapters clv-clxvii are spells which were engraved on the amulets, giving the deceased the protection of ra, osiris, isis, horus, and other gods. the remaining chapters (clxviii-cxc) are of a miscellaneous character, and few of them are found in more than one or two papyri of the book of the dead. a few contain hymns that are not older than the xviiith dynasty, and one is an extract from the text on the pyramid of unas (lines - ). the most interesting is, perhaps, chapter clxxv, which describes the tuat as airless, waterless, and lightless. in this chapter the deceased is assured of immortality in the words, "thou shalt live for millions of millions of years, a life of millions of years." e. a. wallis budge. department of egyptian and assyrian antiquities, british museum. april , . note. the trustees of the british museum have published:-- . coloured facsimile of the papyrus of hunefer, xixth dynasty, with hieroglyphic transcript and translation. plates, large folio. . coloured facsimile of the papyrus of anhai, xxist dynasty, with hieroglyphic transcript and translation. plates, large folio. . collotype reproduction of the papyrus of queen netchemet, xxist dynasty, with hieroglyphic transcript and translation. plates, large folio. . coloured reproduction of the hieratic text of the book of breathings, with hieroglyphic transcript and translation. with collotypes of the vignettes, large folio. . hieroglyphic transcript of the papyrus of nu, with one collotype plate. nos. - are bound in one volume, price £ s. . collotype reproduction of the papyrus of queen nesi-ta-nebt-ashru, with full descriptions of the vignettes, translations, and introduction, containing several illustrations, and plates of hieratic text. large to. price £ s. footnotes [ ] see journal de trévoux, june, ; caylus, antiq. egypt., tom. i, plate ; denon, travels, plates and ; and description de l'Égypte, tom. ii, plate ff. [ ] copie figurée d'un rouleau de papyrus trouvé à thèbes dans un tombeau des rois. paris, xiii- . this papyrus is nearly feet in length and was brought to strassburg by a paymaster in napoleon's army in egypt called poussielgue, who sold it to m. cadet. [ ] [hieroglyphs]. [ ] the longest papyrus in the world is papyrus harris no. (brit. mus. no. ); it measures feet by foot / inches. [ ] pyramid of pepi i, ll. and . [ ] i.e., truth, or law, in a double aspect. [ ] a name of osiris. [ ] i.e., the "lord to the uttermost limit of everything," or god. [ ] he was according to one legend the firstborn son of osiris. [ ] i.e., i have kept the moral and divine law. [ ] i.e., the "beneficent being," a title of osiris. books on egypt and chaldea by e. a. wallis budge, m. a., litt d., d. lit. _keeper of the egyptian and assyrian antiquities in the british museum_ and l. w. king, m. a. _assistant in the department of egyptian and assyrian antiquities in the british museum_ crown vo, s, d, net each vol i--egyptian religion. egyptian ideas of the future life by e. a. wallis budge vol ii--egyptian magic. by e. a. wallis budge vol. iii--egyptian language. easy lessons in egyptian hieroglyphics by e. a. wallis budge vol iv--babylonian religion. babylonian religion and mythology. by l. w. king vol v--assyrian language. easy lessons in the cuneiform texts by l. w. king, m. a. vols vi, vii, viii--the book of the dead. an english translation of the chapters, hymns, &c., of the theban recension with introduction, notes, and numerous illustrations by e. a. wallis budge, litt. d. vols ix-xvi--a history of egypt. from the end of the neolithic period to the death of cleopatra vii, b.c. by e. a. wallis budge, litt. d. vols. illustrated. * * * * * vol. i. egyptian ideas of the future life publishers' note. in the year , dr. wallis budge prepared for messrs. kegan paul, trench, trübner & co. an elementary work on the egyptian language, entitled "first steps in egyptian," and two years later the companion volume, "an egyptian reading book," with transliterations of all the texts printed in it, and a full vocabulary. the success of these works proved that they had helped to satisfy a want long felt by students of the egyptian language, and as a similar want existed among students of the languages written in the cuneiform character, mr. l.w. king, of the british museum, prepared, on the same lines as the two books mentioned above, an elementary work on the assyrian and babylonian languages ("first steps in assyrian"), which appeared in . these works, however, dealt mainly with the philological branch of egyptology and assyriology, and it was impossible in the space allowed to explain much that needed explanation in the other branches of those subjects--that is to say, matters relating to the archaeology, history, religion, etc., of the egyptians, assyrians, and babylonians. in answer to the numerous requests which have been made, a series of short, popular handbooks on the most important branches of egyptology and assyriology have been prepared, and it is hoped that these will serve as introductions to the larger works on these subjects. the present is the first volume of the series, and the succeeding volumes will be published at short intervals, and at moderate prices. egyptian ideas of the future life by e.a. wallis budge, m. a., litt. d., d. lit. keeper of the egyptian and assyrian antiquities of the british museum with eight illustrations _third edition_ to sir john evans, k. c. b., d. c. l., f. r. s., etc., etc., etc. in grateful remembrance of much friendly help and encouragement preface. * * * * * the following pages are intended to place before the reader in a handy form an account of the principal ideas and beliefs held by the ancient egyptians concerning the resurrection and the future life, which is derived wholly from native religious works. the literature of egypt which deals with these subjects is large and, as was to be expected, the product of different periods which, taken together, cover several thousands of years; and it is exceedingly difficult at times to reconcile the statements and beliefs of a writer of one period with those of a writer of another. up to the present no systematic account of the doctrine of the resurrection and of the future life has been discovered, and there is no reason for hoping that such a thing will ever be found, for the egyptians do not appear to have thought that it was necessary to write a work of the kind. the inherent difficulty of the subject, and the natural impossibility that different men living in different places and at different times should think alike on matters which must, after all, belong always to the region of faith, render it more than probable that no college of priests, however powerful, was able to formulate a system of beliefs which would be received throughout egypt by the clergy and the laity alike, and would be copied by the scribes as a final and authoritative work on egyptian eschatology. besides this, the genius and structure of the egyptian language are such as to preclude the possibility of composing in it works of a philosophical or metaphysical character in the true sense of the words. in spite of these difficulties, however, it is possible to collect a great deal of important information on the subject from the funereal and religious works which have come down to us, especially concerning the great central idea of immortality, which existed unchanged for thousands of years, and formed the pivot upon which the religious and social life of the ancient egyptians actually turned. from the beginning to the end of his life the egyptian's chief thought was of the life beyond the grave, and the hewing of his tomb in the rock, and the providing of its furniture, every detail of which was prescribed by the custom of the country, absorbed the best thoughts of his mind and a large share of his worldly goods, and kept him ever mindful of the time when his mummified body would be borne to his "everlasting house" in the limestone plateau or hill. the chief source of our information concerning the doctrine of the resurrection and of the future life as held by the egyptians is, of course, the great collection of religious texts generally known by the name of "book of the dead." the various recensions of these wonderful compositions cover a period of more than five thousand years, and they reflect faithfully not only the sublime beliefs, and the high ideals, and the noble aspirations of the educated egyptians, but also the various superstitions and childish reverence for amulets, and magical rites, and charms, which they probably inherited from their pre-dynastic ancestors, and regarded as essentials for their salvation. it must be distinctly understood that many passages and allusions in the book of the dead still remain obscure, and that in some places any translator will be at a difficulty in attempting to render certain, important words into any modern european language. but it is absurd to talk of almost the whole text of the book of the dead as being utterly corrupt, for royal personages, and priests, and scribes, to say nothing of the ordinary educated folk, would not have caused costly copies of a very lengthy work to be multiplied, and illustrated by artists possessing the highest skill, unless it had some meaning to them, and was necessary for the attainment by them of the life which is beyond the grave. the "finds" of recent years in egypt have resulted in the recovery of valuable texts whereby numerous difficulties have been cleared away; and we must hope that the faults made in translating to-day may be corrected by the discoveries of to-morrow. in spite of all difficulties, both textual and grammatical, sufficient is now known of the egyptian religion to prove, with certainty, that the egyptians possessed, some six thousand years ago, a religion and a system of morality which, when stripped of all corrupt accretions, stand second to none among those which have been developed by the greatest nations of the world. e. a. wallis budge. london, _august st_, . contents. chapter i. the belief in god almighty ii. osiris the god of the resurrection iii. the "gods" of the egyptians iv. the judgment of the dead v. the resurrection and immortality list of illustrations. chapter i. the creation ii. isis suckling horus in the papyrus swamp iii. the soul of osiris and the soul of r[=a] meeting in tattu. r[=a], in the form of a cat, cutting off the head of the serpent of darkness iv. the judgment of the dead in the hall of ma[=a]ti v. the deceased being led into the presence of osiris vi. the sekhet-aaru or "elysian fields"-- ( ) from the papyrus of nebseni ( ) from the papyrus of ani ( ) from the papyrus of anilai chapter i. the belief in god almighty. a study of ancient egyptian religious texts will convince the reader that the egyptians believed in one god, who was self-existent, immortal, invisible, eternal, omniscient, almighty, and inscrutable; the maker of the heavens, earth, and underworld; the creator of the sky and the sea, men and women, animals and birds, fish and creeping things, trees and plants, and the incorporeal beings who were the messengers that fulfilled his wish and word. it is necessary to place this definition of the first part of the belief of the egyptian at the beginning of the first chapter of this brief account of the principal religious ideas which he held, for the whole of his theology and religion was based upon it; and it is also necessary to add that, however far back we follow his literature, we never seem to approach a time when he was without this remarkable belief. it is true that he also developed polytheistic ideas and beliefs, and that he cultivated them at certain periods of his history with diligence, and to such a degree that the nations around, and even the stranger in his country, were misled by his actions, and described him as a polytheistic idolater. but notwithstanding all such departures from observances, the keeping of which befitted those who believed in god and his unity, this sublime idea was never lost sight of; on the contrary, it is reproduced in the religious literature of all periods. whence came this remarkable characteristic of the egyptian religion no man can say, and there is no evidence whatsoever to guide us in formulating the theory that it was brought into egypt by immigrants from the east, as some have said, or that it was a natural product of the indigenous peoples who formed the population of the valley of the nile some ten thousand years ago, according to the opinion of others. all that is known is that it existed there at a period so remote that it is useless to attempt to measure by years the interval of time which has elapsed since it grew up and established itself in the minds of men, and that it is exceedingly doubtful if we shall ever have any very definite knowledge on this interesting point. but though we know nothing about the period of the origin in egypt of the belief in the existence of an almighty god who was one, the inscriptions show us that this being was called by a name which was something like _neter_, [footnote: there is no _e_ in egyptian, and this vowel is added merely to make the word pronounceable.] the picture sign for which was an axe-head, made probably of stone, let into a long wooden handle. the coloured picture character shews that the axe-head was fastened into the handle by thongs of leather or string, and judging by the general look of the object it must have been a formidable weapon in strong, skilled hands. a theory has recently been put forward to the effect that the picture character represents a stick with a bit of coloured rag tied to the, but it will hardly commend itself to any archaeologist. the lines which cross the side of the axe-head represent string or strips of leather, and indicate that it was made of stone which, being brittle, was liable to crack; the picture characters which delineate the object in the latter dynasties shew that metal took the place of the stone axe-head, and being tough the new substance needed no support. the mightiest man in the prehistoric days was he who had the best weapon, and knew how to wield it with the greatest effect; when the prehistoric hero of many fights and victories passed to his rest, his own or a similar weapon was buried with him to enable him to wage war successfully in the next world. the mightiest man had the largest axe, and the axe thus became the symbol of the mightiest man. as he, by reason of the oft-told narrative of his doughty deeds at the prehistoric camp fire at eventide, in course of time passed from the rank of a hero to that of a god, the axe likewise passed from being the symbol of a hero to that of a god. far away back in the early dawn of civilization in egypt, the object which i identify as an axe may have had some other signification, but if it had, it was lost long before the period of the rule of the dynasties in that country. passing now to the consideration of the meaning of the name for god, _neter_, we find that great diversity of opinion exists among egyptologists on the subject. some, taking the view that the equivalent of the word exists in coptic, under the form of _nuti_, and because coptic is an ancient egyptian dialect, have sought to deduce its meaning by seeking in that language for the root from which the word may be derived. but all such attempts have had no good result, because the word _nuti_ stands by itself, and instead of being derived from a coptic root is itself the equivalent of the egyptian _neter_, [footnote: the letter _r_ has dropped out in coptic through phonetic decay.] and was taken over by the translators of the holy scriptures from that language to express the words "god" and "lord." the coptic root _nomti_ cannot in any way be connected with _nuti_, and the attempt to prove that the two are related was only made with the view of helping to explain the fundamentals of the egyptian religion by means of sanskrit and other aryan analogies. it is quite possible that the word _neter_ means "strength," "power," and the like, but these are only some of its derived meanings, and we have to look in the hieroglyphic inscriptions for help in order to determine its most probable meaning. the eminent french egyptologist, e. de rougé, connected the name of god, _neter_, with the other word _neter_, "renewal" or "renovation," and it would, according to his view, seem as if the fundamental idea of god was that of the being who had the power to renew himself perpetually--or in other words, "self-existence." the late dr. h. brugsch partly accepted this view, for he defined _neter_ as being "the active power which produces and creates things in regular recurrence; which bestows new life upon them, and gives back to them their youthful vigour." [footnote: _religion und mythologie_, p. .] there seems to be no doubt that, inasmuch as it is impossible to find any one word which will render _neter_ adequately and satisfactorily, "self-existence" and "possessing the power to renew life indefinitely," may together be taken as the equivalent of _neter_ in our own tongue, m. maspero combats rightly the attempt to make "strong" the meaning of _neter_ (masc.), or _neterit_ (fem.) in these words: "in the expressions 'a town _neterit_ 'an arm _neteri_,' ... is it certain that 'a strong city,' 'a strong arm,' give us the primitive sense of _neter_? when among ourselves one says 'divine music,' 'a piece of divine poetry,' 'the divine taste of a peach,' 'the divine beauty of a woman,' [the word] divine is a hyperbole, but it would be a mistake to declare that it originally meant 'exquisite' because in the phrases which i have imagined one could apply it as 'exquisite music,' 'a piece of exquisite poetry,' 'the exquisite taste of a peach,' 'the exquisite beauty of a woman.' similarly, in egyptian, 'a town _neterit_ is 'a divine town;' 'an arm _netsri_' is 'a divine arm,' and _neteri_ is employed metaphorically in egyptian as is [the word] 'divine' in french, without its being any more necessary to attribute to [the word] _neteri_ the primitive meaning of 'strong,' than it is to attribute to [the word] 'divine' the primitive meaning of 'exquisite.'" [footnote: _la mythologie egyptienne_, p. .] it may be, of course, that _neter_ had another meaning which is now lost, but it seems that the great difference between god and his messengers and created things is that he is the being who is self-existent and immortal, whilst they are not self-existent and are mortal. here it will be objected by those who declare that the ancient egyptian idea of god is on a level with that evolved by peoples and tribes who stand comparatively little removed from very intelligent animals, that such high conceptions as self-existence and immortality belong to a people who are already on a high grade of development and civilization. this is precisely the case with the egyptians when we first know them. as a matter of fact, we know nothing of their ideas of god before they developed sufficiently to build the monuments which we know they built, and before they possessed the religion, and civilization, and complex social system which their writings have revealed to us. in the remotest prehistoric times it is probable that their views about god and the future life were little better than those of the savage tribes, now living, with whom some have compared them. the primitive god was an essential feature of the family, and the fortunes of the god varied with the fortunes of the family; the god of the city in which a man lived was regarded as the ruler of the city, and the people of that city no more thought of neglecting to provide him with what they considered to be due to his rank and position than they thought of neglecting to supply their own wants. in fact the god of the city became the centre of the social fabric of that city, and every inhabitant thereof inherited automatically certain duties, the neglect of which brought stated pains and penalties upon him. the remarkable peculiarity of the egyptian religion is that the primitive idea of the god of the city is always cropping up in it, and that is the reason why we find semi-savage ideas of god side by side with some of the most sublime conceptions, and it of course underlies all the legends of the gods wherein they possess all the attributes of men and women. the egyptian in his semi-savage state was neither better nor worse than any other man in the same stage of civilization, but he stands easily first among the nations in his capacity for development, and in his ability for evolving conceptions concerning god and the future life, which are claimed as the peculiar product of the cultured nations of our time. we must now, however, see how the word for god, _neter_, is employed in religious texts and in works which contain moral precepts. in the text of unas, [footnote: ed maspero, _pyramides de saqqarah_; p. .] a king who reigned about b.c. , we find the passage:--"that which is sent by thy _ka_ cometh to thee, that which is sent by thy father cometh to thee, that which is sent by r[=a] cometh to thee, and it arriveth in the train of thy r[=a]. thou art pure, thy bones are the gods and the goddesses of heaven, thou existest at the side of god, thou art unfastened, thou comest forth towards thy soul, for every evil word (or thing) which hath been written in the name of unas hath been done away." and, again, in the text of teta, [footnote: _ibid_., p. .] in the passage which refers to the place in the eastern part of heaven "where the gods give birth unto themselves, where that to which they give birth is born, and where they renew their youth," it is said of this king, "teta standeth up in the form of the star...he weigheth words (_or_ trieth deeds), and behold god hearkeneth unto that which he saith." elsewhere [footnote: ed. maspero, _pyramides da saqqarah_, p. .] in the same text we read, "behold, teta hath arrived in the height of heaven, and the _henmemet_ beings have seen him; the semketet [footnote: the morning boat of the sun.] boat knoweth him, and it is teta who saileth it, and the m[=a]ntchet [footnote: the evening boat of the sun.] boat calleth unto him, and it is teta who bringeth it to a standstill. teta hath seen his body in the semketet boat, he knoweth the uraeus which is in the m[=a]ntchet boat, and god hath called him in his name...and hath taken him in to r[=a]." and again [footnote: _ibid_., p. .] we have: "thou hast received the form (_or_ attribute) of god, and thou hast become great therewith before the gods"; and of pepi i., who reigned about b.c. , it is said, "this pepi is god, the son of god." [footnote: _ibid_., p. .] now in these passages the allusion is to the supreme being in the next world, the being who has the power to invoke and to obtain a favourable reception for the deceased king by r[=a], the sun-god, the type and symbol of god. it may, of course, be urged that the word _neter_ here refers to osiris, but it is not customary to speak of this god in such a way in the texts; and even if we admit that it does, it only shows that the powers of god have been attributed to osiris, and that he was believed to occupy the position in respect of r[=a] and the deceased which the supreme being himself occupied. in the last two extracts given above we might read "a god" instead of "god," but there is no object in the king receiving the form or attribute of a nameless god; and unless pepi becomes the son of god; the honour which the writer of that text intends to ascribe to the king becomes little and even ridiculous. passing from religious texts to works containing moral precepts, we find much light thrown upon the idea of god by the writings of the early sages of egypt. first and foremost among these are the "precepts of kaqemna" and the "precepts of ptah-hetep," works which were composed as far back as b.c. . the oldest copy of them which we possess is, unfortunately, not older than b.c. , but this fact in no way affects our argument. these "precepts" are intended to form a work of direction and guidance for a young man in the performance of his duty towards the society in which he lived and towards his god. it is only fair to say that the reader will look in vain in them for the advice which is found in writings of a similar character composed at a later period; but as a work intended to demonstrate the "whole duty of man" to the youth of the time when the great pyramid was still a new building, these "precepts" are very remarkable. the idea of god held by ptah-hetep is illustrated by the following passages:-- . "thou shalt make neither man nor woman to be afraid, for god is opposed thereto; and if any man shall say that he will live thereby, he will make him to want bread." . "as for the nobleman who possesseth abundance of goods, he may act according to his own dictates; and he may do with himself that which he pleaseth; if he will do nothing at all, that also is as he pleaseth. the nobleman by merely stretching out his hand doeth that which mankind (_or_ a person) cannot attain to; but inasmuch as the eating of bread is according to the plan of god, this cannot be gainsaid." . "if thou hast ground to till, labour in the field which god hath given thee; rather than fill thy mouth with that which belongeth to thy neighbours it is better to terrify him that hath possessions [to give them unto thee]." . "if thou abasest thyself in the service of a perfect man, thy conduct shall be fair before god." . "if thou wouldst be a wise man, make thou thy son to be pleasing unto god." . "satisfy those who depend upon thee as far as thou art able so to do; this should be done by those whom god hath favoured." . "if, having been of no account, thou hast become great; and if, having been poor, thou hast become rich; and if thou hast become governor of the city, be not hard-hearted on account of thy advancement, because thou hast become merely the guardian of the things which god hath provided." . "what is loved of god is obedience; god hateth disobedience." . "verily a good son is of the gifts of god." [footnote: the text was published by prisse d'avennes, entitled _facsimile d'un papyrus égyptien en caractères hieratiques_, paris, . for a translation of the whole work, see virey, _études sur le papyrus prisse_, paris, .] the same idea of god, but considerably amplified in some respects, may be found in the _maxims of khensu-hetep_, a work which was probably composed during the xviiith dynasty. this work has been studied in detail by a number of eminent egyptologists, and though considerable difference of opinion has existed among them in respect of details and grammatical niceties, the general sense of the maxims has been clearly established. to illustrate the use of the word _neter_, the following passages have been chosen from it:[footnote: they are given with interlinear transliteration and translation in my _papyrus of ani_, p. lxxxv. ff., where references to the older literature on the subject will be found.]-- . "god magnifieth his name." . "what the house of god hateth is much speaking. pray thou with a loving heart all the petitions which are in secret. he will perform thy business, he will hear that which thou sayest and will accept thine offerings." . "god decreeth the right." . "when thou makest an offering unto thy god, guard thou against the things which are an abomination unto him. behold thou his plans with thine eye, and devote thyself to the adoration of his name. he giveth souls unto millions of forms, and him that magnifieth him doth he magnify." . "if thy mother raise her hands to god he will hear her prayers [and rebuke thee]." . "give thyself to god, and keep thou thyself daily for god." now, although the above passages prove the exalted idea which the egyptians held of the supreme being, they do not supply us with any of the titles and epithets which they applied to him; for these we must have recourse to the fine hymns and religious meditations which form so important a part of the "book of the dead." but before we quote from them, mention must be made of the _neteru_, _i.e._, the beings or existences which in some way partake of the nature or character of god, and are usually called "gods." the early nations that came in contact with the egyptians usually misunderstood the nature of these beings, and several modern western writers have done the same. when we examine these "gods" closely, they are found to be nothing more nor less than forms, or manifestations, or phases, or attributes, of one god, that god being r[=a] the sun-god, who, it must be remembered, was the type and symbol of god. nevertheless, the worship of the _neteru_ by the egyptians has been made the base of the charge of "gross idolatry" which has been brought against them, and they have been represented by some as being on the low intellectual level of savage tribes. it is certain that from the earliest times one of the greatest tendencies of the egyptian religion was towards monotheism, and this tendency may be observed in all important texts down to the latest period; it is also certain that a kind of polytheism existed in egypt side by side with monotheism from very early times. whether monotheism or polytheism be the older, it is useless in our present state of knowledge to attempt to enquire. according to tiele, the religion of egypt was at the beginning polytheistic, but developed in two opposite directions: in the one direction gods were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the egyptians drew nearer and nearer to monotheism. [footnote: _geschiedenis van den godedienst in de oudheid_, amsterdam, , p. . a number of valuable remarks on this subject are given by lieblein in _egyptian religion_, p. .] dr. wiedemann takes the view that three main elements may be recognized in the egyptian religion: ( ) a solar monotheism, that is to say one god, the creator of the universe, who manifests his power especially in the sun and its operations; ( ) a cult of the regenerating power of nature, which expresses itself in the adoration of ithyphallic gods, of fertile goddesses, and of a series of animals and of various deities of vegetation; ( ) a perception of an anthropomorphic divinity, the life of whom in this world and in the world beyond this was typical of the ideal life of man [footnote: _le livre dei moris_ (review in _muséon_, tom. xiii. ).]--this last divinity being, of course, osiris. but here again, as dr. wiedemann says, it is an unfortunate fact that all the texts which we possess are, in respect of the period of the origin of the egyptian religion, comparatively late, and therefore in them we find these three elements mixed together, along with a number of foreign matters, in such a way as to make it impossible to discover which of them is the oldest. no better example can be given of the loose way in which different ideas about a god and god are mingled in the same text than the "negative confession" in the hundred and twenty-fifth chapter of the book of the dead. here, in the oldest copies of the passages known, the deceased says, "i have not cursed god" ( . ), and a few lines after ( . ) he adds, "i have not thought scorn of the god living in my city." it seems that here we have indicated two different layers of belief, and that the older is represented by the allusion to the "god of the city," in which case it would go back to the time when the egyptian lived in a very primitive fashion. if we assume that god (who is mentioned in line ) is osiris, it does not do away with the fact that he was regarded as a being entirely different from the "god of the city" and that he was of sufficient importance to have one line of the "confession" devoted to him. the egyptian saw no incongruity in setting references to the "gods" side by side with allusions to a god whom we cannot help identifying with the supreme being and the creator of the world; his ideas and beliefs have, in consequence, been sadly misrepresented, and by certain writers he has been made an object of ridicule. what, for example, could be a more foolish description of egyptian worship than the following? "who knows not, o volusius of bithynia, the sort of monsters egypt, in her infatuation, worships. one part venerates the crocodile; another trembles before an ibis gorged with serpents. the image of a sacred monkey glitters in gold, where the magic chords sound from memnon broken in half, and ancient thebes lies buried in ruins, with her hundred gates. in one place they venerate sea-fish, in another river-fish; there, whole towns worship a dog: no one diana. it is an impious act to violate or break with the teeth a leek or an onion. o holy nations! whose gods grow for them in their gardens! every table abstains from animals that have wool: it is a crime there to kill a kid. but human flesh is lawful food." [footnote: juvenal, satire xv. (evans' translation in bohn's series, p. ). led astray by juvenal, our own good george herbert (_church militant_) wrote:-- "at first he (_i.e._, sin) got to egypt, and did sow gardens of gods, which every year did grow fresh and fine deities. they were at great cost, who for a god clearly a sallet lost. ah, what a thing is man devoid of grace, adoring garlic with an humble face, begging his food of that which he may eat, starving the while he worshippeth his meat! who makes a root his god, how low is he, if god and man be severed infinitely! what wretchedness can give him any room, whose house is foul, while he adores his broom?"] the epithets which the egyptians applied to their gods also bear valuable testimony concerning the ideas which they held about god. we have already said that the "gods" are only forms, manifestations, and phases of r[=a], the sun-god, who was himself the type and symbol of god, and it is evident from the nature of these epithets that they were only applied to the "gods" because they represented some qualify or attribute which they would have applied to god had it been their custom to address him. let us take as examples the epithets which are applied to h[=a]pi the god of the nile. the beautiful hymn [footnote: the whole hymn has been published by maspero in _hymns au nil_, paris, .] to this god opens as follows:-- "homage to thee, o h[=a]pi! thou comest forth in this land, and dost come in peace to make egypt to live, o thou hidden one, thou guide of the darkness whensoever it is thy pleasure to be its guide. thou waterest the fields which r[=a] hath created, thou makest all animals to live, thou makest the land to drink without ceasing; thou descendest the path of heaven, thou art the friend of meat and drink, thou art the giver of the grain, and thou makest every place of work to flourish, o ptah! ... if thou wert to be overcome in heaven the gods would fall down headlong, and mankind would perish. thou makest the whole earth to be opened (_or_ ploughed up) by the cattle, and prince and peasant lie down to rest.... his disposition (_or_ form) is that of khnemu; when he shineth upon the earth there is rejoicing, for all people are glad, the mighty man (?) receiveth his meat, and every tooth hath food to consume." after praising him for what he does for mankind and beasts, and for making the herb to grow for the use of all men, the text says:-- "he cannot be figured in stone; he is not to be seen in the sculptured images upon which men place the united crowns of the south and the north furnished with uraei; neither works nor offerings can be made to him; and he cannot be made to come forth from his secret place. the place where he liveth is unknown; he is not to be found in inscribed shrines; there existeth no habitation which can contain him; and thou canst not conceive his form in thy heart." first we notice that hapi is addressed by the names of ptah and khnemu, not because the writer thought these three gods were one, but because hapi as the great supplier of water to egypt became, as it were, a creative god like ptah and khnemu. next we see that it is stated to be impossible to depict him in paintings, or even to imagine what his form may be, for he is unknown and his abode cannot be found, and no place can contain him. but, as a matter of fact, several pictures and sculptures of h[=a]pi have been preserved, and we know that he is generally depicted in the form of two gods; one has upon his head a papyrus plant, and the other a lotus plant, the former being the nile-god of the south, and the latter the nile-god of the north. elsewhere he is portrayed in the form of a large man having the breasts of a woman. it is quite clear, then, that the epithets which we have quoted are applied to him merely as a form of god. in another hymn, which was a favourite in the xviiith and xixth dynasties, h[=a]pi is called "one," and is said to have created himself; but as he is later on in the text identified with r[=a] the epithets which belong to the sun-god are applied to him. the late dr. h. brugsch collected [footnote: _religion and mythologie_, pp. - .] a number of the epithets which are applied to the gods, from texts of all periods; and from these we may see that the ideas and beliefs of the egyptians concerning god were almost identical with those of the hebrews and muhammadans at later periods. when classified these epithets read thus:-- "god is one and alone, and none other existeth with him; god is the one, the one who hath made all things. "god is a spirit, a hidden spirit, the spirit of spirits, the great spirit of the egyptians, the divine spirit. "god is from the beginning, and he hath been from the beginning; he hath existed from of old and was when nothing else had being. he existed when nothing else existed, and what existeth he created after he had come into being. he is the father of beginnings. "god is the eternal one, he is eternal and infinite; and endureth for ever and aye; he hath endured for countless ages, and he shall endure to all eternity. "god is the hidden being, and no man hath known his form. no man hath been able to seek out his likeness; he is hidden, from gods and men, and he is a mystery unto his creatures. "no man knoweth how to know him, his name remaineth hidden; his name is a mystery unto his children. his names are innumerable, they are manifold and none knoweth their number. "god is truth, and he liveth by truth, and he feedeth thereon. he is the king of truth, he resteth upon truth, he fashioneth truth, and he executeth truth throughout all the world. "god is life, and through him only man liveth, he giveth life to man, and he breatheth the breath of life into his nostrils. "god is father and mother, the father of fathers, and the mother of mothers. he begetteth, but was never begotten; he produceth, but was never produced he begat himself and produced himself. he createth, but was never created; he is the maker of his own form, and the fashioner of his own body. "god himself is existence he liveth in all things, and liveth upon all things. he endureth without increase or diminution, he multiplieth himself millions of times, and he possesseth multitudes of forms and multitudes of members. "god hath made the universe, and he hath created all that therein is: he is the creator of what is in this world, of what was, of what is, and of what shall be. he is the creator of the world, and it was he who fashioned it with his hands before there was any beginning; and he stablished it with that which went forth from him. he is the creator of the heavens and the earth; the creator of the heavens, and the earth, and the deep; the creator of the heavens, and the earth, and the deep, and the waters, and the mountains. god hath stretched out the heavens and founded the earth. what his heart conceived came to pass straightway, and when he had spoken his word came to pass, and it shall endure for ever. "god is the father of the gods, and the father of the father of all deities; he made his voice to sound, and the deities came into being, and the gods sprang into existence after he had spoken with his mouth. he formed mankind and fashioned the gods. he is the great master, the primeval potter who turned men and gods out of his hands, and he formed men and gods upon a potter's table. "the heavens rest upon his head, and the earth supporteth his feet; heaven hideth his spirit, the earth hideth his form, and the underworld shutteth up the mystery of him within it. his body is like the air, heaven resteth upon his head, and the new inundation [of the nile] containeth his form. "god is merciful unto those who reverence him, and he heareth him that calleth upon him. he protecteth the weak against the strong, and he heareth the cry of him that is bound in fetters; he judgeth between the mighty and the weak, god knoweth him that knoweth him, he rewardeth him that serveth him, and he protecteth him that followeth him." we have now to consider the visible emblem, and the type and symbol of god, namely the sun-god r[=a], who was worshipped in egypt in prehistoric times. according to the writings of the egyptians, there was a time when neither heaven nor earth existed, and when nothing had being except the boundless primeval [footnote: see brugsch, _religion_, p. .] water, which was, however, shrouded with thick darkness. in this condition the primeval water remained for a considerable time, notwithstanding that it contained within it the germs of the things which afterwards came into existence in this world, and the world itself. at length the spirit of the primeval water felt the desire for creative activity, and having uttered the word, the world sprang straightway into being in the form which had already been depicted in the mind of the spirit before he spake the word which resulted in its creation. the next act of creation, was the formation of a germ, or egg, from which sprang r[=a], the sun-god, within whose shining form was embodied the almighty power of the divine spirit. such was the outline of creation as described by the late dr. h. brugsch, and it is curious to see how closely his views coincide with a chapter in the _papyrus of nesi amsu_ preserved in the british museum. [footnote: no. , . see my transcript and translation of the whole papyrus in _archaeologia_ vol. , london, .] in the third section of this papyrus we find a work which was written with the sole object of overthrowing [=a]pep, the great enemy of r[=a], and in the composition itself we find two versions of the chapter which describes the creation of the earth and all things therein. the god neb-er-tcher is the speaker, and he says:-- "i evolved the evolving of evolutions. i evolved myself under the form of the evolutions of the god khepera, which were evolved at the beginning of all time. i evolved with the evolutions of the god khepera; i evolved by the evolution of evolutions--that is to say, i developed myself from the primeval matter which i made, i developed myself out of the primeval matter. my name is ausares (osiris), the germ of primeval matter. i have wrought my will wholly in this earth, i have spread abroad and filled it, i have strengthened it [with] my hand. i was alone, for nothing had been brought forth; i had not then emitted from myself either shu or tefnut. i uttered my own name, as a word of power, from my own mouth, and i straightway evolved myself. i evolved myself under the form of the evolutions of the god khepera, and i developed myself out of the primeval matter which has evolved multitudes of evolutions from the beginning of time. nothing existed on this earth then, and i made all things. there was none other who worked with me at that time. i performed all evolutions there by means of that divine soul which i fashioned there, and which had remained inoperative in the watery abyss. i found no place there whereon to stand. but i was strong in my heart, and i made a foundation for myself, and i made everything which was made. i was alone. i made a foundation for my heart (_or_ will), and i created multitudes of things which evolved themselves like unto the evolutions of the god khepera, and their offspring came into being from the evolutions of their births. i emitted from myself the gods shu and tefnut, and from being one i became three; they [illustration: the creation. the god nu rising out of the primeval water and bearing in his hands the boat of r[=a], the sun-god, who is accompanied by a number of deities. in the upper portion of the scene is the region of the underworld which is enclosed by the body of osiris, on whose head stands the goddess nut with arms stretched out to receive the disk of the sun.] sprang from me, and came into existence in this earth. ...shu and tefnut brought forth seb and nut, and nut brought forth osiris, horus-khent-an-maa, sut, isis, and nephthya at one birth." the fact of the existence of two versions of this remarkable chapter proves that the composition is much older than the papyrus [footnote: about b.c. .] in which it is found, and the variant readings which occur in each make it certain that the egyptian scribes had difficulty in understanding what they were writing. it may be said that this version of the cosmogony is incomplete because it does not account for the origin of any of the gods except those who belong to the cycle of osiris, and this objection is a valid one; but in this place we are only concerned to shew that r[=a], the sun-god, was evolved from the primeval abyss of water by the agency of the god khepera, who brought this result about by pronouncing his own name. the great cosmic gods, such as ptah and khnemu, of whom mention will be made later, are the offspring of another set of religious views, and the cosmogony in which these play the leading parts is entirely different. we must notice, in passing, that the god whose words we have quoted above declares that he evolved himself under the form, of khepera, and that his name is osiris, "the primeval matter of primeval matter," and that, as a result, osiris is identical with khepera in respect of his evolutions and new births. the word rendered "evolutions" is _kheperu_, literally "rollings"; and that rendered "primeval matter" is _paut_, the original "stuff" out of which everything was made. in both versions we are told that men and women came into being from the tears which fell from the "eye" of khepera, that is to say from the sun, which, the god says, "i made take to up its place in my face, and afterwards it ruled the whole earth." we have seen how r[=a] has become the visible type and symbol of god, and the creator of the world and of all that is therein; we may now consider the position which he held with, respect to the dead. as far back as the period of the ivth dynasty, about b.c. , he was regarded as the great god of heaven, and the king of all the gods, and divine beings, and of the beatified dead who dwelt therein. the position of the beatified in heaven is decided by r[=a], and of all the gods there osiris only appears to have the power to claim protection for his followers; the offerings which the deceased would make to r[=a] are actually presented to him by osiris. at one time the egyptian's greatest hope seems to have been that he might not only become "god, the son of god," by adoption, but that r[=a] would become actually his father. for in the text of pepi i, [footnote: ed. maspero, line .] it is said: "pepi is the son of r[=a] who loveth him; and he goeth forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. r[=a] hath begotten pepi, and he goeth forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. r[=a] hath conceived pepi, and he goeth forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. r[=a] hath given birth, to pepi, and he goeth forth and raiseth himself up to heaven." substantially these ideas remained the same from the earliest to the latest times, and r[=a] maintained his position as the great head of the companies, notwithstanding the rise of amen into prominence, and the attempt to make aten the dominant god of egypt by the so-called "disk worshippers." the following good typical examples of hymns to r[=a] are taken from the oldest copies of the theban recension of the book of the dead. i. from the papyrus of ani. [footnote: see _the chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] "homage to thee, o thou who hast come as khepera, khepera the creator of the gods. thou risest and thou shinest, and thou makest light to be in thy mother nut (_i.e._, the sky); thou art crowned king of the gods. thy mother nut doeth an act of homage unto thee with both her hands. the laud of manu (_i.e._, the land where the sun sets) receiveth thee with satisfaction, and the goddess ma[=a]t embraceth thee both, at morn and at eve. [footnote: _i.e._, ma[=a]t, the goddess of law, order, regularity, and the like, maketh the sun to rise each day in his appointed place and at his appointed time with absolute and unfailing regularity.] hail, all ye gods of the temple of the soul, [footnote: _i.e._, the soul referred to above in the account of the creation; see p. .] who weigh heaven and earth in the balance, and who provide divine food in abundance! hail, tatunen, thou one, thou creator of mankind and maker of the substance of the gods of the south and of the north, of the west and of the east! o come ye and acclaim r[=a], the lord of heaven and the creator of the gods, and adore ye him in his beautiful form as he cometh in the morning in his divine bark. "o r[=a], those who dwell in the heights and those who dwell in the depths adore thee. the god thoth and the goddess ma[=a]t have marked out for thee [thy course] for each and every day. thine enemy the serpent hath been given over to the fire, the serpent-fiend sebau hath fallen down headlong; his arms have been bound in chains, and thou hast hacked off his legs; and the sons of impotent revolt shall nevermore rise up against thee. the temple of the aged one [footnote: _i.e._, r[=a] of heliopolis.] (_i.e._, r[=a]) keepeth festival, and the voice of those who rejoice is in the mighty dwelling. the gods exult when they see thy rising, o r[=a], and when thy beams flood the world with light. the majesty of the holy god goeth forth and advanceth even unto the land of manu; he maketh brilliant the earth at his birth each day; he journeyeth on to the place where he was yesterday." ii. from the papyrus of hunefer. [footnote: from the papyrus of hunefer (brit. mus. no. ).] "homage to thee, o thou who art r[=a] when thou risest and temu when thou settest. thou risest, thou risest, thou shinest, thou shinest, o thou who art crowned king of the gods. thou art the lord of heaven, thou art the lord of earth; thou art the creator of those who dwell in the heights, and of those who dwell in the depths. thou art the one god who came into being in the beginning of time. thou didst create the earth, thou didst fashion man, thou didst make the watery abyss of the sky, thou didst form hapi (_i.e._, the nile), thou didst create the great deep, and thou dost give life unto all that therein is. thou hast knit together the mountains, thou hast made mankind and the beasts of the field to come into being, thou hast made the heavens and the earth. worshipped be thou whom the goddess maat embraceth at morn and at eve. thou dost travel across the sky with thy heart swelling with joy; the great deep of heaven is content thereat. the serpent-fiend nak [footnote: a name of the serpent of darkness which r[=a] slew daily.] hath fallen, and his arms are cut off. the sektet [footnote: the boat in which r[=a] sailed from noon to sunset.] boat receiveth fair winds, and the heart of him that is in the shrine thereof rejoiceth. "thou art crowned prince of heaven, and thou art the one [dowered with all sovereignty] who appearest in the sky. r[=a] is he who is true of voice. [footnote: _i.e._, whatsoever r[=a] commandeth taketh place straightway; see the chapter on the judgment of the dead, p. .] hail, thou divine youth, thou heir of everlastingness, thou self-begotten one! hail, thou who didst give thyself birth! hail, one, thou mighty being, of myriad forms and aspects, thou king of the world, prince of annu (heliopolis), lord of eternity, and ruler of everlastingness! the company of the gods rejoice when thou risest and dost sail across the sky, o thou who art exalted in the sektet boat." "homage to thee, o amen-r[=a], [footnote: on the god amen, see the chapter, "the gods of the egyptians."] who dost rest upon maat; [footnote: _i.e._, "thy existence, and thy risings and settings are ordered and defined by fixed, unchanging, and unalterable law."] thou passest over heaven and every face seeth thee. thou dost wax great as thy majesty doth advance, and thy rays are upon all faces. thou art unknown, and no tongue can declare thy likeness; thou thyself alone [canst do this]. thou art one... men praise thee in thy name, and they swear by thee, for thou art lord over them. thou hearest with thine ears, and thou seest with thine eyes. millions of years have gone over the world. i cannot tell the number of those through which thou hast passed. thy heart hath decreed a day of happiness in thy name of 'traveller.' thou dost pass over and dost travel through untold spaces [requiring] millions and hundreds of thousands of years [to pass over]; thou passest through them in peace, and thou steerest thy way across the watery abyss to the place which thou lovest; this thou doest in one little moment of time, and then thou dost sink down and dost make an end of the hours." iii. from the papyrus of ani. [footnote: plate .] the following beautiful composition, part hymn and part prayer, is of exceptional interest. "hail, thou disk, thou lord of rays, who risest on the horizon day by day! shine thou with thy beams of light upon the face of osiris ani, who is true of voice; for he singeth hymns of praise unto thee at dawn, and he maketh thee to set at eventide with words of adoration, may the soul of ani come forth with thee into heaven, may he go forth in the m[=a]tet boat, may he come into port in the sektet boat, and may he cleave his path among the never-resting stars in the heavens. "osiris ani, being in peace and triumph, adoreth his lord, the lord of eternity, saying, 'homage to thee, o heru-khuti (harmachis), who art the god khepera, the self-created one; when thou risest on the horizon and sheddest thy beams of light upon the lands of the north and of the south, thou art beautiful, yea beautiful, and all the gods rejoice when they behold thee, the king of heaven. the goddess nebt-unnut is stablished upon thy head; and her uraei of the south and of the north are upon thy brow; she taketh up her place before thee. the god. thoth is stablished in the bows of thy boat to destroy utterly all thy foes. those who are in the tuat (underworld) come forth to meet thee, and they bow low in homage as they come towards thee, to behold thy beautiful form. and i have come before thee that i may be with thee to behold thy disk each day. may i not be shut up [in the tomb], may i not be turned back, may the limbs of my body be made new again when i view thy beauties, even as [are those of] all thy favoured ones, because i am one of those who worshipped thee upon earth. may i come unto the land of eternity, may i come even unto the everlasting land, for behold, o my lord, this hast thou ordained for me.' "'homage to thee, o thou who risest in thy horizon as r[=a], thou restest upon ma[=a]t, [footnote: _i.e._, unchanging and unalterable law.] thou passest over the sky, and every face watcheth thee and thy course, for thou hast been hidden from their gaze. thou dost show thyself at dawn and at eventide day by day. the sektet boat, wherein, is thy majesty, goeth forth with might; thy beams are upon [all] faces; thy rays of red and yellow cannot be known, and thy bright beams cannot be told. the lands of the gods and the eastern lands of punt [footnote: _i.e._, the east and west coasts of the red sea, and the north-east coast of africa.] must be seen ere that which, is hidden [in thee] may be measured. [footnote: i am doubtful about the meaning of this passage.] alone and by thyself thou, dost manifest thyself [when] thou comest into being above nu. may i advance, even as thou dost advance; may i never cease [to go forward], even as thy majesty ceaseth not [to go forward], even though it be for a moment; for with strides dost thou in one brief moment pass over spaces which [man] would need hundreds of thousand; yea, millions of years to pass over; [this] thou doest, and then thou dost sink to rest. thou puttest an end to the hours of the night, and thou dost count them, even thou; thou endest them in thine own appointed season, and the earth, becometh light, thou settest thyself before thy handiwork in the likeness of r[=a]; thou risest in the horizon.' "osiris; the scribe ani, declareth his praise of thee when thou shinest, and when thou risest at dawn he crieth in his joy at thy birth, saying:-- "'thou art crowned with the majesty of thy beauties; thou mouldest thy limbs as thou dost advance, and thou bringest them forth without birth-pangs in the form of r[=a], as thou dost rise up in the celestial height. grant thou that i may come unto the heaven which is everlasting, and unto the mountain where dwell thy favoured ones. may i be joined unto those shining beings, holy and perfect, who are in the underworld; and may i come forth with them to behold thy beauties when thou shinest at eventide, and goest to thy mother nut. thou dost place thyself in the west, and my hands adore [thee] when thou settest as a living being. [footnote: _i.e._, "because when thou settest thou dost not die."] behold, thou art the everlasting creator, and thou art adored [as such when] thou settest in the heavens. i have given my heart to thee without wavering, o thou who art mightier than the gods.' "a hymn of praise to thee, o thou who risest like unto gold, and who dost flood the world with light on the day of thy birth. thy mother giveth thee birth, and straightway thou dost give light upon the path of [thy] disk, o thou great light who shinest in the heavens. thou makest the generations of men to flourish through the nile-flood, and thou dost cause gladness to exist in all lands, and in, all cities, and in all temples. thou art glorious by reason of thy splendours, and thou makest strong thy ka (_i.e._ double) with, divine foods, o thou mighty one of victories, thou power of powers, who dost make strong thy throne against evil fiends--thou who art glorious in majesty in the sektet boat, and most mighty in the [=a]tet [footnote: the sun's evening and morning boats respectively.] boat!" this selection may be fittingly closed by a short hymn [footnote: from the papyrus of nekht (brit. mus. no. , ).] which, though, of a later date, reproduces in a brief form all the essentials of the longer hymns of the xviiith dynasty (about b.c. to ). "homage to thee, o thou glorious being, thou who art dowered [with all sovereignty]. o temu-harma-chis, [footnote: the evening and morning sun respectively.] when thou risest in the horizon of heaven, a cry of joy cometh forth, to thee from the mouth of all peoples, o thou beautiful being, thou dost renew thyself in thy season in the form of the disk within thy mother hathor; [footnote: like nut, a goddess of the sky, but particularly of that portion of it in which the sun rises.] therefore in every place every heart swelleth with joy at thy rising for ever. the regions of the north and south come to thee with homage, and send forth, acclamations at thy rising in the horizon of heaven; thou illuminest the two lands with rays of turquoise light. hail, r[=a], thou who art r[=a]-harmachis, thou divine man-child, heir of eternity, self-begotten and self-born, king of the earth, prince of the underworld, governor of the regions of aukert (_i.e._ the underworld)! thou didst come forth, from the water, thou hast sprung from the god nu, who cherisheth thee and ordereth thy members. hail, god of life, thou lord of love, all men live when thou shinest; thou art crowned king of the gods. the goddess nut doeth homage unto thee, and the goddess ma[=a]t embraceth thee at all times. those who are in thy following sing unto thee with joy and bow down their foreheads to the earth when they meet thee, thou lord of heaven, thou lord of earth, thou king of right and truth, thou lord of eternity, thou prince of everlastingness, thou sovereign of all the gods, thou god of life, thou creator of eternity, thou maker of heaven, wherein thou art firmly established. the company of the gods rejoice at thy rising, the earth is glad when it beholdeth thy rays; the peoples that have been long dead come forth with cries of joy to see thy beauties every day. thou goest forth each day over heaven and earth, and art made strong each day by thy mother nut. thou passest through the heights of heaven, thy heart swelleth with joy; the abyss of the sky is content thereat. the serpent-fiend hath fallen, his arms are hewn off, and the knife hath cut asunder his joints, r[=a] liveth in ma[=a]t the beautiful. the sektet boat draweth on and cometh into port; the south and the north, the west and the east, turn, to praise thee, o thou primeval substance of the earth who didst come into being of thine own accord, isis and nephthys salute thee, they sing unto thee songs of joy at thy rising in the boat, they protect thee with their hands. the souls of the east follow thee, the souls of the west praise thee. thou art the ruler of all the gods, and thou hast joy of heart within thy shrine; for the serpent-fiend nak hath been condemned to the fire, and thy heart shall be joyful for ever." from the considerations set forth in the preceding pages, and from the extracts from religious texts of various periods, and from the hymns quoted, the reader may himself judge the views which the ancient egyptian held concerning god almighty and his visible type and symbol r[=a], the sun-god. egyptologists differ in their interpretations of certain passages, but agree as to general facts. in dealing with the facts it cannot be too clearly understood that the religious ideas of the prehistoric egyptian were very different from those of the cultured priest of memphis in the iind dynasty, or those of the worshippers of temu or atum, the god of the setting sun, in the ivth dynasty. the editors of religious texts of all periods have retained many grossly superstitious and coarse beliefs, which they knew well to be the products of the imaginations of their savage, or semi-savage ancestors, not because they themselves believed in them, or thought that the laity to whom they ministered would accept them, but because of their reverence for inherited traditions. the followers of every great religion in the world have never wholly shaken off all the superstitions which they have in all generations inherited from their ancestors; and what is true of the peoples of the past is true, in a degree, of the peoples of to-day. in the east the older the ideas, and beliefs, and traditions, are, the more sacred they become; but this has not prevented men there from developing high moral and spiritual conceptions and continuing to believe in them, and among such must be counted the one, self-begotten, and self-existent god whom the egyptians worshipped. chapter ii. osiris the god of the resurrection. the egyptians of every period in which they are known to us believed that osiris was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the powers of evil, that after a great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous also might conquer death; and they raised osiris to such an exalted position in heaven that he became the equal and, in certain cases, the superior of r[=a], the sun-god, and ascribed to him the attributes which belong unto god. however far back we go, we find that these views about osiris are assumed to be known to the reader of religious texts and accepted by him, and in the earliest funeral book the position of osiris in respect of the other gods is identical with that which he is made to hold in the latest copies of the book of the dead. the first writers of the ancient hieroglyphic funeral texts and their later editors have assumed so completely that the history of osiris was known unto all men, that none of them, as far as we know, thought it necessary to write down a connected narrative of the life and sufferings upon earth of this god, or if they did, it has not come down to us. even in the vth dynasty we find osiris and the gods of his cycle, or company, occupying a peculiar and special place in the compositions written for the benefit of the dead, and the stone and other monuments which belong to still earlier periods mention ceremonies the performance of which assumed the substantial accuracy of the history of osiris as made known to us by later writers. but we have a connected history of osiris which, though not written in egyptian, contains so much that is of egyptian origin that we may be sure that its author drew his information from egyptian sources: i refer to the work, _de iside et osìride_, of the greek writer, plutarch, who flourished about the middle of the first century of our era. in it, unfortunately, plutarch identifies certain of the egyptian gods with the gods of the greeks, and he adds a number of statements which rest either upon his own imagination, or are the results of misinformation. the translation [footnote: _plutarchi de iside et osirids liber: graece et anglice_. by s. squire, cambridge, .] by squire runs as follows:-- "rhea, [footnote: _i.e._, nut.] say they, having accompanied saturn [footnote: _i.e._, seb.] by stealth, was discovered by the sun, [footnote: _i.e._, r[=a].] who hereupon denounced a curse upon her, 'that she should not he delivered in any month or year'--mercury, however, being likewise in love with the same goddess, in recompense of the favours which he had received from her, plays at tables with the moon, and wins from her the seventieth part of each of her illuminations; these several parts, mating in the whole five days, he afterwards joined together, and added to the three hundred and sixty, of which the year formerly consisted, which days therefore are even yet called by the egyptians the epact or superadded, and observed by them as the birthdays of their gods. for upon the first of them, say they, was osiris born, just at whose entrance into the world a voice was heard, saying, 'the lord of all the earth is born.' there are some indeed who relate this circumstance in a different manner, as that a certain person, named pamyles, as he was fetching water from the temple of jupiter at thebes, heard a voice commanding him to proclaim aloud that 'the good and great king osiris was then born'; and that for this reason saturn committed the education of the child to him, and that in memory of this event the pamylia were afterwards instituted, a festival much resembling the phalliphoria or priapeia of the greeks. upon the second of these days was aroueris [footnote: _i.e._, hera-ur, "horus the elder."] born, whom some call apollo, and others distinguish by the name of the elder orus. upon the third typho [footnote: _i.e._, set.] came into the world, being born neither at the proper time, nor by the proper place, but forcing his way through a wound which he had made in his mother's side. isis was born upon the fourth of them in the marshes of egypt, as nepthys was upon the last, whom some call teleute and aphrodite, and others nike--now as to the fathers of these children, the two first of them are said to have been begotten by the sun, isis by mercury, typho and nepthys by saturn; and accordingly, the third of these superadded days, because it was looked upon as the birthday of typho, was regarded by the kings as inauspicious, and consequently they neither transacted any business on it, or even suffered themselves to take any refreshment until the evening. they further add, that typho married nepthys; and that isis and osiris, having a mutual affection, loved each other in their mother's womb before they were born, and that from this commerce sprang aroueris, whom the egyptians likewise call the elder orus, and the greeks apollo. "osiris, being now become king of egypt, applied himself towards civilizing his countrymen, by turning them from their former indigent and barbarous course of life; he moreover taught them how to cultivate and improve the fruits of the earth; he gave them a body of laws to regulate their conduct by, and instructed them in that reverence and worship which they were to pay to the gods. with the same good disposition he afterwards travelled over the rest of the world inducing the people everywhere to submit to his discipline; not indeed compelling them by force of arms, but persuading them to yield to the strength of his reasons, which were conveyed to them in the most agreeable manner, in hymns and songs, accompanied by instruments of music: from which last circumstance the greeks conclude him to have been the same with their dionysius or bacchus--during osiris' absence from his kingdom, typho had no opportunity of making any innovations in the state, isis being extremely vigilant in the government, and always upon her guard. after his return, however, having first persuaded seventy-two other persons to join with him in the conspiracy, together with a certain queen of ethiopia named aso, who chanced to be in egypt at that time, he contrived a proper stratagem to execute his base designs. for having privily taken the measure of osiris' body, he caused a chest to be made exactly of the same size with it, as beautiful as may be, and set off with all the ornaments of art. this chest he brought into his banqueting-room; where, after it had been much admired by all who were present, typho, as it were in jest, promised to give it to any one of them whose body upon trial it might be found to fit. upon this the whole company one after another, go into it; but as it did not fit any of them, last of all osiris lays himself down in it, upon which the conspirators immediately ran together, clapped the cover upon it, and then fastened it down on the outside with nails, pouring likewise melted lead over it. after this they carried it away to the river side, and conveyed it to the sea by the tanaïtic mouth of the nile; which, for this reason, is still held in the utmost abomination by the egyptians, and never named by them but with proper marks of detestation. these things, say they, were thus executed upon the th [footnote: in the egyptian calendar this day was marked triply unlucky.] day of the month athyr, when the sun was in scorpio, in the th year of osiris' reign; though there are others who tell us that he was no more than years old at this time. "the first who knew the accident which had befallen their king were the pans and satyrs who inhabited the country about chemmis (panopolis); and they immediately acquainting the people with the news gave the first occasion to the name panic terrors, which has ever since been made use of to signify any sudden affright or amazement of a multitude. as to isis, as soon as the report reached her she immediately cut off one of the locks of her hair, [footnote: the hair cut off as a sign of mourning was usually laid in the tomb of the dead.] and put on mourning apparel upon the very spot where she then happened to be, which accordingly from this accident has ever since been called koptis, or _the city of mourning_, though some are of opinion that this word rather signifies _deprivation_. after this she wandered everywhere about the country full of disquietude and perplexity in search, of the chest, inquiring of every person she met with, even, of some children whom she chanced to see, whether they knew what was become of it. now it happened that these children had seen what typho's accomplices had done with the body, and accordingly acquainted her by what mouth of the nile it had been conveyed into the sea--for this reason therefore the egyptians look upon children as endued with a kind of faculty of divining, and in consequence of this notion are very curious in observing the accidental prattle which they have with one another whilst they are at play (especially if it be in a sacred place), forming omens and presages from it--isis, during this interval, having been informed that osiris, deceived by her sister nepthys who was in love with him, had unwittingly united with her instead of herself, as she concluded from the melilot-garland, [footnote: _i.e._, a wreath of clover.] which he had left with her, made it her business likewise to search out the child, the fruit of this unlawful commerce (for her sister, dreading the anger of her husband typho, had exposed it as soon as it was born), and accordingly, after much pains and difficulty, by means of some dogs that conducted her to the place where it was, she found it and bred it up; so that in process of time it became her constant guard and attendant, and from hence obtained the name of anubis, being thought to watch and guard the gods, as dogs do mankind. "at length she receives more particular news of the chest, that it had been carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of byblos, [footnote: not the byblos of syria (jebêl) but the papyrus swamps of the delta.] and there gently lodged in the branches of a bush of tamarisk, which, in a short time, had shot up into a large and beautiful tree, growing round the chest and enclosing it on every side, so that it was not to be seen; and farther, that the king of the country, amazed at its unusual size, had cut the tree down, and made that part of the trunk wherein the chest was concealed, a pillar to support; the roof of his house. these things, say they, being made known to isis in an extraordinary manner by the report of demons, sue immediately went to byblos; where, setting herself down by the side of a fountain, she refused to speak to anybody, excepting only to the queen's women who chanced to be there; these indeed she saluted and caressed in the kindest manner possible, plaiting their hair for them, and transmitting into them part of that wonderfully grateful odour which issued from her own body. this raised a great desire in the queen their mistress to see the stranger who had this admirable faculty of transfusing so fragrant a smell from herself into the hair and skin of other people. she therefore sent for her to court, and, after a further acquaintance with her, made her nurse to one of her sons. now the name of the king who reigned at this time at byblos, was meloarthus, as that of his queen was astarte, or, according to others, saosis, though some call her nemanoun, which answers to the greek name athenais. "isis fed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of the breast; she likewise put him every night into the fire in order to consume his mortal part, whilst transforming herself into a swallow, she hovered round the pillar and bemoaned her sad fate. thus continued she to do for some time, till the queen, who stood watching her, observing the child to be all in a flame, cryed out, and thereby deprived him of that immortality which would otherwise have been conferred upon him. the goddess upon this, discovering herself, requested that the pillar, which supported the roof, might be given her; which she accordingly took down, and then easily cutting it open, after she had taken, out what she wanted, she wrapped up the remainder of the trunk in fine linnen, and pouring perfumed oil upon it, delivered it again into the hands of the king and queen (which piece of wood is to this day preserved in the temple of isis, and worshipped by the people of byblos). when this was done, she threw herself upon the chest, making at the same time such a loud and terrible lamentation over it, as frightened the younger of the king's sons, who heard her, out of his life. but the elder of them she took with, her and set sail with the chest for egypt; and it being now about morning, the river phaedrus sending forth a rough and sharp air, she in her anger dried up its current. "no sooner was she arrived at a desart place, where she imagined herself to be alone, but she presently opened the chest, and laying her face upon her dead husband's, embraced his corpse, and wept bitterly; but, perceiving that the little boy had silently stolen behind her, and found out the occasion of her grief, she turned herself about on the sudden, and in her anger gave him so fierce and stern a look that he immediately died of the affright. others indeed say that his death did not happen in this manner, but, as was hinted above, that he fell into the sea, and afterwards received the greatest honours on account of the goddess; for that the maneros, [footnote: a son of the first egyptian king, who died in his early youth; see herodotus, ii. .] whom the egyptians so frequently call upon in their banquets, is none other than this very boy. this relation is again contradicted by such as tell us that the true name of the child was palaestinus, or pelusius, and that the city of this name was built by the goddess in memory of him; adding farther, that the maneros above mentioned is thus honoured by the egyptians at their feasts, because he was the first who invented music. there are others, again, who affirm that maneros is not the name of any particular person, but a mere customary form, and complimental manner of greeting made use of by the egyptians one towards another at their more solemn feasts and banquets, meaning no more by it, than to wish, that what they were then about might prove fortunate and happy to them, for that this is the true import of the word. in like manner, say they, the human skeleton, which at these times of jollity is carried about in a box, and shewn to all the guests, is not designed, as some imagine, to represent the particular misfortunes of osiris, but rather to remind them of their mortality, and thereby to excite them freely to make use of and to enjoy the good things which are set before them, seeing they must quickly become such as they there saw; and that this is the true reason of introducing it at their banquets--but to proceed in the narration. "isis intending a visit to her son orus, who was brought up at butus, deposited the chest in the meanwhile in a remote and unfrequented place: typho however, as he was one night hunting by the light of the moon, accidentally met with it; and knowing the body which was enclosed in it, tore it into several pieces, fourteen, in all, dispersing them up and down, in different parts of the country--upon being made acquainted with this event, isis once more sets out in search of the scattered fragments of her husband's body, making use of a boat made of the reed papyrus in order the more easily to pass thro' the lower and fenny parts of the country--for which, reason, say they, the crocodile never touches any persons, who sail in this sort of vessels, as either fearing the anger of the goddess, or else respecting it on account of its having once carried her. to this occasion therefore is it to be imputed, that there are so many different sepulchres of osiris shewn, in egypt; for we are told, that wherever isis met with any of the scattered limbs of her husband, she there buried it. there are others however who contradict this relation, and tell us, that this variety of sepulchres was owing rather to the policy of the queen, who, instead of the real body, as was pretended, presented these several cities with the image only of her husband: and that she did this, not only to render the honours, which would by this means be paid to his memory, more extensive, but likewise that she might hereby elude the malicious search of typho; who, if he got the better of orus in the war wherein they were going to be engaged, distracted by this multiplicity of sepulchres, might despair of being able to find the true one--we are told moreover, that notwithstanding all her search, isis was never able to recover the member of osiris, which having been thrown into the nile immediately upon its separation from the rest of the body, had been devoured by the lepidotus, the phagrus, and the oxyrynchus, fish which of all others, for this reason, the egyptians have in more especial avoidance. in order however to make some amends for the loss, isis consecrated the phallus made in imitation of it, and instituted a solemn festival to its memory, which is even, to this day observed by the egyptians. "after these things, osiris returning from the other world, appeared to his son orus, encouraged him to the battle, and at the same time instructed him in the exercise of arms. he then asked him, 'what he thought was the moat glorious action a man could perform?' to which orua replied, 'to revenge the injuries offered to his father and mother.' he then asked him, 'what animal he thought most serviceable to a soldier?' and being answered 'a horse'; this raised the wonder of osiris, so that he farther questioned him, 'why he preferred a horse before a lion?' because, adds orus, 'tho' the lion be the more serviceable creature to one who stands in need of help, yet is the horse [footnote: the horse does not appear to have been known in egypt before the xviiith dynasty; this portion of plutarch's version of the history of osiris must, then, be later than b.c. .] more useful in overtaking and cutting off a flying adversary.' these replies much rejoiced osiris, as they showed him that his son was sufficiently prepared for his enemy--we are moreover told, that among the great numbers who were continually deserting from typho's party was his concubine thueris, and that a serpent pursuing her as she was coming over to orus, was slain by her soldiers--the memory of which action, say they, is still preserved in that cord which is thrown into the midst of their assemblies, and then chopt into pieces--afterwards it came to a battle between, them which lasted many days; but victory at length inclined to orus, typho himself being taken prisoner. isis however, to whose custody he was committed, was so far from putting him to death, that she even loosed his bonds and set him at liberty. this action of his mother so extremely incensed orus, that he laid hands upon her, and pulled off the ensign of royalty which she wore on her head; and instead thereof hermes clapt on an helmet made in the shape of an oxe's head--after this, typho publicly accused orus of bastardy; but by the assistance of hermes (thoth) his legitimacy was fully established by the judgment of the gods themselves--after this; there were two other battles fought between them, in both of which typho had the worst. furthermore, isis is said to have accompanied with osiris after his death, and in consequence hereof to have brought forth harpocrates, who came into the world before his time, and lame in his lower limbs." when we examine this story by the light of the results of hieroglyphic decipherment, we find that a large portion of it is substantiated by egyptian texts: _e.g._, osiris was the son of seb and nut; the epact is known in the calendars as "the five additional days of the year"; the five gods, osiris, horus, set, isis, and nephthys, were born on the days mentioned by plutarch; the th day of athyr (hathor) is marked as triply unlucky in the calendars; the wanderings and troubles of isis are described, and "lamentations" which she is supposed to have uttered are found in the texts; lists of the shrines of osiris are preserved in several inscriptions; the avenging of his father by horus is referred to frequently in papyri and other documents; the conflict between set and horus is described fully in a papyrus in the british museum (no. , ); a hymn in the papyrus of hunefer relates all that thoth performed for osiris; and the begetting of horus by osiris after death is mentioned in a hymn to osiris dating from the xviiith dynasty in the following passage:-- "thy sister put forth her protecting power for thee, she scattered abroad those who were her enemies, she drove away evil hap, she pronounced mighty words of power, she made cunning her tongue, and her words failed not. the glorious isis was perfect in command and in speech, and she avenged her brother. she sought him without ceasing, she wandered round and round the earth uttering cries of pain, and she rested (_or_ alighted) not until she had found him. she overshadowed him with her feathers, she made air (_or_ wind) with her wings, and she uttered cries at the burial of her brother. she raised up the prostrate form of him whose heart was still, she took from him of his essence, she conceived and brought forth a child, she suckled it in secret, and none knew the place thereof; and the arm of the child hath waxed strong in the great house of seb. the company of the gods rejoice, and are glad at the coming of osiris's son horus, and firm of heart and triumphant is the son of isis, the heir of osiris." [footnote: this remarkable hymn was first made known by chabas, who published a translation of it, with notes, in _revue archéologique_, paris, , t. xiv. p. ff.] [illustration: . isis suckling her child horus in the papyrus swamps. . thoth giving the emblem of magical protection to isis. . amen-r[=a] presenting the symbol of "life" to isis. . the goddess nekhebet presenting years, and life, stability, power, and sovereignty to the son of osiris. . the goddess sati presenting periods of years, and life, stability, power, and sovereignty to the son of osiris.] what form the details of the history of osiris took in the early dynasties it is impossible to say, and we know not whether osiris was the god of the resurrection to the predynastic or prehistoric egyptians, or whether that _rôle_ was attributed to him after mena began to rule in egypt. there is, however, good reason for assuming that in the earliest dynastic times he occupied the position of god and judge of those who had risen from the dead by his help, for already in the ivth dynasty, about b.c. , king mea-kau-r[=a] (the mycerinus of the greeks) is identified with him, and on his coffin not only is he called "osiris, king of the south and north, men-kau-r[=a], living for ever," but the genealogy of osiris is attributed to him, and he is declared to be "born of heaven, offspring of nut, flesh and bone of seb." it is evident that the priests of heliopolis "edited" the religious texts copied and multiplied in the college to suit their own views, but in the early times when they began their work, the worship of osiris was so widespread, and the belief in him as the god of the resurrection so deeply ingrained in the hearts of the egyptians, that even in the heliopolitan system of theology osiris and his cycle, or company of gods, were made to hold a very prominent position. he represented to men the idea of a man who was both god and man, and he typified to the egyptians in all ages the being who by reason of his sufferings and death as a man could sympathize with them in their own sickness and death. the idea of his human personality also satisfied their cravings and yearnings for intercourse with a being who, though he was partly divine, yet had much in common with themselves. originally they looked upon osiris as a man who lived on the earth as they lived, who ate and drank, who suffered a cruel death, who by the help of certain gods triumphed over death, and attained unto everlasting life. but what osiris did they could do, and what the gods did for osiris they must also do for them, and as the gods brought about his resurrection so they must bring about theirs, and as they made him the ruler of the underworld so they must make them to enter his kingdom and to live there as long as the god himself lived. osiris, in some of his aspects, was identified with the nile, and with r[=a], and with several other "gods" known to the egyptians, but it was in his aspect as god of the resurrection and of eternal life that he appealed to men in the valley of the nile; and for thousands of years men and women died believing that, inasmuch as all that was done for osiris would be done for them symbolically, they like him would rise again, and inherit life everlasting. however far back we trace religious ideas in egypt, we never approach a time when it can be said that there did not exist a belief in the resurrection, for everywhere it is assumed that osiris rose from the dead; sceptics must have existed, and they probably asked their priests what the corinthians asked saint paul, "how are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" but beyond doubt the belief in the resurrection was accepted by the dominant classes in egypt. the ceremonies which the egyptians performed with the view of assisting the deceased to pass the ordeal of the judgment, and to overcome his enemies in the next world, will be described elsewhere, as also will be the form in which the dead were raised up; we therefore return to the theological history of osiris. the centre and home of the worship of osiris in egypt under the early dynasties was abydos, where the head of the god was said to be buried. it spread north and south in the course of time, and several large cities claimed to possess one or other of the limbs of his body. the various episodes in the life of the god were made the subject of solemn representations in the temple, and little by little the performance of the obligatory and non-obligatory services in connection with them occupied, in certain temples, the greater part of the time of the priests. the original ideas concerning the god were forgotten and new ones grew up; from being the _example_ of a man who had risen from the dead and had attained unto life everlasting, he became the _cause_ of the resurrection of the dead; and the power to bestow eternal life upon mortals was transferred from the gods to him. the alleged dismemberment of osiris was forgotten in the fact that he dwelt in a perfect body in the underworld, and that, whether dismembered or not, he had become after his death the father of horus by isis. as early as the xiith dynasty, about b.c. , the worship of this god had become almost universal, and a thousand years later osiris had become a sort of national god. the attributes of the great cosmic gods were ascribed to him, and he appeared to man not only as the god and judge of the dead, but also as the creator of the world and of all things in it. he who was the son of r[=a] became the equal of his father, and he took his place side by side with him in heaven. we have an interesting proof of the identification of osiris with r[=a] in chapter xvii. of the book of the dead. it will be remembered that this chapter consists of a series of what might almost be called articles of faith, each of which is followed by one or more explanations which represent one or more quite different opinions; the chapter also is accompanied by a series of vignettes. in line it is said, "i am the soul which dwelleth in the two _tchafi_, [footnote: _i.e._, the souls of osiris and r[=a].] what is this then? it is osiris when he goeth into tattu (_i.e._, busiris) and findeth there the soul of r[=a]; there the one god embraceth the other, and souls spring into being within the two _tchafi_." in the vignette which illustrates this passage the souls of r[=a] and osiris are seen in the forms of hawks standing on a pylon, and facing each other in tattu; the former has upon his head a disk, and the latter, who is human-headed, the white crown. it is a noticeable fact that even at his meeting with r[=a] the soul of osiris preserves the human face, the sign of his kinship with man. now osiris became not only the equal of r[=a], but, in many respects, a greater god than he. it is said, that from the nostrils of the head of osiris, which was buried at abydos, came forth the scarabaeus [footnote: see von berginaun in _aeg zeitschrift_, , p. ff.] which was at once the emblem and type of the god khepera, who caused all things to come into being, and of the resurrection. in this manner osiris became the source and origin of gods, men, and things, and [illustration: the soul of r[=a] ( ) meeting the soul of osiris ( ) in tattu. the cat (_i.e._, r[=a]) by the persea tree ( ) cutting off the head of the serpent which typified night.] the manhood of the god was forgotten. the next step was to ascribe to him the attributes of god, and in the xviiith and xixth dynasties he seems to have disputed the sovereignty of the three companies of gods, that is to say of the trinity of trinities of trinities, [footnote: each company of the gods contained three trinities or triads.] with amen-r[=a], who by this time was usually called the "king of the gods." the ideas held concerning osiris at this period will best be judged by the following extracts from contemporary hymns:-- "glory [footnote: see _chapters of coming forth by day_ (translation), p. .] be to thee, o osiris, un-nefer, the great god within abtu (abydos), king of eternity, lord of everlastingness, who passest through millions of years in thy existence. the eldest son of the womb of nut, engendered by seb the ancestor [of the gods], lord of the crowns of the south and of the north, lord of the lofty white crown; as prince of gods and men he hath received the crook and the whip, and the dignity of his divine fathers. let thy heart, which dwelleth in the mountain of ament, be content, for thy son horus is stablished upon thy throne. thou art crowned lord of tattu (busiris) and ruler in abydos." "praise [footnote: _ibid._, p. .] be unto thee, o osiris, lord of eternity, un-nefer, heru-khuti (harmachis) whose forms are manifold, and whose attributes are great, who art ptah-seker-tem in annu (heliopolis), the lord of the hidden place, and the creator of het-ka-ptah (memphis) and of the gods [therein], the guide of the underworld, whom [the gods] glorify when thou settest in nut. isis embraceth thee in peace, and she driveth away the fiends from the mouth of thy paths. thou turnest thy face upon amentet, and thou makest the earth to shine as with refined copper. the dead rise up to see thee, they breathe the air and they look upon thy face when the disk riseth on its horizon; their hearts are at peace, inasmuch as they behold thee, o thou who art eternity and everlastingness." in the latter extract osiris is identified with the great gods of heliopolis and memphis, where shrines of the sun-god existed in almost pre-dynastic times, and finally is himself declared to be "eternity and everlastingness"; thus the ideas of resurrection and immortality are united in the same divine being. in the following litany the process of identification with the gods is continued:-- . "homage to thee, o thou who art the starry deities in annu, and the heavenly beings in kher-aba; [footnote: a district near memphis.] thou god unti, [footnote: a god who walks before the boat of the god, af, holding a star in each hand.] who art more glorious than the gods who are hidden in annu. o grant thou unto me a path whereon i may pass in peace, for i am just and true; i have not spoken lies wittingly, nor have i done aught with deceit." . "homage to thee, o an in antes, harmachis; thou stridest over heaven with, long strides, o harmachis. o grant thou unto me a path," etc. [footnote: this petition is only written once, but it is intended to be repeated after each of the nine sections of the litany.] . "homage to thee, o soul of everlastingness, thou soul who dwellest in tattu, un-nefer, son of nut; thou art lord of akert (_i.e._, the underworld). o grant thou unto me a path," etc. . "homage to thee in thy dominion over tattu; the ureret crown is stablished upon thy head; thou art the one who maketh the strength which protecteth himself, and thou dwellest in peace in tattu. o grant thou unto me a path," etc. . "homage to thee, o lord of the acacia [footnote: this tree was in heliopolis, and the cat, _i.e._, the sun, sat near it. (see p. ).] tree, the seker boat [footnote: the ceremony of setting the seker boat on its sledge was performed at dawn.] is set upon its sledge; thou turnest back the fiend, the worker of evil, and thou causest the utchat (_i.e._, the eye of horus or r[=a]), to rest upon its seat. o grant thou unto me a path," etc. . "homage to thee, o thou who art mighty in thine hour, thou great and mighty prince, dweller in an-rut-f, [footnote: the place where nothing grows--the underworld.] lord of eternity and creator of everlastingness, thou art the lord of suten-henen _(_i.e._, heracleopolis magna). o grant," etc. . "homage to thee, o thou who restest upon right and truth, thou art lord of abydos, and thy limbs are joined unto ta-tchesert (_i.e._, the holy land, the underworld); thou art he to whom fraud and guile are hateful. o grant," etc. . "homage to thee, o thou who art within thy boat; thou bringest h[=a]pi (_i.e._, the nile) forth from his source; the light shineth upon thy body, and thou art the dweller in nekhen. o grant," etc. . "homage to thee, o creator of the gods, thou king of the south and of the north, o osiris, victorious one, ruler of the world in thy gracious seasons; thou art the lord of the celestial world. o grant," etc. and, again: "r[=a] setteth as osiris with all the diadems of the divine spirits and of the gods of amentet. he is the one divine form, the hidden one of the tuat, the holy soul at the head of amentet, un-nefer, whose duration of life is for ever and ever." [footnote: see _chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] we have already referred to the help which thoth gave to isis when he provided her with the words which caused her dead husband to live again, but the best summary of the good deeds which this god wrought for osiris is contained in a hymn in the _papyrus of hunefer_, [footnote: _ibid_., p. .] where the deceased is made to say:-- "i have come unto thee, o son of nut, osiris, prince of everlastingness; i am, in the following of the god thoth, and i have rejoiced at everything which he hath done for thee. he brought the sweet air into thy nostrils, and life and strength to thy beautiful face; and the north wind which cometh forth from temu for thy nostrils, o lord of ta-tchesert. he made the god shu to shine upon thy body; he illumined thy path with rays of light; he destroyed for thee the faults and defects of thy members by the magical power of the words of his mouth; he made set and horus to be at peace for thy sake; he destroyed the storm-wind and the hurricane; he made the two combatants (_i.e._, set and horus) to be gracious unto thee and the two lauds to be at peace before thee; he did away the wrath which was in their hearts, and each became reconciled unto his brother (_i.e._, thyself). "thy son horus is triumphant in the presence of the full assembly of the gods, the sovereignty over the world hath been given unto him, and his dominion extendeth unto the uttermost parts of the earth. the throne of the god seb hath been adjudged unto him, together with the rank which was created by the god temu, and which hath been stablished by decrees [made] in the chamber of archives, and hath been inscribed upon an iron tablet according to the command of thy father ptah-tanen when he sat upon the great throne. he hath set his brother upon that which the god shu beareth up (_i.e._, the heavens), to stretch out the waters over the mountains, and to make to spring up that which groweth upon the hills, and the grain (?) which shooteth upon the earth, and he giveth increase by water and by land. gods celestial and gods terrestrial transfer themselves to the service of thy son horus, and they follow him into his hall [where] a decree is passed that he shall be lord over them, and they do [his will] straightway. "let thy heart rejoice, o lord of the gods, let thy heart rejoice greatly; egypt and the red land are at peace, and they serve humbly under thy sovereign power. the temples are stablished upon their own lands, cities and nomes possess securely the goods which they have in their names, and we will make unto thee the divine offerings which we are bound to make, and offer sacrifices in thy name for ever. acclamations are made in thy name, libations are poured out to thy ka, and sepulchral meals [are brought unto thee] by the spirits who are in thy following, and water is sprinkled ... on each side of the souls of the dead in this land. every plan for thee which hath been decreed by the commands of r[=a] from the beginning hath been perfected. now therefore, o son of nut, thou art crowned as neb-er-tcher is crowned at his rising. thou livest, thou art stablished, thou renewest thy youth, and thou art true and perfect; thy father r[=a] maketh strong thy members, and the company of the gods make acclamations unto thee. the goddess isis is with thee and she never leaveth thee; [thou art] not overthrown by thine enemies. the lords of all lands praise thy beauties, even as they praise r[=a] when he riseth at the beginning of each day. thou risest up like an exalted being upon thy standard, thy beauties lift up the face [of man] and make long [his] stride. the sovereignty of thy father seb hath, been given unto thee, and the goddess nut, thy mother, who gave birth to the gods, brought thee forth as the firstborn, of five gods, and created thy beauties and fashioned thy members. thou art established as king, the white crown is upon thy head, and thou hast grasped in thy hands the crook and whip; whilst thou wert in the womb, and hadst not as yet come forth therefrom upon the earth, thou wert crowned lord of the two lands, and the 'atef' crown of r[=a] was upon thy brow. the gods come unto thee bowing low to the ground, and they hold thee in fear; they retreat and depart when, they see thee with the terror of r[=a], and the victory of thy majesty is in their hearts. life is with thee, and offerings of meat and drink follow thee, and that which is thy due is offered up before thy face." in one paragraph of another somewhat similar hymn [footnote: see _chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] other aspects of osiris are described, and after the words "homage to thee, o governor of those who are in amentet," he is called the being who "giveth birth unto men and women a second time," [footnote: the words are _mes tememu em nem_.] _i.e._, "who maketh mortals to be born again." as the whole paragraph refers to osiris "renewing himself," and to his making himself "young like unto r[=a] each and every day," there can be no doubt that the resurrection of the dead, that is to say, their birth into a new life, is what the writer means by the second birth of men and women. from this passage also we may see that osiris has become the equal of r[=a], and that he has passed from being the god of the dead to being the god of the living. moreover, at the time when the above extracts were copied osiris was not only assumed to have occupied the position which r[=a] formerly held, but his son horus, who was begotten after his death, was, by virtue of his victory over set, admitted to be the heir and successor of osiris. and he not only succeeded to the "rank and dignity" of his father osiris, but in his aspect of "avenger of his father," he gradually acquired the peculiar position of intermediary and intercessor on behalf of the children of men. thus in the judgment scene he leads the deceased into the presence of osiris and makes an appeal to his father that the deceased may be allowed to enjoy the benefits enjoyed by all those who are "true of voice" and justified in the judgment. such an appeal, addressed to osiris in the presence of isis, from the son born under such remarkable circumstances was, the egyptian thought, certain of acceptance; and the offspring of a father, after the death of whose body he was begotten, was naturally the best advocate for the deceased. but although such exalted ideas of osiris and his position among the gods obtained generally in egypt during the xviiith dynasty (about b.c. ) there is evidence that some believed that in spite of every precaution the body might decay, and that it was necessary to make a special appeal unto osiris if this dire result was to be avoided. the following remarkable prayer was first found inscribed upon a linen swathing which had enveloped the mummy of thothmes iii., but since that time the text, written in hieroglyphics, has been found inscribed upon the _papyrus of nu_, [footnote: brit. mus., no. , , sheet . i have published the text in my _chapters of coming forth by day_, pp. - .] and it is, of course, to be found also in the late papyrus preserved at turin, which the late dr. lepsius published so far back as . this text, which is now generally known as chapter cliv of the book of the dead, is entitled "the chapter of not letting the body perish." the text begins:-- "homage to thee, o my divine father osiris! i have come to thee that thou mayest embalm, yea embalm these my members, for i would not perish and come to an end, [but would be] even like unto my divine father khepera, the divine type of him that never saw corruption. come, then, and make me to have the mastery over my breath, o thou lord of the winds, who dost magnify those divine beings who are like unto thyself. stablish thou me, then, and strengthen me, o lord of the funeral chest. grant thou that i may enter into the land of everlastingness, even as it was granted unto thee, and unto thy father temu, o thou whose body did not see corruption, and who thyself never sawest corruption. i have never wrought that which thou hatest, nay, i have uttered acclamations with those who have loved thy ka. let not my body turn into worms, but deliver me [from them] even as thou didst deliver thyself. i beseech thee, let me not fall into rottenness as thou dost let every god, and every goddess, and every animal, and every reptile to see corruption when the soul hath gone forth from them after their death. for when the soul departeth, a man seeth corruption, and the bones of his body rot and become wholly loathsomeness, the members decay piecemeal, the bones crumble into an inert mass, the flesh turneth into foetid liquid, and he becometh a brother unto the decay which cometh upon him. and he turneth into a host of worms, and he becometh a mass of worms, and an end is made of him, and he perisheth in the sight of the god shu even as doth every god, and every goddess, and every feathered fowl, and every fish, and every creeping thing, and every reptile, and every animal, and every thing whatsoever. when the worms see me and know me, let them fall upon their bellies, and let the fear of me terrify them; and thus let it be with every creature after [my] death, whether it be animal, or bird, or fish, or worm, or reptile. and let life arise out of death. let not decay caused by any reptile make an end [of me], and let not them come against me in their various forms. do not thou give me over unto that slaughterer who dwelleth in his torture-chamber (?), who killeth the members of the body and maketh them to rot, who worketh destruction upon many dead bodies, whilst he himself remaineth hidden and liveth by slaughter; let me live and perform his message, and let me do that which is commanded by him. gave me not over unto his fingers, and let him not gain, the mastery over me, for i am under thy command, o lord of the gods. "homage to thee; o my divine father osiris, thou hast thy being with thy members. thou didst not decay, thou didst not become worms, thou didst not diminish, thou didst not become corruption, thou didst not putrefy, and thou didst not turn into worms." the deceased then identifying himself with khepera, the god who created osiris and his company of gods, says:-- "i am the god khepera, and my members shall have an everlasting existence. i shall not decay, i shall not rot, i shall not putrefy, i shall not turn into worms, and i shall not see corruption under the eye of the god shu. i shall have my being, i shall have my being; i shall live, i shall live; i shall germinate, i shall germinate, i shall germinate; i shall wake up in peace. i shall not putrefy; my bowels shall not perish; i shall not suffer injury; mine eye shall not decay; the form of my countenance shall not disappear; mine ear shall not become deaf; my head shall not be separated from my neck; my tongue shall not be carried away; my hair shall not be cut off; mine eyebrows shall not be shaved off, and no baleful injury shall come upon me. my body shall be stablished, and it shall neither fall into ruin, nor be destroyed on this earth." judging from such passages as those given above we might think that certain of the egyptians expected a resurrection of the physical body, and the mention of the various members of the body seems to make this view certain. but the body of which the incorruption and immortality are so strongly declared is the s[=a]hu; or spiritual body, that sprang into existence out of the physical body, which had become transformed by means of the prayers that had been recited and the ceremonies that had been performed on the day of the funeral, or on that wherein it was laid in the tomb. it is interesting to notice that no mention is made of meat or drink in the clivth chapter, and the only thing which the deceased refers to as necessary for his existence is air, which he obtains through, the god temu, the god who is always depicted in human form; the god is here mentioned in his aspect of the night sun as opposed to r[=a] the day sun, and a comparison of the sun's daily death with the death of the deceased is intended to be made. the deposit of the head of the god-man osiris at abydos has already been mentioned, and the belief that it was preserved there was common throughout egypt. but in the text quoted above the deceased says, "my head shall not be separated from my neck," which seems to indicate that he wished to keep his body whole, notwithstanding that osiris was almighty, and could restore the limbs and reconstitute the body, even as he had done for his own limbs and body which had been hacked to pieces by set. chapter xliii of the book of the dead [footnote: see _the chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] also has an important reference to the head of osiris. it is entitled "the chapter of not letting the head of a man be cut off from him in the underworld," and must be of considerable antiquity. in it the deceased says: "i am the great one, the son of the great one; i am fire, and the son of the fire, to whom was given his head after it had been cut off. the head of osiris was not taken away from him, let not the head of the deceased be taken away from him. i have knit myself together (_or_ reconstituted myself); i have made myself whole and complete; i have renewed my youth; i am osiris, the lord of eternity." from the above it would seem that, according to one version of the osiris story, the head of osiris was not only cut off, but that it was passed through the fire also; and if this version be very ancient, as it well may be and probably is, it takes us back to prehistoric times in egypt when the bodies of the dead were mutilated and burned. prof. wiedemann thinks [footnote: see j. de morgan, _ethnographie préhistorique_, p. .] that the mutilation and breaking of the bodies of the dead were the results of the belief that in order to make the ka, or "double," leave this earth, the body to which it belonged must be broken, and he instances the fact that objects of every kind were broken at the time when they were placed in the tombs. he traces also a transient custom in the prehistoric graves of egypt where the methods of burying the body whole and broken into pieces seem to be mingled, for though in some of them the body has been broken into pieces, it is evident that successful attempts have been made to reconstitute it by laying the pieces as far as possible in their proper places. and it may be this custom which is referred to in various places in the book of the dead, when the deceased declares that he has collected his limbs "and made his body whole again," and already in the vth dynasty king teta is thus addressed--"rise up, o thou teta! thou hast received thy head, thou hast knitted together thy bones, [footnote: _recueil de travaux_, tom. v. p. (i. ).] thou hast collected thy members." the history of osiris, the god of the resurrection, has now been traced from the earliest times to the end of the period of the rule of the priests of amen (about b.c. ), by which time amen-r[=a] had been thrust in among the gods of the underworld, and prayers were made, in some cases, to him instead of to osiris. from this time onwards amen maintained this exalted position, and in the ptolemaic period, in an address to the deceased ker[=a]sher we read. "thy face shineth before r[=a], thy soul liveth before amen, and thy body is renewed before osiris." and again it is said, "amen is nigh unto thee to make thee to live again.... amen cometh to thee having the breath of life, and he causeth thee to draw thy breath within thy funeral house." but in spite of this, osiris kept and held the highest place in the minds of the egyptians, from first to last, as the god-man, the being who was both divine and human; and no foreign invasion, and no religious or political disturbances, and no influence which any outside peoples could bring to bear upon them, succeeded in making them regard the god as anything less than the cause and symbol and type of the resurrection, and of the life everlasting. for about five thousand years men were mummified in imitation of the mummied form of osiris; and they went to their graves believing that their bodies would vanquish the powers of death, and the grave, and decay, because osiris had vanquished them; and they had certain hope of the resurrection in an immortal, eternal, and spiritual body, because osiris had risen in a transformed spiritual body, and had ascended into heaven, where he had become the king and the judge of the dead, and had attained unto everlasting life therein. the chief reason for the persistence of the worship of osiris in egypt was, probably, the fact that it promised both resurrection and eternal life to its followers. even after the egyptians had embraced christianity they continued to mummify their dead, and for long after they continued to mingle the attributes of their god and the "gods" with those of god almighty and christ. the egyptians of their own will never got away from the belief that the body must be mummified if eternal life was to be assured to the dead, but the christians, though preaching the same doctrine of the resurrection as the egyptians, went a step further, and insisted that there was no need to mummify the dead at all. st. anthony the great besought his followers not to embalm his body and keep it in a house, but to bury it and to tell no man where it had been buried, lest those who loved him should come and draw it forth, and mummify it as they were wont to do to the bodies of those whom they regarded as saints. "for long past," he said, "i have entreated the bishops and preachers to exhort the people not to continue to observe this useless custom"; and concerning his own body, he said, "at the resurrection of the dead i shall receive it from the saviour incorruptible." [footnote: see rosweyde, _vitae patrum_, p. ; _life of st. anthony_, by athanusius (migne), _patrologiae_, scr. graec, tom. , col. .] the spread of this idea gave the art of mummifying its death-blow, and though from innate conservatism, and the love of having the actual bodies of their beloved dead near them, the egyptians continued for a time to preserve their dead as before, yet little by little the reasons for mummifying were forgotten, the knowledge of the art died out, the funeral ceremonies were curtailed, the prayers became a dead letter, and the custom of making mummies became obsolete. with the death of the art died also the belief in and the worship of osiris, who from being the god of the dead became a dead god, and to the christians of egypt, at least, his place was filled by christ, "the firstfruits of them that slept," whose resurrection and power to grant eternal life were at that time being preached throughout most of the known world. in osiris the christian egyptians found the prototype of christ, and in the pictures and statues of isis suckling her son horus, they perceived the prototypes of the virgin mary and her child. never did christianity find elsewhere in the world a people whose minds were so thoroughly well prepared to receive its doctrines as the egyptians. this chapter may be fittingly ended by a few extracts from, the _songs of isis and nephthys_, which were sung in the temple of amen-r[=a] at thebes by two priestesses who personified the two goddesses. [footnote : see my _hieratic papyrus of nesi-amsu (archaeologia, vol. iii_)] "hail, thou lord of the underworld, thou bull of those who are therein, thou image of r[=a]-harmachis, thou babe of beautiful appearance, come thou to us in peace. thou didst repel thy disasters, thou didst drive away evil hap; lord, come to us in peace. o un-nefer, lord of food, thou chief, thou who art of terrible majesty, thou god, president of the gods, when thou dost inundate the land [all] things are engendered. thou art gentler than the gods. the emanations of thy body make the dead and the living to live, o thou lord of food, thou prince of green herbs, thou mighty lord, thou staff of life, thou giver of offerings to the gods, and of sepulchral meals to the blessed dead. thy soul flieth after r[=a], thou shinest at dawn, thou settest at twilight, thou risest every day; thou shalt rise on the left hand of atmu for ever and ever. thou art the glorious one, the vicar of r[=a]; the company of the gods cometh to thee invoking thy face, the flame whereof reacheth unto thine enemies. we rejoice when thou gatherest together thy bones, and when thou hast made whole thy body daily. anubis cometh to thee, and the two sisters (_i.e._, isis and nephthys) come to thee. they have obtained beautiful things for thee, and they gather together thy limbs for thee, and they seek to put together the mutilated members of thy body. wipe thou the impurities which are on them upon our hair and come thou to us having no recollection, of that which hath caused thee sorrow. come thou in thy attribute of 'prince of the earth,' lay aside thy trepidation and be at peace with us, o lord. thou shalt be proclaimed heir of the world, and the one god, and, the fulfiller of the designs of the gods. all the gods invoke thee, come therefore to thy temple and be not afraid. o r[=a] (_i.e._, osiris), thou art beloved of isis and nephthys; rest thou in thy habitation forever." chapter iii. the "gods" of the egyptians. throughout this book we have had to refer frequently to the "gods" of egypt; it is now time to explain who and what they were. we have already shown how much the monotheistic side of the egyptian religion resembles that of modern christian nations, and it will have come as a surprise to some that a people, possessing such exalted ideas of god as the egyptians, could ever have become the byword they did through their alleged worship of a multitude of "gods" in various forms. it is quite true that the egyptians paid honour to a number of gods, a number so large that the list of their mere names would fill a volume, but it is equally true that the educated classes in egypt at all times never placed the "gods" on the same high level as god, and they never imagined that their views on this point could be mistaken. in prehistoric times every little village or town, every district and province, and every great city, had its own particular god; we may go a step farther, and say that every family of any wealth and position had its own god. the wealthy family selected some one to attend to its god, and to minister unto his wants, and the poor family contributed, according to its means, towards a common fund for providing a dwelling-house for the god, and for vestments, etc. but the god was an integral part of the family, whether rich or poor, and its destiny was practically locked up with that of the family. the overthrow of the family included the overthrow of the god, and seasons of prosperity resulted in abundant offerings, new vestments; perhaps a new shrine, and the like. the god of the village, although he was a more important being, might be led into captivity along with the people of the village, but the victory of his followers in a raid or fight caused the honours paid to him to be magnified and enhanced his renown. the gods of provinces or of great cities were, of course, greater than those of villages and private families, and in the large houses dedicated to them, _i.e._, temples, a considerable number of them, represented by statues, would be found. sometimes the attributes of one god would be ascribed to another, sometimes two or more gods would be "fused" or united and form one, sometimes gods were imported from remote villages and towns and even from foreign countries, and occasionally a community or town would repudiate its god or gods, and adopt a brand new set from some neighbouring district thus the number of the gods was always changing, and the relative position of individual gods was always changing; an obscure and almost unknown, local god to-day might through a victory in war become the chief god of a city, and on the other hand, a god worshipped with abundant offerings and great ceremony one month might sink into insignificance and become to all intents and purposes a dead god the next. but besides family and village gods there were national gods, and gods of rivers and mountains, and gods of earth and sky, all of which taken together made a formidable number of "divine" beings whose good-will had to be secured, and whose ill-will must be appeased. besides these, a number of animals as being sacred to the gods were also considered to be "divine," and fear as well as love made the egyptians add to their numerous classes of gods. the gods of egypt whose names are known to us do not represent all those that have been conceived by the egyptian imagination, for with them as with much else, the law of the survival of the fittest holds good. of the gods of the prehistoric man we know nothing, but it is more than probable that some of the gods who were worshipped in dynastic times represent, in a modified form, the deities of the savage, or semi-savage, egyptian that held their influence on his mind the longest. a typical example of such a god will suffice, namely thoth, whose original emblem was the dog-headed ape. in very early times great respect was paid to this animal on account of his sagacity, intelligence, and cunning; and the simple-minded egyptian, when he heard him chattering just before the sunrise and sunset, assumed that he was in some way holding converse or was intimately connected with the sun. this idea clung to his mind, and we find in dynastic times, in the vignette representing the rising sun, that the apes, who are said to be the transformed openers of the portals of heaven, form a veritable company of the gods, and at the same time one of the most striking features of the scene. thus an idea which came into being in the most remote times passed on from generation to generation until it became crystallized in the best copies of the book of the dead, at a period when egypt was at its zenith of power and glory. the peculiar species of the dog-headed ape which is represented in statues and on papyri is famous for its cunning, and it was the words which it supplied to thoth, who in turn transmitted them to osiris, that enabled osiris to be "true of voice," or triumphant, over his enemies. it is probably in this capacity, _i.e._, as the friend of the dead, that the dog-headed ape appears seated upon the top of the standard of the balance in which the heart of the deceased is being weighed against the feather symbolic of ma[=a]t; for the commonest titles of the god are "lord of divine books," "lord of divine words," _i.e._, the formulae which make the deceased to be obeyed by friend and foe alike in the next world. in later times, when thoth came to be represented by the ibis bird, his attributes were multiplied, and he became the god of letters, science, mathematics, etc.; at the creation he seems to have played a part not unlike that of "wisdom" which is so beautifully described by the writer of proverbs (see chap. viii. vv. - ). whenever and wherever the egyptians attempted to set up a system of gods they always found that the old local gods had to be taken into consideration, and a place had to be found for them in the system. this might be done by making them members of triads, or of groups of nine gods, now commonly called "enneads"; but in one form or other they had to appear. the researches made during the last few years have shown that there must have been several large schools of theological thought in egypt, and of each of these the priests did their utmost to proclaim the superiority of their gods. in dynastic times there must have been great colleges at heliopolis, memphis, abydos, and one or more places in the delta, not to mention the smaller schools of priests which, probably existed at places on both sides of the nile from memphis to the south. of the theories and doctrines of all such schools and colleges, those of heliopolis have survived in the completest form, and by careful examination of the funeral texts which were inscribed on the monuments of the kings of egypt of the vth and vith dynasties we can say what views they held about many of the gods. at the outset we see that the great god of heliopolis was temu or atmu, the setting sun, and to him the priests of that place ascribed the attributes which rightly belong to r[=a], the sun-god of the day-time. for some reason or other they formulated the idea of a company of the gods, nine in number, which was called the "great company _(paut)_ of the gods," and at the head of this company they placed the god temu. in chapter xvii of the book of the dead [footnote: see _chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] we find the following passage:-- "i am the god temu in his rising; i am the only one. i came into being in nu. i am r[=a] who rose in the beginning." next comes the question, "but who is this?" and the answer is: "it is r[=a] when at the beginning he rose in the city of suten-henen (heracleopolis magna) crowned like a king in rising. the pillars of the god shu were not as yet created when he was upon the staircase of him that dwelleth in khemennu (hermopolis magna)." from these statements we learn that temu and r[=a] were one and the same god, and that he was the first offspring of the god nu, the primeval watery mass out of which all the gods came into being. the text continues: "i am the great god nu who gave birth to himself, and who made his names to come into being and to form the company of the gods. but who is this? it is r[=a], the creator of the names of his members which came into being in the form of the gods who are in the train of r[=a]." and again: "i am he who is not driven back among the gods. but who is this? it is tem, the dweller in his disk, or as others say, it is r[=a] in his rising in the eastern horizon of heaven." thus we learn further that nu was self-produced, and that the gods are simply the names of his limbs; but then r[=a] is nu, and the gods who are in his train or following are merely personifications of the names of his own members. he who cannot be driven back among the gods is either temu or r[=a], and so we find that nu, temu, and r[=a] are one and the same god. the priests of heliopolis in setting temu at the head of their company of the gods thus gave r[=a], and nu also, a place of high honour; they cleverly succeeded in making their own local god chief of the company, but at the same time they provided the older gods with positions of importance. in this way worshippers of r[=a], who had regarded their god as the oldest of the gods, would have little cause to complain of the introduction of temu into the company of the gods, and the local vanity of heliopolis would be gratified. but besides the nine gods who were supposed to form the "great company" of gods of the city of heliopolis, there was a second group of nine gods called the "little company" of the gods, and yet a third group of nine gods, which formed the least company. now although the _paut_ or company of nine gods might be expected to contain nine always, this was not the case, and the number nine thus applied is sometimes misleading. there are several passages extant in texts in which the gods of a _paut_ are enumerated, but the total number is sometimes ten and sometimes eleven. this fact is easily explained when we remember that the egyptians deified the various forms or aspects of a god, or the various phases in his life. thus the setting sun, called temu or atmu, and the rising sun, called khepera, and the mid-day sun, called r[=a], were three forms of the same god; and if any one of these three forms was included in a _paut_ or company of nine gods, the other two forms were also included by implication, even though the _paut_ then contained eleven, instead of nine gods. similarly, the various forms of each god or goddess of the _paut_ were understood to be included in it, however large the total number of gods might become. we are not, therefore, to imagine that the three companies of the gods were limited in number to x , or twenty-seven, even though the symbol for god be given twenty-seven times in the texts. we have already alluded to the great number of gods who were known to the egyptians, but it will be readily imagined that it was only those who were thought to deal with man's destiny, here and hereafter, who obtained the worship and reverence of the people of egypt. these were, comparatively, limited in number, and in fact may be said to consist of the members of the great company of the gods of heliopolis, that is to say, of the gods who belonged to the cycle of osiris. these may be briefly described as follows:-- . temu or atmu, _i.e._, the "closer" of the day, just as ptah was the "opener" of the day. in the story of the creation he declares that he evolved himself under the form of the god khepera, and in hymns he is said to be the "maker of the gods", "the creator of men", etc., and he usurped the position of r[=a] among the gods of egypt. his worship must have been already very ancient at the time of the kings of the vth dynasty, for his traditional form is that of a man at that time. . shu was the firstborn son of temu. according to one legend he sprang direct from the god, and according to another the goddess hathor was his mother; yet a third legend makes him the son of temu by the goddess ius[=a]set. he it was who made his way between the gods seb and nut and raised up the latter to form the sky, and this belief is commemorated by the figures of this god in which he is represented as a god raising himself up from the earth with the sun's disk on his shoulders. as a power of nature he typified the light, and, standing on the top of a staircase at hermopolis magua, [footnote: see above, pp. and .] he raised up the sky and held it up during each day. to assist him in this work he placed a pillar at each of the cardinal points, and the "supports of shu" are thus the props of the sky. . tefnut was the twin-sister of shu; as a power of nature she typified moisture or some aspect of the sun's heat, but as a god of the dead she seems to have been, in some way, connected with the supply of drink to the deceased. her brother shu was the right eye of temu, and she was the left, _i.e._, shu represented an aspect of the sun, and tefnut of the moon. the gods temu, shu, and tefnut thus formed a trinity, and in the story of the creation the god temu says, after describing how shu and tefnut proceeded from himself, "thus from being one god i became three." . seb was the son of the god shu. he is called the "erp[=a]," _i.e._, the "hereditary chief" of the gods, and the "father of the gods," these being, of course, osiris, isis, set, and nephthys. he was originally the god of the earth, but later he became a god of the dead as representing the earth wherein the deceased was laid. one legend identifies him with the goose, the bird which, in later times was sacred to him, and he is often called the "great cackler," in allusion to the idea that he made the primeval egg from which the world came into being. . nut was the wife of seb and the mother of osiris, isis, set, and nephthys. originally she was the personification of the sky, and represented the feminine principle which was active at the creation of the universe. according to an old view, seb and nut existed in the primeval watery abyss side by side with shu and tefnut; and later seb became the earth and nut the sky. these deities were supposed to unite every evening, and to remain embraced until the morning, when the god shu separated them, and set the goddess of the sky upon his four pillars until the evening. nut was, naturally, regarded as the mother of the gods and of all things living, and she and her husband seb were considered to be the givers of food, not only to the living but also to the dead. though different views were current in egypt as to the exact location of the heaven of the beatified dead, yet all schools of thought in all periods assigned it to some region in the sky, and the abundant allusions in the texts to the heavenly bodies--that is, the sun, moon, and stars--which the deceased dwells with, prove that the final abode of the souls of the righteous was not upon earth. the goddess nut is sometimes represented as a female along whose body the sun travels, and sometimes as a cow; the tree sacred to her was the sycamore. . osiris was the son of seb and nut, the husband of isis and the father of horus. the history of this god is given elsewhere in this book so fully that it is only necessary to refer briefly to him. he was held to be a man although of divine origin; he lived and reigned as a king on this earth; he was treacherously murdered by his brother set, and his body was cut up into fourteen pieces, which were scattered about egypt; after his death, isis, by the use of magical formulae supplied to her by thoth, succeeded in raising him to life, and he begot a son called horus; when horus was grown up, he engaged in combat with set, and overcame him, and thus "avenged his father"; by means of magical formulae, supplied to him by thoth, osiris reconstituted and revivified his body, and became the type of the resurrection and the symbol of immortality; he was also the hope, the judge, and the god of the dead, probably even in pre-dynastic times. osiris was in one aspect a solar deity, and originally he seems to have represented the sun after it had set; but he is also identified with the moon. in the xviiith dynasty, however, he is already the equal of r[=a], and later the attributes of god and of all the "gods" were ascribed to him. . isis was the wife of osiris and mother of horus; as a nature goddess she had a place in the boat of the sun at the creation, when she probably typified the dawn. by reason of her success in revivifying her husband's body by means of the utterance of magical formulae, she is called the "lady of enchantments." her wanderings in search of her husband's body, and the sorrow which she endured in bringing forth and rearing her child in the papyrus swamps of the delta, and the persecution which she suffered at the hands of her husband's enemies, form the subject of many allusions in texts of all periods. she has various aspects, but the one which appealed most to the imagination of the egyptians, was that of "divine mother"; in this character thousands of statues represent her seated and suckling her child horus whom she holds upon her knees. . set was the son of seb and nut, and the husband of nephthys. at a very early period he was regarded as the brother and friend of "horus the elder," the aroueris of the greeks, and set represented the night whilst horus represented the day. each of these gods performed many offices of a friendly nature for the dead, and among others they set up and held the ladder by which the deceased made his way from this earth to heaven, and helped him to ascend it. but, at a later period, the views of the egyptians concerning set changed, and soon after the reign of the kings called "seti," _i.e._, those whose names were based upon that of the god, he became the personification of all evil, and of all that is horrible and terrible in nature, such as the desert in its most desolate form, the storm and the tempest, etc. set, as a power of nature, was always waging war with horus the elder, _i.e._, the night did battle with the day for supremacy; both gods, however, sprang from the same source, for the heads of both are, in one scene, made to belong to one body. when horus, the son of isis, had grown up, he did battle with set, who had murdered horus's father osiris, and vanquished him; in many texts these two originally distinct fights are confused, and the two horus gods also. the conquest of set by horus in the first conflict typified only the defeat of the night by the day, but the defeat of set in the second seems to have been understood as the victory of life over death, and of good over evil. the symbol of set was an animal with a head something like that of a camel, but it has not yet been satisfactorily identified; figures of the god are uncommon, for most of them were destroyed by the egyptians when they changed their views about him. . nephthys was the sister of isis and her companion in all her wanderings and troubles; like her she had a place in the boat of the sun at creation, when she probably typified the twilight or very early night. she was, according to one legend, the mother of anubis by osiris, but in the texts his father is declared to be r[=a]. in funeral papyri, stelae, etc., she always accompanies isis in her ministrations to the dead, and as she assisted osiris and isis to defeat the wickedness of her own husband (set), so she helped the deceased to overcome the powers of death and the grave. here then we have the nine gods of the divine company of heliopolis, but no mention is made of horus, the son of isis, who played such an important part in the history of his father osiris, and nothing is said about thoth; both gods are, however, included in the company in various passages of the text, and it may be that their omission from it is the result of an error of the scribe. we have already given the chief details of the history of the gods horus and thoth, and the principal gods of the other companies may now be briefly named. nu was the "father of the gods," and progenitor of the "great company of the gods"; he was the primeval watery mass out of which all things came. ptah was one of the most active of the three great gods who carried out the commands of thoth, who gave expression in words to the will of the primeval, creative power; he was self-created, and was a form of the sun-god r[=a] as the "opener" of the day. from certain allusions in the book of the dead he is known to have "opened the mouth" [footnote: "may the god ptah open my mouth"; "may the god shu open my mouth with his implement of iron wherewith he opened the mouth of the gods" (chap. xxiii.)] of the gods, and it is in this capacity that he became a god of the cycle of osiris. his feminine counterpart was the goddess sekhet, and the third member of the triad of which he was the chief was nefer-temu. ptah-seker is the dual god formed by fusing seker, the egyptian name of the incarnation of the apis bull of memphis, with ptah. ptah-seker-ausar was a triune god who, in brief, symbolized life, death, and the resurrection. khnemu was one of the old cosmic gods who assisted ptah in carrying out the commands of thoth, who gave expression in words to the will of the primeval, creative power, he is described as "the maker of things which are, the creator of things which shall be, the source of created things, the father of fathers, and the mother of mothers." it was he who, according to one legend, fashioned man upon a potter's wheel. khepera was an old primeval god, and the type of matter which contains within itself the germ of life which is about to spring into a new existence; thus he represented the dead body from which the spiritual body was about to rise. he is depicted in the form of a man having a beetle for a head, and this insect became his emblem because it was supposed to be self-begotten and self-produced. to the present day certain of the inhabitants of the sûdân, pound the dried scarabaeus or beetle and drink it in water, believing that it will insure them a numerous progeny. the name "khepera" means "he who rolls," and when the insect's habit of rolling along its ball filled with eggs is taken into consideration, the appropriateness of the name is apparent. as the ball of eggs rolls along the germs mature and burst into life; and as the sun rolls across the sky emitting light and heat and with them life, so earthly things are produced and have their being by virtue thereof. r[=a] was probably the oldest of the gods worshipped in egypt, and his name belongs to such a remote period that its meaning is unknown. he was in all periods the visible emblem of god, and was the god of this earth to whom offerings and sacrifices were made daily; time began when r[=a] appeared above the horizon at creation in the form of the sun, and the life of a man was compared to his daily course at a very early date. r[=a] was supposed to sail over heaven in two boats, the [=a]tet or m[=a] tet boat in which he journeyed from sunrise until noon, and the sektet boat in which he journeyed from noon until sunset. at his rising he was attacked by [=a]pep, a mighty "dragon" or serpent, the type of evil and darkness, and with this monster he did battle until the fiery darts which he discharged into the body of =apep scorched and burnt him up; the fiends that were in attendance upon this terrible foe were also destroyed by fire, and their bodies were hacked in pieces. a repetition of this story is given in the legend of the fight between horus and set, and in both forms it represented originally the fight which was supposed to go on daily between light and darkness. later, however, when osiris had usurped the position of r[=a], and horus represented a divine power who was about to avenge the cruel murder of his father, and the wrong which had been done to him, the moral conceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood were applied to light and darkness, that is to say, to horus and set. as r[=a] was the "father of the gods," it was natural that every god should represent some phase of him, and that he should represent every god. a good illustration of this fact is afforded by a hymn to r[=a], a fine copy of which is found inscribed on the walls of the sloping corridor in the tomb of seti i., about b.c. , from which we quote the following:-- . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, who dost enter into the habitations of ament, behold [thy] body is temu. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, who dost enter into the hidden place of anubis, behold, [thy] body is khepera. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, whose duration of life is greater than that of the hidden forms, behold [thy] body is shu. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, .... behold [thy] body is tefnut. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, who bringest forth, green things in their season, behold [thy] body is seb. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, thou mighty being who dost judge,... behold [thy] body is nut. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, the lord.... behold [thy] body is isis. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, whose head giveth light to that which is in front of thee, behold [thy] body is nephthys. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, thou source of the divine members, thou one, who bringest into being that which hath been begotten, behold [thy] body is horus. . "praise be unto thee, o r[=a], thou exalted power, who dost dwell in and illumine the celestial deep, behold [thy] body is nu." [footnote: for the text see _annales du musée guimet: le tombeau de seti _. (ed. lefébure), paris, , pl. v.] in the paragraphs which follow r[=a] is identified with a large number of gods and divine personages whose names are not of such common occurrence in the texts as those given above, and in one way or another the attributes of all the gods are ascribed to him. at the time when the hymn was written it is clear that polytheism, not pantheism as some would have it, was in the ascendant, and notwithstanding the fact that the theban god amen was gradually being forced to the headship of the companies of the gods of egypt, we find everywhere the attempt being made to emphasize the view that every god, whether foreign or native, was an aspect or form of r[=a]. the god amen just referred to was originally a local god of thebes, whose shrine was either founded or rebuilt as far back as the xiith dynasty, about b.c. . this "hidden" god, for such is the meaning of the name amen, was essentially a god of the south of egypt, but when the theban kings vanquished their foes in the north, and so became masters of the whole country, amen became a god of the first importance, and the kings of the xviiith, xixth, and xxth dynasties endowed his temples on a lavish scale. the priests of the god called amen "the king of the gods," and they endeavoured to make all egypt accept him as such, but in spite of their power they saw that they could not bring this result about unless they identified him with the oldest gods of the land. they declared that he represented the hidden and mysterious power which created and sustains the universe, and that the sun was the symbol of this power; they therefore added his name to that of r[=a], and in this form he gradually usurped the attributes and powers of nu, khnemu, ptah, h[=a]pi, and other great gods. a revolt headed by amen-hetep, or amenophis iv. (about b.c. ), took place against the supremacy of amen in the middle of the xviiith dynasty, but it was unsuccessful. this king hated the god and his name so strongly that he changed his own name into that of "khu-en-aten," _i.e._, "the glory of the solar disk," and ordered the name of amen to be obliterated, wherever possible, on temples and other great monuments; and this was actually done in many places. it is impossible to say exactly what the religious views of the king were, but it is certain that he wished to substitute the cult of aten, a form of the sun-god worshipped at annu (_i.e._, on or heliopolis) in very ancient times, for that of amen. "aten" means literally the "disk of the sun," and though it is difficult to understand at this distance of time in what the difference between the worship of r[=a] and the worship of "r[=a] in his disk" consisted, we may be certain that there must have been some subtle, theological distinction between them. but whatever the difference may have been, it was sufficient to make amenophis forsake the old capital thebes and withdraw to a place [footnote: the site is marked by the ruins of tell el-amarna.]some distance to the north of that city, where he carried on the worship of his beloved god aten. in the pictures of the aten worship which have come down to us the god appears in the form of a disk from which proceed a number of arms and hands that bestow life upon his worshippers. after the death of amenophis the cult of aten declined, and amen resumed his sway over the minds of the egyptians. want of space forbids the insertion here of a full list of the titles of amen, and a brief extract from the papyrus of the princess nesi-khensu [footnote: for a hieroglyphic transcript of the hieratic text, see maspero, _mémoires_, tom. i., p. ff.] must suffice to describe the estimation in which the god was held about b.c. . in this amen is addressed as "the holy god, the lord of all the gods, amen-r[=a], the lord of the thrones of the world, the prince of apt (_i.e._, karnak), the holy soul who came into being in the beginning, the great god who liveth by right and truth, the first ennead who gave birth unto the other two enneads, [footnote: _i.e._, the great, the little, and the least companies of the gods; each company (_paut_) contained nine gods.] the being in whom every god existeth, the one of one, the creator of the things which came into being when the earth took form in the beginning, whose births are hidden, whose forms are manifold, and whose growth cannot be known. the holy form, beloved and terrible and mighty.... the lord of space, the mighty one of the form of khepera, who came into existence through khepera, the lord of the form of khepera; when he came into being nothing existed except himself. he shone upon the earth from primeval time, he the disk, the prince of light and radiance.... when this holy god moulded himself, the heavens and the earth were made by his heart (_or_ mind).... he is the disk of the moon, the beauties whereof pervade the heavens and the earth, the untiring and beneficent king whose will germinateth from rising to setting, from whose divine eyes men and women come forth, and from whose mouth the gods do come, and [by whom] food and meat and drink are made and provided, and [by whom] the things which exist are created. he is the lord of time, and he traverseth eternity; he is the aged one who reneweth his youth.... he is the being who cannot be known, and he is more hidden than all the gods.... he giveth long life and multiplieth the years of those who are favoured by him, he is the gracious protector of him whom he setteth in his heart, and he is the fashioner of eternity and everlastingness. he is the king of the north and of the south, amen-r[=a], king of the gods, the lord of heaven, and of earth, and of the waters and of the mountains, with whose coming into being the earth began its existence, the mighty one, more princely than, all the gods of the first company." in the above extract, it will be noticed that amen is called the "one of one," or the "one one," a title which has been explained as having no reference whatever to the unity of god as understood in modern times: but unless these words are intended to express the idea of unity, what is their meaning? it is also said that he is "without second," and thus there is no doubt whatever that when the egyptians declared their god to be one, and without a second, they meant precisely what the hebrews and arabs meant when they declared their god to be one. [footnote: see deut., vi. ; and _koran_, chapter cxii.] such a god was an entirely different being from the personifications of the powers of nature and the existences which, for want of a better name, have been called "gods." but, besides r[=a], there existed in very early times a god called horus, whose symbol was the hawk, which, it seems, was the first living thing worshipped by the egyptians; horus was the sun-god, like r[=a], and in later times was confounded with horus the son of isis. the chief forms of horus given in the texts are: ( ) heru-ur (aroueris), ( ) heru-merti, ( ) heru-nub, ( ) heru-khent-khat, ( ) heru-khent-an-maa, ( ) heru-khuti, ( ) heru-sam-taui, ( ) heru-hekennu, ( ) heru-behutet. connected with one of the forms of horus, originally, were the four gods of the cardinal points, or the "four, spirits of horus," who supported heaven at its four corners; their names were hapi, tuamutee, amset, and qebhsennuf, and they represented the north, east, south, and west respectively. the intestines of the dead were embalmed and placed in four jars, each being under the protection, of one of these four gods. other important gods of the dead are: ( ) anubis, the son of r[=a] or osiris, who presided over the abode of the dead, and with ap-uat shared the dominion of the "funeral mountain"; the symbol of each of these gods is a jackal. ( ) hu and sa, the children of temu, or r[=a], who appear in the boat of the sun at the creation, and later in the judgment scene. ( ) the goddess ma[=a]t, who was associated with thoth, ptah, and khnemu in the work of creation; the name means "straight," hence what is right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast, unalterable, and the like. ( ) the goddess het-hert (hathor), _i.e._, the "house of horus," which was that part of the sky where the sun rose and set. the sycamore tree was sacred to her, and the deceased prays to be fed by her with celestial food from out of it ( ) the goddess meh-urt, who represented that portion of the sky in which the sun takes his daily course; here it was, according to the view held at one period at least, that the judgment of the deceased was supposed to take place. ( ) neith, the mother of sebek, who was also a goddess of the eastern portion of the sky. ( ) sekhet and bast, who are represented with the heads of a lion and a cat, and who were symbols of the destroying, scorching power of the sun, and of the gentle heat thereof, respectively. ( ) serq, who was a form of isis. ( ) ta-urt (thoueris), who was the genetrix of the gods. ( ) uatchet, who was a form of hather, and who had dominion over the northern sky, just as nekhebet was mistress of the southern sky. ( ) neheb-ka, who was a goddess who possessed magical powers, and in some respects resembled isis in her attributes. ( ) sebak, who was a form of the sun-god, and was in later times confounded with sebak, or sebek, the friend of set. ( ) amsu (or min or kuem), who was the personification of the generative and reproductive powers of nature. ( ) beb or baba, who was the "firstborn son of osiris." ( ) h[=a]pi, who was the god of the nile, and with whom most of the great gods were identified. the names of the beings who at one time or another were called "gods" in egypt are so numerous that a mere list of them would fill scores of pages, and in a work of this kind would be out of place. the reader is, therefore, referred to lanzone's _mitologia egizia_, where a considerable number are enumerated and described. chapter iv. the judgment of the dead. the belief that the deeds done in the body would be subjected to an analysis and scrutiny by the divine powers after the death of a man belongs to the earliest period of egyptian civilization, and this belief remained substantially the same in all generations. though we have no information as to the locality where the last judgment took place, or whether the egyptian soul passed into the judgment-hall immediately after the death of the body, or after the mummification was ended and the body was deposited in the tomb, it is quite certain that the belief in the judgment was as deeply rooted in the egyptians as the belief in immortality. there seems to have been no idea of a general judgment when all those who had lived in the world should receive their reward for the deeds done in the body; on the contrary, all the evidence available goes to show that each soul was dealt with individually, and was either permitted to pass into the kingdom of osiris and of the blessed, or was destroyed straightway. certain passages in the texts seem to suggest the idea of the existence of a place for departed spirits wherein the souls condemned in the judgment might dwell, but it must be remembered that it was the enemies of r[=a], the sun-god, that inhabited this region; and it is impossible to imagine that the divine powers who presided over the judgment would permit the souls of the wicked to live after they had been condemned and to become enemies of those who were pure and blessed. on the other hand, if we attach any importance to the ideas of the copts upon this subject, and consider that they represent ancient beliefs which they derived from the egyptians traditionally, it must be admitted that the egyptian underworld contained some region wherein the souls of the wicked were punished for an indefinite period. the coptic lives of saints and martyrs are full of allusions to the sufferings of the damned, but whether the descriptions of these are due to imaginings of the mind of the christian egyptian or to the bias of the scribe's opinions cannot always be said. when we consider that the coptic hell was little more than a modified form of the ancient egyptian amenti, or amentet, it is difficult to believe that it was the name of the egyptian underworld only which was borrowed, and that the ideas and beliefs concerning it which were held by the ancient egyptians were not at the same time absorbed. some christian writers are most minute in their classification of the wicked in hell, as we may see from the following extract from the life of pisentios, [footnote: ed. amélineau, paris, , p. f.] bishop of keft, in the viith century of our era. the holy man had taken refuge in a tomb wherein a number of mummies had been piled up, and when he had read the list of the names of the people who had been buried there he gave it to his disciple to replace. then he addressed his disciple and admonished him to do the work of god with diligence, and warned him that every man must become even as were the mummies which lay before them. "and some," said he, "whose sins have been many are now in amenti, others are in the outer darkness, others are in pits and ditches filled with fire, and others are in the river of fire: upon these last no one hath bestowed rest. and others, likewise, are in a place of rest, by reason of their good works." when the disciple had departed, the holy man began to talk to one of the mummies who had been a native of the town of erment, or armant, and whose father and mother had been called agricolaos and eustathia. he had been a worshipper of poseidon, and had never heard that christ had come into the world. "and," said he "woe, woe is me because i was born into the world. why did not my mother's womb become my tomb? when, it became necessary for me to die, the kosmokratôr angels were the first to come round about me, and they told me of all the sins which i had committed, and they said unto me, 'let him that can save thee from the torments into which thou shalt be cast come hither.' and they had in their hands iron knives, and pointed goads which were like unto sharp spears, and they drove them into my sides and gnashed upon me with their teeth. when a little time afterwards my eyes were opened i saw death hovering about in the air in its manifold forms, and at that moment angels who were without pity came and dragged my wretched soul from my body, and having tied it under the form of a black horse they led me away to amonti. woe be unto every sinner like unto myself who hath been born into the world! o my master and father, i was then delivered into the hands of a multitude of tormentors who were without pity and who had each a different form. oh, what a number of wild beasts did i see in the way! oh, what a number of powers were there that inflicted punishment upon me! and it came to pass that when i had been cast into the outer darkness, i saw a great ditch which was more than two hundred cubits deep, and it was filled with reptiles; each reptile had seven heads, and the body of each was like unto that of a scorpion. in this place also lived the great worm, the mere sight of which terrified him that looked thereat. in his mouth he had teeth like unto iron stakes, and one took me and threw me to this worm which never ceased to eat; then immediately all the [other] beasts gathered together near him, and when he had filled his mouth [with my flesh], all the beasts who were round about me filled theirs." in answer to the question of the holy man as to whether he had enjoyed any rest or period without suffering, the mummy replied: "yea, o my father, pity is shown unto those who are in torment every saturday and every sunday. as soon as sunday is over we are cast into the torments which we deserve, so that we may forget the years which we have passed in the world; and as soon as we have forgotten the grief of this torment we are cast into another which is still more grievous." now, it is easy to see from the above description of the torments which the wicked were supposed to suffer, that the writer had in his mind some of the pictures with which we are now familiar, thanks to the excavation of tombs which has gone on in egypt during the last few years; and it is also easy to see that he, in common with many other coptic writers, misunderstood the purport of them. the outer darkness, _i.e._, the blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of fire, the pits of fire, the snake and the scorpion, and such like things, all have their counterparts, or rather originals, in the scenes which accompany the texts which describe the passage of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night. having once misunderstood the general meaning of such scenes, it was easy to convert the foes of r[=a], the sun-god, into the souls of the damned, and to look upon the burning up of such foes--who were after all only certain powers of nature personified--as the well-merited punishment of those who had done evil upon the earth. how far the copts reproduced unconsciously the views which had been held by their ancestors for thousands of years cannot be said, but even after much allowance has been made for this possibility, there remains still to be explained a large number of beliefs and views which seem to have been the peculiar product of the egyptian christian imagination. it has been said above that the idea of the judgment of the dead is of very great antiquity in egypt; indeed, it is so old that it is useless to try to ascertain the date of the period when it first grew up. in the earliest religious texts known to us, there are indications that the egyptians expected a judgment, but they are not sufficiently definite to argue from; it is certainly doubtful if the judgment was thought to be as thorough and as searching then as in the later period. as far back as the reign of men-kau-r[=a], the mycerinus of the greeks, about b.c. , a religious text, which afterwards formed chapter b of the book of the dead, was found inscribed on an iron slab; in the handwriting of the god thoth, by the royal son or prince herut[=a]t[=a]f. [footnote: see _chapters of coming forth by day_, translation, p. .] the original purpose of the composition of this text cannot be said, but there is little doubt that it was intended, to benefit the deceased in the judgment, and, if we translate its title literally, it was intended to prevent his heart from "falling away from him in the underworld." in the first part of it the deceased, after adjuring his heart, says, "may naught stand up to oppose me in the judgment; may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the sovereign princes; may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of him that keepeth the balance!... may the officers of the court of osiris (in egyptian _shenit_), who form the conditions of the lives of men, not cause my name to stink! let [the judgment] be satisfactory unto me, let the hearing be satisfactory unto me, and let me have joy of heart at the weighing of words. let not that which is false be uttered against me before the great god, the lord of amentet." now, although the papyrus upon, which this statement and prayer are found was written about two thousand years after men-kau-r[=a] reigned, there is no doubt that they were copied from texts which were themselves copied at a much earlier period, and that the story of the finding of the text inscribed upon an iron slab is contemporary with its actual discovery by herut[=a]t[=a]f. it is not necessary to inquire here whether the word "find" (in egyptian _qem_) means a genuine discovery or not, but it is clear that those who had the papyrus copied saw no absurdity or impropriety in ascribing the text to the period of men-kau-r[=a]. another text, which afterwards also became a chapter of the book of the dead, under the title "chapter of not letting the heart of the deceased be driven away from him in the underworld," was inscribed on a coffin of the xith dynasty, about b.c. , and in it we have the following petition: "may naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of the trial (literally, 'lords of things'); let it not be said of me and of that which i have done, 'he hath done deeds against that which is very right and true'; may naught be against me in the presence of the great god, the lord of amentet." [footnote: _chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] from these passages we are right in assuming that before the end of the ivth dynasty the idea of being "weighed in the balance" was already evolved; that the religious schools of egypt had assigned to a god the duty of watching the balance when cases were being tried; that this weighing in the balance took place in the presence of the beings called _shenit_, who were believed to control the acts and deeds of men; that it was thought that evidence unfavourable to the deceased might be produced by his foes at the judgment; that the weighing took place in the presence of the great god, the lord of amentet; and that the heart of the deceased might fail him either physically or morally. the deceased addresses his heart, calling it is "mother," and next identifies it with his _ka_ or double, coupling the mention of the _ka_ with the name of the god khnemu: these facts are exceedingly important, for they prove that the deceased considered his heart to be the source of his life and being, and the mention of the god khnemu takes the date of the composition back to a period coaeval with the beginnings of religious thought in egypt. it was the god khnemu who assisted thoth in performing the commands of god at the creation, and one very interesting sculpture at philae shows khnemu in the act of fashioning man upon a potter's wheel. the deceased, in mentioning khnemu's name, seems to invoke his aid in the judgment as fashioner of man and as the being who is in some respects responsible for the manner of his life upon earth. in chapter a there is no mention made of the "guardian of the balance," and the deceased says, "may naught stand up to oppose me in judgment in the presence of the lords of things!" the "lords of things" may be either the "lords of creation," _i.e._, the great cosmic gods, or the "lords of the affairs [of the hall of judgment]," _i.e._, of the trial. in this chapter the deceased addresses not khnemu, but "the gods who dwell in the divine clouds, and who are exalted by reason of their sceptres," that is to say, the four gods of the cardinal points, called mestha, h[=a]pi tuamutef, and qebhsennuf, who also presided over the chief internal organs of the human body. here, again, it seems as if the deceased was anxious to make these gods in some way responsible for the deeds done by him in his life, inasmuch as they presided, over the organs that were the prime movers of his actions. in any case, he considers them in, the light of intercessors, for he beseeches them to "speak fair words unto r[=a]" on his behalf, and to make him to prosper before the goddess nehebka. in this case, the favour of r[=a], the sun-god, the visible emblem of the almighty and eternal god, is sought for, and also that of the serpent goddess, whose attributes are not yet accurately defined, but who has much to do with the destinies of the dead. no mention whatever is made of the lord of amentet--osiris. before we pass to the consideration of the manner in which the judgment is depicted upon the finest examples of the illustrated papyri, reference must be made to an interesting vignette in the papyri of nebseni [footnote: british museum, no. .] and amen-neb. [footnote : british museum, no. .] in both of these papyri we see a figure of the deceased himself being weighed in the balance against his own heart in the presence of the god osiris. it seems probable that a belief was current at one time in ancient egypt concerning the possibility of the body being weighed against the heart, with the view of finding out if the former had obeyed the dictates of the latter; be that as it may, however, it is quite certain that this remarkable variant of the vignette of chapter b had some special meaning, and, as it occurs in two papyri which date from the xviiith dynasty, we are justified in assuming that it represents a belief belonging to a much older period. the judgment here depicted must, in any case, be different from that which forms such a striking scene in the later illustrated papyri of the xviiith and following dynasties. we have now proved that the idea of the judgment of the dead was accepted in religious writings as early as the ivth dynasty, about b.c. , but we have to wait nearly two thousand years before we find it in picture form. certain scenes which are found in the book of the dead as vignettes accompanying certain texts or chapters, _e.g._, the fields of hetep, or the elysian fields, are exceedingly old, and are found on sarcophagi of the xith and xiith dynasties; but the earliest picture known of the judgment scene is not older than the xviiith dynasty. in the oldest theban papyri of the book of the dead no judgment scene is forthcoming, and when we find it wanting in such authoritative documents as the papyrus of nebseni and that of nu, [footnote: british museum, no. , .] we must take it for granted that there was some reason for its omission. in the great illustrated papyri, in which, the judgment scene is given in full, it will be noticed that it comes at the beginning of the work, and that it is preceded by hymns and by a vignette. thus, in the papyrus of ani, [footnote: british museum, no. , .] we have a hymn to r[=a] followed by a vignette representing the sunrise, and a hymn to osiris; and in the papyrus of hunefer, [footnote : british museum, no. .] though the hymns are different, the arrangement is the same. we are justified, then, in assuming that the hymns and the judgment scene together formed an introductory section to the book of the dead, and it is possible that it indicates the existence of the belief, at least during the period of the greatest power of the priests of amen, from b.c. to b.c. , that the judgment of the dead for the deeds done in the body preceded the admission of the dead into the kingdom of osiris. as the hymns which accompany the judgment scene are fine examples of a high class of devotional compositions, a few translations from some of them are here given. hymn to r[=a]. [footnote: see _the chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] "homage to thee, o thou who risest in nu, [footnote: the sky personified.] and who at thy manifestation dost make the world bright with light; the whole company of the gods sing hymns of praise unto thee after thou hast come forth. the divine merti [footnote: literally, the two eyes, _i.e._, isis and nephthys.] goddesses who minister unto thee cherish thee as king of the north and south, thou beautiful and beloved man-child. when, thou risest men and women live. the nations rejoice in thee, and the souls of annu [footnote: _i.e._, r[=a], shu and tefnut.] (heliopolis) sing unto thee songs of joy. the souls of the city of pe, [footnote: part of the city of buto (per-uatchit). the souls of pe were horus, mestha, h[=a]pi.] and the souls of the city of nekhen [footnote: _i.e._, horus, tuamutef, and qebhsennuf.] exalt thee, the apes of dawn adore thee, and all beasts and cattle praise thee with one accord. the goddess seba overthroweth thine enemies, therefore hast thou rejoicing in thy boat; thy mariners are content thereat. thou hast attained unto the [= a]tet boat, [footnote: _i.e._, the boat in which the sun travels until noon.] and thy heart swelleth with joy. o lord of the gods, when thou didst create them they shouted for joy. the azure goddess nut doth compass thee on every side, and the god nu floodeth thee with his rays of light. o cast thou thy light upon me and let me see thy beauties, and when thou goest forth over the earth i will sing praises unto thy fair face. thou risest in heaven's horizon, and thy disk is adored when it resteth upon the mountain to give life unto the world." "thou risest, thou risest, and thou comest forth from the god nu. thou dost renew thy youth, and thou dost set thyself in the place where thou wast yesterday. o thou divine child, who didst create thyself, i am not able [to describe] thee. thou hast come with thy risings, and thou hast made heaven and earth resplendent with thy rays of pure emerald light. the land of punt [footnote: _i.e._, the land on each side of the red sea and north-east africa.] is established [to give] the perfumes which, thou smellest with thy nostrils. thou risest, o marvellous being, in heaven, and the two serpent-goddesses, merti, are established upon thy brow. thou art the giver of laws, o thou lord of the world and of all the inhabitants thereof; all the gods adore thee." hymn to osiris [footnote: see _the chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] "glory be to thee, o osiris un-nefer, the great god within abydos, king of eternity and lord of everlastingness, the god who passest through millions of years in thy existence. thou art the eldest son of the womb of nut, thou wast engendered by seb, the ancestor of the gods, thou art the lord of the crowns of the north and of the south, and of the lofty white crown. as prince of the gods and of men thou hast received the crook, and the whip, and the dignity of thy divine fathers. let thy heart which is in the mountain of ament [footnote: _i.e._, the underworld.] be content, for thy son horus is established upon thy throne. thou art crowned the lord of tattu (mendes) and ruler in abtu (abydos). through thee the world waxeth green in triumph before the might of neb-er-tcher. [footnote: a name of osiris.] thou leadest in thy train that which is, and that which is not yet, in thy name of 'ta-her-sta-nef;' thou towest along the earth in thy name of 'seker;' thou art exceedingly mighty and most terrible in thy name of 'osiris;' thou endurest for ever and for ever in thy name of 'un-nefer.'" "homage to thee, o thou king of kings, lord of lords, prince of princes! from the womb of nut thou hast ruled the world and the underworld. thy body is of bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the turquoise encircleth thee. o thou god an, who hast had existence for millions of years, who pervadest all things with thy body, who art beautiful in countenance in the land of holiness (_i.e._, the underworld), grant thou to me splendour in heaven, might upon earth, and triumph in the underworld. grant thou that i may sail down to tattu like a living soul, and up to abtu like the phoenix; and grant that i may enter in and come forth from the pylons of the lands of the underworld without let or hindrance. may loaves of bread be given unto me in the house of coolness, and offerings of food and drink in annu (heliopolis), and a homestead for ever and for ever in the field of reeds [footnote: a division of the "fields of peace" or elysian fields.] with wheat and barley therefor." in the long and important hymn in the papyrus of hunefer [footnote: see _the chapters of coming forth by day_, pp. - .] occurs the following petition, which is put into the mouth of the deceased:-- "grant that i may follow in the train of thy majesty even as i did upon earth. let my soul be called [into the presence], and let it be found by the side of the lords of right and truth. i have come into the city of god, the region which existed in primeval time, with [my] soul, and with [my] double, and with [my] translucent form, to dwell in this land. the god thereof is the lord of right and truth, he is the lord of the _tchefau_ food of the gods, and he is most holy. his land draweth unto itself every land; the south cometh sailing down the river thereto, and the north, steered thither by winds, cometh daily to make festival therein according to the command of the god thereof, who is the lord of peace therein. and doth he not say, 'the happiness thereof is a care unto me'? the god who dwelleth therein worketh right and truth; unto him that doeth these things he giveth old age, and to him that followeth after them rank and honour, until at length he attaineth unto a happy funeral and burial in the holy land" (_i.e._, the underworld). the deceased, having recited these words of prayer and adoration to r[=a], the symbol of almighty god, and to his son osiris, next "cometh forth into the hall of ma[=a]ti, that he may be separated from every sin which he hath done, and may behold the faces of the gods." [footnote: this quotation is from the title of chapter cxxv. of the book of the dead.] from the earliest times the ma[=a]ti were the two goddesses isis and nephthys, and they were so called because they represented the ideas of straightness, integrity, righteousness, what is right, the truth, and such like; the word ma[=a]t originally meant a measuring reed or stick. they were supposed either to sit in the hall of ma[=a]t outside the shrine of osiris, or to stand by the side of this god in the shrine; an example of the former position will be seen in the papyrus of ani (plate ), and of the latter in the papyrus of hunefer (plate ). the original idea of the hall of ma[=a]t or ma[=a]ti was that it contained forty-two gods; a fact which we may see from the following passage in the introduction to chapter cxxv. of the book of the dead. the deceased says to osiris:-- "homage to thee, o thou great god, thou lord of the two ma[=a]t goddesses! i have come to thee, o my lord, and i have made myself to come hither that i may behold thy beauties. i know thee, and i know thy name, and i know the names of the two and forty gods who live with thee in this hall of ma[=a]ti, who live as watchers of sinners and who feed upon their blood on that day when the characters (_or_ lives) of men are reckoned up (_or_ taken into account) in the presence of the god un-nefer. verily, god of the rekhti-merti (_i.e._, the twin sisters of the two eyes), the lord of the city of ma[=a]ti is thy name. verily i have come to thee, and i have brought ma[=a]t unto thee, and i have destroyed wickedness." the deceased then goes on to enumerate the sins or offences which he has not committed; and he concludes by saying: "i am pure; i am pure; i am pure; i am pure. my purity is the purity of the great bennu which is in the city of suten-henen (heracleopolis), for, behold., i am the nostrils of the god of breath, who maketh all mankind to live on the day when the eye of r[=a] is full in annu (heliopolis) at the end of the second month of the season pert. [footnote: _i.e._, the last day of the sixth month of the egyptian year, called by the copta mekhir.] i have seen the eye of r[=a] when it was full in annu; [footnote: the allusion here seems to be to the summer or winter solstice.] therefore let not evil befall me either in this land or in this hall of ma[=a]ti, because i, even i, know the names of the gods who are therein." now as the gods who live in the hall of ma[=a]t with osiris are two and forty in number, we should expect that two and forty sins or offences would be mentioned in the addresses which the deceased makes to them; but this is not the case, for the sins enumerated in the introduction never reach this number. in the great illustrated papyri of the xviiith and xixth dynasties we find, however, that notwithstanding the fact that a large number of sins, which the deceased declares he has not committed, are mentioned in the introduction, the scribes and artists added a series of negative statements, forty-two in number, which they set out in a tabular form. this, clearly, is an attempt to make the sins mentioned equal in number to the gods of the hall of ma[=a]t, and it would seem as if they preferred to compose an entirely new form of this section of the one hundred and twenty-fifth chapter to making any attempt to add to or alter the older section. the artists, then, depicted a hall of ma[=a]t, the doors of which are wide open, and the cornice of which is formed of uraei and feathers, symbolic of ma[=a]t. over the middle of the cornice is a seated deity with hands extended, the right over the eye of horus, and the left over a pool. at the end of the hall are seated the goddesses of ma[=a]t, _i.e._, isis and nephthys, the deceased adoring osiris who is seated on a throne, a balance with the heart of the deceased in one scale, and the feather, symbolic of ma[=a]t, in the other, and thoth painting a large feather. in this hall sit the forty-two gods, and as the deceased passes by each, the deceased addresses him by his name and at the same time declares that he has not committed a certain sin. an examination of the different papyri shows that the scribes often made mistakes in writing this list of gods and list of sins, and, as the result, the deceased is made to recite before one god the confession which strictly belongs to another. inasmuch, as the deceased always says after pronouncing the name of each god, "i have not done" such and such a sin, the whole group of addresses has been called the "negative confession." the fundamental ideas of religion and morality which underlie this confession are exceedingly old, and we may gather from it with tolerable clearness what the ancient egyptian believed to constitute his duty towards god and towards his neighbour. it is impossible to explain, the fact that forty-two gods only are addressed, and equally so to say why this number was adopted. some have believed that the forty-two gods represented each a name of egypt, and much support is given to this view by the fact that most of the lists of names make the number to be forty-two; but then, again, the lists do not agree. the classical authors differ also, for by some of these writers the names are said to be thirty-six in number, and by others forty-six are enumerated. these differences may, however, be easily explained, for the central administration may at any time have added to or taken from the number of names for fiscal or other considerations, and we shall probably be correct in assuming that at the time the negative confession was drawn up in the tabular form in which we meet it in the xviiith dynasty the names were forty-two in number. support is also lent to this view by the fact that the earliest form of the confession, which forms the introduction to chapter cxxv., mentions less than forty sins. incidentally we may notice that the forty-two gods are subservient to osiris, and that they only occupy a subordinate position in the hall of judgment, for it is the result of the weighing of the heart of the deceased in the balance that decides his future. before passing to the description of the hall of judgment where the balance is set, it is necessary to give a rendering of the negative confession which, presumably, the deceased recites before his heart is weighed in the balance; it is made from the papyrus of nu. [footnote: british museum, no. , .] . "hail usekh-nemtet (_i.e._, long of strides), who comest forth from anuu (heliopolis), i have not done iniquity. . "hail hept-seshet (_i.e._, embraced by flame), who comest forth from kher-[=a]ba, [footnote: a city near memphis.] i have not robbed with violence. . "hail fenti (_i.e._, nose), who comest forth from khemennu (hermopolis), i have not done violence to any man. . "hail [=a]m-khaibitu (_i.e._, eater of shades), who comest forth from the qereret (_i.e._, the cavern where the nile rises), i have not committed theft. . "hail neha-bra (_i.e._, stinking face), who comest forth from restau, i have slain neither man nor woman. . "hail rereti (_i.e._, double lion-god), who comest forth from heaven, i have not made light the bushel. . "hail maata-f-em-seshet (_i.e._, fiery eyes), who comest forth from sekhem (letopolis), i have not acted deceitfully. . "hail neba (_i.e._, flame), who comest forth and retreatest, i have not purloined the things which belong unto god. . "hail set-qesu (_i.e._, crusher of bones), who comest forth from suten-henen (heracleopolis), i have not uttered falsehood. . "hail khemi (_i.e._, overthrower), who comest forth from shetait (_i.e._, the hidden place), i have not carried off goods by force. . "hail uatch-nesert (_i.e._, vigorous of flame), who comest forth from het-ka-ptah (memphis), i have not uttered vile (_or_ evil) words. . "hail hra-f-ha-f (_i.e._, he whose face is behind him), who comest forth from the cavern and the deep, i have not carried off food by force. . "hail qerti (_i.e._, the double nile source), who comest forth from the underworld, i have not acted deceitfully. . "hail ta-ret (_i.e._, fiery-foot), who comest forth out of the darkness, i have not eaten my heart (_i.e._ lost my temper and become angry). . "hail hetch-abehu (_i.e._, shining teeth), who comest forth from ta-she (_i.e._, the fayyûm), i have invaded no [man's land]. . "hail [=a]m-senef (_i.e._, eater of blood), who comest forth from the house of the block, i have not slaughtered animals which are the possessions of god. . "hail [=a]m-besek (_i.e._, eater of entrails), who comest forth from m[=a]bet, i have not laid waste the lands which have been ploughed. . "hail neb-ma[=a]t (_i.e._, lord of ma[=a]t), who comest forth from the city of the two ma[=a]ti, i have not pried into matters to make mischief. . "hail thenemi (_i.e._, retreater), who comest forth from bast (_i.e._, bubastis), i have not set my mouth in motion against any man. . "hail [=a]nti, who comest forth from annu (heliopolis), i have not given way to wrath without due cause. . "hail tututef, who comest forth from the home of ati, i have not committed fornication, and i have not committed sodomy. . "hail uamemti, who comest forth from the house of slaughter, i have not polluted myself. . "hail maa-ant-f (_i.e._, seer of what is brought to him), who comest forth from the house of the god amsu, i have not lain with the wife of a man. . "hail her-seru, who comest forth from nehatu, i have not made any man to be afraid. . "hail neb-sekhem, who comest forth from the lake of kaui, i have not made my speech to burn with anger. [footnote: literally, "i have not been hot of mouth."] . "hail seshet-kheru (_i.e._, orderer of speech), who comest forth from urit, i have not made myself deaf unto the words of right and truth. . "hail nekhen (_i.e._, babe), who comest forth from the lake of heq[=a] t, i have not made another person to weep. . "hail kenemti, who comest forth from kenemet, i have not uttered blasphemies. . "hail an-hetep-f (_i.e._, bringer of his offering), who comest forth from sau, i have not acted with violence. . "hail ser-kheru (_i.e._, disposer of speech), who comest forth from unsi, i have not hastened my heart. [footnote: _i.e._, acted without due consideration.] . "hail neb-hrau (_i.e._, lord of faces), who comest forth from netchefet, i have not pierced (?) my skin (?), and i have not taken vengeance on the god. . "hail serekhi, who comest forth from uthent, i have not multiplied my speech beyond what should be said. . "hail neb-abui (_i.e._, lord of horns), who comest forth from sauti, i have not committed fraud, [and i have not] looked upon evil. . "hail nefer-tem, who comest forth from ptah-het-ka (memphis), i have never uttered curses against the king. . "hail tem-sep, who comest forth from tattu, i have not fouled running water. . "hail ari-em-ab-f, who comest forth from tebti, i have not exalted my speech. . "hail ahi, who comest forth from nu, i have not uttered curses against god. . "hail uatch-rekhit [who comest forth from his shrine (?)], i have not behaved with insolence. . "hail neheb-nefert, who comest forth from his temple, i have not made distinctions. [footnote: _i.e._, i have not been guilty of favouritism.] . "hail neheb-kau, who comest forth from thy cavern, i have not increased my wealth except by means of such things as are mine own possessions. . "hail tcheser-tep, who comest forth from thy shrine, i have not uttered curses against that which belongeth to god and is with me. . "hail an-[=a]-f (_i.e._, bringer of his arm), [who comest forth from aukert], i have not thought scorn of the god of the city." a brief examination of this "confession" shows that the egyptian code of morality was very comprehensive, and it would be very hard to find an act, the commission of which would be reckoned a sin when the "confession" was put together, which is not included under one or other part of it. the renderings of the words for certain sins are not always definite or exact, because we do not know the precise idea which the framer of this remarkable document had. the deceased states that he has neither cursed god, nor thought scorn of the god of his city, nor cursed the king, nor committed theft of any kind, nor murder, nor adultery, nor sodomy, nor crimes against the god of generation; he has not been imperious or haughty, or violent, or wrathful, or hasty in deed, or a hypocrite, or an accepter of persons, or a blasphemer, or crafty, or avaricious, or fraudulent, or deaf to pious words, or a party to evil actions, or proud, or puffed up; he has terrified no man, he has not cheated in the market-place, and he has neither fouled the public watercourse nor laid waste the tilled land of the community. this is, in brief, the confession which the deceased makes; and the next act in the judgment scene is weighing the heart of the deceased in the scales. as none of the oldest papyri of the book of the dead supplies us with a representation of this scene, we must have recourse to the best of the illustrated papyri of the latter half of the xviiith and of the xixth dynasties. the details of the judgment scene vary greatly in various papyri, but the essential parts of it are always preserved. the following is the description of the judgment of ani, as it appears in his wonderful papyrus preserved in the british museum. in the underworld, and in that portion of it which is called the hall of ma[=a]ti, is set a balance wherein the heart of the deceased is to be weighed. the beam is suspended by a ring upon a projection from the standard of the balance made in the form of the feather which is the symbol of ma[=a]t, or what is right and true. the tongue of the balance is fixed to the beam, and when this is exactly level, the tongue is as straight as the standard; if either end of the beam inclines downwards the tongue cannot remain in a perpendicular position. it must be distinctly understood that the heart which was weighed in the one scale was not expected to make the weight which was in the other to kick the beam, for all that was asked or required of the deceased was that his heart should balance exactly the symbol of the law. the standard was sometimes surmounted by a human head wearing the feather of ma[=a]t; sometimes by the head of a jackal, the animal sacred to anubis; and sometimes by the head of an ibis, the bird sacred to thoth; in the papyrus of ani a dog-headed ape, the associate of thoth, sits on the top of the standard. in some papyri (_e.g._, those of ani [footnote: about b.c. .] and hunefer [footnote: about b.c. .]), in addition to osiris, the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, the gods of his cycle or company appear as witnesses of the judgment. in the papyrus of the priestess anhai [footnote: about b.c. .] in the british museum the great and the little companies of the gods appear as witnesses, but the artist was so careless that instead of nine gods in each group he painted six in one and five in the other. in the turin papyrus [footnote: written in the ptolemaic period.] we see the whole of the forty-two gods, to whom the deceased recited the [illustration: the weighing of the heart of the scribe ani in the balance in the presence of the gods.] "negative confession," seated in the judgment-hall. the gods present at the weighing of ani's heart are-- . r[=a]-harmachis, hawk-headed, the sun-god of the dawn and of noon. . temu, the sun-god of the evening, the great god of heliopolis. he is depicted always in human form and with the face of a man, a fact which proves that he had at a very early period passed through all the forms in which gods are represented, and had arrived at that of a man. he has upon his head the crowns of the south and north. . shu, man-headed, the son of r[=a] and hathor, the personification of the sunlight. . tefnut, lion-headed, the twin-sister of shu, the personification of moisture. . seb, man-headed, the son of shu, the personification of the earth. . nut, woman-headed, the female counterpart of the gods nu and seb; she was the personification of the primeval water, and later of the sky. . isis, woman-headed, the sister-wife of osiris, and mother of horus. . nephthys, woman-headed, the sister-wife of osiris, and mother of anubis. . horus, the "great god," hawk-headed, whose worship was probably the oldest in egypt. . hathor, woman-headed, the personification of that portion of the sky where the sun rose and set. . hu, man-headed, and . sa, also man-headed; these gods are present in the boat of r[=a] in the scenes which depict the creation. on one side of the balance kneels the god anubis, jackal-headed, who holds the weight of the tongue of the balance in his right hand, and behind him stands thoth, the scribe of the gods, ibis-headed, holding in his hands a reed wherewith to write down the result of the weighing. near him is seated the tri-formed beast [=a]m-mit, the, "eater of the dead," who waits to devour the heart of ani should it be found to be light. in the papyrus of neb-qet at paris this beast is seen lying by the side of a lake of fire, at each corner of which is seated a dog-headed ape; this lake is also seen in chapter cxxvi. of the book of the dead. the gods who are seated before a table of offerings, and anubis, and thoth, and [=a]m-mit, are the beings who conduct the case, so to speak, against ani. on the other side of the balance stand ani and his wife thuthu with their heads reverently bent; they are depicted in human form, and wear garments and ornaments similar to those which they wore upon earth. his soul, in the form of a man-headed hawk standing upon a pylon, is present, also a man-headed, rectangular object, resting upon a pylon, which has frequently been supposed to represent the deceased in an embryonic state. in the papyrus of anhai two of these objects appear, one on each side of the balance; they are described as shai and renenet, two words which are translated by "destiny" and "fortune" respectively. it is most probable, as the reading of the name of the object is _meskhenet_, and as the deity meskhenet represents sometimes both shai and renenet, that the artist intended the object to represent both deities, even though we find the god shai standing below it close to the standard of the balance. close by the soul stand two goddesses called meskhenet and renenet respectively; the former is, probably, one of the four goddesses who assisted at the resurrection of osiris, and the latter the personification of fortune, which has already been included under the _meskhenet_ object above, the personification of destiny. it will be remembered that meskhenet accompanied isis, nephthys, heqet, and khnemu to the house of the lady rut-tettet, who was about to bring forth three children. when these deities arrived, having changed their forms into those of women, they found r[=a]-user standing there. and when they had made music for him, he said to them, "mistresses, there is a woman in travail here;" and they replied, "let us see her, for we know how to deliver a woman." r[=a]-user then brought them into the house, and the goddesses shut themselves in with the lady rut-tettet. isis took her place before her, and nephthys behind her, whilst heqet hastened the birth of the children; as each child was born meskhenet stepped up to him and said, "a king who shall have dominion over the whole land," and the god khnemu bestowed health upon his limbs. [footnote: see erman, _westcar papyrus_, berlin, , hieroglyphic transcript, plates and .] of these five gods, isis, nephthys, meskhenet, heqet, and khnemu, the first three are present at the judgment of ani; khnemu is mentioned in ani's address to his heart (see below), and only heqet is unrepresented. as the weighing of his heart is about to take place ani says, "my heart, my mother! my heart, my mother! my heart whereby i came into being! may naught stand up to oppose me in the judgment; may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the sovereign princes; may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of him that keepeth the balance! thou art my _ka_, the dweller in my body; the god khnemu who knitteth and strengtheneth my limbs. mayest thou come forth into the place of happiness whither we go. may the princes of the court of osiris, who order the circumstances of the lives of men, not cause my name to stink." some papyri add, "let it be satisfactory unto us, and let the listening be satisfactory unto us, and let there be joy of heart unto us at the weighing of words. let not that which is false be uttered against me before the great god, the lord of amentet! verily how great shalt thou be when thou risest in triumph!" the tongue of the balance having been examined by anubis, and the ape having indicated to his associate thoth that the beam is exactly straight, and that the heart, therefore, counterbalances the feather symbolic of ma[=a]t _(_i.e._, right, truth, law, etc.), neither outweighing nor underweighing it, thoth writes down the result, and then makes the following address to the gods:-- "hear ye this judgment. the heart of osiris hath in very truth been weighed, and his soul hath stood as a witness for him; it hath been found true by trial in the great balance. there hath not been found any wickedness in him; he hath not wasted the offerings in the temples; he hath not done harm by his deeds; and he spread abroad no evil reports while he was upon earth." in answer to this report the company of the gods, who are styled "the great company of the gods," reply, "that which cometh forth from thy mouth, o thoth, who dwellest in khemennu (hermopolis), is confirmed. osiris, the scribe ani, triumphant, is holy and righteous. he hath not sinned, neither hath he done evil against us. the devourer [=a]m-mit shall not be allowed to prevail over him, and meat-offerings and entrance into the presence of the god osiris shall be granted unto him, together with a homestead for ever in the field of peace, as unto the followers of horus." [footnote: these are a class of mythological beings, or demi-gods, who already in the vth dynasty were supposed to recite prayers on behalf of the deceased, and to assist horus and set in performing funeral ceremonies. see my _papyrus of ani_, p. cxxv.] here we notice at once that the deceased is identified with osiris, the god and judge of the dead, and that they have bestowed upon him the god's own name; the reason of this is as follows. the friends of the deceased performed for him all the ceremonies and rites which were performed for osiris by isis and nephthys, and it was assumed that, as a result, the same things which took place in favour of osiris would also happen on behalf of the deceased, and that in fact, the deceased would become the counterpart of osiris. everywhere in the texts of the book of the dead the deceased is identified with osiris, from b.c. to the roman period. another point to notice is the application of the words _ma[=a] kheru_ to the deceased, a term which i have, for want of a better word, rendered "triumphant." these words actually mean "true of voice" or "right of word," and indicate that the person to whom they are applied has acquired the power of using his voice in such a way that when the invisible beings are addressed by him they will render unto him all the service which he has obtained the right to demand. it is well known that in ancient times magicians and sorcerers were wont to address spirits or demons in a peculiar tone of voice, and that all magical formulae were recited in a similar manner; the use of the wrong sound or tone of voice would result in the most disastrous consequences to the speaker, and perhaps in death. the deceased had to make his way through a number of regions in the underworld, and to pass through many series of halls, the doors of which were guarded by beings who were prepared, unless properly addressed, to be hostile to the new-comer; he also had need to take passage in a boat, and to obtain the help of the gods and of the powers of the various localities wherein he wanted to travel if he wished to pass safely into the place where he would be. the book of the dead provided him with all the texts and formulae which he would have to recite to secure this result, but unless the words contained in them were pronounced in a proper manner, and said in a proper tone of voice, they would have no effect upon the powers of the underworld. the term _ma[=a] kheru_ is applied but very rarely to the living, but commonly to the dead, and indeed the dead needed most the power which these words indicated. in the case of ani, the gods, having accepted the favourable report of the result obtained by weighing ani's heart by thoth, style him _ma[=a] kheru_, which is equivalent to conferring upon him power to overcome all opposition, of every kind, which he may meet. henceforth every door will open at his command, every god will hasten to obey immediately ani has uttered his name, and those whose duty it is to provide celestial food for the beatified will do so for him when once the order has been given. before passing on to other matters it is interesting to note that the term _ma[=a] kheru_ is not applied to ani by himself in the judgment scene, nor by thoth, the scribe of the gods, nor by horus when he introduces him to osiris; it is only the gods who can make a man _ma[=a] kheru_, and thereby he also escapes from the devourer. the judgment ended, horus, the son of isis, who has assumed all the attributes of his father osiris, takes ani's left hand in his right and leads him up to the shrine wherein the god osiris is seated. the god wears the white crown with feathers, and he holds in his hands a sceptre, a crook, and whip, or flail, which typify sovereignty and dominion. his throne is a tomb, of which the bolted doors and the cornice of uraei may be seen painted on the side. at the back of his neck hangs the _menat_ or symbol of joy and happiness; on his right hand stands nephthys, and on his left stands isis. before him, standing on a lotus flower, are the four children of horus, mestha, h[=a]pi, tuamutef, and qebhsennuf, who presided over and protected the intestines of the dead; close by hangs the skin of a bull with which magical ideas seem to have been associated. the top of the shrine in which the god sits is surmounted by uraei, wearing disks on their heads, and the cornice also is similarly decorated. in several papyri the god is seen standing up in the shrine, sometimes with and sometimes without the goddesses isis and nephthys. in the papyrus of hunefer we find a most interesting variant of this [illustration: horus, the son of isis, leading the scribe ani into the presence of osiris, the god and judge of the dead; before the shrine of the god am kneels in adoration and presents offerings.] portion of the scene, for the throne of osiris rests upon, or in, water. this reminds us of the passage in the one hundred and twenty-sixth chapter of the book of the dead in which the god thoth says to the deceased, "who is he whose roof is of fire, whose walls are living uraei, and the floor of whose house is a stream of running water? who is he, i say?" the deceased answers, "it is osiris," and the god says, "come forward, then; for verily thou shalt be mentioned [to him]." when horus had led in ani he addressed osiris, saying, "i have come unto thee, o un-nefer, and i have brought the osiris ani unto thee. his heart hath been found righteous and it hath come forth from the balance; it hath not sinned against any god or any goddess. thoth hath weighed it according to the decree uttered unto him by the company of the gods; and it is very true and right. grant unto him cakes and ale; and let him enter into thy presence; and may he be like unto the followers of horus for ever!" after this address ani, kneeling by the side of tables of offerings of fruit, flowers, etc., which he has brought unto osiris, says, "o lord of amentet, i am in thy presence. there is no sin in me, i have not lied wittingly, nor have i done aught with a false heart. grant that i may be like unto those favoured ones who are round about thee, and that i may be an osiris greatly favoured of the beautiful god and beloved of the lord of the world, [i], the royal scribe of ma[=a]t, who loveth him, ani, triumphant before osiris." [footnote: or "true of voice in respect of osiris;" _i.e._, ani makes his petition, and osiris is to hear and answer because he has uttered the right words in the right manner, and in the right tone of voice.] thus we come to the end of the scene of the weighing of the heart. the man who has passed safely through this ordeal has now to meet the gods of the underworld, and the book of the dead provides the words which "the heart which is righteous and sinless" shall say unto them. one of the fullest and most correct texts of "the speech of the deceased when he cometh forth true of voice from the hall of the ma[=a]ti goddesses" is found in the papyrus of nu; in it the deceased says:-- "homage to you, o ye gods who dwell in the hall of the ma[=a]ti goddesses, i, even i, know you, and i know your names. let me not fall under your knives of slaughter, and bring ye not forward my wickedness unto the god in whose train ye are; and let not evil hap come upon, me by your means. o declare ye me true of voice in the presence of neb-er-teber, because i have done that which is right and true in ta-mera (_i.e._, egypt). i have not cursed god, therefore let not evil hap come upon me through the king who dwelleth in his day. "homage to you, o ye gods, who dwell in the hall of the ma[=a]ti goddesses, who are without evil in your bodies, and who live upon right and truth, and who feed yourselves upon right and truth in the presence of the god horus, who dwelleth in his divine disk; deliver ye me from the god baba [footnote: the first born son of osiris.] who feedeth upon the entrails of the mighty ones upon the day of the great reckoning, o grant ye that i may come to you, for i have not committed faults, i have not sinned, i have not done evil, i have not borne false witness; therefore let nothing [evil] be done unto me. i live upon right and truth, and i feed upon right and truth. i have performed the commandments of men [as well as] the things whereat are gratified the gods; i have made god to be at peace [with me by doing] that which is his will. i have given bread to the hungry man, and water to the thirsty man, and apparel to the naked man, and a boat to the [shipwrecked] mariner. i have made holy offerings to the gods, and sepulchral meals to the beatified dead. be ye then my deliverers, be ye then my protectors, and make ye not accusation against me in the presence of [osiris]. i am clean of mouth and clean of hands; therefore let it be said unto me by those who shall behold me, 'come in peace, come in peace.' i have heard the mighty word which the spiritual bodies spake unto the cat [footnote: _i.e._, r[=a] as the slayer of the serpent of darkness, the head of which be cuts off with a knife. (see above, p. ). the usual reading is "which the ass spake to the cat;" the ass being osiris and the cat r[=a].] in the house of hapt-re. i have testified in the presence of hra-f-ha-f, and he hath given [his] decision. i have seen the things over which the persea tree spreadeth within re-stau. i am he who hath offered up prayers to the gods and who knoweth their persons. i have come, and i have advanced to make the declaration of right and truth, and to set the balance upon what supporteth it in the region of aukert. "hail, thou who art exalted upon thy standard (_i.e._, osiris), thou lord of the 'atefu' crown whose name is proclaimed as 'lord of the winds,' deliver thou me from thy divine messengers who cause dire deeds to happen, and who cause calamities to come into being, and who are without coverings for their faces, for i have done that which is right and true for the lord of right and truth. i have purified myself and my breast with libations, and my hinder parts with the things which make clean, and my inward parts have been [immersed] in the pool of right and truth. there is no single member of mine which lacketh right and truth. i have been purified in the pool of the south, and i have rested in the city of the north, which is in the field of the grasshoppers, wherein the divine sailors of r[=a] bathe at the second hour of the night and at the third hour of the day; and the hearts of the gods are gratified after they have passed through it, whether it be by night, or whether it be by day. and i would that they should say unto me, 'come forward,' and 'who art thou?' and 'what is thy name?' these are the words which, i would have the gods say unto me. [then would i reply] 'my name is he who is provided with flowers, and dweller in his olive tree.' then let them say unto me straightway, 'pass on,' and i would pass on to the city to the north of the olive tree, 'what then wilt thou see there?' [say they. and i say]' the leg and the thigh,' 'what wouldst thou say unto them?' [say they.] 'let me see rejoicings in the land of the fenkhu' [i reply]. 'what will they give thee? [say they]. 'a fiery flame and a crystal tablet' [i reply]. 'what wilt thou do therewith?' [say they]. 'bury them by the furrow of m[=a][=a]at as things for the night' [i reply]. 'what wilt thou find by the furrow of m[=a][=a]at?' [say they]. 'a sceptre of flint called giver of air' [i reply]. 'what wilt thou do with the fiery flame and the crystal tablet after thou hast buried them?' [say they]. 'i will recite words over them, in the furrow. i will extinguish the fire, and i will break the tablet, and i will make a pool of water' [i reply]. then let the gods say unto me, 'come and enter in through the door of this hall of the m[=a][=a]ti goddesses, for thou knowest us.'" after these remarkable prayers follows a dialogue between each part of the hall of m[=a][=a]ti and the deceased, which reads as follows:-- _door bolts_. "we will not let thee enter in through us unless thou tellest our names." _deceased_. "'tongue of the place of right and truth' is your name." _right post_. "i will not let thee enter in by me unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'scale of the lifter up of right and truth' is thy name." _left post_. "i will not let thee enter in by me unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'scale of wine' is thy name." _threshold_. "i will not let thee pass over me unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'ox of the god seb' is thy name." _hasp_. "i will not open unto thee unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'leg-bone of his mother' is thy name." _socket-hole_. "i will not open unto thee unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'living eye of sebek, the lord of bakhau,' is thy name." _porter_. "i will not open unto thee unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'elbow of the god shu when he placeth himself to protect osiris' is thy name." _side posts_. "we will not let thee pass in by us, unless thou tellest our names." _deceased_. "'children of the uraei-goddesses' is your name." "thou knowest us; pass on, therefore, by us" [say these]. _floor_. "i will not let thee tread upon me, because i am silent and i am holy, and because i do not know the names of thy feet wherewith thou wouldst walk upon me; therefore tell them to me." _deceased_. "'traveller of the god khas' is the name of my right foot, and 'staff of the goddess hathor' is the name of my left foot." "thou knowest me; pass on, therefore, over me" [it saith]. _doorkeeper_. "i will not take in thy name unless thou tellest my name." _deceased_. "'discerner of hearts and searcher of the reins' is thy name." _doorkeeper_. "who is the god that dwelleth in his hour? utter his name." _deceased_. "'m[=a]au-taui' is his name." _doorkeeper_. "and who is m[=a]au-taui?" _deceased_. "he is thoth." _thoth_. "come! but why hast thou come?" _deceased_. "i have come and i press forward that my name may be mentioned." _thoth_, "in what state art thou?" _deceased_. "i am purified from evil things, and i am protected from the baleful deeds of those who live in their days; and i am not of them." _thoth_. "now will i make mention of thy name [to the god]. and who is he whose roof is of fire, whose walls are living uraei, and the floor of whose house is a stream of water? who is he, i say?" _deceased_. "it is osiris." _thoth_. "come forward, then; verily, mention of thy name shall be made unto him. thy cakes [shall come] from the eye of r[=a]; and thine ale [shall come] from the eye of r[=a]; and thy sepulchral meals upon earth [shall come] from the eye of r[=a]." with these words chapter cxxv comes to an end. we have seen how the deceased has passed through the ordeal of the judgment, and how the scribes provided him with hymns and prayers, and with the words of a confession with a view of facilitating his passage through the dread hall of the ma[=a]ti goddesses. unfortunately the answer which the god osiris may be supposed to have made to his son horus in respect of the deceased is not recorded, but there is no doubt that the egyptian assumed that it would be favourable to him, and that permission would be accorded him to enter into each and every portion of the underworld, and to partake of all the delights which the beatified enjoyed under the rule of r[=a] and osiris. chapter v. the resurrection and immortality. in perusing the literature of the ancient egyptians one of the first things which forces itself upon the mind of the reader is the frequency of allusions to the future life or to things which appertain thereto. the writers of the various religious and other works, belonging to all periods of egyptian history, which have come down to us, tacitly assume throughout that those who once have lived in this world have "renewed" their life in that which is beyond the grave, and that they still live and will live until time shall be no more. the egyptian belief in the existence of almighty god is old, so old that we must seek for its beginnings in pre-dynastic times; but the belief in a future life is very much older, and its beginnings must be as old, at least, as the oldest human remains which have been found in egypt. to attempt to measure by years the remoteness of the period when these were committed to the earth, is futile, for no date that could be given them is likely to be even approximately correct, and they may as well date from b.c. , as from b.c. . of one fact, however, we may be quite certain; that is to say, that the oldest human remains that have been found in egypt bear upon them traces of the use of bitumen, which proves that the egyptians at the very beginning of their stay in the valley of the nile made some attempt to preserve their dead by means of mummification. [footnote: see j. de morgan, _ethnographie préhistorique_, paris, , p. .] if they were, as many think, invaders who had made their way across arabia and the red sea and the eastern desert of the nile, they may have brought the idea and habit of preserving their dead with them, or they may have adopted, in a modified form, some practice in use among the aboriginal inhabitants whom they found on their arrival in egypt; in either case the fact that they attempted to preserve their dead by the use of substances which would arrest decay is certain, and in a degree their attempt has succeeded. the existence of the non-historic inhabitants of egypt has been revealed to us in recent years by means of a number of successful excavations which have been made in upper egypt on both sides of the nile by several european and native explorers, and one of the most striking results has been the discovery of three different kinds of burials, which undoubtedly belong to three different periods, as we may see by examining the various objects which have been found in the early graves at nak[=a]dah and other non-historic sites of the same age and type. in the oldest tombs we find the skeleton laid upon its left side, with the limbs bent: the knees are on a level with the breast, and the hands are placed in front of the face. generally the head faces towards the south, but no invariable rule seems to have been observed as to its "orientation." before the body was laid in the ground it was either wrapped in gazelle skin or laid in loose grass; the substance used for the purposes of wrapping probably depended upon the social condition of the deceased. in burials of this class there are no traces of mummification, or of burning, or of stripping the flesh from the bones. in the next oldest graves the bodies are found to have been wholly or partly stripped of their flesh; in the former case all the bones are found cast indiscriminately is the grave, in the latter the bones of the hands and the feet were laid together, while the rest of the skeleton is scattered about in wild confusion. graves of this period are found to be oriented either north or south, and the bodies in them usually have the head separated from the body; sometimes it is clear that the bodies have been "jointed" so that they might occupy less space. occasionally the bodies are found lying upon their backs with their legs and arms folded over them; in this case they are covered over with clay casings. in certain graves it is clear that the body has been burnt. now in all classes of tombs belonging to the prehistoric period in egypt we find offerings in vases and vessels of various kinds, a fact which proves beyond all doubt that the men who made these graves believed that their dead friends and relatives would live again in some place, of the whereabouts of which they probably had very vague ideas, in a life which was, presumably, not unlike that which they had lived upon earth. the flint tools, knives, scrapers and the like indicate that they thought they would hunt and slay their quarry when brought down, and fight their foes; and the schist objects found in the graves, which m. de morgan identifies as amulets, shows that even in those early days man believed that he could protect himself against the powers of supernatural and invisible enemies by talismans. the man who would hunt and fight in the next world must live again; and if he would live again it must be either in his old body or in a new one; if in the old body, it must be revivified. but once having imagined a new life, probably in a new body, death a second time was not, the prehistoric egyptian hoped, within the bounds of possibility. here, then, we have the origin of the grand ideas of the resurrection and immortality. there is every reason for believing that the prehistoric egyptian expected to eat, and to drink, and to lead a life of pleasure in the region where he imagined his heaven to be, and there is little doubt that he thought the body in which he would live there would be not unlike the body which he had while he was upon earth. at this stage his ideas of the supernatural and of the future life would be like those of any man of the same race who stood on the same level in the scale of civilization, but in every way he was a great contrast to the egyptian who lived, let us say, in the time of mena, the first historical king of egypt, the date of whom for convenience' sake is placed at b.c. . the interval between the time when the prehistoric egyptians made the graves described above and the reign of mena must have been very considerable, and we may justly believe it to represent some thousands of years; but whatever its length, we find that the time was not sufficient to wipe out the early views which had been handed on from generation to generation, or even to modify some of the beliefs which we now know to have existed in an almost unchanged state at the latest period of egyptian history. in the texts which were edited by the priests of heliopolis we find references to a state or condition of things, as far as social matters are concerned, which could only exist in a society of men who were half savages. and we see from later works, when extracts are made from the earlier texts which contain such references, that the passages in which objectionable allusions occur are either omitted altogether or modified. we know of a certainty that the educated men of the college of heliopolis cannot have indulged in the excesses which the deceased kings for whom they prepared the funeral texts are assumed to enjoy, and the mention of the nameless abomination which the savage egyptian inflicted upon his vanquished foe can only have been allowed to remain in them because of their own reverence for the written word. in passing it must be mentioned that the religious ideas of the men who were buried without mutilation of limbs, or stripping of flesh from the body, or burning, must have been different from those of the men who practised such things on the dead. the former are buried in the ante-natal position of a child, and we may perhaps be justified in seeing in this custom the symbol of a hope that as the child is born from this position into the world, so might the deceased be born into the life in the world beyond the grave; and the presence of amulets, the object of which was to protect the body, seems to indicate that they expected the actual body to rise again. the latter, by the mutilation of the bodies and the burning of the dead, seem to show that they had no hope of living again in their natural bodies, and how far they had approached to the conception of the resurrection of a spiritual body we shall probably never know. when we arrive at the ivth dynasty we find that, so far from any practice of mutilation or burning of the body being common, every text assumes that the body is to be buried whole; this fact indicates a reversal of the custom of mutilation, or burning, which must have been in use, however, for a considerable time. it is to this reversal that we probably owe such passages as, "o flesh of pepi, rot not, decay not, stink not;" "pepi goeth forth with his flesh;" "thy bones shall not be destroyed, and thy flesh shall not perish," [footnote: see _recueil de travaux_, tom. v. pp. , (lines , , ).] etc.; and they denote a return to the views and ways of the earliest people known to us in egypt. in the interval which elapsed between the period of the prehistoric burials and the ivth dynasty, the egyptian formulated certain theories about the component parts of his own body, and we must consider these briefly before we can describe the form in which the dead were believed to rise. the physical body of a man was called khat, a word which indicates something in which decay is inherent; it was this which was buried in the tomb after mummification, and its preservation from destruction of every kind was the object of all amulets, magical ceremonies, prayers, and formulae, from the earliest to the latest times. the god osiris even possessed such a body, and its various members were preserved as relics in several shrines in egypt. attached to the body in some remarkable way was the ka, or "double," of a man; it may be defined as an abstract individuality or personality which was endowed with all his characteristic attributes, and it possessed an absolutely independent existence. it was free to move from place to place upon earth at will, and it could enter heaven and hold converse with the gods. the offerings made in, the tombs at all periods were intended for the nourishment of the ka, and it was supposed to be able to eat and drink and to enjoy the odour of incense. in the earliest times a certain portion of the tomb was set apart for the use of the ka, and the religious organization of the period ordered that a class of priests should perform ceremonies and recite prayers at stated seasons for the benefit of the ka in the ka chapel; these men were known as "ka priests." in the period when the pyramids were built it was firmly believed that the deceased, in some form, was able to be purified, and to sit down and to eat bread with it "unceasingly and for ever;" and the ka who was not supplied with a sufficiency of food in the shape of offerings of bread, cakes, flowers, fruit, wine, ale, and the like, was in serious danger of starvation. the soul was called ba, and the ideas which the egyptians held concerning it are somewhat difficult to reconcile; the meaning of the word seems to be something like "sublime," "noble," "mighty." the ba dwelt in the ka, and seems to have had the power of becoming corporeal or incorporeal at will; it had both substance and form, and is frequently depicted on the papyri and monuments as a human-headed hawk; in nature and substance it is stated to be ethereal. it had the power to leave the tomb, and to pass up into heaven where it was believed to enjoy an eternal existence in a state of glory; it could, however, and did, revisit the body in the tomb, and from certain texts it seems that it could re-animate it and hold converse with it. like the heart ab it was, in some respects, the seat of life in man. the souls of the blessed dead dwelt in heaven with the gods, and they partook of all the celestial enjoyments for ever. the spiritual intelligence, or spirit, of a man was called khu, and it seems to have taken form as a shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body; the khus formed a class of celestial beings who lived with the gods, but their functions are not clear. the khu, like the ka, could be imprisoned in the tomb, and to obviate this catastrophe special formulae were composed and duly recited. besides the khu another very important part of a man's entity went into heaven, namely, his sekhem. the word literally means "to have the mastery over something," and, as used in the early texts, that which enables one to have the mastery over something; _i.e._, "power." the sekhem of a man was, apparently, his vital force or strength personified, and the egyptians believed that it could and did, under certain conditions, follow him that possessed it upon earth into heaven. another part of a man was the khaibit or "shadow," which is frequently mentioned in connexion with the soul and, in late times, was always thought to be near it. finally we may mention the ren, or "name" of a man, as one of his most important constituent parts. the egyptians, in common with all eastern nations, attached the greatest importance to the preservation of the name, and any person, who effected the blotting out of a man's name was thought to have destroyed him also. like the ka it was a portion, of a man's most special identity, and it is easy to see why so much importance grew to be attached to it; a nameless being could not be introduced to the gods, and as no created thing exists without a name the man who had no name was in a worse position before the divine powers than the feeblest inanimate object. to perpetuate the name of a father was a good son's duty, and to keep the tombs of the dead in good repair so that all might read the names of those who were buried in them was a most meritorious act. on the other hand, if the deceased knew the names of divine beings, whether friends or foes, and could pronounce them, he at once obtained power over them, and was able to make them perform his will. we have seen that the entity of a man consisted of body, double, soul, heart, spiritual intelligence or spirit, power, shadow, and name. these eight parts may be reduced to three by leaving out of consideration the double, heart, power, shadow and name as representing beliefs which were produced by the egyptian as he was slowly ascending the scale of civilization, and as being the peculiar product of his race; we may then say that a man consisted of body, soul, and spirit. but did all three rise, and live in the world beyond the grave? the egyptian texts answer this question definitely; the soul and the spirit of the righteous passed from the body and lived with the beatified and the gods in heaven; but the physical body did not rise again, and it was believed never to leave the tomb. there were ignorant people in egypt who, no doubt, believed in the resurrection of the corruptible body, and who imagined that the new life would be, after all, something very much like a continuation of that which they were living in this world; but the egyptian who followed the teaching of his sacred writings knew that such beliefs were not consistent with the views of their priests and of educated people in general. already in the vth dynasty, about b.c. , it is stated definitely:-- "the soul to heaven, the body to earth;" [footnote: _recueil de travaux_, tom. iv. p. (l. ).] and three thousand years later the egyptian writer declared the same thing, but in different words, when he wrote:--[footnote: horrack, _lamentations d' isis_, paris, , p. .] "heaven hath thy soul, and earth thy body." the egyptian hoped, among other things, that he would sail over the sky in the boat of r[=a], but he knew well that he could not do this in his mortal body; he believed firmly that he would live for millions of years, but with the experience of the human race before him he knew that this also was impossible if the body in which he was to live was that in which he had lived upon earth. at first he thought that his physical body might, after the manner of the sun, be "renewed daily," and that his new life would resemble that of that emblem of the sun-god r[=a] with which he sought to identify himself. later, however, his experience taught him that the best mummified body was sometimes destroyed, either by damp, or dry rot, or decay in one form or another, and that mummification alone was not sufficient to ensure resurrection or the attainment of the future life; and, in brief, he discovered that by no human means could that which is corruptible by nature be made to become incorruptible, for the very animals in which the gods themselves were incarnate became sick and died in their appointed season. it is hard to say why the egyptians continued to mummify the dead since there is good reason for knowing that they did not expect the physical body to rise again. it may be that they thought its preservation necessary for the welfare of the ka, or "double," and for the development of a new body from it; also the continued custom may have been the result of intense conservatism. but whatever the reason, the egyptian never ceased to take every possible precaution to preserve the dead body intact, had he sought for help in his trouble from another source. it will be remembered that when isis found the dead body of her husband osiris, she at once set to work to protect it. she drove away the foes, and made the ill-luck which had come upon it to be of no effect. in order to bring about this result "she made strong her speech with all the strength of her mouth, she was perfect of tongue, and she halted not in her speech," and she pronounced a series of words or formulae with which thoth had provided her; thus she succeeded in "stirring up the inactivity of the still-heart" and in accomplishing her desire in respect of him. her cries, prompted by love and grief, would have had no effect on the dead body unless they had been accompanied by the words of thoth, which she uttered with boldness (_ichu_), and understanding (_ager_), and without fault in pronunciation (_an-uh_). the egyptian of old kept this fact in his mind, and determined to procure the resurrection of his friends and relatives by the same means as isis employed, _i.e._, the formulae of thoth; with this object in view each dead person, was provided with a series of texts, either written upon his coffin, or upon papyri and amulets, which would have the same effect as the words of thoth which were spoken by isis. but the relatives of the deceased had also a duty to perform in this matter, and that was to provide for the recital of certain prayers, and for the performance of a number of symbolical ceremonies over the dead body before it was laid to rest finally in the tomb. a sacrifice had to be offered up, and the deceased and his friends and relatives assisted at it, and each ceremony was accompanied by its proper prayers; when all had been done and said according to the ordinances of the priests, the body was taken, to its place in the mummy chamber. but the words of thoth and the prayers of the priests caused the body to become changed into a "s[=a]hu," or incorruptible, spiritual body, which passed straightway out of the tomb and made its way to heaven where it dwelt with the gods. when, in the book of the dead the deceased says, "i exist, i exist; i live, i live; i germinate, i germinate," [footnote: see chap. cliv.] and again, "i germinate like the plants," [footnote: see chap. lxxxviii. .] the deceased does not mean that his physical body is putting forth the beginnings of another body like the old one, but a spiritual body which "hath neither defect nor, like r[=a], shall suffer diminution for ever." into the s[=a]hu passed the soul which had lived in the body of a man upon earth, and it seems as if the new, incorruptible body formed the dwelling-place of the soul in heaven just as the physical body had been its earthly abode. the reasons why the egyptians continued to mummify their dead is thus apparent; they did not do so believing that their physical bodies would rise again, but because they wished the spiritual body to "sprout" or "germinate" from them, and if possible--at least it seems so--to be in the form of the physical body. in this way did the dead rise according to the egyptians, and in this body did they come. from what has been said above, it will be seen that there is no reason for doubting the antiquity of the egyptian belief in the resurrection of the dead and in immortality, and the general evidence derived both from archaeological and religious considerations supports this view. as old, however, as this belief in general is the specific belief in a spiritual body (s[=a]h or s[=a]hu); for we find it in texts of the vth dynasty incorporated with ideas which belong to the prehistoric egyptian in his savage or semi-savage state. one remarkable extract will prove this point. in the funeral chapters which are inscribed on the walls of the chambers and passages inside the pyramid of king unas, who flourished at the end of the vth dynasty, about b.c. , is a passage in which the deceased king terrifies all the powers of heaven and earth because he "riseth as a soul (ba) in the form of the god who liveth upon his fathers and who maketh food of his mothers. unas is the lord of wisdom and his mother knoweth not his name. he hath become mighty like unto the god temu, the father who gave him birth, and after temu gave him birth he became stronger than his father." the king is likened unto a bull, and he feedeth upon every god, whatever may be the form in which he appeareth; "he hath weighed words with the god whose name is hidden," and he devoureth men and liveth upon gods. the dead king is then said to set out to limit the gods in their meadows, and when he has caught them with nooses, he causes them to be slain. they are next cooked in blazing cauldrons, the greatest for his morning meal, the lesser for his evening meal, and the least for his midnight meal; the old gods and goddesses serve as fuel for his cooking pots. in this way, having swallowed the magical powers and spirits of the gods, he becomes the great power of powers among the gods, and the greatest of the gods who appear in visible forms. "whatever he hath found upon his path he hath consumed, and his strength is greater than that of any spiritual body (s[=a]hu) in the horizon; he is the firstborn of all the firstborn, and ... he hath carried off the hearts of the gods.... he hath eaten the wisdom of every god, and his period of existence is everlasting, and his life shall be unto all eternity, ... for the souls and the spirits of the gods are in him." we have, it is clear, in this passage an allusion to the custom of savages of all nations and periods, of eating portions of the bodies of valiant foes whom they have vanquished in war in order to absorb their virtues and strength; the same habit has also obtained in some places in respect of animals. in the case of the gods the deceased is made to covet their one peculiar attribute, that is to say, everlasting life; and when he has absorbed their souls and spirits he is declared to have obtained all that makes him superior to every other spiritual body in strength and in length of life. the "magical powers" (_heka_) which the king is also said to have "eaten," are the words and formulae, the utterance of which by him, in whatever circumstances he may be placed, will cause every being, friendly or unfriendly, to do his will. but apart from any question of the slaughter of the gods the egyptians declared of this same king, "behold, thou hast not gone as one dead, but as one living, to sit upon the throne of osiris." [footnote: _recuell de travaux_, tom. v. p. (l. ).] and in a papyrus written nearly two thousand years later the deceased himself says, "my soul is god, my soul is eternity," [footnote: papyrus of ani, plate , l. (chapter lxxxiv.).] a clear proof that the ideas of the existence of god and of eternity were identical. yet one other example is worth quoting, if only to show the care that the writers of religious texts took to impress the immortality of the soul upon their readers. according to chapter clxxv. of the book of the dead the deceased finds himself in a place where there is neither water nor air, and where "it is depth unfathomable, it is black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly therein. in it a man may not live in quietness of heart, nor may the longings of love be satisfied therein. but," says the deceased to the god thoth, "let the state of the spirits be given unto me instead of water, and air, and the satisfying of the longings of love, and let quietness of heart be given unto me instead of cakes and ale. the god temu hath decreed that i shall see thy face, and that i shall not suffer from the things which pained thee; may every god transmit unto thee [o osiris] his throne for millions of years! thy throne hath descended unto thy son horus, and the god temu hath decreed that his course shall be among the holy princes. verily he shall rule over thy throne, and he shall be heir of the throne of the dweller in the lake of the two fires. verily it hath been decreed that in me he shall see his likeness, [footnote: _i.e._, i shall be like horus, the son of osiris.] and that my face shall look upon the face of the lord tem." after reciting these words, the deceased asks thoth, "how long have i to live?" and the god replies, "it is decreed that thou shalt live for millions of millions of years, a life of millions of years." to give emphasis and additional effect to his words the god is made to speak tautologically so that the most unlettered man may not miss their meaning. a little later in the chapter the deceased says, "o my father osiris, thou hast done for me that which thy father r[=a] did for thee. so shall i abide on the earth lastingly, i shall keep possession of my seat; my heir shall be strong; my tomb and my friends who are upon earth shall flourish; my enemies shall be given over to destruction and to the shackles of the goddess serq. i am thy son, and r[=a] is my father; for me likewise thou shalt make life, and strength, and health!" it is interesting to note that the deceased first identifies osiris with r[=a], and then he identifies himself with osiris; thus he identifies himself with r[=a]. with the subjects of resurrection and immortality must be mentioned the frequent references in the religious texts of all periods to the meat and drink on which lived the beings who were believed to exist in the world beyond the grave. in prehistoric days if was natural enough for the dead man's friends to place food in his grave, because they thought that he would require it on his journey to the next world; this custom also presupposed that the deceased would have a body like unto that which he had left behind him in this world, and that it would need food and drink. in the vth dynasty the egyptians believed that the blessed dead lived upon celestial food, and that they suffered neither hunger nor thirst; they ate what the gods ate, they drank what they drank, they were what they were, and became in such matters as these the counterparts of the gods. in another passage we read that they are apparelled in white linen, that they wear white sandals, and that they go to the great lake which is in the midst of the field of peace whereon the great gods sit, and that the gods give them to eat of the food (_or_ tree) of life of which they themselves eat that they also may live. it is certain, however, that other views than these were held concerning the food of the dead, for already in the vth dynasty the existence of a region called sekhet-aaru, or sekhet-aanru had been formulated, and to this place the soul, or at least some part, of the pious egyptian hoped to make its way. where sekhet-aaru was situated we have no means of saying, and the texts afford us no clue as to its whereabouts; some scholars think that it lay away to the east of egypt, but it is far more likely to represent some district of the delta either in its northern or north-eastern portion. fortunately we have a picture of it in the papyrus of nebseni, [footnote: brit. mus., no. ; this document belongs to the xviiith dynasty.] the oldest probably on papyrus, and from this we may see that sekhet-aaru, _i.e._, the "field of reeds," typified some very fertile region where farming operations could be carried on with ease and success. canals and watercourses abound, and in one section, we are told, the spirits of the blessed dwelt; the picture probably represents a traditional "paradise" or "elysian fields," and the general characteristics of this happy land are those of a large, well-kept, and well-stocked homestead, situated at no great distance from the nile or one of its main branches. in the papyrus of nebseni the divisions of the sekhet-auru contain the following:-- [illustration: the elysian fields of the egyptians according to the papyrus of nebseni (xviiith dynasty).] . nebseni, the scribe and artist of the temple of ptah, with his arms hanging by his sides, entering the elysian fields. . nebseni making an offering of incense to the "great company of the gods." . nebseni seated in a boat paddling; above the boat are three symbols for "city." . nebseni addressing a bearded mummied figure. . three pools or lakes called urti, hetep, and qetqet. . nebseni reaping in sekhet-hetepet. . nebseni grasping the bennu bird, which is perched upon a stand; in front are three kau and three khu. . nebseni seated and smelling a flower; the text reads: "thousands of all good and pure things to the ka of nebseni." . a table of offerings. . four pools or lakes called nebt-tani, uakha, kha(?), and hetep. . nebseni ploughing with oxen by the side of a stream which is one thousand [measures] in length, and the width of which cannot be said; in it there are neither fish nor worms. . nebseni ploughing with oxen on an island "the length of which is the length of heaven." . a division shaped like a bowl, in which is inscribed: "the birthplace(?) of the god of the city qenqentet nebt." . an island whereon are four gods and a flight of steps; the legend reads: "the great company of the gods who are in sekhet-hetep." . the boat tchetetfet, with eight oars, four at the bows, and four at the stern, floating at the end of a canal; in it is a flight of steps. the place where it lies is called the "domain of neth." . two pools, the names of which are illegible. the scene as given in the papyrus of ani [footnote: brit. mus., no. , , plate ] gives some interesting variants and may be described thus:-- . ani making an offering before a hare-headed god, a snake-headed god, and a bull-headed god; behind him stand his wife thuthu and thoth holding his reed and palette. ani paddling a boat. ani addressing a hawk, before which are a table of offerings, a statue, three ovals, and the legend, "being at peace in the field, and having air for the nostrils." . ani reaping corn, ani driving the oxen which tread out the corn; ani addressing (_or_ adoring) a bennu bird perched on a stand; ani seated holding the _kherp_ sceptre; a heap of red and a heap of white corn; three kau and three khu, which are perhaps to be read, "the food of the spirits;" and three pools. . ani ploughing a field near a stream which contains [illustration: the elysian fields of the egyptians according to the papyrus of ani (xviiith dynasty).] neither fish, nor serpents, nor worms of any kind whatsoever. . the birthplace of the "god of the city;" an island on which is a flight of steps; a region called the "place of the spirits" who are seven cubits high, where the wheat is three cubits high, and where the s[=a]hu, or spiritual bodies, reap it; the region ashet, the god who dwelleth therein being un-nefer (_i.e._, a form of osiris); a boat with eight oars lying at the end of a canal; and a boat floating on a canal. the name of the first boat is behutu-tcheser, and that of the second tohefau. so far we have seen that in heaven and in the world beyond the grave the deceased has found only divine beings, and the doubles, and the souls, and the spirits, and the spiritual bodies of the blessed; but no reference has been made to the possibility of the dead recognizing each other, or being able to continue the friendships or relationships which they had when upon earth. in the sekhet-aaru the case is, however, different, for there we have reason to believe relationships were recognized and rejoiced in. thus in chapter lii. of the book of the dead, which was composed with the idea of the deceased, from lack of proper food in the underworld, being obliged to eat filth, [footnote: this idea is a survival of prehistoric times, when it was thought that if the proper sepulchral meals were not deposited at regular intervals where the ka, or "double," of the deceased could get at them it would be obliged to wander about and pick up whatever it might find to eat upon its road.] and with the object of preventing such an awful thing, the deceased says: "that which is an abomination unto me, that which is an abomination unto me, let me not eat. that which is an abomination unto me, that which is an abomination unto me, is filth; let me not be obliged to eat thereof in the place of the sepulchral cakes which are offered unto the kau (_i.e._, "doubles"). let it not touch my body, let me not be obliged to hold it in my hands; and let me not be compelled to tread thereon in my sandals." some being or beings, probably the gods, then ask him, "what, now, wilt thou live upon in the presence of the gods?" and he replies, "let food come to me from the place of food, and let me live upon the seven loaves of bread which shall be brought as food before horus, and upon the bread which is brought before thoth. and when the gods shall say unto me, 'what manner of food wouldst thou have given unto thee?' i will reply, 'let me eat my food under the sycamore tree of my lady, the goddess hathor, and let my times be among the divine beings who have alighted thereon. let me have the power to order my own fields in tattu (busiris), and my own growing crops in annu. let me live upon bread made of white grain, and let my beer be made from red grain, and may the persons of my father and mother be given unto me as guardians of my door, and for the ordering of my homestead. let me be sound and strong, and let me have much room wherein to move, and let me be able to sit wheresoever i please." this chapter is most important as showing that the deceased wished to have his homestead and its fields situated in tattu, that is to say, near the capital of the busirite or ixth nome of lower egypt, a district not far from the city of semennûd (_i.e._, sebennytus) and lying a little to the south of the thirty-first parallel of latitude. it was here that the reconstitution of the dismembered body of osiris took place, and it was here that the solemn ceremony of setting up the backbone of osiris was performed each year. the original sekhet-aaru was evidently placed here, and we are therefore right in assuming that the fertile fields of this part of the delta formed the prototype of the elysian fields of the egyptian. at the same time he also wished to reap crops on the fields round about heliopolis, the seat of the greatest and most ancient shrine of the sun-god. the white grain of which he would have his bread made is the ordinary _dhura_, and the red grain is the red species of the same plant, which is not so common as the white. as keepers of the door of his estate the deceased asks for the "forms (_or_ persons) of his father and his mother," and thus we see a desire on the part of the egyptian to continue the family life which he began upon earth; it goes almost without saying that he would not ask this thing if he thought there would be no prospect of knowing his parents in the next world. an interesting proof of this is afforded by the picture of the sekhet-aaru, or elysian fields, which is given in the papyrus of anhai, [footnote: brit. mus., no. , .] [illustration: anhai bowing before her father and mother. the elysian fields. from the papyrus of anhai (xxiind dynasty).] a priestess of amen who lived probably about b.c. . here we see the deceased entering into the topmost section of the district and addressing two divine persons; above one of these are written the words "her mother," followed by the name neferitu. the form which comes next is probably that of her father, and thus we are sure that the egyptians believed they would meet their relatives in the next world and know and be known by them. accompanying the picture of the elysian fields is a long text which forms chapter cx. of the book of the dead. as it supplies a great deal of information concerning the views held in early times about that region, and throws so much light upon the semi-material life which the pious egyptians, at one period of their history, hoped to lead, a rendering of it is here given. it is entitled, "the chapters of sekhet-hetepet, and the chapters of coming forth by day; of going into and of coming forth from the underworld; of coming to sekhet-aaru; of being in sekhet-hetepet, the mighty land, the lady of winds; of having power there; of becoming a spirit (khu) there; of reaping there; of eating there; of drinking there; of making love there; and of doing everything even as a man doeth upon the earth." the deceased says:-- "set hath seized horus, who looked with the two eyes [footnote: _i.e._, the eye of r[=a] and the eye of horus.] upon the building (?) round sekhet-hetep, but i have released horus [and taken him from] set, and set hath opened the path of the two eyes [which are] in heaven. set hath cast (?) his moisture to the winds upon the soul that hath his day, and that dwelleth in the city of mert, and he hath delivered the interior of the body of horus from the gods of akert. "behold me now, for i make this mighty boat to travel over the lake of hetep, and i brought it away with might from the palace of shu; the domain of his stars groweth young and reneweth the strength which it had of old. i have brought the boat into the lakes thereof, so that i may come forth into the cities thereof, and i have sailed into their divine city hetep. and behold, it is because i, even i, am at peace with his seasons, and with his direction, and with his territory, and with the company of the gods who are his firstborn. he maketh horus and set to be at peace with those who watch over the living ones whom he hath created in fair form, and he bringeth peace; he maketh horus and set to be at peace with those who watch over them. he cutteth off the hair from horus and set, he driveth away storm from the helpless, and he keepeth away harm from the spirits (khu). let me have dominion within that field, for i know it, and i have sailed among its lakes so that i might come into its cities. my mouth is firm, [footnote: _i.e._, i know how to utter the words of power which i possess with vigour.] and i am equipped to resist the spirits (khu), therefore they shall not have dominion over me. let me be rewarded with thy fields, o thou god hetep; but that which is thy wish do, o thou lord of the winds. may i become a spirit therein, may i eat therein, may i drink therein, may i plough therein, may i reap therein, may i fight therein, may i make love therein, may my words be mighty therein; may i never be in a state of servitude therein; but may i be in authority therein. thou hast made strong the mouth (_or_ door) and the throat (_?_) of hetep; qetet-bu is his name. he is stablished upon the pillars [footnote: _i.e._, the four pillars, one placed at each cardinal point, which support the sky.] of shu, and is linked unto the pleasant things of r[=a]. he is the divider of years, he is hidden of mouth, his mouth is silent, that which he uttereth is secret, he fulfilleth eternity and hath possession of everlasting existence as hetep, the lord hetep. "the god horus maketh himself to be strong like unto the hawk which is one thousand cubits in length, and two thousand [cubits in width] in life; he hath equipments with him, and he journeyeth on and cometh where his heart's throne wisheth to be in the pools [of hetep] and in the cities thereof. he was begotten in the birth-chamber of the god of the city, offerings of the god of the city are made unto him, he performeth that which it is meet to do therein, and causeth the union thereof, and doeth everything which appertaineth to the birth-chamber of the divine city. when he setteth in life, like crystal, he performeth everything therein, and the things which he doeth are like unto the things which are done in the lake of twofold fire, wherein there is none that rejoiceth, and wherein are all manner of evil things. the god hetep goeth in, and cometh out, and goeth backwards [in] that field which gathereth together all manner of things for the birth-chamber of the god of the city. when he setteth in life, like crystal, he performeth all manner of things therein which are like unto the things which are done in the lake of twofold fire, wherein there is none that rejoiceth, and wherein are all manner of evil things. "let me live with the god hetep, clothed and not plundered by the lords of the north, and let the lord of divine things bring food unto me. let him make me to go forward, and let me come out, and let him bring my power unto me there; let me receive it, and let my equipment be from the god hetep. let me gain the mastery over the great and mighty word which is in my body in this place wherein i am, for by means of it i will remember and i will forget. let me go forward on my way and let me plough. i am at peace with the god of the city, and i know the waters, and the cities, and the nomes, and the lakes which are in sekhet-hetep. i exist therein, i am strong therein, i have become a spirit (khu) therein, i eat therein, i sow seed therein, i reap the harvest therein, i plough therein, i make love therein, and i am at peace with the god hetep therein. behold i scatter seed therein, i sail about among its lakes, and i advance to the cities thereof, o divine hetep. behold, my mouth is provided with my [teeth which are like] horns; grant me therefore an overflowing supply of the food whereon, the 'doubles' (kau) and the spirits (khu) do live. i have passed the judgment which shu passeth upon him that knoweth him, therefore let me go forth to the cities of [hetep], and let me sail about among its lakes, and let me walk about in sekhet-hetep. behold r[=a] is in heaven, and behold the god hetep is the twofold offering thereof. i have come forward to the land [of hetep], i have girded up my loins and come forth so that the gifts which are about to be given unto me may be given, and i am glad, and i have laid hold upon my strength which the god hetep hath greatly increased for me." "o unen-em-hetep, [footnote: the name of the first large section of sekhet-aaru.] i have entered into thee, and my soul followeth after me, and my divine food is upon my hands. o lady of the two lands, [footnote: a lake in the second section of sekhet-aaru.] who stablishest my word whereby i remember and forget, let me live uninjured, and without any injury [being done] unto me. o grant to me, o do thou grant to me, joy of heart; make thou me to be at peace, bind thou up my sinews and muscles, and make me to receive the air." "o unen-em-hetep, o lady of the winds, i have entered into thee, and i have shewn [footnote: literally, "opened."] my head [therein]. r[=a] sleepeth, but i am awake, and there is the goddess hast at the gate of heaven by night. obstacles have been set before me, but i have gathered together what r[=a] hath emitted. i am in my city." "o nut-urt, [footnote: the name of a lake in the first section of sekhet-aaru.] i have entered into thee and i have reckoned up my harvest, and i go forward to uakh. [footnote: the name of a lake in the second section of sekhet-aaru.] i am the bull enveloped in turquoise, the lord of the field of the bull, the lord of the divine speech of the goddess septet (sothis) at her hours. o uakh, i have entered into thee, i have eaten my bread, i have gotten the mastery over choice pieces of the flesh of oxen and of feathered fowl, and the birds of shu have been given unto me; i follow after the gods, and the divine 'doubles' (kau)." "o tohefet, [footnote: the name of a district in the third section of sekhet-aaru.] i have entered into thee, i array myself in apparel, and i have guarded myself with the _sa_ garment of r[=a]; now behold, he is in heaven, and those who dwell therein follow him, and i also follow r[=a] in heaven, o unen-em-hetep, lord of the two lands, i have entered into thee, and i have plunged into the lakes of tohesert; behold me now, for all uncleanness hath departed from me. the great god groweth therein, and behold, i have found [food therein]; i have snared feathered fowl and i feed upon, the finest of them." "o qenqentet, [footnote: the name of a lake in the first section, of sekhet-aaru.] i have entered into thee, and i have seen, the osiris [my father], and i have gazed upon my mother, and i have made love. i have captured the worms and serpents [which are there] and have delivered myself. i know the name of the god who is opposite to the goddess tohesert, who hath straight hair and is provided with horns; he reapeth, but i both plough and reap." "o hast, [footnote: the name of a lake in the third section of sekhet-aaru.] i have entered into thee, and i have driven back those who would come to the turquoise [sky]; and i have followed the winds of the company of the gods. the great god hath given my head unto me, and he who hath bound on me my head is the mighty one with the eyes of turquoise, that is to say, ari-en-ab-f (_i.e._, he who doeth as he pleaseth)." "o usert, [footnote: the name of a lake in the third section of sekhet-aaru.] i have come unto thee at the house where the divine food is brought unto me." "o smam, [footnote: the name of a lake in the third section of sekhet-aaru.] i have come unto thee. my heart watcheth, and i am provided with the white crown. i am led into celestial regions, and i make the things of earth to flourish; and there is joy of heart for the bull, and for celestial beings, and for the company of the gods. i am the god who is the bull, the lord of the gods as he goeth forth from the turquoise [sky]." "o divine nome of wheat and barley, i have come unto thee, i have come forward to thee, and i have taken up that which followeth me, namely, the best of the libations of the company of the gods. i have tied my boat in the celestial lakes, i have lifted up the post at which to anchor, i have recited the prescribed words with my voice, and i have ascribed praises unto the gods who dwell in sekhet-hetep." other joys, however, than those described above, await the man who has passed satisfactorily through the judgment and has made his way into the realm of the gods. for, in answer to a long petition in the papyrus of ani, which has been given above (see p. f.), the god r[=a] promises to the deceased the following: "thou shalt come forth into heaven, thou shalt pass over the sky, thou shalt be joined unto the starry deities. praises shall be offered unto thee in thy boat, thou shalt be hymned in the [=a]tet boat, thou shalt behold r[=a] within his shrine, thou shalt set together with his disk day by day, thou shalt see the ant [footnote : the name of a mythological fish which swam at the bow of the boat of r[=a].] fish when it springeth into being in the waters of turquoise, and thou shalt see the abtu [footnote: the name of a mythological fish which swam at the bow of the boat of r[=a].] fish in his hour. it shall come to pass that the evil one shall fall when he layeth a snare to destroy thee, and the joints of his neck and of his back shall be hacked asunder. r[=a] [saileth] with a fair wind, and the sektet boat draweth on and cometh into port. the mariners of r[=a] rejoice, and the heart of nebt-[=a]nkh (_i.e._, isis) is glad, for the enemy of r[=a] hath fallen to the ground. thou shalt behold horus on the standing-place of the pilot of the boat, and thoth and ma[=a]t shall stand one upon each side of him. all the gods shall rejoice when they behold r[=a] coming in peace to make the hearts of the shining ones to live, and osiris ani, triumphant, the scribe of the divine offspring of the lords of thebes, shall be along with them." but, not content with sailing in the boat of r[=a] daily as one of many beatified beings, the deceased hoped to transform each of his limbs into a god, and when this was effected to become r[=a] himself. thus in chapter xlii. of the book of the dead [footnote: see _the chapters of coming forth by day_, p. .] the deceased says-- "my hair is the hair of nu. "my face is the face of the disk. "my eyes are the eyes of hathor. "my ears are the ears of ap-uat. "my nose is the nose of khenti-khas. "my lips are the lips of anpu. "my teeth are the teeth of serqet. "my neck is the neck of the divine goddess isis. "my hands are the hands of ba-neb-tattu. "my fore-arms are the fore-arms of neith, the lady of saïs. "my backbone is the backbone of suti. "my phallus is the phallus of osiris. "my reins are the reins of the lords of kher-[=a]ba. "my chest is the chest of the mighty one of terror. "my belly and back are the belly and back of sekhet. "my buttocks are the buttocks of the eye of horus. "my hips and legs are the hips and legs of nut. "my feet are the feet of ptah. "my fingers and my leg-bones are the fingers and leg-bones of the living gods." [footnote: the idea of the deification of the human members was current already in the vith dynasty. see _recueil de travaux_, tom. viii, pp. , .] and immediately after this the deceased says: "there is no member of my body which is not the member of a god. the god thoth shieldeth my body altogether, and i am r[=a] day by day." thus we see by what means the egyptians believed that mortal man could be raised from the dead, and attain unto life everlasting. the resurrection was the object with which every prayer was said and every ceremony performed, and every text, and every amulet, and every formula, of each and every period, was intended to enable the mortal to put on immortality and to live eternally in a transformed glorified body. if this fact be borne in mind many apparent difficulties will disappear before the readers in this perusal of egyptian texts, and the religion of the egyptians will be seen to possess a consistence of aim and a steadiness of principle which, to some, it at first appears to lack. the end. printed ballantyne, hanson & co edinburgh & london [illustration: cover art] the gates between. by elizabeth stuart phelps, _author of_ "the gates ajar," "gypsy breynton," etc write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. revelation. ward, lock and co., london, new york, and melbourne. [_all rights reserved_]. the gates between. chapter i. if the narrative which i am about to recount perplex the reader, it can hardly do so more than it has perplexed the narrator. explanations, let me say at the start, i have none to offer. that which took place i relate. i have had no special education or experience as a writer; both my nature and my avocation have led me in other directions. i can claim nothing more in the construction of these pages than the qualities of a faithful reporter. such, i have tried to be. it was on the twenty-fifth of november of the year -, that i, esmerald thorne, fell upon the event whose history and consequences i am about to describe. autobiographies i do not like. i should have been positive at any time during my life of forty-nine years, that no temptation could drag me over that precipice of presumption and illusion which awaits the man who confides himself to the world. as it is the unexpected which happens, so it is the unwelcome which we choose. i do not tell this story for my own gratification. i tell it to fulfil the heaviest responsibility of my life. however i may present myself upon these pages is the least of my concern; whether well or ill, that is of the smallest possible consequence. touching the manner of my telling the story, i have heavy thoughts; for i know that upon the manner of the telling will depend effects too far beyond the scope of any one human personality for me to regard them indifferently. i wish i could. i have reason to believe myself the bearer of a message to many men. this belief is in itself enough, one would say, to deplete a man of paltry purpose. i wish to be considered only as the messenger, who comes and departs, and is thought of no more. the message remains, and should remain, the only material of interest. owing to some peculiarities in the situation, i am unable to delegate, and do not see my way to defer, a duty--for i believe it to be a duty--which i shall therefore proceed to perform with as little apology as possible. i must trust to the gravity of my motive to overcome every trifling consideration in the mind of my readers; as it has solemnly done in my own. in order to give force to my narrative, it will be necessary for me to be more personal in some particulars than i could have chosen, and to revert to certain details of my early history belonging to that category which people of my profession or temperament are wont to dismiss as "emotional." i have had strange occasion to learn that this is a deep and delicate word, which can never be scientifically used, which cannot be so much as elementally understood, except by delicacy and by depth. these are precisely the qualities of which this is to be said,--he who most lacks them will be most unaware of the lack. there is a further peculiarity about such unconsciousness; that it is not material for education. you can teach a man that he is not generous, or true, or able. you can never teach him that he is superficial, or that he is not fine. i have been by profession a physician; the son of a chemist; the grandson of a surgeon; a man fairly illustrative of the subtler significance of these circumstances; born and bred, as the children of science are;--a physical fact in a world of physical facts; a man who rises, if ever, by miracle, to a higher set of facts; who thinks the thought of his father, who does the deed of his father's father, who contests the heredity of his mother, who shuts the pressure of his special education like a clasp about his nature, and locks it down with the iron experience of his calling. it was given to me, as it is not given to all men of my kind, to know a woman strong enough--and sweet enough--to fit a key unto this lock. strong enough _or_ sweet enough, i should rather have said. the two are truly the same. the old hebrew riddle read well, that "out of strength shall come forth sweetness." there is the lioness behind the rarest honey. like others of my calling, i had seen the best and the worst and the most of women. the pathological view of that complex subject is the most unfortunate which a man can well have. the habit of classifying a woman as neuralgic, hysteric, dyspeptic, instead of unselfish, intellectual, high-minded, is not a wholesome one for the classifier. something of the abnormal condition of the _clientèle_ extends to the adviser. a physician who has a healthy and natural view of women has the making of a great man in him. i was not a great man. i was only a successful lector; more conscious in those days of the latter fact, and less of the former, be it admitted, than i am now. a man's avocation may be at once his ruin and his exculpation. i do not know whether i was more self-confident or even more wilful than other men to whom is given the autocracy of our profession, and the dependence of women which accompanies it. i should not wish to have the appearance of saying an unmanly thing, if i add that this dependence had wearied me. it is more likely to be true that i differed from most other men in this: that in all my life i have known but one woman whom i loved, or wished to make my wife. i was forty-five years old before i saw her. who of us has not felt at the play, the strong allegorical power in the coming of the first actress before the house? the hero may pose, the clown dance, the villain plot, the warrior, the king, the merchant, the page, fuddle the attention for the nonce: it is a dreary business; it is like parsing poetry; it is a grammatical duty; the play could not, it seems, go on without these superfluities. we listen, weary, regret, find fault, and acquire an aversion, when lo! upon the monotonous, masculine scene, some slender creature, shining, all white gown and yellow hair and soft arms and sweet curves comes gliding--and, hush! with the everwomanly, the play begins. i do not think this feeling is one peculiar to our sex alone; i have heard women express the same in the strongest terms. so, i have sometimes thought it is with the coming of the woman upon the stage of a man's life. if the scenes have shifted for a while too long, monopolized by the old dismal male actors whose trick and pose and accent he knows so well and understands too easily,--and if, then, half-through the drama, late and longed-for, tardily and splendidly, comes the star, and if she be a fine creature, of a high fame, and worthy of it,--ah, then look you to her spectator. rapt and rapturous she will hold him till the play is done. so she found me--held me--holds me. the best of it, thank god, is the last of it. so, i can say, she holds me to this hour, where and as we are. it was on this wise. on my short summer vacation of that year from which i date my happiness, and which i used to call the year of my lady, as others say the year of our lord, i tarried for a time in a mountain village, unfashionable and beautiful, where my city patients were not likely to hunt me down. fifty-three of them had followed me to the seashore the year before, and i went back to town a harder-worked man than i left it. even a doctor has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a vacation, and that time i struck out for my rights. i cut adrift--denied my addresses even to my partner--and set forth upon a walking tour alone, among the hills. upon one point my mind was made up: i would not see a sick woman for two weeks. i arrived at this little town of which i speak upon a saturday evening. i remember that it was an extraordinary evening. thunder came up, and clouds of colours such as i found remarkable. i am not an adept in describing these things, but i remember that they moved me. i went out and followed the trout-brook, which was a graceful little stream, and watched the pageant in the skies above the tops of the forest. the trees on either side of the tiny current had the look of souls regarding each other across a barrier, so solemn were they. they stood with their gaze upon the heavens and their feet rooted to the earth, and seemed like sentient creatures who knew why this was as it was. i, walking with my eyes upon them, feet unguarded, and fancy following a cloud of rose-colour that hung fashioned in the outline of a mighty wing above me, caught my foot in a gnarled old hickory root and fell heavily. when i tried to rise i found that i was considerably hurt. i was a well, vigorous man, not accustomed to pain, which took a vigorous form with me; and i was mortified to find myself quite faint, too much so even to disturb myself over the situation, or to wonder who would be likely to institute a searching-party for me,--a stranger, but an hour since, registered at the hotel. with that ease which i condemned so hotly in my patients i abandoned myself to the physical pang, got back somehow against the hickory, and closed my eyes; devoid even of curiosity as to the consequences of the accident; only "attentive to my sensations," as a great writer of my day put it. i had often quoted him to nervous people whom i considered as exaggerating their sufferings; i did not recall the quotation at that moment. "oh! you are hurt!" a low voice said. i was a bit fastidious in voices at that time of my life. to say that this was the sweetest i had ever heard would not express what i mean. it was the _dearest_ i had ever heard. from that first moment,--before i saw her face,--drowned as i was in that wave of mean physical agony, given over utterly to myself, i knew, and to myself i said: "it is the dearest voice in all this world." a woman on the further side of the trout-brook stood uncertain, pitifully regarding me. she was not a girl,--quite a woman; ripe, and self-possessed in bearing. she had a beautiful head, and bright dark hair; her head was bare, and her straw mountain-hat hung across one arm by the strings. she had been bathing her face in the water, which was of a pink tint like the wing above it. as she stood there, she seemed to be shut in and guarded by, dripping with, that rose-colour,--to inhale it, to exhale it, to be a part of it, to be _it_. she looked like a blossom of the live and wonderful evening. "you are seriously hurt," she repeated. "i must get to you. have patience; i will find a way. i will help you." the bridge was at some distance from us, and the little stream was brawling and strong. "but it is not deep," she said. "do not feel any concern. it will do me no harm." as she spoke, she swung herself lightly over into the brook, stepping from stone to stone, till these came to an abrupt end in the current. there for an instant poised, but one could not say uncertain, she hung shining before me--for her dress was white, and it took and took and took the rose-colour as if she were a white rose, blushing. she then plunged directly into the water, which was knee-deep at least, and waded straight across to me. as she climbed the bank, her thick wet dress clinging to her lovely limbs, and her hands outstretched as if in hurrying pity, i closed my eyes again before her. i thought, as i did so, how much exquisite pleasure was like perfect pain. she climbed the bank and stooped from her tall height to look at me; knelt upon the moss, and touched me impersonally, like the spirit that she seemed. "you are very wet!" i cried. "the water is cold. i know these mountain brooks. you will be chilled through. pray get home and send me--somebody." "where are you hurt?" she answered, with a little authoritative wave of the hand, as if she waved my words away. she had firm, fine hands. "i have injured the patella--i mean the knee-pan," i replied. she smiled indulgently. she did not take the trouble to tell me that my lesson in elementary anatomy was at all superfluous. but when i saw her smile i said:-- "that was unconscious cerebration." "why, of course," she answered, nodding pleasantly. "go home," i urged. "go and get yourself out of these wet things. no lady can bear it; it will injure you." she lifted her head,--i thought she carried it like a greek,--and regarded me with her wide, grave eyes. i met hers firmly, and for a moment we considered each other. "it is plain that you are a doctor," she said lightly, with a second smile. "i presume you never see a well woman; at least--believe you see one now. i shall mind this wetting no more than if i were a trout or a gray squirrel. i am perfectly able to give you whatever help you require. and by your leave, i shall not go home and get into a dry dress until i see you properly cared for. now! can you step? or shall i get a waggon, and a farm-hand? i think we could back a horse down almost to this spot. but it would take time. so?--will you try it? gently. slowly. don't _let_ me hurt you, or blunder. i see that you are in great pain. don't be afraid to lean on me. i am quite strong. i am able. if you can crawl a few steps"-- _steps_! i would have crawled a few miles. for she put her sweet arms about me as simply and nobly as if i had been a wounded child; and with such strength of the flesh and unconsciousness of the spirit as i had never beheld in any woman, she did indeed support me out of the forest in such wise that my poor pain of the body became a great and glorified fact, for the joy of soul that i had because of her. it had begun to be easy, in my day, to make a mock at many dear and delicate beliefs; not those alone which pertain to the life eternal, but those belonging to the life below. the one followed from the other, perhaps. that which we have been accustomed to call love was an angel whose wings had been bruised by our unbelieving clutch. it was not the fashion to love greatly. one of the leading scientists of my time and of my profession had written: "there is nothing particularly holy about love." so far as i had given thought to the subject, i had, perhaps, agreed with him. it is easy for a physician to agree to anything which emphasizes the visible, and erases the invisible fact. if there were any one form of the universal delusion more than all others "gone out" in the days of which i speak, it was the dear, old-fashioned delirium called loving at first sight. i was never exactly a scoffer; but i had mocked at this fable as other men of my sort mock,--a subject for prophylactics, like measles or scarlet fever; and when you said that, you had said the whole. be it, then, recorded, be it admitted, without let or hindrance, that i, esmerald thorne, physician and surgeon, forty-five years old, and of sane mind, did love that one woman, and her only, and her always, from the moment that my unworthy eyes first looked into her own, as she knelt before me on the moss beside the mountain brook,--from that moment to this hour. chapter ii. thus half in perfect poetry, part in simplest prose, opened the first canto of that long song which has made music in me; which has made music of me, since that happy night. of the countless words which we have exchanged together in times succeeding, these, the few of our first meeting are carved upon my brain as salutations are carved in stone above the doorways of mansions. he that has loved as i did, may say why this should be so, if he can. i cannot. time and storm beat against these inscriptions, and give them other colouring,--the tints of years and weather; but while the house lasts and the rock holds the salutation lives. in most other matters, the force of recurring experience weakens association. he who loves cherishes the first words of the beloved as he cherishes her last. the situation was simple enough: an injured man and a lovely woman, guests of the same summer hotel; a slow recovery; a leisurely sweet acquaintance; the light that never was on hill or shore; and so the charm was wrought. my accident held me a prisoner for six weeks. but my love put me in chains in six minutes. her name was helen; like hers of old "who fired the topmost towers of ilium." i liked the stately name of her, for she was of full womanhood,--thirty-three years old; the age at which the french connoisseur said that a charming woman charmed the most. upon the evening before we parted, i ventured--for we sat at the sheltered end of the piazza, away from the patterers and chatterers, a little by ourselves--to ask her a brave question. i had learned that one might ask her anything; she had originality; she was not of the feminine pattern; she had no paltriness nor pettiness in her thoughts; she looked out, as men do, upon a subject; not _down_, as women are wont. she was a woman with whom a man could converse. he need not adapt himself and conceal himself, and play the part of a gallant at real matters which were above gallantry. he could confide in her. now it was new to me to consider that i could confide in any person. in my calling, one becomes such a receptacle of human confidence,--one soaks up other people's lives till one becomes a great sponge, absorptive and absorbing for ever, as sponges should. who notices when the useful thing gets too full? that is what it is there for. pour on--scalding hot, or freezing cold, or pure or foul--pour away. if one day it refuses to absorb any more, and lies limp and valueless--why, the doctor has broken down; or the doctor is dead. who ever thought anything could happen to the _doctor_? one thing in the natural history of the sponge is apt to be overlooked. when the process of absorption reaches a certain point, let the true hand touch the wearied thing, and grasp it in the right way, and lo! back rushes the instinct of confidence, _out_, not in. something of this sort had happened to me. the novelty of real acquaintance with a woman who did not need me had an effect upon me which perhaps few outside of my profession can understand. this woman truly needed nothing of me. she had not so much as a toothache or a sore throat. if she had cares or troubles they were her own. she leaned upon me no more than the sunrise did upon the mountain. she was as radiant, as healthful, as vivid, and as calm; she surrounded me, she overflowed me like the colour of the air. nay, beyond this it was i who had need; it was she who ministered. it was i who suffered the whims and longings of weakness,--the thousand little cravings of the sick for the well. it was i who learned to know that i had never known the meaning of what is called "diversion." i learned to suspect that i had yet to learn the true place of sympathy in therapeutics. i learned, in short, some serious professional lessons which were the simplest human ones. but the question that i spoke of was on this wise. it did not indeed wear the form, but she gave it the hospitality, of a question. "i wish i knew," i said, "why you have not married. i wish you thought me worthy to know." "the whole world might know," she answered, with her sweet straightforward look. "and i, then, as the most unworthy part of it?" for my heart sank at the terms upon which i was admitted to the answer. "i have never seen any man whom i wished to marry. i have no other reason." "nor i," i said, "a woman"-- and there i paused. yes, precisely there, where i had not meant to; for she gave me a large, grave look, upon which i could no more have intruded than i could have touched her. this was in september. the year had made the longest circuit of my life before i gathered the courage to finish that sentence, broken by the weight of a delicate look; before i dared to say to her:-- "nor i a woman--until now." i hope i was what we call "above" the petty masculine instinct which values a woman who is hard to win chiefly for that circumstance. perhaps i was not as i thought myself. but it seemed to me that the anguish of wooing in doubt overcame all paltry sense of pleasure in pursuit of my delight. my thoughts of her moved like slow travellers up the sides of a mountain of snow. that other feeling would have been a descent to me. so wholly did she rule my soul--how could i stoop to care the more for hers, because she was beyond my reach? be this as it may, beyond my reach for yet another year she did remain. gently as she inclined toward me, to love she made no haste. the force of my feeling was so great at times, it seemed incredible that hers did not rush to meet me like part of the game incoming wave broken by a coast island and joining--seemingly two, but in reality one--upon the shoreward side. for the first time in my life, in that rising tide of my great love, i truly knew humility. my unworthiness of her was more present with me even than my longing for her. if i could have scourged my soul clear of all unfitness for her as our saviour was said to have scourged the tradesmen out of the temple, i should have counted myself blessed, even though i never won her; though i beat out my last hope of her with the very blows which i inflicted upon myself. in the vibrations of my strong emotion it used to surprise me that my will was such a cripple against the sensibilities of that delicate creature. i was a man of as much will as was naturally good for me; and my training had made it abnormal like a prize-fighter's bicepital muscle. people of my profession need some counter-irritant, which they seldom get, to the habit of command. to be the ultimate control for a _clientèle_ of a thousand people, to enforce the personal opinion in every matter from a broken constitution to a broken heart, deprives a man of the usual human challenges to an athletic will. in his case, if ever, motion follows least resistance. his will-power grows by a species of pommelling; not by the higher tactics of wrestling. but i, who gave the fiat on which life or death hung poised as unhesitatingly as i controlled the fluctuations of an influenza; and i, to whom the pliability of the feminine will had long since become an accepted and somewhat elemental fact, like the nature of milk-toast; i, dr. thorne, who had the habit of success, who expected to make his point, who was accustomed to receive obedience, who fought death or hysteria, an opposing school or a tricky patient, with equal fidelity, as one who pursues the avocation of life,--i stood, conquered before this slender woman whose eyes, like the sword of flame, turned this way and that, guarding the barred gates of the only eden i had ever chosen to enter. in short, for the first time in my life i found myself a suppliant; and i found myself thus and there for the sake of a feeling. it was not for science' sake, it was not for the sake of personal fame, or for the glory of an idea, or for the promulgation of a discovery. i had not been overcome upon the intellectual side of my nature. i had been conquered by an emotion. i had been beaten by a thing for which, all my life, i had been prescribing as confidently as i would for a sprain. medical men will understand me, and some others may, when i say that i experienced surprise to come face to face at last, and in this unanswerable personal way, with an invisible, intangible power of the soul and of the body, which could not be treated as "a symptom." i loved her. that was enough, and beyond. i loved her. that was the beginning and end. i loved her. i found nothing in the materia medica that could cure the fact. i loved her. science gave me no explanation of the phenomenon. i did not love her scientifically. i loved her terribly. i was a man of middle age, and had called myself a scientist and philosopher. i had thought, if ever, to love soberly and philosophically. instead of that i loved as poets sing, as artists paint, as the statues look, as the great romances read, as ideals teach,--as the young love. as the young do? nay. what young creature ever loved like that? they know not love who sip it at the spring. youth is a fragile child that plays at love, tosses a shell, and trims a little sail, mimics the passion of the gathered years, and is a loiterer on the shallow bank of the great flood that we have waited for. i do not think of any other thing which a man cannot do better at forty, than at twenty. why, then, should he not the better love? my lady had a stately soul; but she gave it sweet graciousness and little womanly appeals and curves, that were to my heart as the touch of her hand was to my pulse. i was so happy in her presence that i could not believe i had ever been sad; and i longed so for her in absence that i could scarcely believe i had become happy. she was to my thoughts as the light is to the crystal. she came into my life as the miracles came to the unbelieving. she moved through my days and through my dreams, as the rose-cloud moved upon the mountain sky. she floated between me and my sick. she hovered above me and my dying. she was a mist between me and my books. once when i took the knife for a dangerous operation, the steel blade caught a sunbeam and flashed; and i looked at the flash--it seemed to contain a new world--and i thought: "she is my own. i am a happy man!" but i was sorry for my patient. i was not rough with him. and the operation succeeded. what is to be said? i loved her. love is like faith. he who has it understands before you speak. but to him who has it not, it cannot be explained. a year from the time of my most blessed accident beside the trout-brook,--in one year and two months from that day, upon a warm and wonderful september afternoon, my lady and i were married, and i brought her from her mother's house to the mountain village where first we saw each other. there we spent the first week of our happiness. it was as near to eden as we could find. the village was left almost to its own rare resources; the summer tourists were well-nigh gone; the peaceful roads gave no stare of intrusion to our joy. the hills looked down upon us and made us feel how high love was. the forest inclosed us, and made us understand that love was large. the holiness of beauty was the hostess of our delight. oh, i had won her! she was my wife. she was my own. she loved me. if i cherished her as my own soul, what could i give her back, who had given herself to me? i said, "i will make you the happiest woman who was ever beloved by man upon this earth." "but you _have_," she whispered, lifting her dear face. "it is worth being alive for, if it came to an end to-morrow." "love has no end," i cried. "happiness is life. it cannot die. it has an immortal soul. if ever i make you sad, if i am untender to you,--may god strike me"-- "hush," she cried, clinging to me, and closing my lips with a kiss for which i would have died; "hush, love! hush!" chapter iii. it ought to be said, at this point in my story, that i had never been what would be called an even-tempered man. truth to tell, i was a spoiled boy. my mother was a saint, but she was a soft-hearted one. my father was a scholar. like many another boy of decided individuality, i came up anyhow. nobody managed me. at an early age my profession made it my duty to manage everybody else. i had a nervous temperament to start on; neither my training nor my occupation had poised it. i do not think i was malicious nor even ill-natured. as men go, i was perhaps a kind man. the thing which i am trying to say is, that i was an irritable one. as i look back upon the whole subject i can see, from my present point of view, that this irritability had seldom struck me as a personal disadvantage. i do not think it usually makes that impression upon temperaments similarly vitiated. as nearly as i can remember, i thought of myself rather as the possessor of an eccentricity, than as the victim of a vice. my father was an overworked college professor,--a quick-tempered man; my mother,--so he told me with streaming tears, upon the day that he buried her,--my mother never spoke one irritated word to him in all her life: he had chafed and she had soothed, he had slashed and she had healed, from the beginning to the end of their days together. a boy imitates for so many years before he reflects, that the liberty to say what one felt like saying appeared to me a mere identification of sex long before it occurred to me that mine might not be the only sex endowed by nature with this form of expression. i regarded it as one regards a beard, or a waistcoat,--simple signs of the variation of species. my mother--heaven rest her sweet soul--did not, that i recall, obviously oppose me in this view. after the time of the first moustache she obeyed her son, as she had obeyed her husband. as has been already said, the profession to which i fell heir failed to recommend to me a different personal attitude toward the will of others. my sick people were my pawns upon the chess-board of life. i played my game with humane intentions, not wholly, i believe, with selfish ones. but i suffered the military dangers of character, without the military apologies for them. he whose duty to god and men requires him to command all with whom he comes in contact should pray god, and not expect men, to have mercy on his soul. it is possible, i do not deny, that i put this view of the case without what literary critics call "the light touch." it is quite possible that i emphasize it. circumstances have made this natural; and if i need any excuse for it i must seek it in them. whether literary or not, it is not human to cherish a light view of a heavy experience. i loved my wife. this, i think, i have sufficiently made plain. i loved her as i might have discovered a new world; and i tried to express this fact, as i should have learned a new, unworldly language. i could no more have spoken unkindly to her than i could vivisect a humming-bird. i obeyed her lightest look as if she had given me an anaesthetic. her love intoxicated me. i seemed to be the first lover who had ever used this phrase. my heart originated it, with a sense of surprise at my own imaginative quality. i was chloroformed with joy. oh, i loved her! i return to that. i find i can say nothing beyond it. i loved her as other people loved,--patients, and uninstructed persons. i, esmerald thorne, president of the state medical society, and foreign correspondent of the national evolutionary association, forty-six years old, and a darwinian,--i loved my wife like any common, ardent, unscientific fellow. it is easy to toss words and a smile at it all, now. there have been times when either would have been impossible from very heart-break. there, again, is another of the phrases to which experience has been my only vocabulary. my patients used to talk to me about their broken hearts. i took the temperature and wrote a prescription. i added that she would be better to-morrow; i would call again in a week. i assured her that i understood the case. i was as well fitted to diagnose the diseases of the queen of some purple planet which the telescope has not yet given to astronomy. i have said that i found it impossible to be irritable to my dear wife. i cannot tell the precise time when it became possible. when does the dawn become the day upon the summer sky? when does the high tide begin to turn beneath the august moon? rather, i might say, when does the blue become the violet, within the prism? did i love her the less, because the distance of the worshipper had dwindled to the lover's clasp? i could have shot the scoffer who told me so. what then? what shall i call that difference with which the man's love differs when he has won the woman? had the miracle gone out of it? god forbid. it was no longer the marvel of the fire come down from heaven to smite the altar. it was the comfortable miracle of the daily manna. had my goddess departed from her divinity, my queen from her throne, my star from her heaven? rather, in becoming mine she had become myself, and if there were a loss, that loss was in my own nature. i should have risen by reason of hers. if i descended, it was by force of my own gravitation. her wing was too light to carry me. it is easier to philosophize about these things than it is to record them in cold fact. with shame and sorrow do i say it, but say it i must: my love went the way of the love of other men who feel (this was and remains the truth) far less than i. i, who had believed myself to love like no other before me, and none to come after me, and i, who had won the dearest woman in all the world--i stooped to suffer myself to grow used to my blessedness, like any low man who was incapable of winning or of wearing it. it cannot be said, it shall not be said, that i loved my wife less than the day i married her. it must be written that i became accustomed to my happiness. that ideal of myself, which my ideal of her created in me, and which no emergency of fate could have shaken, slipped in the old, fatal quicksand of use. our ideal of ourselves is to our highest life like the heart to the pulsation. it is the divinest art of the love of woman for man that she clasps him to his vision of himself, as breath and being are held together. until the time mentioned at the beginning of my narrative, i had in no sense appreciated the state of the case, as it lay between my ideal and my fact. that i had been more or less impatient of speech in my own home for some time past, is probably true. the ungoverned lip is a terrible master; and i had been a slave too long. i was in the habit of finding fault with my patients. i was accustomed to be what we call "quick" with servants. neither had, i thought, as a rule, seemed to care the less for me on this account. if i lost a patient or a coachman now and then, i could afford to. the item did not trouble me. i was inconsiderate at times with personal friends. they said, it is his way, and bore with me. people usually bore with me; they always had. i looked upon this as one of the rights of temperament, so far as i looked upon it at all. i do not think this indulgence had occurred to me as other than a tribute. it is common enough in dealing with men of my sort. (and alas, there are enough of my sort; i must be looked upon rather as a type than a specimen.) such indulgence is a movement of self-defence, or else of philosophy, upon the part of those who come in contact with us. to this view of the subject i had given no attention. i had lived to be almost fifty years old, and no person had ever said: "esmerald thorne, you trust your attractive qualities too far. power and charm do not give a man a permit to be disagreeable. your temperament does not release you from the common-place human duty of self-restraint. a gentleman has no more right to get uncontrollably angry than he has to get drunk. the patience with which others receive you is not a testimony to your strength; it is a concession to your weakness. you are living upon concessions like disease, or childhood, or age." no one had said this--surely not my wife. i can recall an expression of bewilderment at times upon her beautiful face, which for the moment perplexed me. after i had gone out, i would remember that i had been nervous in my manner. i do not think i had ever spoken with actual roughness to her, until this day of which i write. that i had been sometimes cross enough, is undoubtedly the case. on that november day i had been overworked. this was no novelty, and i offer it as no excuse. i had been up for two nights with a dangerous case. i had another in the suburbs, and a consultation out of town. there was a quarrel at the hospital, and a panic in stock street. i had seen sixty patients that day. i had been attacked in the "therapeutic quarterly" upon my famous theory of antisepsis. perhaps i may add the circumstance that my baby was teething. this was, naturally, less important to me than to his mother, who thought the child was ill. i knew better, and it annoyed me that my knowledge did not remove her apprehension. in point of fact, he had cried at night for a week or two, more than he ought to have done. she could not understand why i denied him a dover's powder. i needed sleep, and could not get it. we were both worn, and--i might fill my chapter to the brim with the little reasons for my great error. let it suffice that they were small and that it was large. we had been married three years, and our boy was a year old. he was a fine fellow. helen lost her greek look and took on the madonna expression after he was born. any woman who is fit to be a mother gains that expression with her first child. my wife was a very happy mother. she was sitting in the library when i came in that evening. it was a warm, red library, with heavy curtains and an open fire--a deep room that absorbed colour. i fancied the room, and it was my wife's pleasure to await me in it with the child each evening at the earliest hour when i might by any chance be expected home. she possessed to the full the terrible power of waiting which women have. she could do nothing when she expected me. although three years married, she could not read, or write, or play when she was listening for my step. i do not mean that she told me this. i found it out. she never called my attention to such little feminine weaknesses. she was never over-fond. my wife had a noble reserve. i had never seen the hour when i felt that her tenderness was a treasure to be lightly had, or indifferently treated. it should be said that the library opened from the parlours, and was at that time separated from them by a heavy portière of crimson stuff, the doors not being drawn. this drapery she was in the habit of folding apart at the hours of my probable return, and as i came through the long parlours my eyes had the first greeting of her, before my voice or arms. upon this evening, as upon others, i entered by the parlour door, and came--more quickly than usual--toward the library. i was in a great hurry; one of the acute attacks of the chronic condition which besets the busy doctor. as i crossed the length of the thick carpet, the rooms shook beneath my tread; i burst into, rather than entered, the library,--not seeing her, i think, or not pausing to see her, in the accustomed manner. when i had come to her i found that the child was not with her, as usual. she was sitting alone by the library table under the drop-light, which held a shade of red lace. she had a gown of white wool trimmed with ermine; a costume which gave me pleasure, and which she wore upon cool evenings, not too often for me to weary of it. she regarded my taste in dress as delicately and as delightedly as she did every other wish or will of mine. she had been trying to read; but the magazine lay closed upon her knee below her folded hands. her face wore an anxious look as she turned the fine contours of her head toward me. "oh," she cried, "at last!" she moved to reach me, swiftly, murmuring something which i did not hear, or to which i did not attend; and under the crimson curtains met me, warm and dear and white, putting up her sweet arms. i kissed her carelessly--would to god that i could forget it! i kissed her as if it did not matter much, and said:-- "helen, i must have my dinner this instant!" "why, surely," she said, retreating from me with a little shock of pained surprise, "it is all ready, esmerald. i will ring." she melted from my arms. oh, if i had known, if i had known! she stirred and slipped and was gone from me, and i stood stupidly looking at her; her figure, against the tall, full book-cases, shone mistily, while she touched the old-fashioned bell-rope of gold cord. "really, i hadn't time to come home at all," i added testily. "i am driven to death. i've got to go again in ten minutes. but i supposed you would worry if i didn't show myself. it is a foolish waste of time. i don't know how i am ever going to get through. i wish i hadn't come." chapter iv. she changed colour--from fair to flush, from red to white again--and her hand upon the gold cord trembled. i remembered it afterward, though i was not conscious of noticing it at the time. "you need not," she replied, in her low, controlled voice, "on my account. you need never come again." "it is easier to come," i answered irritably, "than to know that you sit here making yourself miserable because i don't." "have i ever fretted you about coming, esmerald? i did not know it." "it would be easier if you did fret!" i cried crossly. "i'd rather you'd say a thing than look it. any man would." indeed, it would have been a paltry satisfaction to me just then if i could have found her to blame. her blamelessness irritated my self-complacence as the light irritates defective eyes. "i am due at the hospital in twenty-two minutes," i went on, excitedly. "chirugeon is behaving like apollyon. if i'm not there to handle him, nobody will. the whole staff are afraid of him--everybody but me. we sha'n't get the new ward built these two years if he carries the day to-night. i've got a consultation at decker's--the old lady is dying. it's no sort of use dragging a tired man out there; i can't do her any good; but they will have it. i'm at the beck and call of every whim. isn't that dinner ready? i wish i had time to change my boots! they are wet through. my head aches horribly. brake telegraphed me to get down to stock street before two o'clock to save what is left of that santa ma stock. i couldn't go. i had an enormous office--forty people. i've lost ten thousand dollars in this panic. i've got to see brake on my way to decker's. i lost a patient this morning--that little girl of the harrowhart's. she was a poor little scrofulous thing. but they are terribly cut up about it.... chowder? i wish you'd had a good clear soup. i don't feel as if i could touch chowder. i hope you have some roast beef, better than the last. you mustn't let parsnip cheat you. quail? there's no nourishment in a quail for a man in my state. the gas leaks. can't you have it attended to? hurry up the coffee. i must swallow it and go. i've got more than ten men could do." "it is more than one woman can do"--she began gently, when i came to the end of this outbreak and my breath together. "what did you say? do speak louder!" "i said it seems to be more than one woman can do, to rest you." "yes," i said carelessly, "it is. you can't do the first thing for me, except to do me the goodness to ring for a decent cup of coffee. i can't drink this." "esmerald"-- "oh, what? i can't stop to talk. there, i've burned my tongue, now. if there's anything i can't stand, it is going to a consultation with a burned tongue." "how tired you are, esmerald! i was only going to say that i am sorry. i can't let you go without saying that." "i can't see that it helps it any. i am so tired i don't want to be touched. never mind my coat. i'll put it on myself. tell joe--no. i left the horse standing. i don't want joe. i suppose donna is uneasy by this time. she won't stand at night--she's got to. i'll get that whim out of her. now, don't look that way. the horse is safe enough. don't you suppose i know how to drive? you're always having opinions of your own against mine. there. i must be off." "where's the baby, helen?" i turned, with my hand upon the latch of my heavy oaken door, and jerked the question out, as cross men do. "the baby isn't just right, somehow, esmerald. i bated to bother you, for you never think it is anything. i dare say he will be better, but i thought i wouldn't let him come out of the nursery. jane is with him. i've been a _little_ troubled about him. he has cried all the afternoon." "he cries because you coddle him!" i exploded. "it is all nonsense, helen. nothing ails the child. i won't encourage this sort of thing. i'll see him when i come home. i can't possibly wait--i am driven to death--for every little whim"-- but at the door i stopped. if the baby had been a patient he would have seen no doctor that night. but the father in me got the better of me, and without a word further to my wife i ran up to the nursery. she stayed below; she perceived (helen was always quick), although i had not said so, that i did not wish her to follow me. i examined the child hastily. the little fellow stopped crying at the sight of me, and put up both arms to be taken. i said:-- "no, boy. papa can't stop now," and put him gently back into his crib. when i had reached the nursery door i remember that i returned and kissed him. i was very angry, but i could not be angry with my baby. with the touch of his little lips, dewy and sweet, upon mine, i rushed down to my wife, and tempestuously began again:-- "helen, i must have an end to this nonsense. nothing ails the baby; he is only a trifle feverish with a new tooth. it really is very unpleasant to me that you make such a fuss over him. if you had married a greengrocer it might have been pardonable. pray remember that you have married a physician who understands his business, and do leave me to manage it. take the child out of the nursery. carry him downstairs as usual for a few minutes. he will sleep better. there! i'm eight minutes behindhand already, all for this senseless anxiety of yours. it is a pity you can't trust me, like other men's wives! i wish i'd married a woman with a little wifely spirit!--or else not married at all." i shut the door; i am afraid i slammed it. i cleared the steps at a bound, and ran fiercely out into the night air. the wind was rising, and the weather was growing sharp. it was frosty and noisy. donna, my chestnut mare, stood pawing the pavement in high temper, and called to me as she heard my step. she had dragged at her weight a little; she was thoroughly displeased with the delay. it occurred to me that she felt as i had acted. it even occurred to me to go back and tell my wife that i was ashamed of myself. i turned and looked in through the parlour windows. the shades were up, and the gas was low. dimly beyond, the bright panel of the lighted library arose between the crimson curtains. she stood against it, midway between the two rooms. her hands had dropped closed one into the other before her. her face was toward the street. she seemed to be gazing at me, whom she could not see. her white dress, which hung in thick folds, the pallor of her face and her delicate hands, gave her the look of a statue; its purity, and to my fancy at that moment its permanence. she seemed to be carved there, like something that must stay. i turned to go back--yes, i would have gone. it is little enough for a man to say for himself under circumstances like these; but perhaps i may be allowed to say it, since to exculpate myself is the last of my motives. i had made a stop or two up the flagging between the deep grass-plots that fronted the house, when the mare, disturbed beyond endurance at a movement of delay which she too well understood, gave a shrill whinny, and reared, pulling and dragging at her weight fiercely. she was a powerful creature, and the weight yielded, hitting at her heels. in an instant she had cramped the wheels, and i saw that the buggy would go over. to spring back, reach the bit, snatch the reins, leap over the wheel, and whirl away in the reeling carriage was the work of some thing less than a thought; it was the elemental instinct by which a man must manage his horse, come life or death. like most doctors, i was something of a horseman, and the idea of being thwarted by any of donna's whims had never occurred to me. i knew that the horse was pulling hard, but beyond that, i could not be said to have knowledge, much less fear; the mad conflict between the brute and the man possessed me to the exclusion of intelligence. it was some moments before it struck me that my own horse was running away with me. my first, perhaps i may say my only emotion at the discovery was one of overpowering rage. i did not mean to strike her. no driver, ever if an angry one, would have done that. but i had the whip in my hand, around which the reins were knotted for the struggle, and when the horse broke into a gallop the jerk gave her a flick. i was not in the habit of whipping her. she felt herself insulted. it was now her turn to be angry; and an angry runaway means a bad business. donna put down her head, struck out viciously from behind, and kicked the dasher flat. from that moment i lost all control of her. i thought:-- "she is headed down town. at this rate, in five minutes she will be in the thick of travel. i have so many minutes more." for how long i cannot tell, i had beyond this no other intelligent idea. then i thought;-- "i should not like to be the man who has got to tell helen." this repeated itself dully: "i should not care to be the fellow who will be sent to tell helen." i had ceased to call to the mare; it only made matters worse; but there was great hubbub in the streets as we leaped on. there were several attempts to head her off, i think. one man caught at her bridle. this frightened her; she threw him off, and threw him down. i think she must have hurt him. we were now well down town. window lights and carriage lights flared by deliriously. the wind, which was high, at speed like that seemed something demoniac. i remember how much it added to my sense of danger. i remember that my favourite phrase occurred to me:-- "_i am driven to death._" suddenly i saw approaching an open landau. the street was full of vehicles, some of which i was sure to run down; but none of them seemed to give me concern except this one carriage. it contained a lady and a little boy, patients of mine. i recognized them forty feet away. he was a pretty little fellow, and she was fond of me; sent for me for everything; trusted me beyond reason; could not live without her doctor--that kind of patient. she had been a great sufferer. it seemed infernal to me that it should be _they_. i shouted to her coachman:-- "henry! for god's sake--to the left! to the _left_!" but henry stared at me like one struck dead. i thought i heard him say;-- "marm, it's the _doctor_!" and after that i heard no more. as the crash came, i saw the woman's face. she had recognized me with her look of sweet trustfulness; it froze to mortal horror. she clasped the child. i saw his cap come off from his yellow curls, and one little hand tossed out as the landau went over. the mare, now mad as any maniac, ran on. something had broken, but it mattered little what. i think we turned a corner. i think she struck a lamp-post or a tree. at all events, the buggy went over; and, scooped into the top, and dragged, and blinded, and stunned, i came to the ground. as i went down, i uttered the two words of all that are human, most solemn; perhaps, one may add, most automatic. believer or sceptic, saint or sinner, mortal danger hurls them from us, as it wrests the soul from out our bodies. i said, "_my god!_" precisely as i threw out my arms, to catch at whatever could hold me when i could no longer hold myself. chapter v. how long i had lain stunned upon the pavement i had no means of knowing; i thought not long. i was surprised, on coming to myself, to find that my injuries were not more severe. my head felt uncomfortable, and i had a certain numbness or stiffness, as one does from the first trial of long-disused limbs. i had always limped a trifle since that accident beside the trout-brook; and, as i staggered to my feet, i thought:-- "this will play the mischief with that old injury. i shouldn't wonder if it came to crutches." on the contrary, when i had walked some dozen steps i found that an interesting thing had happened. the shock had dispersed the limp. it was with a perfectly even and natural gait, although, as i say, rather a weak one, that i trod the pavement to try what manner of man the runaway had left me. i said:-- "it is one of those cases of nervous rearrangement. the shock has acted like a battery upon the nerve-centres. instead of a broken neck, i have a cured leg. i'm a lucky fellow." having already, however, considered myself a lucky fellow for the greater part of my life, this conclusion did not impress me with the force which it might some other men; and, laughing lightly, as lucky people do, at fortune, i turned to examine the condition of my horse and carriage. donna was not to be seen. she had broken the traces, the breeching, the shafts, everything, in short, she could, and cleared herself. i had been unconscious long enough to give her time to make herself invisible, and she had made the most of it; in what direction she had gone, it was impossible for me to tell. the buggy was a wreck. no one was in sight who seemed to have interest or anxiety in the matter. i wondered that i did not find myself the victim of a gaping crowd. but i reflected that the mishap had taken place in a quiet dwelling street, not travelled at that hour, and that my fate, therefore, had attracted no attention. i remembered, too, my patient, mrs. faith, and her boy, and that dolt of a henry's helpless face--the whole thing came to mind, vividly. it occurred to me that the crowd might be at the scene of an accident so terrible that no loafer was left to regard my lesser misfortune. it was they who had been sacrificed. it was i who escaped. my first thought was to go at once and learn the worst; but i found myself a little out of my way. i really did not recognize the street in which i stood. i had been for so many years accustomed to driving everywhere that, like other doctors, i hardly knew how to walk; and by the time i made my way back to the great thoroughfare where i had collided with mrs. faith's carriage, no trace of the tragedy was to be found; or at least i could not find any. after looking in vain, for a while, i stopped a man, and asked him if there had not been a carriage accident there within half an hour. he lifted his eyes to me stupidly, and went on. i put the same question to some one else--a lazy fellow, who was leaning against an iron railing and staring at me. but he shook his head decidedly. a young priest passed by, at this moment, saying an ave with moving lips and unworldly eyes, and i made inquiries of him whether a lady and a child had just been injured in that vicinity by a runaway. "nay," he said, gazing at me with a luminous look. "nay, i see nothing." after an instant's hesitation the priest made the sign of the cross both upon himself and me; and then stretched his hands in blessing over me, and silently went his way. i thought this very kind in him; and i bowed, as we parted, saying aloud:-- "thank you, father," for my heart was touched, despite myself, at the manner of the young devotee. it had surely been my intention, on failing to find any traces of the accident in the spot where i supposed that it had taken place, to go at once to the house of mrs. faith, and inquire for her welfare and the boy's. it was the least i could do, under the circumstances. apparently, however, i myself was more shaken than i had thought; for after my brief interview with the priest i speedily lost my way, and could not find my patient's street or number. i searched for it for some time confusedly; but the brain was clearly still affected by the concussion--so much so that it was not long before i forgot what i was searching for, and went my ways with a dim and idle purpose, such as must accompany much of the action of those in whom the relation between mind and body has become, for any cause, disarranged. after an interval--how long i cannot tell--of this suspended intelligence, my brain grew more clear and natural, and i remembered that i was very late at the hospital, at the consultation, at brake's, at every appointment of the evening; so late that my accustomed sense of haste now began to possess me to the exclusion of everything else. i remembered my wife, indeed, and wondered if i had better go back and tell her that i was not hurt. but it did not strike me as necessary. donna, if she had not broken her neck somewhere, by this time, would run straight for the stable; she would not go home. the buggy was a wreck, and the police might clear it away. there was no reason to suppose that helen would hear of the accident, that i could see, from any source. there would be no scare. i had better go about my business, and tell her when i got home. news like this would keep an hour or two, and everybody the better for the keeping. reasoning in this manner, if it can be said to be reasoning, i took my way to the hospital as fast as possible. i did not happen to find a cab; and i gave myself the unusual experience of hailing a horse-car. the car did not stop for my signal, and i flung myself aboard as best i might; for a man so recently shaken up, with creditable ease, i thought. trusting to this circumstance, when we reached the hospital i leaped from the car, which was going at full speed; it was not till i was well up the avenue that i recalled having forgotten to offer my fare, which the conductor had forgotten to demand. "my head is not straight yet," i said. the little incident annoyed me. in the hospital i found, as i expected, a professional cyclone raging. the staff were all there except myself, and so hotly engaged in discussion that my arrival was treated with indifference. this was undoubtedly good for me, but it was not, therefore, agreeable to me; and i entered at once with some emphasis upon the dispute in hand. "you are entirely wrong," i began, turning upon my opponents. "this institution had seven hundred more applicants than it could accommodate last year. we are not chartered to turn away suffering. we exist to relieve it. it is our business to find the means to do so, as much as it is to find the true remedy for the individual case. it is"-- "it is an act of financial folly," interrupted my most systematic professional enemy, a certain dr. gazell. he had a bland voice which irritated me like sugar sauce put upon horse-radish. "it cannot be done without mortgaging ourselves up to our ears--or our eaves. i maintain that the hospital can better bear to turn off patients than to turn on debt." "and i maintain," i cried, tempestuously, "that this hospital cannot bear to do either! if the gentlemen gathered here to-night--the members of this staff, representing, as they do, the wealthiest and most influential _clientèles_ in the city--if we cannot among us pledge from our patients the sum needed to put this thing through, i say it is a poor show for ourselves. i, for one, am ready to raise fifteen thousand dollars within three months. if the rest of you will do your share in proportion"-- "dr. thorne has always been a little too personal, in this matter," said gazell, reddening; he did not look at me, for embarrassment, but addressed the chairman of the meeting with a vague air of being in earnest, if any one could be got to believe it. "no doubt about that," said one of the staff in an undertone. "thorne is"--i thought i caught the added words, "unreasonable fellow," but i would not give myself the appearance of having done so. "but we can't afford to quarrel with him altogether," suggested chirugeon, still in a tone not meant for me to overhear. and with this they went at it again, till the discussion reached such warmth, and the motion to leave the subject with the trustees, such favour, that, in disgust, i seized my hat and strode out of the room. smarting, i rushed away from them, and angrily out-of-doors again. i was exceedingly angry; but this gave me no more, perhaps (though i thought, a little), than the usual discomfort. from the hospital i hurried to the consultation; where i was now well over-due. i found the attendant physician about to leave; in fact, i met him on the stairs, up which i had run rapidly, as soon as my ring was answered in the familiar house. this man was followed by old madam decker's daughter, who was weeping. "she died at six o'clock, dr. halt," miss decker sobbed, "at six precisely, for i noticed. we didn't expect it so soon." "nor i, either," said halt, soothingly, "i did not anticipate"-- "dead!" i cried. "mrs. decker dead? i did my best--i have met with an accident. i could not come till now. did she ask for me?" "she talked of dr. thorne," sobbed miss decker, "as long as she could talk of anything. she wondered if he knew, she said, how sick she was." i hastened to explain, to protest, to sympathize, to say the idle words with which we waste ourselves and weary mourners, at such times; but the daughter paid little attention to me. she was evidently hurt at my delay; and, thinking it best to spare her my presence, i bowed my head in silence, and left the house. halt followed me, and we stood together for a moment outside, where his carriage and driver awaited him. "was she conscious to the end?" i asked. "yes," he murmured. "yes, yes, yes. it is a pity. i'm sorry for that girl." nodding shortly in my direction, he sprang into his coupé, and drove away. i had now begun to be very restless to get home. it seemed suddenly important to see helen. i felt, i knew not why, uneasy and impatient, and turned my steps toward town. "but i must stop at brake's," i thought. this seemed imperative; so much so that i went out of my course a little, to reach his house, a pretty, suburban place. i remember passing under trees; and the depth of their shadow; it seemed like a bay of blackness into which the night flowed. i looked up through it at the sky; stars showed through the massed clouds which the wind whipped along like a flock of titanic celestial creatures. i had not looked up before, since the accident. the act gave me strange sensations, as if the sky had lowered, or i had risen; the sense of having lost the usual scale of measurement. this reminded me that i was still not altogether right. "i have really hurt my head," i thought, "i ought to get home. i must hurry this business with brake. i must get to helen." but brake was not at home. as i went up the steps, his servant was ushering out some one, to whom i heard the man say that mr. brake had left word not to expect him to-night. "does he ever stay late at the office?" i asked, thinking that the panic might render this possibly. the man turned the expressionless countenance of a well-trained servant upon me; and repeated:-- "mr. brake is not at home. i know nothing further about mr. brake's movements." this reply settled the matter in my own mind, and i made my way to stock street as fast as i might. i could not make it seem unnecessary to see brake. but helen--helen-- the sooner this wretched detention was over, the sooner to see her. i had begun to be as nervous as a woman; and, i might add, as unreasonable as a sick one. i had got myself under the domination of one of those fixed ideas with which i had so little patience in the sick. i could not see helen till i had seen brake: this was the delusion. i succumbed to it, and knew that i succumbed to it, and could not help it, and knew that i could not help it, and did the deed it bade me. as i hurried on my way, i thought:-- "there has been considerable concussion. but helen will take care of me. it's a pity i spoke so to helen." stock street, when i reached it, had a strange look to me. i was not used to being there at such an hour; few of us are. the relative silence, the few passers, the long empty spaces in the great thoroughfare, told me that the hour was later than i thought. this added to my restlessness, and i sought to look at my watch, for the first time since the accident; it was gone. i glanced at the high clock at the head of the street; but the light was imperfect, and with the vertigo which i had i did not make out the hour. it might, indeed, be really late. this troubled me, and i hastened my steps till i broke into a run. it occurred to me, indeed, that i might be arrested for the suspicions under which such a pace, at such an hour and in such a street, would place me. but as i knew most of the members of the force in that region more or less well, this did not trouble me. i ran on, undisturbed, passing a watchman or two, and came quickly to brake's place. it was locked. this distressed me. i think i had confidently expected to find him there. it did not seem to me possible to go home without seeing my broker. i stood, uncertain, rattling at the heavy door with imbecile impatience. this act brought the police to the spot in three minutes. it was inspector drayton who came up, the well-known inspector, so long on duty in stock street; a man famed for his professional shrewdness and his gentlemanly manner. "i wish," i said, "mr. inspector, that you would be good enough to let me in. i want to see brake. i have reason to believe he is in his office. i must get in." "it is very important," i added; for the inspector did not answer immediately, but looked at me searchingly. "there was certainly some one meddling with this lock," he said, after a moment's hesitation, looking stealthily up and down and around the street. "it was i," i replied, eagerly. "it was only i, dr. thorne. come, drayton, you know me. i want to see brake. i must see brake. it is a matter brought up by this panic--you know--the santa ma. he sent for me. i absolutely must see brake. it is a matter of thousands to me. let me in, mr. inspector." "come," for he still delayed and doubted, "let me in somehow. you fellows have a way. communicate with his watchman--do the proper thing--anyhow--i don't care--only let me in." "i will see," murmured the inspector, with a perplexed air; he had not his usual cordial manner with me, though he was still as polished as possible, and wore the best of kid gloves. i think the inspector touched one of their electric signals--i am not clear about this--but at any rate, a sleepy watchman came from within, holding a safety lantern before him, and gingerly opened the huge door an inch or two. "let me come in," said the inspector, decidedly. "it is i--drayton. i have a reason. i wish to go to mr. brake's rooms, if you please." the inspector slipped in like a ghost, and i followed him. neither of us said anything further to the watchman; we went directly to brake's place. he was not there. "i will wait a few minutes," i said. "i think he will be here. i must see brake." the inspector glanced at me as one does at a fellow who is behaving a little out of the common course of human conduct; but he did not enter into conversation with me, seeing me averse to it. i sank down wearily upon brake's biggest brown leather office chair, and put my head down upon his table. i was now thoroughly tired and confused. i wished with all my heart that i had gone straight home to helen. the inspector and the watchman busied themselves in examining the building, for some purpose to which i paid no attention. they conversed in low tones, "i heard a noise at the door, sir, myself," the watchman said. "why don't you tell him it was i?" i called; but i did not lift my head. i was too tired to trouble myself. i must have fallen into a kind of stupor. i do not know how long i had remained in this position and condition, whether minutes or hours; but when at last i roused myself, and looked about, a singular thing had happened. the inspector had gone. the watchman had gone. i was alone in the broker's office. and i was locked in. chapter vi. so often and so idly it is our custom to say, i shall never forget! that the words scarcely cause a ripple of comment in the mind; whereas, in fact, they are among the most audacious which we ever take upon our lips. how know we what law of selection our memories will obey in that system of mental relations which we call "forever"? i, who believe myself to have obtained some especial knowledge upon this point, not possessed by all my readers, and to be more free than many another to use such language, still retreat before the phrase, and content myself with saying, "i have never forgotten." up to this time i have never been able to forget the smallest detail of that night whose history i am now to record. it seems to me impossible in any set of conditions that memory could blot that experience from my being; but of that what know i? no more than i know of the politics of a meteor. upon discovering my predicament i was, of course, greatly disturbed. i tried the door, and tried again; i urged the latch violently; i exerted myself till the mere moral sense of my helplessness overcame my strength. i called to the watchman, whose distant steps i heard, or fancied that i heard, pacing the corridors. there was a safe deposit in the basement, and the great building was heavily guarded. i shouted for my liberty, i pleaded for it, i demanded it; but i did not get it. no one answered me. i ran to the barred windows and shook the iron casement as prisoners and madmen do. nobody heard me. i bethought me of the private telegraph which stood by brake's desk, mute and mysterious, like a thing that waited an order to speak. i could not help wondering, with something like superstition, what would be the next words which would pass the lips of the silent metal. it occurred to me, of course, to telegraph for relief; but i did not know how, and a kind of respect for the intelligence and power of the instrument deterred me from meddling with it to no visible end. suddenly i remembered the electric signal which so often communicates with watchman or police in places of this kind. this, after some search, i found in a corner, over the desk of brake's assistant, and this i touched. my effort brought no reply. i pressed the button again with more force and more desperation; i might say, with more personality. "obey me!" i cried, setting my teeth, and addressing the electric influence as a man addresses a menial. instantly a thrill passed from the wire to the hand. a distant sound jarred upon the air. steps shuffled somewhere beyond the massive walls. i even thought that i heard voices, as of the watchman and others in possible consultation. no one approached the broker's door. i urged the signal again and again. i became quite frantic, for i had now begun to think with dismay of the effect of all this upon my wife. i railed upon that signal like a delirious patient at the order of a physician. a commotion seemed to follow, in some distant part of the building. but no one came within hearing of my voice; the noise soon ceased, and my efforts at freedom with it. it having now become evident that i must spend the night where i was, i proceeded to make the best of it; and a very bad best it was. i was exhausted, i was angry, and i was distressed. the full force of the situation was beginning to fall upon me. the inspector had put a not unnatural interpretation upon my condition; he thought so little of a gentleman who had dined too freely; it was a perfectly normal incident in his experience. he had mistaken the character of the stupor caused by my accident, and left me in that office for a drunken man. the fact that he was not accustomed to view me in such a light in itself probably explained the originality of his method. we were on pleasant terms. drayton was a good fellow. who knew better than he what would be the professional significance of the circumstance that dr. thorne was seen intoxicated down town at midnight? the city would ring with it in twelve hours, and it would not be for me, though i had been the most popular doctor in town, to undo the deed of that slander, if once it so much as lifted its invisible hand against the proud and pure reputation in whose shelter i lived and laboured, and had been suffered to become what we call "eminent." it was possible, too, that the inspector had some human regard for my family in this matter, and reasoned that to spare them the knowledge of my supposed disgrace was the truest kindness wherewith it was in his power to serve me. he meant to leave me where i was and as i was to sleep it off till morning. he would return in good season and release me quietly, and nobody the wiser but the watchman; who could be feed. this was plainly the purpose and the programme. but helen-- i returned to the table near which i had been sitting, and took the office chair again, and tried, like a reasonable creature, to calm myself. what would helen think by this time? i looked about the office stupidly. at first the dreary scene presented few details to me; but after a time they took on the precision and permanence which trifles acquire in emergencies. the gas was not lighted, but i could see with considerable ease, owing to the overwrought brain condition. it occurred to me that i saw like a cat or a medium; i noted this, as indicative of a certain remedy; and then it further occurred to me that i might as well doctor myself, having nothing better to do; and plainly there was something wrong. i therefore put my hand in my pocket for my case. it was gone. now, a physician of my sort is as ill at ease without his case as he would be without his body; and this little circumstance added disproportionately to my discomfort. with some irritable exclamation on my lips i leaned back in the chair, and once more regarded my environment. it was a rather large room, dim now, and as solitary as a graveyard after twilight. before me stood the table, an oblong table covered with brown felt. a blue blotter, of huge dimensions, was spread from end to end; it was a new blotter, not much blurred. inkstand, pens, paper-weight, calendar, and other trifles of a strictly necessary nature stood upon the blotter. letters on file, and brokers' memoranda neatly stabbed by the iron stiletto--i forget the name of the thing--for that purpose made and provided, attracted my sick attention. an advertisement from a western mortgage firm had escaped the neat hand of the clerk who put the office in order for the night, and fell fluttering to my feet. it would be impossible to say how important this seemed to me. i picked it up conscientiously and filed it, to the best of my remembrance, with an invitation to the merchant's banquet, and a subscription list in behalf of the blind man who sold tissue-paper roses at the head of the street. in one corner of the room, as i have said, was the clerk's desk; the electric signal shone faintly above it; it had, to my eyes, a certain phosphorescent appearance. opposite, the steam radiator stood like a skeleton. there was a grate in the room, with a cumberland coal fire laid. on the wall hung a map of the state, and another setting forth the proportions of a great western railroad. at the extreme end of the room stood chairs and settees provided for auctions. between myself and these, the high, guarded public desk of the broker rose like a rampart. in this sombre and severe place i now abandoned myself to my thoughts; and these gave me no mercy. my wife was a reasonable woman; but she was a loving and sensitive one. i was accustomed to spare her all unnecessary uncertainty as to my movements--being more careful in this respect, perhaps, than most physicians would be; our profession covers a multitude of little domestic sins. i had not taken the ground that i was never to be expected till i came. a system of affectionate communication as to my whereabouts existed between us; it was one of the pleasant customs of our honeymoon which had lasted over. the telegraph and the messenger boy we had always with us; it was a little matter for a man to take the trouble to tell his wife why and where he was kept away all night. i do not remember that i had ever failed to do so. it was a bother sometimes, i admit, but the pleasure it gave her usually repaid me; such is the small, sweet coin of daily love. as i sat there at the broker's desk, like a creature in a trap, all that long and wretched night, the image of my wife seemed to devour my brain and my reason. the great clock on the neighbouring church struck one with a heavy and a solemn intonation, of which i can only say that it was to me unlike anything i had ever heard before. it gave me a shudder to hear it, as if i listened to some supernatural thing. the first hour of the new day rang like a long cry. some freak of association brought to my mind that angel in the apocalypse who proclaimed with a mighty voice that time should be no more. i caught myself thinking this preposterous thing: suppose it were all over? suppose we never saw each other again? suppose my wife were to die? to-night? suppose some accident befell her? if she tripped upstairs? if the child's crib took fire and she put it out, and herself received one of those deadly shocks from burns not in themselves mortal? suppose--she herself opening the door to let in the messenger expected from me--that some drunken fellow, or some tramp-- "this," i said aloud, "is the kind of thing she does when i am delayed. this is what it means to wait. men don't do it often enough to know what it is. i wonder if we have any scale of measurement for what women suffer?" what she, for instance, by that time was suffering, oh, who in the wide world else could guess or dream? there were such suffering cells in that exquisite nature! who but me could understand? i brought my clinched hand down upon the broker's blue blotting-paper, and laid my heavy head upon it. suppose somebody had got the news to her that the horse had been seen dashing free of the buggy, or had returned alone to the stable, panting and cut? suppose helen thought that my unaccountable absence had something to do with that scene between us? suppose she thought--or if she suspected--perhaps she imagined-- i hid my face within my shaking hands and groaned. a curse upon the cruel words that i had spoken to the tenderest of souls, to the dearest and the gentlest of women! a curse upon the lawless temper that had fired them! accursed the hot lips that had uttered them, the unmanly heart that could have let them slip! i thought of her face--i really had not thought of her face before, that wretched night. i had not strictly dared. now i found that daring had nothing to do with it. i thought because i had to think. i dwelt upon her expression when i spoke to her--god forgive me!--as i did; her attitude, the way her hands fell, her silence, the quiver in her delicate mouth. i saw the dim parlour, the lighted room beyond her, the scarlet shade upon the gas; she standing midway, tall and mute, like a statue carved by one stroke of a sword. my own words came back to me; and i was not apt to remember things i said to people. so many impressions passed in and out of my mind in the course of one busy day, that i became their victim rather than their master. but now my language to my wife that unhappy evening returned to my consciousness with incredible vividness and minuteness. it will be seen from the precision with which i have already recorded it, how inexorable this minuteness was. it occurred to me that i might as well have struck her. in this kind of moral pommelling which sensitive women feel--as they do--how could i have indulged! i, who knew what a sensitive woman is, what fearful and wonderful nervous systems these delicate creatures have to manage; i, with what i was pleased to term my high organization and special training--i, like any brutal hind, had berated my wife. i, who was punctilious to draw the silken portière for her, who could not let her pick up so much as her own lace handkerchief, nor allow her to fold a wrap of the weight of a curlew's feather about her own soft throat--i had belaboured her with the bludgeons that bruise the life out of women's souls. i wondered, indeed, if i should have been a less amiable fellow if i had worn cow-hide boots and kicked her. my reproaches, my remorses, my distresses, it is now an idle tale to tell. that night passed like none before it, and none which have come after it. my mind moved with a piteous monotony over and over and about the aching thought: to see helen--to see helen--to be patient till morning, and tell helen--only to get through this horrible night, and hurry, rushing to the morning air, to the nearest cab dashing down the street, and making the mad haste of love and shame, to see my wife--to tell my wife-- as never in all our lives before, i should tell her how dear she was; how unworthy was i to love her; how i loved her just as much as if i were worthy, and could not help it though i tried--or (as we say) could not help it though i died! i should run up, ringing the bell, never waiting to find the latch-key--for i could wait for nothing. i should spring into the house, and find her upstairs, in our own room; it would be so early; she would be only half-dressed yet, pale and lovely, looking like a spirit, far across the rich colours of the room, her long hair loose about her. i should gather her to my heart before she saw me; my arms and lips should speak before my breaking voice. i should kiss my soul out on her lifted face. i should love her so, she should forgive me before i could so much as say, forgive! and when i had her--to myself again--when these arms were sure of their own, and these lips of hers, when her precious breath was on this cheek again, and i could say;-- "helen, helen, helen"-- and could say no more, for love and shame and sorrow, but only-- "helen, helen"-- "yes," said the watchman's voice in the corridor. "it is all right, sir. me and inspector drayton, we thought we beard a noise, last night, and we considered it safe to look about. we had a thorough search. we thought we'd better. but there wasn't nothing. it's all straight, sir." it was morning, and brake's clerk was coming in. it was very early, earlier than he usually came, perhaps; but i could not tell. he did not notice me at first, and, remembering drayton's hypothesis, i shrank behind the tall desk, and instinctively kept out of sight for a few uncertain minutes, wondering what i had better do. the clerk called the janitor, and scolded a little about the fire, which he ordered lighted in the grate. it was a cold morning. he said the room would chill a corpse. he had the morning papers in his hand. he unfolded the "herald," and laid it down upon his own desk, as if about to read it. at that instant, the telegraph clicked, and he pushed the damp, fresh paper away from him, and went immediately to the wires. the young man listened to the message with an expression of great intentness, and wrote rapidly. moved by some unaccountable impulse, i softly rose and glanced over his shoulder. the dispatch was dated at midnight, and was addressed to henry brake. it said: "_have you seen my husband, to-night?_" and it was signed, "_helen thorne._" oh, poor helen!... now, maniac with haste to get to her, it occurred to me that the moment while the clerk was occupied in recording this message was as good a time as i could ask for in which to escape unobserved, as i greatly wished to do. as quietly as i could--and i succeeded in doing it very quietly--i therefore moved to leave the broker's office. as i did so, my eye caught the heading, in large capitals, of the morning news in the open "herald" which lay upon the desk behind the clerk. i stopped, and stooped, and read. this is what i read:-- shocking accident. terrible tragedy. runaway at the west end. _the eminent and popular physician._ _dr. esmerald thorne,_ killed instantly. chapter vii. at this moment, the broker entered the office. with the "herald" in my hand, i made haste to meet him. "brake!" i cried, "mr. brake! thank heaven, you have come! i have passed such a night--and look here! have you seen this abominable canard? this is what has come of my being locked into your"-- the broker regarded me with a strange look; so strange, that for very amazement i stood still before it. he did not advance to meet me; neither his hand nor his eyes gave me the human sign of welcome; he looked over me, he looked through me, as a man does at one whose acquaintance he has no desire to recognize. i thought:-- "drayton has crammed him. he too believes that i was shut in here to sleep it off. the story will get out in two hours. i am doomed in this town henceforth for a drunken doctor. i'd better have been killed instantly, as this infernal paper says." but i said,-- "mr. brake? you don't recognize me, i think. it is i, dr. thorne. i couldn't get here before two. i went to your house last evening. i got the impression you were here, so i came after you. i was locked in here by your confounded watchman. they have this minute let me free. i am in a great hurry to get home. nice job this is going to be! have you seen _that_?" i put my shaking finger upon the "herald's" fiery capitals, and held the column folded towards him. "jason," he said, after an instant's pause, "pick up the 'herald,' will you? a gust of wind has blown it from the table. there must be a draught. please shut the door." to say that i know of no earthly language which can express the sensation that crawled over me as the broker uttered these words is to say little or nothing about it. i use the expression "crawled" with some faint effort to define the slowness and the repulsiveness with which the suspicion of that to which i dared not and did not give a name, made itself manifest to my mind. "excuse me, brake," i said with some agitation, "you did not hear what i said. i was locked in. i am in a hurry to get home. ask drayton. drayton let me in. i must get home at once. i shall sue the 'herald' for that outrageous piece of work-- what do you suppose my wife-- good god! she must have read it by this time! let me by, brake!" "jason," said the broker, "this is a terrible thing! i feel quite broken up about it." "brake!" i cried, "henry brake! let me pass you! let me home to my wife! you're in my way--don't you see? you're standing directly between me and the door. let me pass!" "there's a private dispatch come," said the clerk badly. "it is for you, sir. it is from mrs. thorne herself." "brake!" i pleaded, "brake, brake!--jason!--mr. brake! don't you hear me?" "give me the message, jason," said brake, holding out his hand; he seated himself, as he did so, at the office table, where i had sat the night out; he looked troubled and pale; he handled the message reluctantly, as people do in the certainty of bad news. "in the name of mercy, henry brake!" i cried, "what is the meaning of this? don't you hear a word i say? don't you feel me?--there!" i gripped the broker by the shoulder, and clinched both hands upon him with all my might. "don't you _feel_ me? god almighty! don't you _see_ me, brake?" "when did this dispatch come, jason?" said the broker. he laid helen's message gently down; he had tears in his eyes. "henry brake," i pleaded brokenly, for my heart failed me with a mighty fear, "answer me, in human pity's name. are you gone deaf and blind? or am i struck dumb? or am i"-- "it came ten minutes ago, sir," replied jason. "it is dated, i see, at midnight. they delivered it as soon as anybody was likely to be stirring, here; a bit before, too; considering the nature of the message, i suppose, sir." "it is a terrible affair!" repeated the broker nervously. "i have known the doctor a good many years. he had his peculiarities; but he was a good fellow. say--jason!" "yes, sir?" "how does it happen that mrs. thorne-- you say this message was dated at midnight?" "at midnight, sir. . ." "how is it she didn't _know_ by that time? i pity the fellow who had to tell her. she's a very attractive woman.... the 'herald' says-- where is that paper?" "the 'herald' says," answered jason decorously, "that he was scooped into the buggy-top, and dragged, and dashed against-- here it is." he handed his employer the paper, as i had done, or had thought i did, with his finger on the folded column. the broker took the paper, and slowly put on his glasses, and slowly read aloud:-- "'dr. thorne was dragged for some little distance, it is thought, before the horse broke free. he must have hit the lamp-post, or the pavement. he was found in the top of the buggy, which was a wreck. the robe was over him, and his face was hidden. his medicine case lay beneath him; the phials were crushed to splinters. life was extinct when he was discovered. his watch had stopped at five minutes past seven o'clock. it so happened that he was not immediately identified, though our reporter could not learn the reason of this extraordinary mischance. by some unpardonable blunder, the body of the distinguished and favourite physician was taken to the morgue'"-- "that accounts for it," said jason. --"'was taken to the morgue,'" read on mr. brake with agitated voice. "'it was not until midnight that the mistake was discovered. a messenger was dispatched at twenty minutes after twelve o'clock to the elegant residence of the popular doctor, in delight street. the news was broken to the widow as agreeably as possible. mrs. thorne is a young and very beautiful woman, on whom this shocking blow falls with uncommon cruelty. "'the body was carried to dr. thorne's house at one o'clock. the time of the funeral is not yet appointed. the "herald" will be informed as soon as a decision is reached. "'the death of dr. thorne is a loss to this community which it is impossible to,'--hm--m--'his distinguished talents'--hm--m--hm--m." the broker laid down the paper, and sighed. "i sent for him yesterday, to consult about his affairs," he observed gently. "it is a pity for her to lose that santa ma. she will need it now. i'm sorry for her. i don't know how he left her, exactly. he did a tremendous business, but he spent as he went. he was a good fellow--i always liked the doctor! terrible affair! terrible affair! jason! where is that advertisement of grope county iowa mortgage? you have filed it in the wrong place! be more careful in future." ..."_mr. brake!_" i tried once more; and my voice was the voice of mortal anguish to my own appalled and ringing ear. "do you not hear? can you not see? is there _no one_ in this place who hears? or sees me, _either_?" an early customer had strayed in; drayton was there; and the watchman had entered. the men (there were five in all) collected by the broker's desk, around the morning papers, and spoke to each other with the familiarity which bad news of any public interest creates. they conversed in low tones. their faces wore a shocked expression. they spoke of me; they asked for more particulars of the tragedy reported by the morning press; they mentioned my merits and defects, but said more about merits than defects, in the merciful, foolish way of people who discuss the newly dead. "i've known him ten years," said the broker. "i've had the pleasure of the doctor's acquaintance myself a good while," said the inspector politely. "wasn't he a quick-tempered man?" asked the customer. "he cured a baby of mine of the croup," said the watchman. "it was given up for dead. and he only charged me a dollar and a half. he was very kind to the little chap." "he set an ankle for me, once, after a football match," suggested the clerk. "i wouldn't ask to be better treated. he wasn't a bit rough." ..."gentlemen," i entreated, stretching out my hands toward the group, "there is some mistake--i must make it understood. i am here. it is i, dr. thorne; dr. esmerald thorne. i am in this office. gentlemen! listen to me! look at me! look in this direction! for god's sake, _try_ to see me--some of you!"... "he drove too fast a horse," said the customer. "he always has." "i must answer mrs. thorne's message," said the broker sadly, rising and pushing back the office chair. ...i shrank, and tried no more. i bowed my head, and said no other word. the truth, incredible and terrible though it were, the truth which neither flesh nor spirit can escape, had now forced itself upon my consciousness. i looked across the broker's office at those five warm human beings as if i had looked across the width of the breathing world. naught had i now to say to them; naught could they communicate to me. language was not between us, nor speech, nor any sign. need of mine could reach them not, nor any of their kind. for i was in the dead, and they the living men. ..."here is your dog, sir," said jason. "he has followed you in. he is trying to speak to you, in his way." the broker stooped and patted the dumb brute affectionately. "i understand, lion," he said. "yes, i understand you." the dog looked lovingly up into his master's face, and whined for joy. chapter viii. this incident, trifling as it was, i think, did more than anything which had preceded it to make me aware of the nature of that which had befallen me. the live brute could still communicate with the living man. skill of scientist and philosopher was as naught to help the human spirit which had fled the body to make itself understood by one which occupied it still. more blessed in that moment was lion, the dog, than esmerald thorne, the dead man. i said to myself:-- "i am a desolate and an outcast creature. i am become a dumb thing in a deaf world." i thrust my hands before me, and wrung them with a groan. it seemed incredible to me that i could die; that was more wonderful, even, than to know that i was already dead. "it is all over," i moaned. "i have died. i am dead. i am what they call a dead man." now, at this instant, the dog turned his head. no human tympanum in the room vibrated to my cry. no human retina was recipient of my anguish. what fine, unclassified senses had the highly-organized animal by which he should become aware of me? the dog turned his noble head--he was a st. bernard, with the moral qualities of the breed well marked upon his physiognomy; he lifted his eyes and solemnly regarded me. after a moment's pause he gave vent to a long and mournful cry. "don't, lion," i said. "keep quiet, sir. this is dreadful!" the dog ceased howling when i spoke to him; after a little hesitation he came slowly to the spot where i was standing, and looked earnestly into my face, as if he saw me. whether he did, or how he did, or why he did, i knew not, and i know not now. the main business of this narrative will be the recording of facts. explanations it is not mine to offer; and of speculations i have but few, either to give or to withhold. a great wistfulness came into my soul, as i stood shut apart there from those living men, within reach of their hands, within range of their eyes, within the vibration of their human breath. i looked into the animal's eyes with the yearning of a sudden and an awful sense of desolation. "speak to me, lion," i whispered. "won't you speak to me?" "what is that dog about?" asked the customer, staring. "he is standing in the middle of the room and wagging his tail as if he had met somebody." the dog at this instant, with eager signs of pleasure or of pity--i could not, indeed, say which--put his beautiful face against my hand, and kissed, or seemed to kiss it, sympathetically. "he has queer ways," observed jason, the clerk, carelessly; "he knows more than most folks i know." "true," said his master, laughing. "i don't feel that i am lion's equal more than half the time, myself. he is a noble fellow. he has a very superior nature. my wife declares he is a poet, and that when he goes off by himself, and gazes into vacancy with that sort of look, he is composing verses." another customer had strolled in by this time; he laughed at the broker's easy wit; the rest joined in the laugh; some one said something which i did not understand, and drayton threw back his head and guffawed heartily. i think their laughter made me feel more isolate from them than anything had yet done. "why!" exclaimed the broker sharply, "what is this? jason! what does this mean?" his face, as he turned it over his shoulder to address the clerk, had changed colour; he was indeed really pale. he held his fingers on the great sheet of blue blotting-paper, to which he pointed, unsteadily. "upon my soul, sir," said jason, flushing and then paling in his turn. "that is a queer thing! may i show it to mr. drayton?" the inspector stepped forward, as the broker nodded; and examined the blotting-paper attentively. "it is written over," he said in a professional tone, "from end to end. i see that. it is written with one name. it is the name of"-- "_helen!_" interrupted the broker. "yes," replied the inspector. "yes, it is: helen; distinctly, helen. someone must have"-- but i stayed to hear no more. what some one must have done, i sprang and left the live men to decide--as live men do decide such things--among themselves. i sprang, and crying: "helen! helen! helen!" with one bound i brushed them by, and fled the room, and reached the outer air and sought for her. as nearly as one can characterize the emotion of such a moment i should say that it was one of mortal intensity; perhaps of what in living men we should call maniac intensity. up to this moment i could not be said to have comprehended the effect of what had taken place upon my wife. the full force of her terrible position now struck me like the edge of a weapon with whose sheath i had been idling. hot in the flame of my anger i had gone from her; and cold indeed had i returned. her i had left dumb before my cruel tongue, but dumb was that which had come back to her in my name. i was a dead man. but like any living of them all--oh, more than any living--i loved my wife. i loved her more because i had been cruel to her than if i had been kind. i loved her more because we had parted so bitterly than if we had parted lovingly. i loved her more because i had died than if i had lived. i must see my wife! i must find my wife! i must say to her--i must tell her-- why, who in all the world but me could do _anything_ for helen now? out into the morning air i rushed, and got the breeze in my face, and up the thronging street as spirits do, unnoted and unknown of men, i passed; solitary in the throng, silent in the outcry, unsentient in the press. the sun was strong. the day was cool. the dome of the sky hung over me, too, as over those who raised their breathing faces to its beauty. i, too, saw, as i fled on, that the day was fair. i heard the human voices say: "what a morning!" "it puts the soul into you!" said a burly stock speculator to a railroad treasurer; they stood upon the steps of the exchange, laughing, as i brushed by. "it makes life worth while," said a healthy elderly woman, merrily, making the crossing with the light foot that a light heart gives. "it makes life possible," replied a pale young girl beside her, coming slowly after. "poor fellow!" sighed a stranger whom i hit in hurrying on. "it was an ugly way to die. nice air, this morning!" "he will be a loss to the community," replied this man's companion. "there isn't a doctor in town who has his luck with fevers. you can't convince my wife he didn't save her life last winter. frost, last night, wasn't there? very invigorating morning!" now, at the head of the street some ladies were standing, waiting for a car. i was delayed in passing them, and as i stepped back to change my course i saw that one of them was speaking earnestly, and that her eyes showed signs of weeping. "he wouldn't remember me," she said; "it was eleven years ago. but sick women don't forget their doctors. he was as _kind_ to me"-- "oh, _poor_ mrs. thorne!" a soft voice answered, in the accented tone of an impulsive, tender-hearted woman. "it's bad enough to be a patient. but, oh, his _wife_!" "let me pass, ladies!" i cried, or tried to cry, forgetting, in the anguish which their words fanned to its fiercest, that i could not be heard and might not be seen. "there seems to be some obstruction. let me by, for i am in mortal haste!" obstruction there was, alas! but it was not in them whom i would have entreated. obstruction there was, but of what nature i could not and i cannot testify. while i had the words upon my lips, even as the group of women broke and left a space about me while they scattered on their ways, there on the corner of the thoroughfare, in the heart of the town, by an invisible force, by an inexplicable barrier, i, the dead man fleeing to my living wife, was beaten back. whence came that awful order? how came it? and wherefore? i knew no more than the november wind that passed me by, and went upon its errand as it listed. i was thrust back by a blast of power incalculable; it was like the current of an unknown natural force of infinite capability. set the will of soul and body as i would, i could not pass the head of the street. chapter ix. struggling to bear the fate which i had met, i turned as manfully as i might, and retraced my steps down the thronging street, within whose limits i now learned that my freedom was confined. it was a sickening discovery. i had been a man of will so developed and freedom so sufficient that helplessness came upon me like a change of temperament; it took the form of hopelessness almost at once. what was death? the secret of life. what knew i of the system of things on which a blow upon the head had ushered me all unready, reluctant, and uninstructed as i was? no more than the ruddiest live stockbroker in the street, whose blood went bounding, that fresh morning, to the antics of the santa ma. i was not accustomed to be uninformed; my ignorance appalled me. even in the deeps of my misery, i found space for a sense of humiliation; i felt profoundly mortified. in that spot, in that way, of all others, why was i withheld? was it the custom of the black country called death, which we mark "unexplored" upon the map of life,--was it the habit to tie a man to the place where he had died? but this was not the spot where i had died. it was the spot where i had learned that i had died. it was the place where the consciousness of death had wrought itself, not upon the nerves of the body, but upon the faculties of the mind. i had been dead twelve hours before i found it out. i looked up and down the street, where the living men scurried to and fro upon their little errands. these seemed immeasurably small. i looked upon them with disgust. fettered to that pavement, like a convict to his ball-and-chain, i passed and repassed in wretchedness whose quality i cannot express, and would not if i could. "i am punished," i said; "i am punished for that which i have done. this is my doom. i am imprisoned here." sometimes i broke into uncontrollable misery, crying upon my wife's dear name. then i would hush the outbreak, lest some one overhear me; and then i would remember that no one could overhear. i looked into the faces of the people whom i met and passed, with such longings for one single sign of recognition as are not to be described. it even occurred to me that among them all one might be found of whom my love and grief and will might make a messenger to helen. but i found none such, or i gained no such power; and, sick at heart, i turned away. suddenly, as i threaded the thick of the press, beating to and fro, and up and down, as dead leaves move before the wind, some one softly touched my hand. it was the st. bernard, the broker's dog. this time, as before, he looked into my face with signs of pleasure or of pity, or of both, and made as if he would caress me. "lion!" i cried, "_you_ know me, don't you? bless you, lion!" now, at the dumb thing's recognition, i could have wept for pleasure. the dog, when i spoke to him, followed me; and for some time walked up and down and athwart the street, beside me. this was a comfort to me. at last his master came out upon the sidewalk and looked for him. brake whistled merrily, and the dog, at the first call, went bounding in. ordinary writers upon usual topics, addressing readers of their own condition, have their share of difficulties; at best one conquers the art of expression as a general conquers an enemy. but the obstacles which present themselves to the recorder of this narrative are such as will be seen at once to have peculiar force. almost at the outset they dishearten me. how shall i tell the story unless i be understood? and how should i be understood if i told the story? were it for me, a man miserable and erring, gone to his doom as untrained for its consequences, or for the use of them, as a drayman for the use of hypnotism in surgery,--were it for me to play the interpreter between life and death? were it for me to expect to be successful in that solemn effort which is as old as time, and as hopeless as the eyes of mourners? what shall i say? it is willed that i shall speak. the angel said unto me: write. how shall i obey, who am the most unworthy of any soul upon whom has been laid the burden of the higher utterance? sacred be the task. would that its sacredness could sanctify the unfitness of him who here fulfils it. the experience which i have already narrated was followed by an indefinite period of great misery. how long i remained a prisoner in that unwelcome spot i cannot accurately tell. what are called by dwellers in the body days and nights, and dawns and darks, succeeded each other, little remarked by my wretchedness, or by the sense of remoteness from these things which now began to grow upon me. the life of what we call a spirit had begun for me in the form of a moral dislocation. the wrench, the agony, the process of setting the nature under its new conditions, took place in due order, but with bitter laggardness. the accident of death did not heal in my soul by what surgeons call "the first intention." i retained for a long time the consciousness of being an injured creature. as i paced and repaced the narrow street where the money-makers and money-lovers of the town jostled and thronged, a great disgust descended upon me. the place, the springs of conduct, wearied me, something in the manner that an educated person is wearied by low conversation. it seemed to be like this:--that the moral motives of the living created the atmosphere of the dead therein confined. it was as if i inhaled the coarse friction, the low aspiration, the feverishness, the selfishness, the dishonour, that the getting of gain, when it became the purpose of life, involved. i experienced a sense of being stifled, and breathed with difficulty; much as those live men would have done, if the gas-pipes had burst in the street. it did not detract from this feeling of asphyxia that i was aware of having, to a certain extent, shared the set of moral compounds which i now found resolved to their elements, by the curious chemistry of death. i had loved money and the getting of money, as men of the world, and of success in it, are apt to do. i was neither better nor worse than others of my sort. i had speculated with the profits of my profession, idly enough, but hotly, too, at times. i had told myself that i did this out of anxiety for the future of my family. i had viewed myself in the light of the model domestic man, who guards his household against an evil day. it had never occurred to me to classify myself with the mere money-changers, into whose atmosphere i had elected to put myself. now, as i glided in and out among them, unseen, unheard, unrecognized, a spirit among their flesh, there came upon me a humiliating sense of my true relation to them. was it thus, i said, or so? did i this or that? was the balance of motives so disproportionate after all? was there so little love of wife and child? so much of self and gain? was the item of the true so small? the sum of the false so large? had i been so much less that was noble, so much more that was low? i mingled with the mass of haggard men at a large stock auction which half the street attended. the panic had spread. sleeplessness and anxiety had carved the crowding faces with hard chisels. the shouts, the scramble, the oaths, the clinched hands, the pitiful pushing, affected me like a dismal spectacular play on some barbarian stage. how shall i express the sickening aspect of the scene to a man but newly dead? the excitement waxed with the morning. the old and placid santa ma throbbed like any little road of yesterday. the stock had gained points in ten minutes, and down again, and up again to heaven knows what. men ran from despair to elation, and behaved like maniacs in both. men who were gentlemen at home turned savages here. men who were honourable in society turned sharpers here. madness had them, as i watched them. a kind of pity for them seized me. i glided in among them, and lifted my whole heart to stay them if i could. i stretched the hands that no one saw. i raised the voice that none could hear. "gentlemen!" i cried, "count me the market value of it--on the margin of two lives! by the bonds wherewith you bind yourselves you shall be bound!... what is the sum of wealth represented within these walls to-day? name it to me.... the whole of it, for the power to leave this place! the whole of it, the whole of it, for one half-hour in a dead man's desolated home! a hundred-fold the whole of it for"-- but here i lost command of myself, and fleeing from the place where my presence and my misery and my entreaty alike were lost upon the attention of the living throng as were the elements of the air they breathed, i rushed into the outer world again; there to wander up and down the street, and hate the place, and hate myself for being there, and hate the greed of gain i used to love, and hate myself for having loved it; and yet to know that i was forced to act as if i loved it still, and to be the ghost before the ghost of a desire. "it is my doom," i said. "i am punished. i am fastened to this worldly spot, and to this awful way of being dead." now, while i spoke these words, i came, in the stress of my wretchedness, fleeing to the head of the street; and there, i cannot tell you how, i cannot answer why, as the arrow springs from the bow, or the conduct from the heart, or the spirit from the flesh,--in one blessed instant i knew that i was free to leave the spot, and crying, "helen, helen!" broke from it. chapter x. but no. alas, no, no! i was and was not free. all my soul turned toward her, but something stronger than my soul constrained me. it seemed to me that i longed for her with such longing as might have killed a live man, or might have made a dead one live again. this emotion added much to my suffering, but nothing to my power to turn one footstep toward her or to lift my helpless face in her direction. it was not permitted to me. it was not willed. now this, which might in another temperament have produced a sense of fear or of desire to placate the unknown force which overruled me, created in me at first a stinging rage. this is the truth, and the truth i tell. in my love and misery, and the shock of this disappointment--against the unknown opposition to my will, i turned and raved; even as when i was a man among men i should have raved at him who dared my purpose. "you are playing with me!" i wailed. "you torture a miserable man. who and what are you, that make of death a bitterer thing than life can guess? show me what i have to fight, and let me wrestle for my liberty,--though i am a ghost, let me wrestle like a man! let me to my wife! give way, and let me seek her!" shocking and foreign as words like these must be to many of those who read these pages, it must be remembered that they were uttered by one to whom faith and the knowledge that comes by way of it were the leaves of an abandoned text-book. for so many years had the tenets of the christian religion been put out of my practical life, even as i put aside the opinions of the laity concerning the treatment of disease, that i do not over-emphasize; i speak the simplest truth in saying that my first experience of death had not in any sense revived the vividness of lost belief to me. as the old life had ended had the new begun. where the tree had fallen it did lie. what was habit before death was habit after. what was natural then was natural now. what i loved living i loved dead. that which interested esmerald thorne the man interested esmerald thorne the spirit. the incident of death had raised the temperature of intellect; it had, perhaps, i may say, by this time quickened the pulse of conscience; but it had in no wise wrought any miracle upon me, nor created a religious believer out of a worldly and indifferent man of science. dying had not forthwith made me a devout person. incredible as it may seem, it is the truth that up to this time i had not, since the moment of dissolution, put to myself the solemn queries concerning my present state which occupy the imaginations of the living so much, while yet death is a fact remote from their experience. it was the habit of long years with me, after the manner of my kind, to settle all hard questions by a few elastic phrases, which, once learned, are curiously pliable to the intellectual touch. "phenomena," for instance,--how plastic to cover whatever one does not understand! "law,"--how ready to explain away the inexplicable! up to this point death had struck me as a most unfortunate phenomenon. its personal disabilities i found it easy to attribute to some natural law with which my previous education had left me unfamiliar. now, standing baffled there in that incredible manner half of tragedy, half of the absurd,--even the petty element of the undignified in the position adding to my distress,--a houseless, homeless, outcast spirit, struck still in the heart of that great town, where in hundreds of homes was weeping for me, where i was beloved and honoured and bemoaned, and where my own wife at that hour broke her heart with sorrow for me and for the manner of my parting from her,--then and there to be beaten back, and battered down, and tossed like an atom in some primeval flood, whithersoever i would not,--what a situation was this! now, indeed, i think for the first time, my soul lifted itself, as a sick man lifts himself upon his elbows, in his painful bed. now, flashing straight back upon the outburst of my defiance and despair, like the reflex action of a strong muscle, there came into my mind, if not into my heart, these impulsive and entreating words:-- "what art thou, who dost withstand me? i am a dead and helpless man. what wouldst thou with me? where gainest thou thy force upon me? art thou verily that ancient myth which we were wont to call almighty god?" simultaneously with the utterance of these words that blast of will to which i have referred fell heavily upon me. a power not myself overshadowed me and did environ me. guided whithersoever i would not, i passed forth upon errands all unknown to me, rebelling and obeying as i went. "i am become what we used to call a spirit," i thought, bitterly, "and this is what it means. better might one become a molecule, for those, at least, obey the laws of the universe, and do not suffer." now, as i took my course, it being ordered on me, it led me past the door of a certain open church, whence the sound of singing issued. the finest choir in the city, famous far and near, were practising for the sunday service, and singing like the sons of god, indeed, as i passed by. with the love of the scientific temperament for harmony alert in me, i lingered to listen to the anthem which these singers were rendering in their customary great manner. with the instinct of the musically educated, i felt pleasure in this singing, and said:-- "magnificently done!" as i went on. it was some moments before the words which the choir sang assumed any vividness in my mind. when they did i found that they were these;-- "_for god is a spirit. god is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit_"-- now it fell out that my steps were directed to the hospital; and to the hospital i straightway went. i experienced some faint comfort at this improvement in my lot, and hurried up the avenue and up the steps and into the familiar wards with eagerness. all the impulses of the healer were alive in me. i felt it a mercy for my nature to be at its own again. i hastened in among my sick impetuously. the hospital had been a favourite project of mine; from its start, unreasonably dear to me. through the mounting difficulties which blockade such enterprises, i had hewn and hacked, i had fathered and doctored, i had trusteed and collected, i had subscribed and directed and persisted and prophesied and fulfilled, as one ardent person must in most humanitarian successes; and i had loved the success accordingly. i do not think it had ever once occurred to me to question myself as to the chemical proportions of my motives in this great and popular charity. now, as i entered the familiar place, some query of this nature did indeed occupy my mind; it had the strangeness of all mental experiences consequent upon my new condition, and somewhat, if i remember, puzzled me. the love of healing? the relief of suffering? sympathy with the wretched? chivalry for the helpless? generosity to the poor? friendship to the friendless? were these the motives, all the motives, the _whole_ motives, of him who had in my name ministered in that place so long? even the love of science? devotion to a therapeutic creed? sacrifice for a surgical doctrine? enthusiasm for an important professional cause? did these, and only these, sources of conduct _explain_ the great hospital? or the surgeon who had created and sustained it? where did the motive deteriorate? where did the alloy come in? how did the sensitiveness to self, the passion for fame, the joy of power, amalgamate with all that noble feeling? how much residuum was there in the solution of that absorption which (outside of my own home) i had thought the purest and highest of my interests in life? for the first of all the uncounted times that i had entered the hospital for now these many years, i crossed the threshold questioning myself in this manner, and doubting of my fitness to be there, or to be what i had been held to be in that place. life had carried me gaily and swiftly, as it carries successful men. i had found no time, or made none, to cross-question the sources of conduct. my success had been my religion. i had the conviction of a prosperous person that the natural emotions of prosperity were about right. added to this was something of the physician's respect for what was healthful in human life. good luck, good looks, good nerves, a good income, an enviable reputation for professional skill, personal popularity, and private happiness,--these things had struck me as so wholesome that they must be admirable. behind the painted screen which a useful and successful career sets before the souls of men i had been too busy or too light of heart to peer. now it was as if, in the act or the fact of dying, i had moved a step or two, and looked over the edge of the bright shield. thoughts like these came to me so quietly and so naturally, now, that i wondered why i had not been familiar with them before; it even occurred to me that being very busy did not wholly excuse a live man for not thinking; and it was something in the softened spirit of this strange humility that i opened the noiseless door, and found myself among my old patients in the large ward. never before had i entered that sad place that the electric thrill of welcome, which only a physician knows, had not pulsated through it, preceding me, from end to end of the long room. the peculiar _lighting_ of the ward that flashes with the presence of a favourite doctor; the sudden flexible smile on pain-pinched lips; the yearning motion of the eyes in some helpless body where only the eyes can stir; the swift stretching-out of wasted hands; the half-inaudible cry of welcome: "the doctor's come!" "oh, there's the doctor!" "why, it's the _doctor_!"--the loving murmur of my name; the low prayer of blessing on it,--oh, never before had i entered my hospital, and missed the least of these. i thought i was prepared for this, but it was not without a shock that i stood among my old patients, mute and miserable, glancing piteously at them, as they had so often done at me; seeking for their recognition, which i might not have; longing for their welcome, which was not any more for me. the moans of pain, the querulous replies to nurses, the weary cough or plethoric breathing, the feeble convalescent laughter,--these greeted me; and only these. like the light that entered at the window, or the air that circulated through the ward, i passed unnoticed and unthanked. some one called out petulantly that a door had got unfastened, and bade a nurse go shut it, for it blew on her. but when i came up to the bedside of this poor woman, i saw that she was crying. "she's cried herself half-dead," a nurse said, complainingly. "nobody can stop her. she's taking on so for dr. thorne." "i don't blame her," said a little patient from a wheeled-chair. "everybody knows what he did for her. she's got one of her attacks,--and look at her! there can't anybody but him stop it. whatever we're going to do without the doctor"-- her own lip quivered, though she was getting well. "i don't see how the doctor _could_ die!" moaned the very sick woman, weeping afresh, "when there's those that nobody but him can keep alive. it hadn't oughter to be let to be. how are sick folks going to get along without their doctor? it ain't _right_!" "lord have mercy on ye, poor creetur," said an old lady from the opposite cot. "don't take on so. it don't _help_ it any. it ain't agoing to bring the doctor back!" sobs arose at this. i could hear them from more beds than i cared to count. sorrow sat heavily in the ward for my sake. it distressed me to think of the effect of all this depression upon the nervous systems of these poor people. i passed from case to case, and watched the ill-effects of the general gloom with a sense of professional disappointment which only physicians will understand as coming uppermost in a man's mind under circumstances such as these. my discomfort was increased by the evidences of what i considered mistakes in treatment on the part of my colleagues; some of which had peculiarly disagreed with certain patients since my death had thrown them into other hands. my helplessness before these facts chafed me sorely. i made no futile effort to make myself known to any of the hospital patients. i had learned too well the limitations of my new condition now. i had in no wise learned to bear them. in truth, i think i bore them less, for my knowledge that these poor creatures did truly love me, and leaned on me, and mourned for me; i found it hard. i think it even occurred to me that a dead man might not be able to bear it to see his wife and child. "doctor!" said a low, sweet voice, "doctor?" my heart leaped within me, as i turned. where was the highly organized one of all my patients, who had baffled death for love of me? who had the clairvoyance or clairaudience, or the wonderful tip in the scale of health and disease, which causes such phenomena? with hungry eyes i gazed from cot to cot. no answering gaze returned to me. craving their recognition more sorely than they had ever, in the old life, craved mine, in such need of their sympathy as never had the weakest of the whole of them for mine, i scanned them all. no--no. there was not a patient in the ward who knew me. no. stung with the disappointment, i sank into a chair beside the weeping woman's bed, and bowed my face upon my hands. at this instant i was touched upon the shoulder. "doctor! why, doctor!" said the voice again. i sprang and caught the speaker by the hands. it was mrs. faith. she stood beside me, sweet and smiling. "the carriage overturned," she said in her quiet way, "i was badly hurt. i only died an hour ago. i started out at once to find you. i want you to see charley. charley's still alive. those doctors don't understand charley. there's nobody i'd trust him to but you. you can save him. come! you can't think how he asked for you, and cried for you.... i thought i should find you at the hospital. come quickly, doctor! come!" chapter xi. some homesick traveller in a foreign land, where he is known of none and can neither speak nor understand the language of the country; taken ill, let us say, at a remote inn, his strength and credit gone, and he, in pain and fever, hears, one blessed day, the voice of an old friend in the court below. such a man may think he has--but i doubt if he have--some crude conception of the state of feeling in which i found myself, when recognized in this touching manner by my old patient. my emotion was so great that i could not conceal it; and she, in her own quick and delicate way, perceiving this almost before i did myself, made as if she saw it not, and lightly adding: "hurry, doctor! i will go before you. let us lose no time!" led me at once out of the hospital and rapidly away. in an incredibly, almost confusingly short space of time, we reached her house; this was done by some method of locomotion not hitherto experienced by me, and which i should, at that time, have found it difficult to describe, unless by saying that she thought us where we wished to be. perhaps it would be more exact to say, _she felt us_. it was as if the great power of the mother's love in her had become a new bodily faculty by which she was able, with extraordinary disregard of the laws of distance, to move herself and to draw another to the suffering child. i should say that i perceived at once, in the presence of this sweet woman, that there were possibilities and privileges in the state immediately succeeding death, which had been utterly denied to me, and were still unknown to me. it was easy to see that her personal experience in the new condition differed as much from mine as our lives had differed in the time preceding death. she had been a patient, unworldly, and devout sufferer; a chronic invalid, who bore her lot divinely. her soul had been as full of trust and gentleness, of the forgetting of self and the service of others, of the scorn of pain, and of what she called trust in heaven, as any woman's soul could be. i had never seen the moment when i could withhold my respect from the devout nature of mrs. faith, any more than i could from her manner of enduring suffering; or, i might add, if i could expect the remark to be properly understood,--from her strong and intelligent trust in me. physicians know what sturdy qualities it takes to make a good patient. perhaps they are, to some extent, the same which go to make a good believer; but in this direction i am less informed. during our passage from the hospital to the house, mrs. faith had not spoken to me; her whole being seemed, as nearly as i could understand it, to be absorbed in the process of getting there. it struck me that she was still unpractised in the use of a new and remarkable faculty, which required strict attention from her, like any other as yet unlearned art. "_you_ are not turned out of your own home it seems!" i exclaimed impulsively, as we entered the house together. "oh, no, _no_!" she cried. "who is? who could be? why, doctor, are _you_?" "death is a terrible respecter of persons," i answered drearily. i could not further explain myself at that moment. "i have been away from charley a good while," she anxiously replied; "it is the first time i have left him since i died. but i had to find you, doctor. charley should not die--i can't have charley die--for his poor father's sake. but i feel quite safe about him now i have got you." she said these words in her old bright, trustful way. the thought of my helplessness to justify such trust smote me sorely; but i said nothing then to undeceive her,--how could i?--and we made haste together to the bedside of the injured child. i saw at a glance that the child was in a bad case. halt was there, and dr. gazell; they were consulting gloomily. the father, haggard with his first bereavement, seemed to have accepted the second as a foregone conclusion; he sat with his face in his hands, beside the little fellow's bed. the boy called for his mother at intervals. a nurse hung about weeping. it was a dismal scene; there was not a spark of hope, or energy, or fight in the whole room. i cried out immoderately that it was enough to kill the well, and protested against the management of the case with the ardent conviction to which my old patient was so used, and in which she believed more thoroughly than i did myself. "they are giving the wrong remedy," i hotly said. "this surgical fever could be controlled,--the boy need not die. but he will! you may as well make up your mind to it, mrs. faith. gazell doesn't understand the little fellow's constitution, and halt doesn't understand anything." now it was that, as i had expected, the mother turned upon me with all a mother's hopeless and heart-breaking want of logic. surely, i, and only i, could save the boy. why, i had always taken care of charley! was it possible that i could stand by and see charley _die_? _she_ should not have died herself if i had been there. she depended upon me to find some way--there must be a way. she never thought i was the kind of a man to be so changed by--by what had happened. i used to be so full of hope and vigour, and so inventive in a sick-room. it was not reasonable! it was not right! it was not possible that, just because i was a spirit, i could not control the minds or bodies of those live men who were so inferior to me. why, she thought i could control _any_body. she thought i could conquer _any_thing. "i don't understand it, doctor," she said, with something like reproach. "you don't seem to be able to do as much--you don't even know as much as _i_ do, now. and you know what a sick and helpless little woman i've always been,--how ignorant, beside you! i thought you were so wise, so strong, so great. where has it all gone to, doctor? what has become of your wisdom and your power? can't you help me? can't you"-- "i can do nothing," i interrupted her,--"nothing. i am shorn of it all. it has all gone from me, like the strength of samson. spare me, and torment me not.... i cannot heal your child. i am not like you. i was not prepared for--this condition of things. i did not expect to die. i never thought of becoming a spirit. i find myself extraordinarily embarrassed by it. it is the most unnatural state i ever was in." "why, i find it as natural as life," she said, more gently. she had now moved to the bedside, and taken the little fellow in her arms. "you are not as i," i replied morosely. "we differed--and we differ. truly, i believe that if there is anything to be done for your boy, it rests with you, and not with me." halt and gazell were now consulting in an undertone, touching the selection of a certain remedy; no one noticed them, and they droned on. the mother crooned over the child, and caressed him, and breathed upon his sunken little face, and poured her soul out over him in precious floods and wastes of tenderness as mothers do. "live, my little son!" she whispered. "live, live!" but i, meanwhile, was watching the two physicians miserably. "there!" i said, "they have dropped the phial on the floor. see, that is the one they ought to have. it rolled away. they don't mean to take it. they will give him the wrong thing. oh, how can they?" but now the mother, when she heard me speak, swiftly and gently removed her arms from beneath the boy, and, advancing to the hesitating men, stood silently between them, and laid a hand upon the arm of each. while she stood there she had a rapt, high look of such sort that i could in no wise have addressed her. "are you _sure_, dr. gazell?" asked halt. "i _think_ so," said gazell. he stooped, after a moment's hesitation, and picked up the phial from the floor, read its label; laid it down, looked at the child, and hesitated again. the mother at this juncture sunk upon her knees and bowed her shining face. i thought she seemed to be at prayer. i too bowed my head; but it was for reverence at the sight of her. it was long since i had prayed. i did not find it natural to do so. a strange discontent, something almost like an inclination to prayer, came upon me. but that was all. i would rather have had the power to turn those two men out of the room, and pour the saving remedy upon my little patient's burning tongue with my own flesh-and-blood fingers, and a hearty objurgation on the professional blunder which i had come in time to rectify. "dr. halt," said dr. gazell, slowly, "with your approval i think i will change my mind. on the whole, the indications point to--this. i trust it is the appropriate remedy." he removed the cork from the phial as he spoke, and, rising, passed quickly to the bedside of the child. the mother had now arisen from her knees, and followed him, and got her arms about the boy again, and set her soul to brooding over him in the way that loving women have. i was of no further service to her, and i had vanished from her thought, which had no more room at that moment for anything except the child than the arms with which she clasped him. it amazed me--i was going to say it appalled me--that no person in the room should seem to have consciousness of her presence. she was like an invisible star. how incredible that love like that, and the power of it, could be dependent upon the paltry senses of what are called live people for so much as the proofs of its existence. "it is not scientific," i caught myself saying, as i turned away, "there is a flaw in the logic somewhere. there seems to be a snapped link between two sets of facts. there is no deficiency of data; the difficulty lies wholly in collating them." how, indeed, should i--how did i but a few days since--myself regard such "data" as presumed to indicate the continuance of human life beyond the point of physical decay! "after all," i thought, as i wandered from the house in which i felt myself forgotten and superfluous, and pursued my lonely way, i knew not whither and i knew not why,--"after all, there is another life. i really did not think it." it seemed now to have been an extraordinary narrowness of intellect in me that i had not at least attached more weight to the universal human hypothesis. i did not precisely wonder from a personal point of view that i had not definitely believed it; but i wondered that i had not given the possibility the sort of attention which a view of so much dignity deserved. it really annoyed me that i had made that kind of mistake. we, at least, were alive,--my old patient and i. whether others, or how many, or of what sort, i could not tell; i had yet seen no other spirit. what was the life-force in this new condition of things? where was the central cell? what _made_ us go on living? habit? or selection? thought? emotion? vigour? if the last, what species of vigour? what was that in the individual which gave it strength to stay? whence came the reproductive power which was able to carry on the species under such terrible antagonism as the fact of death? if in the body, where was the common element between that attenuated invalid and my robust organization? if in the soul, between the suffering saint and the joyous man of the world, where again was our common moral protoplasm? nothing occurred to me at the time, at least, as offering any spiritual likeness between myself and mrs. faith, but the fact that we were both people of strong affections which had been highly cultivated. might not a woman _love_ herself into continued existence who felt for any creature what she did for that child? and i--god knew, if there were a god, how it was with me. if i had never done anything, if i had never been anything, if i had never felt anything else in all my life, that was fit to _last_, i had loved one woman, and her only, and had thought high thoughts for her, and felt great emotions for her, and forgotten self for her sake, and thought it sweet to suffer for her, and been a better man for love of her. and i had loved her,--oh, i had so loved her, that i knew in my soul ten thousand deaths could not murder that living love. and i had spoken to her--i had said to her--like any low and brutal fellow, any common wife-tormentor--i had gone from her dear presence to this mute life wherein there was neither speech nor language; where neither earth, nor heaven, nor my love, nor my remorse, nor all my anguish, nor my shame, could give my sealed lips the power to say, forgive. now, while i was cast thus abroad upon the night,--for it was night,--sorely shaken and groaning in spirit, taking no care where my homeless feet should lead me, i lifted my eyes suddenly, and looked straight on before me, and behold! shining afar, fair and sweet and clear, i saw and recognized the lights of my own home. i was still at some distance from the spot, and, beside myself with joy, i started to run unto it. with the swift motions which spirits make, and which i was beginning now to master in a clumsy manner and low degree, i came, compassing the space between myself and all i loved or longed for, and so brought myself tumultuously into the street where the house stood; there, at a stone's throw from it, i felt myself suddenly stifled with my haste, or from some cause, and, pausing (as we used to say) to gather breath, i found that i was stricken back, and fettered to the ground. there was no wind. the night was perfectly still. not a leaf quivered on the topmost branch of the linden which tapped our chamber-window. yet a power like a mighty rushing blast gainsaid me and smote me where i was. not a step, though i writhed for it, not a breath nearer, though my heart should break for it, could i take or make to reach her. this was my doom. within clasp of her dear arms, within sight of her sweet face,--for there! while i stood struggling, i saw a woman's shadow rise and stir upon the dimly lighted wall,--thus to be denied and bidden back from her seemed to me more than heart could bear. while i stood, quite unmanned by what had happened, incredulous of my punishment, and yearning to her through the little distance, and stretching out my hands toward her, and brokenly babbling her dear name, she moved, and i saw her quite distinctly, even as i had seen her that last time. she stood midway between the unlighted parlour and the lighted library beyond. the drop-light with the scarlet shade blazed behind her. i noticed that to-night, as on that other night, the baby was not with her; and i wondered why. she stood alone. she moved up and down the room; she had a weary step. her dress, i saw, was black, dead black. her white hands, clasped before her, shone with startling brilliancy upon the sombre stuff she wore. her lovely head was bent a little, and she seemed to be gazing at me whom she could not see. then i cried with such a cry, it seemed as if the very living must needs hear:-- "helen! helen! _helen_!" but she stood quite still; leaning her pale face toward me, like some listening creature that was stricken deaf. the sight was more sorrowful than i could brave; for the first time since i had died i succumbed into something like a swoon, and lost my miserable consciousness in the street before her door. chapter xii. when i came again to myself i found that what i should once have called a "phenomenon" had taken place. the city, the dim street, the familiar architecture of my home, the streams of light from the long windows, the leaves of the linden tapping on the glass, the woman's shadow on the wall, and the stirring toward me of the form and face i loved,--these had vanished. i was in a strange place; and i was a stranger in it. it seemed rather a lonely place at first, though it was not unpleasing to me as i looked abroad. the scenery was mountainous and solemn, but it was therefore on a large scale and restful to the eye. it had more grandeur than beauty, to my first impression; but i remembered that i was not in a condition of mind to be receptive of the merely beautiful, which might exist for me without my perception of it, even as the life of the dead existed without the perception of the living. death, if it had taught me less up to that time than it might have done to nobler men, had at least done so much as this: it had accustomed me to respect the unseen, and to regard its possible action upon the seen as a matter of import. as i looked forth upon the hills and skies, the plains and forests, and on to the distant signs of human habitation in the scenery about me, i thought:-- "i am in a world where it is probable that there exist a thousand things which i cannot understand to one which i can." it seemed to me a very uncomfortable state of affairs, whatever it was. i felt estranged from this place, even before i was acquainted with it. nothing in my nature responded to its atmosphere; or, if so, petulantly and with a kind of helpless antagonism, like the first cry of the new-born infant in the old life. as i got myself languidly to my feet, and idly trod the path which lay before me, for lack of knowing any better thing to do, i began to perceive that others moved about the scene; that i was not, as i had thought, alone, but one of a company, each going on his errand as he would. i only seemed to have no errand; and i was at a great distance from these people, whose presence, however, though so remote, gave me something of the sense of companionship which one whose home is in a lonely spot upon a harbour coast has in watching the head-lights of anchored ships upon dark nights. communication there is none, but desolation is less for knowing that there could be, or for fancying that there might. across the space between us, i looked upon my fellow-citizens in this new country, with a dull emotion not unlike gratitude for their existence; but i felt little curiosity about them. i was too unhappy to be so easily diverted. it seemed to me that the memory of my wife would become a mania to me, if i could in no way make known to her how utterly i loved her and how i scorned myself. i cannot say that i felt much definite interest in the novel circumstances surrounding me, except as possible resources for some escape from the situation, as it stood between herself and me. if i could compass any means of communicating with her, i believed that i could accept my doom, let it take me where it might or make of me what it would. walking thus drearily, alone, and not sorry to be alone in that unfamiliar company, lost in the fixed idea of my own misery, i suddenly heard light footsteps hurrying behind me. i thought:-- "there is another spirit; one more of the newly dead, come to this strange place." but i did not find it worth my while to turn and greet him, being so wrapt in my own fate; and when a soft hand touched my arm, i moved from it with something like dismay. "why, doctor!" said the gentle voice of mrs. faith, "did i startle you? i have been hunting for you everywhere," she added, laughing lightly. "i was afraid you would feel rather desolate. it is a pity. now, i am as _happy_!" "did charley live?" i asked immediately. "oh yes, charley lived; what we used to call living, when we were there. poor charley! i keep thinking how he would enjoy everything if he were here with me. but his father needed him. it makes me so happy! i am very happy! tell me, doctor, what do you think of this place? how does it strike you?" "it is a foreign country," i said sadly. "is it, doctor? poor doctor! why, i feel so much at _home_!" she lifted a radiant face to me; it was touching to see her expression, and marvellous to behold the idealization of health on features for so many years adjusted to pain and patience. "dear doctor!" she cried joyously, "you never thought to see me _well_! they call this death. why, i never knew what it was to be _alive_ before!" "i must make you acquainted with some of the people who live here," she added, quickly recalling herself from her own interests to mine, with her natural unselfishness, "it is pitiful to come into this place--as you have done. you always knew so many people. you had such friends about you. i never saw you walk alone in all your life before." "i wish to be alone," i answered moodily. "i care nothing for this place, or for the men who live here. it is all unfamiliar to me. i am not happy in it. i am afraid i have not been educated for it. it is the most unhomelike place i ever saw." her eyes filled; she did not answer me at once; when she did it was to say: "it will be better. it will be better by and by. have you seen"-- she stopped and hesitated. "have you seen the lord?" she asked, in a low voice. she was wont, i remember, to use this word in a way peculiarly her own; as if she were referring to some personal acquaintance, near to her heart. i shook my head, looking drearily upon her. "don't you _want_ to see him?" "i want to see my wife!" "oh, i am sorry for you," she said, with forbearing gentleness. "it is pretty hard. but i wish you _wanted_ him." "i want to see my wife! i want to see my wife!" i interrupted bitterly. and with this i turned away from her and hid my face, for i could speak no more. when i lifted my eyes, she had gone from me, and i was again alone. when it was thus too late, it occurred to me that i had lost an opportunity which might not easily return to me, and i sought far and wide for mrs. faith. i did not find her, though i aroused myself to the point of accosting some of the inhabitants of the country, and making definite inquiries for her. i was answered with great courtesy and uncommon warmth of manner, as if it were the custom of this place to take a genuine interest in the affairs of strangers; but i was not able, by any effort on my part, to bring myself in proximity to her. this trifling disappointment added to my sense of helplessness in the new life on which i had entered; and i was still as incredulous of helplessness and as galled by it as i should have been by the very world of woe which had formed so irritating a dogma to me in the theology of my day on earth, and which i had regarded as i did the nightmares of a dyspeptic patient. in this state of feeling, it was the greatest comfort to me when, at some period of time which i have no means of defining, but which could not have been long afterward, mrs. faith came suddenly again across my path. she radiated happiness and health and beauty, and when she held out both her hands to me in greeting they seemed to glitter, as if she had stepped from a bath of delight. "oh," she said joyously, "have you seen him _yet_?" it embarrassed me to be forced to answer in the negative; it gave me a strange feeling, as if i had been a convict in the country, and denied the passport of honourable men. i therefore waived her question as well as i might, and proceeded to make known to her the thought which had been occupying me. "_you_ have the _entrée_ of the dear earth," i said sadly. "they do not treat you in the--in the very singular manner with which i am treated. it is important beyond explanation that i get a message to my wife. a beggar in the street may be admitted to her charity,--i saw one at the door the night i stood there. i, only i, am forbidden to enter. whatever may be the natural laws which are sot in opposition to me, they have extraordinary force; i can do nothing against them. i suppose i do not understand them. if i had an opportunity to study them--but i have no opportunities at anything. it is a new experience to me to be so--so disregarded by the general scheme of things. i seem to be of no more consequence in this place than a bootblack was in the world, or a paralytic person. it seems useless for me to fly in the face of fate, since this is fate. i have no hope of being able to reach my wife. you have privileges in this condition which are evidently far superior to mine. i have been thinking that possibly you may be able--and willing--to approach her for me?" "i don't think it would succeed, doctor," replied my old patient quickly. "i'd _do_ it! you know i would! but if i were helen--she is a very reserved person; she never talks about her husband, as different women do; her feeling is of such a sort; i do not think she would _understand_, if another woman were to speak from you to her." "perhaps not," i sighed. "i am afraid it would be the most hopeless experiment you could make," said mrs. faith. "she loves you too much for it," she added, with the divination of her sex. comforted a little by mrs. faith, i quickly abandoned this project; indeed, i soon abandoned every other which concerned itself with helen, and yielded myself with a kind of desperate lethargy, if i may be allowed the expression, to the fate which separated me from her. of resignation i knew nothing. peace was the coldest stranger in that strange land to me. i yielded because i could not help it, not because i would have willed it; and with that dull strength which grows into the sinews of the soul from necessity, sought to adjust myself in such fashion as i might to my new conditions. it occurred to me from time to time that it would have been an advantage if i had felt more interest in the conditions themselves; that it would even have spared me something if i had ever cultivated any familiarity with the possibilities of such a state of existence. i could not remember that i had in the old life satisfactorily proved that another _could_ not follow it. it seemed to me that if i had only so much as exercised my imagination upon the possible course of events in case another did, it would have been of some practical service to me now. i was in the position of a man who is become the victim of a discovery whose rationality he has contemptuously denied. it was like being struck by a projectile while one is engaged in disproving the existence of gunpowder. if a soul may properly be said to be stunned, mine at this time, was that soul. in this condition solitude was still so natural to me that i made no effort to approach the people of the place, and contented myself with observing them and their affairs from a distance. they seemed a very happy people. there could be no mistake about that. i did not see a clouded countenance; nor did i hear an accent of discomfort, or of pain. i wondered at their joyousness, which i found it as impossible to share as the sick find it impossible to share what has been called "the insolence of health." it did, indeed, appear to me as something almost impertinent, as possession always appears to denial. but i had never been denied before. i perceived, also, that the inhabitants of this country were a busy people. they came and went, they met and parted, with the eagerness of occupation; though there was a conspicuous absence of the fretful haste to which i had been used in the conduct of business. i looked upon the avocations of this strange land, and wondered at them. i could not see with what they were occupied, or why, or to what end. they affected me perhaps something as the concerns of the human race may affect the higher animals. i looked on with an unintelligent envy. one day, as i was strolling miserably about, a child came up and spoke to me. he, like myself, was alone. he was a beautiful child,--a little boy; he seemed scarcely more than an infant. he appeared to be in search of some one or of something; his brilliant eyes roved everywhere; he had a noble little head, and carried himself courageously. he gave no evidence of fear or sadness at his isolated position but ran right on,--for he was running when i saw him,--as if he had gone forth upon some happy, childish errand. but at sight of me he paused; regarded me a moment with the piercing candour of childhood, as if he took my moral measure after some inexplicable personal scale of his own; then came directly and put his hand into my own. i grasped it heartily,--who could have helped it?--and lifting the little fellow in my arms kissed him affectionately, as one does a pretty stranger child. this seemed to gratify him rather than to satisfy him; he nestled in my neck, but moved restlessly, slipping to the ground, and back again into my arms; jabbering incoherently and pleasantly; seeming to be diverted rather than comforted; ready to stay, but alert to go; in short, behaving like a baby on a visit. after awhile the child adjusted himself to the situation; grew quiet, and clung to me; and at last, putting both his arms about my neck, he gave the long, sweet sigh of healthy infant weariness, and babbling something to the general effect that boy was tired, he dropped into a sound and happy sleep. here, indeed, was a situation! it drew from me the first smile which had crossed my lips since i had died. what, pray, was i, who seemed to be of no consequence whatever in this amazing country, and who had more than i knew how to do in looking after myself, under its mysterious conditions,--what was i to do with the spirit-baby gone to sleep upon my neck? "i must go and find the orphan asylum," i 'thought; "doubtless they have them in this extraordinary civilization. i must take the little fellow to some women as soon as possible." at this juncture, my friend mrs. faith appeared, making a mock of being out of breath, and laughing heartily. "he ran away from me," she merrily explained. "i had the care of him, and he ran on; he came straight to you. i couldn't hold him. what a comfort he will be to you!... why, doctor! do you mean to say you don't know who the child _is_?" "it seems to me," she added, with a mother's sublime superiority, "_i_ should know my own baby! if i were so fortunate as to find one here!--how much less you know," she proceeded naively, "than i used to think you did!" "did the child _die_?" i asked, trembling so that i had to put the little fellow down lest he should fall from my startled arms. "did something really ail him that night when his mother--that miserable night?" "the child died," she answered gravely. "dear little boy! take him up again, doctor. don't you see? he is uneasy unless you hold him fast." i took boy up; i held him close; i kissed him, and i clung to him, and melted into unintelligible cries above him, never minding mrs. faith, for i quite forgot her. but what i felt was for my child's poor mother, and all my thought was for her, and my heart broke for her, that she should be so bereft. "i should like to know if you suppose for one minute that she wouldn't _rather_ you would have the little fellow, if he is the least bit of comfort to you in the world?" mrs. faith said this; she spoke with a kind of lofty, feminine scorn. "why, helen _loves_ you!" she said, superbly. chapter xiii "i believe," said my old patient, "i believe that was the highest moment of your life." a man of my sort seldom comprehends a woman of hers. i did not understand her, and i told her so, looking at her across the clinging child. "there was no self in it!" she answered eagerly. "oh," i said indifferently, "is that all?" "it is everything," replied the wiser spirit, "in the place that we have come to. it is like a birth. such a moment has to go on living. one is never the same after as one was before it. changes follow. may the lord be in them!" "but stay!" i cried, as she made a signal of farewell, "are you not going to help me--is nobody going to help me take care of this child?" she shook her head, smiling; then laughed outright at my perplexity; and with a merry air of enjoyment in my extraordinary position, she went her ways and left me. there now began for me a singular life. changes followed, as mrs. faith had said. the pains and the privileges of isolation were possible to me no longer. action of some sort, communion of some kind with the world in which i lived, became one of the imperative necessities about which men do not philosophize. for there was the boy! whatever my views about a spiritual state of existence, there always was the boy. no matter how i had demonstrated the unreasonableness of living after death, the child was alive. however i might personally object to my own share of immortality, i was a living father, with my motherless baby in my arms. up to this time i had lived in an indifferent fashion; in the old world, we should have called it "anyhow." food i scarcely took, or if at all, it was to snatch at such wild fruits as grew directly before me, without regard to their fitness or palatableness; paying, in short, as little attention to the subject as possible. home i had none. i wandered till i was weary of wandering, and rested till i could rest no more; seeking such shelter as the country afforded me in lonely and beautiful spots; discontented with what i had, but desiring nothing further; with my own miserable thoughts for housemates and for neighbours, and the absence of hope forbidding the presence of energy. nothing that i could see interested me. much or most that i took the trouble to observe, i should have been frankly obliged to admit that i did not understand. the customs of the people bewildered me. their evident happiness irritated me. their activity produced in me only the desire to get out of sight of it. their personal health and beauty--for they were a very comely people--gave me something the kind of nervous shrinking that i had so often witnessed in the sick, when some buoyant, inconsiderate, bubbling young creature burst into the room of pain. i felt in the presence of the universal blessedness about me like some hurt animal, who cares only to crawl in somewhere and be forgotten. if i drew near, as i had on several occasions done, to give some attention to the occupations of the inhabitants, all these feelings were accentuated so much that i was fain to withdraw before i had studied the subject. study there was in that country, and art and industry; even traffic, if traffic it might be called; it seemed to be an interchange of possessions, conducted upon principles of the purest consideration for the public, as opposed to personal welfare. homes there were, and the construction of them, and the happiest natural absorption in their arrangement and management. there were families and household devotion; parents, children, lovers, neighbours, friends. i saw schools and other resorts of learning, and what seemed to be institutions of benevolence and places of worship, a series of familiar and yet wholly unfamiliar sights. in them all existed a spirit, even as the spirit of man exists in his earthly body, which was and willed and acted as that does, and which, like that, defied analysis. i could perceive at the hastiest glance that these people conducted themselves upon a set of motives entirely strange to me. what they were doing--what they were doing it _for_--i simply did not know. a great central purpose controlled them, such as controls masses of men in battle or at public prayer; a powerful and universal law had hold of them; they treated it as if they loved it. they seemed to feel affectionately toward the whole system of things. they loved, and thought, and wrought straight onward with it; no one put the impediment of a criticism against it,--no one that i could see or suspect, in all the place, except my isolated self. they had the air of those engaged in some sweet and solemn object, common to them all; an object, evidently set above rather than upon the general level. their faces shone with pleasure and with peace. often they wore a high, devout look. they never showed an irritated expression, never an anxious nor that i could see a sad one. it was impossible to deny the marked nobility of their appearance. "if this," i thought, "be what is called a spiritual life, i was not ready to become a spirit." now, when my child awaited and called me, as he had begun, in the dear old days on earth, to learn to do, and like any live human baby proceeded to give vent to a series of incoherent remarks bearing upon the fact that boy would like his supper, i was fain to perceive that being a spirit did not materially change the relation of a man to the plainer human duties; and that, whether personally agreeable or no, i must needs bring myself into some sort of connection with the civilization about me. i might be a homesick fellow, but the baby was hungry. i might be at odds with the whole scheme of things, but the child must have a shelter. i might be a spiritual outcast, but what was to become of boy? the heart of the father arose in me; and, gathering the little fellow to my breast, i set forth quickly to the nearest town. here, after some hesitation, i accosted a stranger, whose appearance pleased me, and besought his assistance in my perplexity. he was a man of lofty bearing; his countenance was strong and benign as the western wind; he had a gentle smile, but eyes which piercingly regarded me. he was of superior beauty, and conducted himself as one having authority. he was much occupied, and hastening upon some evidently important errand; but he stopped at once, and gave his attention to me with the hearty interest in others characteristic of the people. "are you a stranger in the country--but newly come to us?" "a stranger, sir, but not newly arrived." "and the child?" "the child ran into my arms about an hour ago." "is the boy yours?" "he is my only child." "what do you desire for him?" "i would fain provide for him those things which a father must desire. i seek food and shelter. i wish a home, and means of subsistence, and neighbourhood, and the matters which are necessary to the care and comfort of an infant. pray, counsel me. i do not understand the conditions of life in this remarkable place." "i do not know that it is of consequence that i should," i added, less courteously, "but i cannot see the boy deprived. he must be made comfortable as speedily as possible. i shall be obliged to you for some suggestion in the matter." "come hither," replied the stranger, laconically. forthwith, he led me, saying nothing further, and i followed, asking nothing more. this embarrassed me somewhat, and it was with some discomfort that i entered the house of entertainment to which i was directed, and asked for those things which were needful for my child. these were at once and lavishly provided. it soon proved that i had come to a luxurious and hospitable place. the people were most sympathetic in their manner. boy especially excited the kindest of attention; some women fondled him, and all the inmates of the house interested themselves in the little motherless spirit. in spite of myself this touched me, and my heart warmed toward my entertainers. "tell me," i said, turning toward him who had brought me thither, "how shall i make compensation for my entertainment? what is the custom of the country? i--what we used to call property--you will understand that i necessarily left behind me. i am accustomed to the use of it. i hardly know what to do without it. i am accustomed to--some abundance. i wish to remunerate the people of this house." "what _did_ you bring with you?" asked my new acquaintance, with a half-sorrowful look, as if he would have helped me out of an unpleasant position if he could. "nothing," i replied, after some thought, "nothing but my misery. that does not seem to be a marketable commodity in this happy place. i could spare some, if it were." "what had you?" pursued my questioner, without noticing my ill-timed satire. "what were your possessions in the life yonder?" "health. love. happiness. home. prosperity. work. fame. wealth. ambition." i numbered these things slowly and bitterly. "none of them did i bring with me. i have lost them all upon the way. they do not serve me in this differing civilization." "was there by chance nothing more?" "nothing more. unless you count a little incidental usefulness." "and that?" he queried eagerly. i therefore explained to him that i had been a very busy doctor; that i used to think i took pleasure in relieving the misery of the sick, but that it seemed a mixed matter now, as i looked back upon it,--so much love of fame, love of power, love of love itself,--and that i did not put forth my life's work as of importance in his scale of value. "that would not lessen its value," replied my friend. "i myself was a healer of the sick. your case appeals to me. i was known as"-- he whispered a name which gave me a start of pleasure. it was a name famous in its day, and that a day long before my own; a name immortal in medical history. few men in the world had done as much as this one to lessen the sum of human suffering. it excited me greatly to meet him. "but you," i cried, "you were not like the rest of us or the most of us. _you_ believed in these--invisible things. you were a man of what is called faith. i have often thought of that. i never laid down a biography of you without wondering that a man of your intelligence should retain that superstitious element of character. i ought to beg your pardon for the adjective. i speak as i have been in the habit of speaking." "do you wonder now?" asked the great surgeon, smiling benignly. i shook my head. i wondered at nothing now. but i felt myself incapable of discussing a set of subjects upon which, for the first time in my life, i now knew myself to be really uninformed. i took the pains to explain to my new friend that in matters of what he would call spiritual import i was, for aught i knew to the contrary, the most ignorant person in the community. i added that i supposed he would expect me to feel humiliated by this. "do you?" he asked, abruptly. "it makes me uncomfortable," i replied, candidly. "i don't know that i can say more than that. i find it embarrassing." "that is straightforward," said the great physician. "there is at least no diseased casuistry about you. i do not regard the indications as unfavourable." he said this with something of the professional manner; it amused me, and i smiled. "take the case, doctor, if you will," i humbly said. "i could not have happened on any person to whom i would have been so willing to intrust it." "we will consider the question," he said gravely. in this remarkable community, and under the guidance of this remarkable man, i now began a difficult and to me astonishing life. the first thing which happened was not calculated to soothe my personal feeling: this was no less than the discovery that i really had nothing wherewith to compensate the citizens who had provided for the comfort of my child and of myself; in short, that i was no more nor less than an object of charity at their hands. i writhed under this, as may be well imagined; and with more impatience than humility urged that i be permitted to perform some service which at least would bring me into relation with the commercial system of the country. i was silenced by being gently asked: what could i do? "but have you no sick here?" i pleaded, "no hospitals or places of need? i am not without experience, i may say that i am even not without attainment, in my profession. is there no use for it all, in this state of being which i have come to?" "sick we have," replied the surgeon, "and hospitals. i myself am much occupied in one of these. but the diseases that men bring here are not of the body. our patients are chiefly from among the newly arrived, like yourself; they are those who are at odds with the spirit of the place; hence they suffer discomfort." "they do not harmonize with the environment, i suppose," i interrupted eagerly. i was conscious of a wish to turn the great man's thought from a personal to a scientific direction. it occurred to me with dismay that i might be selected yet to become a patient under this extraordinary system of things. that would be horrible. i could think of nothing worse. i proceeded to suggest that if anything could be found for me to do, in this superior art of healing, or if, indeed, i could study and perfect myself in it, i was more than willing to learn, or to perform. "canst thou heal a sick spirit?" inquired my friend, solemnly. "canst thou administer holiness to a sinful soul?" i bowed my head before him; for i had naught to say. alas, what art had i, in that high science so far above me, that my earth-bound gaze had never reached unto it? i was not like my friend, who seemed to have carried on the whole range of his great earthly attainments, by force of what i supposed would have to be called his spiritual education. here in this world of spirits i was an unscientific, uninstructed fellow. "give me," i said brokenly, "but the lowliest chance to make an honourable provision for the comfort of my child in your community. i ask no more." the boy ran chattering to me as i said these words, he sprang and clasped my knees, and clasped my neck, and put his little lips to mine, and rubbed his warm, moist curls across my cheek, and asked me where his mother was. and then he crooned my own name over and over again, and kissed and kissed me, and did stroke me with such pretty excesses of his little tenderness that i took heart and held him fast, and loved him and blessed fate for him, as much as if i had not been a spirit; more than any but a lonely and remorseful spirit could. chapter xiv. in consequence, as i suspected, of some private influence on the part of my famous friend, whose importance in this strange world seemed scarcely below that which he held in the other,--a marked contrast to my own lot, which had been thus far in utter reversal of every law and every fact of my earthly life,--a humble position was found for me, connected with the great institution of healing which he superintended; and here, for an indefinite time, i worked and served. i found myself of scarcely more social importance than, let us say, the janitor or steward in my old hospital at home. this circumstance, however galling, could no longer surprise me. i had become familiar enough with the economy of my new surroundings now thoroughly to understand that i was destitute of the attainments which gave men eminence in them. i was conscious that i had become an obscure person; nay, more than this, that i had barely brought with me the requisites for being tolerated at all in the community. it had begun to be evident to me that i was fortunate in obtaining any kind of admission to citizenship. this alone was an experience so novel to me that it was an occupation in itself, for a time, to adjust myself to it. i now established myself with my boy in such a home as could be made for us, under the circumstances. it was far inferior to most of the homes which i observed about me; but the child lacked no necessary comfort, and the luxuries of a spiritual civilization i did not personally crave; they had a foreign air to me, as the customs of the tuileries might have had to pocahontas. with dull gratitude for such plain possessions as now were granted to me, i set myself to my daily tasks, and to the care and rearing of my child. work i found an unqualified mercy. it even occurred to me to be thankful for it, and to desire to express what i felt about it to the unknown fate or force which was controlling my history. i had been all my life such a busy man that the vacuity of my first experience after dying had chafed me terribly. to be of no consequence; not to be in demand; not to be depended upon by a thousand people, and for a thousand things; not to dash somewhere upon important errands; not to feel that a minute was a treasure, and that mine were valued as hid treasures; not to know that my services were superior; to feel the canker of idleness eat upon me like one of the diseases which i had considered impossible to my organization; to observe the hours, which had hitherto been invisible, like rear forces pushing me to the front; to watch the crippled moments, which had always flown past me like mocking-birds; to know to the full the absence of movement in life; to feel deficiency of purpose like paralysis stiffen me; to have no hope of anything better, and not to know what worse might be before me,--such had been my first experience of the new life. it had done as much as this for me: it had fitted me for the humblest form of activity which my qualifications made possible; it had taught me the elements of gratitude for an improved condition, as suffering, when it vibrates to the intermission of relief, teaches cheerfulness to the sick. an appreciable sense of gratification, which, if it could not be called pleasure, was at least a diminution of pain, came to me from the society of my friend, the distinguished man and powerful spirit who had so befriended me. i admit that i was glad to have a man to deal with; though i did not therefore feel the less a loyalty to my dear and faithful patient, whose services to me had been so true and tender. i missed her. i needed her counsel about the child. i would fain have spoken to her of many little matters. i watched for her, and wondered that she came no more to us. although so new a comer, mrs. faith proved to be a person of position in the place; her name was well and honourably known about the neighbourhood; and i therefore easily learned that she was absent on a journey. it was understood that she had been called to her old home, where for some reason her husband and her child had need of her. it was her precious privilege to minister to them, i knew not how; it was left to me to imagine why. bitterly i thought of helen. between herself and me the awful gates of death had shut; to pass them, though i would have died again for it,--to pass them, for one hour, for one moment, for love's sake, for grief's sake, or for shame's, or for pity's own,--i was forbidden. i had confided the circumstances of my parting from my wife to no one of my new acquaintances. in the high order of character pervading these happy people, such a confession would have borne the proportions that a crime might in the world below. bearing my secret in my own heart, i felt like a felon in this holier society. i cherished it guiltily and miserably, as solitary people do such things; it seemed to me like an ache which i should go on bearing for ever. i remembered how men on earth used to trifle with a phrase called endless punishment. what worse punishment were there, verily, than the consciousness of having done the sort of deed that i had? it seemed to me, as i brooded over it, one of the saddest in the universe. i became what i should once have readily called "morbid" over this thought. there seemed to me nothing in the nature of remorse itself which should, if let alone, ever come to a visible end. my longing for the forgiveness of my wife gnawed upon me. sometimes i tried to remind myself that i was as sure of her love and of her mercy as the sun was of rising beyond the linden that tapped the chamber window in my dear lost home; that her unfathomable tenderness, so far passing the tenderness of women, leaned out, as ready to take me back to itself as her white arms used to be to take me to her heart, when i came later than usual, after a hard day's work, tired and weather-beaten, into the house, hurrying and calling to her. "helen? helen?" but the anguish of the thought blotted the comfort out of it, till, for very longing for her, i would fain almost have forgotten her; and then i would pray never to forget her before i had forgotten, for i loved her so that i would rather think of her and suffer because of her than not to think of her at all. in all this memorable and unhappy period, my boy was the solace of my soul. i gave myself to the care of him lovingly, and as nearly as i can recollect i did not chafe against the narrow limits of my lot in that respect. it occurred to me sometimes that i should once have called this a humble service to be the visible boundary of a man's life. to what had all those old attainments come? command of science? developed skill? public power? extended fame? all those forms of personality which go with intellectual position and the use of it? verily, i was brought to lowly tasks; we left them to women in the world below. but really, i think this troubled me less than it might have done; perhaps less than it should have done. i accepted the strange reversal of my fate as one accepts any turn of affairs which, he is convinced, is better than he might have expected. it had begun to be evident to me that it was better than i had deserved. if i am exceptional in being forced to admit that this consciousness was a novelty in my experience, the admission is none the less necessary for that. i had been in the habit of considering myself rather a good fellow, as a man with no vices in particular is apt to. i had possessed no standards of life below which my own fell to an embarrassing point. the situation to which i was now brought, was not unlike that of one who finds himself in a land where there are new and delicate instruments for indicating the state of the weather. i was aware, and knew that my neighbours were, of fluctuations in the moral atmosphere which had never before come under my attention. the whole subtle and tremendous force of public sentiment now bore upon me to make me uneasy before achievements with which i had hitherto been complacent. it had inconceivable effects to live in a community where spiritual character formed the sole scale of social position. i, who had been always socially distinguished, found myself now exposed to incessant mortifications, such as spring from the fact that one is of no consequence. i should say, however, that i felt this much less for myself than for my child; indeed, that it was because of boy that i first felt the fact at all, or brooded over it after i had begun to feel it. the little fellow developed rapidly, much faster than children of his age do in the human life; he ceased to be a baby, and was a little boy while i was yet wondering what i should do with him when he had outgrown his infancy. his intellect, his character, his physique, lifted themselves with a kind of luxuriance of growth, such as plants show in tropical countries; he blossomed as a thing does which has every advantage and no hindrance; nature moved magnificently to her ends in him; it was a delight to watch such vigorous processes; he was a rich, unthwarted little creature. with all a father's heart and a physician's sensibility, i was proud of him. i was proud of him, alas! until i began to perceive that, as matters were working, the boy was morally certain to be ashamed of me. this was a hard discovery; and it went hard with me after i had made it. but nothing could reduce the poignancy of the inquiry with which i had first gathered him to my heart, in the solitudes where he had found me lurking: if i were a spiritual outcast, what would become of boy? as the child waxed in knowledge and in strength questions like these dropped from his lips so frequently that they distressed me:-- "papa, what is god?" "papa, who is worship?" "tell me how boys pray." "is it a kind of game?" "what is christ, papa? is it people's mother? what is it for?" my friend, the eminent surgeon, left me much to myself in these perplexities; regarding my natural reserve, and trusting, i thought, to nature, or to some power beyond nature, to assist me. but on one occasion, happening to be present when the child interrogated me in this manner, he bent a piercing gaze upon me. "why do you not answer the child, esmerald thorne?" he asked me in a voice of authority. "alas," i said, "i have no answer. i know nothing of these matters. they have been so foreign to my temperament, that--i"-- but here i faltered. i felt ashamed of my excuse, and of myself for offering it. "it is a trying position for a man to be put in," i ventured to add, putting an arm about my boy; "naturally, i wish my child to develop in accordance with the social and educational system of the place." "naturally, i should suppose," replied he, dryly. he offered me no further suggestion on the subject and with some severity of manner moved to leave me. now it happened to be the vesper hour in the hospital, and my visitor was going to his patients, the "sick of soul," with whom he was wont to join in the evening chant which, at a certain hour, daily arose from every roof in the wide city, and waxed mightily to the sides. it was music of a high order, and i always enjoyed it; no person of any musical taste could have done otherwise. "listen!" said my friend, as he turned to depart from me. i had only to glance at his rapt and noble countenance to perceive the high acoustic laws which separated his sensibility to the vesper from my own. to him it was religious expression. to me it was classical music. while i was thus thinking, from the great wards of the home of healing the prayer went up. the sinful, the sorely stricken, the ungodly, the ignorant of heavenly mercy, all the diseased of spirit who were gathered there in search of the soul's health, sang together: not as the morning-stars which shouted for joy, but like living hearts that cried for purity; yea, like hearts that so desired it, they would have broken for it, and blessed god. "_god is a spirit. god is a spirit. we would worship him. we would worship him in spirit. yea, in spirit. and in truth._" my little boy was playing in the garden, decking himself with the strange and beautiful flowers which luxuriated in the spot. i remember that he had tall white lilies and scarlet passion flowers, or something like them, held above one shoulder, and floating like a banner in the bright, white air. he was absorbed in his sport, and had the sweet intentness of expression between the eyes that his mother used to wear. when the vesper anthems sounded out, the child stopped, and turned his nobly moulded head toward the unseen singers. a puzzled and afterward a saddened look clouded his countenance; he listened for a moment, and then walked slowly to me, trailing the white and scarlet flowers in the grass behind him as he came. "father, teach me how to sing! the other children do. i'm the only little boy i know that can't sing that nice song. teach me it!" he demanded. "alas, my son!" i answered, "how can i teach you that which i myself know not?" "i thought boys' fathers knew everything," objected the child, bending his brows severely on me. a certain constraint, a something not unlike distrust, a subtle barrier which one could not define, but which one felt the more uncomfortably for this very reason, after this incident, seemed to arise in the child's consciousness between himself and me. as docile, as dutiful, as beautiful as ever, as loving and as lovable, yet the little fellow would at times withdraw from me and stand off; as if he looked on at me, and criticised me, and kept his criticism to himself. verily the child was growing. he had become a separate soul. in a world of souls, what was mine--miserable, ignorant, half-developed, wholly unfit--what was mine to do with his? how was i to foster him? when i came face to face with the problem of boy's general education, this question pressed upon me bitterly. looking abroad upon the people and their principles of life, the more i studied them, the more did i stand perplexed before them. i was in the centre of a vast theocracy. plainly, our community was but one of who knew how many?--governed by an unseen being, upon laws of which i knew nothing. the service of this invisible monarch vied only with the universal affection for him. so far as i could understand the spiritual life at all, it seemed to be the highest possible development and expression of love. what these people did that was noble, pure, and fine, they did, not because they must, but because they would. they believed because they chose. they were devout because they wished to be. they were unselfish and true, and what below we should have called "unworldly," because it was the most natural thing in the world. they seemed so happy, they had such content in life, that i could have envied them from my soul. how, now, was i to compass this national kind of happiness for my son? misery i could bear; i was sick and sore with it, but i was used to it. my child must never suffer. passed beyond the old system of suffering, why should he? joy was his birthright in this blessed place. how was i, being at discord from it, to bring my child into harmony with it? i was at odds, to start on, with the whole system of education. the letters, art, science, industry, of the country were of a sort that i knew not. they were consecrated to ends with which i was unfamiliar. they were pursued in a spirit incomprehensible to me. they were dedicated to the interests of a being, himself a stranger to me. proficiency, superiority, were rated on a scale quite out of my experience. to be distinguished was to possess high spiritual traits. deep at the root of every public custom, of every private deed, there hid the seed of one universal emotion,--the love of a living soul for the being who had created it. i, who knew not of this feeling, i, who was as a savage among this intelligence, who was no more than an object of charity at the hands of this community,--what had i to offer to my son? a father's personal position? loving influence? power to push the little fellow to the front? a chance to endow him with every social opportunity, every educational privilege, such as it is a father's pride to enrich his child wherewith? nay, verily. an obscure man ignorant of the learning of the land, destitute of its wealth, unacquainted among its magnates, and without a share in its public interests--nothing was i; nothing had i; nothing could i hope to do, or be, for which my motherless boy should live to bless his father's name. stung by such thoughts as these, which rankled the more in me the longer i cherished them, i betook myself to brooding and to solitary strolling in quiet places, where i could ponder on my situation undisturbed. i was in great intellectual and spiritual stress, less for myself than for the child; not more for him, than because of his mother. what would helen say? how would she hold me to account for him? how should i meet her--if i ever saw her face again--to own myself scarcely other than a pauper in this spiritual kingdom; our child an untaught, unimportant little fellow, of no more consequence in this place than the _gamins_ of the street before her door? in these cold and solitary experiences which many a man has known before me, and many more will follow after me, the soul is like a skater, separated from his fellows upon a field of ice. every movement that he makes seems to be bearing him farther from the society and the sympathy of his kind. too benumbed, perhaps, to turn, he glides on, helpless as an ice-boat before the wind. conscious of his mistake, of his danger, and knowing not how to retract the one or avoid the other, his helpless motions, seemingly guided by idleness, by madness, or by folly, lead him to the last place whither he would have led himself,--the weak spot in the ice. suddenly, he falls crashing, and sinks. then lo! as he goes under, crying out that he is lost because no man is with him, hands are down-stretched, swimmers plunge, the crowd gathers, and it seems the whole world stoops to save him. the sympathy of his kind wanted nothing but a chance to reach him. i cannot tell; no man can tell such things; i cannot explain how i came to do it, or even why i came to do it. but it was on this wise with me. being alone one evening in a forest, at twilight, taking counsel with myself and pondering upon the mystery from which i could not gather light, these words came into my heart; and when i had cherished them in my heart for a certain time, i uttered them aloud: "thou great god! if there be a god. reveal thyself unto my immortal soul! if i have a soul immortal." chapter xv. my little boy came flying to me one fair day; he cried out that he had news for me, that great things were going on in the town. a visitor was expected, whose promised arrival had set the whole place astir with joy. the child knew nothing of what or whom he spoke, but i gathered the impression that some distinguished guest was about to reach us, to whom the honours of the city would be extended. the matter did not interest me; i had so little in common with the people; and i was about to dismiss it idly, when boy posed me by demanding that i should personally conduct him through the events of the gala day. he was unusually insistent about this; for he was a docile little fellow, who seldom urged his will uncomfortably against my own. but in this case i could not compromise with him, and half reluctantly i yielded. i had no sooner done so than an urgent message to the same effect reached me from my friend the surgeon. "go with the current to-day," he wrote; "it sets strongly. question it not. resist it not. follow and be swept." immediately upon this some neighbours came hurriedly in, and spoke with me of the same matter eagerly. they pleaded with me on no account to miss the event of the day, upon whose specific nature they were somewhat reticent. they evinced the warmest possible interest in my personal relation to it; as people do who possess a happy secret that they wish, but may not feel at liberty, fully to share with another. they were excited, and overflowed with happiness. their very presence raised my spirits. i could not remember when i had received precisely this sort of attention from my neighbours; and it was, somehow, a comfort to me. i should not have supposed that i should value being made of consequence in this trifling way; yet it warmed my heart. i felt less desolate than usual, when i took the hand of my happy boy, and set forth. the whole vicinity was aroused. everybody moved in one direction, like "a current," as my friend had said. shining, solemn, and joyous faces filled the streets and fields. the voices of the people were subdued and sweet. there was no laughter, only smiles, and gentle expectation, and low consulting together, and some there were who mused apart. the "sick of soul" were present with the happier folk: these first had a wistful look, as of those not certain of themselves or of their welcome; but i saw that they were tenderly regarded by the more fortunate. i myself was most gently treated; many persons spoke with me, and i heard expressions of pleasure at my presence. in the crowd, as we moved on, i began to recognize here and there a face; acquaintances, whom i had known in the lower life, became visible to me. now and then, some one, hastening by, said:-- "why, doctor!" and then i would perceive some old patients; the look which only loving patients wear was on their faces, the old impulse of trust and gratitude; they would grasp me heartily by the hand; this touched me; i began to feel a stir of sympathy with the general excitement; i was glad that i had joined the people. i pressed the hand of my little boy, who was running and leaping at my side. he looked confidingly up into my face, and asked me questions about the day's event; but these i could not answer. "god knows, my child," i said. "your father is not a learned man." as we swept on, the crowd thickened visibly. the current from the city met streams from the fields, the hills, the forests; all the distance overflowed; the concourse began to become imposing. here and there i observed still other faces that were not strange to me; flashes of recognition passed between us; some also of my own kin, dead years ago, i saw, far off, and i felt drawn to them. in the distance, not near enough to speak with her, shining and smiling, i thought that i perceived mrs. faith, once more. my boy threw kisses to her and laughed merrily; he was electric with the universal joy; he seemed to dance upon the air like a tuft of thistledown; to be "light-hearted" was to be light-bodied; the little fellow's frame seemed to exist only as the expression of his soul. i thought:-- "if he is properly educated in this place, what a spirit he will make!" i was amazed to see his capacity for happiness. i thought of his mother. i wished to be happy, too. now, as we moved on toward the plain, the sound of low chanting began to swell from the crowd. the strain gained in distinctness; power gathered on it; passion grew in it; prayer ascended from it. i could not help being moved by this billow of sweet sound. the forms and faces of the people melted together before my eyes; their outlines seemed to quiver in the flood of song; it was as if their manifold personalities blurred in the unity of their feeling; they seemed to me, as i regarded them, like the presence of one great, glad, loving human soul. this was their supplication. thus arose the heavenly song:-- "thou that takest away the sins of the world! whosoever believeth shall have life. whosoever believeth on thee shall have eternal life. thou that takest away the sins of the world! and givest--and givest eternal life!" "i cannot sing that pretty song," said my boy sadly. "there is nobody to teach me. father, i wish you _were_ a learned man!" now, this smote me to the heart, so that i would even have lifted my voice and sought to join the chant, for the child's sake, and to comfort him; but when i would have done so, behold, i could not lift my soul; it resisted me like a weight too heavy for my lips; for, in this land, song never rises higher than the level of the soul; there are fine laws governing this fact whose nature i may not explain, and could not at that time even understand, but of the fact itself i testify. "alas, alas, my son!" i said, "would god i were!" now suddenly, while i was conversing with my child, i perceived a stir among the people, as if they moved to greet some person who was advancing toward them. i looked in the direction whither all eyes were turned; but i saw nothing to account for the excitement. while i stood gazing and wondering, at one movement, as if it were by one heart-heat, the great throng bowed their heads. some object, some presence of which i could not catch a glimpse, had entered among them. whispers ran from lip to lip. i heard men say that he was here, that he was there, that he was yonder, that he had passed them, that he touched them. "he blesseth me!" they murmured. "and me! and me!" "oh, even me!" i heard low cries of delight and sobs of moving tenderness. i heard strange, wistful words from the disabled of soul who were among us,--pleadings for i knew not what, offered to i knew not whom. i heard words of sorrow and words of utter love, and i saw signs of shame, and looks of rapture, and attitudes of peace and eager hope. i saw men kneeling in reverence. i saw them prostrate in petition. i saw them as if they were clinging affectionately to hands that they kissed and wept upon. i saw them bowed as one bows before the act of benediction. these things i perceived, but alas, i could perceive no more. what went i out, with the heavenly, happy people, for to see? naught, god help me, worse than naught; for mine eyes were holden. dark amid that spiritual vision, i stood stricken. alone in all that blessedness, was i bereft? whom, for very rapture, did they melt to welcome? whom greeted they, with that great wave of love, so annihilating to their consciousness of themselves that i knew when i beheld it, i had never seen the face of love before? among them all, i stood alone--blind, blind. them i saw, and their blessedness, till i was filled with such a sacred envy of it that i would have suffered some new misery to share it. but he who did move among them thus royally and thus benignly, who passed from each man to each man, like the highest longing and the dearest wish of his own heart, who was to them one knew not whether the more of master or of chosen friend,--him, alas, i saw not. to me he was denied. no spiritual optic nerve in me announced his presence. i was blind,--i was blind. overcome by this discovery, i did not notice that my boy had loosened his hold upon my hand until his little fingers were quite disengaged from my clasp; and then, turning to speak to him, i found that he had slipped from me in the crowd. this was so great and the absorption so universal that no one noticed the mishap; and grateful, indeed, at that miserable moment, to be unobserved, i went in search of him. now, i did not find the child, though i sought long and patiently; and when i was beginning to feel perplexed, and to wonder what chance could have befallen him, i turned, and behold, while i had been searching, the throng had dispersed. night was coming on all the citizens were strolling to their homes. on street, and plain, and hill stirred the shadows of the departing people. they passed quietly. every voice was hushed. all the world was as still as a heart is after prayer. in the silent purple plain, only i was left alone. moved by solitude, which is the soul's sincerity, i yielded myself to strange impulses, and turning to the spot, where he who was invisible had passed or seemed to pass, i sought to find upon the ground and in the dusk some chance imprint of his steps. to do this it was necessary for me to stoop; and while i was bowed, searching for some least sign of him, in the dew and dark, i knew not what wave of shame and sorrow came upon me, but i fell upon my knees. there was no creature to hear me, and i spoke aloud, and said:-- "_thou departest from me, for i am a sinful man, o lord!_" ... "_lord,_" i said, "_that i may receive my sight!_" i thought i had more to say than this, but when i had uttered these words no more did follow them. they seemed to fill my soul and flood it till it overflowed. and when i had lifted up my eyes, the first sight which did meet them was the face of my own child. i saw at once that he was quite safe and happy. but i saw that he was not alone. one towered above me, strange and dim, who held the little fellow in his arms. when i cried out to him, he smiled. and he did give the child to me, and spoke with me. chapter xvi. the natural step to knowledge is through faith. even human science teaches as much as this. the faith of the scholar in the theoretic value of his facts precedes his intelligent use of them. invention dreams before it does. discovery believes before it finds. creation imagines before it achieves. spiritual intelligence, when it came at last, to me, came with something of the jar of all abnormal processes. the wholesome movements of trust i had omitted from my soul's economy. the function of faith was a disused thing in me. truth had to treat me as an undeveloped mind. in the depth of my consciousness, i knew that, come what might, i had for ever lost the chance to be a symmetrical healthy human creature, whose spiritual faculties are exercised like his brain or muscle; who has lived upon the earth, and loved it, and gathered its wealth and sweetness and love of living into his being, as visible food whereby to create invisible stature; whose earthly experience has carried him on, as nature carries growth--unconsciously, powerfully, perfectly, into a diviner life. for ever it must remain with me that i had missed the natural step. if i say that the realization of knowledge was the first thing to teach me the value of faith, i shall be understood by those who may have read this narrative with any sort of sympathy to the present point; and, for the rest, some wiser, better man than i must write. i do not address those who follow these pages as i myself should once have done. i do not hope to make myself intelligible to you, as i would to god i could! personal misery is intelligible, and the shock of belated discovery. but the experience of another in matters of this kind has not a "scientific" character. no one can know better than i how my story will be dismissed as something which is not "a fact." in the times to be, it is my belief that there shall yet arise a soul, worthier of the sacred task than i to which shall be given the perilous and precious commission of interpreter between the visible life and the life invisible. on this soul high privilege will be bestowed, and awful opportunity. through it the deaf shall hear, the dumb shall speak. the bereaved shall bless it, and the faint of heart shall lean on it, and those who know not god shall listen to it, and the power of god shall be upon it. but mine is not that soul. even as one who was above man did elect to experience the earthly lot of man to save him; so one who is a man among men may yet be permitted to use the heavenly lot in such wise as to comfort them. the first mission called for superhuman power. the second may need only human purity. i now enter upon a turn in my narrative, where my vehicle of communication begins to fail me. human language, as employed upon the earth, has served me to some extent to express those phases of celestial fact upon which i still looked with earth-blind eyes. with spiritual vision comes the immediate need of a spiritual vocabulary. like most men of my temperament and training, i have been accustomed to some caution in the use of words. i know not any, which would be intelligible to the readers of this record, that can serve to express my experiences onward from this point. "a man becomes _terrestrialized_ as he grows older," said an unbeliever of our day, once, to me. it is at least true that the terrestrial intellect celestializes by the hardest; and it remains obvious, as it was written, that the things which are prepared may not enter into the heart of man. this is only another way of saying that my life from the solemn hour which i have recorded underwent revolutions too profound for me to desire to utter them, and that most of my experiences were of a nature which i lack the means to report. my story draws to a stop, as a cry of anguish comes to a hush of peace. what word is there to say? there is, indeed, one. with lips that tremble and praise god, i add it. at a period not immediately following the event which i have described, yet not so far beyond it that the time, as i recall it, seemed wearisome to me, i received a summons to go upon an errand to a distant place. it was the first time that i had been intrusted with any business of a wider nature than the care of my own affairs or the immediate offices of neighbourhood, and i was gratified thereby. i had, indeed, longed to be counted worthy to perform some special service at the will of him who guided all our service, and had cherished in my secret heart some project of praying that i might be elected to a special task which had grown, from much musing, dear to me. i did most deeply desire to become worthy to wear the seal of a commission to the earth; but i had ceased to urge the selfish cry of my personal heart-break. i did not pray now for the precious right to visit my own home, nor weary the will in which i had learned to confide with passionate demands for my beloved. i may rather say that i had come almost to feel that when i was worthy to see helen i should be worthy of life eternal; and that i had dropped my love and my longing and my shame into the hands of infinite love, and seen them close over these, as over a trust. the special matter to which i refer was this: i desired to be permitted to visit human homes, and set myself, as well as i might, to the effort of cultivating their kindliness. i longed to cherish the sacred graces of human speech. i wished to emphasize the opportunity of those who love each other. i groaned within me, till i might teach the preciousness and the poignancy of _words_. it seemed to me that if i might but set the whole force of a man's experience and a spirit's power to make an irritable scene in loving homes held as degrading as a blow, that i could say what no man ever said before, and do what no spirit would ever do again. if this be called an exaggerated view of a specific case, i can only say that every human life learns one lesson perfectly, and is qualified to teach that, and that alone, as no other can. this was mine. when, therefore, i received the summons to which i have alluded, i inferred that the wish of my heart had been heard, and i set forth joyfully, expecting to be sent upon some service of the nature at which i have hinted. my soul was full of it, and i made haste to depart, putting no question in the way of my obedience. no information, indeed, was granted to me beyond the fact that i should follow a certain course until i came to its apparent end, and there await what should occur, and act as my heart prompted. the vagueness of this command stirred my curiosity a little, i confess; but that only added to the pleasure of the undertaking. it would be difficult to say how much relief i found in being occupied once again to some purpose, like a man. but it would be impossible to tell the solemn happiness i had in being counted fit humbly to fulfil the smallest trust placed in me by him who was revealed, at this late, last moment, after all, to me, unworthy. i set forth alone. the child was left behind me with a neighbour, for so i thought the way of wisdom in this matter. following only the general directions which i had received, i found myself soon within the open country toward the region of the hills. as i advanced, the scenery became familiar to me, and i was not slow to recognize the path as the one which i myself had trodden on my first entrance to the city wherein of recent days i had found my home. i stopped to consider this fact, and to gather landmarks, gazing about me diligently and musing on my unknown course; for the ways divided before me as foot-paths do in fields, each looking like all and all like each. while i stood uncertain, and sensitively anxious to make no mistake, i heard the hit! hit! of light feet patting the grass behind me, and, turning, saw a little fellow coming like the morning wind across the plain. his bright hair blew straight before him, from his forehead. he ran sturdily. how beautiful he was! he did not call me nor show the slightest fear lest he should fail to overtake me. ha had already learned that love always overtakes the beloved in that blessed land. "you forgot your little boy," he said reproachfully, and put his hand quietly within mine and walked on beside me, and forgot that he had been forgotten immediately, and looked upward at me radiantly. remembering the command to await what should occur, and do as my heart prompted, i accepted this accident as part of a purpose wiser than my own, and kissed the little fellow, and we travelled on together. as we came into the hill country, our way grow wilder and more desolate. the last of the stray travellers whom we chanced to meet was now well behind us. in the wide spaces we were quite alone. behind us, dim and distant, shimmering like an opal in a haze of fair half-tints, the city shone. on either side of us, the forest trees began to tread solemnly, like a vast procession which no man could number, keeping step to some inaudible march. before us, the great crest of the mountains towered dark as death against the upper sky. as we drew near, the loneliness of these hills was to me as something of which i had never conceived before. earth did not hold their likeness, and my heart had never held their meaning. i could almost have dreaded them, as we came nearer to them; but the deviation of the paths had long since ceased. in the desolate country which we were now crossing choice was removed from conduct. there was but one course for me to take; i took it unhesitatingly and without fear, which belongs wholly to the lower life. as we advanced, the great mountain barrier rose high and higher before us, till it seemed to shut out the very sky from our sight, and to crush us apart from all the world--nay, from either world or any, i could have thought, so desolate and so awful was the spot. but when we had entered the shadow formed by the mighty range, and had accustomed our eyes to it for a time, i perceived, not far ahead of me, but in fact quite near and sudden to the view, a long, dark, sharp defile cut far into the heart of the hills. the place had an unpleasant look, and i stopped before it to regard it. it was so grim of aspect and so assured of outline, like a trap for travellers which had hung there from all eternity, that i liked it not, and would not that the child should enter till i had first inspected it. therefore, i bade him sit and rest upon a bed of crimson mosses which grew at the feet of a great rock, and to remain until he saw me turn to him again; and with many cautions and the most minute directions for his obedience and his comfort, i left him, and advanced alone. my way had now grown quite or almost dark. the light of heaven and earth alike seemed banished from the dreadful spot. as it narrowed, the footing grew uncertain and slippery, and the air dense and damp. i had to remind myself that i was now become a being for whom physical danger had ceased for ever. "what a place," i thought, "for one less fortunate!" as these words were in my mind, i lifted my eyes and looked, and saw that i was not alone in the dark defile. a figure was coming toward me, slight of build and delicate; yet it had a firm tread, and moved with well-nigh the balance of a spirit over the rough and giddy way. as i watched it, i saw that it was a woman. uncertain for the moment what to do, i remembered the command. "await what shall occur, and do as thy heart prompteth." and therefore--for my heart prompted me, as a man's must, to be of service to the woman--i hastened, and advanced, and midway of the place i met her. it was now perfectly dark. i could not see her face. when i would have spoken with her, and given her good cheer, i could not find my voice. if she said aught to me, i could not hear her. but i gathered her hands, and held her, and led her on, and shielded her, and gave her such comfort as a man by strength and silence may give a woman when she has need of him; and as i supported her and aided her, i thought of my dear wife, and prayed god that there might be found some soul of fire and snow--since to me it was denied--to do as much as this for her in some hour of her unknown need. but when i had led the woman out into the lighter space, and turned to look upon her, lo, it was none other. it was she herself. it was my wife. it was no man's beloved but my own.... so, then, crying, "_helen!_" and "forgive me, helen!" till the dark place rang with her dear name, i bowed myself and sunk before her, and could not put forth my hand to touch her, for i thought of how we parted, and it seemed my heart would break. but she said, "why, my dear love! oh, my poor love! did you think i would remember _that_?" and i felt her sacred tears upon my face, and she crept to me--oh, not royally, not royally, like a wife who was wronged, but like the sweetest woman in the world, who clung to me because she could not help it, and would not if she could.... but when we turned our footsteps toward the light, and came out together, hand in hand, there was our little boy, at play upon the bed of crimson moss, and smiling like the face of joy eternal. so his mother held out her arms, and the child ran into them. and when we came to ourselves, we blessed almighty god. perceiving that inquiry will be raised touching the means by which i have been enabled to give this record to the living earth, i have this reply to make: that is my secret. let it remain such. the end. the family gift series. the swiss family robinson. with engravings. bunyan's pilgrim's progress. memoir. illusts. robinson crusoe. memoir and many engravings. sandford and merton. with engravings. famous boys, and how they became great men. fifty celebrated women. with portraits, &c. the gentlemen adventurers. w. h. g. kingston. evenings at home. with many illustrations. the adventures of captain hatteras. by jules verne. with coloured plates. twenty thousand leagues under the sea. by jules verne. with coloured plates. the wonderful travels. by the same. col. plates. the moon voyage. jules verne. coloured plates. getting on in the world. by w. mathews, ll.d. the boy's own book of manufactures and industries of the world. with engravings. great inventors: the sources of their usefulness, and the results of their efforts. with engravings. the marvels of nature. with engravings. the boy's own sea stories. with page engravings. grimm's fairy tales. with many illustrations. fifty celebrated men. with portraits. the wonders of the world. with engravings. triumphs of perseverance and enterprise. illust. keble's christian year. with page engravings. a face illumined. by e. p. roe. the scottish chiefs. by miss jane porter. what can she do? by e. p. roe. barriers burned away. by e. p. roe. opening of a chestnut burr. by e. p. roe. orange blossoms. by t. s. arthur. illustrated. mary bunyan. by s. r. ford. margaret catchpole. by rev. r. cobbold. julamerk; or, the converted jewess. by mrs. webb. amy and hester; or, the long holidays. illustrated. edwin and mary; or, the mother's cabinet. illustrated. wonders and beauties of the year. h. g. adams. modern society. by catherine sinclair. beatrice. by catherine sinclair. looking heavenward: a series of tales and sketches for the young. with numerous illustrations. life's contrasts; or, the four homes. illustrated. nature's gifts, and how we use them. illust. pilgrims heavenward: counsel and encouragement. children's hymns and rhymes. illustrated. preachers and preaching, in ancient and modern times. by rev. henry christmas. with portraits. character and culture. by the bishop of durham. popular preachers: their lives and their works. boy's handy book of games and sports, illust. boy's handy book of natural history. illust. a knight of the nineteenth century. e. p. roe. near to nature's heart. by e. p. roe. a day of fate. by e. p. roe. odd or even? by mrs. whitney. gutenburg, and the art of printing. illustrated. uncle mark's money; or, more ways than one. without a home. by e. p. roe. the arabian nights' entertainments. illustrated. andersen's popular tales. illustrated. andersen's popular stories. illustrated. lion hunting. by gerard. illust. by dorÉ and others. the backwoodsman. ed. by sir c. f. l. wraxall. the young marooners. by f. r. goulding. illust. the crusades and crusaders. by j. g. edgar. do. hunting adventures in forest and field. illust. the boy's book of modern travel and adventure. famous people and famous places. illustrated. cheerful homes; how to get and keep them. author of "buy your own cherries." &c. (also cheap edition) helen. by maria edgeworth. our helen. by sophie may. the little ragamuffins of outcast london. by the author of "a night in a workhouse," &c. illustrated. heaven's messengers: a series of stirring addresses. from log cabin to white house: the life of general garfield. illustrated. ward, lock & co., london. melbourne, and new york. [transcriber's note: the html version of this etext contains the publisher's catalog] the blessed dead. the state of the blessed dead. by henry alford, d. d., dean of canterbury. london: hodder and stoughton, , paternoster row. mdccclxix. _the following discourses were delivered in canterbury cathedral during advent,_ , _and appeared in the_ "pulpit analyst," . the state of the blessed dead. i. i have already announced that during this advent season i would call your attention to the state of the blessed dead. my object in so doing is simply that we may recall to ourselves that which scripture has revealed respecting them, for our edification, and for our personal comfort. and i would guard that which will be said by one or two preliminary observations. with death as an object of terror, with death from the mere moralist's point of view, as the termination of human schemes and hopes, we christians have nothing to do. we are believers in and servants of one who has in these senses abolished death. our schemes and hopes are not terminated by death, but reach onward into a state beyond it. again, with that state beyond, except as one of blessedness purchased for us by the son of god, i am not at present dealing. it is of those that die in the lord alone that i speak. and this being so, it is clear that the first point about them demanding our attention is, the very commencement of their state at the moment of death. and this will form our subject to-day. we shall be guided in its consideration by two texts of holy scripture. the one is that where our lord answers the prayer of the dying thief that he would remember him when he came into his kingdom, luke xxiii. : "verily i say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." and the other is an expression of st. paul, phil. i. , not improbably taken from those very words recorded in the gospel of that evangelist who was his companion in travel--"to depart and to be with christ." now in both these one fact is simply declared, viz.: that the departed spirit of the faithful man is with christ. it is as if one bright light were lifted for us in the midst of a realm brooded over by impenetrable mist. for who knows whither the departed spirit has betaken itself when it has left us here? one of the most painful pangs in bereavement by death is the utter and absolute severance, without a spark of intelligence of the departed. one hour, life is blest by their presence; the next, it is entirely and for ever gone from us, never to be heard of more. one word, one utterance--how precious in that moment of anguish do we feel that it would be! but we are certain it never will be granted us. none has ever come back who has told the story. where the spirit wakes and finds itself,--this none has ever declared to us; nor shall we know until our own turn comes. now in such a state of uncertainty, these texts speak for us a certain truth: the departed spirit is with christ. i shall regard this revelation negatively and positively: as to what it disproves, and as to what it implies. first, then, it disproves the idea of the spirit passing at death into a state of unconsciousness, from which it is to wake only at the great day of the resurrection. if it is to be with christ, this cannot be. christ is in no such state of unconsciousness; he has entered into his rest, and is waiting till all things shall be put under his feet; and it would be a mere delusion to say of the blessed dead, that they shall be with christ, if they were to be virtually annihilated during this time that christ is waiting for his kingdom. besides, how then would the lord's promise to the thief be fulfilled? what consolation would it have been to him, what answer to his prayer, to be remembered when jesus came in his kingdom, if these words implied that he should be unconsciously sleeping while the lord was enjoying his triumph? therefore we may safely say, that the so-called "sleep of the soul," from the act of death till the resurrection, has no foundation in that which is revealed to us. it is perfectly true, that the state of the departed is described to us as "sleeping in jesus," or rather, for the words are a misrendering, a having fallen asleep _through_, or _by means of jesus_. but our texts are enough to show us, that we must not take such an expression for more than it really implies. sleeping, or falling asleep, was a name current among jews and christians, and even among the best of the heathens, for death, implying its peace and rest, implying also that it should be followed by a waking: but apparently with no intent to convey any idea of unconsciousness. it is a term used with reference to us, as well as to the dead. to us, they are as if they were asleep: removed from us in consciousness, as in presence. the idea also of _taking rest_ tended to make this term appropriate. but it must not be used to prove that to which it evidently had no reference. the spirit, then, of the departed does not pass into unconsciousness. what more do we know of it? it is with jesus. we have now to consider what this implies. and in doing so we shall have further to make certain that which we think we have already proved. for first, it clearly implies more than a mere expression of safe-keeping, or reserve for a future state of blessedness. "the righteous souls are in the hand of god, and there shall no harm happen to them." this is one thing: but to be with christ is another. we might again appeal to the spirit of the promise made to the penitent thief, in order to show this: we might remind you that in the other text, st. paul is comparing the two states--life in the midst of his children in the faith, and death; and he says, "i have a desire to depart and to be with christ, which is far better:" better than being with you, my philippians. so that more must be meant than mere safe keeping in the redeemer's hands. we may surely say, that nothing less than conscious existence in the presence of christ can be intended. and if that is intended, then very much more is intended also, than those words at first seem to imply. remember the contrast which this same apostle elsewhere draws. "we know," he says, "that while we are present in the body, we are absent from the lord: for we walk by faith, not by appearance: we are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the lord." that is, if we follow out the thought, this present state of dwelling in our home the body is a state of severance from the lord; but there is a better state, into which we shall be introduced when this house of the body is pulled down: and from the context in that place we may add, much as we wish to be clothed upon with our new and glorious body which is from heaven, yet even short of that, we have learned to prefer being simply unclothed from the body, because thus we shall be present with the lord. so that we may safely assume thus much, my brethren: that the moment a christian's spirit is released from the body, it does enter into the presence of our blessed lord and saviour, in a way of which it knows nothing here: a way which, compared to all that its previous faith could know of him, is like presence of friends compared to absence. now let us take another remarkable passage of holy writ bearing on this same matter. st. john, in his first epistle says, "beloved, now are we children of god, and it never yet was manifested what we shall be; but if it should be manifested, we know that we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is:" for this is the more accurate rendering of the words: meaning, if any one could come back, or come down, to us, and tell us what our future state is to be, the information could amount for us now only to this, that we shall be like him, like christ; because we shall see him as he is. and in treating these words at considerable length last year, i pressed it on you that this concluding sentence might bear two meanings: either, we shall be like him, _because in order to see him as he is, we_ must _be like him;_ or, _we shall be like him, because the sight of him as he is will change us into his perfect likeness_. for, our present purpose, or indeed for any purpose, it matters little which of these meanings we take. at any rate, we have gained this knowledge from st. john's words, that the sight of the blessed lord which will be enjoyed by the christian's spirit on its release from the body, will be accompanied by being also perfectly like him. now, here, my brethren, are the elements of an immediate change, blessed and joyous beyond our conception. let us spend the rest of our time to-day in dwelling upon it. and i will not now insist on the deliverance of the spirit from the infirmity, or pain, or decay of the body; because this is not so in all cases. many a christian's spirit is set free from a body in perfect vigour and health. let us take nothing but what is common to all who believe in and serve the lord. now what is our present state with reference to him whom all christians love? it is, absence. and it is absence aggravated in a way that earthly absence never is. for not only have we never seen him, which is a case perfectly imaginable in earthly relations, but also, which hardly is, we have no absolute proof of his existence, nor of his mind towards us. even as far as this, is matter of faith and not of appearance. we have no token, no communication, from him. i suppose there hardly ever was a christian yet, living under the present dispensation, entirely dependent upon his faith, who has not at some time or other had the dreadful thought cross his mind--overborne by his faith, but still not wholly extinguished, "what if it should not be true after all?" and much and successfully as we may contend with these misgivings of unbelief, yet that frame of mind which is represented by them, that wavering, fitful, unsteady faith, ever accompanies us. the distress arising from it is known to every one who has the christian life in him. only those never doubt who have never believed: for doubt is of the very essence of belief. but some poor souls are utterly cast down by the fact of its existence--shrink from these half-doubting fits as of themselves deadly sin, and are in continual terror about their soul's safety on this account: others, of stronger minds, regard them truly as inevitable accompaniments of present human weakness, but of course struggle with them, and evermore yearn to be rid of them. now if what we have been saying be true,--and i have endeavoured not to go beyond the soberest inferences from the plain language of scripture,--if so much be true, then the moment of departure from the body puts an end for ever to this imperfect, struggling, fitful state of faith and doubt. the spirit that is but a moment gone, that has left that well-known, familiar tabernacle of the body a sudden wreck of inanimate matter, that spirit is with the lord. all doubt, all misgiving, is at an end. every wave raised by this world's storms, this world's currents of interest, this world's rocks and shallows, is suddenly laid, and there is a great calm. certainty, for doubt--the sight of the lord, for the conflict of assurance and misgiving--the face of christ, for the mere faith in christ--these have succeeded, because the departed spirit is "with the lord"--companying with him. before we follow this out farther, let us carefully draw one great distinction. we must not make the too common mistake of confusing this sight of the lord which immediately follows on the act of death, with that complete state of the glorified christian man, of which we shall have to speak in a subsequent sermon. though greater than our thoughts can now conceive, the bliss of which we are speaking to-day is incomplete. the spirit which has been set free from the body is alone, and without a body. this is not the complete state of man. it is a state to us full of mystery--inconceivable in detail, though easily apprehended as a whole. we must take care, in what we have further to say, that this is fully borne in mind. and, bearing it in mind, let us proceed. this sight of christ, this calm of full unbroken assurance of his nearness and presence, what does it further imply? as far as we can at present see, certainly as much as this. first, the entire absence of evil from the spirit. it would be impossible to be with christ in any such sense, unless there were entire agreement in will and desire with him. it would be impossible thus to see him as he is, without being like him. let us imagine, if we can, the effect of the total extinction of evil in any one of our minds. how many energies, now tied and bound with the chain of sin, would spring upward into action! how many imprisoned yearnings would burst their bonds, and carry us onward to higher degrees of good! and all these energies, all these yearnings, can exist in the disembodied spirit. it is in a waiting, a hoping state: the greater the upward yearnings, the greater the accumulated energies for god and his work, the higher will be the measure of glory to be attained after the redemption of the body, and the completion of the entire man. well--as another consequence, following close on the last, all _conflict_, from that same moment, is at an end. conflict is ordained for us, is good for us, now. if it were to cease here below, we should fall back. we have not entered into rest, it would not be good for us to enter into rest, in our present state. here, this little platform, so to speak, of our personality, is drawn two ways, downward and upward: and it is for us who stand thereon, to keep watch and ward that the downward prevail not; but from that moment, the dark links of the downward chain will have been for ever severed, and the golden cord that is let down from the throne will bear us upward and onward, unopposed. so that as to conflict, there will be perfect rest. and let us remember another matter. if the departed spirit were during this time dwelling on its own unworthiness, casting back looks of self-reproach, weighing accurately god's mercies and its own requitals during life past, there would of necessity be conflict: there would be bitter self-loathing, there would be pangs of repentance. it would seem, then, that during the incomplete and disembodied state, this is not so; but that all of this kind is reserved for a day when account is to be given in the body of things done in the body: and we shall see, when we come to treat of that day specially, how its account will be, for the blessed dead, itself made a blessing. again, as all evil will be at an end, and all conflict,--so will all labour, "blessed are the dead which die in the lord: even so saith the spirit, for they rest from their labours." now labour here is a blessing, it is true: but it is also a weariness. it leads ever on to a greater blessing, the blessing of rest. christ has entered into his rest; and the departed spirit shall be with christ: faring as he fares, and a partaker of his condition. any who have lived the ordinary term of human life in god's service (for it is only of such that we are now speaking) can testify how sweet it is to anticipate a cessation of the toil and the harassing of life: to be looking on to keep the great sabbath of the rest reserved for the people of god. what more may be reserved for us in the glorious perfect state which shall follow the resurrection, is another consideration altogether: but it clearly appears that the intermediate disembodied state is one of rest. and let none cavil at the thought, that thus adam may have rested his thousands of years, and the last taken of adam's children only a few moments. time is only a relative term, even to us. a dream of years long may pass during the sound that awakens a man; and a sleep of hours appears but a second. what do we know of time, except as calculated by earthly objects? day and night, the recurrence of meals,--these constitute time to us: shut up a man in darkness, and administer his food at irregular intervals, and he loses all count of time whatever. surely, then, no cavil on this score can be admitted. in that presence where the departed spirits are, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. let us conclude with a consideration, to a christian the most glorious of all. the spirit that is with christ in nearest presence and consciousness, knows him as none know him here. here, we speak of his purity, his righteousness, his love, his triumph and glory, with miserably imperfect thoughts, and in words still more imperfect than our thoughts. we are obliged to employ earthly images to set forth heavenly things. the revelations of scripture itself are made through a medium of man's invention, and are bounded by our limited vocabulary. but then it will be so no longer. the apostle compares our seeing _here_ to that of one who beholds the face of his friend in a mirror of metal, sure to be tarnished and distorting: and our vision _there_ to beholding the same face to face,--the living features, the lips that move, the eyes that glisten. that spirit which has but now passed away, knows the love that passes our knowledge; contemplates things which god has prepared for them that love him, such as eye has never seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. therefore, beloved, let us be of good cheer concerning them that have fallen asleep through jesus: and let us be of good cheer respecting ourselves. good as it is to obey and serve god here, it has been far better for them to depart and to be with christ; and it will be far better for us, if we hold fast our faith and our confidence in him firm unto the end. if to us to live is christ, then to us to die will be gain. ii. we stand to-day at this point in our consideration of the state of the blessed dead. they depart, and are with christ. "this day," the day of the departure, they are consciously, blissfully, in his presence. their faith is turned into sight: their misgivings are changed for certainty: their mourning for joy. yet, we said, their state is necessarily imperfect. the complete condition of man is body, soul, and spirit. the former of these three, at all events, is wanting to the spirits and souls of the righteous. they are in a waiting, though in an inconceivably blissful state. of the precise nature of that state,--of its employments, if employments it has, we know nothing. all would be speculation, if we were to speak of these matters. our concern to-day is with the termination of that their incomplete condition. when shall it come to an end? we have this very definitely answered for us by st. paul, in a chapter of which we shall have much to say, and in a verse of that chapter which we will take for our text, cor. xv. . notice, he is speaking of the resurrection of the dead: and he says, "but every one in his own order: christ the first-fruits: afterward they that are christ's at his coming." well then: from these words it is clear that the end of the expectant state of the blessed dead, and the reunion of their spirits with their risen bodies, will take place at the coming of christ. here at once we are met by a necessity to clear and explain that which these words import. in these days, it is by no means superfluous to say that we christians do look forward to a real personal coming of our lord jesus christ upon this our earth. i sometimes wonder whether ordinary christian men and women ever figure to themselves what this means. i suppose we hardly do, because we fancy it is so far off from ourselves and our times, that we do not feel ourselves called upon to make it a subject of our practical thoughts. to this we might say, first, that we are by no means sure of this; and then, that even if it were true, the interest of that time of his coming for every one of us is hardly lessened by its not being near us, seeing that if we be his, it will be, whenever it comes, the day of our resurrection from the dead. it is evidently the duty of every christian man to make it part of his ordinary thoughts and anticipations--that return of the lord jesus from heaven, even as he was seen to go up into heaven. now, our object to-day is to ascertain how much we know from scripture, without indulging in speculations of our own, about this coming, and this resurrection which shall accompany it. the latter of these two we made the subject of a sermon a very few sundays ago; but it was not so much with our present view, as to lay down the hope of the resurrection as an element among the foundations of the christian life. now one of the first and most important revelations respecting this matter is found in the fourth chapter of thess., ver. - . these thessalonians had been, as we learn from the two epistles to them, strangely excited about the coming of the lord's kingdom. perhaps the apostle's preaching among them had taken especially this form; for he was accused before the magistrates of saying that there was besides or superior to caesar another king, one jesus. and in this excitement of the thessalonians, fancying as they did that the lord's kingdom would come in their own time, they thought that their friends who through jesus had died a happy death were losers by not having lived to witness the lord's coming. indeed, they sorrowed for them as those that had no hope: by which expression it seems likely that they even supposed them to be altogether cut off from the benefits and blessedness of that coming by not having been able to see it in the flesh. thereupon st. paul puts them right by saying,--using the same argument as in that great resurrection chapter, cor. xv.,--that "_if we believe that jesus himself died and rose again, even so also those who through jesus have fallen asleep will god bring with him_," that is, will god bring back to us when he brings back to us jesus. you may just observe, by the way, that the whole force of what the apostle says is very commonly lost, by a wrong method of reading these words. we very commonly hear them read, "will god bring _with_ him." but thus we, as i said, lose the force of the argument, which is:--if jesus, our first-fruits, our representative, died and rose again, so will all who die in union with jesus rise again. and in order to that, the same power of god which brings jesus back to us, will with him, with jesus, bring their spirits back, in order to that resurrection. well, what then? "_this we say unto you by the word of the lord_"--thus the apostle introduces, not an argument, not a command or saying of his own, but a special revelation--"_that we, which are alive and remain unto the coming of the lord_" (for notice that at first, at the early time when these thessalonian epistles were written, first of all st. paul's letters, the apostle looked forward to that day of which neither man nor angel knoweth, as about to come on in his own time) shall have no advantage, no priority, over them which have fallen asleep. and why? for this reason--that "_the lord himself shall come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of god; and the dead in christ shall rise first:_" that is, shall rise before anything else happens--any changing, or summoning to the lord, of us who are alive. now here let us pause in the sacred text, and consider what it is which we have before us. mind, we are speaking to-day, as the apostle is speaking in this passage, entirely of the blessed dead; of those of whom it may be said that through jesus their death is but a holy sleep. we have clearly this before us:--at a certain time, fixed in the counsels of god, the father, known to no created being,--mysteriously unknown also, for he himself assures us of this in words which no ingenuity can explain away, to the son himself in his state of waiting for it,--at that fixed time the lord, that is, christ, shall appear in the sky, visible to men in his glorified body; and his coming shall be announced to men by a mighty call, a signal cry, and by the trumpet of god. now let me at once say that as to such expressions as this, when we are told that they cannot bear their literal meaning, but are only used in condescension to our human ways of speaking, and thus an attempt is made to deprive them in fact of all meaning, i do not recognise any such rule of interpretation. if the _words_ are used to suit our human ways of thinking, i can see no reason why the _things signified_ by those words may not also be used to affect our senses, which will be still human, when the great day comes. as to the sound being heard by all, or as to the lord being seen by all, i can with safety leave that to him who made the eye and the ear, and believe that if he says so, he will find the way for it to be so. now let us follow on with the description. with the lord jesus, accompanying him, though unseen to those below on the earth, will be the myriads of spirits of the blessed dead, and notice,--for it is an important point, since holy scripture is consistent with itself in another place on this matter,--that at this coming none are with the lord, no spirits of the departed, i mean, except those of the blessed dead. in other words, this is not the general coming to judgment, when the whole of the dead shall stand before god, but it is that first resurrection of which the evangelist speaks in the apocalypse, when he says, chap. xx. , "_the rest of the dead lived not again until_ (a prescribed time which he mentions, whatever that may mean) _the thousand years were finished this is the first resurrection. 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_." then, the lord being still descending from heaven and on the way to this world, the dead in christ shall rise first--the first thing: the graves shall be opened, and the bodies of the saints that sleep shall come forth, and, for so the words surely imply, their spirits, which have come with the lord, shall be united to those bodies, each to his own. here, again, i can see no difficulty. the same body, even to us now on earth, does not imply that the same particles compose it. and even the expression "the same body" is perhaps a fallacious one. in st. paul's great argument on this subject in cor. xv. he expressly tells us, that it is not that body which was sown in the earth, but a new and glorified one, even as the beautiful plant, which springs from the insignificant or the ill-favoured seed, is not that which was sown, but a body which god has given. whatever the bodies shall be, they will be recognised as those befitting the spirits which are reunited to them, as they also befit the new and glorious state into which they are now entering. this done, they who are alive and remain on earth, having been, which is not asserted here, but is in cor. xv., changed so as to be in the image of the incorruptible, spiritual, heavenly, will be caught up together with the risen saints in clouds, to meet the lord in the air: to _meet_ him, because he is in his way from heaven to earth, on which he is about to stand in that latter day. thus, then, the words which i have chosen for my text will have their fulfilment. christ has been the first-fruits of this great harvest,--already risen, the first-born from the dead, the example and pattern of that which all his shall be. this was his order, his place in the great procession from death into life; and between him and his, the space, indefinite to our eyes, is fixed and determined in the counsels of god. the day of his coming hastens onward. while men are speculating and questioning, god's purpose remains fixed. he is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness. his dealings with the world are on too large a scale for us to be able to measure them, but in them the golden rule is kept, every one in his own order. christ's part has been fulfilled. he was seen alive in his resurrection body; he was seen taking up that body from earth to heaven. and now we are waiting for the next great event, his coming. wisely has the church set apart a season in every year in which this subject may be uppermost in our thoughts. for there is nothing we are so apt--nothing, we may say, that our whole race is so determined to forget and put out of sight. it is alien from our common ideas, it ill suits our settled notions, that the personal appearing of him in whom we believe should break in upon the natural sequence of things in which we are concerned. and the consequence is, that you will hardly find, even among believing men, more than one here and there who at all realizes to himself, or has any vivid expectation of, this personal coming of christ. think of the christian church as taking its faith and hope from the new testament; and then compare that faith and hope, as it actually exists with reference to this point, with the new testament,--and the discrepancy is most remarkable. in the days when it was written, eighteen hundred years ago, every eye was fixed on, every man's thought was busy about, the coming of the lord. you will hardly find a chapter in the epistles in which it is not spoken of, or alluded to, with earnest anticipation and confidence. whereas now, when it is brought so much nearer to us, it has almost vanished out of the consideration of the church altogether. no doubt, something may be said by way of reason why it should occupy a less prominent place in our thoughts than it did in theirs. the lord's own words, and those of the divinely-commissioned messengers who announced his return, spoke of it simply as certain, without any note of time being attached. hence, those who had seen him depart believed that they themselves should behold him returning. there can be no doubt in any fair-judging mind that, besides these eye-witnesses, st. paul, when he wrote that fifth chapter of the second epistle to the corinthians, had a full persuasion that he himself should be of those on whom the house not made with hands that is to be brought from heaven was to be put, without his being unclothed from the earthly tabernacle. he looked at such unclothing in his own case as possible, but was confident that it would not happen so. and again, when, in the over-zeal of the thessalonians, they imagined that the coming of the lord was actually upon them, and he in his second epistle checks and sets right that premature assumption, he does so in words which, as he wrote them, might very well have had all their fulfilment within the lifetime of man. those words now appear to us in more of the true sense in which the spirit, who spoke by paul, intended them: we see that the apostasy there predicted, and the man of sin there set down as to be revealed, are great developments or concentrations of the unbelief of churches and nations; but there is no evidence that the men of that day saw any such meaning in the words. as it was gradually, and not without conflict of thought, revealed to peter and his side of the apostolic band, that the gentiles were to be fellow-heirs and partakers of the peace of christ, so it was gradually, and not without some sickness of hope deferred, made manifest to the church, that the coming of the lord should be for ages and generations delayed. unmistakable indications of this truth appear in the lord's own prophetic discourses, which we now know how to interpret. and all this is no doubt a reason why the great subject should be less constantly and less vividly before our minds, than it was before theirs. but it is no reason why it should have dropped out altogether; none, why we should almost universally neglect the revelations of scripture respecting the manner and details of his coming, and confuse them altogether in a vague popular idea of the judgment day; none, why we should forget the mention of the landmarks which he himself has pointed out along the wilderness journey of his church,--and so, as far as in us lies, provide for her being unprepared when he appears. the end of the state of waiting of the blessed dead, the end of our present state of waiting will be, that day of his appearing. let us fix this well in our minds; and do not let us be kept from doing so by being told that there is danger in allowing the fancy to exercise itself on the unfulfilled prophecies. no doubt there is. but i am not exhorting you to exercise your fancy on them. faith and fancy are two wholly distinct things. to my mind, there can be hardly anything more detrimental to the faith of the church, than always to be fitting together history and prophecy, magnifying insignificant present or past events into fulfilments of prophetic announcements. they who do this are for ever being refuted by the course of things; and then they shift their ground, and come out as confidently with a new scheme, as they did before with their old one. nothing can more tend to throw discredit on god's prophetic word altogether; and it is no doubt in part owing to such speculations, that faith in the lord's coming has become weakened among us. he himself has told us the great use of his announcements of the future. "_these things have i told you, that, when the time is come, ye may remember that i told you of them_." when and as each prophecy comes to its time to be fulfilled, just as the years of the captivity predicted by jeremiah were interpreted by the church in babylon, so the lord's predictions, and the predictions of his apostles, will fall each into its place; and the church, if she endure in faith and watchfulness, will stand on her look-out, and be prepared for the sign of his coming. let us, my brethren, with regard to those who have left us in the lord,--let us, with regard to ourselves and our own future, be ever looking for and hasting to that day of god; the day when that better thing which god hath provided for us shall be manifested, and they with us shall be complete, who without us were not perfect. and let us not be discouraged by unpromising signs, or by prevalent unbelief. remember what our master has said to us in the services of this day, "heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away." iii. we have traced the condition of the blessed dead, from their departure and being with christ, to the glorious day of the resurrection. their spirits are safe in his keeping, till that day when he shall call their bodies out of the graves, and they shall be once more complete in manhood, body, soul, and spirit. and our present consideration is, what, on that resurrection, is the next thing which shall befall them? now the best, because the most general text on this matter, is that in heb. ix. , "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment." you will see that here is enounced something common to our nature. we are all to die; we are all to be judged after death. and that this is really true of all, and not merely stated generally, to be met afterwards by special exceptions, st. paul shows, when he, speaking of things belonging entirely to his own practice, and his own justification before god, says, in cor. v., "we labour, that whether present in the body or absent from the body, we may be accepted with him. _for we must all be made manifest_ (there is nothing about _standing_ in the original) _before the judgment seat of christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that which he did, whether it be good or bad_." you will see that here he expressly includes himself among those who are to be made manifest before the judgment seat of christ. now perhaps you are wondering why i am accumulating this scripture evidence to show a matter which seems to all so plain. but i have a sufficient reason. and that reason is, because in other passages of scripture the blessed dead, or rather the believers in christ, whether living or dead at that day, are spoken of as if they were not subjected to the general judgment of all, but passed into the glorious life without undergoing that judgment. thus our blessed lord himself; in john v. , says, "_verily, verily, i say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment_" (for that, and not "_condemnation_," is the word used by our lord),--"_cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life_." that would seem to mean that the faithful man has already passed over out of death, and all that belongs to death, sin, and guilt, and judgment, into life; and therefore when the judgment comes he can have no part in it, cannot come into it at all, because he is acquitted already through the faith in him who bore his guilt and took away his sin. and similarly, again, a few verses further on, ver. , our lord says, "_an hour cometh in which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the son of man, and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment_." that is, i suppose, the one shall rise into eternal life,--into the full bliss of the heavenly state, and the others into the condition, whatever it be, which the judgment shall decide. of course i am fully aware that i have not quoted these texts as they are read in our english bibles. the matter stands thus: the word which i have rendered "_judgment_" is the word always meaning judgment--the word occurring in the very next verse where our lord says, "_as i hear, i judge, and my_ judgment _is just;_" the word used also above in ver. , where he says, "_the father committed all_ judgment _unto the son_." in those two places, because there was no difficulty, our translators kept the word "_judgment_." but in these other two which i have quoted, because there was an apparent difficulty, they changed "_judgment_" in one verse into "_condemnation_," and in the other into "_damnation_," without any reason or right soever. indeed, in the latter of the two passages, not only is this so, but the whole sense is broken up by their unfaithfulness. our lord having mentioned the resurrection of judgment, proceeds to vindicate the justice of that judgment: "_as i hear, i judge: and my judgment is just, because i seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me_." so that the difficulty, which man's meddling with the bible has tried to remove, does exist in the bible as it came from god. and we must try to see through it, not to hush it up by being unfaithful to the plain language of our lord. nor does it exist here only. our lord himself has given us one great description of the final day of judgment, in his own discourses; and another by the pen of his beloved apostle. we will take the latter first, as being, for our present purpose, the fuller of the two: and we will show in what remarkable point the two agree. in rev. xx. , a passage to which we made reference last sunday, we find the first resurrection taking place, and the faithful dead rising to reign with christ during a period known as a thousand years. and it is expressly said, "_the rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were finished_." now, i am not here taking upon me to explain the meaning of this, but merely to insist on the fact that, whatever may be the precise import, it is so stated. well, and what then? when the thousand years are expired, and when the last great victory of the cause of god over evil has been gained, then we read, "_and i saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it; and i saw the dead, small and great, stand before god; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; 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 that were in it; and death and hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to his works_." so far the description in the revelation. now, in that given us by our lord in matt. xxv. we find the son of man coming in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, and sitting on the throne of his glory, and all the nations gathered before him. but there is this singular coincidence with the other account, that when the king comes to address those on the right hand and those on the left, he says, "_inasmuch as ye did it_ (or _did it not_) _unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it_ (or _did it not_) _unto me_." now "_these my brethren_" cannot of course mean the angels; therefore there must be some with christ to whom the words must refer. in other words, we have here also the risen saints in glory with the lord, as in that other account. but we may go even further yet, and may discover more from scripture respecting the position and employment of these the saints who are with the lord. when st. paul in cor. vi. is dissuading the corinthians from taking their disputes before the heathen courts to be settled, he says, "_know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?_" and again, "_know ye not that we shall judge angels?_" such expressions as these can bear but one meaning, and that is that the saints of christ are actually to bear part in the judgment, as his assessors. further than this we now not. it is not our duty to be wise above that which is written; but it is our duty to be wise up to that which is written: otherwise it was written in vain. what, then, are we to say respecting this apparent discrepancy in the statements of holy scripture concerning the dead in christ? if it be true that it is appointed unto all men once to die, but after that the judgment; if it be true that we all, including even the apostles themselves, shall be manifested, laid open, before the judgment-seat of christ, how can it be also true that the believer in christ has already passed from death into life, and therefore cometh not into judgment at all? how can it be true that while others shall rise to a resurrection of judgment, he shall rise to a resurrection of life? how can those descriptions be correct which we have been quoting, of these living and reigning with christ long before the general judgment, and even taking part in it with him? i believe the answer is not difficult, and perhaps may best be found by remembering another variety of expression in scripture respecting a kindred matter; i mean the way in which the saints of god are spoken of in relation to death itself. on the one hand we know that it is appointed unto all men to die; and that the faith and service of the lord bring with them no exemption from the common lot of all mankind. not only is this proved every day before our eyes, but scripture gives us its most direct testimony that those who believe in christ must expect it. the very expressions, "_the dead in christ_," "_those who through jesus have fallen asleep_," show that this is so. yet again, on the other hand, some passages would almost look as if death itself for the christian man did not exist. christ is said to have abolished death; we learn from his own lips that "if a man keep his word he shall never taste of death;" he has said again, "he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." now in this case there is no practical difficulty, yet the variety of expression is very instructive. we all know what lies beneath it; namely, the fact, that though the believer in christ must undergo the physical suffering of death like other men, yet death has become to him so altogether without terror and curse, that it has been for him deprived of real existence and power. the apostle in rom. viii. gives the full explanation: "_the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness_." well, now let us apply this to the case before us. let us take the same solution, and see whether it will not suffice. the christian shall, like other men, undergo the judgment after death; thus one set of scripture declarations shall be fulfilled. but to the believer, who has died in the lord, what is the judgment? he stands before the judgment-seat perfect in the righteousness of him to whom he is united, and from whom death has not separated him. his sentence of acquittal has been long ago pronounced; he cometh not into judgment, so that it should have any substantial effect in changing or determining his condition. the resurrection is for him not a resurrection of judgment, not one in which the judgment is the leading feature and characteristic, but it is only and purely a resurrection of, and unto life: one in which life is the leading feature and idea. thus for the blessed dead, the judgment has no dark side: "there is no condemnation to them that are in christ jesus." but though it has no dark side, it has a bright one. never for a moment do the christian scriptures lose sight of the christian reward. those who die in the lord, like the rest of men, shall be laid open before the tribunal of christ. their sins have been purged away in his atoning blood; they have been washed and justified and sanctified in the name of jesus and by the spirit of their god. but to what end? for what purpose? was it merely that they might be saved? no indeed, but that god might be glorified in them by the fruits of their faith and love. and these fruits shall then be made known. the father who saw them in secret shall then reward them openly. the acts done and the sacrifices made for the name of christ shall then meet with glorious retribution; yea, even to the least and most insignificant of them,--even according to our lord's own words,--to the cup of cold water given to one of his little ones. it is much the fashion, i know, in our days, to put aside and to depreciate this doctrine of the christian reward. it looks to some people like a sort of reliance on our own works and attainments; and so, though they may in the abstract profess a belief in it because it is in scripture, they shrink from applying it in their own cases or in those of others. now, nothing can justify such a course. we have no right to discard a motive held up for our adoption and guidance in scripture. and that this is so held up, who that knows his bible can for a moment doubt? think of that saying of our lord about the cup of cold water just quoted,--think of the series of sayings of which it is the end--"he _that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward_," etc. think, again, of that series of commands, to do our alms, our prayers, our abstinences, in secret, each ending with--"_and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly_." think, again, of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, where the great final blessing at the hand of the lord is throughout represented to us as reward, or rather--for so the word used properly means--wages for work done. and it is in vain in this case to try to escape from the cogency of our lord's sayings by alleging that the doctrines of the cross were not manifested till after his death and glorification. for if this were so, then the apostles themselves had never learned those doctrines. for the apostles constantly and persistently set before us the aiming at the christian reward as their own motive, and as that which ought to be ours. hear st. paul saying that, if he preached the gospel as matter of duty only, it was the stewardship committed to him; but if freely and without pay, a reward, or wages, would be due to him. hear him again, in expectation of his departure, glorying in the certainty of his reward: "_i have fought a good fight, i have finished my course, i have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing_." listen to st. john, whom we are accustomed to regard as the most lofty and heavenly of all the apostles in his thoughts and motives. what does he say to his well-beloved gaius? "_look to yourselves, that we lose not the things which we have wrought, but that we receive the full reward_." listen, again, to the writer of the epistle to the hebrews, that apostolic man, eloquent and mighty in the scriptures, and hear him describing the very qualities and attributes of faith, that he who cometh to god must _believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him_, and saying of one of the first and brightest examples of faith, that _he had respect unto the recompence of reward_. so, then, these holy dead who have died in the lord will in that judgment have each his reward allotted him according to his service and according to his measure. then the good that has been done in secret will all come to light. all mere profession, all that has been artificial and put on, will drop off as though it had never been; and the real kernel of the character, the fair dealing and charity and love of the inner soul, will be made manifest before men and angels. then, not even the least work done for god and for good will be forgotten. how such an estimate of all holy men will be or can be made and published, utterly surpasses our present powers to imagine. we have no faculties now whereby to deal thus truly and fairly with all men: our organs of sense in this present state, and the minds themselves to which those organs convey impressions, are too feeble and limited for the effort required to apprehend all respecting all, as we shall then apprehend it. but this need not form any difficulty in our way to believe that such a thing shall be. the power to understand it and the power to receive it surely do not dwell farther off from our matured powers now, than the full powers of a grownup man from the faculties and conceptions of a child. in all such matters, we are children now. think we then of the blessed dead at that day of the resurrection, as rising sure of bliss and of their perfection in him to whom they were united; being as though there were no judgment, seeing that they have one who shall answer for them at the tribunal: judged notwithstanding before the bar of god, and passing not to condemnation, but to their exceeding great and eternal reward. one more thing only now is left us: to ask what we know of that last and perfected state of man--that highest development and dignity of our race, when body, soul, and spirit, freed from sin and sorrow, shall reign with christ in light. with that question, and its answer, we hope to conclude this course of sermons next sunday. iv. we are to speak to-day of the final state of bliss of those who have died in the lord. their state of waiting has ended; the resurrection has clothed them again with the body, the final judgment has passed over them, and their last unending state has begun. there are no words in holy scripture so well calculated to give a general summary of that state as those concluding ones of a passage from which i have before largely quoted: thess. iv. : "and so shall we ever be with the lord." for these words contain in them all that has been revealed of that glorious state, included in one simple description. the bliss of the moment after death consisted in being with christ: the bliss of unlimited ages can only be measured by the same. nearness to him that made us, union with him who redeemed us, the everlasting and unvexed company of him who sanctifieth us: what glory, what dignity, what happiness can be imagined for man greater than this? and yet it is not by dwelling upon this, and this alone, that we shall be able to arrive at even that appreciation of heaven which is within our present powers. we may take these words, "for ever with the lord," and we may find in them, as in our father's house itself, many mansions. in various ways we are far from the lord here; in various ways we shall be near him and with him there. but first of all we must approach these various mansions through their portals and the avenues which lead up to them. and one of those is the consideration, who, and of what sort, they shall be, of whom we are about to speak. it will be very necessary that we should conceive of them aright. well, then, they will be men, with bodies, souls, and spirits like ourselves. the disembodied state will be over, and every one will have been reunited to the body which he or she had before death. what do we know of this body? very glorious thoughts rise up in our minds when we think of it: but in this course of sermons i am not speculating; i am inquiring soberly what is revealed to us about the blessed dead. well then, again, what do we know of this body of the resurrection? in phil. iii. , there is a revelation on this point. it is there said that "our home is in heaven, from whence also we expect the saviour, the lord jesus christ: who shall change the body of our degradation that it may be fashioned like unto the body of his glory." and this change is very much dwelt on as a necessary condition of the heavenly state in cor. xv. "_flesh and blood_," we are told, _i.e._, this present natural or psychical body, the body whose informing tenant is the animal soul, _cannot inherit the kingdom of god; neither can corruption_, that which decays and passes away, _inherit incorruption_, that state where there is no decay nor passing away. so, then, a change must take place at the resurrection: a change which shall pass also on those who are alive and remain at the lord's coming. the bodies of the risen saints, and of those who are to join them in being for ever with the lord, will be spiritual bodies: bodies tenanted and informed in chief by that highest part of man, which during this present life is so much dwarfed down and crushed by the usurpations of the animal soul; viz., his spirit. now, it would be idle to conceal the fact, that we cannot form any distinct conception what this spiritual body may be. no such thing has ever come within the range of our experience. but some particulars we do know about it, because god has revealed them. and of those, the principal are specified in this very passage: "_it is sown in corruption: it is raised in incorruption_." it cannot decay. eternal ages will pass over it, and it will remain the same. again, "_it is sown in dishonour: it is raised in glory_." there will be no shame about it, as there will be no sin. thus much from these words is undoubted. what else they may imply we cannot say for certain; probably, unimagined degrees of beauty and radiancy, for so the word glory as applied to anything material seems to imply. further: "_it is sown in weakness: it is raised in power_." that is, i suppose, with all its faculties wonderfully intensified, and possibly with fresh faculties granted, which here it never possessed, and the mind of man could not even imagine. this last also seems to be implied by its being called a spiritual body. as here it was an animal body, subject to the mere animal life or soul, hemmed in by the conditions of that animal life, so there it will be under the dominion of, and suited to the wants of, man's spirit, the lofty and heavenly part of him. and if we want to know what this implies, our best guide will be to contemplate the risen body of our lord, as we have it presented to us in the gospel narrative. as he is, so are we in this world in our essence even now--and as he is so shall we be entirely there. he is the first-fruits, we follow after as the harvest. what, then, was his resurrection body? while it was a real body and admitted of being touched and seen, and had the organs of voice and of hearing, yet it was not subjected to the usual conditions of matter as to its locomotion, or its obstruction by intervening objects. it retained the marks of what had happened before death. in order to convince the disciples of his identity, our lord ate and drank before them. we must therefore infer that these were natural acts of his resurrection body, and not merely assumed at pleasure. with a body, then, of this kind will the blessed be clothed upon at the resurrection, and remain invested for ever in glory. now let us see what further flows from this as an inference. we may further say, that we have implied in it a surrounding of external circumstances fitted to such a state of incorruptibility and glory. man redeemed and glorified will not be a mere spirit in the vast realms of space, but a glorious body moving in a glorious world. nor is this mere inference, however plain and legitimate. holy scripture is full of it. the power of words does not suffice to describe the beauties and glories of that renewed and unfailing world. i need not quote passage after passage--they are familiar to you all. nor, again, is it nature alone which shall be glorious above all our conception here. it would appear that art also shall have advanced forward, and shall minister to the splendour of that better world. the prophets in the old testament, and the beloved apostle in the new, vie with one another in describing the heavenly city, the new jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her husband, lighted by the glory of the indwelling godhead. _where_ this glorious abode of christ and his redeemed shall be, we have not been told by revelation; and it were idle to indulge in speculations of our own. from some expressions in scripture, it would seem not improbable that it may be this earth itself after purification and renewal: from other passages, it would appear as if that inference were hardly safe, and that other of the bodies in space are destined for the high dignity of being the home of the sons of god. we have now, i believe, cleared the way for the answer to a question which presses upon us to-day: as far, at least, as that answer can be given on this side of death. of mankind in glory, thus perfected, what shall be the employ? for i need hardly press it on you that it is impossible to conceive of man in a high and happy estate, without an employment worthy of that estate, and in fact constituting its dignity and happiness. now, some light is thrown on this inquiry by holy scripture, but it must be confessed that it is very scanty. it is true that all our meditations on and descriptions of heaven want balance, and are, so to speak, pictures ill composed. we first build up our glorified human nature by such hints as are furnished us in scripture; we place it in an abode worthy of it: and then, after all, we give it an unending existence with nothing to do. it was not ill said by a great preacher, that most people's idea of heaven was to sit on a cloud and sing psalms. and others, again, strive to fill this out with the bliss of recognising and holding intercourse with those from whom we have been severed on earth. and beyond all doubt such recognition and intercourse shall be, and shall constitute one of the most blessed accessories of the heavenly employment; but it can no more be that employment itself than similar intercourse on earth was the employment of life itself here. to read some descriptions of heaven, one would imagine that it were only an endless prolongation of some social meeting; walking and talking in some blessed country with those whom we love. it is clear that we have not thus provided the renewed energies and enlarged powers of perfected man with food for eternity. nor, if we look in another direction, that of the absence of sickness and care and sorrow, shall we find any more satisfactory answer to our question. nay, rather shall we find it made more difficult and beset with more complication. for let us think how much of employment for our present energies is occasioned by, and finds its very field of action in, the anxieties and vicissitudes of life. they are, so to speak, the winds which fill the sail and carry us onward. by their action, hope and enthusiasm are excited. but suppose a state where they are not, and life would become a dead calm; the sail would flap idly, and the spirit would cease to look onward at all. so that, unless we can supply something over and above the mere absence of anxiety and pain, we have not attained to--nay, we are farther than ever from--a sufficient employment for the life eternal. now, before we seek for it in another direction, let us think for a moment in this way. are we likely to know much of it? we have before in these sermons adopted st. paul's comparison by analogy, and have likened ourselves here to children, and that blessed state to our full development as men. now ask yourselves, what does the child at its play know of the employments of the man? such portions of them as are merely external and material he may take in, and represent in his sport: but the work and anxiety of the student at his book, and the man of business at his desk, these are of necessity entirely hidden from the child. and so it is onward through the advancing stages of life. of each of them it may be said, "we know not with what we must serve the lord, until we come hither." so that we need not be utterly disappointed, if our picture of heaven be at present ill composed: if it seem to be little else than a gorgeous mist after all. we cannot fill in the members of the landscape at present. if we could, we should be in heaven. remembering this our necessary incapacity for the inquiry, let us try to carry it as far as we may. and that we may not be forsaking the guidance of holy scripture for mere speculation, let us take the words of st. paul--"_now we see in a mirror, obscurely, but then face to face: now i know in part, but then i shall know even as also i was known_ (_by god_.)" this immense accession of light and knowledge must of course be interpreted partly of keener and brighter faculties wherewith the blessed shall be endowed; but shall it not also point to glorious employment of those renewed and augmented powers? how could one endowed with them ever remain idle? what a restless, ardent, many-handed thing is genius even here below? how the highly endowed spirit searches about and tries its wings, now hither now thither, in the vast realms of intellectual life! and if it be so here, with the body weighing on us, with the clogs of worldly business and trivial interruption, what will it be there, where everything will be fashioned and arranged for this express purpose, that every highest employment may find its noblest expansion without let or hindrance? besides, think for a moment of the relative positions of men with regard to any even the least amount of this light and knowledge of which we are speaking. in order to take in this the better, think of the lowest and most ignorant of mankind who shall attain to that state of glory. measure the difference between such a spirit and an augustine, and then recollect that augustine himself, that st. paul himself, was but a child in comparison of the maturity of knowledge and insight which all shall there acquire. such a thought may serve to show us what a gap must be bridged over, before any such perfect knowledge will be attained by any of the sons of men. and when we remember that all blessings come by labour and the goodly heat of exercised energy, shall we deny to the highest of all states the choicest of all blessings? so that the attainment of, and advance in, the light and knowledge peculiar to that glorious land must be imagined as affording unending employment for the blessed hereafter. and this gives us another insight into the matter. as there is so great disparity among men here, so we may well believe will there be there. all scripture goes to show that there will be no general equalizing, no flat level of mankind. degrees and ranks as they now are, indeed, there will be none. not the possession of wealth, not the accident of birth, which are held here to put difference between man and man, will make any distinction there: but inequality and distinction will proceed on other grounds; the amount of service done for god, the degree of entrance into the obedience and knowledge of him, these will put the difference between one and another there. but we hasten to a close: and in doing so, we come back to the simple words of our text, "for ever with the lord;" and we would leave on your minds the impression that these, after all, furnish the best key to the employment of the blessed in heaven. if they are fit companions for the lord, then must they be like him as he is there; and thus we seem to have marked out an employment alone sufficient for eternity. look at it in its various aspects. what is, what will be, the lord doing in that state of blessedness? will he be idle like the gods of epicurus, sitting serene above all, and separate from all, created things? no, indeed, no such glorified lord is revealed to us in holy scripture. "my father worketh hitherto, and i work." the created universe will be then as much beholden to his upholding hand as it is now. if they are to be for ever with him, attending and girding his steps, they, too, will doubtless be fellow-workers with him there, as they were here. and in this, only consider how much of his creation was altogether hidden from them here! look abroad on a starry night--behold a field of employment for those who shall be ever with the lord. the greater part of his works never came within sight of this our mortal eye at all. these are only hints, it is true, which we have no power of following out: but they may serve for finger-posts to point to whole realms of possible blessed employment. then, again, there is more in the words "for ever with the lord" than even this. who can tell what past works, not of creation only, but of grace also, the blessed may have to search into--works wrought on themselves and others which may then be brought back to them by memory entirely restored, and then first studied with any power to comprehend or to be thankful for them? then, again, the glory of god himself, then first revealed to them,--the redeeming love of christ,--the glory of the mystery of the indwelling of the spirit,--dry and lofty subjects to the sons of men here, will be to them when there as household words and as daily pursuits. it seems to me, my brethren, when we look at all these sources of blessed employment, though we are unable from our present weakness to follow them out into detail,--and when we think that perhaps after all in our earthly blindness we may be omitting some which shall there constitute the chief, it seems to me, i say, as if we should have to complain not of insufficient employ for the ages of eternity, but of an infinite and inexhaustible variety, for which even endless ages of limited being hardly seem to suffice. such, then, beloved, are the thoughts which have occurred to us on a subject of which i pray that it may be one of personal interest to every one here present. when we are to leave this present state, is a matter hidden from our eyes, and not dependent on ourselves: but how we will leave it, whether as the lord's blessed ones, or with no part in him, this is left for ourselves to determine. there is set before us life and death. may we choose life, that it may be well with us; that we may wake from the bed of death and find ourselves with the lord; that we may pass in joyful hope through the waiting and disembodied state, and wake at the morning of the resurrection to that fulness of completed bliss of which we have this day been speaking. _pardon and sons, printers, paternoster row_. new and recent works. _the prophecies of our lord and his apostles_. by w. hoffmann, d.d., chaplain in ordinary to the king of prussia. crown vo, price s. d. cloth. _the education of the heart: woman's best work_. by mrs. ellis, author of "the women of england," &c. fcap. vo, price s. d. cloth. _the divine mysteries; the divine treatment of sin, and the divine mystery of peace_. by j. baldwin brown, b. a., author of "the soul's exodus," &c. new edition. crown vo, s. d. cloth. _misread passages of scripture_. by the same author. third thousand. crown vo, s. d. cloth. _saint mark's gospel_. a new translation, with notes and practical lessons. by professor j. h. godwin, new college, london, author of "the apocalypse of st. john," &c. crown vo, s. d. _the son of man: discourses on the humanity of jesus christ_. with an address on the teaching of jesus christ. by frank coulin, d.d., minister of the national church, geneva. fcap. vo, s. cloth. london: hodder & stoughton, , paternoster row. works by e. de pressense d.d. _the early years of christianity_. vo, s. cloth. "this is a sequel to dr. pressense's celebrated book on the 'life, work, and times of jesus christ.' we may say at once that to the bulk of liberal christians dr. pressense's achievement will be very valuable."--_athenaum_. "he holds his brilliant intellectual gifts and his profound learning subordinate to his fervent and absolute faith in the divinity of lie lord and saviour."--_daily telegraph_. _jesus christ: his times, life, and work._ third and cheaper edition, crown vo, s. cloth. "one of the most valuable additions to christian literature which the present generation has seen."--_contemporary review._ "m. de pressense is not only brilliant and epigrammatic, but his sentences flow on from page to page with a sustained eloquence which never wearies the reader. the 'life of christ' is more dramatically unfolded in this volume than in any other work with which we are acquainted."--spectator. _the mystery of suffering, and other discourses_. new edition, crown vo, price s. d. cloth. _the land of the gospel: notes of a journey in the east_. crown vo, s. cloth. _the church and the french revolution_. a history of the relations of church and state from to . crown vo, s. cloth. london: hodder & stoughton, , paternoster row. _theosophical manuals. no. ._ death--and after? by annie besant. ( th thousand) theosophical publishing society london and benares city agents, percy lund humphries & co. amen corner, london, e.c. _price one shilling_ preface. _few words are needed in sending this little book out into the world. it is the third of a series of manuals designed to meet the public demand for a simple exposition of theosophical teachings. some have complained that our literature is at once too abstruse, too technical, and too expensive for the ordinary reader, and it is our hope that the present series may succeed in supplying what is a very real want. theosophy is not only for the learned; it is for all. perhaps among those who in these little books catch their first glimpse of its teachings, there may be a few who will be led by them to penetrate more deeply into its philosophy, its science, and its religion, facing its abstruser problems with the student's zeal and the neophyte's ardour. but these manuals are not written for the eager student, whom no initial difficulties can daunt; they are written for the busy men and women of the work-a-day world, and seek to make plain some of the great truths that render life easier to bear and death easier to face. written by servants of the masters who are the elder brothers of our race, they can have no other object than to serve our fellow-men._ death--and after? who does not remember the story of the christian missionary in britain, sitting one evening in the vast hall of a saxon king, surrounded by his thanes, having come thither to preach the gospel of his master; and as he spoke of life and death and immortality, a bird flew in through an unglazed window, circled the hall in its flight, and flew out once more into the darkness of the night. the christian priest bade the king see in the flight of the bird within the hall the transitory life of man, and claimed for his faith that it showed the soul, in passing from the hall of life, winging its way not into the darkness of night, but into the sunlit radiance of a more glorious world. out of the darkness, through the open window of birth, the life of a man comes to the earth; it dwells for a while before our eyes; into the darkness, through the open window of death, it vanishes out of our sight. and man has questioned ever of religion, whence comes it? whither goes it? and the answers have varied with the faiths. to-day, many a hundred year since paulinus talked with edwin, there are more people in christendom who question whether man has a spirit to come anywhence or to go anywhither than, perhaps, in the world's history could ever before have been found at one time. and the very christians who claim that death's terrors have been abolished, have surrounded the bier and the tomb with more gloom and more dismal funeral pomp than have the votaries of any other creed. what can be more depressing than the darkness in which a house is kept shrouded, while the dead body is awaiting sepulture? what more repellent than the sweeping robes of lustreless crape, and the purposed hideousness of the heavy cap in which the widow laments the "deliverance" of her husband "from the burden of the flesh"? what more revolting than the artificially long faces of the undertaker's men, the drooping "weepers", the carefully-arranged white handkerchiefs, and, until lately, the pall-like funeral cloaks? during the last few years, a great and marked improvement has been made. the plumes, cloaks, and weepers have well-nigh disappeared. the grotesquely ghastly hearse is almost a thing of the past, and the coffin goes forth heaped over with flowers instead of shrouded in the heavy black velvet pall. men and women, though still wearing black, do not roll themselves up in shapeless garments like sable winding-sheets, as if trying to see how miserable they could make themselves by the imposition of artificial discomforts. welcome common-sense has driven custom from its throne, and has refused any longer to add these gratuitous annoyances to natural human grief. in literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding death has been characteristic of christianity. death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass--all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named king of terrors. milton, who has done so much with his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern christianity, has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent diction to surround with horror the figure of death. the other shape, if shape it might be called, that shape had none distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, or substance might be called that shadow seemed, for each seemed either; black it stood as night, fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, and shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head the likeness of a kingly crown had on. satan was now at hand, and from his seat the monster moving onward came as fast, with horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.... ... so spoke the grisly terror: and in shape so speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold more dreadful and deform.... ... but he, my inbred enemy, forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, made to destroy: i fled, and cried out _death!_ hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed from all her caves, and back resounded _death_.[ ] that such a view of death should be taken by the professed followers of a teacher said to have "brought life and immortality to light" is passing strange. the claim, that as late in the history of the world as a mere eighteen centuries ago the immortality of the spirit in man was brought to light, is of course transparently absurd, in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary available on all hands. the stately egyptian ritual with its _book of the dead_, in which are traced the post-mortem journeys of the soul, should be enough, if it stood alone, to put out of court for ever so preposterous a claim. hear the cry of the soul of the righteous: o ye, who make the escort of the god, stretch out to me your arms, for i become one of you. (xvii. .) hail to thee, osiris, lord of light, dwelling in the mighty abode, in the bosom of the absolute darkness. i come to thee, a purified soul; my two hands are around thee. (xxi. .) i open heaven; i do what was commanded in memphis. i have knowledge of my heart; i am in possession of my heart, i am in possession of my arms, i am in possession of my legs, at the will of myself. my soul is not imprisoned in my body at the gates of amenti. (xxvi. , .) not to multiply to weariness quotations from a book that is wholly composed of the doings and sayings of the disembodied man, let it suffice to give the final judgment on the victorious soul: the defunct shall be deified among the gods in the lower divine region, he shall never be rejected.... he shall drink from the current of the celestial river.... his soul shall not be imprisoned, since it is a soul that brings salvation to those near it. the worms shall not devour it. (clxiv. - .) the general belief in re-incarnation is enough to prove that the religions of which it formed a central doctrine believed in the survival of the soul after death; but one may quote as an example a passage from the _ordinances of manu_, following on a disquisition on metempsychosis, and answering the question of deliverance from rebirths. amid all these holy acts, the knowledge of self [should be translated, knowledge of the _self_, atmâ] is said (to be) the highest; this indeed is the foremost of all sciences, since from it immortality is obtained.[ ] the testimony of the great zarathustrean religion is clear, as is shown by the following, translated from the _avesta_, in which, the journey of the soul after death having been described, the ancient scripture proceeds: the soul of the pure man goes the first step and arrives at (the paradise) humata; the soul of the pure man takes the second step and arrives at (the paradise) hukhta; it goes the third step and arrives at (the paradise) hvarst; the soul of the pure man takes the fourth step and arrives at the eternal lights. to it speaks a pure one deceased before, asking it: how art thou, o pure deceased, come away from the fleshy dwellings, from the earthly possessions, from the corporeal world hither to the invisible, from the perishable world hither to the imperishable, as it happened to thee--to whom hail! then speaks ahura-mazda: ask not him whom thou asketh, (for) he is come on the fearful, terrible, trembling way, the separation of body and soul.[ ] the persian _desatir_ speaks with equal definiteness. this work consists of fifteen books, written by persian prophets, and was written originally in the avestaic language; "god" is ahura-mazda, or yazdan: god selected man from animals to confer on him the soul, which is a substance free, simple, immaterial, non-compounded and non-appetitive. and that becomes an angel by improvement. by his profound wisdom and most sublime intelligence, he connected the soul with the material body. if he (man) does good in the material body, and has a good knowledge and religion he is _hartasp_.... as soon as he leaves this material body, i (god) take him up to the world of angels, that he may have an interview with the angels, and behold me. and if he is not hartasp, but has wisdom and abstains from vice, i will promote him to the rank of angels. every person in proportion to his wisdom and piety will find a place in the rank of wise men, among the heavens and stars. and in that region of happiness he will remain for ever.[ ] in china, the immemorial custom of worshipping the souls of ancestors shows how completely the life of man was regarded as extending beyond the tomb. the _shû king_--placed by mr. james legge as the most ancient of chinese classics, containing historical documents ranging from b.c. - --is full of allusions to these souls, who with other spiritual beings, watch over the affairs of their descendants and the welfare of the kingdom. thus pan-kang, ruling from b.c. - , exhorts his subjects: my object is to support and nourish you all. i think of my ancestors (who are now) the spiritual sovereigns.... were i to err in my government, and remain long here, my high sovereign (the founder of our dynasty) would send down on me great punishment for my crime, and say, "why do you oppress my people?" if you, the myriads of the people, do not attend to the perpetuation of your lives, and cherish one mind with me, the one man, in my plans, the former kings will send down on you great punishment for your crime, and say, "why do you not agree with our young grandson, but go on to forfeit your virtue?" when they punish you from above, you will have no way of escape.... your ancestors and fathers will (now) cut you off and abandon you, and not save you from death.[ ] indeed, so practical is this chinese belief, held to-day as in those long-past ages, that "the change that men call death" seems to play a very small part in the thoughts and lives of the people of the flowery land. these quotations, which might be multiplied a hundred-fold, may suffice to prove the folly of the idea that immortality came to "light through the gospel". the whole ancient world basked in the full sunshine of belief in the immortality of man, lived in it daily, voiced it in its literature, went with it in calm serenity through the gate of death. it remains a problem why christianity, which vigorously and joyously re-affirmed it, should have growing in its midst the unique terror of death that has played so large a part in its social life, its literature, and its art. it is not simply the belief in hell that has surrounded the grave with horror, for other religions have had their hells, and yet their followers have not been harassed by this shadowy fear. the chinese, for instance, who take death as such a light and trivial thing, have a collection of hells quite unique in their varied unpleasantness. maybe the difference is a question of race rather than of creed; that the vigorous life of the west shrinks from its antithesis, and that its unimaginative common-sense finds a bodiless condition too lacking in solidity of comfort; whereas the more dreamy, mystical east, prone to meditation, and ever seeking to escape from the thraldom of the senses during earthly life, looks on the disembodied state as eminently desirable, and as most conducive to unfettered thought. ere passing to the consideration of the history of man in the post-mortem state, it is necessary, however briefly, to state the constitution of man, as viewed by the esoteric philosophy, for we must have in mind the constituents of his being ere we can understand their disintegration. man then consists of _the immortal triad_: atmâ. buddhi. manas. _the perishable quaternary_: kâma. prâna. etheric double. dense body. the dense body is the physical body, the visible, tangible outer form, composed of various tissues. the etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the body, composed of the physical ethers. prâna is vitality, the integrating energy that co-ordinates the physical molecules and holds them together in a definite organism; it is the life-breath within the organism, the portion of the universal life-breath, appropriated by the organism during the span of existence that we speak of as "a life". kâma is the aggregate of appetites, passions, and emotions, common to man and brute. manas is the thinker in us, the intelligence. buddhi is the vehicle wherein atmâ, the spirit, dwells, and in which alone it can manifest. now the link between the immortal triad and the perishable quaternary is manas, which is dual during earth life, or incarnation, and functions as higher manas and lower manas. higher manas sends out a ray, lower manas, which works in and through the human brain, functioning there as brain-consciousness, as the ratiocinating intelligence. this mingles with kâma, the passional nature, the passions and emotions thus becoming a part of mind, as defined in western psychology. and so we have the link formed between the higher and lower natures in man, this kâma-manas belonging to the higher by its mânasic, and to the lower by its kâmic, elements. as this forms the battleground during life, so does it play an important part in post-mortem existence. we might now classify our seven principles a little differently, having in view this mingling in kâma-manas of perishable and imperishable elements: { atmâ. _immortal_. { buddhi. { higher-manas. _conditionally immortal_. kâma-manas. { prâna. _mortal_. { etheric double. { dense body. some christian writers have adopted a classification similar to this, declaring spirit to be inherently immortal, as being divine; soul to be conditionally immortal, _i.e._, capable of winning immortality by uniting itself with spirit; body to be inherently mortal. the majority of uninstructed christians chop man into two, the body that perishes at death, and the something--called indifferently soul or spirit--that survives death. this last classification--if classification it may be called--is entirely inadequate, if we are to seek any rational explanation, or even lucid statement, of the phenomena of post-mortem existence. the tripartite view of man's nature gives a more reasonable representation of his constitution, but is inadequate to explain many phenomena. the septenary division alone gives a reasonable theory consistent with the facts we have to deal with, and therefore, though it may seem elaborate, the student will do wisely to make himself familiar with it. if he were studying only the body, and desired to understand its activities, he would have to classify its tissues at far greater length and with far more minuteness than i am using here. he would have to learn the differences between muscular, nervous, glandular, bony, cartilaginous, epithelial, connective, tissues, and all their varieties; and if he rebelled, in his ignorance, against such an elaborate division, it would be explained to him that only by such an analysis of the different components of the body can the varied and complicated phenomena of life-activity be understood. one kind of tissue is wanted for support, another for movement, another for secretion, another for absorption, and so on; and if each kind does not have its own distinctive name, dire confusion and misunderstanding must result, and physical functions remain unintelligible. in the long run time is gained, as well as clearness, by learning a few necessary technical terms, and as clearness is above all things needed in trying to explain and to understand very complicated post-mortem phenomena, i find myself compelled--contrary to my habit in these elementary papers--to resort to these technical names at the outset, for the english language has as yet no equivalents for them, and the use of long descriptive phrases is extremely cumbersome and inconvenient. for myself, i believe that very much of the antagonism between the adherents of the esoteric philosophy and those of spiritualism has arisen from confusion of terms, and consequent misunderstanding of each others meaning. one eminent spiritualist lately impatiently said that he did not see the need of exact definition, and that he meant by spirit all the part of man's nature that survived death, and was not body. one might as well insist on saying that man's body consists of bone and blood, and asked to define blood, answer: "oh! i mean everything that is not bone." a clear definition of terms, and a rigid adherence to them when once adopted, will at least enable us all to understand each other, and that is the first step to any fruitful comparison of experiences. the fate of the body. the human body is constantly undergoing a process of decay and of reconstruction. first builded into the etheric form in the womb of the mother, it is built up continually by the insetting of fresh materials. with every moment tiny molecules are passing away from it; with every moment tiny molecules are streaming into it. the outgoing stream is scattered over the environment, and helps to rebuild bodies of all kinds in the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, the physical basis of all these being one and the same. the idea that the human tabernacle is built by countless _lives_, just in the same way as the rocky crust of our earth was, has nothing repulsive in it for the true mystic.... science teaches us that the living as well as the dead organism of both man and animal are swarming with bacteria of a hundred various kinds; that from without we are threatened with the invasion of microbes with every breath we draw, and from within by leucomaines, robes, ærobes, anærobes, and what not. but science never yet went so far as to assert with the occult doctrine that our bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, and stones, are themselves altogether built up of such beings, which, except larger species, no microscope can detect. so far as regards the purely animal and material portion of man, science is on its way to discoveries that will go far towards corroborating this theory. chemistry and physiology are the two great magicians of the future, who are destined to open the eyes of mankind to the great physical truths. with every day, the identity between the animal and physical man, between the plant and man, and even between the reptile and its nest, the rock, and man, is more and more clearly shown. the physical and chemical constituents of all being found to be identical, chemical science may well say that there is no difference between the matter which composes the ox and that which forms man. but the occult doctrine is far more explicit. it says: not only the chemical compounds are the same, but the same infinitesimal _invisible lives_ compose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the daisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant, and of the tree which shelters him from the sun. each particle--whether you call it organic or inorganic--_is a life_.[ ] these "lives" which, separate and independent, are the minute vehicles of prâna, aggregated together form the molecules and cells of the physical body, and they stream in and stream out, during all the years of bodily life, thus forming a continual bridge between man and his environment. controlling these are the "fiery lives," the devourers, which constrain these to their work of building up the cells of the body, so that they work harmoniously and in order, subordinated to the higher manifestation of life in the complex organism called man. these fiery lives on our plane correspond, in this controlling and organising function, with the one life of the universe,[ ] and when they no longer exercise this function in the human body, the lower lives run rampant, and begin to break down the hitherto definitely organised body. during bodily life they are marshalled as an army; marching in regular order under the command of a general, performing various evolutions, keeping step, moving as a single body. at "death" they become a disorganised and tumultuous mob, rushing hither and thither, jostling each other, tumbling over each other, with no common object, no generally recognised authority. the body is never more alive than when it is dead; but it is alive in its units, and dead in its totality; alive as a congeries, dead as an organism. science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily united by a mysterious force called the life-principle. to the materialist, the only difference between a living and a dead body is that in the one case that force is active, in the other latent. when it is extinct or entirely latent, the molecules obey a superior attraction, which draws them asunder and scatters them through space. this dispersion must be death, if it is possible to conceive such a thing as death, where the very molecules of the dead body manifest an intense vital energy.... says eliphas levi: "change attests movement, and movement only reveals life. the corpse would not decompose if it were dead; all the molecules which compose it are living and struggle to separate."[ ] those who have read _the seven principles of man_,[ ] know that the etheric double is the vehicle of prâna, the life-principle, or vitality. through the etheric double prâna exercises the controlling and co-ordinating force spoken of above, and "death" takes triumphant possession of the body when the etheric double is finally withdrawn and the delicate cord which unites it with the body is snapped. the process of withdrawal has been watched by clairvoyants, and definitely described. thus andrew jackson davis, "the poughkeepsie seer", describes how he himself watched this escape of the ethereal body, and he states that the magnetic cord did not break for some thirty-six hours after apparent death. others have described, in similar terms, how they saw a faint violet mist rise from the dying body, gradually condensing into a figure which was the counterpart of the expiring person, and attached to that person by a glistening thread. the snapping of the thread means the breaking of the last magnetic link between the dense body and the remaining principles of the human constitution; the body has dropped away from the man; he is excarnated, disembodied; six principles still remain as his constitution immediately after death, the seventh, or the dense body, being left as a cast-off garment. death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. the immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and--as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis--emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness. now it is the fact that this escape from the body, and this dwelling of the conscious entity either in the vehicle called the body of desire, the kâmic or astral body, or in a yet more ethereal thought body, can be effected during earth-life; so that man may become familiar with the excarnated condition, and it may lose for him all the terrors that encircle the unknown. he can know himself as a conscious entity in either of these vehicles, and so prove to his own satisfaction that "life" does not depend on his functioning through the physical body. why should a man who has thus repeatedly "shed" his lower bodies, and has found the process result, not in unconsciousness, but in a vastly extended freedom and vividness of life--why should he fear the final casting away of his fetters, and the freeing of his immortal self from what he realises as the prison of the flesh? this view of human life is an essential part of the esoteric philosophy. man is primarily divine, a spark of the divine life. this living flame, passing out from the central fire, weaves for itself coverings within which it dwells, and thus becomes the triad, the atmâ-buddhi-manas, the reflection of the immortal self. this sends out its ray, which becomes encased in grosser matter, in the desire body, or kâmic elements, the passional nature, and in the etheric double and the physical body. the once free immortal intelligence thus entangled, enswathed, enchained, works heavily and laboriously through the coatings that enwrap it. in its own nature it remains ever the free bird of heaven, but its wings are bound to its side by the matter into which it is plunged. when man recognises his own inherent nature, he learns to open his prison doors occasionally and escapes from his encircling gaol; first he learns to identify himself with the immortal triad, and rises above the body and its passions into a pure mental and moral life; then he learns that the conquered body cannot hold him prisoner, and he unlocks its door and steps out into the sunshine of his true life. so when death unlocks the door for him, he knows the country into which he emerges, having trodden its ways at his own will. and at last he grows to recognise that fact of supreme importance, that "life" has nothing to do with body and with this material plane; that life is his conscious existence, unbroken, unbreakable, and that the brief interludes in that life, during which he sojourns on earth, are but a minute fraction of his conscious existence, and a fraction, moreover, during which he is less alive, because of the heavy coverings which weigh him down. for only during these interludes (save in exceptional cases) may he wholly lose his consciousness of continued life, being surrounded by these coverings which delude him and blind him to the truth of things, making that real which is illusion, and that stable which is transitory. the sunlight ranges over the universe, and at incarnation we step out of it into the twilight of the body, and see but dimly during the period of our incarceration; at death we step out of the prison again into the sunlight, and are nearer to the reality. short are the twilight periods, and long the periods of the sunlight; but in our blinded state we call the twilight life, and to us it is the real existence, while we call the sunlight death, and shiver at the thought of passing into it. well did giordano bruno, one of the greatest teachers of our philosophy in the middle ages, state the truth as to the body and man. of the real man he says: he will be present in the body in such wise that the best part of himself will be absent from it, and will join himself by an indissoluble sacrament to divine things, in such a way that he will not feel either love or hatred of things mortal. considering himself as master, and that he ought not to be servant and slave to his body, which he would regard only as the prison which holds his liberty in confinement, the glue which smears his wings, chains which bind fast his hands, stocks which fix his feet, veil which hides his view. let him not be servant, captive, ensnared, chained, idle, stolid, and blind, for the body which he himself abandons cannot tyrannise over him, so that thus the spirit in a certain degree comes before him as the corporeal world, and matter is subject to the divinity and to nature.[ ] when once we thus come to regard the body, and by conquering it we gain our liberty, death loses for us all his terrors, and at his touch the body slips from us as a garment, and we stand out from it erect and free. on the same lines of thought dr. franz hartmann writes: according to certain views of the west man is a developed ape. according to the views of indian sages, which also coincide with those of the philosophers of past ages and with the teachings of the christian mystics, man is a god, who is united during his earthly life, through his own carnal tendencies, to an animal (his animal nature). the god who dwells within him endows man with wisdom. the animal endows him with force. after death, _the god effects his own release from the man_ by departing from the animal body. as man carries within him this divine consciousness, it is his task to battle with his animal inclinations, and to raise himself above them, by the help of the divine principle, a task which the animal cannot achieve, and which therefore is not demanded of it.[ ] the "man", using the word in the sense of personality, as it is used in the latter half of this sentence, is only conditionally immortal; the true man, the evolving god, releases himself, and so much of the personality goes with him as has raised itself into union with the divine. the body thus left to the rioting of the countless lives--previously held in constraint by prâna, acting through its vehicle the etheric double--begins to decay, that is to break up, and with the disintegration of its cells and molecules, its particles pass away into other combinations. on our return to earth we may meet again some of those same countless lives that in a previous incarnation made of our then body their passing dwelling; but all that we are just now concerned with is the breaking up of the body whose life-span is over, and its fate is complete disintegration. to the dense body, then, death means dissolution as an organism, the loosing of the bonds that united the many into one. the fate of the etheric double. the etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the gross body of man. it is the double that is sometimes seen during life in the neighbourhood of the body, and its absence from the body is generally marked by the heaviness or semi-lethargy of the latter. acting as the reservoir, or vehicle, of the life-principle during earth-life, its withdrawal from the body is naturally marked by the lowering of all vital functions, even while the cord which unites the two is still unbroken. as has been already said, the snapping of the cord means the death of the body. when the etheric double finally quits the body, it does not travel to any distance from it. normally it remains floating over the body, the state of consciousness being dreamy and peaceful, unless tumultuous distress and violent emotion surround the corpse from which it has just issued. and here it may be well to say that during the slow process of dying, while the etheric double is withdrawing from the body, taking with it the higher principles, as after it has withdrawn, extreme quiet and self-control should be observed in the chamber of death. for during this time the whole life passes swiftly in review before the ego, the individual, as those have related who have passed in drowning into this unconscious and pulseless state. a master has written: _at the last moment the whole life is reflected in our memory, and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and corners, picture after picture, one event after another.... the man may often appear dead, yet from the last pulsation, from and between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when the last spark of animal heat leaves the body_, the brain thinks, _and the ego lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life. speak in whispers, ye who assist at a deathbed, and find yourselves in the solemn presence of death. especially have ye to keep quiet just after death has laid her clammy hand upon the body. speak in whispers, i say, lest ye disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the busy work of the past, casting its reflection upon the veil of the future._[ ] this is the time during which the thought-images of the ended earth-life, clustering around their maker, group and interweave themselves into the completed image of that life, and are impressed in their totality on the astral light. the dominant tendencies, the strongest thought-habits, assert their pre-eminence, and stamp themselves as the characteristics which will appear as "innate qualities" in the succeeding incarnation. this balancing-up of the life-issues, this reading of the kârmic records, is too solemn and momentous a thing to be disturbed by the ill-timed wailings of personal relatives and friends. at the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. for one short instant the _personal_ become one with the _individual_ and all-knowing ego. but this instant is enough to show to him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life. he sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. he reads his life, remaining as a spectator, looking down into the arena he is quitting.[ ] this vivid sight is succeeded, in the ordinary person, by the dreamy, peaceful semi-consciousness spoken of above, as the etheric double floats above the body to which it has belonged, now completely separated from it. sometimes this double is seen by persons in the house, or in the neighbourhood, when the thought of the dying has been strongly turned to some one left behind, when some anxiety has been in the mind at the last, something left undone which needed doing, or when some local disturbance has shaken the tranquillity of the passing entity. under these conditions, or others of a similar nature, the double may be seen or heard; when seen, it shows the dreamy, hazy consciousness alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect, unresponsive. as the days go on, the five higher principles gradually disengage themselves from the etheric double, and shake this off as they previously shook off the grosser body. they pass on, as a fivefold entity, into a state to be next studied, leaving the etheric double, with the dense body of which it is the counterpart, thus becoming an ethereal corpse, as much as the body had become a dense corpse. this ethereal corpse remains near the dense one, and they disintegrate together; clairvoyants see these ethereal wraiths in churchyards, sometimes showing likeness to the dead dense body, sometimes as violet mists or lights. such an ethereal corpse has been seen by a friend of my own, passing through the horribly repulsive stages of decomposition, a ghastly vision in face of which clairvoyance was certainly no blessing. the process goes on _pari passu_, until all but the actual bony skeleton of the dense body is completely disintegrated, and the particles have gone to form other combinations. one of the great advantages of cremation--apart from all sanitary conditions--lies in the swift restoration to mother nature of the physical elements composing the dense and ethereal corpses, brought about by the burning. instead of slow and gradual decomposition, swift dissociation takes place, and no physical remnants are left, working possible mischief. the ethereal corpse may to some extent be revivified for a short period after its death. dr. hartmann says: the fresh corpse of a person who has suddenly been killed may be galvanised into a semblance of life by the application of a galvanic battery. likewise the astral corpse of a person may be brought back into an artificial life by being infused with a part of the life principle of the medium. if that corpse is one of a very intellectual person, it may talk very intellectually; and if it was that of a fool it will talk like a fool.[ ] this mischievous procedure can only be carried out in the neighbourhood of the corpse, and for a very limited time after death, but there are cases on record of such galvanising of the ethereal corpse, performed at the grave of the departed person. needless to say that such a process belongs distinctly to "black" magic, and is wholly evil. ethereal corpses, like dense ones, if not swiftly destroyed by burning, should be left in the silence and the darkness, a silence and a darkness that it is the worst profanity to break. kÂmaloka, and the fate of prÂna and kÂma. loka is a sanskrit word that may be translated as place, world, land, so that kâmaloka is literally the place or the world of kâma, kâma being the name of that part of the human organism that includes all the passions, desires, and emotions which man has in common with the lower animals.[ ] in this division of the universe, the kâmaloka, dwell all the human entities that have shaken off the dense body and its ethereal double, but have not yet disentangled themselves from the passional and emotional nature. kâmaloka has many other tenants, but we are concerned only with the human beings who have lately passed through the gateway of death, and it is on these that we must concentrate our study. a momentary digression may be pardoned on the question of the existence of regions in the universe, other than the physical, peopled with intelligent beings. the existence of such regions is postulated by the esoteric philosophy, and is known to the adepts and to very many less highly evolved men and women by personal experience; all that is needed for the study of these regions is the evolution of the faculties latent in every man; a "living" man, in ordinary parlance, can leave his dense and ethereal bodies behind him, and explore these regions without going through death's gateway. thus we read in the _theosophist_ that real knowledge may be acquired by the spirit in the living man coming into conscious relations with the world of spirit. as in the case, say, of an initiated adept, who brings back upon earth with him the clear and distinct recollection--correct to a detail--of facts gathered, and the information obtained, in the invisible sphere of _realities_.[ ] in this way those regions become to him matters of knowledge as definite, as certain, as familiar, as if he should travel to africa in ordinary fashion, explore its deserts, and return to his own land the richer for the knowledge and experience gained. a seasoned african explorer would care but little for the criticisms passed on his report by persons who had never been thither; he might tell what he saw, describe the animals whose habits he had studied, sketch the country he had traversed, sum up its products and its characteristics. if he was contradicted, laughed at, set right, by untravelled critics, he would be neither ruffled nor distressed, but would merely leave them alone. ignorance cannot convince knowledge by repeated asseveration of its nescience. the opinion of a hundred persons on a subject on which they are wholly ignorant is of no more weight than the opinion of one such person. evidence is strengthened by many consenting witnesses, testifying each to his knowledge of a fact, but nothing multiplied a thousand times remains nothing. strange, indeed, would it be if all the space around us be empty, mere waste void, and the inhabitants of earth the only forms in which intelligence could clothe itself. as dr. huxley said: without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience.[ ] if these entities did not have organs of sense like our own, if their senses responded to vibrations different from those which affect ours, they and we might walk side by side, pass each other, meet each other, pass through each other, and yet be never the wiser as to each other's existence. mr. crookes gives us a glimpse of the possibility of such unconscious co-existence of intelligent beings, and but a very slight effort of imagination is needed to realise the conception. it is not improbable that other sentient beings have organs of sense which do not respond to some or any of the rays to which our eyes are sensitive, but are able to appreciate other vibrations to which we are blind. such beings would practically be living in a different world to our own. imagine, for instance, what idea we should form of surrounding objects were we endowed with eyes not sensitive to the ordinary rays of light, but sensitive to the vibrations concerned in electric and magnetic phenomena. glass and crystal would be among the most opaque of bodies. metals would be more or less transparent, and a telegraph wire through the air would look like a long narrow hole drilled through an impervious solid body. a dynamo in active work would resemble a conflagration, whilst a permanent magnet would realise the dream of mediæval mystics, and become an everlasting lamp with no expenditure of energy or consumption of fuel.[ ] kâmaloka is a region peopled by intelligent and semi-intelligent entities, just as our own is thus peopled; it is crowded, like our world, with many types and forms of living things, as diverse from each other as a blade of grass is different from a tiger, a tiger from a man. it interpenetrates our own world and is interpenetrated by it, but, as the states of matter in the two worlds differ, they co-exist without the knowledge of the intelligent beings in either. only under abnormal circumstances can consciousness of each other's presence arise among the inhabitants of the two worlds; by certain peculiar training a living human being can come into conscious contact with and control many of the sub-human denizens of kâmaloka; human beings, who have quitted earth and in whom the kâmic elements were strong, may very readily be attracted by the kâmic elements in embodied men, and by their help become conscious again of the presence of the scenes they had left; and human beings still embodied may set up methods of communication with the disembodied, and may, as said, leave their own bodies for awhile, and become conscious in kâmaloka by the use of faculties through which they have accustomed their consciousness to act. the point which is here to be clearly grasped is the existence of kâmaloka as a definite region, inhabited by a large diversity of entities, among whom are disembodied human beings. from this necessary digression we return to the particular human being whose fate, as a type, we may be said to be tracing, and of whose dense body and etheric double we have already disposed. let us contemplate him in the state of very brief duration that follows the shaking off of these two casings. says h.p. blavatsky, after quoting from plutarch a description of the man after death: here you have our doctrine, which shows man a _septenary_ during life; a _quintile_ just after death, in kâmaloka.[ ] prâna, the portion of the life-energy appropriated by the man in his embodied state, having lost its vehicle, the ethereal double, which, with the physical body, has slipped away from its controlling energy, must pass back into the great life-reservoir of the universe. as water enclosed in a glass vessel and plunged into a tank mingles with the surrounding water if the vessel be broken, so prâna, as the bodies drop from it, mingles again with the life universal. it is only "just after death" that man is a quintile, or fivefold in his constitution, for prâna, as a distinctively human principle, cannot remain appropriated when its vehicle disintegrates. the man now is clothed, but with the kâma rûpa, or body of kâma, the desire body, a body of astral matter, often termed "fluidic," so easily does it, during earth-life, take any form impressed upon it from without or moulded from within. the living man is there, the immortal triad, still clad in the last of its terrestrial garments, in the subtle, sensitive, responsive form which lent it during embodiment the power to feel, to desire, to enjoy, to suffer, in the physical world. when the man dies, his three lower principles leave him for ever; _i.e._, body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the etheric body, or the double of the living man. and then his four principles--the central or middle principle (the animal soul or kâma rûpa, with what it has assimilated from the lower manas) and the higher triad--find themselves in kâmaloka.[ ] this desire body undergoes a marked change soon after death. the different densities of the astral matter of which it is composed arrange themselves in a series of shells or envelopes, the densest being outside, shutting the consciousness away from all but very limited contact and expression. the consciousness turns in on itself, if left undisturbed, and prepares itself for the next step onwards, while the desire body gradually disintegrates, shell after shell. up to the point of this re-arrangement of the matter of the desire body, the post-mortem experience of all is much the same; it is a "dreamy, peaceful semi-consciousness," as before said, and this, in the happiest cases, passes without vivid awakening into the deeper "pre-devachanic unconsciousness" which ends with the blissful wakening in devachan, for the period of repose that intervenes between two incarnations. but as, at this point, different possibilities arise, let us trace a normal uninterrupted progression in kâmaloka, up to the threshold of devachan, and then we can return to consider other classes of circumstances. if a person has led a pure life, and has steadfastly striven to rise and to identify himself with the higher rather than the lower parts of his nature, after shaking off the dense body and the etheric double, and after prâna has re-mingled with the ocean of life, and he is clothed only with the kâma rûpa, the passional elements in him, being but weak and accustomed to comparatively little activity, will not be able to assert themselves strongly in kâmaloka. now during earth-life kâma and the lower manas are strongly united and interwoven with each other; in the case we are considering kâma is weak, and the lower manas has purified kâma to a great extent. the mind, woven with the passions, emotions, and desires, has purified them, and has assimilated their pure part, absorbed it into itself, so that all that is left of kâma is a mere residue, easily to be gotten rid of, from which the immortal triad can readily free itself. slowly this immortal triad, the true man, draws in all his forces; he draws into himself the memories of the earth-life just ended, its loves, its hopes, its aspirations, and prepares to pass out of kâmaloka into the blissful rest of devachan, the "abode of the gods", or as some say, "the land of bliss". kâmaloka is an astral locality, the limbus of scholastic theology, the hades of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a _locality_ only in a relative sense. it has neither a definite area, nor boundary, but exists _within_ subjective space, _i.e._, is beyond our sensuous perceptions. still it exists, and it is there that the astral _eidolons_ of all the beings that have lived, animals included, await their _second death_. for the animals it comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of their astral particles to the last. for the human _eidolon_ it begins when the atmâ-buddhi-mânasic triad is said to "separate" itself from its lower principles or the reflection of the ex-personality, by falling into the devachanic state.[ ] this second death is the passage, then, of the immortal triad from the kâmalokic sphere, so closely related to the earth sphere, into the higher state of devachan, of which we must speak later. the type of man we are considering passes through this, in the peaceful dreamy state already described, and, if left undisturbed, will not regain full consciousness until these stages are passed through, and peace gives way to bliss. but during the whole period that the four principles--the immortal triad and kâma--remain in kâmaloka, whether the period be long or short, days or centuries, they are within the reach of the earth-influences. in the case of such a person as we have been describing, an awakening may be caused by the passionate sorrow and desires of friends left on earth, and these violently vibrating kâmic elements in the embodied persons may set up vibrations in the desire body of the disembodied, and so reach and rouse the lower manas, not yet withdrawn to and reunited with its parent, the spiritual intelligence. thus it may be roused from its dreamy state to vivid remembrance of the earth-life so lately left, and may--if any sensitive or medium is concerned, either directly, or indirectly through one of these grieving friends in communication with the medium--use the medium's etheric and dense bodies to speak or write to those left behind. this awakening is often accompanied with acute suffering, and even if this be avoided, the natural process of the triad freeing itself is rudely disturbed, and the completion of its freedom is delayed. in speaking of this possibility of communication during the period immediately succeeding death and before the freed man passes on into devachan, h.p. blavatsky says: whether any living mortal, save a few exceptional cases--when the intensity of the desire in the dying person to return for some purpose forced the higher consciousness _to remain awake_, and, therefore, it was really the _individuality_, the "spirit", that communicated--has derived much benefit from the return of the spirit into the _objective_ plane is another question. the spirit is dazed after death, and falls very soon into what we call "pre-devachanic unconsciousness."[ ] intense desire may move the disembodied entity to spontaneously return to the sorrowing ones left behind, but this spontaneous return is rare in the case of persons of the type we are just now considering. if they are left at peace, they will generally sleep themselves quietly into devachan, and so avoid any struggle or suffering in connection with the second death. on the final escape of the immortal triad there is left behind in kâmaloka only the desire body, the "shell" or mere empty phantom, which gradually disintegrates; but it will be better to deal with this in considering the next type, the average man or woman, without marked spirituality of an elevated kind, but also without marked evil tendencies. when an average man or woman reaches kâmaloka, the spiritual intelligence is clothed with a desire body, which possesses considerable vigour and vitality; the lower manas, closely interwoven with kâma during the earth-life just ended, having lived much in the enjoyment of objects of sense and in the pleasures of the emotions, cannot quickly disentangle itself from the web of its own weaving, and return to its parent mind, the source of its own being. hence a considerable delay in the world of transition, in kâmaloka, while the desires wear out and fade away to a point at which they can no longer detain the soul with their clinging arms. as said, during the period that the immortal triad and kâma remain together in kâmaloka, communication between the disembodied entity and the embodied entities on earth is possible. such communication will generally be welcomed by these disembodied ones, because their desires and emotions still cling to the earth they have left, and the mind has not sufficiently lived on its own plane to find therein full satisfaction and contentment. the lower manas still yearns towards kâmic gratifications and the vivid highly coloured sensations of earth-life, and can by these yearnings be drawn back to the scenes it has regretfully quitted. speaking of the possibility of communication between the ego of the deceased person and a medium, h.p. blavatsky says in the _theosophist_,[ ] as from the teachings received by her from the adept brothers, that such communication may occur during two intervals: interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual ego into that state which is known in the arhat esoteric doctrine as bar-do. we have translated this as the "gestation" period [pre-devachanic]. some of the communications made through mediums are from this source, from the disembodied entity, thus drawn back to the earth-sphere--a cruel kindness, delaying its forward evolution and introducing an element of disharmony into what should be an orderly progression. the period in kâmaloka is thus lengthened, the desire body is fed and its hold on the ego is maintained, and thus is the freedom of the soul deferred, the immortal swallow being still held down by the bird-lime of earth. persons who have led an evil life, who have gratified and stimulated their animal passions, and have full fed the desire body while they have starved even the lower mind--these remain for long, denizens of kâmaloka, and are filled with yearnings for the earth-life they have left, and for the animal delights that they can no longer--in the absence of the physical body--directly taste. these gather round the medium and the sensitive, endeavouring to utilise them for their own gratification, and these are among the more dangerous of the forces so rashly confronted in their ignorance by the thoughtless and the curious. another class of disembodied entities includes those whose lives on earth have been prematurely cut short, by their own act, the act of others, or by accident. their fate in kâmaloka depends on the conditions which surrounded their outgoings from earthly life, for not all suicides are guilty of _felo de se_, and the measure of responsibility may vary within very wide limits. the condition of such has been thus described: _suicides, although not wholly dissevered from their sixth and seventh principles, and quite potent in the séance room, nevertheless to the day when they would have died a natural death, are separated from their higher principles by a gulf. the sixth and seventh principles remain passive and negative, whereas in cases of_ accidental death _the higher and the lower groups actually attract each other. in cases of good and innocent egos, moreover, the latter gravitates irresistibly toward the sixth and seventh, and thus either slumbers surrounded by happy dreams, or sleeps a dreamless profound sleep until the hour strikes. with a little reflection and an eye to the eternal justice and fitness of things, you will see why. the victim, whether good or bad, is irresponsible for his death. even if his death were due to some action in a previous life or an antecedent birth, was an act, in short, of the law of retribution, still it was not the_ direct _result of an act deliberately committed by the_ personal _ego of that life during which he happened to be killed. had he been allowed to live longer he might have atoned for his antecedent sins still more effectually, and even now, the ego having been made to pay off the debt of his maker, the personal ego is free from the blows of retributive justice. the dhyân chohans, who have no hand in the guidance of the living human ego, protect the helpless victim when it is violently thrust out of its element into a new one, before it is matured and made fit and ready for it._ these, whether suicides or killed by accident, can communicate with those in earth-life, but much to their own injury. as said above, the good and innocent sleep happily till the life-period is over. but where the victim of an accident is depraved and gross, his fate is a sad one. _unhappy shades, if sinful and sensual, they wander about (not shells, for their connection with their two higher principles is not quite broken) until their_ death-_hour comes. cut off in the full flush of earthly passions which bind them to familiar scenes, they are enticed by the opportunities which mediums afford to gratify them vicariously. they are the pishâchas, the incubi and succubæ of mediæval times; the demons of thirst, gluttony, lust, and avarice--elementaries of intensified craft, wickedness, and cruelty; provoking their victims to horrid crimes, and revelling in their commission! they not only ruin their victims, but these psychic vampires, borne along by the torrent of their hellish impulses, at last--at the fixed close of their natural period of life--they are carried out of the earth's aura into regions where for ages they endure exquisite suffering and end with entire destruction. * * * * * now the causes producing the "new being" and determining the nature of karma are trishnâ (tanhâ)--thirst, desire for sentient existence--and upâdâna, which is the realisation or consummation of trishnâ, or that desire. and both of these the medium helps to develop_ ne plus ultra _in an elementary, be he a suicide or a victim. the rule is that a person who dies a natural death will remain from "a few hours to several short years" within the earth's attraction--_i.e._, the kâmaloka. but exceptions are the cases of suicides and those who die a violent death in general. hence, one of such egos who was destined to live, say, eighty or ninety years--but who either killed himself or was killed by some accident, let us suppose at the age of twenty--would have to pass in the kâmaloka not "a few years," but in his case sixty or seventy years, as an elementary, or rather an "earth-walker," since he is not, unfortunately for him, even a "shell." happy, thrice happy, in comparison, are those disembodied entities who sleep their long slumber and live in dream in the bosom of space! and woe to those whose trishnâ will attract them to mediums, and woe to the latter who tempt them with such an easy upâdâna. for, in grasping them and satisfying their thirst for life, the medium helps to develop in them--is, in fact, the cause of--a new set of skandhas, a new body with far worse tendencies and passions than the one they lost. all the future of this new body will be determined thus, not only by the karma of demerit of the previous set or group, but also by that of the new set of the future being. were the mediums and spiritualists but to know, as i said, that with every new "angel-guide" they welcome with rapture, they entice the latter into a upâdâna, which will be productive of untold evils for the new ego that will be reborn under its nefarious shadow, and that with every séance, especially for materialization, they multiply the causes for misery, causes that will make the unfortunate ego fail in his spiritual birth, or be reborn into a far worse existence than ever--they would, perhaps, be less lavish in their hospitality._ premature death brought on by vicious courses, by over-study, or by voluntary sacrifice for some great cause, will bring about delay in kâmaloka, but the state of the disembodied entity will depend on the motive that cut short the life. _there are very few, if any, of the men who indulge in these vices, who feel perfectly sure that such a course of action will lead them eventually to premature death. such is the penalty of mâyâ. the "vices" will not escape their punishment; but it is the_ cause, _not the effect, that will be punished, especially an unforeseen, though probable effect. as well call a man a "suicide" who meets his death in a storm at sea, as one who kills himself with "over-study". water is liable to drown a man, and too much brain work to produce a softening of the brain matter which may carry him away. in such a case no one ought to cross the_ kâlapâni, _nor even to take a bath for fear of getting faint in it and drowned (for we all know of such cases), nor should a man do his duty, least of all sacrifice himself for even a laudable and highly beneficial cause as many of us do. motive is everything, and man is punished in a case of direct responsibility, never otherwise. in the victim's case the natural hour of death was anticipated_ accidentally, _while in that of the suicide death is brought on voluntarily and with a full and deliberate knowledge of its immediate consequences. thus a man who causes his death in a fit of temporary insanity is_ not _a_ felo de se, _to the great grief and often trouble of the life insurance companies. nor is he left a prey to the temptations of the kâmaloka, but falls_ asleep _like any other victim._ the population of kâmaloka is thus recruited with a peculiarly dangerous element by all the acts of violence, legal and illegal, which wrench the physical body from the soul and send the latter into kâmaloka clad in the desire body, throbbing with pulses of hatred, passion, emotion, palpitating with longings for revenge, with unsatiated lusts. a murderer in the body is not a pleasant member of society, but a murderer suddenly expelled from the body is a far more dangerous entity; society may protect itself against the first, but in its present state of ignorance it is defenceless as against the second. finally, the immortal triad sets itself free from the desire body, and passes out of kâmaloka; the higher manas draws back its ray, coloured with the life-scenes it has passed through, and carrying with it the experiences gained through the personality it has informed. the labourer is called in from the field, and he returns home bearing his sheaves with him, rich or poor, according to the fruitage of the life. when the triad has quitted kâmaloka, it passes wholly out of the sphere of earth attractions: _as soon as it has stepped outside the kâmaloka--crossed the "golden bridge" leading to the "seven golden mountains"--the ego can confabulate no more with easy-going mediums._ there are some exceptional possibilities of reaching such an ego, that will be explained later, but the ego is out of the reach of the ordinary medium and cannot be recalled into the earth-sphere. but ere we follow the further course of the triad, we must consider the fate of the now deserted desire body, left as a mere _reliquum_ in kâmaloka. kÂmaloka. the shells. the shell is the desire body, emptied of the triad, which has now passed onwards; it is the third of the transitory garments of soul, cast aside and left in kâmaloka to disintegrate. when the past earth-life has been noble, or even when it has been of average purity and utility, this shell retains but little vitality after the passing onwards of the triad, and rapidly dissolves. its molecules, however, retain, during this process of disintegration, the impressions made upon them during the earth-life, the tendency to vibrate in response to stimuli constantly experienced during that period. every student of physiology is familiar with what is termed automatic action, with the tendency of cells to repeat vibrations originally set up by purposive action; thus are formed what we term habits, and we unconsciously repeat motions which at first were done with thought. so strong is this automatism of the body, that, as everyone knows by experience, it is difficult to break off the use of a phrase or of a gesture that has become "habitual." now the desire body is during earth-life the recipient of and the respondent to all stimuli from without, and it also continually receives and responds to stimuli from the lower manas. in it are set up habits, tendencies to repeat automatically familiar vibrations, vibrations of love and desire, vibrations imaging past experiences of all kinds. just as the hand may repeat a familiar gesture, so may the desire body repeat a familiar feeling or thought. and when the triad has left it, this automatism remains, and the shell may thus simulate feelings and thoughts which are empty of all true intelligence and will. many of the responses to eager enquiries at _séances_ come from such shells, drawn to the neighbourhood of friends and relatives by the magnetic attractions so long familiar and dear, and automatically responding to the waves of emotion and remembrance, to the impulse of which they had so often answered during the lately closed earth-life. phrases of affection, moral platitudes, memories of past events, will be all the communications such shells can make, but these may be literally poured out under favourable conditions under the magnetic stimuli freely applied by the embodied friends and relatives. in cases where the lower manas during earth-life has been strongly attached to material objects and to intellectual pursuits directed by a self-seeking motive, the desire body may have acquired a very considerable automatism of an intellectual character, and may give forth responses of considerable intellectual merit. but still the mark of non-originality will be present: the apparent intellectuality will only give out reproductions, and there will be no sign of the new and independent thought which would be the inevitable outcome of a strong intelligence working with originality amid new surroundings. intellectual sterility brands the great majority of communications from the "spirit world"; reflections of earthly scenes, earthly conditions, earthly arrangements, are plentiful, but we usually seek in vain for strong, new thought, worthy of intelligences freed from the prison of the flesh. the communications of a loftier kind occasionally granted are, for the most part, from non-human intelligences, attracted by the pure atmosphere of the medium or sitters. and there is an ever-present danger in this commerce with the shells. just because they are shells, and nothing more, they answer to the impulses that strike on them from without, and easily become malicious and mischievous, automatically responding to evil vibrations. thus a medium, or sitters of poor moral character, will impress the shells that flock around them with impulses of a low order, and any animal desires, petty and foolish thoughts, will set up similar vibrations in the blindly responsive shells. again, the shell is very easily taken possession of by elementals, the semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of nature, and may be used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick. the etheric double of the medium, and the desire bodies emptied of their immortal tenants, give the material basis by which elementals can work many a curious and startling result; and frequenters of _séances_ may be confidently appealed to, and asked whether many of the childish freaks with which they are familiar--pullings of hair, pinchings, slaps, throwing about of objects, piling up of furniture, playing on accordions, &c.--are not more rationally accounted for as the tricky vagaries of sub-human forces, than as the actions of "spirits" who, while in the body, were certainly incapable of such vulgarities. let us leave the shells alone to peacefully dissolve into their elements, and mingle once again in the crucible of nature. the authors of the _perfect way_ put very well the real character of the shell. the true "ghost" consists of the exterior and earthly portion of the soul, that portion which, being weighted with cares, attachments, and memories merely mundane, is detached by the soul and remains in the astral sphere, an existence more or less definite and personal, and capable of holding, through a sensitive, converse with the living. it is, however, but as a cast-off vestment of the soul, and is incapable of endurance _as ghost_. the true soul and real person, the _anima divina_, parts at death with all those lower affections which would have retained it near its earthly haunts.[ ] if we would find our beloved, it is not among the decaying remnants in kâmaloka that we should seek them. "why seek ye the living among the dead?" kÂmaloka. the elementaries. the word "elementary" has been so loosely used that it has given rise to a good deal of confusion. it is thus defined by h.p. blavatsky: properly, the disembodied _souls_ of the depraved; these souls having, at some time prior to death, separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality. but at the present stage of learning it has been thought best to apply the term to the spooks or phantoms of disembodied persons, in general to those whose temporary habitation is the kâmaloka.... once divorced from their higher triads and their bodies, these souls remain in their kâma rûpic envelopes, and are irresistibly drawn to the earth amid elements congenial to their gross natures. their stay in the kâmaloka varies as to its duration; but ends invariably in disintegration, dissolving like a column of mist, atom by atom, in the surrounding elements.[ ] students of this series of manuals know that it is possible for the lower manas to so entangle itself with kâma as to wrench itself away from its source, and this is spoken of in occultism as "the loss of the soul."[ ] it is, in other words, the loss of the personal self, which has separated itself from its parent, the higher ego, and has thus doomed itself to perish. such a soul, having thus separated itself from the immortal triad during its earth-life, becomes a true elementary, after it has quitted the dense and etheric bodies. then, clad in its desire body, it lives for awhile, for a longer or shorter time according to the vigour of its vitality, a wholly evil thing, dangerous and malignant, seeking to renew its fading vitality by any means laid open to it by the folly or ignorance of still embodied souls. its ultimate fate is, indeed, destruction, but it may work much evil on its way to its self-chosen doom. the word elementary is, however, very often used to describe the lower manas in its garment the desire body, not broken away from the higher principles, but not yet absorbed into its parent, the higher manas. such elementaries may be in any stage of progress, harmless or mischievous. some writers, again, use elementary as a synonym for shell, and so cause increased confusion. the word should at least be restricted to the desire body _plus_ lower manas, whether that lower manas be disentangling itself from the kâmic elements, in order that it may be re-absorbed into its source, or separated from the higher ego, and therefore on the road to destruction. devachan. among the various conceptions presented by the esoteric philosophy, there are few, perhaps, which the western mind has found more difficulty in grasping than that of devachan, or devasthân, the devaland, or land of the gods.[ ] and one of the chief difficulties has arisen from the free use of the words illusion, dream-state, and other similar terms, as denoting the devachanic consciousness--a general sense of unreality having thus come to pervade the whole conception of devachan. when the eastern thinker speaks of the present earthly life as mâyâ, illusion, dream, the solid western at once puts down the phrases as allegorical and fanciful, for what can be less illusory, he thinks, than this world of buying and selling, of beefsteaks and bottled stout. but when similar terms are applied to a state beyond death--a state which to him is misty and unreal in his own religion, and which, as he sadly feels, is lacking in all the substantial comforts dear to the family man--then he accepts the words in their most literal and prosaic meaning, and speaks of devachan as a delusion in his own sense of the word. it may be well, therefore, on the threshold of devachan to put this question of "illusion" in its true light. in a deep metaphysical sense all that is conditioned is illusory. all phenomena are literally "appearances", the outer masks in which the one reality shows itself forth in our changing universe. the more "material" and solid the appearance, the further is it from reality, and therefore the more illusory it is. what can be a greater fraud than our body, so apparently solid, stable, visible and tangible? it is a constantly changing congeries of minute living particles, an attractive centre into which stream continually myriads of tiny invisibles, that become visible by their aggregation at this centre, and then stream away again, becoming invisible by reason of their minuteness as they separate off from this aggregation. in comparison with this ever-shifting but apparently stable body how much less illusory is the mind, which is able to expose the pretensions of the body and put it in its true light. the mind is constantly imposed on by the senses, and consciousness, the most real thing in us, is apt to regard itself as the unreal. in truth, it is the thought-world that is the nearest to reality, and things become more and more illusory as they take on more and more of a phenomenal character. again, the mind is permanent as compared with the transitory physical world. for the "mind" is only a clumsy name for the living thinker in us, the true and conscious entity, the inner man, "that was, that is, and will be, for whom the hour shall never strike". the less deeply this inner man is plunged into matter, the less unreal is his life; and when he has shaken off the garments he donned at incarnation, his physical, ethereal, and passional bodies, then he is nearer to the soul of things than he was before, and though veils of illusion still dim his vision they are far thinner than those which clouded it when round him was wrapped the garment of the flesh. his freer and less illusory life is that which is without the body, and the disembodied is, comparatively speaking, his normal state. out of this normal state he plunges into physical life for brief periods in order that he may gain experiences otherwise unattainable, and bring them back to enrich his more abiding condition. as a diver may plunge into the depths of the ocean to seek a pearl, so the thinker plunges into the depths of the ocean of life to seek the pearl of experience; but he does not stay there long; it is not his own element; he rises up again into his own atmosphere and shakes off from him the heavier element he leaves. and therefore it is truly said of the soul that has escaped from earth that it has returned to its own place, for its home is the "land of the gods", and here on earth it is an exile and a prisoner. this view was very clearly put by a master of wisdom in a conversation reported by h.p. blavatsky, and printed under the title "life and death."[ ] the following extracts state the case: _the vedântins, acknowledging two kinds of conscious existence, the terrestrial and the spiritual, point only to the latter as an undoubted actuality. as to the terrestrial life, owing to its changeability and shortness, it is nothing but an illusion of our senses. our life in the spiritual spheres must be thought an actuality because it is there that lives our endless, never-changing immortal i, the sûtrâtmâ. whereas in every new incarnation it clothes itself in a perfectly different personality, a temporary and short-lived one.... the very essence of all this, that is to say, spirit, force, and matter, has neither end nor beginning, but the shape acquired by this triple unity during its incarnations, their exterior, so to speak, is nothing but a mere illusion of personal conceptions. this is why we call the posthumous life the only reality, and the terrestrial one, including the personality itself, only imaginary._ why in this case should we call the reality sleep, and the phantasm waking? _this comparison was made by me to facilitate your comprehension. from the standpoint of your terrestrial notions it is perfectly accurate._ note the words: "from the standpoint of your terrestrial notions," for they are the key to all the phrases used about devachan as an "illusion." our gross physical matter is not there; the limitations imposed by it are not there; the mind is in its own realm, where to will is to create, where to think is to see. and so, when the master was asked: "would it not be better to say that death is nothing but a birth for a new life, or still better, a going back to eternity?" he answered: _this is how it really is, and i have nothing to say against such a way of putting it. only with our accepted views of material life the words "live" and "exist" are not applicable to the purely subjective condition after death; and were they employed in our philosophy without a rigid definition of their meanings, the vedântins would soon arrive at the ideas which are common in our times among the american spiritualists, who preach about spirits marrying among themselves and with mortals. as amongst the true, not nominal, christians so amongst the vedântins--the life on the other side of the grave is the land where there are no_ _tears, no sighs, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and where the just realise their full perfection._ the dread of materialising mental and spiritual conceptions has always been very strong among the philosophers and oral teachers of the far east. their constant effort has been to free the thinker as far as possible from the bonds of matter even while he is embodied, to open the cage for the divine swallow, even though he must return to it for awhile. they are ever seeking "to spiritualise the material", while in the west the continual tendency has been "to materialise the spiritual". so the indian describes the life of the freed soul in all the terms that make it least material--illusion, dream, and so on--whereas the hebrew endeavours to delineate it in terms descriptive of the material luxury and splendour of earth--marriage feast, streets of gold, thrones and crowns of solid metal and precious stones; the western has followed the materialising conceptions of the hebrew, and pictures a heaven which is merely a double of earth with earth's sorrows extracted, until we reach the grossest of all, the modern summerland, with its "spirit-husbands", "spirit-wives", and "spirit-infants" that go to school and college, and grow up into spirit-adults. in "notes on devachan",[ ] someone who evidently writes with knowledge remarks of the devachanî: _the_ à priori _ideas of space and time do not control his perceptions; for he absolutely creates and annihilates them at the same time. physical existence has its cumulative intensity from infancy to prime, and its diminishing energy from dotage to death; so the dream-life of devachan is lived correspondentially. nature cheats no more the devachanî than she does the living physical man. nature provides for him far more_ real _bliss and happiness_ there _than she does_ here, _where all the conditions of evil and chance are against him. to call the devachan existence a "dream" in any other sense than that of a conventional term, is to renounce for ever the knowledge of the esoteric doctrine, the sole custodian of truth._ "dream" only in the sense that it is not of this plane of gross matter, that it belongs not to the physical world. let us try and take a general view of the life of the eternal pilgrim, the inner man, the human soul, during a cycle of incarnation. before he commences his new pilgrimage--for many pilgrimages lie behind him in the past, during which he gained the powers which enable him to tread the present one--he is a spiritual being, but one who has already passed out of the passive condition of pure spirit, and who by previous experience of matter in past ages has evolved intellect, the self-conscious mind. but this evolution by experience is far from being complete, even so far as to make him master of matter; his ignorance leaves him a prey to all the illusions of gross matter, so soon as he comes into contact with it, and he is not fit to be a builder of a universe, being subject to the deceptive visions caused by gross matter--as a child, looking through a piece of blue glass, imagines all the outside world to be blue. the object of a cycle of incarnation is to free him from these illusions, so that when he is surrounded by and working in gross matter he may retain clear vision and not be blinded by illusion. now the cycle of incarnation is made up of two alternating states: a short one called life on earth, during which the pilgrim-god is plunged into gross matter, and a comparatively long one, called life in devachan, during which he is encircled by subtle matter, illusive still, but far less illusive than that of earth. the second state may fairly be called his normal one, as it is of enormous extent as compared with the breaks in it that he spends upon earth; it is comparatively normal also, as being less removed from his essential divine life; he is less encased in matter, less deluded by its swiftly-changing appearances. slowly and gradually, by reiterated experiences, gross matter loses its power over him and becomes his servant instead of his tyrant. in the partial freedom of devachan he assimilates his experiences on earth, still partly dominated by them--at first, indeed, almost completely dominated by them so that the devachanic life is merely a sublimated continuation of the earth-life--but gradually freeing himself more and more as he recognises them as transitory and external, until he can move through any region of our universe with unbroken self-consciousness, a true lord of mind, the free and triumphant god. such is the triumph of the divine nature manifested in the flesh, the subduing of every form of matter to be the obedient instrument of spirit. thus the master said: _the spiritual ego of the man moves in eternity like a pendulum between the hours of life and death, but if these_ _hours, the periods of life terrestrial and life posthumous, are limited in their continuation, and even the very number of such breaks in eternity between sleep and waking, between illusion and reality, have their beginning as well as their end, the spiritual pilgrim himself is eternal. therefore the_ hours of his posthumous life, _when unveiled he stands face to face with truth, and the short-lived mirages of his terrestrial existence are far from him,_ compose _or make up, in our ideas,_ the only reality. _such breaks, in spite of the fact that they are finite, do double service to the sûtrâtmâ, which, perfecting itself constantly, follows without vacillation, though very slowly, the road leading to its last transformation, when, reaching its aim at last, it becomes a divine being. they not only contribute to the reaching of this goal, but without these finite breaks sûtrâtmâ-buddhi could never reach it. sûtrâtmâ is the actor, and its numerous and different incarnations are the actor's parts. i suppose you would not apply to these parts, and so much the less to their costumes, the term of personality. like an actor the soul is bound to play, during the cycle of births up to the very threshold of parinirvâna, many such parts, which often are disagreeable to it, but like a bee, collecting its honey from every flower, and leaving the rest to feed the worms of the earth, our spiritual individuality, the sûtrâtmâ, collecting only the nectar of moral qualities and consciousness from every terrestrial personality in which it has to clothe itself, forced by karma, unites at last all these qualities in one, having then become a perfect being, a dhyân chohan._[ ] it is very significant, in this connection, that every devachanic stage is conditioned by the earth-stage that precedes it, and the man can only assimilate in devachan the kinds of experience he has been gathering on earth. _a colourless, flavourless personality has a colourless, feeble devachanic state._[ ] husband, father, student, patriot, artist, christian, buddhist--he must work out the effects of his earth-life in his devachanic life; he cannot eat and assimilate more food than he has gathered; he cannot reap more harvest than he has sown seed. it takes but a moment to cast a seed into a furrow; it takes many a month for that seed to grow into the ripened ear; but according to the kind of the seed is the ear that grows from it, and according to the nature of the brief earth-life is the grain reaped in the field of aanroo. _there is a change of occupation, a continual change in devachan, just as much and far more than there is in the life of any man or woman who happens to follow in his or her whole life one sole occupation, whatever it may be, with this difference, that to the devachanî this spiritual occupation is always pleasant and fills his life with rapture. life in devachan is the function of the aspirations of earth-life; not the indefinite prolongation of that "single instant," but its infinite developments, the various incidents and events based upon and outflowing from that one "single moment" or moments. the dreams of the objective become the realities of the subjective existence.... the reward provided by nature for men who are benevolent in a large systematic way, and who have not focussed their affections on an individual or speciality, is that, if pure, they pass the quicker for that through the kâma and rûpa lokas into the higher sphere of tribhuvana, since it is one where the formulation of abstract ideas and the consideration of general principles fill the thought of its occupant._[ ] into devachan enters nothing that defileth, for gross matter has been left behind with all its attributes on earth and in kâmaloka. but if the sower has sowed but little seed, the devachanic harvest will be meagre, and the growth of the soul will be delayed by the paucity of the nutriment on which it has to feed. hence the enormous importance of the earth-life, _the field of sowing, the place where experience is to be gathered_. it conditions, regulates, limits, the growth of the soul; it yields the rough ore which the soul then takes in hand, and works upon during the devachanic stage, smelting it, forging it, tempering it, into the weapons it will take back with it for its next earth-life. the experienced soul in devachan will make for itself a splendid instrument for its next earth-life; the inexperienced one will forge a poor blade enough; but in each case the only material available is that brought from earth. in devachan the soul, as it were, sifts and sorts out its experiences; it lives a comparatively free life, and gradually gains the power to estimate the earthly experiences at their real value; it works out thoroughly and completely as objective realities all the ideas of which it only conceived the germ on earth. thus, noble aspiration is a germ which the soul would work out into a splendid realisation in devachan, and it would bring back with it to earth for its next incarnation that mental image, to be materialised on earth when opportunity offers and suitable environment presents itself. for the mind sphere is the sphere of creation, and earth only the place for materialising the pre-existent thought. and the soul is as an architect that works out his plans in silence and deep meditation, and then brings them forth into the outer world where his edifice is to be builded; out of the knowledge gained in his past life, the soul draws his plans for the next, and he returns to earth to put into objective material form the edifices he has planned. this is the description of a logos in creative activity: whilst brahmâ formerly, in the beginning of the kalpas, was meditating on creation, there appeared a creation beginning with ignorance and consisting of darkness.... brahmâ, beholding that it was defective, designed another; and whilst he thus meditated, the animal creation was manifested.... beholding this creation also imperfect, brahmâ again meditated, and a third creation appeared, abounding with the quality of goodness.[ ] the objective manifestation follows the mental meditation; first idea, then form. hence it will be seen that the notion current among many theosophists that devachan is waste time, is but one of the illusions due to the gross matter that blinds them, and that their impatience of the idea of devachan arises from the delusion that fussing about in gross matter is the only real activity. whereas, in truth, all effective action has its source in deep meditation, and out of the silence comes ever the creative word. action on this plane would be less feeble and inefficient if it were the mere blossom of the profound root of meditation, and if the soul embodied passed oftener out of the body into devachan during earth-life, there would be less foolish action and consequent waste of time. for devachan is a state of consciousness, the consciousness of the soul escaped for awhile from the net of gross matter, and may be entered at any time by one who has learned to withdraw his soul from the senses as the tortoise withdraws itself within its shell. and then, coming forth once more, action is prompt, direct, purposeful, and the time "wasted" in meditation is more than saved by the directness and strength of the mind-engendered act. devachan is the sphere of the mind, as said, it is the land of the gods, or the souls. in the before quoted "notes on devachan" we read: _there are two fields of causal manifestations: the objective and the subjective. the grosser energies find their outcome in the new personality of each birth in the cycle of evoluting individuality. the moral and spiritual activities find their sphere of effects in devachan._ as the moral and spiritual activities are the most important, and as on the development of these depends the growth of the true man, and therefore the accomplishing of "the object of creation, the liberation of soul", we may begin to understand something of the vast importance of the devachanic state. the devachanÎ. when the triad has shaken off its last garment, it crosses the threshold of devachan, and becomes "a devachanî". we have seen that it is in a peaceful dreamy state before this passage out of the earth sphere, the "second death", or "pre-devachanic unconsciousness". this condition is otherwise spoken of as the "gestation" period, because it precedes the birth of the ego into the devachanic life. regarded from the earth-sphere the passage is death, while regarded from that of devachan it is birth. thus we find in "notes on devachan": _as in actual earth-life, so there is for the ego in devachan the first flutter of psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual exhaustion of force passing into semi-consciousness and lethargy, total oblivion, and--not death but birth, birth into another personality, and the resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes that must be worked out in another term of devachan, and still another physical birth as a new personality. what the lives in devachan and upon earth shall be respectively in each instance is determined by karma, and this weary round of birth must be ever and ever run through until the being reaches the end of the seventh round, or attains in the interim the wisdom of an arhat, then that of a buddha, and thus gets relieved for a round or two._ when the devachanic entity is born into this new sphere it has passed beyond recall to earth. the embodied soul may rise to it, but it cannot be drawn back to our world. on this a master has spoken decisively: _from sukhâvatî down to the "territory of doubt," there is a variety of spiritual states, but ... as soon as it has stepped outside the kâmaloka, crossed the "golden bridge" leading to the "seven golden mountains," the ego can confabulate no more with easy-going mediums. no ernest or joey has ever returned from the rûpa loka, let alone the arupa loka, to hold sweet intercourse with men._ in the "notes on devachan," again, we read: _certainly the new ego, once that it is reborn (in devachan), retains for a certain time--proportionate to its earth-life--a complete recollection "of his life on earth"; but it can never revisit the earth from devachan except in re-incarnation._ the devachanî is generally spoken of as the immortal triad, atmâ-buddhi-manas, but it is well always to bear in mind that atman is no individual property of any man, but is the divine essence which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible, and indivisible, that which does not _exist_ and yet _is_, as the buddhists say of nirvâna. it only overshadows the mortal; that which enters into him and pervades the whole body being only it's omni-present rays or light, radiated through buddhi, its vehicle and direct emanation.[ ] buddhi and manas united, with this overshadowing of atmâ, form the devachanî; now, as we have seen in studying the seven principles, manas is dual during earth-life, and the lower manas is redrawn into the higher during the kâmalokic interlude. by this reuniting of the ray and its source, manas re-becomes one, and carries the pure and noble experiences of the earth-life into devachan with it, thus maintaining the past personality as the marked characteristic of the devachanî, and it is in this prolongation of the "personal ego", so to speak, that the "illusion" of the devachanî consists. were the mânasic entity free from all illusion, it would see all egos as its brother-souls, and looking back over its past would recognise all the varied relationships it had borne to others in many lives, as the actor would remember the many parts he had played with other actors, and would think of each brother actor as a man, and not in the parts he had played as his father, his son, his judge, his murderer, his master, his friend. the deeper human relationship would prevent the brother actors from identifying each other with their parts, and so the perfected spiritual egos, recognising their deep unity and full brotherhood, would no longer be deluded by the trappings of earthly relationships. but the devachanî, at least in the lower stages, is still within the personal boundaries of his past earth-life; he is shut into the relationships of the one incarnation; his paradise is peopled with those he "_loved best with an undying love, that holy feeling that alone survives_," and thus the purified personal ego is the salient feature, as above said, in the devachanî. again quoting from the "notes on devachan": "_who goes to devachan?" the personal ego, of course; but beatified, purified, holy. every ego--the combination of the sixth and seventh principles[ ]--which after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the devachan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. the fact of his being reborn at all shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. and while the karma [of evil] steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth re-incarnation, he brings along with him but the karma of his good deeds, words and thoughts into this devachan. "bad" is a relative term for us--as you were told more than once before--and the law of retribution is the only law that never errs. hence all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality go to the devachan. they will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. meanwhile they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by them._ now in some people a sense of repulsion arises at the idea that the ties they form on earth in one life are not to be permanent in eternity. but let us look at the question calmly for a moment. when a mother first clasps her baby-son in her arms, that one relationship seems perfect, and if the child should die, her longing would be to re-possess him as her babe; but as he lives on through youth to manhood the tie changes, and the protective love of the mother and the clinging obedience of the child merge into a different love of friends and comrades, richer than ordinary friendship from the old recollections; yet later, when the mother is aged and the son in the prime of middle life, their positions are reversed and the son protects while the mother depends on him for guidance. would the relation have been more perfect had it ceased in infancy with only the one tie, or is it not the richer and the sweeter from the different strands of which the tie is woven? and so with egos; in many lives they may hold to each other many relationships, and finally, standing as brothers of the lodge closely knit together, may look back over past lives and see themselves in earth-life related in the many ways possible to human beings, till the cord is woven of every strand of love and duty; would not the final unity be the richer not the poorer for the many-stranded tie? "finally", i say; but the word is only of this cycle, for what lies beyond, of wider life and less separateness, no mind of man may know. to me it seems that this very variety of experiences makes the tie stronger, not weaker, and that it is a rather thin and poor thing to know oneself and another in only one little aspect of many-sided humanity for endless ages of years; a thousand or so years of one person in one character would, to me, be ample, and i should prefer to know him or her in some new aspect of his nature. but those who object to this view need not feel distressed, for they will enjoy the presence of their beloved in the one personal aspect held by him or her in the one incarnation they are conscious of _for as long as the desire for that presence remains_. only let them not desire to impose their own form of bliss on everybody else, nor insist that the kind of happiness which seems to them at this stage the only one desirable and satisfying, must be stereotyped to all eternity, through all the millions of years that lie before us. nature gives to each in devachan the satisfaction of all pure desires, and manas there exercises that faculty of his innate divinity, that he "never wills in vain". will not this suffice? but leaving aside disputes as to what may be to us "happiness" in a future separated from our present by millions of years, so that we are no more fitted now to formulate its conditions than is a child, playing with its dolls, to formulate the deeper joys and interests of its maturity, let us understand that, according to the teachings of the esoteric philosophy, the devachanî is surrounded by all he loved on earth, with pure affection, and the union being on the plane of the ego, not on the physical plane, it is free from all the sufferings which would be inevitable were the devachanî present in consciousness on the physical plane with all its illusory and transitory joys and sorrows. it is surrounded by its beloved in the higher consciousness, but is not agonised by the knowledge of what they are suffering in the lower consciousness, held in the bonds of the flesh. according to the orthodox christian view, death is a separation, and the "spirits of the dead" wait for reunion until those they love also pass through death's gateway, or--according to some--until after the judgment-day is over. as against this the esoteric philosophy teaches that death cannot touch the higher consciousness of man, and that it can only separate those who love each other so far as their lower vehicles are concerned; the man living on earth, blinded by matter, feels separated from those who have passed onwards, but the devachanî, says h.p. blavatsky, has a complete conviction "that there is no such thing as death at all", having left behind it all those vehicles over which death has power. therefore, to its less blinded eyes, its beloved are still with it; for it, the veil of matter that separates has been torn away. a mother dies, leaving behind her little helpless children, whom she adores, perhaps a beloved husband also. we say that her "spirit" or ego--that individuality which is now wholly impregnated, for the entire devachanic period, with the noblest feelings held by its late _personality, i.e._, love for her children, pity for those who suffer, and so on--is now entirely separated from the "vale of tears," that its future bliss consists in that blessed ignorance of all the woes it left behind ... that the _post-mortem_ spiritual consciousness of the mother will represent to her that she lives surrounded by her children and all those whom she loved; that no gap, no link will be missing to make her disembodied state the most perfect and absolute happiness.[ ] and so again: as to the ordinary mortal his bliss in devachan is complete. it is an absolute oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow in the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that such things as pain or sorrow exist at all. the devachanî lives its intermediate cycle between two incarnations surrounded by everything it had aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of everything it loved on earth. it has reached the fulfilment of all its soul-yearnings. and thus it lives throughout long centuries an existence of _unalloyed_ happiness, which is the reward for its sufferings in earth-life. in short, it bathes in a sea of uninterrupted felicity spanned only by events of still greater felicity in degree.[ ] when we take the wider sweep in thought demanded by the esoteric philosophy, a far more fascinating prospect of persistent love and union between individual egos rolls itself out before our eyes than was offered to us by the more limited creed of exoteric christendom. "mothers love their children with an immortal love," says h.p. blavatsky, and the reason for this immortality in love is easily grasped when we realise that it is the same egos that play so many parts in the drama of life, that the experience of each part is recorded in the memory of the soul, and that between the souls there is no separation, though during incarnation they may not realise the fact in its fulness and beauty. we are with those whom we have lost in material form, and far, far nearer to them now than when they were alive. and it is not only in the fancy of the devachanî, as some may imagine, but in reality. for pure divine love is not merely the blossom of a human heart, but has its roots in eternity. spiritual holy love is immortal, and karma brings sooner or later all those who loved each other with such a spiritual affection to incarnate once more in the same family group.[ ] love "has its roots in eternity", and those to whom on earth we are strongly drawn are the egos we have loved in past earth-lives and dwelt with in devachan; coming back to earth these enduring bonds of love draw us together yet again, and add to the strength and beauty of the tie, and so on and on till all illusions are lived down, and the strong and perfected egos stand side by side, sharing the experience of their well-nigh illimitable past. the return to earth. at length the causes that carried the ego into devachan are exhausted, the experiences gathered have been wholly assimilated, and the soul begins to feel again the thirst for sentient material life that can be gratified only on the physical plane. the greater the degree of spirituality reached, the purer and loftier the preceding earth-life, the longer the stay in devachan, the world of spiritual, pure, and lofty effects. [i am here ignoring the special conditions surrounding one who is forcing his own evolution, and has entered on the path that leads to adeptship within a very limited number of lives.] the "average time [in devachan] is from ten to fifteen centuries", h.p. blavatsky tells us, and the fifteen centuries cycle is the one most plainly marked in history.[ ] but in modern life this period has much shortened, in consequence of the greater attraction exercised by physical objects over the heart of man. further, it must be remembered that the "average time" is not the time spent in devachan by any person. if one person spends there years, and another fifty, the "average" is . the devachanic period is longer or shorter according to the type of life which preceded it; the more there was of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional activity of a lofty kind, the longer will be the gathering in of the harvest; the more there was of activity directed to selfish gain on earth, the shorter will be the devachanic period. when the experiences are assimilated, be the time long or short, the ego is ready to return, and he brings back with him his now increased experience, and any further gains he may have made in devachan along the lines of abstract thought; for, while in devachan, in one sense we can acquire more knowledge; that is, we can develop further any faculty which we loved and strove after during life, provided it is concerned with abstract and ideal things, such as music, painting, poetry, &c.[ ] but the ego meets, as he crosses the threshold of devachan on his way outwards--dying out of devachan to be reborn on earth--he meets in the "atmosphere of the terrestrial plane", the seeds of evil sown in his preceding life on earth. during the devachanic rest he has been free from all pain, all sorrow, but the evil he did in his past has been in a state of suspended animation, not of death. as seeds sown in the autumn for the spring-time lie dormant beneath the surface of the soil, but touched by the soft rain and penetrating warmth of sun begin to swell and the embryo expands and grows, so do the seeds of evil we have sown lie dormant while the soul takes its rest in devachan, but shoot out their roots into the new personality which begins to form itself for the incarnation of the returning man. the ego has to take up the burden of his past, and these germs or seeds, coming over as the harvest of the past life, are the skandhas, to borrow a convenient word from our buddhist brethren. they consist of material qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, tendencies of mind, mental powers, and while the pure aroma of these attached itself to the ego and passed with it into devachan, all that was gross, base and evil remained in the state of suspended animation spoken of above. these are taken up by the ego as he passes outwards towards terrestrial life, and are built into the new "man of flesh" which the true man is to inhabit. and so the round of births and deaths goes on, the turning of the wheel of life; the treading of the cycle of necessity, until the work is done and the building of the perfect man is completed. nirvÂna. what devachan is to each earth-life, nirvâna is to the finished cycle of re-incarnation, but any effective discussion of that glorious state would here be out of place. it is mentioned only to round off the "after" of death, for no word of man, strictly limited within the narrow bounds of his lower consciousness, may avail to explain what nirvâna is, can do aught save disfigure it in striving to describe. what it is not may be roughly, baldly stated--it is not "annihilation", it is not destruction of consciousness. mr. a.p. sinnett has put effectively and briefly the absurdity of many of the ideas current in the west about nirvâna. he has been speaking of absolute consciousness, and proceeds: we may use such phrases as intellectual counters, but for no ordinary mind--dominated by its physical brain and brain-born intellect--can they have a living signification. all that words can convey is that nirvâna is a sublime state of conscious rest in omniscience. it would be ludicrous, after all that has gone before, to turn to the various discussions which have been carried on by students of exoteric buddhism as to whether nirvâna does or does not mean annihilation. worldly similes fall short of indicating the feeling with which the graduates of esoteric science regard such a question. does the last penalty of the law mean the highest honour of the peerage? is a wooden spoon the emblem of the most illustrious pre-eminence in learning? such questions as these but faintly symbolise the extravagance of the question whether nirvâna is held by buddhism to be equivalent to annihilation.[ ] so we learn from the _secret doctrine_ that the nirvânî returns to cosmic activity in a new cycle of manifestation, and that _the thread of radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in nirvâna, re-emerges from it in its integrity on the day when the great law calls all things back into action._[ ] communications between the earth and other spheres. we are now in position to discriminate between the various kinds of communication possible between those whom we foolishly divide into "dead" and "living," as though the body were the man, or the man could die. "communications between the embodied and the disembodied" would be a more satisfactory phrase. first, let us put aside as unsuitable the word spirit: spirit does not communicate with spirit in any way conceivable by us. that highest principle is not yet manifest in the flesh; it remains the hidden fount of all, the eternal energy, one of the poles of being in manifestation. the word is loosely used to denote lofty intelligences, who live and move beyond all conditions of matter imaginable by us, but pure spirit is at present as inconceivable by us as pure matter. and as in dealing with possible "communications" we have average human beings as recipients, we may as well exclude the word spirit as much as possible, and so get rid of ambiguity. but in quotations the word often occurs, in deference to the habit of the day, and it then denotes the ego. taking the stages through which the living man passes after "death", or the shaking off of the body, we can readily classify the communications that may be received, or the appearances that may be seen: i. while the soul has shaken off only the dense body, and remains still clothed in the etheric double. this is a brief period only, but during it the disembodied soul may show itself, clad in this ethereal garment. for a very short period after death, while the incorporeal principles remain within the sphere of our earth's attraction, it is _possible_ for spirit, under _peculiar_ and _favourable_ conditions, to appear.[ ] it makes no communications during this brief interval, nor while dwelling in this form. such "ghosts" are silent, dreamy, like sleep-walkers, and indeed they are nothing more than astral sleep-walkers. equally irresponsive, but capable of expressing a single thought, as of sorrow, anxiety, accident, murder, &c., are apparitions which are merely a thought of the dying, taking shape in the astral world, and carried by the dying person's will to some particular person, with whom the dying intensely longs to communicate. such a thought, sometimes called a mayâvi rûpa, or illusory form _may be often thrown into objectivity, as in the case of apparitions after death; but, unless it is projected with the knowledge of (whether latent or potential), or owing to the intensity of the desire to see or appear to some one shooting through, the dying brain, the apparition will be simply automatical; it will not be due to any sympathetic attraction, or to any act of volition, any more than the reflection of a person passing unconsciously near a mirror is due to the desire of the latter._ when the soul has left the etheric double, shaking it off as it shook off the dense body, the double thus left as a mere empty corpse may be galvanised into an "artificial life"; but fortunately the method of such galvanisation is known to few. ii. while the soul is in kâmaloka. this period is of very variable duration. the soul is clad in an astral body, the last but one of its perishable garments, and while thus clad it can utilise the physical bodies of a medium, thus consciously procuring for itself an instrument whereby it can act on the world it has left, and communicate with those living in the body. in this way it may give information as to facts known to itself only, or to itself and another person, in the earth-life just closed; and for as long as it remains within the terrestrial atmosphere such communication is possible. the harm and the peril of such communication has been previously explained, whether the lower manas be united with the divine triad and so on its way to devachan, or wrenched from it and on its way to destruction. iii. while the soul is in devachan, if an embodied soul is capable of rising to its sphere, or of coming into _rapport_ with it. to the devachanî, as we have seen, the beloved are present in consciousness and full communication, the egos being in touch with each other, though one is embodied and one is disembodied, but the higher consciousness of the embodied rarely affects the brain. as a matter of fact, all that we know on the physical plane of our friend, while we both are embodied, is the mental image caused by the impression he makes on us. this is, to our consciousness, our friend, and lacks nothing in objectivity. a similar image is present to the consciousness of the devachanî, and to him lacks nothing in objectivity. as the physical plane friend is visible to an observer on earth, so is the mental plane friend visible to an observer on that plane. the amount of the friend that ensouls the image is dependent on his own evolution, a highly evolved person being capable of far more communication with a devachanî than one who is unevolved. communication when the body is sleeping is easier than when it is awake, and many a vivid "dream" of one on the other side of death is a real interview with him in kâmaloka or in devachan. love beyond the grave, illusion though you may call it,[ ] has a magic and divine potency that re-acts on the living. a mother's ego, filled with love for the imaginary children it sees near itself, living a life of happiness, as real to it as when on earth--that love will always be felt by the children in flesh. it will manifest in their dreams and often in various events--in providential protections and escapes, for love is a strong shield, and is not limited by space or time. as with this devachanic "mother", so with the rest of human relationships and attachments, save the purely selfish or material.[ ] remembering that a thought becomes an active entity, capable of working good or evil, we easily see that as embodied souls can send to those they love helping and protecting forces, so the devachanî, thinking of those dear to him, may send out such helpful and protective thoughts, to act as veritable guardian angels round his beloved on earth. but this is a very different thing from the "spirit" of the mother coming back to earth to be the almost helpless spectator of the child's woes. the soul embodied may sometimes escape from its prison of flesh, and come into relations with the devachanî. h.p. blavatsky writes: whenever years after the death of a person his spirit is claimed to have "wandered back to earth" to give advice to those it loved, it is always in a subjective vision, in dream or in trance, and in that case it is the soul of the living seer that is drawn to the _disembodied_ spirit, and not the latter which wanders back to our spheres.[ ] where the sensitive, or medium, is of a pure and lofty nature, this rising of the freed ego to the devachanî is practicable, and naturally gives the impression to the sensitive that the departed ego has come back to him. the devachanî is wrapped in its happy "illusion", and _the souls, or astral egos, of pure loving sensitives, labouring under the same delusion, think their loved ones come down to them on earth, while it is their own spirits that are raised towards those in the devachan._[ ] this attraction can be exercised by the departed soul from kâmaloka or from devachan: a "spirit" or the spiritual ego, cannot _descend_ to the medium, but it can _attract_ the spirit of the latter to itself, and it can do this only during the two intervals--before and after its "gestation period". interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual ego into that state which is known in the arhat esoteric doctrine as "bar-do". we have translated this as the "gestation period", and it lasts from a few days to several years, according to the evidence of the adepts. interval the second lasts so long as the merits of the old [personal] ego entitle the being to reap the fruit of its reward in its new regenerated egoship. it occurs after the gestation period is over, and the new spiritual ego is reborn--like the fabled phoenix from its ashes--from the old one. the locality which the former inhabits is called by the northern buddhist occultists "devachan."[ ] so also may the incorporeal principles of pure sensitives be placed _en rapport_ with disembodied souls, although information thus obtained is not reliable, partly in consequence of the difficulty of transferring to the physical brain the impressions received, and partly from the difficulty of observing accurately, when the seer is untrained.[ ] a pure medium's ego can be drawn to and made, for an instant, to unite in a magnetic(?) relation with a real disembodied spirit, whereas the soul of an impure medium can only confabulate with the _astral soul_, or shell, of the deceased. the former possibility explains those extremely rare cases of direct writing in recognised autographs, and of messages from the higher class of disembodied intelligences. but the confusion in messages thus obtained is considerable, not only from the causes above-named, but also because even the best and purest sensitive can at most only be placed at any time _en rapport_ with a particular spiritual entity, and can only know, see, and feel what that particular entity knows, sees, and feels. hence much possibility of error if generalisations are indulged in, since each devachanî lives in his own paradise, and there is no "peeping down to earth," nor is there any _conscious_ communication with the flying souls that come as it were to learn where the spirits are, what they are doing, and what they think, feel, and see. what then is being _en rapport_? it is simply an identity of molecular vibration between the astral part of the incarnated sensitive and the astral part of the dis-incarnated personality. the spirit of the sensitive gets "odylised", so to speak, by the aura of the spirit, whether this be hybernating in the earthly region or dreaming in the devachan; identity of molecular vibration is established, and for a brief space the sensitive becomes the departed personality, and writes in its handwriting, uses its language, and thinks its thoughts. at such times sensitives may believe that those with whom they are for the moment _en rapport_ descend to earth and communicate with them, whereas, in reality, it is merely their own spirits which, being correctly attuned to those others, are for the time blended with them.[ ] in a special case under examination, h.p. blavatsky said that the communication might have come from an elementary, but that it was far more likely that the medium's spirit really became _en rapport_ with some spiritual entity in devachan, the thoughts, knowledge, and sentiments of which formed the substance, while the medium's own personality and pre-existing ideas more or less governed the forms of the communication.[ ] while these communications are not reliable in the facts and opinions stated, we would remark that it may _possibly_ be that there really is a distinct spiritual entity impressing our correspondent's mind. in other words, there may, for all we know, be some spirit, with whom his spiritual nature becomes habitually, for the time, thoroughly harmonised, and whose thoughts, language, &c., become his for the time, the result being that this spirit seems to communicate with him.... it is possible (though by no means probable) that he habitually passes into a state of _rapport_ with a genuine spirit, and, for the time, is assimilated therewith, thinking (to a great extent if not entirely) the thoughts that spirit would think, writing in its handwriting, &c. but even so, mr. terry must not fancy that that spirit is consciously communicating with him, or knows in any way anything of him, or any other person or thing on earth. it is simply that, the _rapport_ established, he, mr. terry, becomes for the nonce assimilated with that other personality, and thinks, speaks, and writes as it would have done on earth.... the molecules of his astral nature may from time to time vibrate in perfect unison with those of some spirit of such a person, now in devachan, and the result may be that he appears to be in communication with that spirit, and to be advised, &c., by him, and clairvoyants may see in the astral light a picture of the earth-life form of that spirit. iv. communications other than those from disembodied souls, passing through normal _post mortem_ states. (a) _from shells._ these, while but the cast-off garment of the liberated soul, retain for some time the impress of their late inhabitant, and reproduce automatically his habits of thought and expression, just as a physical body will automatically repeat habitual gestures. reflex action is as possible to the desire body as to the physical, but all reflex action is marked by its character of repetition, and absence of all power to initiate movement. it answers to a stimulus with an appearance of purposive action, but it initiates nothing. when people "sit for development", or when at a _séance_ they anxiously hope and wait for messages from departed friends, they supply just the stimulus needed, and obtain the signs of recognition for which they expectantly watch. (b) _from elementaries._ these, possessing the lower capacities of the mind, _i.e._, all the intellectual faculties that found their expression through the physical brain during life, may produce communications of a highly intellectual character. these, however, are rare, as may be seen from a survey of the messages published as received from "departed spirits". (c) _from elementals._ these semi-conscious centres of force play a great part at _séances_, and are mostly the agents who are active in producing physical phenomena. they throw about or carry objects, make noises, ring bells, etc., etc. sometimes they play pranks with shells, animating them and representing them to be the spirits of great personalities who have lived on earth, but who have sadly degenerated in the "spirit-world", judging by their effusions. sometimes, in materialising _séances_, they busy themselves in throwing pictures from the astral light on the fluidic forms produced, so causing them to assume likenesses of various persons. there are also elementals of a high type who occasionally communicate with very gifted mediums, "shining ones" from other spheres. (d) _from nirmânakâyas._ for these communications, as for the two classes next mentioned, the medium must be of a very pure and lofty nature. the nirmânakâya is a perfected man, who has cast aside his physical body but retains his other lower principles, and remains in the earth-sphere for the sake of helping forward the evolution of mankind. nirmânakâyas have, out of pity for mankind and those they left on earth, renounced the nirvânic state. such an adept, or saint, or whatever you may call him, believing it a selfish act to rest in bliss while mankind groans under the burden of misery produced by ignorance, renounces nirvâna and determines to remain invisible _in spirit_ on this earth. they have no material body, as they have left it behind; but otherwise they remain with all their principles even _in astral life_ in our sphere. and such can and do communicate with a few elect ones, only surely not with _ordinary_ mediums.[ ] (e) _from adepts now living on earth._ these often communicate with their disciples, without using the ordinary methods of communication, and when any tie exists, perchance from some past incarnation, between an adept and a medium, constituting that medium a disciple, a message from the adept might readily be mistaken for a message from a "spirit". the receipt of such messages by precipitated writing or spoken words is within the knowledge of some. (f) _from the medium's higher ego._ where a pure and earnest man or woman is striving after the light, this upward striving is met by a downward reaching of the higher nature, and light from the higher streams downward, illuminating the lower consciousness. then the lower mind is, for the time, united with its parent, and transmits as much of its knowledge as it is able to retain. from this brief sketch it will be seen how varied may be the sources from which communications apparently from "the other side of death" may be received. as said by h.p. blavatsky: the variety of the causes of phenomena is great, and one need be an adept, and actually look into and examine what transpires, in order to be able to explain in each case what really underlies it.[ ] to complete the statement it may be added that what the average soul can do when it has passed through the gateway of death, it can do on this side, and communications may be as readily obtained by writing, in trance, and by the other means of receiving messages, from embodied as from disembodied souls. if each developed within himself the powers of his own soul, instead of drifting about aimlessly, or ignorantly plunging into dangerous experiments, knowledge might be safely accumulated and the evolution of the soul might be accelerated. this one thing is sure: man is to-day a living soul, over whom death has no power, and the key of the prison-house of the body is in his own hands, so that he may learn its use if he will. it is because his true self, while blinded by the body, has lost touch with other selves, that death has been a gulf instead of a gateway between embodied and disembodied souls. * * * * * appendix. the following passage on the fate of suicides is taken from the _theosophist_, september, . we do not pretend--we are not permitted--to deal exhaustively with the question at present, but we may refer to one of the most important classes of entities, who can participate in objective phenomena, other than elementaries and elementals. this class comprises the spirits of conscious sane suicides. they are _spirits_, and not _shells_, because there is not in their cases, at any rate until later, a total and permanent divorce between the fourth and fifth principles on the one hand, and the sixth and seventh on the other. the two duads are divided, they exist apart, but a line of connection still unites them, they may yet reunite, and the sorely threatened personality avert its doom; the fifth principle still holds in its hands the clue by which, traversing the labyrinth of earthly sins and passions, it may regain the sacred penetralia. but for the time, though really a spirit, and therefore so designated, it is practically not far removed from a shell. this class of spirit can undoubtedly communicate with men, but, as a rule, its members have to pay dearly for exercising the privilege, while it is scarcely possible for them to do otherwise than lower and debase the moral nature of those with and through whom they have much communication. it is merely, broadly speaking, a question of degree; of much or little injury resulting from such communication; the cases in which real, permanent good can arise are too absolutely exceptional to require consideration. understand how the case stands. the unhappy being revolting against the trials of life--trials, the results of its own former actions, trials, heaven's merciful medicine for the mentally and spiritually diseased--determines, instead of manfully taking arms against a sea of troubles, to let the curtain drop, and, as it fancies, end them. it destroys the body, but finds itself precisely as much alive mentally as before. it had an appointed life-term determined by an intricate web of prior causes, which its own wilful sudden act cannot shorten. that term must run out its appointed sands. you may smash the lower half of the hand hour-glass, so that the impalpable sand shooting from the upper bell is dissipated by the passing aerial currents as it issues; but that stream will run on, unnoticed though it remain, until the whole store in that upper receptacle is exhausted. so you may destroy the body, but not the appointed period of sentient existence, foredoomed (because simply the effect of a plexus of causes) to intervene before the dissolution of the personality; this must run on for its appointed period. this is so in other cases, _e.g._, those of the victims of accident or violence; they, too, have to complete their life-term, and of these, too, we may speak on another occasion--but here it is sufficient to notice that, whether good or bad, their mental attitude at the time of death alters wholly their subsequent position. they, too, have to wait on within the "region of desires" until their wave of life runs on to and reaches its appointed shore, but they wait on, wrapped in dreams soothing and blissful, or the reverse, according to their mental and moral state at, and prior to the fatal hour, but nearly exempt from further material temptations, and, broadly speaking, incapable (except just at the moment of real death) of communicating _scio motu_ with mankind, though not wholly beyond the possible reach of the higher forms of the "accursed science," necromancy. the question is a profoundly abstruse one; it would be impossible to explain within the brief space still remaining to us, how the conditions immediately after death differ so entirely as they do in the case ( ) of the man who deliberately _lays down_ (not merely _risks_) his life from altruistic motives in the hope of saving those of others; and ( ) of him who deliberately sacrifices his life from selfish motives, in the hope of escaping trials and troubles which loom before him. nature or providence, fate, or god, being merely a self-adjusting machine, it would at first sight seem as if the results must be identical in both cases. but, machine though it be, we must remember that it is a machine _sui generis_-- out of himself he span the eternal web of right and wrong; and ever feels the subtlest thrill, the slenderest thread along. a machine compared with whose perfect sensitiveness and adjustment the highest human intellect is but a coarse clumsy replica, _in petto_. and we must remember that thoughts and motives are material, and at times marvellously potent material, forces, and we may then begin to comprehend why the hero, sacrificing his life on pure altruistic grounds, sinks as his life-blood ebbs away into a sweet dream, wherein all that he wishes and all that he loves, come smiling round his sunny way, only to wake into active or objective consciousness when reborn in the region of happiness, while the poor unhappy and misguided mortal who, seeking to elude fate, selfishly loosens the silver string and breaks the golden bowl, finds himself terribly alive and awake, instinct with all the evil cravings and desires that embittered his world-life, without a body in which to gratify these, and capable of only such partial alleviation as is possible by more or less vicarious gratification, and this only at the cost of the ultimate complete rupture with his sixth and seventh principles, and consequent ultimate annihilation after, alas! prolonged periods of suffering. let it not be supposed that there is no hope for this class--the sane deliberate suicide. if, bearing steadfastly his cross, he suffers patiently his punishment, striving against carnal appetites still alive in him, in all their intensity, though, of course, each in proportion to the degree to which it had been indulged in earth-life. if, we say, he bears this humbly, never allowing himself to be tempted here or there into unlawful gratifications of unholy desires, then when his fated death-hour strikes, his four higher principles reunite, and, in the final separation that then ensues, it may well be that all may be well with him, and that he passes on to the gestation period and its subsequent developments. * * * * * footnotes: [footnote : book ii., from lines - . the whole passage bristles with horrors.] [footnote : xii. . trans., of burnell and hopkins.] [footnote : from the translation of dhunjeebhoy jamsetjee medhora, _zoroastrian and some other ancient systems_, xxvii.] [footnote : trans., by mirza mohamed hadi. _the platonist_, .] [footnote : _the sacred books of the east_, iii, , .] [footnote : _secret doctrine_, vol. i. p. .] [footnote : see _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : _isis unveiled_, vol. i. p. .] [footnote : theosophical manuals, no. .] [footnote : _the heroic enthusiasts_, trans., by l. williams. part ii. pp. , .] [footnote : _cremation_, theosophical siftings, vol. iii.] [footnote : _man: fragments of forgotten history_, pp. , .] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, h.p. blavatsky, p. . third edition.] [footnote : _magic, white and black_, dr. franz hartmann, pp. , . third edition.] [footnote : see _the seven principles of man_, pp. - .] [footnote : _theosophist_, march, , p. , note.] [footnote : _essays upon some controverted questions_, p. .] [footnote : _fortnightly review_, , p. .] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, p. .] [footnote : _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, p. ] [footnote : _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : june, , art. "seeming discrepancies."] [footnote : pp. , . ed. .] [footnote : _theosophical glossary_, elementaries.] [footnote : see _the seven principles of man_, p.p. - .] [footnote : the name sukhâvatî, borrowed from tibetan buddhism, is sometimes used instead of that of devachan. sukhâvatî, according to schlagintweit, is "the abode of the blessed, into which ascend those who have accumulated much merit by the practice of virtues", and "involves the deliverance from metempsychosis" (_buddhism in tibet_, p. ). according to the prasanga school, the higher path leads to nirvâna, the lower to sukhâvatî. but eitel calls sukhâvatî "the nirvâna of the common people, where the saints revel in physical bliss for æons, until they reënter the circle of transmigration" (_sanskrit-chinese dictionary_). eitel, however, under "amitâbha" states that the "popular mind" regards the "paradise of the west" as "the haven of final redemption from the eddies of transmigration". when used by one of the teachers of the esoteric philosophy it covers the higher devachanic states, but from all of these the soul comes back to earth.] [footnote : see _lucifer_, oct, , vol. xi. no. .] [footnote : _the path_, may, .] [footnote : _ibid._] [footnote : "notes on devachan," as cited.] [footnote : "notes on devachan," as before. there are a variety of stages in devachan; the rûpa loka is an inferior stage, where the soul is still surrounded by forms. it has escaped from these personalities in the tribhuvana.] [footnote : _vishnu purâna_, bk. i. ch. v.] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, p. . third edition.] [footnote : sixth and seventh in the older nomenclature, fifth and sixth in the later--_i.e._, manas and buddhi.] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, p. . third edition.] [footnote : _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : see manual no. _re-incarnation_, pp. , . third edition.] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, p. . third edition.] [footnote : _esoteric buddhism_, p. . eighth edition.] [footnote : quoted in the _secret doctrine_, vol. ii. p. . the student will do well to read, for a fair presentation of the subject, g.r.s. mead's "note on nirvâna" in _lucifer_, for march, april, and may, . (re-printed in _theosophical siftings_).] [footnote : _theosophist_, sept., , p. .] [footnote : see on "illusion" what was said under the heading "devachan".] [footnote : _key to theosophy_, p. . third edition.] [footnote : _theosophist_, sept. .] [footnote : "notes on devachan", _path_, june, , p. .] [footnote : _theosophist_, june, , p. .] [footnote : summarised from article in _theosophist_, sept., .] [footnote : _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : _ibid._, p. .] [footnote : _key to theosophy,_ p. .] [footnote : _theosophist_, sept., , p. .] * * * * * index. accident, death by, . appendix, . astral body, , fate of, . astral shell or soul, . _avesta_, quoted, . blavatsky, h.p., quoted, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . _book of the dead_, quoted, . bruno, giordano, quoted, . _buddhism in tibet_, quoted, , (note). communications between earth and other spheres, . " between earth and soul in etheric body, . " between earth, and soul in devachan, , " between earth and soul in kâmaloka, . " from adepts now living, . " from elementals, . " from elementaries, . " from medium's higher ego, . " from nirmânakâyas, . " from shells, , . _controverted questions, essays upon some_, quoted, . _cremation_, quoted, . cycle of incarnation, et seq. death, a gateway, . " chinese ideas of, . " christian ideas of, . " egyptian ideas of, . " theosophic ideas of, . _desatir_, quoted, . devachan, , . et seq. devachan, passing into, of the average-living, . devachan, the soul in, . devachanî, the, et seq. earth, the return to, . egos, many lives of, et seq. elementals, , . elementaries, , . _esoteric buddhism_, quoted, . etheric double, , et seq., , , et seq. fiery lives, . _fortnightly review_, quoted, . _heroic enthusiasts, the_, quoted, . immortal triad, the, , , , , , . _isis unveiled_, quoted, . kâmaloka, , , , , , . kâmaloka, the soul in, . kâma rûpa, . _key to theosophy_, quoted, , , , , , , , , . _lucifer_, quoted, , . _magic, white and black_, quoted, . _man: fragments of forgotten history_, quoted, . man: how made, et seq. mâyâ, . medium, communications from higher egos of, . nirvâna, . _ordinances of manu_, quoted, . _paradise lost_, quoted, . _path_, quoted, , , , , et seq. _perfect way_, quoted, . perishable quaternary, . pishâchas, . prâna, , . premature death, , . re-incarnation, , . _sanskrit-chinese dictionary_, quoted, (footnote: ). _seven principles of man_, quoted, , . shell, astral soul, or, . shells, the, . _shû king_, quoted, . soul, growth of, in devachan, , " powers of the, . " relations of, with devachanî, et seq. " the disembodied, et seq. spiritualism and esoteric philosophy, . suicides, , et seq., . _theosophical glossary_, quoted, . _theosophical siftings_, quoted, . _theosophist, the_, quoted, , , , , et seq. _theosophist. the_, summarised, , , . unconscious co-existence of intelligent beings, et seq. _vishnu purâna_, quoted, . * * * * * there is no death works by florence marryat published in the international series. no. cts. . blindfold, . brave heart and true, . mount eden, . on circumstantial evidence, . risen dead, the, . scarlet sin, a, . there is no death, there is no death by florence marryat author of "love's conflict," "veronique," etc., etc. "there is no death--what seems so is transition. this life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life elysian whose portal we call----death."--longfellow. new york national book company , , and mission place copyright, , by united states book company there is no death. chapter i. family ghosts. it has been strongly impressed upon me for some years past to write an account of the wonderful experiences i have passed through in my investigation of the science of spiritualism. in doing so i intend to confine myself to recording facts. i will describe the scenes i have witnessed with my own eyes, and repeat the words i have heard with my own ears, leaving the deduction to be drawn from them wholly to my readers. i have no ambition to start a theory nor to promulgate a doctrine; above all things i have no desire to provoke an argument. i have had more than enough of arguments, philosophical, scientific, religious, and purely aggressive, to last a lifetime; and were i called upon for my definition of the rest promised to the weary, i should reply--a place where every man may hold his own opinion, and no one is permitted to dispute it. but though i am about to record a great many incidents that are so marvellous as to be almost incredible, i do not expect to be disbelieved, except by such as are capable of deception themselves. they--conscious of their own infirmity--invariably believe that other people must be telling lies. byron wrote, "he is a fool who denies that which he cannot disprove;" and though carlyle gives us the comforting assurance that the population of great britain consists "chiefly of fools," i pin my faith upon receiving credence from the few who are not so. why should i be disbelieved? when the late lady brassey published the "cruise of the _sunbeam_," and sir samuel and lady baker related their experiences in central africa, and livingstone wrote his account of the wonders he met with whilst engaged in the investigation of the source of the nile, and henry stanley followed up the story and added thereto, did they anticipate the public turning up its nose at their narrations, and declaring it did not believe a word they had written? yet their readers had to accept the facts they offered for credence, on their authority alone. very few of them had even _heard_ of the places described before; scarcely one in a thousand could, either from personal experience or acquired knowledge, attest the truth of the description. what was there--for the benefit of the general public--to _prove_ that the _sunbeam_ had sailed round the world, or that sir samuel baker had met with the rare beasts, birds, and flowers he wrote of, or that livingstone and stanley met and spoke with those curious, unknown tribes that never saw white men till they set eyes on them? yet had any one of those writers affirmed that in his wanderings he had encountered a gold field of undoubted excellence, thousands of fortune-seekers would have left their native land on his word alone, and rushed to secure some of the glittering treasure. why? because the authors of those books were persons well known in society, who had a reputation for veracity to maintain, and who would have been quickly found out had they dared to deceive. i claim the same grounds for obtaining belief. i have a well-known name and a public reputation, a tolerable brain, and two sharp eyes. what i have witnessed, others, with equal assiduity and perseverance, may witness for themselves. it would demand a voyage round the world to see all that the owners of the _sunbeam_ saw. it would demand time and trouble and money to see what i have seen, and to some people, perhaps, it would not be worth the outlay. but if i have journeyed into the debateable land (which so few really believe in, and most are terribly afraid of), and come forward now to tell what i have seen there, the world has no more right to disbelieve me than it had to disbelieve lady brassey. because the general public has not penetrated central africa, is no reason that livingstone did not do so; because the general public has not seen (and does not care to see) what i have seen, is no argument against the truth of what i write. to those who _do_ believe in the possibility of communion with disembodied spirits, my story will be interesting perhaps, on account of its dealing throughout in a remarkable degree with the vexed question of identity and recognition. to the materialistic portion of creation who may credit me with not being a bigger fool than the remainder of the thirty-eight millions of great britain, it may prove a new source of speculation and research. and for those of my fellow-creatures who possess no curiosity, nor imagination, nor desire to prove for themselves what they cannot accept on the testimony of others, i never had, and never shall have, anything in common. they are the sort of people who ask you with a pleasing smile if irving wrote "the charge of the light brigade," and say they like byron's "sardanapalus" very well, but it is not so funny as "our boys." now, before going to work in right earnest, i do not think it is generally known that my father, the late captain marryat, was not only a believer in ghosts, but himself a ghost-seer. i am delighted to be able to record this fact as an introduction to my own experiences. perhaps the ease with which such manifestations have come to me is a gift which i inherit from him, anyway i am glad he shared the belief and the power of spiritual sight with me. if there were no other reason to make me bold to repeat what i have witnessed, the circumstance would give me courage. my father was not like his intimate friends, charles dickens, lord lytton, and many other men of genius, highly strung, nervous, and imaginative. i do not believe my father had any "nerves," and i think he had very little imagination. almost all his works are founded on his personal experiences. his _forte_ lay in a humorous description of what he had seen. he possessed a marvellous power of putting his recollections into graphic and forcible language, and the very reason that his books are almost as popular to-day as when they were written, is because they are true histories of their time. there is scarcely a line of fiction in them. his body was as powerful and muscular as his brain. his courage was indomitable--his moral courage as well as his physical (as many people remember to their cost to this day), and his hardness of belief on many subjects is no secret. what i am about to relate therefore did not happen to some excitable, nervous, sickly sentimentalist, and i repeat that i am proud to have inherited his constitutional tendencies, and quite willing to stand judgment after him. i have heard that my father had a number of stories to relate of supernatural (as they are usually termed) incidents that had occurred to him, but i will content myself with relating such as were proved to be (at the least) very remarkable coincidences. in my work, "the life and letters of captain marryat," i relate an anecdote of him that was entered in his private "log," and found amongst his papers. he had a younger brother, samuel, to whom he was very much attached, and who died unexpectedly in england whilst my father, in command of h. m. s. _larne_, was engaged in the first burmese war. his men broke out with scurvy and he was ordered to take his vessel over to pulu pinang for a few weeks in order to get the sailors fresh fruit and vegetables. as my father was lying in his berth one night, anchored off the island, with the brilliant tropical moonlight making everything as bright as day, he saw the door of his cabin open, and his brother samuel entered and walked quietly up to his side. he looked just the same as when they had parted, and uttered in a perfectly distinct voice, "fred! i have come to tell you that i am dead!" when the figure entered the cabin my father jumped up in his berth, thinking it was some one coming to rob him, and when he saw who it was and heard it speak, he leaped out of bed with the intention of detaining it, but it was gone. so vivid was the impression made upon him by the apparition that he drew out his log at once and wrote down all particulars concerning it, with the hour and day of its appearance. on reaching england after the war was over, the first dispatches put into his hand were to announce the death of his brother, who had passed away at the very hour when he had seen him in the cabin. but the story that interests me most is one of an incident which occurred to my father during my lifetime, and which we have always called "the brown lady of rainham." i am aware that this narrative has reached the public through other sources, and i have made it the foundation of a christmas story myself. but it is too well authenticated to be omitted here. the last fifteen years of my father's life were passed on his own estate of langham, in norfolk, and amongst his county friends were sir charles and lady townshend of rainham hall. at the time i speak of, the title and property had lately changed hands, and the new baronet had re-papered, painted, and furnished the hall throughout, and come down with his wife and a large party of friends to take possession. but to their annoyance, soon after their arrival, rumors arose that the house was haunted, and their guests began, one and all (like those in the parable), to make excuses to go home again. sir charles and lady townshend might have sung, "friend after friend departs," with due effect, but it would have had none on the general exodus that took place from rainham. and it was all on account of a brown lady, whose portrait hung in one of the bedrooms, and in which she was represented as wearing a brown satin dress with yellow trimmings, and a ruff around her throat--a very harmless, innocent-looking young woman. but they all declared they had seen her walking about the house--some in the corridor, some in their bedrooms, others in the lower premises, and neither guests nor servants would remain in the hall. the baronet was naturally very much annoyed about it, and confided his trouble to my father, and my father was indignant at the trick he believed had been played upon him. there was a great deal of smuggling and poaching in norfolk at that period, as he knew well, being a magistrate of the county, and he felt sure that some of these depredators were trying to frighten the townshends away from the hall again. the last baronet had been a solitary sort of being, and lead a retired life, and my father imagined some of the tenantry had their own reasons for not liking the introduction of revelries and "high jinks" at rainham. so he asked his friends to let him stay with them and sleep in the haunted chamber, and he felt sure he could rid them of the nuisance. they accepted his offer, and he took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung, and in which she had been often seen, and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. for two days, however, he saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. on the third night, however, two young men (nephews of the baronet) knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room (which was at the other end of the corridor), and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from london. my father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. as they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, "in case we meet the brown lady," he said, laughing. when the inspection of the gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again, "in case you meet the brown lady," they repeated, laughing also. the three gentlemen therefore returned in company. the corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end. "one of the ladies going to visit the nurseries," whispered the young townshends to my father. now the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned country houses. my father (as i have said) was in a shirt and trousers only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the _outer_ doors (his friends following his example), in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. i have heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the figure as the facsimile of the portrait of "the brown lady." he had his finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him. this act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the revolver right in her face. the figure instantly disappeared--the figure at which for the space of several minutes _three_ men had been looking together--and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor, and lodged in the panel of the inner one. my father never attempted again to interfere with "the brown lady of rainham," and i have heard that she haunts the premises to this day. that she did so at that time, however, there is no shadow of doubt. but captain marryat not only held these views and believed in them from personal experience--he promulgated them in his writings. there are many passages in his works which, read by the light of my assertion, prove that he had faith in the possibility of the departed returning to visit this earth, and in the theory of re-incarnation or living more than one life upon it, but nowhere does he speak more plainly than in the following extract from the "phantom ship":-- "think you, philip," (says amine to her husband), "that this world is solely peopled by such dross as we are?--things of clay, perishable and corruptible, lords over beasts and ourselves, but little better? have you not, from your own sacred writings, repeated acknowledgments and proofs of higher intelligences, mixing up with mankind, and acting here below? why should what was _then_ not be _now_, and what more harm is there to apply for their aid now than a few thousand years ago? why should you suppose that they were permitted on the earth then and not permitted now? what has become of them? have they perished? have they been ordered back? to where?--to heaven? if to heaven, the world and mankind have been left to the mercy of the devil and his agents. do you suppose that we poor mortals have been thus abandoned? i tell you plainly, i think not. we no longer have the communication with those intelligences that we once had, because as we become more enlightened we become more proud and seek them not, but that they still exist a host of good against a host of evil, invisibly opposing each other, is my conviction." one testimony to such a belief, from the lips of my father, is sufficient. he would not have written it unless he had been prepared to maintain it. he was not one of those wretched literary cowards who we meet but too often now-a-days, who are too much afraid of the world to confess with their mouths the opinions they hold in their hearts. had he lived to this time i believe he would have been one of the most energetic and outspoken believers in spiritualism that we possess. so much, however, for his testimony to the possibility of spirits, good and evil, revisiting this earth. i think few will be found to gainsay the assertion that where _he_ trod, his daughter need not be ashamed to follow. before the question of spiritualism, however, arose in modern times, i had had my own little private experiences on the subject. from an early age i was accustomed to see, and to be very much alarmed at seeing, certain forms that appeared to me at night. one in particular, i remember, was that of a very short or deformed old woman, who was very constant to me. she used to stand on tiptoe to look at me as i lay in bed, and however dark the room might be, i could always see every article in it, as if illuminated, whilst she remained there. i was in the habit of communicating these visions to my mother and sisters (my father had passed from us by that time), and always got well ridiculed for my pains. "another of flo's optical illusions," they would cry, until i really came to think that the appearances i saw were due to some defect in my eye-sight. i have heard my first husband say, that when he married me he thought he should never rest for an entire night in his bed, so often did i wake him with the description of some man or woman i had seen in the room. i recall these figures distinctly. they were always dressed in white, from which circumstance i imagined that they were natives who had stolen in to rob us, until, from repeated observation, i discovered they only formed part of another and more enlarged series of my "optical illusions." all this time i was very much afraid of seeing what i termed "ghosts." no love of occult science led me to investigate the cause of my alarm. i only wished never to see the "illusions" again, and was too frightened to remain by myself lest they should appear to me. when i had been married for about two years, the head-quarters of my husband's regiment, the th madras native infantry, was ordered to rangoon, whilst the left wing, commanded by a major cooper, was sent to assist in the bombardment of canton. major cooper had only been married a short time, and by rights his wife had no claim to sail with the head-quarters for burmah, but as she had no friends in madras, and was moreover expecting her confinement, our colonel permitted her to do so, and she accompanied us to rangoon, settling herself in a house not far from our own. one morning, early in july, i was startled by receiving a hurried scrawl from her, containing only these words, "come! come! come!" i set off at once, thinking she had been taken ill, but on my arrival i found mrs. cooper sitting up in bed with only her usual servants about her. "what is the matter?" i exclaimed. "mark is dead," she answered me; "he sat in that chair" (pointing to one by the bedside) "all last night. i noticed every detail of his face and figure. he was in undress, and he never raised his eyes, but sat with the peak of his forage cap pulled down over his face. but i could see the back of his head and his hair, and i know it was he. i spoke to him but he did not answer me, and i am _sure_ he is dead." naturally, i imagined this vision to have been dictated solely by fear and the state of her health. i laughed at her for a simpleton, and told her it was nothing but fancy, and reminded her that by the last accounts received from the seat of war, major cooper was perfectly well and anticipating a speedy reunion with her. laugh as i would, however, i could not laugh her out of her belief, and seeing how low-spirited she was, i offered to pass the night with her. it was a very nice night indeed. as soon as ever we had retired to bed, although a lamp burned in the room, mrs. cooper declared that her husband was sitting in the same chair as the night before, and accused me of deception when i declared that i saw nothing at all. i sat up in bed and strained my eyes, but i could discern nothing but an empty arm-chair, and told her so. she persisted that major cooper sat there, and described his personal appearance and actions. i got out of bed and sat in the chair, when she cried out, "don't, don't! _you are sitting right on him!_" it was evident that the apparition was as real to her as if it had been flesh and blood. i jumped up again fast enough, not feeling very comfortable myself, and lay by her side for the remainder of the night, listening to her asseverations that major cooper was either dying or dead. she would not part with me, and on the third night i had to endure the same ordeal as on the second. after the third night the apparition ceased to appear to her, and i was permitted to return home. but before i did so, mrs. cooper showed me her pocket-book, in which she had written down against the th, th, and th of july this sentence: "mark sat by my bedside all night." the time passed on, and no bad news arrived from china, but the mails had been intercepted and postal communication suspended. occasionally, however, we received letters by a sailing vessel. at last came september, and on the third of that month mrs. cooper's baby was born and died. she was naturally in great distress about it, and i was doubly horrified when i was called from her bedside to receive the news of her husband's death, which had taken place from a sudden attack of fever at macao. we did not intend to let mrs. cooper hear of this until she was convalescent, but as soon as i re-entered her room she broached the subject. "are there any letters from china?" she asked. (now this question was remarkable in itself, because the mails having been cut off, there was no particular date when letters might be expected to arrive from the seat of war.) fearing she would insist upon hearing the news, i temporized and answered her, "we have received none." "but there is a letter for me," she continued: "a letter with the intelligence of mark's death. it is useless denying it. i know he is dead. he died on the th of july." and on reference to the official memorandum, this was found to be true. major cooper had been taken ill on the first day he had appeared to his wife, and died on the third. and this incident was the more remarkable, because they were neither of them young nor sentimental people, neither had they lived long enough together to form any very strong sympathy or accord between them. but as i have related it, so it occurred. chapter ii. my first sÃ�ance. i had returned from india and spent several years in england before the subject of modern spiritualism was brought under my immediate notice. cursorily i had heard it mentioned by some people as a dreadfully wicked thing, diabolical to the last degree, by others as a most amusing pastime for evening parties, or when one wanted to get some "fun out of the table." but neither description charmed me, nor tempted me to pursue the occupation. i had already lost too many friends. spiritualism (so it seemed to me) must either be humbug or a very solemn thing, and i neither wished to trifle with it or to be trifled with by it. and after twenty years' continued experience i hold the same opinion. i have proved spiritualism _not_ to be humbug, therefore i regard it in a sacred light. for, _from whatever cause_ it may proceed, it opens a vast area for thought to any speculative mind, and it is a matter of constant surprise to me to see the indifference with which the world regards it. that it _exists_ is an undeniable fact. men of science have acknowledged it, and the churches cannot deny it. the only question appears to be, "_what_ is it, and _whence_ does the power proceed?" if (as many clever people assert) from ourselves, then must these bodies and minds of ours possess faculties hitherto undreamed of, and which we have allowed to lie culpably fallow. if our bodies contain magnetic forces sufficient to raise substantial and apparently living forms from the bare earth, which our eyes are clairvoyant enough to see, and which can articulate words which our ears are clairaudient enough to hear--if, in addition to this, our minds can read each other's inmost thoughts, can see what is passing at a distance, and foretell what will happen in the future, then are our human powers greater than we have ever imagined, and we ought to do a great deal more with them than we do. and even regarding spiritualism from _that_ point of view, i cannot understand the lack of interest displayed in the discovery, to turn these marvellous powers of the human mind to greater account. to discuss it, however, from the usual meaning given to the word, namely, as a means of communication with the departed, leaves me as puzzled as before. all christians acknowledge they have spirits independent of their bodies, and that when their bodies die, their spirits will continue to live on. wherein, then, lies the terror of the idea that these liberated spirits will have the privilege of roaming the universe as they will? and if they argue the _impossibility_ of their return, they deny the records which form the only basis of their religion. no greater proof can be brought forward of the truth of spiritualism than the truth of the bible, which teems and bristles with accounts of it from beginning to end. from the period when the lord god walked with adam and eve in the garden of eden, and the angels came to abram's tent, and pulled lot out of the doomed city; when the witch of endor raised up samuel, and balaam's ass spoke, and ezekiel wrote that the hair of his head stood up because "a spirit" passed before him, to the presence of satan with jesus in the desert, and the reappearance of moses and elias, the resurrection of christ himself, and his talking and eating with his disciples, and the final account of john being caught up to heaven to receive the revelations--_all is spiritualism, and nothing else_. the protestant church that pins its faith upon the bible, and nothing but the bible, cannot deny that the spirits of mortal men have reappeared and been recognized upon this earth, as when the graves opened at the time of the christ's crucifixion, and "many bodies of those that were dead arose and went into the city, and were seen of many." the catholic church does not attempt to deny it. all her legends and miracles (which are disbelieved and ridiculed by the protestants aforesaid) are founded on the same truth--the miraculous or supernatural return (as it is styled) of those who are gone, though i hope to make my readers believe, as i do, that there is nothing miraculous in it, and far from being _super_natural it is only a continuation of nature. putting the churches and the bible, however, on one side, the history of nations proves it to be possible. there is not a people on the face of the globe that has not its (so-called) superstitions, nor a family hardly, which has not experienced some proofs of spiritual communion with earth. where learning and science have thrust all belief out of sight, it is only natural that the man who does not believe in a god nor a hereafter should not credit the existence of spirits, nor the possibility of communicating with them. but the lower we go in the scale of society, the more simple and childlike the mind, the more readily does such a faith gain credence, and the more stories you will hear to justify belief. it is just the same with religion, which is hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes. if i am met here with the objection that the term "spiritualism" has been at times mixed up with so much that is evil as to become an offence, i have no better answer to make than by turning to the irrefragable testimony of the past and present to prove that in all ages, and of all religions, there have been corrupt and demoralized exponents whose vices have threatened to pull down the fabric they lived to raise. christianity itself would have been overthrown before now, had we been unable to separate its doctrine from its practice. i held these views in the month of february, , when i made one of a party of friends assembled at the house of miss elizabeth philip, in gloucester crescent, and was introduced to mr. henry dunphy of the _morning post_, both of them since gone to join the great majority. mr. dunphy soon got astride of his favorite hobby of spiritualism, and gave me an interesting account of some of the _séances_ he had attended. i had heard so many clever men and women discuss the subject before, that i had begun to believe on their authority that there must be "something in it," but i held the opinion that sittings in the dark must afford so much liberty for deception, that i would engage in none where i was not permitted the use of my eyesight. i expressed myself somewhat after this fashion to mr. dunphy. he replied, "then the time has arrived for you to investigate spiritualism, for i can introduce you to a medium who will show you the faces of the dead." this proposal exactly met my wishes, and i gladly accepted it. annie thomas (mrs. pender cudlip,) the novelist, who is an intimate friend of mine, was staying with me at the time and became as eager as i was to investigate the phenomena. we took the address mr. dunphy gave us of mrs. holmes, the american medium, then visiting london, and lodging in old quebec street, portman square, but we refused his introduction, preferring to go _incognito_. accordingly, the next evening, when she held a public _séance_, we presented ourselves at mrs. holmes' door; and having first removed our wedding-rings, and tried to look as virginal as possible, sent up our names as miss taylor and miss turner. i am perfectly aware that this medium was said afterwards to be untrustworthy. so may a servant who was perfectly honest, whilst in my service, leave me for a situation where she is detected in theft. that does not alter the fact that she stole nothing from me. i do not think i know _a single medium_ of whom i have not (at some time or other) heard the same thing, and i do not think i know a single woman whom i have not also, at some time or other, heard scandalized by her own sex, however pure and chaste she may imagine the world holds her. the question affects me in neither case. i value my acquaintances for what they are _to me_, not for what they may be to others; and i have placed trust in my media from what i individually have seen and heard, and proved to be genuine in their presence, and not from what others may imagine they have found out about them. it is no detriment to my witness that the media i sat with cheated somebody else, either before or after. my business was only to take care that _i_ was not cheated, and i have never, in spiritualism, accepted anything at the hands of others that i could not prove for myself. mrs. holmes did not receive us very graciously on the present occasion. we were strangers to her--probably sceptics, and she eyed us rather coldly. it was a bitter night, and the snow lay so thick upon the ground that we had some difficulty in procuring a hansom to take us from bayswater to old quebec street. no other visitors arrived, and after a little while mrs. holmes offered to return our money (ten shillings), as she said if she did sit with us, there would probably be no manifestations on account of the inclemency of the weather. (often since then i have proved her assertion to be true, and found that any extreme of heat or cold is liable to make a _séance_ a dead failure). but annie thomas had to return to her home in torquay on the following day, and so we begged the medium to try at least to show us something, as we were very curious on the subject. i am not quite sure what i expected or hoped for on this occasion. i was full of curiosity and anticipation, but i am sure that i never thought i should see any face which i could recognize as having been on earth. we waited till nine o'clock in hopes that a circle would be formed, but as no one else came, mrs. holmes consented to sit with us alone, warning us, however, several times to prepare for a disappointment. the lights were therefore extinguished, and we sat for the usual preliminary dark _séance_, which was good, perhaps, but has nothing to do with a narrative of facts, proved to be so. when it concluded, the gas was re-lit and we sat for "spirit faces." there were two small rooms connected by folding doors. annie thomas and i, were asked to go into the back room--to lock the door communicating with the landings, and secure it with our own seal, stamped upon a piece of tape stretched across the opening--to examine the window and bar the shutter inside--to search the room thoroughly, in fact, to see that no one was concealed in it--and we did all this as a matter of business. when we had satisfied ourselves that no one could enter from the back, mr. and mrs. holmes, annie thomas, and i were seated on four chairs in the front room, arranged in a row before the folding doors, which were opened, and a square of black calico fastened across the aperture from one wall to the other. in this piece of calico was cut a square hole about the size of an ordinary window, at which we were told the spirit faces (if any) would appear. there was no singing, nor noise of any sort made to drown the sounds of preparation, and we could have heard even a rustle in the next room. mr. and mrs. holmes talked to us of their various experiences, until, we were almost tired of waiting, when something white and indistinct like a cloud of tobacco smoke, or a bundle of gossamer, appeared and disappeared again. "they are coming! i _am_ glad!" said mrs. holmes. "i didn't think we should get anything to-night,"--and my friend and i were immediately on the tiptoe of expectation. the white mass advanced and retreated several times, and finally settled before the aperture and opened in the middle, when a female face was distinctly to be seen above the black calico. what was our amazement to recognize the features of mrs. thomas, annie thomas' mother. here i should tell my readers that annie's father, who was a lieutenant in the royal navy and captain of the coastguard at morston in norfolk, had been a near neighbor and great friend of my father, captain marryat, and their children had associated like brothers and sisters. i had therefore known mrs. thomas well, and recognized her at once, as, of course, did her daughter. the witness of two people is considered sufficient in law. it ought to be accepted by society. poor annie was very much affected, and talked to her mother in the most incoherent manner. the spirit did not appear able to answer in words, but she bowed her head or shook it, according as she wished to say "yes" or "no." i could not help feeling awed at the appearance of the dear old lady, but the only thing that puzzled me was the cap she wore, which was made of white net, quilled closely round her face, and unlike any i had ever seen her wear in life. i whispered this to annie, and she replied at once, "it is the cap she was buried in," which settled the question. mrs. thomas had possessed a very pleasant but very uncommon looking face, with bright black eyes, and a complexion of pink and white like that of a child. it was some time before annie could be persuaded to let her mother go, but the next face that presented itself astonished her quite as much, for she recognized it as that of captain gordon, a gentleman whom she had known intimately and for a length of time. i had never seen captain gordon in the flesh, but i had heard of him, and knew he had died from a sudden accident. all i saw was the head of a good-looking, fair, young man, and not feeling any personal interest in his appearance, i occupied the time during which my friend conversed with him about olden days, by minutely examining the working of the muscles of his throat, which undeniably stretched when his head moved. as i was doing so, he leaned forward, and i saw a dark stain, which looked like a clot of blood, on his fair hair, on the left side of the forehead. "annie! what did captain gordon die of?" i asked. "he fell from a railway carriage," she replied, "and struck his head upon the line." i then pointed out to her the blood upon his hair. several other faces appeared, which we could not recognize. at last came one of a gentleman, apparently moulded like a bust in plaster of paris. he had a kind of smoking cap upon the head, curly hair, and a beard, but from being perfectly colorless, he looked so unlike nature, that i could not trace a resemblance to any friend of mine, though he kept on bowing in my direction, to indicate that i knew, or had known him. i examined this face again and again in vain. nothing in it struck me as familiar, until the mouth broke into a grave, amused smile at my perplexity. in a moment i recognized it as that of my dear old friend, john powles, whose history i shall relate _in extenso_ further on. i exclaimed "powles," and sprang towards it, but with my hasty action the figure disappeared. i was terribly vexed at my imprudence, for this was the friend of all others i desired to see, and sat there, hoping and praying the spirit would return, but it did not. annie thomas' mother and friend both came back several times; indeed, annie recalled captain gordon so often, that on his last appearance the power was so exhausted, his face looked like a faded sketch in water-colors, but "powles" had vanished altogether. the last face we saw that night was that of a little girl, and only her eyes and nose were visible, the rest of her head and face being enveloped in some white flimsy material like muslin. mrs. holmes asked her for whom she came, and she intimated that it was for me. i said she must be mistaken, and that i had known no one in life like her. the medium questioned her very closely, and tried to put her "out of court," as it were. still, the child persisted that she came for me. mrs. holmes said to me, "cannot you remember _anyone_ of that age connected with you in the spirit world? no cousin, nor niece, nor sister, nor the child of a friend?" i tried to remember, but i could not, and answered, "no! no child of that age." she then addressed the little spirit. "you have made a mistake. there is no one here who knows you. you had better move on." so the child did move on, but very slowly and reluctantly. i could read her disappointment in her eyes, and after she had disappeared, she peeped round the corner again and looked at me, longingly. this was "florence," my dear _lost_ child (as i then called her), who had left me as a little infant of ten days old, and whom i could not at first recognize as a young girl of ten years. her identity, however, has been proved to me since, beyond all doubt, as will be seen in the chapter which relates my reunion with her, and is headed "my spirit child." thus ended the first _séance_ at which i ever assisted, and it made a powerful impression upon my mind. mrs. holmes, in bidding us good-night, said, "you two ladies must be very powerful mediums. i never held so successful a _séance_ with strangers in my life before." this news elated us--we were eager to pursue our investigations, and were enchanted to think we could have _séances_ at home, and as soon as annie thomas took up her residence in london, we agreed to hold regular meetings for the purpose. this was the _séance_ that made me a student of the psychological phenomena, which the men of the nineteenth century term spiritualism. had it turned out a failure, i might now have been as most men are. _quien sabe?_ as it was, it incited me to go on and on, until i have seen and heard things which at that moment would have seemed utterly impossible to me. and i would not have missed the experience i have passed through for all the good this world could offer me. chapter iii. curious coincidences. before i proceed to write down the results of my private and premeditated investigations, i am reminded to say a word respecting the permission i received for the pursuit of spiritualism. as soon as i expressed my curiosity on the subject, i was met on all sides with the objection that, as i am a catholic, i could not possibly have anything to do with the matter, and it is a fact that the church strictly forbids all meddling with necromancy, or communion with the departed. necromancy is a terrible word, is it not? especially to such people as do not understand its meaning, and only associate it with the dead of night and charmed circles, and seething caldrons, and the arch fiend, in _propria persona_, with two horns and a tail. yet it seems strange to me that the catholic church, whose very doctrine is overlaid with spiritualism, and who makes it a matter of belief that the saints hear and help us in our prayers and the daily actions of our lives, and recommends our kissing the ground every morning at the feet of our guardian angel, should consider it unlawful for us to communicate with our departed relatives. i cannot see the difference in iniquity between speaking to john powles, who was and is a dear and trusted friend of mine, and saint peter of alcantara, who is an old man whom i never saw in this life. they were both men, both mortal, and are both spirits. again, surely my mother who was a pious woman all her life, and is now in the other world, would be just as likely to take an interest in my welfare, and to try and promote the prospect of our future meeting, as saint veronica guiliani, who is my patron. yet were i to spend half my time in prayer before saint veronica's altar, asking her help and guidance, i should be doing right (according to the church), but if i did the same thing at my mother's grave, or spoke to her at a _séance_, i should be doing wrong. these distinctions without a difference were hard nuts to crack, and i was bound to settle the matter with my conscience before i went on with my investigations. it is a fact that i have met quite as many catholics as protestants (especially of the higher classes) amongst the investigators of spiritualism, and i have not been surprised at it, for who could better understand and appreciate the beauty of communications from the spirit world than members of that church which instructs us to believe in the communion of saints, as an ever-present, though invisible mystery. whether my catholic acquaintances had received permission to attend _séances_ or not, was no concern of mine, but i took good care to procure it for myself, and i record it here, because rumors have constantly reached me of people having said behind my back that i can be "no catholic" because i am a spiritualist. my director at that time was father dalgairn, of the oratory at brompton, and it was to him i took my difficulty. i was a very constant press writer and reviewer, and to be unable to attend and report on spiritualistic meetings would have seriously militated against my professional interests. i represented this to the father, and (although under protest) i received his permission to pursue the research in the cause of science. he did more than ease my conscience. he became interested in what i had to tell him on the subject, and we had many conversations concerning it. he also lent me from his own library the lives of such saints as had heard voices and seen visions, of those in fact who (like myself) had been the victims of "optical illusions." amongst these i found the case of saint anne-catherine of emmerich, so like my own, that i began to think that i too might turn out to be a saint in disguise. it has not come to pass yet, but there is no knowing what may happen. she used to see the spirits floating beside her as she walked to mass, and heard them asking her to pray for them as they pointed to "les taches sur leurs robes." the musical instruments used to play without hands in her presence, and voices from invisible throats sound in her ears, as they have done in mine. i have only inserted this clause, however, for the satisfaction of those catholic acquaintances with whom i have sat at _séances_, and who will probably be the first to exclaim against the publication of _our_ joint experiences. i trust they will acknowledge, after reading it, that i am not worse than themselves, though i may be a little bolder in avowing my opinions. before i began this chapter, i had an argument with that friend of mine called self (who has but too often worsted me in the battle of life), as to whether i should say anything about table-rapping or tilting. the very fact of so common an article of furniture as a table, as an agent of communication with the unseen world, has excited so much ridicule and opens so wide a field for chicanery, that i thought it would be wiser to drop the subject, and confine myself to those phases of the science or art, or religion, or whatever the reader may like to call it, that can be explained or described on paper. the philosophers of the nineteenth century have invented so many names for the cause that makes a table turn round--tilt--or rap--that i feel quite unable (not being a philosopher) to cope with them. it is "magnetic force" or "psychic force,"--it is "unconscious cerebration" or "brain-reading"--and it is exceedingly difficult to tell the outside world of the private reasons that convince individuals that the answers they receive are _not_ emanations from their own brains. i shall not attempt to refute their reasonings from their own standpoint. i see the difficulties in the way, so much so that i have persistently refused for many years past to sit at the table with strangers, for it is only a lengthened study of the matter that can possibly convince a person of its truth. i cannot, however, see the extreme folly myself of holding communication (under the circumstances) through the raps or tilts of a table, or any other object. these tiny indications of an influence ulterior to our own are not necessarily confined to a table. i have received them through a cardboard box, a gentleman's hat, a footstool, the strings of a guitar, and on the back of my chair, even on the pillow of my bed. and which, amongst the philosophers i have alluded to, could suggest a simpler mode of communication? i have put the question to clever men thus: "suppose yourself, after having been able to write and talk to me, suddenly deprived of the powers of speech and touch, and made invisible, so that we could not understand each other by signs, what better means than by taps or tilts on any article, when the right word or letter is named, could you think of by which to communicate with me?" and my clever men have never been able to propose an easier or more sensible plan, and if anybody can suggest one, i should very much like to hear of it. the following incidents all took place through the much-ridiculed tipping of the table, but managed to knock some sense out of it nevertheless. on looking over the note book which i faithfully kept when we first held _séances_ at home, i find many tests of identity which took place through my own mediumship, and which could not possibly have been the effects of thought-reading. i devote this chapter to their relation. i hope it will be observed with what admirable caution i have headed it. i have a few drops of scotch blood in me by the mother's side, and i think they must have aided me here. "curious coincidences." why, not the most captious and unbelieving critic of them all can find fault with so modest and unpretending a title. everyone believes in the occasional possibility of "curious coincidences." it was not until the month of june, , that we formed a home circle, and commenced regularly to sit together. we became so interested in the pursuit, that we used to sit every evening, and sometimes till three and four o'clock in the morning, greatly to our detriment, both mental and physical. we seldom sat alone, being generally joined by two or three friends from outside, and the results were sometimes very startling, as we were a strong circle. the memoranda of these sittings, sometimes with one party and sometimes with another, extend over a period of years, but i shall restrict myself to relating a few incidents that were verified by subsequent events. the means by which we communicated with the influences around us was the usual one. we sat round the table and laid our hands upon it, and i (or anyone who might be selected for the purpose) spelled over the alphabet, and raps or tilts occurred when the desired letter was reached. this in reality is not so tedious a process as it may appear, and once used to it, one may get through a vast amount of conversation in an hour by this means. a medium is soon able to guess the word intended to be spelt, for there are not so many after all in use in general conversation. some one had come to our table on several occasions, giving the name of "valerie," but refusing to say any more, so we thought she was an idle or frivolous spirit, and had been in the habit of driving her away. one evening, on the st of july, however, our circle was augmented by mr. henry stacke, when "valerie" was immediately spelled out, and the following conversation ensued. mr. stacke said to me, "who is this?" and i replied carelessly, "o! she's a little devil! she never has anything to say." the table rocked violently at this, and the taps spelled out. "je ne suis pas diable." "hullo! valerie, so you can talk now! for whom do you come?" "monsieur stacke." "where did you meet him?" "on the continent." "whereabouts?" "between dijon and macon." "how did you meet him?" "in a railway carriage." "what where you doing there?" here she relapsed into french, and said, "ce m'est impossible de dire." at this juncture mr. stacke observed that he had never been in a train between dijon and macon but once in his life, and if the spirit was with him then, she must remember what was the matter with their fellow-passenger. "mais oui, oui--il etait fou," she replied, which proved to be perfectly correct. mr. stacke also remembered that two ladies in the same carriage had been terribly frightened, and he had assisted them to get into another. "valerie" continued, "priez pour moi." "pourquoi, valerie?" "parce que j'ai beaucoup péché." there was an influence who frequented our society at that time and called himself "charlie." he stated that his full name had been "stephen charles bernard abbot,"--that he had been a monk of great literary attainments--that he had embraced the monastic life in the reign of queen mary, and apostatized for political reasons in that of elizabeth, and been "earth bound" in consequence ever since. "charlie" asked us to sing one night, and we struck up the very vulgar refrain of "champagne charlie," to which he greatly objected, asking for something more serious. i began, "ye banks and braes o' bonnie doon." "why, that's as bad as the other," said charlie. "it was a ribald and obscene song in the reign of elizabeth. the drunken roysterers used to sing it in the street as they rolled home at night." "you must be mistaken, charlie! it's a well-known scotch air." "it's no more scotch than i am," he replied. "the scotch say they invented everything. it's a tune of the time of elizabeth. ask brinley richards." having the pleasure of the acquaintance of that gentleman, who was the great authority on the origin of national ballads, i applied to him for the information, and received an answer to say that "charlie" was right, but that mr. richards had not been aware of the fact himself until he had searched some old mss. in the british museum for the purpose of ascertaining the truth. i was giving a sitting once to an officer from aldershot, a cousin of my own, who was quite prepared to ridicule every thing that took place. after having teased me into giving him a _séance_, he began by cheating himself, and then accused me of cheating him, and altogether tired out my patience. at last i proposed a test, though with little hope of success. "let us ask john powles to go down to aldershot," i said, "and bring us word what your brother officers are doing." "o, yes! by jove! capital idea! here! you fellow powles, cut off to the camp, will you, and go to the barracks of the th, and let us know what major r---- is doing." the message came back in about three minutes. "major r---- has just come in from duty," spelt out powles. "he is sitting on the side of his bed, changing his uniform trousers for a pair of grey tweed." "i'm sure that's wrong," said my cousin, "because the men are never called out at this time of the day." it was then four o'clock, as we had been careful to ascertain. my cousin returned to camp the same evening, and the next day i received a note from him to say, "that fellow powles is a brick. it was quite right. r---- was unexpectedly ordered to turn out his company yesterday afternoon, and he returned to barracks and changed his things for the grey tweed suit exactly at four o'clock." but i have always found my friend powles (when he _will_ condescend to do anything for strangers, which is seldom) remarkably correct in detailing the thoughts and actions of absentees, sometimes on the other side of the globe. i went one afternoon to pay an ordinary social call on a lady named mrs. w----, and found her engaged in an earnest conversation on spiritualism with a stout woman and a commonplace man--two as material looking individuals as ever i saw, and who appeared all the more so under a sultry august sun. as soon as mrs. w---- saw me, she exclaimed, "o! here is mrs. ross-church. she will tell you all about the spirits. do, mrs. ross-church, sit down at the table and let us have a _séance_." a _séance_ on a burning, blazing afternoon in august, with two stolid and uninteresting, and worse still, _uninterested_ looking strangers, who appeared to think mrs. w---- had a "bee in her bonnet." i protested--i reasoned--i pleaded--all in vain. my hostess continued to urge, and society places the guest at the mercy of her hostess. so, in an evil temper, i pulled off my gloves, and placed my hands indifferently on the table. the following words were at once rapped out-- "i am edward g----. did you ever pay johnson the seventeen pounds twelve you received for my saddlery?" the gentleman opposite to me turned all sorts of colors, and began to stammer out a reply, whilst his wife looked very confused. i asked the influence, "who are you?" it replied, "_he_ knows! his late colonel! why hasn't johnson received that money?" this is what i call an "awkward" coincidence, and i have had many such occur through me--some that have driven acquaintances away from the table, vowing vengeance against me, and racking their brains to discover _who_ had told me of their secret peccadilloes. the gentleman in question (whose name even i do not remember) confessed that the identity and main points of the message were true, but he did _not_ confide to us whether johnson had ever received that seventeen pounds twelve. i had a beautiful english greyhound, called "clytie," a gift from annie thomas to me, and this dog was given to straying from my house in colville road, bayswater, which runs parallel to portobello road, a rather objectionable quarter, composed of inferior shops, one of which, a fried fish shop, was an intolerable nuisance, and used to fill the air around with its rich perfume. on one occasion "clytie" stayed away from home so much longer than usual, that i was afraid she was lost in good earnest, and posted bills offering a reward for her. "charlie" came to the table that evening and said, "don't offer a reward for the dog. send for her." "where am i to send?" i asked. "she is tied up at the fried fish shop in portobello road. send the cook to see." i told the servant in question that i had heard the greyhound was detained at the fish shop, and sent her to inquire. she returned with "clytie." her account was, that on making inquiries, the man in the shop had been very insolent to her, and she had raised her voice in reply; that she had then heard and recognized the sharp, peculiar bark of the greyhound from an upper storey, and, running up before the man could prevent her, she had found "clytie" tied up to a bedstead with a piece of rope, and had called in a policeman to enable her to take the dog away. i have often heard the assertion that spiritualism is of no practical good, and, doubtless, it was never intended to be so, but this incident was, at least, an exception to the rule. when abroad, on one occasion, i was asked by a catholic abbé to sit with him. he had never seen any manifestations before, and he did not believe in them, but he was curious on the subject. i knew nothing of him further than that he was a priest, and a jesuit, and a great friend of my sister's, at whose house i was staying. he spoke english, and the conversation was carried on in that language. he had told me beforehand that if he could receive a perfectly private test, that he should never doubt the truth of the manifestations again. i left him, therefore, to conduct the investigation entirely by himself, i acting only as the medium between him and the influence. as soon as the table moved he put his question direct, without asking who was there to answer it. "where is my chasuble?" now a priest's chasuble, _i_ should have said, must be either hanging in the sacristy or packed away at home, or been sent away to be altered or mended. but the answer was wide of all my speculations. "at the bottom of the red sea." the priest started, but continued-- "who put it there?" "elias dodo." "what was his object in doing so?" "he found the parcel a burthen, and did not expect any reward for delivering it." the abbé really looked as if he had encountered the devil. he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and put one more question. "of what was my chasuble made?" "your sister's wedding dress." the priest then explained to me that his sister had made him a chasuble out of her wedding dress--one of the forms of returning thanks in the church, but that after a while it became old fashioned, and the bishop, going his rounds, ordered him to get another. he did not like to throw away his sister's gift, so he decided to send the old chasuble to a priest in india, where they are very poor, and not so particular as to fashion. he confided the packet to a man called elias dodo, a sufficiently singular name, but neither he nor the priest he sent it to had ever heard anything more of the chasuble, or the man who promised to deliver it. a young artist of the name of courtney was a visitor at my house. he asked me to sit with him alone, when the table began rapping out a number of consonants--a farrago of nonsense, it appeared to me, and i stopped and said so. but mr. courtney, who appeared much interested, begged me to proceed. when the communication was finished, he said to me, "this is the most wonderful thing i have ever heard. my father has been at the table talking to me in welsh. he has told me our family motto, and all about my birth-place and relations in wales." i said, "i never heard you were a welshman." "yes! i am," he replied, "my real name is powell. i have only adopted the name of courtney for professional purposes." this was all news to me, but had it not been, _i cannot speak welsh_. i could multiply such cases by the dozen, but that i fear to tire my readers, added to which the majority of them were of so strictly private a nature that it would be impossible to put them into print. this is perhaps the greatest drawback that one encounters in trying to prove the truth of spiritualism. the best tests we receive are when the very secrets of our hearts, which we have not confided to our nearest friends, are revealed to us. i could relate (had i the permission of the persons most interested) the particulars of a well-known law suit, in which the requisite evidence, and names and addresses of witnesses, were all given though my mediumship, and were the cause of the case being gained by the side that came to me for "information." some of the coincidences i have related in this chapter might, however, be ascribed by the sceptical to the mysterious and unknown power of brain reading, whatever that may be, and however it may come, apart from mediumship, but how is one to account for the facts i shall tell you in my next chapter. chapter iv. embodied spirits. i was having a sitting one day in my own house with a lady friend, named miss clark, when a female spirit came to the table and spelt out the name "tiny." "who are you?" i asked, "and for whom do you come?" "i am a friend of major m----" (mentioning the full name), "and i want your help." "are you any relation to major m----?" "i am the mother of his child." "what do you wish me to do for you?" "tell him he must go down to portsmouth and look after my daughter. he has not seen her for years. the old woman is dead, and the man is a drunkard. she is falling into evil courses. he must save her from them." "what is your real name?" "i will not give it. there is no need. he always called me 'tiny.'" "how old is your daughter." "nineteen! her name is emily! i want her to be married. tell him to promise her a wedding trousseau. it may induce her to marry." the influence divulged a great deal more on the subject which i cannot write down here. it was an account of one of those cruel acts of seduction by which a young girl had been led into trouble in order to gratify a man's selfish lust, and astonished both miss clark and myself, who had never heard of such a person as "tiny" before. it was too delicate a matter for me to broach to major m---- (who was a married man, and an intimate friend of mine), but the spirit came so many times and implored me so earnestly to save her daughter, that at last i ventured to repeat the communication to him. he was rather taken aback, but confessed it was true, and that the child, being left to his care, had been given over to the charge of some common people at portsmouth, and he had not enquired after it for some time past. neither had he ever heard of the death of the mother, who had subsequently married, and had a family. he instituted inquiries, however, at once, and found the statement to be quite true, and that the girl emily, being left with no better protection than that of the drunken old man, had actually gone astray, and not long after she was had up at the police court for stabbing a soldier in a public-house--a fit ending for the unfortunate offspring of a man's selfish passions. but the strangest part of the story to the uninitiated will lie in the fact that the woman whose spirit thus manifested itself to two utter strangers, who knew neither her history nor her name, was at the time _alive_, and living with her husband and family, as major m---- took pains to ascertain. and now i have something to say on the subject of communicating with the spirits of persons still in the flesh. this will doubtless appear the most incomprehensible and fanatical assertion of all, that we wear our earthly garb so loosely, that the spirits of people still living in this world can leave the body and manifest themselves either visibly or orally to others in their normal condition. and yet it is a fact that spirits have so visited myself (as in the case i have just recorded), and given me information of which i had not the slightest previous idea. the matter has been explained to me after this fashion--that it is not really the spirit of the living person who communicates, but the spirit, or "control," that is nearest to him: in effect what the church calls his "guardian angel," and that this guardian angel, who knows his inmost thoughts and desires better even than he knows them himself, is equally capable of speaking in his name. this idea of the matter may shift the marvel from one pair of shoulders to another, but it does not do away with it. if i can receive information of events before they occur (as i will prove that i have), i present a nut for the consideration of the public jaw, which even the scientists will find difficult to crack. it was at one time my annual custom to take my children to the sea-side, and one summer, being anxious to ascertain how far the table could be made to act without the aid of "unconscious cerebration," i arranged with my friends, mr. helmore and mrs. colnaghi, who had been in the habit of sitting with us at home, that _we_ should continue to sit at the sea-side on tuesday evenings as theretofore, and _they_ should sit in london on the thursdays, when i would try to send them messages through "charlie," the spirit i have already mentioned as being constantly with us. the first tuesday my message was, "ask them how they are getting on without us," which was faithfully delivered at their table on the following thursday. the return message from them which "charlie" spelled out for us on the second tuesday, was: "tell her london is a desert without her," to which i emphatically, if not elegantly, answered, "fiddle-de-dee!" a few days afterwards i received a letter from mr. helmore, in which he said, "i am afraid 'charlie' is already tired of playing at postman, for to all our questions about you last thursday, he would only rap out, 'fiddle-de-dee.'" the circumstance to which this little episode is but an introduction happened a few days later. mr. colnaghi and mr. helmore, sitting together as usual on thursday evening, were discussing the possibility of summoning the spirits of _living persons_ to the table, when "charlie" rapped three times to intimate they could. "will you fetch some one for us, charlie?" "yes." "whom will you bring?" "mrs. ross-church." "how long will it take you to do so?" "fifteen minutes." it was in the middle of the night when i must have been fast asleep, and the two young men told me afterwards that they waited the results of their experiment with much trepidation, wondering (i suppose) if i should be conveyed bodily into their presence and box their ears well for their impertinence. exactly fifteen minutes afterwards, however, the table was violently shaken and the words were spelt out. "i am mrs. ross-church. how _dared_ you send for me?" they were very penitent (or they said they were), but they described my manner as most arbitrary, and said i went on repeating, "let me go back! let me go back! there is a great danger hanging over my children! i must go back to my children!" (and here i would remark _par parenthèse_, and in contradiction of the guardian angel theory, that i have always found that whilst the spirits of the departed come and go as they feel inclined, the spirits of the living invariably _beg_ to be sent back again or permitted to go, as if they were chained by the will of the medium.) on this occasion i was so positive that i made a great impression on my two friends, and the next day mr. helmore sent me a cautiously worded letter to find out if all was well with us at charmouth, but without disclosing the reason for his curiosity. the _facts_ are, that on the morning of _friday_, the day _after_ the _séance_ in london, my seven children and two nurses were all sitting in a small lodging-house room, when my brother-in-law, dr. henry norris, came in from ball practice with the volunteers, and whilst exhibiting his rifle to my son, accidentally discharged it in the midst of them, the ball passing through the wall within two inches of my eldest daughter's head. when i wrote the account of this to mr. helmore, he told me of my visit to london and the words i had spelt out on the occasion. but how did i know of the occurrence the _night before_ it took place? and if i--being asleep and unconscious--did _not_ know of it, "charlie" must have done so. my ærial visits to my friends, however, whilst my body was in quite another place, have been made still more palpable than this. once, when living in the regent's park, i passed a very terrible and painful night. grief and fear kept me awake most of the time, and the morning found me exhausted with the emotion i had gone through. about eleven o'clock there walked in, to my surprise, mrs. fitzgerald (better known as a medium under her maiden name of bessie williams), who lived in the goldhawk road, shepherd's bush. "i couldn't help coming to you," she commenced, "for i shall not be easy until i know how you are after the terrible scene you have passed through." i stared at her. "whom have you seen?" i asked. "who has told you of it?" "yourself," she replied. "i was waked up this morning between two and three o'clock by the sound of sobbing and crying in the front garden. i got out of bed and opened the window, and then i saw you standing on the grass plat in your night-dress and crying bitterly. i asked you what was the matter, and you told me so and so, and so and so." and here followed a detailed account of all that had happened in my own house on the other side of london, with the _very words_ that had been used, and every action that had happened. i had seen no one and spoken to no one between the occurrence and the time mrs. fitzgerald called upon me. if her story was untrue, _who_ had so minutely informed her of a circumstance which it was to the interest of all concerned to keep to themselves? when i first joined mr. d'oyley carte's "patience" company in the provinces, to play the part of "lady jane," i understood i was to have four days' rehearsal. however, the lady whom i succeeded, hearing i had arrived, took herself off, and the manager requested i would appear the same night of my arrival. this was rather an ordeal to an artist who had never sung on the operatic stage before, and who was not note perfect. however, as a matter of obligation, i consented to do my best, but i was very nervous. at the end of the second act, during the balloting scene, lady jane has to appear suddenly on the stage, with the word "away!" i forget at this distance of time whether i made a mistake in pitching the note a third higher or lower. i know it was not out of harmony, but it was sufficiently wrong to send the chorus astray, and bring my heart up into my mouth. it never occurred after the first night, but i never stood at the wings again waiting for that particular entrance but i "girded my loins together," as it were, with a kind of dread lest i should repeat the error. after a while i perceived a good deal of whispering about me in the company, and i asked poor federici (who played the colonel) the reason of it, particularly as he had previously asked me to stand as far from him as i could upon the stage, as i magnetized him so strongly that he couldn't sing if i was near him. "well! do you know," he said to me in answer, "that a very strange thing occurs occasionally with reference to you, miss marryat. while you are standing on the stage sometimes, you appear seated in the stalls. several people have seen it beside myself. i assure you it is true." "but _when_ do you see me?" i enquired with amazement. "it's always at the same time," he answered, "just before you run on at the end of the second act. of course it's only an appearance, but it's very queer." i told him then of the strange feelings of distrust of myself i experienced each night at that very moment, when my spirit seems to have preceded myself upon the stage. i had a friend many years ago in india, who (like many other friends) had permitted time and separation to come between us, and alienate us from each other. i had not seen him nor heard from him for eleven years, and to all appearance our friendship was at an end. one evening the medium i have alluded to above, mrs. fitzgerald, who was a personal friend of mine, was at my house, and after dinner she put her feet up on the sofa--a very unusual thing for her--and closed her eyes. she and i were quite alone in the drawing-room, and after a little while i whispered softly, "bessie, are you asleep?" the answer came from her control "dewdrop," a wonderfully sharp red indian girl. "no! she's in a trance. there's somebody coming to speak to you! i don't want him to come. he'll make the medium ill. but it's no use. i see him creeping round the corner now." "but why should it make her ill?" i argued, believing we were about to hold an ordinary _séance_. "because he's a _live_ one, he hasn't passed over yet," replied dewdrop, "and live ones always make my medium feel sick. but it's no use. i can't keep him out. he may as well come. but don't let him stay long." "who is he, dewdrop?" i demanded curiously. "_i_ don't know! guess _you_ will! he's an old friend of yours, and his name is george." whereupon bessie fitzgerald laid back on the sofa cushions, and dewdrop ceased to speak. it was some time before there was any result. the medium tossed and turned, and wiped the perspiration from her forehead, and pushed back her hair, and beat up the cushions and threw herself back upon them with a sigh, and went through all the pantomime of a man trying to court sleep in a hot climate. presently she opened her eyes and glanced languidly around her. her unmistakable actions and the name "george" (which was that of my friend, then resident in india) had naturally aroused my suspicions as to the identity of the influence, and when bessie opened her eyes, i asked softly, "george, is that you?" at the sound of my voice the medium started violently and sprung into a sitting posture, and then, looking all round the room in a scared manner, she exclaimed, "where am i? who brought me here?" then catching sight of me, she continued, "mrs. ross-church!--florence! is this _your_ room? o! let me go! _do_ let me go!" this was not complimentary, to say the least of it, from a friend whom i had not met for eleven years, but now that i had got him i had no intention of letting him go, until i was convinced of his identity. but the terror of the spirit at finding himself in a strange place seemed so real and uncontrollable that i had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to stay, even for a few minutes. he kept on reiterating, "who brought me here? i did not wish to come. do let me go back. i am so very cold" (shivering convulsively), "so very, _very_ cold." "answer me a few questions," i said, "and then you shall go. do you know who i am?" "yes, yes, you are florence." "and what is your name?" he gave it at full length. "and do you care for me still?" "very much. but let me go." "in a minute. why do you never write to me?" "there are reasons. i am not a free agent. it is better as it is." "i don't think so. i miss your letters very much. shall i ever hear from you again?" "yes!" "and see you?" "yes; but not yet. let me go now. i don't wish to stay. you are making me very unhappy." if i could describe the fearful manner in which, during this conversation, he glanced every moment at the door, like a man who is afraid of being discovered in a guilty action, it would carry with it to my readers, as it did to me, the most convincing proof that the medium's body was animated by a totally different influence from her own. i kept the spirit under control until i had fully convinced myself that he knew everything about our former friendship and his own present surroundings; and then i let him fly back to india, and wondered if he would wake up the next morning and imagine he had been laboring under nightmare. these experiences with the spirits of the living are certainly amongst the most curious i have obtained. on more than one occasion, when i have been unable to extract the truth of a matter from my acquaintances i have sat down alone, as soon as i believed them to be asleep, and summoned their spirits to the table and compelled them to speak out. little have they imagined sometimes how i came to know things which they had scrupulously tried to hide from me. i have heard that the power to summons the spirits of the living is not given to all media, but i have always possessed it. i can do so when they are awake as well as when they are asleep, though it is not so easy. a gentleman once _dared_ me to do this with him, and i only conceal his name because i made him look ridiculous. i waited till i knew he was engaged at a dinner-party, and then about nine o'clock in the evening i sat down and summoned him to come to me. it was some little time before he obeyed, and when he did come, he was eminently sulky. i got a piece of paper and pencil, and from his dictation i wrote down the number and names of the guests at the dinner-table, also the dishes of which he had partaken, and then in pity for his earnest entreaties i let him go again. "you are making me ridiculous," he said, "everyone is laughing at me." "but why? what are you doing?" i urged. "i am standing by the mantel-piece, and i have fallen fast asleep," he answered. the next morning he came pell-mell into my presence. "what did you do to me last night?" he demanded. "i was at the watts philips, and after dinner i went fast asleep with my head upon my hand, standing by the mantel-piece, and they were all trying to wake me and couldn't. have you been playing any of your tricks upon me?" "i only made you do what you declared i couldn't," i replied. "how did you like the white soup and the turbot, and the sweetbreads, etc., etc." he opened his eyes at my nefariously obtained knowledge, and still more when i produced the paper written from his dictation. this is not a usual custom of mine--it would not be interesting enough to pursue as a custom--but i am a dangerous person to _dare_ to do anything. the old friend whose spirit visited me through mrs. fitzgerald had lost a sister to whom he was very tenderly attached before he made my acquaintance, and i knew little of her beyond her name. one evening, not many months after the interview with him which i have recorded, a spirit came to me, giving the name of my friend's sister, with this message, "my brother has returned to england, and would like to know your address. write to him to the club, leamington, and tell him where to find you." i replied, "your brother has not written to me, nor inquired after me for the last eleven years. he has lost all interest in me, and i cannot be the first to write to him, unless i am sure that he wishes it." "he has _not_ lost all interest in you," said the spirit; "he thinks of you constantly, and i hear him pray for you. he wishes to hear from you." "that may be true," i replied, "but i cannot accept it on your authority. if your brother really wishes to renew our acquaintance, let him write and tell me so." "he does not know your address, and i cannot get near enough to him to influence him." "then things must remain as they are," i replied somewhat testily. "i am a public person. he can find out my address, if he chooses to do so." the spirit seemed to reflect for a moment; then she rapped out, "wait, and i will fetch my brother. he shall come here himself and tell you what he thinks about it." in a short time there was a different movement of the table, and the name of my old friend was given. after we had exchanged a few words, and i had told him i required a test of his identity, he asked me to get a pencil and paper, and write from his dictation. i did as he requested, and he dictated the following sentence, "long time, indeed, has passed since the days you call to mind, but time, however long, does not efface the past. it has never made me cease to think of and pray for you as i felt you, too, did think of and pray for me. write to the address my sister gave you. i want to hear from you." notwithstanding the perspicuity and apparent genuineness of this message, it was some time before i could make up my mind to follow the directions it gave me. my pride stood in the way to prevent it. _ten days afterwards_, however, having received several more visits from the sister, i did as she desired me, and sent a note to her brother to the leamington club. the answer came by return of post, and contained (amongst others) _the identical words_ he had told me to write down. will mr. stuart cumberland, or any other clever man, explain to me _what_ or _who_ it was that had visited me ten days beforehand, and dictated words which could hardly have been in my correspondent's brain before he received my letter? i am ready to accept any reasonable explanation of the matter from the scientists, philosophers, chemists, or arguists of the world, and i am open to conviction, when my sense convinces me, that their reasoning is true. but my present belief is, that not a single man or woman will be found able to account on any ordinary grounds for such an extraordinary instance of "unconscious cerebration." being subject to "optical illusions," i naturally had several with regard to my spirit child, "florence," and she always came to me clothed in a white dress. one night, however, when i was living alone in the regent's park, i saw "florence" (as i imagined) standing in the centre of the room, dressed in a green riding habit slashed with orange color, with a cavalier hat of grey felt on her head, ornamented with a long green feather and a gold buckle. she stood with her back to me, but i could see her profile as she looked over her shoulder, with the skirt of her habit in her hand. this being a most extraordinary attire in which to see "florence," i felt curious on the subject, and the next day i questioned her about it. "florence!" i said, "why did you come to me last night in a green riding habit?" "i did not come to you last night, mother! it was my sister eva." "good heavens!" i exclaimed, "is anything wrong with her?" "no! she is quite well." "how could she come to me then?" "she did not come in reality, but her thoughts were much with you, and so you saw her spirit clairvoyantly." my daughter eva, who was on the stage, was at that time fulfilling a stock engagement in glasgow, and very much employed. i had not heard from her for a fortnight, which was a most unusual occurrence, and i had begun to feel uneasy. this vision made me more so, and i wrote at once to ask her if all was as it should be. her answer was to this effect: "i am so sorry i have had no time to write to you this week, but i have been so awfully busy. we play 'the colleen bawn' here next week, and i have had to get my dress ready for 'anne chute.' it's so effective. i wish you could see it. _a green habit slashed with orange, and a grey felt hat with a long green feather and a big gold buckle._ i tried it on the other night, and it looked so nice, etc., etc." well, my darling girl had had her wish, and i _had_ seen it. chapter v. optical illusions. as i have alluded to what my family termed my "optical illusions," i think it as well to describe a few of them, which appeared by the context to be something more than a mere temporary disturbance of my visual organs. i will pass over such as might be traced, truly or otherwise, to physical causes, and confine myself to those which were subsequently proved to be the reflection of something that, unknown to me, had gone before. in i was much engaged in giving dramatic readings in different parts of the country, and i visited dublin for the first time in my life, for that purpose, and put up at the largest and best-frequented hotel there. through the hospitality of the residents and the duties of my professional business, i was engaged both day and night, and when i _did_ get to bed, i had every disposition to sleep, as the saying is, like a "top." but there was something in the hotel that would not let me do so. i had a charming bedroom, cheerful, bright and pretty, and replete with every comfort, and i would retire to rest "dead beat," and fall off to sleep at once, to be waked perhaps half-a-dozen times a night by that inexplicable something (or nothing) that rouses me whenever i am about to enjoy an "optical illusion," and to see figures, sometimes one, sometimes two or three, sometimes a whole group standing by my bedside and gazing at me with looks of the greatest astonishment, as much as to ask what right i had to be there. but the most remarkable part of the matter to me was, that all the figures were those of men, and military men, to whom i was too well accustomed to be able to mistake. some were officers and others soldiers, some were in uniform, others in undress, but they all belonged to the army, and they all seemed to labor under the same feeling of intense surprise at seeing _me_ in the hotel. these apparitions were so life-like and appeared so frequently, that i grew quite uncomfortable about them, for however much one may be used to see "optical illusions," it is not pleasant to fancy there are about twenty strangers gazing at one every night as one lies asleep. spiritualism is, or was, a tabooed subject in dublin, and i had been expressly cautioned not to mention it before my new acquaintances. however, i could not keep entire silence on this subject, and dining _en famille_ one day, with a hospitable family of the name of robinson, i related to them my nightly experiences at the hotel. father, mother, and son exclaimed simultaneously. "good gracious," they said, "don't you know that that hotel was built on the site of the old barracks? the house immediately behind it, which formed part of the old building, was vacated by its last tenants on account of its being haunted. every evening at the hour the soldiers used to be marched up to bed, they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of the feet ascending the staircase." "that may be," i replied, "but they _knew_ their house stood on the site of the barracks, and _i didn't_." my eldest daughter was spending a holiday with me once after my second marriage, and during the month of august. she had been very much overworked, and i made her lie in bed till noon. one morning i had been to her room at that hour to wake her, and on turning to leave it (in the broad daylight, remember), i encountered a man on the landing outside her door. he was dressed in a white shirt with black studs down the front, and a pair of black cloth trousers. he had dark hair and eyes, and small features; altogether, he struck me as having rather a sinister and unpleasant appearance. i stood still, with the open door in my hand, and gazed at him. he looked at me also for a minute, and then turned and walked upstairs to an upper storey where the nursery was situated, beckoning me, with a jerk of his hand, to follow him. my daughter (remarking a peculiar expression in my eyes, which i am told they assume on such occasions) said, "mother! what do you see?" "only a spirit," i answered, "and he has gone upstairs." "now, what _is_ the good of seeing them in that way," said eva, rather impatiently (for this dear child always disliked and avoided spiritualism), and i was fain to confess that i really did _not_ know the especial good of encountering a sinister-looking gentleman in shirt and trousers, on a blazing noon in august. after which the circumstance passed from my mind, until recalled again. a few months later i had occasion to change the children's nurse, and the woman who took her place was an icelandic girl named margaret thommassen, who had only been in england for three weeks. i found that she had been educated far above the average run of domestic servants, and was well acquainted with the writings of swedenborg and other authors. one day as i walked up the nursery stairs to visit the children in bed, i encountered the same man i had seen outside my daughter's room, standing on the upper landing, as though waiting my approach. he was dressed as before, but this time his arms were folded across his breast and his face downcast, as though he were unhappy about something. he disappeared as i reached the landing, and i mentioned the circumstance to no one. a few days later, margaret thommassen asked me timidly if i believed in the possibility of the spirits of the departed returning to this earth. when i replied that i did, she appeared overjoyed, and said she had never hoped to find anyone in england to whom she could speak about it. she then gave me a mass of evidence on the subject which forms a large part of the religion of the icelanders. she told me that she felt uneasy about her eldest brother, to whom she was strongly attached. he had left iceland a year before to become a waiter in germany, and had promised faithfully that so long as he lived she should hear from him every month, and when he failed to write she must conclude he was dead. margaret told me she had heard nothing from him now for three months, and each night when the nursery light was put out, someone came and sat at the foot of her bed and sighed. she then produced his photograph, and to my astonishment i recognized at once the man who had appeared to me some months before i knew that such a woman as margaret thommassen existed. he was taken in a shirt and trousers, just as i had seen him, and wore the same repulsive (to me) and sinister expression. i then told his sister that i had already seen him twice in that house, and she grew very excited and anxious to learn the truth. in consequence i sat with her in hopes of obtaining some news of her brother, who immediately came to the table, and told her that he was dead, with the circumstances under which he had died, and the address where she was to write to obtain particulars. and on margaret thommassen writing as she was directed, she obtained the practical proofs of her brother's death, without which this story would be worthless. my sister cecil lives with her family in somerset, and many years ago i went down there to visit her for the first time since she had moved into a new house which i had never seen before. she put me to sleep in the guest chamber, a large, handsome room, just newly furnished by oetzmann. but i could not sleep in it. the very first night some one walked up and down the room, groaning and sighing close to my ears, and he, she, or it especially annoyed me by continually touching the new stiff counterpane with a "scrooping" sound that set my teeth on edge, and sent my heart up into my mouth. i kept on saying, "go away! don't come near me!" for its proximity inspired me with a horror and repugnance which i have seldom felt under similar circumstances. i did not say anything at first to my sister, who is rather nervous on the subject of "bogies," but on the third night i could stand it no longer, and told her plainly the room was haunted, and i wished she would put me in her dressing-room, or with her servants, sooner than let me remain there, as i could get no rest. then the truth came out, and she confessed that the last owner of the house had committed suicide in that very room, and showed me the place on the boards, underneath the carpet, where the stain of his blood still remained. a lively sort of room to sleep all alone in. another sister of mine, blanche, used to live in a haunted house in bruges, of which a description will be found in the chapter headed, "the story of the monk." long, however, before the monk was heard of, i could not sleep in her house on account of the disturbances in my room, for which my sister used to laugh at me. but even when my husband, colonel lean, and i stayed there together, it was much the same. one night i waked him to see the figure of a woman, who had often visited me, standing at the foot of the bed. she was quaintly attired in a sort of leathern boddice or jerkin, laced up the front over a woollen petticoat of some dark color. she wore a cap of mechlin lace, with the large flaps at the side, adopted by flemish women to this day; her hair was combed tightly off her forehead, and she wore a profusion of gold ornaments. my husband could describe her as vividly as i did, which proves how plainly the apparition must have shown itself. i waked on several occasions to see this woman busy (apparently) with the contents of an old carved oak armoir which stood in a corner of the room, and which, i suppose, must have had something to do with herself. my eldest son joined me at bruges on this occasion. he was a young fellow of twenty, who had never practised, nor even enquired into spiritualism--fresh from sea, and about as free from fear or superstitious fancies as a mortal could be. he was put to sleep in a room on the other side of the house, and i saw from the first that he was grave about it, but i did not ask him the reason, though i felt sure, from personal experience, that he would hear or see something before long. in a few days he came to me and said-- "mother! i'm going to take my mattress into the colonel's dressing-room to-night and sleep there." i asked him why. he replied, "it's impossible to stay in that room any longer. i wouldn't mind if they'd let me sleep, but they won't. there's something walks about half the night, whispering and muttering, and touching the bed-clothes, and though i don't believe in any of your rubbishy spirits, i'll be 'jiggered' if i sleep there any longer." so he was not "jiggered" (whatever that may be), as he refused to enter the room again. i cannot end this chapter more appropriately than by relating a very remarkable case of "optical illusion" which was seen by myself alone. it was in the month of july, , and i had gone down alone to brighton for a week's quiet. i had some important literary work to finish, and the exigencies of the london season made too many demands upon my time. so i packed up my writing materials, and took a lodging all to myself, and set hard to work. i used to write all day and walk in the evening. it was light then till eight or nine o'clock, and the esplanade used to be crowded till a late hour. i was pushing my way, on the evening of the th of july, through the crowd, thinking of my work more than anything else, when i saw, as i fully thought, my step-son, francis lean, leaning with his back against the palings at the edge of the cliff and smiling at me. he was a handsome lad of eighteen who was supposed to have sailed in his ship for the brazils five months before. but he had been a wild young fellow, causing his father much trouble and anxiety, and my first impression was one of great annoyance, thinking naturally that, since i saw him there, he had never sailed at all, but run away from his ship at the last moment. i hastened up to him, therefore, but as i reached his side, he turned round quite methodically, and walked quickly down a flight of steps that led to the beach. i followed him, and found myself amongst a group of ordinary seamen mending their nets, but i could see francis nowhere. i did not know what to make of the occurrence, but it never struck me that it was not either the lad himself or some one remarkably like him. the same night, however, after i had retired to bed in a room that was unpleasantly brilliant with the moonlight streaming in at the window, i was roused from my sleep by someone turning the handle of my door, and there stood francis in his naval uniform, with the peaked cap on his head, smiling at me as he had done upon the cliff. i started up in bed intending to speak to him, when he laid his finger on his lips and faded away. this second vision made me think something must have happened to the boy, but i determined not to say anything to my husband about it until it was verified. shortly after my return to london, we were going, in company with my own son (also a sailor), to see his ship which was lying in the docks, when, as we were driving through poplar, i again saw my stepson francis standing on the pavement, and smiling at me. that time i spoke. i said to colonel lean, "i am sure i saw francis standing there. do you think it is possible he may not have sailed after all?" but colonel lean laughed at the idea. he believed it to be a chance likeness i had seen. only the lad was too good-looking to have many duplicates in this world. we visited the seaside after that, and in september, whilst we were staying at folkestone, colonel lean received a letter to say that his son francis had been drowned by the upsetting of a boat in the surf of the bay of callao, in the brazils, _on the th of july_--the day i had seen him twice in brighton, two months before we heard that he was gone. chapter vi. on scepticism. there are two classes of people who have done more harm to the cause of spiritualism than the testimony of all the scientists has done good, and those are the enthusiasts and the sceptics. the first believe everything they see or hear. without giving themselves the trouble to obtain proofs of the genuineness of the manifestations, they rush impetuously from one acquaintance to the other, detailing their experience with so much exaggeration and such unbounded faith, that they make the absurdity of it patent to all. they are generally people of low intellect, credulous dispositions, and weak nerves. they bow down before the influences as if they were so many little gods descended from heaven, instead of being, as in the majority of instances, spirits a shade less holy than our own, who, for their very shortcomings, are unable to rise above the atmosphere that surrounds this gross and material world. these are the sort of spiritualists whom _punch_ and other comic papers have very justly ridiculed. who does not remember the picture of the afflicted widow, for whom the medium has just called up the departed jones? "jones," she falters, "are you happy?" "much happier than i was down here," growls jones. "o! then you _must_ be in heaven!" "on the contrary, quite the reverse," is the reply. who also has not sat a _séance_ where such people have not made themselves so ridiculous as to bring the cause they profess to adore into contempt and ignominy. yet to allow the words and deeds of fools to affect one's inward and private conviction of a matter would be tantamount to giving up the pursuit of everything in which one's fellow creatures can take a part. the second class to which i alluded--the sceptics--have not done so much injury to spiritualism as the enthusiasts, because they are as a rule, so intensely bigoted and hard-headed, and narrow-minded, that they overdo their protestations, and render them harmless. the sceptic refuses to believe _anything_, because he has found out _one_ thing to be a fraud. if one medium deceives, all the mediums must deceive. if one _séance_ is a failure, none can be successful. if he gains no satisfactory test of the presence of the spirits of the departed, no one has ever gained such a test. now, such reason is neither just nor logical. again, a sceptic fully expects _his_ testimony to be accepted and believed, yet he will never believe any truth on the testimony of another person. and if he is told that, given certain conditions, he can see this or hear the other, he says, "no! i will see it and hear it without any conditions, or else i will proclaim it all a fraud." in like manner, we might say to a savage, on showing him a watch, "if you will keep your eye on those hands, you will see them move round to tell the hours and minutes," and he should reply, "i must put the watch into boiling water--those are my conditions--and if it won't go then, i will not believe it can go at all." i don't mind a man being a sceptic in spiritualism. i don't see how he can help (considering the belief in which we are reared) being a sceptic, until he has proved so strange a matter for himself. but i _do_ object to a man or a woman taking part in a _séance_ with the sole intention of detecting deceit, not _when_ it has happened, but before it has happened--of bringing an argumentative, disputatious mind, full of the idea that it is going to be tricked and humbugged into (perhaps) a private circle who are sitting (like rosa dartle) "simply for information," and scattering all the harmony and good-will about him broadcast. he couldn't do it to a human assembly without breaking up the party. why should he expect to be more kindly welcomed by a spiritual one? i have seen an immense deal of courtesy shown under such circumstances to men whom i should have liked to see kicked downstairs. i have seen them enter a lady's private drawing-room, by invitation, to witness manifestations which were never, under any circumstances, made a means of gain, and have heard them argue, and doubt, and contradict, until they have given their hostess and her friends the lie to their faces. and the world in general would be quite ready to side with these (so-called) gentlemen, not because their word or their wisdom was better worth than that of their fellow guests, but because they protested against the truth of a thing which it had made up its mind to be impossible. i don't mind a sceptic myself, as i said before, but he must be unbiassed, which few sceptics are. as a rule, they have decided the question at issue for themselves before they commence to investigate it. i find that few people outside the pale of spiritualism have heard of the dialectical society, which was a scientific society assembled a few years ago for the sole purpose of enquiring into the truth of the matter. it was composed of forty members,--ten lawyers, ten scientists, ten clergymen, and ten chemists (i think that was the arrangement), and they held forty _séances_, and the published report at the close of them was, that not one of these men of learning and repute could find any natural cause for the wonders he had witnessed. i know that there are a thousand obstacles in the way of belief. the extraordinarily contradictory manner in which protestants are brought up, to believe in one and the same breath that spirits were common visitants to earth at the periods of which the bible treats, but that it is impossible they can return to it now, although the lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. the conditions of darkness for the creation of materialized spirits, and the resemblance they sometimes bear to the medium, are two fearful stumbling-blocks. yet one must know that _all_ things are created in the dark, and that even a seed cannot sprout if you let the light in upon it, while as for the resemblance between the spirit and the medium, from whom it takes the material being that enables it to appear, if investigators would only persevere with their enquiries, they would find, as i have, that that is a disappointment which has its remedy in time. when people call on me to explain such things, i can only say that i know no more how they come than they do, or that i know how _i_ came, a living, sentient creature, into the world. besides (as i have said before), i write these pages to tell only _what i have seen_, and not to argue how it came to pass that i saw it. i have a little story to tell here which powerfully illustrates the foregoing remarks. the lines, "a woman convinced against her will is of the same opinion still," might have been penned with as much truth of sceptics. men who are sceptical, _i.e._, so thoroughly wrapt up in conceit of their powers of judgment and determination that it becomes impossible for them to believe themselves mistaken, will deny the evidence of all their senses sooner than confess they may be in the wrong. such an one may be a clever scientist or a shrewd man of business, but he can never be a genius. for genius is invariably humble of its own powers, and, therefore, open to conviction. but the lesser minds, who are only equal to grasping such details as may have been drummed into them by sheer force of study, appear to have no capability of stretching beyond a certain limit. they are hedged in and cramped by the opinions in which they have been reared, or that they have built up for themselves out of the petty material their brain affords them, and have lost their powers of elasticity. "thus far shalt thou go and no further," seems to be the fiat pronounced on too many men's reasoning faculties. instead of believing the power of god and the resources of nature to be illimitable, they want to keep them within the little circle that encompasses their own brains. "i can't see it, and therefore it cannot be." there was a time when i used to take the trouble to try and convince such men, but i have long ceased to do so. it is quite indifferent to me what they believe or don't believe. and with such minds, even if they _were_ convinced of its possibility, they would probably make no good use of spiritual intercourse. for there is no doubt it can be turned to evil uses as well as to good. some years ago i was on friendly terms with a man of this sort. he was a doctor, accounted clever in his profession, and i knew him to be an able arguist, and thought he had common sense enough not to eat his own words, but the sequel proved that i was mistaken. we had several conversations together on spiritualism, and as dr. h---- was a complete disbeliever in the existence of a god and a future life, i was naturally not surprised to find that he did not place any credence in the account i gave him of my spiritualistic experiences. many medical men attribute such experiences entirely to a diseased condition of mind or body. but when i asked dr. h---- what he should think if he saw them with his own eyes, i confess i was startled to hear him answer that he should say his eyes deceived him. "but if you heard them speak?" i continued. "i should disbelieve my ears." "and if you touched and handled them?" "i should mistrust my sense of feeling." "then by what means," i argued, "do you know that i am florence marryat? you can only see me and hear me and touch me! what is there to prevent your senses misleading you at the present moment?" but to this argument dr. h---- only returned a pitying smile, professing to think me, on this point at least, too feeble-minded to be worthy of reply, but in reality not knowing what on earth to say. he often, however, recurred to the subject of spiritualism, and on several occasions told me that if i could procure him the opportunity of submitting a test which he might himself suggest, he should be very much obliged to me. it was about this time that a young medium named william haxby, now passed away, went to live with mr. and mrs. olive in ainger terrace, and we were invited to attend a _séance_ given by him. mrs. olive, when giving the invitation, informed me that mr. haxby had been very successful in procuring direct writing in sealed boxes, and she asked me, if i wished to try the experiment, to take a secured box, with writing materials in it, to the _séance_, and see what would happen to it. here was, i thought, an excellent opportunity for dr. h----'s test, and i sent for him and told him what had been proposed. i urged him to prepare the test entirely by himself, and to accompany me to the _séance_ and see what occurred,--to all of which he readily consented. indeed, he became quite excited on the subject, being certain it would prove a failure; and in my presence he made the following preparations:-- i. half a sheet of ordinary cream-laid note-paper and half a cedar-wood black lead pencil were placed in a jeweller's cardwood box. ii. the lid of the box was carefully glued down all round to the bottom part. iii. the box was wrapt in white writing paper, which was gummed over it. iv. it was tied eight times with a peculiar kind of silk made for tying up arteries, and the eight knots were knots known to (as dr. h---- informed me) medical men only. v. each of the eight knots was sealed with sealing-wax, and impressed with dr. h----'s crest seal, which he always wore on his watch-chain. vi. the packet was again folded in brown paper, and sealed and tied to preserve the inside from injury. when dr. h---- had finished it, he said to me, "if the spirits (or anybody) can write on that paper without cutting the silk, _i will believe whatever you wish_." i asked, "are you _quite_ sure that the packet could not be undone without your detecting it?" his answer was--"that silk is not to be procured except from a medical man; it is manufactured expressly for the tying of arteries; and the knots i have made are known only to medical men. they are the knots we use in tying arteries. the seal is my own crest, which never leaves my watch-chain, and i defy anyone to undo those knots without cutting them, or to tie them again, if cut. i repeat--if your friends can make, or cause to be made, the smallest mark on that paper, and return me the box in the condition it now is, _i will believe anything you choose_." and i confess i was very dubious of the result myself, and almost sorry that i had subjected the doctor's incredulity to so severe a test. on the evening appointed we attended the _séance_, dr. h---- taking the prepared packet with him. he was directed to place it under his chair, but he tied a string to it and put it under his foot, retaining the other end of the string in his hand. the meeting was not one for favorably impressing an unbeliever in spiritualism. there were too many people present, and too many strangers. the ordinary manifestations, to my mind, are worse than useless, unless they have been preceded by extraordinary ones; so that the doctor returned home more sceptical than before, and i repented that i had taken him there. one thing had occurred, however, that he could not account for. the packet which he had kept, as he thought, under his foot the whole time, was found, at the close of the meeting, to have disappeared. another gentleman had brought a sealed box, with paper and pencil in it, to the _séance_; and at the close it was opened in the presence of all assembled, and found to contain a closely written letter from his deceased wife. but the doctor's box had evaporated, and was nowhere to be found. the door of the room had been locked all the time, and we searched the room thoroughly, but without success. dr. h---- was naturally triumphant. "they couldn't undo _my_ knots and _my_ seals," he said, exulting over me, "and so they wisely did not return the packet. both packets were of course taken from the room during the sitting by some confederate of the medium. the other one was easily managed, and put back again--_mine_ proved unmanageable, and so they have retained it. i _knew_ it would be so!" and he twinkled his eyes at me as much as to say, "i have shut _you_ up. you will not venture to describe any of the marvels you have seen to me after this." of course the failure did not discompose me, nor shake my belief. i never believed spiritual beings to be omnipotent, omnipresent, nor omniscient. they had failed before, and doubtless they would fail again. but if an acrobatic performer fails to turn a double somersault on to another man's head two or three times, it does not falsify the fact that he succeeds on the fourth occasion. i was sorry that the test had been a failure, for dr. h----'s sake, but i did not despair of seeing the box again. and at the end of a fortnight it was left at my house by mr. olive, with a note to say that it had been found that morning on the mantel-piece in mr. haxby's bedroom, and he lost no time in returning it to me. it was wrapt in the brown paper, tied and sealed, apparently just as we had carried it to the _séance_ in ainger terrace; and i wrote at once to dr. h---- announcing its return, and asking him to come over and open it in my presence. he came, took the packet in his hand, and having stripped off the outer wrapper, examined it carefully. there were four tests, it may be remembered, applied to the packet. i. the arterial silk, procurable only from a medical man. ii. the knots to be tied only by medical men. iii. dr. h----'s own crest, always kept on his watch chain, as a seal. iv. the lid of the cardboard box, glued all round to the bottom part. as the doctor scrutinized the silk, the knots, and the seals, i watched him narrowly. "are you _quite sure_," i asked, "that it is the same paper in which you wrapt it?" "i am _quite sure_." "and the same silk?" "quite sure." "your knots have not been untied?" "i am positive that they have not." "nor your seal been tampered with?" "certainly not! it is just as i sealed it." "be careful, dr. h----," i continued. "remember i shall write down all you say." "i am willing to swear to it in a court of justice," he replied. "then will you open the packet?" dr. h---- took the scissors and cut the silk at each seal and knot, then tore off the gummed white writing paper (which was as fresh as when he had put it on), and tried to pull open the card-board box. but as he could not do this in consequence of the lid being glued down, he took out his penknife and cut it all round. as he did so, he looked at me and said, "mark my words. there will be nothing written on the paper. it is impossible!" he lifted the lid, and behold _the box was empty_! the half sheet of notepaper and the half cedar wood pencil had both _entirely disappeared_. not a crumb of lead, nor a shred of paper remained behind. i looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked completely bewildered. "_well!_" i said, interrogatively. he shifted about--grew red--and began to bluster. "what do you make of it?" i asked. "how do you account for it?" "in the easiest way in the world," he replied, trying to brave it out. "it's the most transparent deception i ever saw. they've kept the thing a fortnight and had time to do anything with it. a child could see through this. surely your bright wits can want no help to an explanation." "i am not so bright as you give me credit for," i answered. "will you explain your meaning to me?" "with pleasure. they have evidently made an invisible slit in the joining of the box cover, and with a pair of fine forceps drawn the paper through it, bit by bit. for the pencil, they drew that by the same means to the slit and then pared it, little by little, with a lancet, till they could shake out the fragments." "that must have required very careful manipulation," i observed. "naturally. but they've taken a fortnight to do it in." "but how about the arterial silk?" i said. "they must have procured some from a surgeon." "and your famous knots?" "they got some surgeon to tie them!" "but your crest and seal?" "oh! they must have taken a facsimile of that in order to reproduce it. it is very cleverly done, but quite explicable!" "but you told me before you opened the packet that you would take your oath in a court of justice it had not been tampered with." "i was evidently deceived." "and you really believe, then, that an uneducated lad like mr. haxby would take the trouble to take impressions of seals and to procure arterial silk and the services of a surgeon, in order, not to mystify or convert _you_, but to gratify _me_, whose box he believes it to be." "i am sure he has done so!" "but just now you were equally sure he had _not_ done so. why should you trust your senses in one case more than in the other? and if mr. haxby has played a trick on me, as you suppose, why did you not discover the slit when you examined the box, before opening?" "because my eyes misled me!" "then after all," i concluded, "the best thing you can say of yourself is that you--a man of reputed science, skill, and sense, and with a strong belief in your own powers--are unable to devise a test in which you shall not be outwitted by a person so inferior to yourself in age, intellect and education as young haxby. but i will give you another chance. make up another packet in any way you like. apply to it the severest tests which your ingenuity can devise, or other men of genius can suggest to you, and let me give it to haxby and see if the contents can be extracted, or tampered with a second time." "it would be useless," said dr. h----. "if they were extracted through the iron panels of a fireproof safe, i would not believe it was done by any but natural means." "because you do not _wish_ to believe," i argued. "you are right," he confessed, "i do _not_ wish to believe. if you convinced me of the truth of spiritualism, you would upset all the theories i have held for the best part of my life. i don't believe in a god, nor a soul, nor a future existence, and i would rather not believe in them. we have quite enough trouble, in my opinion, in this life, without looking forward to another, and i would rather cling to my belief that when we die we have done with it once and for ever." so there ended my attempt to convince dr. h----, and i have often thought since that he was but a type of the genus sceptic. in this world, we mostly believe what we want to believe, and the thought of a future troubles us in proportion to the lives we lead here. it must often strike spiritualists (who mostly look forward to the day of their departure for another world, as a schoolboy looks forward to the commencement of the holidays) as a very strange thing, that people, as a rule, evince so little curiosity on the subject of spiritualism. the idea of the spirits of the departed returning to this world to hold communication with their friends may be a new and startling one to them, but the very wonder of it would make one expect to see them evince a little interest in a matter which concerns us all. yet the generality of carlyle's british millions either pooh-pooh the notion as too utterly ridiculous for their exalted minds to entertain, or inform you, with superior wisdom, that if spiritualism is true, they cannot see the use of it, and have no craving for any further knowledge. if these same people expected to go to canada or australia in a few months' time, how eagerly they would ask questions concerning their future home, and procure the best information on what to do, whilst they remained in england, in order to fit themselves for the journey and the change. but a journey to the other world--to the many worlds which perhaps await us--a certain proof that we shall live again (or rather, that we shall never die but need only time and patience and well-living here to reunite us to the dear one gone before)--_that_ is a subject not worthy of our trying to believe--of not sufficient importance for us to take the trouble of ascertaining. i pity from my soul the men and women who have no dead darling buried in their hearts whom they _know_ they shall meet in a home of god's own choosing when this life ends. the old, cold faiths have melted away beneath the sun of progress. we can no longer be made to believe, like little children, in a shadowy indefinite heaven where the saints sit on damp clouds with harps in their hands forever singing psalms and hymns and heavenly songs. that sort of existence could be a heaven to none, and to most it would be a hell. we do not accept it now, any more than we do the other place, with its typical fire and brimstone, and pitch-forking devils with horns and tails. but what has religion given us instead? those whose common-sense will not permit them to believe in the parson's heaven and hell generally believe (like dr. h----) in nothing at all. but spiritualism, earnestly and faithfully followed, leaves us in no doubt. spiritualists know where they are going to. the spheres are almost as familiar to them as this earth--it is not too much to say that many live in them as much as they do here, and often they seem the more real, as they are the more lasting of the two. spiritualists are in no manner of doubt _who_ their eyes will see when opening on another phase of life. _they_ do not expect to be carried straight up into abraham's bosom, and lie snugly there, whilst revengeful demons are torturing those who were, perhaps, nearest and dearest to them down below. they have a better and more substantial religion than that--a revelation that teaches them that the works we do in the flesh must bear their fruit in the spirit, and that no tardy deathbed repentance, no crying out for mercy because justice is upon us, like an unruly child howling as soon as the stick is produced for chastisement--will avail to wipe off the sins we have indulged in upon earth. they know their expiation will be a bitter one, yet not without hope, and that they will be helped, as well as help others, in the upward path that leads to ultimate perfection. the teaching of spiritualism is such as largely to increase belief in our divine father's love, our saviour's pity, and the angels' ministering help. but it does more than this, more than any religion has done before. it affords the _proof_--the only proof we have ever received, and our finite natures can accept--of a future existence. the majority of christians _hope_ and _trust_, and say they _believe_. it is the spiritualist only that _knows_. i think that the marvellous indifference displayed by the crowd to ascertain these truths for themselves must be due, in a large number of instances, to the unnatural but universal fear which is entertained of death and all things connected with it. the same people who loudly declaim again the possibility of seeing a "ghost," shudder at the idea of doing so. the creature whom they have adored and waited on with tenderest devotion passes away, and they are afraid to enter the room where his body lies. that which they clung to and wept over yesterday, they fear to look at or touch to-day, and the idea that he would return and speak to them would inspire them with horror. but why afraid of an impossibility? their very fears should teach them that there is a cause. from numerous notes made on the subject i have invariably found that those who have had the opportunity of testing the reality of spiritualism, and either rejected or denied it, have been selfish, worldly, and cold-hearted people who neither care, nor are cared for, by those who have passed on to another sphere. plenty of love is sure to bring you plenty of proof. the mourners, who have lost sight of what is dearest to them, and would give all they possess for one more look at the face they loved so much, or one more tone of the voice that was music to their ears, are only too eager and grateful to hear of a way by which their longings may be gratified, and would take any trouble and go to any expense to accomplish what they desire. it is this intense yearning to speak again with those that have left us, on the part of the bereaved, that has led to chicanery on the part of media in order to gratify it. wherever money is to be made, unfortunately cheating will step in; but because some tradesmen will sell you brass for gold is no reason to vote all jewellers thieves. the account of the raising of samuel by the witch of endor is an instance that my argument is correct. the witch was evidently an impostor, for she had no expectation of seeing samuel, and was frightened by the apparition she had evoked; but spiritualism must be a truth, because it was samuel himself who appeared and rebuked saul for calling him back to this earth. what becomes, in the face of this story, of the impassable gulf between the earthly and spiritual spheres? that atheists who believe in nothing should not believe in spiritualism is credible, natural, and consistent. but that christians should reject the theory is tantamount to acknowledging that they found their hopes of salvation upon a lie. there is no way of getting out of it. if it be _impossible_ that the spirits of the departed can communicate with men, the bible must be simply a collection of fabulous statements; if it be _wrong_ to speak with spirits, all the men whose histories are therein related were sinners, and the almighty helped them to sin; and if all the spirits who have been heard and seen and touched in modern times are devils sent on earth to lure us to our destruction, how are we to distinguish between them and the greatest spirit of all, who walked with mortal adam and eve in the garden of eden. "o! yes!" i think i hear somebody cry, "but that was in the bible;" as if the bible were a period or a place. and did it ever strike you that there is something else recorded in the bible? "and he did not many miracles there because of their _unbelief_." and yet christ came to call "not the righteous but the sinners to repentance." surely, then, the unbelieving required the conviction of the miracles more than those who knew him to be god. yet there he did them not, _because_ of their unbelief, because their _scepticism_ produced a condition in which miracles could not be wrought. and yet the nineteenth century is surprised because a sceptic, whose jarring element upsets all union and harmony, is not an acceptable addition to a spiritual meeting, and that the miracles of the present--gross and feeble, compared to those of the past, because worked by grosser material though grosser agents--ceased to be manifested when his unbelief intrudes itself upon them. chapter vii. the story of john powles. on the th of april, , there died in india a young officer in the th regiment m.n.i., of the name of john powles. he was an intimate friend of my first husband for several years before his death, and had consequently become intimate with me; indeed, on several occasions he shared our house and lived with us on the terms of a brother. i was very young at that time and susceptible to influence of all sorts--extremely nervous, moreover, on the subject of "ghosts," and yet burning with curiosity to learn something of the other world--a topic which it is most difficult to induce anybody to discuss with you. people will talk of dress, or dinner, or their friend's private affairs--of anything, in fact, sooner than death and immortality and the world to come which we must all inevitably enter. even parsons--the legalized exponents of what lies beyond the grave--are no exceptions to the rule. when the bereaved sufferer goes to them for comfort, they shake their heads and "hope" and "trust," and say "god's mercy has no limits," but they cannot give him one reasonable proof to rest upon that death is but a name. john powles, however, though a careless and irreligious man, liked to discuss the unseen. we talked continually on the subject, even when he was apparently in perfect health, and he often ended our conversation by assuring me that should he die first (and he always prophesied truly that he should not reach the age of thirty) he would (were such a thing possible) come back to me. i used to laugh at the absurdity of the idea, and remind him how many friends had made the same promise to each other and never fulfilled it. for though i firmly believed that such things _had_ been, i could not realize that they would ever happen to me, or that i should survive the shock if they did. john powles' death at the last was very sudden, although the disease he died of was of long standing. he had been under the doctor's hands for a few days when he took an unexpected turn for the worse, and my husband and myself, with other friends, were summoned to his bedside to say good-bye to him. when i entered the room he said to me, "so you see it has come at last. don't forget what i said to you about it." they were his last intelligible words to me, though for several hours he grasped my dress with his hand to prevent my leaving him, and became violent and unmanageable if i attempted to quit his side. during this time, in the intervals of his delirium, he kept on entreating me to sing a certain old ballad, which had always been a great favorite with him, entitled "thou art gone from my gaze." i am sure if i sung that song once during that miserable day, i must have sung it a dozen times. at last our poor friend fell into convulsions which recurred with little intermission until his death, which took place the same evening. his death and the manner of it caused me a great shock. he had been a true friend to my husband and myself for years, and we both mourned his loss very sincerely. that, and other troubles combined, had a serious effect upon my health, and the doctors advised my immediate return to england. when an officer dies in india, it is the custom to sell all his minor effects by auction. before this took place, my husband asked me if there was anything belonging to john powles that i should like to keep in remembrance of him. the choice i made was a curious one. he had possessed a dark green silk necktie, which was a favorite of his, and when it became soiled i offered to turn it for him, when it looked as good as new. whereupon he had worn it so long that it was twice as dirty as before, so i turned it for him the second time, much to the amusement of the regiment. when i was asked to choose a keepsake of him, i said, "give me the green tie," and i brought it to england with me. the voyage home was a terrible affair. i was suffering mentally and physically, to such a degree that i cannot think of the time without a shudder. john powles' death, of course, added to my distress, and during the many months that occupied a voyage "by long sea," i hoped and expected that his spirit would appear to me. with the very strong belief in the possibility of the return to earth of the departed--or rather, i should say, with my strong belief _in_ my belief--i lay awake night after night, thinking to see my lost friend, who had so often promised to come back to me. i even cried aloud to him to appear and tell me where he was, or what he was doing, but i never heard or saw a single thing. there was silence on every side of me. ten days only after i landed in england i was delivered of a daughter, and when i had somewhat recovered my health and spirits--when i had lost the physical weakness and nervous excitability, to which most medical men would have attributed any mysterious sights or sounds i might have experienced before--then i commenced to _know_ and to _feel_ that john powles was with me again. i did not see him, but i felt his presence. i used to lie awake at night, trembling under the consciousness that he was sitting at my bedside, and i had no means of penetrating the silence between us. often i entreated him to speak, but when a low, hissing sound came close to my ear, i would scream with terror and rush from my room. all my desire to see or communicate with my lost friend had deserted me. the very idea was a terror. i was horror-struck to think he had returned, and i would neither sleep alone nor remain alone. i was advised to try a livelier place than winchester (where i then resided), and a house was taken for me at sydenham. but there, the sense of the presence of john powles was as keen as before, and so, at intervals, i continued to feel it for the space of several years--until, indeed, i became an inquirer into spiritualism as a science. i have related in the chapter that contains an account of my first _séance_, that the only face i recognized as belonging to me was that of my friend john powles, and how excited i became on seeing it. it was that recognition that brought back all my old longing and curiosity to communicate with the inhabitants of the unseen world. as soon as i commenced investigations in my home circle, john powles was the very first spirit who spoke to me through the table, and from that time until the present i have never ceased to hold communion with him. he is very shy, however, (as he was, whilst with us) of conversing before strangers, and seldom intimates his presence except i am alone. at such times, however, he will talk by the hour of all such topics as interested him during his earth life. soon after it became generally known that i was attending _séances_, i was introduced to miss showers, the daughter of general showers of the bombay army. this young lady, besides being little more than a child--i think she was about sixteen when we met--was not a professional medium. the _séances_ to which her friends were invited to witness the extraordinary manifestations that took place in her presence were strictly private. they offered therefore an enormous advantage to investigators, as the occurrences were all above suspicion, whilst miss showers was good enough to allow herself to be tested in every possible way. i shall have occasion to refer more particularly to miss showers' mediumship further on--at present, therefore, i will confine myself to those occasions which afforded proofs of john powles' presence. mrs. and miss showers were living in apartments when i visited them, and there was no means nor opportunity of deceiving their friends, even had they had any object in doing so. i must add also, that they knew nothing of my indian life nor experiences, which were things of the past long before i met them. at the first sitting miss showers gave me for "spirit faces," she merely sat on a chair behind the window curtains, which were pinned together half-way up, so as to leave a v-shaped opening at the top. the voice of "peter" (miss showers' principal control) kept talking to us and the medium from behind the curtains all the time, and making remarks on the faces as they appeared at the opening. presently he said to me, "mrs. ross-church, here's a fellow says his name is powles, and he wants to speak to you, only he doesn't like to show himself because he's not a bit like what he used to be." "tell him not to mind that," i answered, "i shall know him under any circumstances." "well! if he was anything like that, he was a beauty," exclaimed peter; and presently a face appeared which i could not, by any stretch of imagination, decide to resemble in the slightest degree my old friend. it was hard, stiff and unlifelike. after it had disappeared, peter said, "powles says if you'll come and sit with rosie (miss showers) often, he'll look quite like himself by-and-by," and of course i was only too anxious to accept the invitation. as i was setting out another evening to sit with miss showers, the thought suddenly occurred to me to put the green necktie in my pocket. my two daughters accompanied me on that occasion, but i said nothing to them about the necktie. as soon as we had commenced, however, peter called out, "now, mrs. ross-church, hand over that necktie. powles is coming." "what necktie?" i asked, and he answered, "why powles' necktie, of course, that you've got in your pocket. he wants you to put it round his neck." the assembled party looked at me inquisitively as i produced the tie. the face of john powles appeared, very different from the time before, as he had his own features and complexion, but his hair and beard (which were auburn during life) appeared phosphoric, as though made of living fire. i mounted on a chair and tied the necktie round his throat, and asked him if he would kiss me. he shook his head. peter called out, "give him your hand." i did so, and as he kissed it, his moustaches _burned_ me. i cannot account for it. i can only relate the fact. after which he disappeared with the necktie, which i have never seen since, though we searched the little room for it thoroughly. the next thing i have to relate about john powles is so startling that i dread the criticism it will evoke; but if i had not startling stories to tell, i should not consider them worth writing down. i left my house in bayswater one sunday evening to dine with mr. and mrs. george neville in regent's park terrace, to have a _séance_ afterwards with miss showers. there was a large company present, and i was placed next to miss showers at table. during dinner she told me complainingly that her mother had gone to norwood to spend the night, and she (rosie) was afraid of sleeping alone, as the spirits worried her so. in a moment it flashed across me to ask her to return to bayswater and sleep with me, for i was most desirous of testing her powers when we were alone together. miss showers accepted my invitation, and we arranged that she should go home with me. after dinner, the guests sat for a _séance_, but to everybody's surprise and disappointment, nothing occurred. it was one o'clock in the morning when miss showers and i entered a cab to return to bayswater. we had hardly started when we were greeted with a loud peal of laughter close to our ears. "what's the matter, peter?" demanded miss showers. "i can't help laughing," he replied, "to think of their faces when no one appeared! did you suppose i was going to let you waste all your power with them, when i knew i was going home with you and mrs. ross-church? i mean to show you what a real good _séance_ is to-night." when we reached home i let myself in with a latchkey. the house was full, for i had seven children, four servants, and a married sister staying with me; but they were all in bed and asleep. it was cold weather, and when i took miss showers into my bedroom a fire was burning in the grate. my sister was occupying a room which opened into mine; but i locked her door and my own, and put the keys under my pillow. miss showers and i then undressed and got into bed. when we had extinguished the gas, we found the room was, comparatively speaking, light, for i had stirred the fire into a blaze, and a street lamp just opposite the window threw bars of light through the venetian blinds, right across the ceiling. as soon as miss showers had settled herself in bed, she said, "i wonder what peter is going to do," and i replied, "i hope he won't strip off the bed-clothes." we were lying under four blankets, a counterpane, and an eider-down _duvet_, and as i spoke, the whole mass rose in the air, and fell over the end of the bed, leaving us quite unprotected. we got up, lit a candle, and made the bed again, tucking the clothes well in all round, but the minute we laid down the same thing was repeated. we were rather cross the second time, and abused peter for being so disagreeable, upon which the voice declared he wouldn't do it any more, but we shouldn't have provoked him to try. i said, "you had much better shew yourself to us, peter. that is what i want you to do." he replied, "here i am, my dear, close to you!" i turned my head, and there stood a dark figure beside the bed, whilst another could be plainly distinguished walking about the room. i said, "i can't see your face," and he replied, "i'll come nearer to you!" upon this the figure rose in the air until it hung suspended, face downward, over the bed. in this position it looked like a huge bat with outspread wings. it was still indistinct, except as to substance, but peter said we had exhausted all the phosphorus in our bodies by the long evening we had spent, and left him nothing to light himself up with. after a while he lowered himself on to the bed, and lay between miss showers and myself on the outside of the _duvet_. to this we greatly objected, as he was very heavy and took up a great deal of room; but it was some time before he would go away. during this manifestation, the other spirit, whom peter called the "pope," kept walking about and touching everything in the room, which was full of ornaments; and peter called out several times, "take care, pope! take care! don't break mrs. ross-church's things." the two made so much noise that they waked my sister in the adjoining room, and she knocked at the door, asking in an alarmed voice, "florence! _whom_ have you there? you will wake the whole house." when i replied, "never mind, it's only spirits," she gave one fell shriek and dived under her bed-clothes. she maintains to this day that she fully believed the steps and voices to be human. at last the manifestations became so rapid, as many as eight and ten hands touching us at once, that i asked miss showers if she would mind my tying hers together. she was very amiable and consented willingly. i therefore got out of bed again, and having securely fastened her hands in the sleeves of the nightdress she wore, i sewed them with needle and thread to the mattress. miss showers then said she felt sleepy, and with her back to me--a position she was obliged to maintain on account of her hands being sewn down--she apparently dropt off to sleep, though i knew subsequently she was in a trance. for some time afterwards nothing occurred, the figures had disappeared, the voices ceased, and i thought the _séance_ was over. presently, however, i felt a hand laid on my head and the fingers began to gently stroke and pull the short curls upon my forehead. i whispered, "who is this?" and the answer came back, "don't you know me? i am powles! at last--at last--after a silence of ten years i see you and speak with you again, face to face." "how can i tell this is _your_ hand?" i said. "peter might be materializing a hand in order to deceive me." the hand immediately left my head and the _back_ of it passed over my mouth, when i felt it was covered with short hair. i then remembered how hairy john powles' hands had become from exposure to the indian sun whilst shooting, and how i had nicknamed him "esau" in consequence. i recollected also that he had dislocated the left wrist with a cricket ball. "let me feel your wrist," i said, and my hand was at once placed on the enlarged bone. "i want to trace your hand to where it springs from," i next suggested; and on receiving permission i felt from the fingers and wrist to the elbow and shoulder, where it terminated _in the middle of miss showers' back_. still i was not quite satisfied, for i used to find it very hard to believe in the identity of a person i had cared for. i was so terribly afraid of being deceived. "i want to see your face," i continued. "i cannot show you my face to-night," the voice replied, "but you shall feel it;" and the face, with beard and moustaches, was laid for a moment against my own. then the hand was replaced on my hair, and whilst it kept on pulling and stroking my curls, john powles' own voice spoke to me of everything that had occurred of importance when he and i were friends on earth. fancy, two people who were intimately associated for years, meeting alone after a long and painful separation, think of all the private things they would talk about together, and you will understand why i cannot write down the conversation that took place between us that night here. in order to convince me of his identity, john powles spoke of all the troubles i had passed through and was then enduring--he mentioned scenes, both sad and merry, which we had witnessed together; he recalled incidents which had slipped my memory, and named places and people known only to ourselves. had i been a disbeliever in spiritualism, that night must have made a convert of me. whilst the voice, in the well-remembered tones of my old friend, was speaking, and his hand wandered through my hair, miss showers continued to sleep, or to appear to sleep, with her back towards me, and her hands sewn into her nightdress sleeves, and the sleeves sewn down to the bed. but had she been wide awake and with both hands free, she could not have spoken to me in john powles' unforgotten voice of things that had occurred when she was an infant and thousands of miles away. and i affirm that the voice spoke to me of things that no one but john powles could possibly have known. he did not fail to remind me of the promise he had made, and the many times he had tried to fulfil it before, and he assured me he should be constantly with me from that time. it was daylight before the voice ceased speaking, and then both miss showers and i were so exhausted, we could hardly raise our heads from the pillows. i must not forget to add that when we _did_ open our eyes again upon this work-a-day world, we found there was hardly an article in the room that had not changed places. the pictures were all turned with their faces to the wall--the crockery from the washstand was piled in the fender--the ornaments from the mantel-piece were on the dressing-table--in fact, the whole room was topsy-turvy. when mr. william fletcher gave his first lecture in england, in the steinway hall, my husband, colonel lean, and i, went to hear him. we had never seen mr. fletcher before, nor any of his family, nor did he know we were amongst the audience. our first view of him was when he stepped upon the platform, and we were seated quite in the body of the hall, which was full. it was mr. fletcher's custom, after his lecture was concluded, to describe such visions as were presented to him, and he only asked in return that if the people and places were recognized, those who recognized them would be brave enough to say so, for the sake of the audience and himself. i can understand that strangers who went there and heard nothing that concerned themselves would be very apt to imagine it was all humbug, and that those who claimed a knowledge of the visions were simply confederates of mr. fletcher. but there is nothing more true than that circumstances alter cases. i entered steinway hall as a perfect stranger, and as a press-writer, quite prepared to expose trickery if i detected it. and this is what i heard. after mr. fletcher had described several persons and scenes unknown to me, he took out a handkerchief and began to wipe his face, as though he were very warm. "i am no longer in england, now," he said. "the scene has quite changed, and i am taken over the sea, thousands of miles away, and i am in a chamber with all the doors and windows open. oh! how hot it is! i think i am somewhere in the tropics. o! i see why i have been brought here! it is to see a young man die! this is a death chamber. he is lying on a bed. he looks very pale, and he is very near death, but he has only been ill a short time. his hair is a kind of golden chestnut color, and he has blue eyes. he is an englishman, and i can see the letter 'p' above his head. he has not been happy on earth, and he is quite content to die. he pushes all the influences that are round his bed away from him. now i see a lady come and sit down beside him. he holds her hand, and appears to ask her to do something, and i hear a strain of sweet music. it is a song he has heard in happier times, and on the breath of it his spirit passes away. it is to this lady he seems to come now. she is sitting on my left about half way down the hall. a little girl, with her hands full of blue flowers, points her out to me. the little girl holds up the flowers, and i see they are woven into a resemblance of the letter f. she tells me that is the initial letter of her mother's name and her own. and i see this message written. "'to my dearest friend, for such you ever were to me from the beginning. i have been with you through all your time of trial and sorrow, and i am rejoiced to see that a happier era is beginning for you. i am always near you. the darkness is fast rolling away, and happiness will succeed it. pray for me, and i shall be near you in your prayers. i pray god to bless you and to bless me, and to bring us together again in the summer land.' "and i see the spirit pointing with his hand far away, as though to intimate that the happiness he speaks of is only the beginning of some that will extend to a long distance of time. i see this scene more plainly than any i have ever seen before." these words were written down at the time they were spoken. colonel lean and i were sitting in the very spot indicated by mr. fletcher, and the little girl with the blue flowers was my spirit child, "florence," whose history i shall give in the next chapter. but my communications with john powles, though very extraordinary, were not satisfactory to me. i am the "thomas, surnamed didymus," of the spiritualistic world, who wants to see and touch and handle before i can altogether believe. i wanted to meet john powles and talk with him face to face, and it seemed such an impossibility for him to materialize in the light that, after his two failures with miss showers, he refused to try. i was always worrying him to tell me if we should meet in the body before i left this world, and his answer was always, "yes! but not just yet!" i had no idea then that i should have to cross the atlantic before i saw my dear old friend again. chapter viii. my spirit child. the same year that john powles died, , i passed through the greatest trouble of my life. it is quite unnecessary to my narrative to relate what that trouble was, nor how it affected me, but i suffered terribly both in mind and body, and it was chiefly for this reason that the medical men advised my return to england, which i reached on the th of december, and on the th of the same month a daughter was born to me, who survived her birth for only ten days. the child was born with a most peculiar blemish, which it is necessary for the purpose of my argument to describe. on the left side of the upper lip was a mark as though a semi-circular piece of flesh had been cut out by a bullet-mould, which exposed part of the gum. the swallow also had been submerged in the gullet, so that she had for the short period of her earthly existence to be fed by artificial means, and the jaw itself had been so twisted that could she have lived to cut her teeth, the double ones would have been in front. this blemish was considered to be of so remarkable a type that dr. frederick butler of winchester, who attended me, invited several other medical men, from southampton and other places, to examine the infant with him, and they all agreed that _a similar case had never come under their notice before_. this is a very important factor in my narrative. i was closely catechized as to whether i had suffered any physical or mental shock, that should account for the injury to my child, and it was decided that the trouble i had experienced was sufficient to produce it. the case, under feigned names, was fully reported in the _lancet_ as something quite out of the common way. my little child, who was baptized by the name of "florence," lingered until the th of january, , and then passed quietly away, and when my first natural disappointment was over i ceased to think of her except as of something which "might have been," but never would be again. in this world of misery, the loss of an infant is soon swallowed up in more active trouble. still i never quite forgot my poor baby, perhaps because at that time she was happily the "one dead lamb" of my little flock. in recounting the events of my first _séance_ with mrs. holmes, i have mentioned how a young girl much muffled up about the mouth and chin appeared, and intimated that she came for me, although i could not recognize her. i was so ignorant of the life beyond the grave at that period, that it never struck me that the baby who had left me at ten days old had been growing since our separation, until she had reached the age of ten years. i could not interpret longfellow (whom i consider one of the sublimest spiritualists of the age) as i can now. "day after day we think what she is doing, in those bright realms of air: year after year, her tender steps pursuing, behold her grown more fair. . . . . . "not as a child shall we again behold her: for when, with rapture wild, in our embraces we again enfold her, she will not be a child; but a fair maiden in her father's mansion, clothed with celestial grace. and beautiful with all the soul's expansion, shall we behold her face!" * * * * * the first _séance_ made such an impression on my mind that two nights afterwards i again presented myself (this time alone) at mrs. holmes' rooms to attend another. it was a very different circle on the second occasion. there were about thirty people present, all strangers to each other, and the manifestations were proportionately ordinary. another professional medium, a mrs. davenport, was present, as one of her controls, whom she called "bell," had promised, if possible, to show her face to her. as soon, therefore, as the first spirit face appeared (which was that of the same little girl that i had seen before), mrs. davenport exclaimed, "there's 'bell,'" "why!" i said, "that's the little nun we saw on monday." "o! no! that's my 'bell,'" persisted mrs. davenport. but mrs. holmes took my side, and was positive the spirit came for me. she told me she had been trying to communicate with her since the previous _séance_. "i know she is nearly connected with you," she said. "have you never lost a relation of her age?" "_never!_" i replied; and at that declaration the little spirit moved away, sorrowfully as before. a few weeks after i received an invitation from mr. henry dunphy (the gentleman who had introduced me to mrs. holmes) to attend a private _séance_, given at his own house in upper gloucester place, by the well-known medium florence cook. the double drawing-rooms were divided by velvet curtains, behind which miss cook was seated in an arm-chair, the curtains being pinned together half-way up, leaving a large aperture in the shape of a v. being a complete stranger to miss cook, i was surprised to hear the voice of her control direct that _i_ should stand by the curtains and hold the lower parts together whilst the forms appeared above, lest the pins should give way, and necessarily from my position i could hear every word that passed between miss cook and her guide. the first face that showed itself was that of a man unknown to me; then ensued a kind of frightened colloquy between the medium and her control. "take it away. go away! i don't like you. don't touch me--you frighten me! go away!" i heard miss cook exclaim, and then her guide's voice interposed itself, "don't be silly, florrie. don't be unkind. it won't hurt you," etc., and immediately afterwards the same little girl i had seen at mrs. holmes' rose to view at the aperture of the curtains, muffled up as before, but smiling with her eyes at me. i directed the attention of the company to her, calling her again my "little nun." i was surprised, however, at the evident distaste miss cook had displayed towards the spirit, and when the _séance_ was concluded and she had regained her normal condition, i asked her if she could recall the faces she saw under trance. "sometimes," she replied. i told her of the "little nun," and demanded the reason of her apparent dread of her. "i can hardly tell you," said miss cook; "i don't know anything about her. she is quite a stranger to me, but her face is not fully developed, i think. there is _something wrong about her mouth_. she frightens me." this remark, though made with the utmost carelessness, set me thinking, and after i had returned home, i wrote to miss cook, asking her to inquire of her guides _who_ the little spirit was. she replied as follows: "dear mrs. ross-church, i have asked 'katie king,' but she cannot tell me anything further about the spirit that came through me the other evening than that she is a young girl closely connected with yourself." i was not, however, yet convinced of the spirit's identity, although "john powles" constantly assured me that it _was_ my child. i tried hard to communicate with her at home, but without success. i find in the memoranda i kept of our private _séances_ at that period several messages from "powles" referring to "florence." in one he says, "your child's want of power to communicate with you is not because she is too pure, but because she is too weak. she will speak to you some day. she is _not_ in heaven." this last assertion, knowing so little as i did of a future state, both puzzled and grieved me. i could not believe that an innocent infant was not in the beatific presence--yet i could not understand what motive my friend could have in leading me astray. i had yet to learn that once received into heaven no spirit could return to earth, and that a spirit may have a training to undergo, even though it has never committed a mortal sin. a further proof, however, that my dead child had never died was to reach me from a quarter where i least expected it. i was editor of the magazine _london society_ at that time, and amongst my contributors was dr. keningale cook, who had married mabel collins, the now well-known writer of spiritualistic novels. one day dr. cook brought me an invitation from his wife (whom i had never met) to spend saturday to monday with them in their cottage at redhill, and i accepted it, knowing nothing of the proclivities of either of them, and they knowing as little of my private history as i did of theirs. and i must take this opportunity to observe that, at this period, i had never made my lost child the subject of conversation even with my most intimate friends. the memory of her life and death, and the troubles that caused it, was not a happy one, and of no interest to any but myself. so little, therefore, had it been discussed amongst us that until "florence" reappeared to revive the topic, my _elder children were ignorant_ that their sister had been marked in any way differently from themselves. it may, therefore, be supposed how unlikely it was that utter strangers and public media should have gained any inkling of the matter. i went down to redhill, and as i was sitting with the keningale cooks after dinner, the subject of spiritualism came on the _tapis_, and i was informed that the wife was a powerful trance medium, which much interested me, as i had not, at that period, had any experience of her particular class of mediumship. in the evening we "sat" together, and mrs. cook having become entranced, her husband took shorthand notes of her utterances. several old friends of their family spoke through her, and i was listening to them in the listless manner in which we hear the conversation of strangers, when my attention was aroused by the medium suddenly leaving her seat, and falling on her knees before me, kissing my hands and face, and sobbing violently the while. i waited in expectation of hearing who this might be, when the manifestations as suddenly ceased, the medium returned to her seat, and the voice of one of her guides said that the spirit was unable to speak through excess of emotion, but would try again later in the evening. i had almost forgotten the circumstance in listening to other communications, when i was startled by hearing the word "_mother!_" sighed rather than spoken. i was about to make some excited reply, when the medium raised her hand to enjoin silence, and the following communication was taken down by mr. cook as she pronounced the words. the sentences in parentheses are my replies to her. "mother! i am 'florence.' i must be very quiet. i want to feel i have a mother still. i am so lonely. why should i be so? i cannot speak well. i want to be like one of you. i want to feel i have a mother and sisters. i am so far away from you all now." ("but i always think of you, my dear dead baby.") "that's just it--your _baby_. but i'm not a baby now. i shall get nearer. they tell me i shall. i do not know if i can come when you are alone. it's all so dark. i know you are there, but _so dimly_. i've grown _all by myself_. i'm not really unhappy, but i want to get nearer you. i know you think of me, but you think of me as a baby. you don't know me as i _am_. you've seen me, because in my love i have forced myself upon you. i've not been amongst the flowers yet, but i shall be, very soon now; but i want _my mother_ to take me there. all has been given me that can be given me, but i cannot receive it, except in so far----" here she seemed unable to express herself. ("did the trouble i had before your birth affect your spirit, florence?") "only as things cause each other. i was with you, mother, all through that trouble. i should be nearer to you, _than any child you have_, if i could only get close to you." ("i can't bear to hear you speak so sadly, dear. i have always believed that _you_, at least, were happy in heaven.") "i am _not_ in heaven! but there will come a day, mother--i can laugh when i say it--when we shall go to heaven _together_ and pick blue flowers--_blue flowers_. they are so good to me here, but if your eye cannot bear the daylight you cannot see the buttercups and daisies." i did not learn till afterwards that in the spiritual language blue flowers are typical of happiness. the next question i asked her was if she thought she could write through me. "i don't seem able to write through you, but why, i know not." ("do you know your sisters, eva and ethel?") "no! no!" in a weary voice. "the link of sisterhood is only through the mother. that kind of sisterhood does not last, because there is a higher." ("do you ever see your father?") "no! he is far, far away. i went once, not more. mother, dear, he'll love me when he comes here. they've told me so, and they always tell truth here! i am but a child, yet not so very little. i seem composed of two things--a child in ignorance and a woman in years. why can't i speak at other places? i have wished and tried! i've come very near, but it seems so easy to speak now. this medium seems so different." ("i wish you could come to me when i am alone, florence.") "you _shall_ know me! i _will_ come, mother, dear. i shall always be able to come here. i _do_ come to you, but not in the same way." she spoke in such a plaintive, melancholy voice that mrs. cook, thinking she would depress my spirits, said, "don't make your state out to be sadder than it really is." her reply was very remarkable. "_i am, as i am!_ friend! when you come here, if you find that sadness _is_, you will not be able to alter it by plunging into material pleasures. _our sadness makes the world we live in._ it is not deeds that make us wrong. it is the state in which _we were born_. mother! you say i died sinless. that is nothing. i was born _in a state_. had i lived, i should have caused you more pain than you can know. i am better here. i was not fit to battle with the world, and they took me from it. mother! you won't let this make you sad. you must not." ("what can i do to bring you nearer to me?") "i don't know what will bring me nearer, but i'm helped already by just talking to you. there's a ladder of brightness--every step. i believe i've gained just one step now. o! the divine teachings are so mysterious. mother! does it seem strange to you to hear your 'baby' say things as if she knew them? i'm going now. good-bye!" and so "florence" went. the next voice that spoke was that of a guide of the medium, and i asked her for a personal description of my daughter as she then appeared. she replied, "her face is downcast. we have tried to cheer her, but she is very sad. it is the _state in which she was born_. every physical deformity is the mark of a condition. a weak body is not necessarily the mark of a weak spirit, but the _prison_ of it, because the spirit might be too passionate otherwise. you cannot judge in what way the mind is deformed because the body is deformed. it does not follow that a canker in the body is a canker in the mind. but the mind may be too exuberant--may need a canker to restrain it." i have copied this conversation, word for word, from the shorthand notes taken at the time of utterance; and when it is remembered that neither mrs. keningale cook nor her husband knew that i had lost a child--that they had never been in my house nor associated with any of my friends--it will at least be acknowledged, even by the most sceptical, that it was a very remarkable coincidence that i should receive such a communication from the lips of a perfect stranger. only once after this did "florence" communicate with me through the same source. she found congenial media nearer home, and naturally availed herself of them. but the second occasion was almost more convincing than the first. i went one afternoon to consult my solicitor in the strictest confidence as to how i should act under some very painful circumstances, and he gave me his advice. the next morning as i sat at breakfast, mrs. cook, who was still living at redhill, ran into my room with an apology for the unceremoniousness of her visit, on the score that she had received a message for me the night before which "florence" had begged her to deliver without delay. the message was to this effect: "tell my mother that i was with her this afternoon at the lawyer's, and she is _not_ to follow the advice given her, as it will do harm instead of good." mrs. cook added, "i don't know to what 'florence' alludes, of course, but i thought it best, as i was coming to town, to let you know at once." the force of this anecdote does not lie in the context. the mystery is contained in the fact of a secret interview having been overheard and commented upon. but the truth is, that having greater confidence in the counsel of my visible guide than in that of my invisible one, i abided by the former, and regretted it ever afterwards. the first conversation i held with "florence" had a great effect upon me. i knew before that my uncontrolled grief had been the cause of the untimely death of her body, but it had never struck me that her spirit would carry the effects of it into the unseen world. it was a warning to me (as it should be to all mothers) not to take the solemn responsibility of maternity upon themselves without being prepared to sacrifice their own feelings for the sake of their children. "florence" assured me, however, that communion with myself in my improved condition of happiness would soon lift her spirit from its state of depression, and consequently i seized every opportunity of seeing and speaking with her. during the succeeding twelve months i attended numerous _séances_ with various media, and my spirit child (as she called herself) never failed to manifest through the influence of any one of them, though, of course, in different ways. through some she touched me only, and always with an infant's hand, that i might recognize it as hers, or laid her mouth against mine that i might feel the scar upon her lip; through others she spoke, or wrote, or showed her face, but i never attended a _séance_ at which she omitted to notify her presence. once at a dark circle, held with mr. charles williams, after having had my dress and that of my next neighbor, lady archibald campbell, pulled several times as if to attract our attention, the darkness opened before us, and there stood my child, smiling at us like a happy dream, her fair hair waving about her temples, and her blue eyes fixed on me. she was clothed in white, but we saw no more than her head and bust, about which her hands held her drapery. lady archibald campbell saw her as plainly as i did. on another occasion mr. william eglinton proposed to me to try and procure the spirit-writing on his arm. he directed me to go into another room and write the name of the friend i loved best in the spirit world upon a scrap of paper, which i was to twist up tightly and take back to him. i did so, writing the name of "john powles." when i returned to mr. eglinton, he bared his arm, and holding the paper to the candle till it was reduced to tinder, rubbed his flesh with the ashes. i knew what was expected to ensue. the name written on the paper was to reappear in red or white letters on the medium's arm. the sceptic would say it was a trick of thought-reading, and that, the medium knowing what i had written, had prepared the writing during my absence. but to his surprise and mine, when at last he shook the ashes from his arm, we read, written in a bold, clear hand, the words--"florence is the dearest," as though my spirit child had given me a gentle rebuke for writing any name but her own. it seems curious to me now to look back and remember how melancholy she used to be when she first came back to me, for as soon as she had established an unbroken communication between us, she developed into the merriest little spirit i have ever known, and though her childhood has now passed away, and she is more dignified and thoughtful and womanly, she always appears joyous and happy. she has manifested largely to me through the mediumship of mr. arthur colman. i had known her, during a dark _séance_ with a very small private circle (the medium being securely held and fastened the while) run about the room, like the child she was, and speak to and kiss each sitter in turn, pulling off the sofa and chair covers and piling them up in the middle of the table, and changing the ornaments of everyone present--placing the gentlemen's neckties round the throats of the ladies, and hanging the ladies' earrings in the buttonholes of the gentlemen's coats--just as she might have done had she been still with us, a happy, petted child, on earth. i have known her come in the dark and sit on my lap and kiss my face and hands, and let me feel the defect in her mouth with my own. one bright evening on the th of july--my birthday--arthur colman walked in quite unexpectedly to pay me a visit, and as i had some friends with me, we agreed to have a _séance_. it was impossible to make the room dark, as the windows were only shaded by venetian blinds, but we lowered them, and sat in the twilight. the first thing we heard was the voice of "florence" whispering--"a present for dear mother's birthday," when something was put into my hand. then she crossed to the side of a lady present and dropped something into her hand, saying, "and a present for dear mother's friend!" i knew at once by the feel of it that what "florence" had given me was a chaplet of beads, and knowing how often, under similar circumstances, articles are merely carried about a room, i concluded it was one which lay upon my drawing-room mantel-piece, and said as much. i was answered by the voice of "aimée," the medium's nearest control. "you are mistaken," she said, "'florence' has given you a chaplet you have never seen before. she was exceedingly anxious to give you a present on your birthday, so i gave her the beads which were buried with me. they came from my coffin. i held them in my hand. all i ask is, that you will not shew them to arthur until i give you leave. he is not well at present, and the sight of them will upset him." i was greatly astonished, but, of course, i followed her instructions, and when i had an opportunity to examine the beads, i found that they really were strangers to me, and had not been in the house before. the present my lady friend had received was a large, unset topaz. the chaplet was made of carved wood and steel. it was not till months had elapsed that i was given permission to show it to arthur colman. he immediately recognized it as the one he had himself placed in the hands of "aimée" as she lay in her coffin, and when i saw how the sight affected him, i regretted i had told him anything about it. i offered to give the beads up to him, but he refused to receive them, and they remain in my possession to this day. but the great climax that was to prove beyond all question the personal identity of the spirit who communicated with me, with the body i had brought into the world, was yet to come. mr. william harrison, the editor of the _spiritualist_ (who, after seventeen years' patient research into the science of spiritualism, had never received a personal proof of the return of his own friends, or relations) wrote me word that he had received a message from his lately deceased friend, mrs. stewart, to the effect that if he would sit with the medium, florence cook, and one or two harmonious companions, she would do her best to appear to him in her earthly likeness and afford him the test he had so long sought after. mr. harrison asked me, therefore, if i would join him and miss kidlingbury--the secretary to the british national association of spiritualists--in holding a _séance_ with miss cook, to which i agreed, and we met in one of the rooms of the association for that purpose. it was a very small room, about feet by feet, was uncarpeted and contained no furniture, so we carried in three cane-bottomed chairs for our accommodation. across one corner of the room, about four feet from the floor, we nailed an old black shawl, and placed a cushion behind it for miss cook to lean her head against. miss florence cook, who is a brunette, of a small, slight figure, with dark eyes and hair which she wore in a profusion of curls, was dressed in a high grey merino, ornamented with crimson ribbons. she informed me previous to sitting, that she had become restless during her trances lately, and in the habit of walking out amongst the circle, and she asked me as a friend (for such we had by that time become) to scold her well should such a thing occur, and order her to go back into the cabinet as if she were "a child or a dog;" and i promised her i would do so. after florence cook had sat down on the floor, behind the black shawl (which left her grey merino skirt exposed), and laid her head against the cushion, we lowered the gas a little, and took our seats on the three cane chairs. the medium appeared very uneasy at first, and we heard her remonstrating with the influences for using her so roughly. in a few minutes, however, there was a tremulous movement of the black shawl, and a large white hand was several times thrust into view and withdrawn again. i had never seen mrs. stewart (for whom we were expressly sitting) in this life, and could not, therefore, recognize the hand; but we all remarked how large and white it was. in another minute the shawl was lifted up, and a female figure crawled on its hands and knees from behind it, and then stood up and regarded us. it was impossible, in the dim light and at the distance she stood from us, to identify the features, so mr. harrison asked if she were mrs. stewart. the figure shook its head. i had lost a sister a few months previously, and the thought flashed across me that it might be her. "is it you, emily?" i asked; but the head was still shaken to express a negative, and a similar question on the part of miss kidlingbury, with respect to a friend of her own, met with the same response. "who _can_ it be?" i remarked curiously to mr. harrison. "mother! don't you know me?" sounded in "florence's" whispering voice. i started up to approach her, exclaiming, "o! my darling child! i never thought i should meet you here!" but she said, "go back to your chair, and i will come to you!" i reseated myself, and "florence" crossed the room and sat down _on my lap_. she was more unclothed on that occasion than any materialized spirit i have ever seen. she wore nothing on her head, only her hair, of which she appears to have an immense quantity, fell down her back and covered her shoulders. her arms were bare and her feet and part of her legs, and the dress she wore had no shape or style, but seemed like so many yards of soft thick muslin, wound round her body from the bosom to below the knees. she was a heavy weight--perhaps ten stone--and had well-covered limbs. in fact, she was then, and has appeared for several years past, to be, in point of size and shape, so like her eldest sister eva, that i always observe the resemblance between them. this _séance_ took place at a period when "florence" must have been about seventeen years old. "florence, my darling," i said, "is this _really_ you?" "turn up the gas," she answered, "and look at my mouth." mr. harrison did as she desired, and we all saw distinctly _that peculiar defect on the lip_ with which she was born--a defect, be it remembered, which some of the most experienced members of the profession had affirmed to be "_so rare as never to have fallen under their notice before_." she also opened her mouth that we might see she had no gullet. i promised at the commencement of my book to confine myself to facts, and leave the deduction to be drawn from them to my readers, so i will not interrupt my narrative to make any remarks upon this incontrovertible proof of identity. i know it struck me dumb, and melted me into tears. at this juncture miss cook, who had been moaning and moving about a good deal behind the black shawl, suddenly exclaimed, "i can't stand this any longer," and walked out into the room. there she stood in her grey dress and crimson ribbons whilst "florence" sat on my lap in white drapery. but only for a moment, for directly the medium was fully in view, the spirit sprung up and darted behind the curtain. recalling miss cook's injunctions to me, i scolded her heartily for leaving her seat, until she crept back, whimpering, to her former position. the shawl had scarcely closed behind her before "florence" reappeared and clung to me, saying, "don't let her do that again. she frightens me so." she was actually trembling all over. "why, florence," i replied. "do you mean to tell me you are frightened of your medium? in this world it is we poor mortals who are frightened of the spirits." "i am afraid she will send me away, mother," she whispered. however, miss cook did not disturb us again, and "florence" stayed with us for some time longer. she clasped her arms round my neck, and laid her head upon my bosom, and kissed me dozens of times. she took my hand and spread it out, and said she felt sure i should recognize her hand when she thrust it outside the curtain, because it was so much like my own. i was suffering much trouble at that time, and "florence" told me the reason god had permitted her to show herself to me in her earthly deformity was so that i might be sure that she was herself, and that spiritualism was a truth to comfort me. "sometimes you doubt, mother," she said, "and think your eyes and ears have misled you; but after this you must never doubt again. don't fancy i am like this in the spirit land. the blemish left me long ago. but i put it on to-night to make you certain. don't fret, dear mother. remember _i_ am always near you. no one can take _me_ away. your earthly children may grow up and go out into the world and leave you, but you will always have your spirit child close to you." i did not, and cannot, calculate for how long "florence" remained visible on that occasion. mr. harrison told me afterwards that she had remained for nearly twenty minutes. but her undoubted presence was such a stupendous fact to me, that i could only think that _she was there_--that i actually held in my arms the tiny infant i had laid with my own hands in her coffin--that she was no more dead than i was myself, but had grown to be a woman. so i sat, with my arms tight round her, and my heart beating against hers, until the power decreased, and "florence" was compelled to give me a last kiss and leave me stupefied and bewildered by what had so unexpectedly occurred. two other spirits materialized and appeared after she had left us, but as neither of them was mrs. stewart, the _séance_, as far as mr. harrison was concerned, was a failure. i have seen and heard "florence" on numerous occasions since the one i have narrated, but not with the mark upon her mouth, which she assures me will never trouble either of us again. i could fill pages with accounts of her pretty, caressing ways and her affectionate and sometimes solemn messages; but i have told as much of her story as will interest the general reader. it has been wonderful to me to mark how her ways and mode of communication have changed with the passing years. it was a simple child who did not know how to express itself that appeared to me in . it is a woman full of counsel and tender warning that comes to me in . but yet she is only nineteen. when she reached that age, "florence" told me she should never grow any older in years or appearance, and that she had reached the climax of womanly perfection in the spirit world. only to-night--the night before christmas day--as i write her story, she comes to me and says, "mother! you must not give way to sad thoughts. the past is past. let it be buried in the blessings that remain to you." and amongst the greatest of those blessings i reckon my belief in the existence of my spirit-child. chapter ix. the story of emily. my sister emily was the third daughter of my late father, and several years older than myself. she was a handsome woman--strictly speaking, perhaps, the handsomest of the family, and quite unlike the others. she had black hair and eyes, a pale complexion, a well-shaped nose, and small, narrow hands and feet. but her beauty had slight detractions--so slight, indeed, as to be imperceptible to strangers, but well known to her intimate friends. her mouth was a little on one side, one shoulder was half an inch higher than the other, her fingers were not quite straight, nor her toes, and her hips corresponded with her shoulders. she was clever, with a versatile, all-round talent, and of a very happy and contented disposition. she married dr. henry norris of charmouth, in dorset, and lived there many years before her death. she was an excellent wife and mother, a good friend, and a sincere christian; indeed, i do not believe that a more earnest, self-denying, better woman ever lived in this world. but she had strong feelings, and in some things she was very bigoted. one was spiritualism. she vehemently opposed even the mention of it, declared it to be diabolical, and never failed to blame me for pursuing such a wicked and unholy occupation. she was therefore about the last person whom i should have expected to take advantage of it to communicate with her friends. my sister emily died on the th of april, . her death resulted from a sudden attack of pleurisy, and was most unexpected. i was sitting at an early dinner with my children on the same day when i received a telegram from my brother-in-law to say, "emily very ill; will telegraph when change occurs," and i had just despatched an answer to ask if i should go down to charmouth, or could be of any use, when a second message arrived, "all is over. she died quietly at two o'clock." those who have received similar shocks will understand what i felt. i was quite stunned, and could not realize that my sister had passed away from us, so completely unanticipated had been the news. i made the necessary arrangements for going down to her funeral, but my head was filled with nothing but thoughts of emily the while, and conjectures of _how_ she had died and of _what_ she had died (for that was, as yet, unknown to me), and what she had thought and said; above all, what she was thinking and feeling at that moment. i retired to rest with my brain in a whirl, and lay half the night wide awake, staring into the darkness, and wondering where my sister was. _now_ was the time (if any) for my cerebral organs to play me a trick, and conjure up a vision of the person i was thinking of. but i saw nothing; no sound broke the stillness; my eyes rested only on the darkness. i was quite disappointed, and in the morning i told my children so. i loved my sister emily dearly, and i hoped she would have come to wish me good-bye. on the following night i was exhausted by want of sleep and the emotion i had passed through, and when i went to bed i was very sleepy. i had not been long asleep, however, before i was waked up--i can hardly say by what--and there at my bedside stood emily, smiling at me. when i lost my little "florence," emily had been unmarried, and she had taken a great interest in my poor baby, and nursed her during her short lifetime, and, i believe, really mourned her loss, for (although she had children of her own) she always wore a little likeness of "florence" in a locket on her watch-chain. when emily died i had of course been for some time in communication with my spirit-child, and when my sister appeared to me that night, "florence" was in her arms, with her head resting on her shoulder. i recognized them both at once, and the only thing which looked strange to me was that emily's long black hair was combed right back in the chinese fashion, giving her forehead an unnaturally high appearance. this circumstance made the greater impression on me, because we all have such high foreheads with the hair growing off the temples that we have never been able to wear it in the style i speak of. with this exception my sister looked beautiful and most happy, and my little girl clung to her lovingly. emily did not speak aloud, but she kept on looking down at "florence," and up at me, whilst her lips formed the words, "little baby," which was the name by which she had always mentioned my spirit-child. in the morning i mentioned what i had seen to my elder girls, adding, "i hardly knew dear aunt emily, with her hair scratched back in that fashion." this apparition happened on the wednesday night, and on the friday following i travelled down to charmouth to be present at the funeral, which was fixed for saturday. i found my sister cecil there before me. as soon as we were alone, she said to me, "i am so glad you came to-day. i want you to arrange dear emily nicely in her coffin. the servants had laid her out before my arrival, and she doesn't look a bit like herself. but i haven't the nerve to touch her." it was late at night, but i took a candle at once and accompanied cecil to the death-chamber. our sister was lying, pale and calm, with a smile upon her lips, much as she had appeared to me, and with _all her black hair combed back from her forehead_. the servants had arranged it so, thinking it looked neater. it was impossible to make any alteration till the morning, but when our dear sister was carried to her grave, her hair framed her dead face in the wavy curls in which it always fell when loose; a wreath of flowering syringa was round her head, a cross of violets on her breast, and in her waxen, beautifully-moulded hands, she held three tall, white lilies. i mention this because she has come to me since with the semblance of these very flowers to ensure her recognition. after the funeral, my brother-in-law gave me the details of her last illness. he told me that on the monday afternoon, when her illness first took a serious turn and she became (as he said) delirious, she talked continually to her father, captain marryat (to whom she had been most reverentially attached), and who, she affirmed, was sitting by the side of the bed. her conversation was perfectly rational, and only disjointed when she waited for a reply to her own remarks. she spoke to him of langham and all that had happened there, and particularly expressed her surprise at his having _a beard_, saying, "does hair grow up there, father?" i was the more impressed by this account, because dr. norris, like most medical men, attributed the circumstance entirely to the distorted imagination of a wandering brain. and yet my father (whom i have never seen since his death) has been described to me by various clairvoyants, and always as _wearing a beard_, a thing he never did during his lifetime, as it was the fashion then for naval officers to wear only side whiskers. in all his pictures he is represented as clean shorn, and as he was so well known a man, one would think that (were they dissembling) the clairvoyants, in describing his personal characteristics, would follow the clue given by his portraits. for some time after my sister emily's death i heard nothing more of her, and for the reasons i have given, i never expected to see her again until we met in the spirit-world. about two years after her death, however, my husband, colonel lean, bought two tickets for a series of _séances_ to be held in the rooms of the british national association of spiritualists under the mediumship of mr. william eglinton. this was the first time we had ever seen or sat with mr. eglinton, but we had heard a great deal of his powers, and were curious to test them. on the first night, which was a saturday, we assembled with a party of twelve, all complete strangers, in the rooms i have mentioned, which were comfortably lighted with gas. mr. eglinton, who is a young man inclined to stoutness, went into the cabinet, which was placed in the centre of us, with spectators all round it. the cabinet was like a large cupboard, made of wood and divided into two parts, the partition being of wire-work, so that the medium might be padlocked into it, and a curtain drawn in front of both sides. after a while, a voice called out to us not to be frightened, as the medium was coming out to get more power, and mr. eglinton, in a state of trance and dressed in a suit of evening clothes, walked out of the cabinet and commenced a tour of the circle. he touched every one in turn, but did not stop until he reached colonel lean, before whom he remained for some time, making magnetic passes down his face and figure. he then turned to re-enter the cabinet, but as he did so, some one moved the curtain from inside and mr. eglinton _actually held the curtain to one side to permit the materialized form to pass out_ before he went into the cabinet himself. the figure that appeared was that of a woman clothed in loose white garments that fell to her feet. her eyes were black and her long black hair fell over her shoulders. i suspected at the time who she was, but each one in the circle was so certain she came for him or for her, that i said nothing, and only mentally asked if it were my sister that i might receive a proof of her identity. on the following evening (sunday) colonel lean and i were "sitting" together, when emily came to the table to assure us that it was she whom we had seen, and that she would appear again on monday and show herself more clearly. i asked her to think of some means by which she could prove her identity with the spirit that then spoke to us, and she said, "i will hold up my right hand." colonel lean cautioned me not to mention this promise to any one, that we might be certain of the correctness of the test. accordingly, on the monday evening we assembled for our second _séance_ with mr. eglinton, and the same form appeared, and walking out much closer to us, _held up the right hand_. colonel lean, anxious not to be deceived by his own senses, asked the company what the spirit was doing. "cannot you see?" was the answer. "she is holding up her hand." on this occasion emily came with all her old characteristics about her, and there would have been no possibility of mistaking her (at least on my part) without the proof she had promised to give us. the next startling assurance we received of her proximity happened in a much more unexpected manner. we were staying, in the autumn of the following year, at a boarding-house in the rue de vienne at brussels, with a large party of english visitors, none of whom we had ever seen till we entered the house. amongst them were several girls, who had never heard of spiritualism before, and were much interested in listening to the relation of our experiences on the subject. one evening when i was not well, and keeping my own room, some of these young ladies got hold of colonel lean and said, "oh! do come and sit in the dark with us and tell us ghost stories." now sitting in the dark and telling ghost stories to five or six nice looking girls is an occupation few men would object to, and they were all soon ensconced in the dark and deserted _salle-à-manger_. amongst them was a young girl of sixteen, miss helen hill, who had never shown more interest than the rest in such matters. after they had been seated in the dark for some minutes, she said to colonel lean, "do you know, i can see a lady on the opposite side of the table quite distinctly, and she is nodding and smiling at you." the colonel asked what the lady was like. "she is very nice looking," replied the girl, "with dark eyes and hair, but she seems to want me to notice her ring. she wears a ring with a large blue stone in it, of such a funny shape, and she keeps on twisting it round and round her finger, and pointing to it. oh! now she has got up and is walking round the room. only fancy! she is holding up her feet for me to see. they are bare and very white, but her toes are crooked!" then miss hill became frightened and asked them to get a light. she declared that the figure had come up, close to her, and torn the lace off her wrists. and when the light was procured and her dress examined, a frill of lace that had been tacked into her sleeve that morning had totally disappeared. the young ladies grew nervous and left the room, and colonel lean, thinking the description helen hill had given of the spirit tallied with that of my sister emily, came straight up to me and surprised me by an abrupt question as to whether she had been in the habit of wearing any particular ring (for he had not seen her for several years before her death). i told him that her favorite ring was an uncut turquoise--so large and uneven that she used to call it her "potato." "had she any peculiarity about her feet?" he went on, eagerly. "why do you wish to know?" i said. "she had crooked toes, that is all." "good heavens!" he exclaimed, "then she has been with us in the _salle-à-manger_." i have never met miss hill since, and i am not in a position to say if she has evinced any further possession of clairvoyant power; but she certainly displayed it on that occasion to a remarkable degree; for she had never even heard of the existence of my sister emily, and was very much disturbed and annoyed when told that the apparition she had described was reality and not imagination. chapter x. the story of the green lady. the story i have to tell now happened a very short time ago, and every detail is as fresh in my mind as if i had heard and seen it yesterday. mrs. guppy-volckman has been long known to the spiritualistic world as a very powerful medium, also as taking a great private interest in spiritualism, which all media do not. her means justify her, too, in gratifying her whims; and hearing that a certain house in broadstairs was haunted, she became eager to ascertain the truth. the house being empty, she procured the keys from the landlord, and proceeded on a voyage of discovery alone. she had barely recovered, at the time, from a most dangerous illness, which had left a partial paralysis of the lower limbs behind it; it was therefore with considerable difficulty that she gained the drawing-room of the house, which was on the first floor, and when there she abandoned her crutches, and sat down on the floor to recover herself. mrs. volckman was now perfectly alone. she had closed the front door after her, and she was moreover almost helpless, as it was with great difficulty that she could rise without assistance. it was on a summer's evening towards the dusky hour, and she sat on the bare floor of the empty house waiting to see what might happen. after some time (i tell this part of the story as i received it from her lips) she heard a rustling or sweeping sound, as of a long silk train coming down the uncarpeted stairs from the upper storey. the room in which she sat communicated with another, which led out upon the passage, and it was not long before the door between these two apartments opened and the figure of a woman appeared. she entered the room in which mrs. volckman sat, very cautiously, and commenced to walk round it, feeling her way along the walls as though she were blind or tipsy. she was dressed in a green satin robe that swept behind her--round the upper part of her body was a kind of scarf of glistening white material, like silk gauze--and on her head was a black velvet cap, or coif, from underneath which her long black hair fell down her back. mrs. volckman, although used all her life to manifestations and apparitions of all sorts, told me she had never felt so frightened at the sight of one before. she attempted to rise, but feeling her incapability of doing so quickly, she screamed with fear. as soon as she did so, the woman turned round and ran out of the room, apparently as frightened as herself. mrs. volckman got hold of her crutches, scrambled to her feet, found her way downstairs, and reached the outside of the house in safety. most people would never have entered it again. she, on the contrary, had an interview with the landlord, and actually, then and there, purchased a lease of the house and entered upon possession, and as soon as it was furnished and ready for occupation, she invited a party of friends to go down and stay with her at broadstairs, and make the acquaintance of the "green lady," as we had christened her. colonel lean and i were amongst the visitors, the others consisting of lady archibald campbell, miss shaw, mrs. olive, mrs. bellew, colonel greck, mr. charles williams, and mr. and mrs. henry volckman, which, with our host and hostess, made up a circle of twelve. we assembled there on a bright day in july, and the house, with its large rooms and windows facing the sea, looked cheerful enough. the room in which mrs. volckman had seen the apparition was furnished as a drawing-room, and the room adjoining it, which was divided by a _portière_ only from the larger apartment, she had converted for convenience sake into her bedroom. the first evening we sat it was about seven o'clock, and so light that we let down all the venetians, which, however, did little to remedy the evil. we had no cabinet, nor curtains, nor darkness, for it was full moon at the time, and the dancing, sparkling waves were quite visible through the interstices of the venetians. we simply sat round the table, holding hands in an unbroken circle and laughing and chatting with each other. in a few minutes mrs. volckman said something was rising beside her from the carpet, and in a few more the "green lady" was visible to us all standing between the medium and mr. williams. she was just as she had been described to us, both in dress and appearance, but her face was as white and as cold as that of a corpse, and her eyes were closed. she leaned over the table and brought her face close to each of us in turn, but she seemed to have no power of speech. after staying with us about ten minutes, she sunk as she had risen, through the carpet, and disappeared. the next evening, under precisely similar circumstances, she came again. this time she had evidently gained more vitality in a materialized condition, for when i urged her to tell me her name, she whispered, though with much difficulty, "julia!" and when lady archibald observed that she thought she had no hands, the spirit suddenly thrust out a little hand, and grasped the curls on her forehead with a violence that gave her pain. unfortunately, mr. williams' professional engagements compelled him to leave us on the following day, and mrs. volckman had been too recently ill to permit her to sit alone, so that we were not able to hold another _séance_ for the "green lady" during our visit. but we had not seen the last of her. one evening mrs. bellew and i were sitting in the bay window of the drawing-room, just "between the lights," and discussing a very private matter indeed, when i saw (as i thought) my hostess maid raise the _portière_ that hung between the apartments and stand there in a listening attitude. i immediately gave mrs. volckman the hint. "let us talk of something else," i said, in a low voice. "jane is in your bedroom." "o! no! she's not," was the reply. "but i saw her lift the _portière_," i persisted; "she has only just dropped it." "you are mistaken," replied my hostess, "for jane has gone on the beach with the child." i felt sure i had _not_ been mistaken, but i held my tongue and said no more. the conversation was resumed, and as we were deep in the delicate matter, the woman appeared for the second time. "mrs. volckman," i whispered, "jane is really there. she has just looked in again." my friend rose from her seat. "come with me," she said, "and i will convince you that you are wrong." i followed her into the bedroom, where she showed me that the door communicating with the passage was locked _inside_. "now, do you see," she continued, "that no one but the 'green lady' could enter this room but through the one we are sitting in." "then it must have been the 'green lady,'" i replied, "for i assuredly saw a woman standing in the doorway." "that is likely enough," said mrs. volckman; "but if she comes again she shall have the trouble of drawing back the curtains." and thereupon she unhooped the _portière_, which consisted of two curtains, and drew them right across the door. we had hardly regained our seats in the bay window before the two curtains were sharply drawn aside, making the brass rings rattle on the rod, and the "green lady" stood in the opening we had just passed through. mrs. volckman told her not to be afraid, but to come out and speak to us; but she was apparently not equal to doing so, and only stood there for a few minutes gazing at us. i imprudently left my seat and approached her, with a view to making overtures of friendship, when she dropped the curtains over her figure. i passed through them immediately to the other side, and found the bedroom empty and the door locked inside, as before. chapter xi. the story of the monk. a lady named uniacke, a resident in bruges, whilst on a visit to my house in london, met and had a _séance_ with william eglinton, with which she was so delighted that she immediately invited him to go and stay with her abroad, and as my husband and i were about to cross over to bruges to see my sister, who also resided there, we travelled in company--mr. eglinton living at mrs. uniacke's home, whilst we stayed with our own relations. mrs. uniacke was a medium herself, and had already experienced some very noisy and violent demonstrations in her own house. she was, therefore, quite prepared for her visitor, and had fitted up a spare room with a cabinet and blinds to the windows, and everything that was necessary. but, somewhat to her chagrin, we were informed at the first sitting by mr. eglinton's control, "joey," that all future _séances_ were to take place at my sister's house instead. we were given no reason for the change; we were simply told to obey it. my sister's house was rather a peculiar one, and i have already alluded to it, and some of the sights and sounds by which it was haunted, in the chapter headed "optical illusions." the building is so ancient that the original date has been completely lost. a stone set into one of the walls bore an inscription to the effect that it was restored in the year . and an obsolete plan of the city shows it to have stood in its present condition in . prior to that period, however, probably about the thirteenth century, it is supposed, with three houses on either side of it, to have formed a convent, but no printed record remains of the fact. beneath it are subterraneous passages, choked with rubbish, which lead, no one knows whither. i had stayed in this house several times before, and always felt unpleasant influences from it, as i have related, especially in a large room on the lower floor, then used as a drawing-room, but which is said to have formed, originally, the chapel to the convent. others had felt the influence beside myself, though we never had had reason to suppose that there was any particular cause for it. when we expressed curiosity, however, to learn why "joey" desired us to hold our _séance_ in my sister's house, he told us that the medium had not been brought over to bruges for _our_ pleasure or edification, but that there was a great work to be done there, and mrs. uniacke had been expressly influenced to invite him over, that the purposes of a higher power than his own should be accomplished. consequently, on the following evening mrs. uniacke brought mr. eglinton over to my sister's house, and "joey" having been asked to choose a room for the sitting, selected an _entresol_ on the upper floor, which led by two short passages to the bedrooms. the bedroom doors being locked a dark curtain was hung at the entrance of one of these passages, and "joey" declared it was a first-rate cabinet. we then assembled in the drawing-room, for the purposes of music and conversation, for we intended to hold the _séance_ later in the evening. the party consisted only of the medium, mrs. uniacke, my sister, my husband, and myself. after i had sung a song or two, mr. eglinton became restless and moved away from the piano, saying the influence was too strong for him. he began walking up and down the room, and staring fixedly at the door, before which hung a _portière_. several times he exclaimed with knitted brows, "what is the matter with that door? there is something very peculiar about it." once he approached it quickly, but "joey's" voice was heard from behind the _portière_, saying, "don't come too near." mr. eglinton then retreated to a sofa, and appeared to be fighting violently with some unpleasant influence. he made the sign of the cross, then extended his fingers towards the door, as though to exorcise it: finally he burst into a mocking, scornful peal of laughter that lasted for some minutes. as it concluded, a diabolical expression came over his face. he clenched his hands, gnashed his teeth, and commenced to grope in a crouching position towards the door. we concluded he wished to get up to the room where the cabinet was, and let him have his way. he crawled, rather than walked, up the steep turret stairs, but on reaching the top, came to himself suddenly and fell back several steps. my husband, fortunately, was just behind him and saved him from a fall. he complained greatly of the influence and of a pain in his head, and we sat at the table to receive directions. in a few seconds the same spirit had taken possession of him. he left the table and groped his way towards the bedrooms, listening apparently to every sound, and with his hand holding an imaginary knife which was raised every now and then as if to strike. the expression on mr. eglinton's face during this possession is too horrible to describe. the worst passions were written as legibly there as though they had been labelled. there was a short flight of stairs leading from the _entresol_ to the corridor, closed at the head by a padded door, which we had locked for fear of accident. when, apparently in pursuit of his object, the spirit led the medium up to this door and he found it fastened, his moans were terrible. half-a-dozen times he made his weary round of the room, striving to get downstairs to accomplish some end, and to return to us moaning and baffled. at this juncture, he was so exhausted that one of his controls, "daisy," took possession of him and talked with us for some time. we asked "daisy" what the spirit was like that had controlled mr. eglinton last, and she said she did not like him--he had a bad face, no hair on the top of his head, and a long black frock. from this we concluded he had been a monk or a priest. when "daisy" had finished speaking to us "joey" desired mr. eglinton to go into the cabinet; but as soon as he rose, the same spirit got possession again and led him grovelling as before towards the bedrooms. his "guides" therefore carried him into the cabinet before our eyes. he was elevated far above our heads, his feet touching each of us in turn; he was then carried past the unshaded window, which enabled us to judge of the height he was from the ground, and finally over a large table, into the cabinet. nothing, however, of consequence occurred, and "joey" advised us to take the medium downstairs to the supper room. accordingly we adjourned there, and during supper mr. eglinton appeared to be quite himself, and laughed with us over what had taken place. as soon as the meal was over, however, the old restlessness returned on him, and he began pacing up and down the room, walking out every now and then into the corridor. in a few minutes we perceived that the uneasy spirit again controlled him, and we all followed. he went steadily towards the drawing-room, but, on finding himself pursued, turned back, and three times pronounced emphatically the word "go." he then entered the drawing-room, which was in darkness, and closed the door behind him, whilst we waited outside. in a little while he reopened it, and speaking in quite a different voice, said "bring a light! i have something to say to you." when we reassembled with a lamp we found the medium controlled by a new spirit, whom "joey" afterwards told us was one of his highest guides. motioning us to be seated, he stood before us and said, "i have been selected from amongst the controls of this medium to tell you the history of the unhappy being who has so disturbed you this evening. he is present now, and the confession of his crime through my lips will help him to throw off the earthbound condition to which it has condemned him. many years ago, the house in which we now stand was a convent, and underneath it were four subterraneous passages running north, south, east, and west, which communicated with all parts of the town. (i must here state that mr. eglinton had not previously been informed of any particulars relating to the former history of my sister's home, neither were mrs. uniacke or myself acquainted with it.) "in this convent there lived a most beautiful woman--a nun, and in one of the neighboring monasteries a priest who, against the strict law of his church, had conceived and nourished a passion for her. he was an italian who had been obliged to leave his own country, for reasons best known to himself, and nightly he would steal his way to this house, by means of one of the subterraneous passages, and attempt to overcome the nun's scruples, and make her listen to his tale of love; but she, strong in the faith, resisted him. at last, maddened one day by her repeated refusals, and his own guilty passion, he hid himself in one of the northern rooms in the upper story of this house, and watched there in the dark for her to pass him on her way from her devotions in the chapel; but she did not come. then he crept downstairs stealthily, with a dagger hid beneath his robes, and met her in the hall. he conjured her again to yield to him, but again she resisted, and he stabbed her within the door on the very spot where the medium first perceived him. her pure soul sought immediate consolation in the spirit spheres, but his has been chained down ever since to the scene of his awful crime. he dragged her body down the secret stairs (which are still existent) to the vaults beneath, and hid it in the subterraneous passage. "after a few days he sought it again, and buried it. he lived many years after, and committed many other crimes, though none so foul as this. it is his unhappy spirit that asks your prayers to help it to progress. it is for this purpose that we were brought to this city, that we might aid in releasing the miserable soul that cannot rest." i asked, "by what name shall we pray for him?" "pray for 'the distressed being.' call him by no other name." "what is your own name?" "i prefer to be unknown. may god bless you all and keep you in the way of prayer and truth and from all evil courses, and bring you to everlasting life. amen." the medium then walked up to the spot he had indicated as the scene of the murder, and knelt there for some minutes in prayer. thus concluded the first _séance_ at which the monk was introduced to us. but the next day as i sat at the table with my sister only, the name of "hortense dupont" was given us, and the following conversation was rapped out. "who are you?" "i am the nun. i did love him. i couldn't help it. it is such a relief to think that he will be prayed for." "when did he murder you?" "in ." "what was his name?" "i cannot tell you." "his age." "thirty-five!" "and yours." "twenty-three." "are you coming to see us to-morrow?" "i am not sure." on that evening, by "joey's" orders, we assembled at seven. mr. eglinton did not feel the influence in the drawing-room that day, but directly he entered the _séance_ room, he was possessed by the same spirit. his actions were still more graphic than on the first occasion. he watched from the window for the coming of his victim through the courtyard, and then recommenced his crawling stealthy pursuit, coming back each time from the locked door that barred his egress with such heart-rending moans that no one could have listened to him unmoved. at last, his agony was so great, as he strove again and again, like some dumb animal, to pass through the walls that divided him from the spot he wished to visit, whilst the perspiration streamed down the medium's face with the struggle, that we attempted to make him speak to us. we implored him in french to tell us his trouble, and believe us to be his friends; but he only pushed us away. at last we were impressed to pray for him, and kneeling down, we repeated all the well-known catholic prayers. as we commenced the "de profundis" the medium fell prostrate on the earth, and seemed to wrestle with his agony. at the "salve regina" and "ave maria" he lifted his eyes to heaven and clasped his hands, and in the "pater noster" he appeared to join. but directly we ceased praying the evil passions returned, and his face became distorted in the thirst for blood. it was an experience that no one who had seen could ever forget. at last my sister fetched a crucifix, which we placed upon his breast. it had not been there many seconds before a different expression came over his face. he seized it in both hands, straining it to his eyes, lips, and heart, holding it from him at arm's length, then passionately kissing it, as we repeated the "anima christi." finally, he held the crucifix out for each of us to kiss; a beautiful smile broke out on the medium's face, and the spirit passed out of him. mr. eglinton awoke on that occasion terribly exhausted. his face was as white as a sheet, and he trembled violently. his first words were: "they are doing something to my forehead. burn a piece of paper, and give me the ashes." he rubbed them between his eyes, when the sign of the cross became distinctly visible, drawn in deep red lines upon his forehead. the controls then said, exhausted as mr. eglinton was, we were to place him in the cabinet, as their work was not yet done. he was accordingly led in trance to the arm-chair behind the curtain, whilst we formed a circle in front of him. in a few seconds the cabinet was illuminated, and a cross of fire appeared outside of it. this manifestation having been seen twice, the head and shoulders of a nun appeared floating outside the curtain. her white coif and "chin-piece" were pinned just as the "_religieuses_" are in the habit of pinning them, and she seemed very anxious to show herself, coming close to each of us in turn, and re-appearing several times. her face was that of a young and pretty woman. "joey" said, "that's the nun, but you'll understand that this is only a preliminary trial, preparatory to a more perfect materialization." i asked the apparition if she were the "hortense dupont" that had communicated through me, and she nodded her head several times in acquiescence. thus ended our second _séance_ with the monk of bruges. on the third day we were all sitting at supper in my sister's house at about ten o'clock at night, when loud raps were heard about the room, and on giving the alphabet, "joey" desired us to go upstairs and sit, and to have the door at the head of the staircase (which we had hitherto locked for fear of accidents) left open; which we accordingly did. as soon as we were seated at the table, the medium became entranced, and the same pantomime which i have related was gone through. he watched from the window that looked into the courtyard, and silently groped his way round the room, until he had crawled on his stomach up the stairs that led to the padded door. when he found, however, that the obstacle that had hitherto stood in his way was removed (by its being open) he drew a long breath and started away for the winding turret staircase, listening at the doors he passed to find out if he were overheard. when he came to the stairs, in descending which we had been so afraid he might hurt himself, he was carried down them in the most wonderful manner, only placing his hand on the balustrades, and swooping to the bottom in one flight. we had placed a lamp in the hall, so that as we followed him we could observe all his actions. when he reached the bottom of the staircase he crawled on his stomach to the door of the drawing-room (originally the chapel) and there waited and listened, darting back into the shadow every time he fancied he heard a sound. imagine our little party of four in that sombre old house, the only ones waking at that time of night, watching by the ghastly light of a turned-down lamp the acting of that terrible tragedy. we held our breath as the murderer crouched by the chapel door, opening it noiselessly to peep within, and then, retreating with his imaginary dagger in his hand, ready to strike as soon as his victim appeared. at last she seemed to come. in an instant he had sprung to meet her, stabbing her first in a half-stooping attitude, and then, apparently, finding her not dead, he rose to his full height and stabbed her twice, straight downwards. for a moment he seemed paralyzed at what he had done, starting back with both hands clasped to his forehead. then he flung himself prostrate on the supposed body, kissing the ground frantically in all directions. presently he woke to the fear of detection, and raised the corpse suddenly in his arms. he fell once beneath the supposed weight, but staggering to his feet again, seized and dragged it, slipping on the stone floor as he went, to the head of the staircase that led to the cellars below, where the mouth of one of the subterraneous passages was still to be seen. the door at the head of this flight was modern, and he could not undo the lock, so, prevented from dragging the body down the steps, he cast himself again upon it, kissing the stone floor of the hall and moaning. at last he dragged himself on his knees to the spot of the murder, and began to pray. we knelt with him, and as he heard our voices he turned on his knees towards us with outstretched hands. i suggested that he wanted the crucifix again, and went upstairs to fetch it, when the medium followed me. when i had found what i sought, he seized it from me eagerly, and carrying it to the window, whence he had so often watched, fell down again upon his knees. after praying for some time he tried to speak to us. his lips moved and his tongue protruded, but he was unable to articulate. suddenly he seized each of our hands in turn in both of his own, and wrung them violently. he tried to bless us, but the words would not come. the same beautiful smile we had seen the night before broke out over his countenance, the crucifix dropped from his hands, and he fell prostrate on the floor. the next moment mr. eglinton was asking us where he was and what on earth had happened to him, as he felt so queer. he declared himself fearfully exhausted, but said he felt that a great calm and peace had come over him notwithstanding the weakness, and he believed some great good had been accomplished. he was not again entranced, but "joey" ordered the light to be put out, and spoke to us in the direct voice as follows:-- "i've just come to tell you what i know you will be very glad to hear, that through the medium's power, and our power, and the great power of god, the unhappy spirit who has been confessing his crime to you is freed to-night from the heaviest part of his burden--the being earth-chained to the spot. i don't mean to say that he will go away at once to the spheres, because he's got a lot to do still to alter the conditions under which he labors, but the worst is over. this was the special work mr. eglinton was brought to bruges to do, and ernest and i can truly say that, during the whole course of our control of him, we have never had to put forth our own powers, nor to ask so earnestly for the help of god, as in the last three days. you have all helped in a good work,--to free a poor soul from earth, and to set him on the right road, and _we_ are grateful to you and to the medium, as well as he. he will be able to progress rapidly now until he reaches his proper sphere, and hereafter the spirits of himself and the woman he murdered will work together to undo for others the harm they brought upon themselves. she is rejoicing in her high sphere at the work we have done for him, and will be the first to help and welcome him upward. there are many more earth-bound spirits in this house and the surrounding houses who are suffering as he was, though not to the same extent, nor for the same reason. but they all ask for and need your help and your prayers, and this is the greatest and noblest end of spiritualism--to aid poor, unhappy spirits to free themselves from earth and progress upwards. after a while when this spirit can control the medium with calmness, he will come himself and tell you, through him, all his history and how he came to fall. meanwhile, we thank you very much for allowing us to draw so much strength from you and helping us with your sympathy, and i hope you will believe me always to remain, your loving friend, joey." * * * * * this account, with very little alteration, was published in the _spiritualist_ newspaper, august th, , when the _séances_ had just occurred. there is a sequel to the story, however, which is almost as remarkable as itself, and which has not appeared in print till now. from bruges on this occasion my husband and i went to brussels, where we diverted ourselves by means very dissimilar to anything so grave as spiritualism. there were many sales going on in brussels at that moment, and one of our amusements was to make a tour of the salerooms and inspect the articles put up for competition. during one of these visits i was much taken by a large oil pointing, in a massive frame, measuring some six or seven feet square. it represented a man in the dress of a franciscan monk--_i.e._, a brown serge robe, knotted with cords about the waist--kneeling in prayer with outstretched hands upon a mass of burning embers. it was labelled in the catalogue as the picture of a spanish monk of the order of saint francis xavier, and was evidently a painting of some value. i was drawn to go and look at it several days in succession before the sale, and i told my husband that i coveted its possession. he laughed at me and said it would fetch a great deal more money than we could afford to give for it, in which opinion i acquiesced. the day of the sale, however, found us in our places to watch the proceedings, and when the picture of the monk was put up i bid a small sum for it. col. lean looked at me in astonishment, but i whispered to him that i was only in fun, and i should stop at a hundred francs. the bidding was very languid, however, and to my utter amazement, the picture was knocked down to me for _seventy-two francs_. i could hardly believe that it was true. directly the sale was concluded, the brokers crowded round me to ask what i would take for the painting, and they told me they had not thought of bidding until it should have reached a few hundred francs. but i told them i had got my bargain, and i meant to stick by it. when we returned next day to make arrangements for its being sent to us, the auctioneer informed us that the frame alone in which it had been sent for sale had cost three hundred francs, so that i was well satisfied with my purchase. this occurrence took place a short time before we returned to england, where we arrived long before the painting, which, with many others, was left to follow us by a cheaper and slower route. the sunday after we reached home (having seen no friends in the meanwhile), we walked into steinway hall to hear mr. fletcher's lecture. at its conclusion he passed as usual into a state of trance, and described what he saw before him. in the midst of mentioning people, places, and incidents unknown to us, he suddenly exclaimed: "now i see a very strange thing, totally unlike anything i have ever seen before, and i hardly know how to describe it. a man comes before me--a foreigner--and in a dress belonging to some monastic order, a brown robe of coarse cloth or flannel, with a rope round his waist and beads hanging, and bare feet and a shaved head. he is dragging a picture on to the platform, a very large painting in a frame, and it looks to me like a portrait of himself, kneeling on a carpet of burning wood. no! i am wrong. the man tells me the picture is _not_ a portrait of himself, but of the founder of his order, and it is in the possession of some people in this hall to-night. the man tells me to tell these people that it was _his_ spirit that influenced them to buy this painting at some place over the water, and he did so in order that they might keep it in remembrance of what they have done for him. and he desires that they shall hang that picture in some room where they may see it every day, that they may never forget the help which spirits on this earth may render by their prayers to spirits that have passed away. and he offers them through me his heartfelt thanks for the assistance given him, and he says the day is not far off when he shall pray for himself and for them, that their kindness may return into their own bosoms." * * * * * the oil painting reached england in safety some weeks afterwards, and was hung over the mantel-piece in our dining-room, where it remained, a familiar object to all our personal acquaintances. chapter xii. the mediumship of miss showers. some time before i had the pleasure of meeting miss showers, i heard, through friends living in the west of england, of the mysterious and marvellous powers possessed by a young lady of their acquaintance, who was followed by voices in the air, which held conversations with her, and the owners of which were said to have made themselves visible. i listened with curiosity, the more so, as my informants utterly disbelieved in spiritualism, and thought the phenomena were due to trickery. at the same time i conceived a great desire to see the girl of sixteen, who, for no gain or apparent object of her own, was so clever as to mystify everyone around her; and when she and her mother came to london, i was amongst the first to beg for an introduction, and i shall never forget the experiences i had with her. she was the first _private_ medium through whom my personal friends returned to converse with me; and no one but a spiritualist can appreciate the blessing of spiritual communications through a source that is above the breath of suspicion. i have already written at length about miss showers in "the story of john powles." she was a child, compared to myself, whose life had hardly commenced when mine was virtually over, and neither she, nor any member of her family, had ever had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with even the names of my former friends. yet (as i have related) john powles made miss showers his especial mouthpiece, and my daughter "florence" (then a little child) also appeared through her, though at long intervals, and rather timidly. her own controls, however, or cabinet spirits (as they call them in america)--_i.e._, such spirits as are always about the medium, and help the strangers to appear--"peter," "florence," "lenore," and "sally," were very familiar with me, and afforded me such facilities of testing their medium as do not often fall to the lot of inquirers. indeed, at one time, they always requested that i should be present at their _séances_, so that i considered myself to be highly favored. and i may mention here that miss showers and i were so much _en rapport_ that her manifestations were always much stronger in my presence. we could not sit next each other at an ordinary tea or supper table, when we had no thought of, or desire to hold a _séance_, without manifestations occurring in the full light. a hand, that did not belong to either of us, would make itself apparent under the table-cloth between us--a hand with power to grasp ours--or our feet would be squeezed or kicked beneath the table, or fingers would suddenly appear, and whisk the food off our plates. some of their jests were inconvenient. i have had the whole contents of a tumbler, which i was raising to my lips, emptied over my dress. it was generally known that our powers were sympathetic, and at last "peter" gave me leave, or, rather, ordered me to sit in the cabinet with "rosie," whilst the manifestations went on outside. he used to say he didn't care for me any more than if i had been "a spirit myself." one evening "peter" called me into the cabinet (which was simply a large box cupboard at one end of the dining-room) before the _séance_ began, and told me to sit down at the medium's feet and "be a good girl and keep quiet." miss showers was in a low chair, and i sat with my arms resting on her lap. she did not become entranced, and we talked the whole time together. presently, without any warning, two figures stood beside us. i could not have said where they came from. i neither saw them rise from the floor nor descend from the ceiling. there was no beginning to their appearance. in a moment they were simply _there_--"peter" and "florence" (not my child, but miss showers' control of the same names). "peter" sent "florence" out to the audience, where we heard her speaking to them and their remarks upon her (there being only a thin curtain hung before the entrance of the cabinet), but he stayed with us himself. we could not see him distinctly in the dim light, but we could distinctly hear and feel him. he changed our ornaments and ribbons, and pulled the hair-pins out of our hair, and made comments on what was going on outside. after a while "florence" returned to get more power, and both spirits spoke to and touched us at the same time. during the whole of this _séance_ my arms rested on miss showers' lap, and she was awake and talking to me about the spirits. one evening, at a sitting at mr. luxmore's house in hyde park square, the spirit "florence" had been walking amongst the audience in the lighted front drawing-room for a considerable time--even sitting at the piano and accompanying herself whilst she sung us a song in what she called "the planetary language." she greatly resembled her medium on that occasion, and several persons present remarked that she did so. i suppose the inferred doubt annoyed her, for before she finally left us she asked for a light, and a small oil lamp was brought to her which she placed in my hand, telling me to follow her and look at her medium, which i accordingly did. "florence" led the way into the back drawing-room, where i found miss showers reposing in an arm-chair. the first sight of her terrified me. for the purpose of making any change in her dress as difficult as possible, she wore a high, tight-fitting black velvet frock, fastened at the back, and high hessian boots, with innumerable buttons. but she now appeared to be shrunk to half her usual size, and the dress hung loosely on her figure. her arms had disappeared, but putting my hands up the dress sleeves, i found them diminished to the size of those of a little child--the fingers reaching only to where the elbows had been. the same miracle had happened to her feet, which only occupied half her boots. she looked in fact like the mummy of a girl of four or six years old. the spirit told me to feel her face. the forehead was dry, rough, and burning hot, but from the chin water was dropping freely on to the bosom of her dress. "florence" said to me, "i wanted _you_ to see her, because i know you are brave enough to tell people what you have seen." there was a marked difference in the personality of the two influences "florence" and "lenore," although both at times resembled miss showers, and sometimes more than others. "florence" was taller than her medium, and a very beautiful woman. "lenore" was much shorter and smaller, and not so pretty, but more vivacious and pert. by the invitation of mrs. macdougal gregory, i attended several _séances_ with miss showers at her residence in green street, when these spirits appeared. "lenore" was fond of saying that she wouldn't or couldn't come out unless _i_ held her hand, or put my arm round her waist. to tell the truth, i didn't care for the distinction, for this influence was very peculiar in some things, and to me she always appeared "uncanny," and to leave an unpleasant feeling behind her. she was seldom completely formed, and would hold up a foot which felt like wet clay, and had no toes to it, or not the proper quantity. on occasions, too, there was a charnel-house smell about her, as if she had been buried a few weeks and dug up again, an odor which i have never smelt from any materialized spirit before or after. one evening at mrs. gregory's, when "lenore" had insisted upon walking round the circle supported by my arm, i nearly fainted from the smell. it resembled nothing but that of a putrid corpse, and when she returned to the cabinet, i was compelled to leave the room and retch from the nausea it had caused me. it was on this occasion that the sitters called "lenore" so many times back into the circle, that all the power was gone, and she was in danger of melting away before their eyes. still they entreated her to remain with them a little longer. at last she grew impatient, and complained to me of their unreasonableness. she was then raised from the floor--actually floating just outside the curtain--and she asked me to put my hands up her skirts and convince myself that she was half-dematerialized. i did as she told me, and felt that she had _no legs_, although she had been walking round the room a few minutes before. i could feel nothing but the trunk of a body, which was completely lifted off the ground. her voice, too, had grown faint and her face indistinct, and in another moment she had totally disappeared. one evening at mrs. gregory's, after the _séance_ was concluded, "florence" looked round the curtain and called to me to come inside of it. i did so and found myself in total darkness. i said, "what's the good of my coming here? i can't see anything." "florence" took me by one hand, and answered, "i will lead you! don't be afraid." then some one else grasped my other hand, and "peter's" voice said, "we've got you safe. we want you to feel the medium." the two figures led me between them to the sofa on which miss showers was lying. they passed my hand all over her head and body. i felt, as before, her hands and feet shrunk to half their usual size, but her heart appeared to have become proportionately increased. when my hand was placed upon it, it was leaping up and down violently, and felt like a rabbit or some other live animal bounding in her bosom. her brain was burning as before, but her extremities were icy cold. there was no doubt at all of the abnormal condition into which the medium had been thrown, in order to produce these strong physical manifestations which were borrowed, for the time being, from her life, and could never (so they informed me) put the _whole_ of what they borrowed back again. this seems to account for the invariable deterioration of health and strength that follows physical manifestations in both sexes. these were the grounds alone on which they explained to me the fact that, on several occasions, when the materialized spirit has been violently seized and held apart from the medium, it has been found to have become, or been changed into the medium, and always with injury to the latter--as in the case of florence cook being seized by mr. volckman and sir george sitwell. mr. volckman concluded because when he seized the spirit "katie king," he found he was holding florence cook, that the latter must have impersonated the former; yet i shall tell you in its proper place how i have sat in the same room with "katie king," whilst miss cook lay in a trance between us. the medium nearly lost her life on the occasion alluded to, from the sudden disturbance of the mysterious link that bound her to the spirit. i have had it from the lips of the countess of caithness, who was one of the sitters, and stayed with miss cook till she was better, that she was in convulsions the whole night after, and that it was some time before they believed she would recover. if a medium could simulate a materialized spirit, it is hardly likely that she would (or could) simulate convulsions with a medical man standing by her bedside. "you see," said miss showers' "florence," whilst pointing out to me the decreased size of her medium under trance, "that 'rosie' is half her usual size and weight. _i_ have borrowed the other half from her, which, combined with contributions from the sitters, goes to make up the body in which i shew myself to you. if you seize and hold me tight, you _are_ holding her, _i.e._, half of her, and you increase the action of the vital half to such a degree that, if the two halves did not reunite, you would kill her. you see that i can detach certain particles from her organism for my own use, and when i dematerialize, i restore these particles to her, and she becomes once more her normal size. you only hurry the reunion by violently detaining me, so as to injure her. but you might drive her mad, or kill her in the attempt, because the particles of brain, or body, might become injured by such a violent collision. if you believe i can take them from her (as you see i do) in order to render my invisible body visible to you, why can't you believe i can make them fly together again on the approach of danger. and granted the one power, i see no difficulty in acknowledging the other." one day mrs. showers invited me to assist at a _séance_ to be given expressly for friends living at a distance. when i reached the house, however, i found the friends were unable to be present, and the meeting was adjourned. mrs. showers apologized for the alteration of plan, but i was glad of it. i had often sat with "rosie" in company with others, and i wanted to sit with her quite alone, or rather to sit with her in a room quite alone, and see what would spontaneously occur, without any solicitation on our parts. we accordingly annexed the drawing-room for our sole use--locked the door, extinguished the lights, and sat down on a sofa side by side, with our arms round each other. the manifestations that followed were not all nice ones. they formed an experience to be passed through once, but not willingly repeated, and i should not relate them here, excepting that they afford so strong a proof that they were produced by a power outside and entirely distinct from our own--a power, which having once called into action, we had no means of repressing. we had sat in the dark for some minutes, without hearing or seeing anything, when i thoughtlessly called out, "now, peter, do your worst," and extending my arms, singing, "come! for my arms are empty." in a moment a large, heavy figure fell with such force into my outstretched arms as to bruise my shoulder--it seemed like a form made of wood or iron, rather than flesh and blood--and the rough treatment that ensued for both of us is almost beyond description. it seemed as if the room were filled with materialized creatures, who were determined to let us know they were not to be trifled with. our faces and hands were slapped, our hair pulled down, and our clothes nearly torn off our backs. my silk skirt being separate from the bodice was torn off at the waistband, and the trimming ripped from it, and miss showers' muslin dress was also much damaged. we were both thoroughly frightened, but no expostulations or entreaties had any effect with our tormentors. at the same time we heard the sound as of a multitude of large birds or bats swooping about the room. the fluttering of wings was incessant, and we could hear them "scrooping" up and down the walls. in the midst of the confusion, "rosie" was whisked out of my arms (for fright had made us cling tighter than ever together) and planted on the top of a table at some distance from me, at which she was so frightened she began to cry, and i called out, "powles, where are you? can't you stop them?" my appeal was heard. peter's voice exclaimed, "hullo! here's powles coming!" and all the noise ceased. we heard the advent of my friend, and in another moment he was smoothing down the ruffled hair and arranging the disordered dresses and telling me to light the gas and not be frightened. as soon as i could i obeyed his directions and found rosie sitting doubled up in the centre of the table, but the rest of the room and furniture in its usual condition. "peter" and his noisy crowd had vanished--so had "powles," and there was nothing but our torn skirts and untidy appearance to prove that we had not been having an unholy dream. "peter" is not a wicked spirit--far from it--but he is a very earthly and frivolous one. but when we consider that nine-tenths of the spirits freed from the flesh are both earthly and frivolous (if not worse), i know not what right we have to expect to receive back angels in their stead. at one time when my sister blanche (who was very sceptical as to the possibility of the occurrences i related having taken place before me) was staying in my house at bayswater, i asked miss showers if she would give us a _séance_ in my own home, to which she kindly assented. this was an unusual concession on her part, because, in consequence of several accidents and scandals that had occurred from media being forcibly detained (as i have just alluded to), her mother was naturally averse to her sitting anywhere but in their own circle. however, on my promising to invite no strangers, mrs. showers herself brought her daughter to my house. we had made no preparation for the _séance_ except by opening part of the folding doors between the dining-room and study, and hanging a curtain over the aperture. but i had carefully locked the door of the study, so that there should be no egress from it excepting through the dining-room, and had placed against the locked door a heavy writing-table laden with books and ornaments to make "assurance doubly sure." we sat first in the drawing-room above, where there was a piano. the lights were extinguished, and miss showers sat down to the instrument and played the accompaniment to a very simple melody, "under the willow she's sleeping." four voices, sometimes alone and sometimes _all together_, accompanied her own. one was a baritone, supposed to proceed from "peter," the second, a soprano, from "lenore." the third was a rumbling bass, from an influence who called himself "the vicar of croydon," and sung in a fat, unctuous, and conceited voice; and the fourth was a cracked and quavering treble, from another spirit called "the abbess." these were the voices, mrs. showers told me, that first followed her daughter about the house in devonshire, and gained her such an unenviable notoriety there. the four voices were perfectly distinct from one another, and sometimes blended most ludicrously and tripped each other up in a way which made the song a medley--upon which each one would declare it was the fault of the other. "the vicar of croydon" always required a great deal of solicitation before he could be induced to exhibit his powers, but having once commenced, it was difficult to make him leave off again, whereas "the abbess" was always complaining that they would not allow her to sing the solos. an infant's voice also sung some baby songs in a sweet childish treble, but she was also very shy and seldom was heard, in comparison with the rest. "all ventriloquism!" i hear some reader cry. if so, miss showers ought to have made a fortune in exhibiting her talent in public. i have heard the best ventriloquists in the world, but i never heard one who could produce _four_ voices at the same time. after the musical portion of the _séance_ was over, we descended to the dining-room, where the gas was burning, and the medium passed through it to the secured study, where a mattress was laid upon the floor for her accommodation. "florence" was the first to appear, tall and beautiful in appearance, and with upraised eyes like a nun. she measured her height against the wall with me, and we found she was the taller of the two by a couple of inches,--my height being five feet six, the medium's five feet, and the spirit's five feet eight, an abnormal height for a woman. "lenore" came next, very short indeed, looking like a child of four or six, but she grew before our eyes, until her head was on a level with mine. she begged us all to observe that she had _not_ got on "rosie's" petticoat body. she said she had borrowed it on one occasion, and mrs. showers had recognized it, and slipped upstairs in the middle of the _séance_ and found it missing from her daughter's chest of drawers, and that she had been so angry in consequence (fearing rosie's honor might be impeached) that she said if "lenore" did not promise never to do so again, she should not be allowed to assist at the _séances_ at all. so miss "lenore," in rather a pert and defiant mood, begged mrs. showers to see that what she wore was her own property, and not that of the medium. she was succeeded on that occasion by a strange being, totally different from the other two, who called herself "sally," and said she had been a cook. she was one of those extraordinary influences for whose return to earth one can hardly account; quick, and clever, and amusing as she could be, but with an unrefined wit and manner, and to all appearance, more earthly-minded than ourselves. but do we not often ask the same question with respect to those still existent here below? what were they born for? what good do they do? why were they ever permitted to come? god, without whose permission nothing happens, alone can answer it. we had often to tease "peter" to materialize and show himself, but he invariably refused, or postponed the work to another occasion. his excuse was that the medium being so small, he could not obtain sufficient power from her to make himself appear as a big man, and he didn't like to come, "looking like a girl in a billycock hat." "i came once to mrs. showers," he said, "and she declared i was 'rosie' dressed up, and so i have resolved never to show myself again." at the close of that _séance_, however, "peter" asked me to go into the study and see him wake the medium. when i entered it and made my way up to the mattress, i found miss showers extended on it in a deep sleep, whilst "peter," materialized, sat at her feet. he made me sit down next to him and take his hand and feel his features with my own hand. then he proceeded to rouse "rosie" by shaking her and calling her by name, holding me by one hand, as he did so. as miss showers yawned and woke up from her trance, the hand slipped from mine, and "peter" evaporated. when she sat up i said to her gently, "i am here! peter brought me in and was sitting on the mattress by my side till just this moment." "ha, ha!" laughed his voice close to my ear, "and i'm here still, my dears, though you can't see me." who can account for such things? i have witnessed them over and over again, yet i am unable, even to this day, to do more than believe and wonder. chapter xiii. the mediumship of william eglinton. in the stones i have related of "emily" and "the monk" i have alluded freely to the wonderful powers exhibited by william eglinton, but the marvels there spoken of were by no means the only ones i have witnessed through his mediumship. at the _séance_ which produced the apparition of my sister emily, mr. eglinton's control "joey" made himself very familiar. "joey" is a remarkably small man--perhaps two-thirds lighter in weight than the medium--and looks more like a little jockey than anything else, though he says he was a clown whilst in this world, and claims to be the spirit of the immortal joe grimaldi. he has always appeared to us clothed in a tight-fitting white dress like a woven jersey suit, which makes him look still smaller than he is. he usually keeps up a continuous chatter, whether visible or invisible, and is one of the cleverest and kindest controls i know. he is also very devotional, for which the public will perhaps give him as little credit now as they did whilst he was on earth. on the first occasion of our meeting in the russell street rooms he did not show himself until quite the last, but he talked incessantly of and for the other spirits that appeared. my sister was, as i have said, the first to show herself--then came an extraordinary apparition. on the floor, about three feet from the cabinet, appeared a head--only the head and throat of a dark man, with black beard and moustaches, surmounted by the white turban usually worn by natives. it did not speak, but the eyes rolled and the lips moved, as if it tried to articulate, but without success. "joey" said the spirit came for colonel lean, and was that of a foreigner who had been decapitated. colonel lean could not recognize the features; but, strange to say, he had been present at the beheading of two natives in japan who had been found guilty of murdering some english officers, and we concluded from "joey's" description that this must be the head of one of them. i knelt down on the floor and put my face on a level with that of the spirit, that i might assure myself there was no body attached to it and concealed by the curtain of the cabinet, and i can affirm that it was _a head only_, resting on the neck--that its eyes moved and its features worked, but that there was nothing further on the floor. i questioned it, and it evidently tried hard to speak in return. the mouth opened and the tongue was thrust out, and made a sort of dumb sound, but was unable to form any words, and after a while the head sunk through the floor and disappeared. if this was not one of the pleasantest apparitions i have seen, it was one of the most remarkable. there was no possibility of trickery or deception. the decapitated head rested in full sight of the audience, and had all the peculiarities of the native appearance and expression. after this the figures of two or three englishmen came, friends of others of the audience--then "joey" said he would teach us how to "make muslin." he walked right outside the cabinet, a quaint little figure, not much bigger than a boy of twelve or thirteen, with a young, old face, and dressed in the white suit i have described. he sat down by me and commenced to toss his hands in the air, as though he were juggling with balls, saying the while, "this is the way we make ladies' dresses." as he did so, a small quantity of muslin appeared in his hands, which he kept on moving in the same manner, whilst the flimsy fabric increased and increased before our eyes, until it rose in billows of muslin above "joey's" head and fell over his body to his feet, and enveloped him until he was completely hidden from view. he kept on chattering till the last moment from under the heap of snowy muslin, telling us to be sure and "remember how he made ladies' dresses"--when, all of a sudden, in the twinkling of an eye, the heap of muslin rose into the air, and before us stood the tall figure of "abdullah," mr. eglinton's eastern guide. there had been no darkness, no pause to effect this change. the muslin had remained on the spot where it was fabricated until "joey" evaporated, and "abdullah" rose up from beneath it. now "abdullah" is not a spirit to be concealed easily. he is six foot two--a great height for a native--and his high turban adds to his stature. he is a very handsome man, with an aquiline nose and bright black eyes--a persian, i believe, by birth, and naturally dark in complexion. he does not speak english, but "salaams" continually, and will approach the sitters when requested, and let them examine the jewels, of which he wears a large quantity in his turban and ears and round his throat, or to show them and let them feel that he has lost one arm, the stump being plainly discernible through his thin clothing. "abdullah" possesses all the characteristics of the eastern nation, which are unmistakable to one who, like myself, has been familiar with them in the flesh. his features are without doubt those of a persian; so is his complexion. his figure is long and lithe and supple, as that of a cat, and he can bend to the ground and rise again with the utmost ease and grace. anybody who could pretend for a moment to suppose that mr. eglinton by "making up" could personate "abdullah" must be a fool. it would be an impossibility, even were he given unlimited time and assistance, to dress for the character. there is a peculiar boneless elasticity in the movements of a native which those who have lived in the east know that no englishmen can imitate successfully. "abdullah's" hand and feet also possess all the characteristics of his nationality, being narrow, long and nerveless, although i have heard that he can give rather too good a grip with his one hand when he chooses to exert his power or to show his dislike to any particular sitter. he has always, however, shown the utmost urbanity towards us, but he is not a particularly friendly or familiar spirit. when "abdullah" had retired on this occasion, "joey" drew back the curtain that shaded the cabinet, and showed us his medium and himself. there sat mr. eglinton attired in evening dress, with the front of his shirt as smooth and spotless as when it left the laundress' hands, lying back in his chair in a deep sleep, whilst little joey sat astride his knee, his white suit contrasting strangely with his medium's black trousers. whilst in this position he kissed mr. eglinton several times, telling him to wake up, and not look so sulky; then, having asked if we all saw him distinctly, and were satisfied he was not the medium, he bade god bless us, and the curtains closed once more upon this incomprehensible scene. mr. eglinton subsequently became an intimate friend of ours, and we often had the pleasure of sitting with him, but we never saw anything more wonderful (to my mind) than we did on our first acquaintance. when he accompanied us to bruges (as told in the history of the "monk"), "joey" took great trouble to prove to us incontrovertibly that he is not an "emanation," or double, of his medium, but a creature completely separate and wholly distinct. my sister's house being built on a very old-fashioned principle, had all the bedrooms communicating with each other. the entresol in which we usually assembled formed the connecting link to a series of six chambers, all of which opened into each other, and the entrance to the first and last of which was from the entresol. we put mr. eglinton into no. , locking the connecting door with no. , so that he had no exit except into our circle as we sat round the curtain, behind which we placed his chair. "joey" having shown himself outside the curtain, informed us he was going through the locked door at the back into our bedrooms, nos. , and , and would bring us something from each room. accordingly, in another minute we heard his voice in no. , commenting on all he saw there; then he passed into no. , and so on, making a tour of the rooms, until he appeared at the communicating door of no. , and threw an article taken from each room into the entresol. he then told us to lift the curtain and inspect the medium, which we did, finding him fast asleep in his chair, with the door behind him locked. "joey" then returned by the way he had gone, and presented himself once more outside the cabinet, the key of the locked door being all the time in our possession. "ernest" is another well-known control of mr. eglinton's, though he seldom appears, except to give some marvellous test or advice. he is a very earnest, deep-feeling spirit, like his name, and his symbol is a cross of light; sometimes large and sometimes small, but always bright and luminous. "ernest" seldom shows his whole body. it is generally only his face that is apparent in the midst of the circle, a more convincing manifestation for the sceptic or inquirer than any number of bodies which are generally attributed to the chicanery of the medium. "ernest" always speaks in the direct voice in a gentle, bass tone, entirely distinct from "joey's" treble, and his appearance is usually indicative of a harmonious and successful meeting. "daisy," a north american indian girl, is another control of william eglinton's, but i have only heard her speak in trance. i do not know which of these spirits it is who conducts the manifestations of writing on the arm, with which mr. eglinton is very successful; sometimes it seems to be one, and sometimes the other. as he was sitting with our family at supper one evening, i mentally asked "joey" to write something on some part of his body where his hand could not reach. this was in order to prove that the writing had not been prepared by chemical means beforehand, as some people are apt to assert. in a short time mr. eglinton was observed to stop eating, and grow very fidgety and look uncomfortable, and on being questioned as to the cause, he blushed and stammered, and could give no answer. after a while he rose from table, and asked leave to retire to his room. the next morning he told us that he had been so uneasy at supper, it had become impossible for him to sit it out; that on reaching his room he had found that his back, which irritated him as though covered with a rash, _had a sentence written across it_, of which he could only make out a few words by looking at it backwards in a glass; and as there were only ladies in the house beside himself, he could not call in an interpreter to his assistance. one day, without consulting him, i placed a small card and a tiny piece of black lead between the leaves of a volume of the _leisure hour_, and asked him to hold the book with me on the dining table. i never let the book out of my hand, and it was so thick that i had difficulty afterwards in finding my card (from the corner of which i had torn a piece) again. mr. eglinton sat with me in the daylight with the family about, and all he did was to place his hand on mine, which rested on the book. the perspiration ran down his face whilst he did so, but there was no other sign of power, and, honestly, i did not expect to find any writing on my card. when i had shaken it out of the leaves of the book, however, i found a letter closely written on it from my daughter "florence" to this effect:-- "dear mama,--i am so glad to be able to communicate with you again, and to demonstrate by actual fact that i am really present. of course, you quite understand that i do not write this myself. 'charlie' is present with me, and so are many more, and we all unite in sending you our love. "your daughter, florence." mr. eglinton's mediumship embraces various phases of phenomena, as may be gathered from his own relations of them, and the testimony of his friends. a narrative of his spiritual work, under the title of "'twixt two worlds," has been written and published by mr. john t. farmer, and contains some exhaustive descriptions of, and testimonies to, his undoubtedly wonderful gifts. in it appear several accounts written by myself, and which, for the benefit of such of my readers as have not seen the book in question, i will repeat here. the first is that of the "monk," given _in extenso_, as i have given it in the eleventh chapter of this book. the second is of a _séance_ held on the th september, . the circle consisted of mr. and mrs. stewart, colonel and mrs. wynch, mr. and mrs. russell-davies, mr. morgan, and colonel lean and myself, and was held in mr. eglinton's private chambers in quebec street. we sat in the front drawing-room, with one gas-burner alight, and the door having been properly secured, mr. eglinton went into the back room, which was divided by curtains from the front. he had not left us a couple of minutes before a man stepped out through the _portière_, and walked right into the midst of us. he was a large, stout man, and very dark, and most of the sitters remarked that he had a very peculiar smell. no one recognized him, and after appearing two or three times he left, and was _immediately_ succeeded by a woman, very much like him, who also had to leave us without any recognition. these two spirits, before taking a final leave, came out _together_, and seemed to examine the circle curiously. after a short interval a much smaller and slighter man came forward, and darted in a peculiar slouching attitude round the circle. colonel lean asked him to shake hands. he replied by seizing his hand, and nearly dragging him off his seat. he then darted across the room, and gave a similar proof of his muscular power to mr. stewart. but when i asked him to notice _me_, he took my hand and squeezed it firmly between his own. he had scarcely disappeared before "abdullah," with his one arm and his six feet two of height, stood before us, and salaamed all round. then came my daughter florence, a girl of nineteen by that time, very slight and feminine in appearance. she advanced two or three times, near enough to touch me with her hand, but seemed fearful to approach nearer. but the next moment she returned, dragging mr. eglinton after her. he was in deep trance, breathing with difficulty, but "florence" held him by the hand and brought him up to my side, when he detached my hands from those of the sitters either side of me, and making me stand up, he placed my daughter in my arms. as she stood folded in my embrace, she whispered a few words to me relative to a subject _known to no one but myself_, and she placed my hand upon her heart, that i might feel she was a living woman. colonel lean asked her to go to him. she tried and failed, but having retreated behind the curtain to gather strength, she appeared the second time _with mr. eglinton_, and calling colonel lean to her, embraced him. this is one of the most perfect instances on record of a spirit form being seen distinctly by ten witnesses with the medium under gas. the next materialization that appeared was for mr. stewart. this gentleman was newly arrived from australia, and a stranger to mr. eglinton. as soon as he saw the female form, who beckoned him to the _portière_ to speak to her, he exclaimed, "my god! pauline," with such genuine surprise and conviction as were unmistakable. the spirit then whispered to him, and putting her arms round his neck, affectionately kissed him. he turned after a while, and addressing his wife, told her that the spirit bore the very form and features of their niece pauline, whom they had lost the year before. mr. stewart expressed himself entirely satisfied with the identity of his niece, and said she looked just as she had done before she was taken ill. i must not omit to say that the medium also appeared with this figure, making the third time of showing himself in one evening with the spirit form. the next apparition, being the seventh that appeared, was that of a little child apparently about two years old, who supported itself in walking by holding on to a chair. i stooped down, and tried to talk to this baby, but it only cried in a fretful manner, as though frightened at finding itself with strangers, and turned away. the attention of the circle was diverted from this sight by seeing "abdullah" dart between the curtains, and stand with the child in our view, whilst mr. eglinton appeared at the same moment between the two forms, making a _tria juncta in uno_. thus ended the _séance_. the second one of which i wrote took place on the th of the same month, and under very similar circumstances. the circle this time consisted of mrs. wheeler, mr. woods, mr. gordon, the honorable gordon sandeman, my daughter eva, my son frank, colonel lean, and myself. mr. eglinton appeared on this occasion to find some difficulty in passing under control, and he came out so frequently into the circle to gather power, that i guessed we were going to have uncommonly good manifestations. the voice of "joey," too, begged us under _no circumstances whatever_, to lose hands, as they were going to try something very difficult, and we might defeat their efforts at the very moment of victory. when the medium was at last under control in the back drawing room, a tall man, with an uncovered head of dark hair, and a large beard, appeared and walked up to a lady in the company. she was very much affected by the recognition of the spirit, which she affirmed to be that of her brother. she called him by name and kissed him, and informed us, that he was just as he had been in earth life. her emotion was so great, we thought she would have fainted, but after a while she became calm again. we next heard the notes of a clarionet. i had been told that mr. woods (a stranger just arrived from the antipodes) had lost a brother under peculiarly distressing circumstances, and that he hoped (though hardly expected) to see his brother that evening. it was the first time i had ever seen mr. woods; yet so remarkable was the likeness between the brothers, that when a spirit appeared with a clarionet in his hand, i could not help knowing who it was, and exclaimed, "oh, mr. woods, there is your brother!" the figure walked up to mr. woods and grasped his hand. as they appeared thus with their faces turned to one another, they were _strikingly_ alike both in feature and expression. this spirit's head was also bare, an unusual occurrence, and covered with thick, crisp hair. he appeared twice, and said distinctly, "god bless you!" each time to his brother. mrs. wheeler, who had known the spirit in earth life, was startled by the tone of the voice, which she recognized at once; and mr. morgan, who had been an intimate friend of his in australia, confirmed the recognition. we asked mr. woods the meaning of the clarionet, which was a black one, handsomely inlaid with silver. he told us his brother had been an excellent musician, and had won a similar instrument as a prize at some musical competition. "but," he added wonderingly, "his clarionet is locked up in my house in australia." my daughter "florence" came out next, but only a little way, at which i was disappointed, but "joey" said they were reserving the strength for a manifestation further on. he then said, "here comes a friend for mr. sandeman," and a man, wearing the masonic badge and scarf, appeared, and made the tour of the circle, giving the masonic grip to those of the craft present. he was a good looking young man, and said he had met some of those present in australia, but no one seemed to recognize him. he was succeeded by a male figure, who had materialized on the previous occasion. as he passed through the curtain, a female figure appeared beside him, bearing a very bright light, as though to show him the way. she did not come beyond the _portière_, but every one in the room saw her distinctly. on account of the dress and complexion of the male figure, we had wrongly christened him "the bedouin;" but my son, frank marryat, who is a sailor, now found out he was an east indian by addressing him in hindustani, to which he responded in a low voice. some one asked him to take a seat amongst us, upon which he seized a heavy chair in one hand and flourished it above his head. he then squatted, native fashion, on his haunches on the floor and left us, as before, by vanishing suddenly. "joey" now announced that they were going to try the experiment of "_showing us how the spirits were made from the medium_." this was the crowning triumph of the evening. mr. eglinton appeared in the very midst of us in trance. he entered the room backwards, and as if fighting with the power that pushed him in, his eyes were shut, and his breath was drawn with difficulty. as he stood thus, holding on to a chair for support, an airy mass like a cloud of tobacco smoke was seen on his left hip, his legs became illuminated by lights travelling up and down them, and a white film settled about his head and shoulders. the mass increased, and he breathed harder and harder, whilst invisible hands _pulled the filmy drapery out of his hip_ in long strips, that amalgamated as soon as formed, and fell to the ground to be succeeded by others. the cloud continued to grow thicker, and we were eagerly watching the process, when, in the twinkling of an eye, the mass had evaporated, and a spirit, full formed, stood beside him. no one could say _how_ it had been raised in the very midst of us, nor whence it came, but _it was there_. mr. eglinton then retired with the new-born spirit behind the curtains, but in another moment he came (or he was thrown out) amongst us again, and fell upon the floor. the curtains opened again, and the full figure of "ernest" appeared and raised the medium by the hand. as he saw him, mr. eglinton fell on his knees, and "ernest" drew him out of sight. thus ended the second of these two wonderful _séances_. thus published reports of them were signed with the full names and addresses of those who witnessed them. william eglinton's powers embrace various phases of phenomena, amongst which levitation is a common occurrence; indeed, i do not think i have ever sat with him at a _séance_ during which he has _not_ been levitated. i have seen him on several occasions rise, or be carried, into the air, so that his head touched the ceiling, and his feet were above the sitters' heads. on one occasion whilst sitting with him a perfectly new manifestation was developed. as each spirit came the name was announced, written on the air in letters of fire, which moved round the circle in front of the sitters. as the names were those of friends of the audience and not of friends of mr. eglinton, and the phenomenon ended with a letter written to me in the same manner on private affairs, it could not be attributed to a previously arranged trick. i have accompanied mr. eglinton, in the capacity of interpreter, to a professional _séance_ in paris consisting of some forty persons, not one of whom could speak a word of english whilst he was equally ignorant of foreign languages. and i have heard french and german spirits return through him to converse with their friends, who were radiant with joy at communicating with them again, whilst their medium could not (had he been conscious) have understood or pronounced a single word of all the news he was so glibly repeating. i will conclude this testimony to his powers by the account of a sitting with him for slate writing--that much abused and most maligned manifestation. because a few ignorant pig-headed people who have never properly investigated the science of spiritualism decide that a thing cannot be, "because it can't," men of honor and truth are voted charlatans and tricksters, and those who believe in them fools and blind. the day will dawn yet when it will be seen which of the two classes best deserve the name. some years ago, when i first became connected in business with mr. edgar lee of the _st. stephen's review_, i found him much interested in the subject of spiritualism, though he had never had an opportunity of investigating it, and through my introduction i procured him a test _séance_ with william eglinton. we met one afternoon at the medium's house in nottingham place for that purpose, and sat at an ordinary table in the back dining-room for slate-writing. the slate used on the occasion (as mr. lee had neglected to bring his own slate as requested) was one which was presented to mr. eglinton by mr. gladstone. it consisted of two slates of medium size, set in mahogany frames, with box hinges, and which, when shut, were fastened with a bramah lock and key. on the table cloth was a collection of tiny pieces of different colored chalk. in the front room, which was divided from us by folding doors, were some bookcases. mr. eglinton commenced by asking mr. lee to go into the front room by himself, and select, in his mind's eye, any book he chose as the one from which extracts should be given. mr. lee having done as he was told, returned to his former place beside us, without giving a hint as to which book he had selected. mr. gladstone's slate was then delivered over to him to clean with sponge and water; that done, he was directed to choose four pieces of chalk and place them between the slates, to lock them and retain the key. the slates were left on the table in the sight of all; mr. lee's hand remained on them all the time. all that mr. eglinton did was to place _his_ hand above mr. lee's. "you chose, i think," he commenced, "four morsels of chalk--white, blue, yellow and red. please say which word, on which line, on which page of the book you selected just now, the white chalk shall transcribe." mr. lee answered (i forget the exact numbers) somewhat in this wise, "the rd word on the th line of the nd page," he having, it must be remembered, no knowledge of the contents of the volume, which he had not even touched with his hand. immediately he had spoken, a scratching noise was heard between the two slates. when it ceased, mr. eglinton put the same question with regard to the blue, yellow and red chalks, which was similarly responded to. he then asked mr. lee to unlock the slates, read the words, and then fetch the book he had selected, and compare notes, and in each instance the word had been given correctly. several other experiments were then made, equally curious, the number of mr. lee's watch, which he had not taken from his pocket, and which he said he did not know himself, being amongst them. then mr. eglinton said to mr. lee, "have you any friend in the spirit-world from whom you would like to hear? if so, and you will mentally recall the name, we will try and procure some writing from him or her." (i must say here that these two were utter strangers to each other, and had met for the first time that afternoon, and indeed [as will be seen by the context] _i_ had a very slight knowledge of mr. edgar lee myself at that time.) mr. lee thought for a moment, and then replied that there was a dead friend of his from whom he should like to hear. the cleaning and locking process was gone through again, and the scratching re-commenced, and when it concluded, mr. lee unlocked the slates and read a letter to this effect:-- "my dear will,--i am quite satisfied with your decision respecting bob. by all means, send him to the school you are thinking of. he will get on better there. his education requires more pushing than it gets at present. thanks for all you have done for him. god bless you.--your affectionate cousin, r. tasker." i do not pretend to give the exact words of this letter; for though they were afterwards published, i have not a copy by me. but the gist of the experiment does not lie in the exactitude of the words. when i saw the slate, i looked at mr. lee in astonishment. "who is it for?" i asked. "it is all right," he replied; "it is for me. it is from my cousin, who left his boy in my charge. _my real name is william tasker._" now, i had never heard it hinted before that edgar lee was only a _nom de plume_, and the announcement came on me as a genuine surprise. so satisfied was mr. william tasker edgar lee with his experimental _séance_, that he had the slate photographed and reproduced in the _st. stephen's review_, with an account of the whole proceedings, which were sufficient to make any one stop for a moment in the midst of the world's harassing duties and think. chapter xiv. the mediumship of arthur colman. arthur colman was so intimate a friend of mr. eglinton's, and so much associated with him in my thoughts in the days when i first knew them both, that it seems only natural that i should write of him next. his powers were more confined to materialization than eglinton's, but in that he excelled. he is the most wonderful materializing medium i ever met in england; but of late years, owing to the injury it did him in his profession, he has been compelled, in justice to himself, to give up sitting for physical manifestations, and, indeed, sitting at all, except to oblige his friends. i cannot but consider this decision on his part as a great public loss; but until the public takes more interest in the next world than they do in this, it will not make it worth the while of such as mr. colman to devote their lives, health and strength to their enlightenment. for to be a good physical medium means literally to part, little by little, with one's own life, and no man can be expected to do so much for the love of a set of unbelievers and sceptics, who will use up all his powers, and then go home to call him a rogue and a cheat and a trickster. if, as i am persuaded, each one of us is surrounded by the influences we gather of our own free-will about us--the loving and noble-hearted by angels, the selfish and unbelieving by devils--and we consider how the latter preponderate over the former in this world, is it to be wondered at that most _séances_ are conducted by an assemblage of evil spirits brought there by the sitters themselves? sceptical, blasphemous and sensual men and women collect together to try and find out the falsehood, _not the truth_, of spiritualism, and are tricked by the very influences that attend their footsteps and direct their daily lives; and therein lies the danger of spiritualism as a pursuit, taken up out of curiosity rather than a desire to learn. it gives increased power to the evil that surrounds ourselves, and the devil that goes out of us returns with seven other devils worse than himself. the drunkard, who, by giving rein to a weakness which he knows he should resist, has attracted to him the spirits of drunkards gone before, joins a _séance_, and by the collaboration of forces, as it were, bestows increased power on the guides he has chosen for himself to lead him into greater evil. this dissertation, however, called forth by the never-ceasing wonder i feel at the indifference of the world towards such sights as i have seen, has led me further than i intended from the subject of my chapter. arthur colman is a young man of delicate constitution and appearance, who was at one time almost brought down to death's door by the demands made by physical phenomena upon his strength; but since he has given up sitting, he has regained his health, and looks quite a different person. this fact proves of itself what a tax is laid upon the unfortunate medium for such manifestations. since he has resolved, however, never to sit again, i am all the more anxious to record what i have seen through him, probably for the last time. when i first knew my husband colonel lean, he had seen nothing of spiritualism, and was proportionately curious, and naturally a little sceptical on the subject, or, rather let me say, incredulous. he was hardly prepared to receive all the marvels i told him of without proof; and mr. colman's guide, "aimée," was very anxious to convince him of their truth. she arranged, therefore, a _séance_ at which he was to be present, and which was to be held at the house of mr. and mrs. george neville. the party dined there together previously, and consisted only of mr. and mrs. neville, arthur colman, colonel lean, and myself. as we were in the drawing-room, however, after dinner, and before we had commenced the _séance_, an american lady, who was but slightly known to any of us, was announced. we had particularly wished to have no strangers present, and her advent proportionately annoyed us, but we did not know on what excuse to get rid of her. she was a pushing sort of person; and when mrs. neville told her we were going to hold a _séance_, as a sort of hint that she might take her leave, it only made her resolve to stay; indeed, she declared she had had a premonition of the fact. she said that whilst in her own room that morning, a figure had appeared standing by her bed, dressed in blue and white, like the pictures of the virgin mary, and that all day she had had an impression that she must spend the evening with the nevilles, and she should hear something more about it. we could not get rid of the lady, so we were obliged to ask her to remain and assist at the _séance_, which she had already made up her mind to do, so we commenced our preparations. the two drawing-rooms communicated by folding doors, which were opened, and a _portière_ drawn across the opening. in the back room we placed mr. colman's chair. he was dressed in a light grey suit, which we secured in the following manner:--his hands were first sewn inside the sleeves of the coat, then his arms were placed behind his back, and the coat sleeves sewn together to the elbow. we then sewed his trouser legs together in the same way. we then tied him round the throat, waist and legs with _white cotton_, which the least movement on his part would break, and the ends of each ligament were sealed to the wall of the room with wax and stamped with my seal with "_florence marryat_" on it. considering him thus secure, without any _possibility_ of escape unless we discovered it, we left him in the back room, and arranged ourselves on a row of five chairs before the _portière_ in the front one, which was lighted by a single gas-burner. i sat at the head of the row, then the american lady, mrs. neville, colonel lean and mr. neville. i am not sure how long we waited for the manifestations; but i do not think it was many minutes before a female figure glided from the side of the curtain and took a vacant chair by my side. i said, "_who is this?_" and she whispered, "_florence_," and laid her head down on my shoulder, and kissed my neck. i was turning towards her to distinguish her features more fully, when i became aware that a second figure was standing in front of me, and "florence" said "mother, there is powles;" and at the same time, as he bent down to speak to me, his beard touched my face. i had not had time to draw the attention of my friends to the spirits that stood by me, when i was startled by hearing one exclamation after another from the various sitters. the american lady called out, "there's the woman that came to me this morning." mr. neville said, "that is my father," and colonel lean was asking some one if he would not give his name, i looked down the line of sitters. before colonel lean there stood an old man with a long, white beard; a somewhat similar figure was in front of mr. neville. before the dark curtain appeared a woman dressed in blue and white, like a nun; and meanwhile, "florence" and "powles" still maintained their station by my side. as if this were not enough of itself to turn a mortal's brain, the _portière_ was at the same moment drawn aside, and there stood arthur colman in his grey suit, freed from all his bonds, but under the control of "aimée," who called out joyously to my husband, "_now, frank, will you believe?_" she dropped the curtain, the apparitions glided or faded away, and we passed into the back drawing-room, to find mr. colman still in trance, just as we had left him, and _with all the seals and stitches_ intact. not a thread of them all was broken. this is the largest number of spirits i have ever seen at one time with one medium. i have seen two materialized spirits at a time, and even three, from mr. williams and miss showers and katie cook; but on this occasion there were five apparent with the medium, all standing together before us. and this is the sort of thing that the majority of people do not consider it worth their while to take a little trouble to see. i have already related how successfully "florence" used to materialize through this medium, and numerous friends, utterly unknown to him, have revisited us through his means. his trance mediumship is as wonderful as his physical phenomena; some people might think more so. amongst others, two spirits have come back to us through mr. colman, neither of whom he knew in this life, and both of whom are, in their way, too characteristic to be mistaken. one is phillis glover the actress; the other my stepson, francis lean, who was drowned by an accident at sea. phillis glover was a woman who led a very eventful life, chiefly in america, and was a versatile genius in conversation, as in everything else. she was peculiar also, and had a half-yankee way of talking, and a store of familiar sayings and anecdotes, which she constantly introduced into her conversation. she was by no means an ordinary person whilst in this life, and in order to imitate her manner and speech successfully, one would need to be as clever a person as herself. and, without wishing to derogate from the powers of mr. colman's mind, he knows, and i know, that phillis glover was cleverer than either of us. when her influence or spirit therefore returns through him, it is quite unmistakable. it is not only that she retains all her little tricks of voice and feature and manner (which mr. colman has never seen), but she alludes to circumstances that took place in this life and people she was associated with here that he has never heard of. more, she will relate her old stories and anecdotes, and sing her old songs, and give the most incontrovertible tests of her identity, even to recalling facts and incidents that have entirely passed from our minds. when she appears through him, it is phillis glover we are sitting with again and talking with, as familiarly as we did in the days gone by. "francis," in his way too, is quite as remarkable. the circumstances of his death and the events leading to it were unknown to us, till he related them through mr. colman; and he speaks to us of the contents of private letters, and repeats conversations and alludes to circumstances and names that are known only to him and ourselves. he had a peculiar manner also--quick and nervous--and a way of cutting his words short, which his spirit preserves to the smallest particular, and which furnish the strongest proofs possible of his identity to those who knew him here below. but these are but a very few amongst the innumerable tests furnished by arthur colman's occult powers of the assured possibility of communicating with the spirits of those gone before us. chapter xv. the mediumship of mrs. guppy volckman. the mediumship of this lady is so well known, and has been so universally attested, that nothing i can write of could possibly add to her fame; and as i made her acquaintance but a short time before she relinquished sitting for manifestations, i have had but little experience of her powers, but such as i enjoyed were very remarkable. i have alluded to them in the story of "the green lady," whose apparition was due solely to mrs. guppy volckman's presence, and on that occasion she gave us another wonderful proof of her mediumship. a sheet was procured and held up at either end by mr. charles williams and herself. it was held in the light, in the centre of the room, forming a white wall of about five feet high, _i.e._, as high as their arms could conveniently reach. _both_ the hands of mrs. volckman and mr. williams were placed _outside_ the sheet, so that no trickery might be suspected through their being concealed. in a short time the head of a woman appeared above the sheet, followed by that of a man, and various pairs of hands, both large and small, which bobbed up and down, and seized the hands of the spectators, whilst the faces went close to the media, as if with the intention of kissing them. this frightened mrs. volckman, so that she frequently screamed and dropped her end of the sheet, which, had there been any deception, must inevitably have exposed it. it seemed to make no difference to the spirits, however, who reappeared directly they had the opportunity, and made her at last so nervous that she threw the sheet down and refused to hold it any more. the faces were life-size, and could move their eyes and lips; the hands were some as large as a man's, and covered with hair, and others like those of a woman or child. they had all the capability of working the fingers and grasping objects presented to them; whilst the four hands belonging to the media were kept in sight of the audience, and could not have worked machinery even if they could have concealed it. the first time i was introduced to mrs. volckman (then mrs. guppy) was at a _séance_ at her own house in victoria road, where she had assembled a large party of guests, including several names well known in art and literature. we sat in a well-lighted drawing-room, and the party was so large that the circle round the table was three deep. mrs. mary hardy, the american medium (since dead), was present, and the honors of the manifestations may be therefore, i conclude, divided between the two ladies. the table, a common deal one, made for such occasions, with a round hole of about twenty inches in diameter in the middle of it, was covered with a cloth that hung down, and was nailed to the ground, leaving only the aperture free. (i must premise that this cloth had been nailed down by a committee of the gentlemen visitors, in order that there might be no suspicion of a confederate hidden underneath it.) we then sat round the table, but without placing our hands on it. in a short time hands began to appear through the open space in the table, all sorts of hands, from the woman's taper fingers and the baby's dimpled fist, to the hands of old and young men, wrinkled or muscular. some of the hands had rings on the fingers, by which the sitters recognized them, some stretched themselves out to be grasped; and some appeared in pairs, clasped together or separate. one hand took a glove from a sitter and put it on the other, showing the muscular force it possessed by the way in which it pressed down each finger and then buttoned the glove. another pair of hands talked through the dumb alphabet to us, and a third played on a musical instrument. i was leaning forward, before i had witnessed the above, peering inquisitively down the hole, and saying, "i wonder if they would have strength to take anything down with them," when a large hand suddenly appeared and very nearly took _me_ down, by seizing my nose as if it never meant to let go again. at all events, it took me a peg or two down, for i remember it brought the tears into my eyes with the force it exhibited. after the hands had ceased to appear, the table was moved away, and we sat in a circle in the light. mrs. guppy did not wish to take a part in the _séance_, except as a spectator, so she retired to the back drawing-room with the baroness adelma vay and other visitors, and left mrs. hardy with the circle in the front. suddenly, however, she was levitated and carried in the sight of us all into the midst of our circle. as she felt herself rising in the air, she called out, "don't let go hands for heaven's sake." we were standing in a ring, and i had hold of the hand of prince albert of solms. as mrs. guppy came sailing over our heads, her feet caught his neck and mine, and in our anxiety to do as she had told us, we gripped tight hold of each other, and were thrown forward on our knees by the force with which she was carried past us into the centre. this was a pretty strong proof to us, whatever it may be to others, that our senses did not deceive us when we thought we saw mrs. guppy over our heads in the air. the influence that levitated her, moreover, placed her on a chair with such a bump that it broke the two front legs off. as soon as mrs. guppy had rejoined us, the order was given to put out the light and to wish for something. we unanimously asked for flowers, it being the middle of december, and a hard frost. simultaneously we smelt the smell of fresh earth, and were told to light the gas again, when the following extraordinary sight met our view. in the middle of the sitters, still holding hands, was piled up _on the carpet_ an immense quantity of mould, which had been torn up apparently with the roots that accompanied it. there were laurestinus, and laurels, and holly, and several others, just as they had been pulled out of the earth and thrown down in the midst of us. mrs. guppy looked anything but pleased at the state of her carpet, and begged the spirits would bring something cleaner next time. they then told us to extinguish the lights again, and each sitter was to wish _mentally_ for something for himself. i wished for a yellow butterfly, knowing it was december, and as i thought of it, a little cardboard box was put into my hand. prince albert whispered to me, "have you got anything?" "yes," i said; "but not what i asked for. i expect they have given me a piece of jewellery." when the gas was re-lit, i opened the box, and there lay _two yellow butterflies_; dead, of course, but none the less extraordinary for that. i wore at that _séance_ a tight-fitting, high white muslin dress, over a tight petticoat body. the dress had no pocket, and i carried my handkerchief, a fine cambric one, in my hand. when the _séance_ was over, i found this handkerchief had disappeared, at which i was vexed, as it had been embroidered for me by my sister emily, then dead. i inquired of every sitter if they had seen it, even making them turn out their pockets in case they had taken it in mistake for their own, but it was not to be found, and i returned home, as i thought, without it. what was my surprise on removing my dress and petticoat bodice to find the handkerchief, neatly folded into a square of about four inches, _between_ my stays and the garment beneath them; placed, moreover, over the smallest part of my waist, where no fingers could have penetrated even had my dress been loose. my woman readers may be able better than the men to appreciate the difficulty of such a manoeuvre by mortal means; indeed it would have been quite impossible for myself or anybody else to place the handkerchief in such a position without removing the stays. and it was folded so neatly also, and placed so smoothly, that there was not a crumple in the cambric. chapter xvi. the mediumship of florence cook. in writing of my own mediumship, or the mediumship of any other person, i wish it particularly to be understood that i do not intend my narrative to be, by any means, an account of _all séances_ held under that control (for were i to include everything that i have seen and heard during my researches into spiritualism, this volume would swell to unconscionable dimensions), but only of certain events which i believe to be remarkable, and not enjoyed by every one in like measure. most people have read of the ordinary phenomena that take place at such meetings. my readers, therefore, will find no description here of marvels which--whether true or false--can be accounted for upon natural grounds. miss florence cook, now mrs. elgie corner, is one of the media who have been most talked of and written about. mr. alfred crookes took an immense interest in her, and published a long account of his investigation of spiritualism under her mediumship. mr. henry dunphy, of the _morning post_, wrote a series of papers for _london society_ (of which magazine i was then the editor), describing her powers, and the proof she gave of them. the first time i ever met florence cook was in his private house, when my little daughter appeared through her (_vide_ "the story of my spirit child"). on that occasion, as we were sitting at supper after the _séance_--a party of perhaps thirty people--the whole dinner-table, with everything upon it, rose bodily in the air to a level with our knees, and the dishes and glasses swayed about in a perilous manner, without, however, coming to any permanent harm. i was so much astonished at, and interested by, what i saw that evening, that i became most anxious to make the personal acquaintance of miss cook. she was the medium for the celebrated spirit, "katie king," of whom so much has been believed and disbelieved, and the _séances_ she gave at her parents' house in hackney for the purpose of seeing this figure alone used to be crowded by the cleverest and most scientific men of the day, sergeants cox and ballantyne, mr. s. c. hall, mr. alfred crookes, and many others, being on terms of the greatest intimacy with her. mr. william harrison, of the _spiritualist_ paper, was the one to procure me an introduction to the family and an entrance to the _séances_, for which i shall always feel grateful to him. for the benefit of the uninitiated, let me begin by telling _who_ "katie king" was supposed to be. her account of herself was that her name was "annie owens morgan;" that she was the daughter of sir henry morgan, a famous buccaneer who lived about the time of the commonwealth, and suffered death upon the high seas, being, in fact, a pirate; that she herself was about twelve years old when charles the first was beheaded; that she married and had two little children; that she committed more crimes than we should like to hear of, having murdered men with her own hands, but yet died quite young, at about two or three and twenty. to all questions concerning the reason of her reappearance on earth, she returned but one answer, that it was part of the work given her to do to convince the world of the truth of spiritualism. this was the information i received from her own lips. she had appeared to the cooks some years before i saw her, and had become so much one of the family as to walk about the house at all times without alarming the inmates. she often materialized and got into bed with her medium at night, much to florrie's annoyance; and after miss cook's marriage to captain corner, he told me himself that he used to feel at first as if he had married two women, and was not quite sure which was his wife of the two. the order of these _séances_ was always the same. miss cook retired to a back room, divided from the audience by a thin damask curtain, and presently the form of "katie king" would appear dressed in white, and walk out amongst the sitters in gaslight, and talk like one of themselves. florence cook (as i mentioned before) is a very small, slight brunette, with dark eyes and dark curly hair and a delicate aquiline nose. sometimes "katie" resembled her exactly; at others, she was totally different. sometimes, too, she measured the same height as her medium; at others, she was much taller. i have a large photograph of "katie" taken under limelight. in it she appears as the double of florrie cook, yet florrie was looking on whilst the picture was taken. i have sat for her several times with mr. crookes, and seen the tests applied which are mentioned in his book on the subject. i have seen florrie's dark curls _nailed down to the floor_, outside the curtain, in view of the audience, whilst "katie" walked about and talked with us. i have seen florrie placed on the scale of a weighing machine constructed by mr. crookes for the purpose, behind the curtain, whilst the balance remained in sight. i have seen under these circumstances that the medium weighed eight stone in a normal condition, and that as soon as the materialized form was fully developed, the balance ran up to four stone. moreover, i have seen both florrie and "katie" together on several occasions, so i can have no doubt on the subject that they were two separate creatures. still, i can quite understand how difficult it must have been for strangers to compare the strong likeness that existed between the medium and the spirit, without suspecting they were one and the same person. one evening "katie" walked out and perched herself upon my knee. i could feel she was a much plumper and heavier woman than miss cook, but she wonderfully resembled her in features, and i told her so. "katie" did not seem to consider it a compliment. she shrugged her shoulders, made a grimace, and said, "i know i am; i can't help it, but i was much prettier than that in earth life. you shall see, some day--you shall see." after she had finally retired that evening, she put her head out at the curtain again and said, with the strong lisp she always had, "i want mrs. ross-church." i rose and went to her, when she pulled me inside the curtain, when i found it was so thin that the gas shining through it from the outer room made everything in the inner quite visible. "katie" pulled my dress impatiently and said, "sit down on the ground," which i did. she then seated herself in my lap, saying, "and now, dear, we'll have a good 'confab,' like women do on earth." florence cook, meanwhile, was lying on a mattress on the ground close to us, wrapped in a deep trance. "katie" seemed very anxious i should ascertain beyond doubt that it was florrie. "touch her," she said, "take her hand, pull her curls. do you see that it is florrie lying there?" when i assured her i was quite satisfied there was no doubt of it, the spirit said, "then look round this way, and see what i was like in earth life." i turned to the form in my arms, and what was my amazement to see a woman fair as the day, with large grey or blue eyes, a white skin, and a profusion of golden red hair. "katie" enjoyed my surprise, and asked me, "ain't i prettier than florrie now?" she then rose and procured a pair of scissors from the table, and cut off a lock of her own hair and a lock of the medium's, and gave them to me. i have them safe to this day. one is almost black, soft and silky; the other a coarse golden red. after she had made me this present, "katie" said, "go back now, but don't tell the others to-night, or they'll all want to see me." on another very warm evening she sat on my lap amongst the audience, and i felt perspiration on her arm. this surprised me; and i asked her if, for the time being, she had the veins, nerves, and secretions of a human being; if blood ran through her body, and she had a heart and lungs. her answer was, "i have everything that florrie has." on that occasion also she called me after her into the back room, and, dropping her white garment, stood perfectly naked before me. "now," she said "you can see that i am a woman." which indeed she was, and a most beautifully-made woman too; and i examined her well, whilst miss cook lay beside us on the floor. instead of dismissing me this time, "katie" told me to sit down by the medium, and, having brought me a candle and matches, said i was to strike a light as soon as she gave three knocks, as florrie would be hysterical on awaking, and need my assistance. she then knelt down and kissed me, and i saw she was still naked. "where is your dress, katie?" i asked. "oh that's gone," she said; "i've sent it on before me." as she spoke thus, kneeling beside me, she rapped three times on the floor. i struck the match almost simultaneously with the signal; but as it flared up, "katie king" was gone like a flash of lightning, and miss cook, as she had predicted, awoke with a burst of frightened tears, and had to be soothed into tranquillity again. on another occasion "katie king" was asked at the beginning of the _séance_, by one of the company, to say _why_ she could not appear in the light of more than one gasburner. the question seemed to irritate her, and she replied, "i have told you all, several times before, that i can't stay under a searching light. i don't know _why_; but i can't, and if you want to prove the truth of what i say, turn up all the gas and see what will happen to me. only remember, it you do there will be no _séance_ to-night, because i shan't be able to come back again, and you must take your choice." upon this assertion it was put to the vote if the trial should be made or not, and all present (mr. s. c. hall was one of the party) decided we would prefer to witness the effect of a full glare of gas upon the materialized form than to have the usual sitting, as it would settle the vexed question of the necessity of gloom (if not darkness) for a materializing _séance_ for ever. we accordingly told "katie" of our choice, and she consented to stand the test, though she said afterwards we had put her to much pain. she took up her station against the drawing-room wall, with her arms extended as if she were crucified. then three gas-burners were turned on to their full extent in a room about sixteen feet square. the effect upon "katie king" was marvellous. she looked like herself for the space of a second only, then she began gradually to melt away. i can compare the dematerialization of her form to nothing but a wax doll melting before a hot fire. first, the features became blurred and indistinct; they seemed to run into each other. the eyes sunk in the sockets, the nose disappeared, the frontal bone fell in. next the limbs appeared to give way under her, and she sank lower and lower on the carpet like a crumbling edifice. at last there was _nothing but her head_ left above the ground--then a heap of white drapery only, which disappeared with a whisk, as if a hand had pulled it after her--and we were left staring by the light of three gas-burners at the spot on which "katie king" had stood. she was always attired in white drapery, but it varied in quality. sometimes it looked like long cloth; at others like mull muslin or jaconet; oftenest it was a species of thick cotton net. the sitters were much given to asking "katie" for a piece of her dress to keep as a souvenir of their visit; and when they received it, would seal it up carefully in an envelope and convey it home; and were much surprised on examining their treasure to find it had totally disappeared. "katie" used to say that nothing material about her could be made to last without taking away some of the medium's vitality, and weakening her in consequence. one evening, when she was cutting off pieces of her dress rather lavishly, i remarked that it would require a great deal of mending. she answered, "i'll show you how we mend dresses in the spirit world." she then doubled up the front breadth of her garment a dozen times, and cut two or three round holes in it. i am sure when she let it fall again there must have been thirty or forty holes, and "katie" said, "isn't that a nice cullender?" she then commenced, whilst we stood close to her, to shake her skirt gently about, and in a minute it was as perfect as before, without a hole to be seen. when we expressed our astonishment, she told me to take the scissors and cut off her hair. she had a profusion of ringlets falling to her waist that night. i obeyed religiously, hacking the hair wherever i could, whilst she kept on saying, "cut more! cut more! not for yourself, you know, because you can't take it away." so i cut off curl after curl, and as fast as they fell to the ground, _the hair grew again upon her head_. when i had finished, "katie" asked me to examine her hair, to see if i could detect any place where i had used the scissors, and i did so without any effect. neither was the severed hair to be found. it had vanished out of sight. "katie" was photographed many times, by limelight, by mr. alfred crookes, but her portraits are all too much like her medium to be of any value in establishing her claim to a separate identity. she had always stated she should not appear on this earth after the month of may, ; and accordingly, on the st, she assembled her friends to say "good-bye" to them, and i was one of the number. "katie" had asked miss cook to provide her with a large basket of flowers and ribbons, and she sat on the floor and made up a bouquet for each of her friends to keep in remembrance of her. mine, which consists of lilies of the valley and pink geranium, looks almost as fresh to-day, nearly seventeen years after, as it did when she gave it to me. it was accompanied by the following words, which "katie" wrote on a sheet of paper in my presence:-- "from annie owen de morgan (_alias_ 'katie') to her friend florence marryat ross-church. with love. _pensez à moi._ "_may st, ._" the farewell scene was as pathetic as if we had been parting with a dear companion by death. "katie" herself did not seem to know how to go. she returned again and again to have a last look, especially at mr. alfred crookes, who was as attached to her as she was to him. her prediction has been fulfilled, and from that day, florence cook never saw her again nor heard anything about her. her place was shortly filled by another influence, who called herself "marie," and who danced and sung in a truly professional style, and certainly as miss cook never either danced or sung. i should not have mentioned the appearance of this spirit, whom i only saw once or twice, excepting for the following reason. on one occasion miss cook (then mrs. corner) was giving a public _séance_ at the rooms of the national british association of spiritualists, at which a certain sir george sitwell, a very young man, was present, and at which he declared that the medium cheated, and that the spirit "marie" was herself, dressed up to deceive the audience. letters appeared in the newspapers about it, and the whole press came down upon spiritualists, and declared them all to be either knaves or fools. these notices were published on the morning of a day on which miss cook was engaged to give another public _séance_, at which i was present. she was naturally very much cut up about them. her reputation was at stake; her honor had been called into question, and being a proud girl, she resented it bitterly. her present audience was chiefly composed of friends; but, before commencing, she put it to us whether, whilst under such a stigma, she had better not sit at all. we, who had all tested her and believed in her, were unanimous in repudiating the vile charges brought against her, and in begging the _séance_ should proceed. florrie refused, however, to sit unless some one remained in the cabinet with her, and she chose me for the purpose. i was therefore tied to her securely with a stout rope, and we remained thus fastened together for the whole of the evening. under which conditions "marie" appeared, and sung and danced outside the cabinet, just as she had done to sir george sitwell whilst her medium remained tied to me. so much for men who decide a matter before they have sifted it to the bottom. mrs. elgie corner has long since given up mediumship either private or public, and lives deep down in the heart of wales, where the babble and scandal of the city affect her no longer. but she told me, only last year, that she would not pass through the suffering she had endured on account of spiritualism again for all the good this world could give her. chapter xvii. the mediumship of katie cook. in the matter of producing physical phenomena the cooks are a most remarkable family, all three daughters being powerful media, and that without any solicitation on their part. the second one, katie, is by no means the least powerful of the three, although she has sat more privately than her sister florence, and not had the same scientific tests (i believe) applied to her. the first time i had an opportunity of testing katie's mediumship was at the private rooms of signor rondi, in a circle of nine or ten friends. the apartment was small and sparsely furnished, being an artist's studio. the gas was kept burning, and before the sitting commenced the door was locked and strips of paper pasted over the opening inside. the cabinet was formed of a window curtain nailed across one corner of the room, behind which a chair was placed for the medium, who is a remarkably small and slight girl--much slighter than her sister florence--with a thin face and delicate features. she was dressed, on this occasion, in a tight-fitting black gown and hessian boots that buttoned half-way to her knee, and which, she informed me, she always wore when sitting (just as miss showers did), because they had each eighteen buttons, which took a long time to fasten and unfasten. the party sat in a semicircle, close outside the curtain, and the light was lowered, but not extinguished. there was no darkness, and no holding of hands. i mention these facts to show how very simple the preparations were. in a few minutes the curtain was lifted, and a form, clothed in white, who called herself "lily," was presented to our view. she answered several questions relative to herself and the medium; and perceiving some doubt on the part of some of the sitters, she seated herself on my knee, i being nearest the curtain, and asked me to feel her body, and tell the others how differently she was made from the medium. i had already realized that she was much heavier than katie cook, as she felt like a heavy girl of nine or ten stone. i then passed my hand up and down her figure. she had full breasts and plump arms and legs, and could not have been mistaken by the most casual observers for miss cook. whilst she sat on my knee, however, she desired my husband and signor rondi to go inside the curtain and feel that the medium was seated in her chair. when they did so, they found katie was only half entranced. she thrust her feet out to view, and said, "i am not 'lily;' feel my boots." my husband had, at the same moment, one hand on miss cook's knee, and the other stretched out to feel the figure seated on my lap. there remained no doubt in _his_ mind of there being two bodies there at the same time. presently "lily" passed her hand over my dress, and remarked how nice and warm it was, and how she wished she had one on too. i asked her, "are you cold?" and she said, "wouldn't you be cold if you had nothing but this white thing on?" half-jestingly, i took my fur cloak, which was on a sofa close by, and put it round her shoulders, and told her to wear it. "lily" seemed delighted. she exclaimed, "oh, how warm it is! may i take it away with me?" i said, "yes, if you will bring it back before i go home. i have nothing else to wear, remember." she promised she would, and left my side. in another moment she called out, "turn up the gas!" we did so. "lily" was gone, and so was my large fur cloak! we searched the little room round for it. it had entirely disappeared. there was a locked cupboard in which signor rondi kept drawing materials. i insisted on its being opened, although he declared it had not been unlocked for weeks, and we found it full of dust and drawing blocks, but nothing else, so the light was again lowered, and the _séance_ resumed. in a short time the heavy cloak was flung, apparently from the ceiling, evidently from somewhere higher than my head, and fell right over it. i laid it again on the sofa, and thought no more about it until i returned home. i then found, to my astonishment, and considerably to my annoyance, that the fur of my cloak (which was a new one) was all coming out. my dress was covered with it, and from that day i was never able to wear the cloak again. "lily" said she had _de_-materialized it, to take it away. of the truth of that assertion i had no proof, but i am quite sure that she did not put it together again when she brought it back. an army of moths encamped in it could not have damaged it more, and i can vouch that until that evening the fur had been as perfect as when i purchased it. i think my next sitting with katie cook was at a _séance_ held in museum street, and on the invitation of mr. chas. blackburn, who is one of the most earnest friends of spiritualism, and has expended a large amount of money in its research. the only other guests were my husband, and general and mrs. maclean. we sat round a small uncovered table with the gas burning and _without a cabinet_, miss katie cook had a seat between general maclean and myself, and we made sure of her proximity to us during the whole _séance_. in fact, i never let go of her hand, and even when she wished to use her pocket-handkerchief, she had to do it with my hand clinging to her own. neither did she go into a trance. we spoke to her occasionally during the sitting, and she answered us, though in a very subdued voice, as she complained of being sick and faint. in about twenty minutes, during which the usual manifestations occurred, the materialized form of "lily" appeared _in the middle of the table_, and spoke to us and kissed us all in turn. her face was very small, and she was _only formed to the waist_, but her flesh was quite firm and warm. whilst "lily" occupied the table in the full sight of all the sitters, and i had my hand upon miss cook's figure (for i kept passing my hand up and down from her face to her knees, to make sure it was not only a hand i held), some one grasped my chair from behind and shook it, and when i turned my head and spoke, in a moment one arm was round my neck and one round the neck of my husband, who sat next to me, whilst the voice of my daughter "florence" spoke to us both, and her long hair and her soft white dress swept over our faces and hands. her hair was so abundant and long, that she shook it out over my lap, that i might feel its length and texture. i asked "florence" for a piece of her hair and dress, and scissors not being forthcoming, "lily" materialized more fully, and walked round from the other side of the table and cut off a piece of "florence's" dress herself with my husband's penknife, but said they could not give me the hair that time. the two spirits remained with us for, perhaps, half an hour or more, whilst general maclean and i continued to hold miss cook a prisoner. the power then failing, they disappeared, but every one present was ready to take his oath that two presences had been with us that never entered at the door. the room was small and unfurnished, the gas was burning, the medium sat for the whole time in our sight. mrs. maclean and i were the only other women present, yet two girls bent over and kissed us, spoke to us, and placed their bare arms on our necks at one and the same time. there was again also a marked difference between the medium and the materializations. i have already described her appearance. both of these spirits had plump faces and figures, my daughter "florence's" hands especially being large and firm, and her loose hair nearly down to her knees. i had the pleasure of holding another _séance_ with katie cook in the same rooms, when a new manifestation occurred. she is (as i have said) a very small woman, with very short arms. i am, on the contrary, a very large woman, with very long arms, yet the arm of the hand i held was elongated to such an extent that it reached the sitters on the other side of the table, where it would have been impossible for mine to follow it. i should think the limb must have been stretched to thrice its natural length, and that in the sight of everybody. i sat again with katie cook in her own house, where, if trickery is employed, she had every opportunity of tricking us, but the manifestations were much the same, and certainly not more marvellous than those she had exhibited in the houses of strangers. "lily" and "florence" both appeared at the same time, under circumstances that admitted of no possibility of fraud. my husband and i were accompanied on that occasion by our friends, captain and mrs. kendal, and the order of sitting round the table was as follows:--myself, katie, captain k., florence cook, my husband, mrs. cook, mrs. kendal. each member of the family, it will be observed, was held between two detectives, and their hands were not once set free. i must say also that the _séance_ was a free one, courteously accorded us on the invitation of mrs. cook; and if deception had been intended, we and our friends might just as well have been left to sit with katie alone, whilst the other members of the family superintended the manifestation of the "ghosts" outside. miss florence cook, indeed (mrs. corner), objected at first to sitting with us, on the score that her mediumship usually neutralized that of her sister, but her mother insisted on her joining the circle, lest any suspicion should be excited by her absence. the cooks, indeed, are, all of them, rather averse to sitting than not, and cordially agree in disliking the powers that have been thrust upon them against their own will. these influences take possession of them, unfitting them for more practical work, and they must live. this is, i believe, the sole reason that they have never tried to make money by the exercise of their mediumship. but i, for one, fully believe them when they tell me that they consider the fact of their being media as the greatest misfortune that has ever happened to them. on the occasion of this last _séance_, cherries and rosebuds were showered in profusion on the table during the evening. these may easily be believed to have been secreted in the room before the commencement of the sitting, and produced at the proper opportunity, although the hands of everybody interested in their production were fast held by strangers. but it is less easy to believe that a lady of limited income, like mrs. cook, should go to such an expense for an unpaid _séance_, for the purpose of making converts of people who were strangers to her. mediumship pays very badly as it is. i am afraid it would pay still worse if the poor media had to purchase the means for producing the phenomena, especially when, in a town like london, they run (as in this instance) to hothouse fruit and flowers. one more example of katie cook's powers and i have done. we were assembled one evening by the invitation of mr. charles blackburn at his house, elgin crescent. we sat in a small breakfast room on the basement floor, so small, indeed, for the size of the party, that as we encircled a large round table, the sitters' backs touched the wall on either side, thus entirely preventing any one crossing the room whilst we were established there. the only piece of furniture of any consequence in the room, beside the chairs and table, was a trichord cabinet piano, belonging to mrs. cook (who was keeping house at the time for mr. blackburn), and which she much valued. katie cook sat amongst us as usual. in the middle of the _séance_ her control "lily," who was materialized, called out, "keep hands fast. don't let go, whatever you do!" and at the same time, without seeing anything (for we were sitting in complete darkness), we became conscious that something large and heavy was passing or being carried over our heads. one of the ladies of the party became nervous, and dropped her neighbor's hand with a cry of alarm, and, at the same moment, a weighty body fell with a fearful crash on the other side of the room. "lily" exclaimed, "some one has let go hands," and mrs. cook called out; "oh! it's my piano." lights were struck, when we found the cabinet piano had actually been carried from its original position right over our heads to the opposite side of the room, where it had fallen on the floor and been seriously damaged. the two carved legs were broken off, and the sounding board smashed in. any one who had heard poor mrs. cook's lamentations over the ruin of her favorite instrument, and the expense it would entail to get it restored, would have felt little doubt as to whether _she_ had been a willing victim to this unwelcome proof of her daughter's physical mediumship. chapter xviii. the mediumship of bessie fitzgerald. one evening i went to have a cup of tea with my friend miss schonberg at shepherd's bush, when she proposed that we should go and have a _séance_ with mrs. henry jencken (kate fox), who lived close by. i hailed the idea, as i had heard such great things of the medium in question, and never had an opportunity of testing them. consequently, i was proportionately disappointed when, on sending round to her house to ask if she could receive us that evening, we received a message to say that mr. jencken, her husband, had died that morning, and she could see no one. miss schonberg and i immediately cast about in our minds to see what we should do with our time, and she suggested we should call on mrs. fitzgerald. "who is mrs. fitzgerald?" i queried. "a wonderful medium," replied my friend, "whom i met at mrs. wilson's last week, and who gave me leave to call on her. let us go together." and accordingly we set forth for mrs. fitzgerald's residence in the goldhawk road. i only mention these circumstances to show how utterly unpremeditated was my first visit to her. we arrived at her house, and were ushered into a sitting-room, miss schonberg only sending up her name. in a few minutes the door opened, and a small, fair woman, dressed in black velvet, entered the room. miss schonberg saluted her, and was about to tender some explanation regarding _my_ presence there, when mrs. fitzgerald walked straight up to me and took my hand. her eyes seemed to dilate and contract, like the opening and shutting off of a light, in a manner which i have often seen since, and she uttered rapidly, "you have been married once; you have been married twice; and you will be married a third time." i answered, "if you know anything, mrs. fitzgerald, you must know that i am very much attached to my husband, and that your information can give me no pleasure to hear." "no!" she said, "no! i suppose not, but you cannot alter fate." she then proceeded to speak of things in my past life which had had the greatest influence over the whole of it, occurrences of so private and important a nature that it becomes impossible to write them down here, and for that very reason doubly convincing to the person whom they concern. presently mrs. fitzgerald wandered to her piano, and commenced to play the air of the ballad so firmly connected in my mind with john powles, "thou art gone from my gaze," whilst she turned and nodded at me saying, "_he's_ here!" in fact, after a couple of hours' conversation with her, i felt that this stranger in the black velvet dress had turned out every secret of my life, and laid it naked and bare before me. i was wonderfully attracted to her. her personality pleased me; her lonely life, living with her two babies in the goldhawk road, made me anxious to give her society and pleasure, and her wonderful gifts of clairvoyance and trance mediumship, all combined to make me desire her friendship, and i gave her a cordial invitation to my house in the regent's park, where for some years she was a constant visitor, and always sure of a hearty welcome. it was due to her kindness that i first had the opportunity to study trance mediumship at my leisure, and in a short time we became so familiar with her most constant control, "dewdrop," a red indian girl, and so accustomed to speak through mrs. fitzgerald with our own friends gone before, that we welcomed her advent to our house as the signal for holding a spiritual party. for the sake of the uninitiated and curious, i think i had better here describe what is meant by trance mediumship. a person thus gifted has the power of giving him or herself up to the control of the influences in command, who send him or her off to sleep, a sleep so deep and so like death that the spirit is actually parted _pro tem_ from the body, which other spirits, sometimes living, but far oftener dead, enter and use as if it were their own. i have mentioned in my chapter on "embodied spirits" how my living friend in india conversed with me through bessie fitzgerald in this way, also how "florence" spoke to me through the unconscious lips of mabel keningale cook. of course, i am aware that it would be so easy for a medium simply to close her eyes, and, professing to be entranced, talk a lot of commonplaces, which open-mouthed fools might accept as a new gospel, that it becomes imperative to test this class of media strictly by _what they utter_, and to place no faith in them until you are convinced that the matters they speak of cannot possibly have been known to any one except the friend whose mouthpiece they profess to be. all this i fully proved for myself from repeated trials and researches; but the unfortunate part of it is, that the more forcible and convincing the private proof, the more difficult it is to place it before the public. i must content myself, therefore, with saying that some of my dead friends (so called) came back to me so frequently through bessie fitzgerald, and familiarized themselves so completely with my present life, that i forgot sometimes that they had left this world, and flew to them (or rather to bessie) to seek their advice or ask their sympathy as naturally as if she were their earthly form. of these my daughter "florence" was necessarily the most often with me, and she and "dewdrop" generally divided the time which mrs. fitzgerald spent with us between them. i never saw a control so completely identified with its medium as "dewdrop" was with bessie. it was difficult at times to know which was which, and one could never be certain until she spoke whether the spirit or the medium had entered the house. when she _did_ speak, however, there was no mistaking them. their characters were so different. bessie fitzgerald, a quiet, soft spoken little woman, devoted to her children, and generally unobtrusive; "dewdrop," a sioux indian girl, wary and deep as her tribe and cute and saucy as a yankee, with an amount of devilry in her that must at times have proved very inconvenient. she used to play mrs. fitzgerald tricks in those days that might have brought her into serious trouble, such as controlling her whilst travelling in an omnibus, and talking her yankee indian to the passengers until she had made their hair stand on end, with the suspicion that they had a lunatic for a companion. one evening we had a large and rather "swell" evening party, chiefly composed of ladies and gentlemen of the theatrical profession, and entirely of non-spiritualists, excepting ourselves. mrs. fitzgerald had been invited to this party, and declined, because it was out of her line. we were therefore rather astonished, when all the guests were assembled, to hear her name announced and see her enter the room in a morning dress. directly i cast eyes upon her, however, i saw that it was not herself, but "dewdrop." the stride with which she walked, the waggish way she rolled from side to side, the devilry in her eye, all betokened the indian control. to make matters worse, she went straight up to colonel lean, and, throwing herself on the ground at his feet, affectionately laid her head upon his knee, and said, "i'se come to the party." imagine the astonishment of our guests! i was obliged at once, in defence of my friend, to explain to them how matters stood; and though they looked rather incredulous, they were immensely interested, and "dewdrop's" visit proved to be _the_ event of the evening. she talked to each one separately, telling them home truths, and prophesying their future in a way that made their cheeks go pale with fright, or red with conscious shame, and there was quite a contest between the men as to who should take "dewdrop" down to the supper table. when there, she made herself particularly lively, making personal remarks aloud that were, in some instances, rather trying to listen to, and which bessie fitzgerald would have cut out her tongue sooner than utter. she ate, too, of dishes which would have made bessie ill for a week. this was another strange peculiarity of "dewdrop's" control. she not only ousted the spirit; she regulated the internal machinery of her medium's body. bessie in her normal condition was a very delicate woman with a weak heart and lungs, and obliged to be most careful in her diet. she ate like a sparrow, and of the simplest things. "dewdrop," on the other hand, liked indigestible food, and devoured it freely; yet bessie has told me that she never felt any inconvenience from the food amalgamated with her system whilst under "dewdrop's" control. one day when mrs. fitzgerald was dining with us, we had some apples at dessert, which she would have liked to partake of, but was too much afraid of the after consequences. "i _dare_ not," she said; "if i were to eat a raw apple, i should have indigestion for a week." she took some preserved ginger instead; and we were proceeding with our dessert, when i saw her hand steal out and grasp an apple. i looked in her face. "dewdrop" had taken her place. "dewdrop," i said, authoritatively, "you must not eat that. you will hurt bessie. put it down directly." "i shan't," replied "dewdrop," drawing the dish towards her; "i like apples. i'm always wanting 'medy' to eat them, and she won't, so she must go away till i've had as many as i want." and in effect she ate three or four of them, and bessie would never have been cognizant of the fact unless i had informed her. on the occasion of the party to which she came uninvited, "dewdrop" remained with us to the very last, and went home in a cab, and landed mrs. fitzgerald at her house without her being aware that she had ever left it. at that time we were constantly at each other's houses, and many an evening have i spent alone with bessie in the goldhawk road, her servant out marketing and her little children asleep in the room overhead. her baby was then a great fat fellow of about fifteen months old, who was given to waking and crying for his mother. if "dewdrop" were present, she was always very impatient with these interruptions. "bother dat george," she would say; "i must go up and quiet him." then she would disappear for a few minutes, while bessie woke and talked to me, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, "dewdrop" would be back again. one day, apparently, "george" would not be comforted, for on "dewdrop's" return she said to me, "it's no good; i've had to bring him down. he's on the mat outside the door;" and there, sure enough, we found the poor baby wailing in his nightshirt. not being able to walk, how he had been spirited from the top storey to the bottom i leave my readers to determine. bessie's little girl mabel promised to be as wonderful a medium as her mother. she would come in from the garden flushed from her play with the "spirit-children," of whom she talked as familiarly as of her little neighbors next door. i have watched her playing at ball with an invisible child, and have seen the ball thrown, arrested half-way in the air, and then tossed back again just as if a living child had been mab's opponent. i had lost several infants from premature birth during my second marriage, and the eldest of these, a girl, appeared to be a constant companion of mabel's. she was always talking of what "mrs. lean's girl" (as she called her) had done and said; and one day she had a violent fit of weeping because her mother would not promise to buy her a frock like the one "mrs. lean's girl" wore. _apropos_ of these still-born children, i had a curious experience with mrs. fitzgerald. i had had no idea until then that children so born possessed any souls, or lived again, but "florence" undeceived me when she told me she had charge of her little brothers and sisters. she even professed to know the names by which they were known in the spirit world. when a still-born baby is launched upon the other side, she said it is delivered over to the nearest relative of its parent, to be called by what name he may choose. thus my first girl was christened by colonel lean's mother "gertrude," after a bosom friend of hers, and my second my father named "joan," as he said it was his favorite female name. upon subsequent inquiry, we found that mrs. lean _had_ a friend called "gertrude," and that "joan" was distinctly captain marryat's _beau ideal_ of a woman's name. however, that signified but little. i became very curious to see or speak with these unknown babies of mine, and used to worry "florence" to bring them to me. she would expostulate with me after this fashion: "dear mother, be reasonable. remember what babies they are, and that this world is quite strange to them. when your earthly children were small you never allowed them to be brought down before strangers, for fear they should cry. 'gertie' and 'yonnie' would behave just the same if i brought them back to you now." however, i went on teasing her till she made the attempt, and "gertie" returned through mrs. fitzgerald. it was a long time before we could coax her to remain with us, and when she overcame her first shyness, it was like talking to a little savage. "gertie" didn't know the meaning of anything, or the names of anything. her incessant questions of "what's a father?" "what a mother?" "what's a dog?" were very difficult to answer; but she would chatter about the spirit-world, and what she did there, as glibly as possible. she told us that she knew her brother francis (the lad who was drowned at sea) very well, and she "ran races, and francis 'chivied' her; and when he caught her, he held her under the fountain, and the spray wetted her frock, and made it look like silver." the word "_chivied_" sounding to me very much of a mundane character, i asked "gertie" where she learned it; and she said, "francis says 'chivy,' so _i_ may," and it was indeed a common expression with him. "gertie" took, after a while, such a keen interest in my ornaments and china, rather to their endangerment, that i bought a doll to see if she would play with it. at first she was vastly delighted with the "little spirit," as she called it, and nursed it just as a mortal child would have done. but when she began to question me as to the reason the doll did not look at her, or answer her, or move about, and i said it was because it was not alive, she was dreadfully disappointed. "_not alive!_" she echoed; "didn't god make it?" and when i replied in the negative, she threw it to the other end of the room, and would never look at it again. "gertie" was about five years old at this period, and seemed to have a great idea of her own importance. she always announced herself as "the princess gertie," and was very dignified in her behavior. one day, when a lady friend was present when "gertie" came and asked her to kiss her, she extended her hand instead of her face, saying, "you may kiss my hand." "yonnie" (as "joan" called herself) was but eighteen months old, and used to manifest herself, _roaring_ like a child forcibly dragged before strangers, and the only word we could ever extract from her was "sugar-plums." accordingly, i invested in some for her benefit, with which she filled her mouth so full as nearly to choke the medium, and "florence" rebuked me seriously for my carelessness, and threatened never to bring "yonnie" down to this earth again. there had been three other children--boys--whom i was equally anxious to see again, but, for some inexplicable reason, "florence" said it was impossible that they could manifest. the little girls, however, came until we were quite familiar with them. i am aware that all this must sound very childish, but had it not borne a remarkable context, i should not have related it. all the wonder of it will be found later on. mrs. fitzgerald suffered very much at this time from insomnia, which she always declared was benefitted after a visit to me. i proposed one night, therefore, when she had stayed with us later than usual, that she should remain and share my bed, and return home in the morning. she consented, and at the usual hour we retired to rest together, i taking care to lock the bedroom door and keep the gas burning; indeed, bessie was so nervous of what she might see that she would not have remained in the dark for any consideration. the bed we occupied was what is called a half tester, with a canopy and curtains on either side. as soon as ever bessie got into it, she burrowed under the clothes like a dormouse, and went fast asleep. i was too curious to see what might happen to follow her example, so my head remained on the pillow, and my eyes wide open, and turning in every direction. presently i saw the curtains on the opposite side of the bed gently shaken, next a white hand and arm appeared round them, and was passed up and down the ridge that represented bessie fitzgerald's body; finally, after several times stepping forward and retreating again, a female figure emerged and walked to the foot of the bedstead and stood there regarding me. she was, to all appearance, as solidly formed as any human creature could be, and she was as perfectly distinct as though seen by daylight. her head and bust reminded me at once of the celebrated "clytie," they were so classically and beautifully formed. her hair and skin were fair, her eyes luminously liquid and gentle, her whole attitude one of modest dignity. she was clothed in some creamy white material, thick and soft, and intermixed with dull gold. she wore no ornaments, but in her right hand she carried a long branch of palm, or olive, or myrtle, something tall and tapering, and of dark green. she scarcely could be said to smile at me, but there was an indescribable appearance of peace and tranquillity about her. when i described this apparition to bessie in the morning, she recognized it at once as that of her control, "goodness," whom she had seen clairvoyantly, but she affirmed that i was the only person who had ever given her a correct description of this influence, which was the best and purest about her. after "goodness" had remained in the same position for a few minutes, she walked back again behind the curtain, which served as a cabinet, and "florence" came out and had a whispered conversation with me. next a dark face, but only a face, said to be that of "dewdrop," peeped out four or five times, and disappeared again; then a voice said, "no more! good-night," and i turned round to where bessie lay sleeping beside me, and went to sleep myself. after that, she often came, when suffering worse than usual from insomnia, to pass the night with me, as she said my magnetism caused her to sleep, and similar manifestations always occurred when we were alone and together. mrs. fitzgerald's mediumship was by no means used, however, for the sole purpose of gratifying curiosity or foretelling the future. she was a wonderful medical diagnoser, and sat for a long time in the service of a well-known medical man. she would be ensconced in a corner of his waiting-room and tell him the exact disease of each patient that entered. she told me she could see the inside of everybody as perfectly as though they were made of glass. this gift, however, induced her to take on a reflection (as it were) of the disease she diagnosed, and after a while her failing strength compelled her to give it up. her control "dewdrop" was what she called herself, "a metal spirit," _i.e._, her advice was very trustworthy with regard to all speculations and monetary transactions. many stockbrokers and city men used regularly to consult bessie before they engaged in any speculation, and she received many valuable presents in return for her assistance in "making a pile." one gentleman, indeed, settled a large sum of money when he died on her little son in gratitude for the fortune "dewdrop" had helped him to accumulate. persons who sneer at spiritualism and declare it to be useless, little know how much advantage is taken of spiritual forethought and prevision by those who believe in it. i have never been sorry but when i have neglected to follow the advice of a medium whom i had proved to be trustworthy. in the autumn of i introduced my own entertainment of "love letters" to the provincial british public, and it had an immediate and undeniable success. my engagements poured in rapidly, and i had already booked dates for the whole spring of , when mr. edgar bruce offered me an engagement at the prince of wales' (then the prince's) theatre, about to be opened in piccadilly. i had been anxiously waiting to obtain an engagement on the london boards, and was eager to accept it; still, i did not know if i would be wise in relinquishing my provincial engagements. i wrote to bessie to ask "dewdrop" what i should do; the answer was, "don't accept, only a flash in the pan." thereupon i sent to mr. bruce to ask how long the engagement was likely to last, and his answer was that he expected "the palace of truth" to run a year at least, and at any rate i was to consider myself one of a "stock company." thereupon i cancelled all my entertainment engagements, returned to london, appeared at the prince's theatre for just _eleven_ _weeks_, and got into four law suits with my disappointed patrons for my trouble. it is one of the commonest remarks made by stupid people, "if the spirits know anything, let them tell me the name of the winner of the derby, and then i will believe them," etc. i was speaking of this once to "dewdrop," and she said, "we _could_ tell if we choose, but we are not allowed to do so. if spiritualism was generally used for such things, all the world would rush to it in order to cheat one another. but if you will promise me not to open it until after the derby is run, i will give you the name of the winner now in a sealed envelope, to prove that what i say is the truth." we gave her the requisite materials, and she made a few pencil marks on a piece of paper, and sealed it up. it was the year that "shotover" won the derby. the day after the race, we opened the envelope and found the drawing of a man with a gun in his hand, a hedge, and a bird flying away on the other side; very sketchy, but perfectly intelligible to one who could read between the lines. i was at the theatre one night with bessie in a box, when i found out that "dewdrop" had taken her place. "dewdrop" was very fond of going to the play, and her remarks were so funny and so naïve as to keep one constantly amused. presently, between the acts, she said to me, "do you see that man in the front row of the stalls with a bald head, sitting next to the old lady with a fat neck?" i replied i did. "now you watch," said "dewdrop;" "i'm going down there to have some fun. first i'll tickle the old man's head, and then i'll scratch the old woman's neck. now, you and 'medie' watch." the next moment bessie spoke to me in her own voice, and i told her what "dewdrop" proposed to do. "oh, poor things!" she said, compassionately, "how she will torment them!" to watch what followed was a perfect farce. first, the old man put his hand up to his bald head, and then he took out his handkerchief and flicked it, then he rubbed it, and finally _scrubbed_ it to alleviate the increasing irritation. then the old lady began the same business with her neck, and finding it of no avail, glared at the old man as if she thought _he_ had done it; in fact, they were both in such evident torture that there was no doubt "dewdrop" had kept her promise. when she returned to me she said, "there! didn't you see me walking along the front row of stalls, in my moccasins and beads and feathers, and all my war-paint on, tickling the old fellow's head?" "i didn't _see_ you, 'dewdrop,'" i answered, "but i'm sure you were there." "ah! but the old fellow _felt_ me, and so did the old girl," she replied. bessie fitzgerald is now mrs. russell davies, and carries on her _séances_ in upper norwood. no one who attends them can fail to feel interested in the various phenomena he will meet with there. chapter xix. the mediumship of lottie fowler. as i was introduced to lottie fowler many years before i met bessie fitzgerald, i suppose the account of her mediumship should have come first; but i am writing this veracious narrative on no fixed or artificial plan, but just as it occurs to me, though not from memory, because notes were taken of every particular at the time of occurrence. in i was largely employed on the london press, and constantly sent to report on anything novel or curious, and likely to afford matter for an interesting article. it was for such a purpose that i received an order from one of the principal newspapers in town to go and have a complimentary _séance_ with an american clairvoyant newly arrived in england, miss lottie fowler. until i received my directions i had never heard the medium's name, and i knew very little of clairvoyance. she was lodging in conduit street, and i reached her house one morning as early as ten o'clock, and sent in a card with the name of the paper only written on it. i was readily admitted. miss fowler was naturally anxious to be noticed by the press and introduced to london society. i found her a stylish-looking, well-dressed woman of about thirty, with a pleasant, intelligent face. those of my readers who have only met her since sickness and misfortune made inroads on her appearance may smile at my description, but i repeat that seventeen years ago lottie fowler was prosperous and energetic-looking. she received me very cordially, and asked me into a little back parlor, of which, as it was summer weather, both the windows and doors were left open. here, in the sunshine, she sat down and took my hand in hers, and began chatting of what she wished and hoped to do in london. suddenly her eyes closed and her head fell back. she breathed hard for a few minutes, and then sat up, still with her eyes closed, and began to talk in a high key, and in broken english. this was her well-known control, "annie," without doubt one of the best clairvoyants living. she began by explaining to me that she had been a german girl in earth life, and couldn't speak english properly, but i should understand her better when i was more familiar with her. she then commenced with my birth by the sea, described my father's personality and occupation, spoke of my mother, my brothers and sisters, my illnesses, my marriage, and my domestic life. then she said, "wait! now i'll go to your house, and tell you what i see there." she then repeated the names of all my children, giving a sketch of the character of each one, down to the "baby with the flower name," as she called my little daisy. after she had really exhausted the subject of my past and present, she said, "you'll say i've read all this out of your mind, so now i'll tell you what i see in the future. you'll be married a second time." now, at this period i was editing a fashionable magazine, and drew a large number of literary men around me. i kept open house on tuesday evenings, and had innumerable friends, and i _may_ (i don't say i _had_), but i may have sometimes speculated what my fate might be in the event of my becoming free. the _séance_ i speak of took place on a wednesday morning; and when "annie" told me i should be married a second time, my thoughts involuntarily took to themselves wings, i suppose, for she immediately followed up her assertion by saying, "no! not to the man who broke the tumbler at your house last night. you will marry another soldier." "no, thank-you," i exclaimed; "no more army men for me. i've had enough of soldiers to last me a lifetime." "annie" looked very grave. "you _will_ marry another soldier," she reiterated; "i can see him now, walking up a terrace. he is very tall and big, and has brown hair cut quite short, but so soft and shiny. at the back of his head he looks as sleek as a mole. he has a broad face, a pleasant, smiling face, and when he laughs he shows very white teeth. i see him knocking at your door. he says, 'is mrs. ross-church at home?' 'yes, sir.' then he goes into a room full of books. 'florence, my wife is dead. will you be my wife?' and you say 'yes.'" "annie" spoke so naturally, and i was so astonished at her knowledge of my affairs, that it never struck me till i returned home that she had called me by my name, which had been kept carefully from her. i asked her, "when will my husband die?" "i don't see his death anywhere," she answered. "but how can i marry again unless he dies?" i said. "i don't know, but i can't tell you what i don't see. i see a house all in confusion, papers are thrown about, and everything is topsy-turvy, and two people are going different ways; and, oh, there is so much trouble and so many tears! but i don't see any death anywhere." i returned home, very much astonished at all miss fowler had said regarding my past and present, but very incredulous with respect to her prophecies for the future. yet, three years afterwards, when much of what she told me had come to pass, i was travelling from charing cross to fareham with mr. grossmith, to give our entertainment of "_entre nous_," when the train stopped as usual to water at chatham. on the platform stood colonel lean, in uniform, talking to some friends. i had never set eyes on him till that moment; but i said at once to mr. grossmith, "do you see that officer in the undress uniform? that is the man lottie fowler told me i should marry." her description had been so exact that i recognized him at once. of course, i got well laughed at, and was ready after a while to laugh at myself. two months afterwards, however, i was engaged to recite at the literary institute at chatham, where i had never set foot in my life before. colonel lean came to the recital, and introduced himself to me. he became a visitor at my house in london (which, by the by, had been changed for one in a _terrace_), and two years afterwards, in, june , we were married. i have so far overcome a natural scruple to make my private affairs public, in justice to lottie fowler. it is useless narrating anything to do with the supernatural (although i have been taught that this is a wrong term, and that nothing that exists is _above_ nature, but only a continuation of it), unless one is prepared to prove that it was true. lottie fowler did not make a long stay in england on that occasion. she returned to america for some time, and i was mrs. lean before i met her again. the second visit was a remarkable one. i had been to another medium, who had made me very unhappy by some prophecies with regard to my husband's health; indeed, she had said he would not live a couple of years, and i was so excited about it that my friend miss schonberg advised our going then and there to see lottie fowler, who had just arrived in england, and was staying in vernon place, bloomsbury; and though it was late at night, we set off at once. the answer to our request to see miss fowler was that she was too tired to receive any more visitors that day. "do ask her to see me," i urged. "i won't detain her a moment; i only want to ask her one question." upon this, we were admitted, and found lottie nearly asleep. "miss fowler," i began, "you told me five years ago that i should be married a second time. well, i _am_ married, and now they tell me i shall loose my husband." and then i told her how ill he was, and what the doctors said, and what the medium said. "you told me the truth before," i continued; "tell it me now. will he die?" lottie took a locket containing his hair in her hand for a minute, and then replied confidently, "they know nothing about it. he will not die--that is not yet--not for a long while." "but _when_?" i said, despairingly. "leave that to god, child," she answered, "and be happy now." and in effect colonel lean recovered from his illness, and became strong and hearty again. but whence did miss fowler gain the confidence to assert that a man whom she had never seen, nor even heard of, should recover from a disease which the doctors pronounced to be mortal? from that time lottie and i became fast friends, and continue so to this day. it is a remarkable thing that she would never take a sixpence from me in payment for her services, though i have sat with her scores of times, nor would she accept a present, and that when she has been sorely in need of funds. she said she had been told she should never prosper if she touched my money. she has one of the most grateful and affectionate and generous natures possible, and has half-starved herself for the sake of others who lived upon her. i have seen her under sickness, and poverty, and trouble, and i think she is one of the kindest-hearted and best women living, and i am glad of even this slight opportunity to bear testimony to her disposition. at one time she had a large and fashionable _clientèle_ of sitters, who used to pay her handsomely for a _séance_, but of late years her clients have fallen off, and her fortunes have proportionately decreased. she has now returned to the southern states of america, and says she has seen the last of england. all i can say is, that i consider her a great personal loss as a referee in all business matters as well as a prophet for the future. she also, like bessie fitzgerald, is a great medical diagnoser. she was largely consulted by physicians about the court at the time of the prince of wales' dangerous illness, and predicted his recovery from the commencement. it was through her mediumship that the body of the late lord lindesay of balcarres, which was stolen from the family vault, was eventually recovered; and the present lord lindesay gave her a beautiful little watch, enamelled and set in diamonds, in commemoration of the event. she predicted the riot that took place in london some years ago, and the tay bridge disaster; but who is so silly as to believe the prophecies of media now-a-days? there has hardly been an event in my life, since i have known lottie fowler, that she has not prepared me for beforehand, but the majority of them are too insignificant to interest the reader. one, however, the saddest i have ever been called upon to encounter, was wonderfully foretold. in february, , lottie (or rather, "annie") said to me, "there is a great trouble in store for you, florris" (she always called me "florris"); "you are passing under black clouds, and there is a coffin hanging over you. it will leave your house." this made me very uneasy. no one lived in my house but my husband and myself. i asked, "is it my own coffin?" "no!" "is it my husband's?" "no; it is that of a much younger person." i questioned her very closely, but she would not tell me any more, and i tried to dismiss the idea from my mind. still it would constantly recur, for i knew, from experience, how true her predictions were. at last i felt as if i could bear the suspense no longer, and i went to her and said, "you _must_ tell me that the coffin you spoke of is not for one of my children, or the uncertainty will drive me mad." "annie" thought a minute, and then said slowly, "no; it is not for one of your children." "then i can bear anything else," i replied. the time went on, and in april an uncle of mine died. i rushed again to lottie fowler. "is _this_ the death you prophesied?" i asked her. "no," she replied; "the coffin must leave your house. but this death will be followed by another in the family," which it was within the week. the following february my next-door neighbors lost their only son. i had known the boy for years, and i was very sorry for them. as i was watching the funeral preparations from my bedroom window, i saw the coffin carried out of the hall door, which adjoined mine with only a railing between. knowing that many prophetical media _see_ the future in a series of pictures, it struck me that lottie must have seen this coffin leaving, and mistaken the house for mine. i went to her again. this proves how the prediction had weighed all this time upon my mind. "has not the death you spoke of taken place _now_?" i asked her. "has not the coffin left my house?" "no," she answered; "it will be a relative, one of the family. it is much nearer now than it was." i felt uncomfortable, but i would not allow it to make me unhappy. "annie" had said it was not one of my own children, and so long as they were spared i felt strong enough for anything. in the july following my eldest daughter came to me in much distress. she had heard of the death of a friend, one who had been associated with her in her professional life, and the news had shocked her greatly. she had always been opposed to spiritualism. she didn't see the good of it, and thought i believed in it a great deal more than was necessary. i had often asked her to accompany me to _séances_, or to see trance media, and she had refused. she used to say she had no one on the other side she cared to speak to. but when her young friend died, she begged me to take her to a medium to hear some news of him, and we went together to lottie fowler. "annie" did not wait for any prompting, but opened the ball at once. "you've come here to ask me how you can see your friend who has just passed over," she said. "well, he's all right. he's in this room now, and he says you will see him very soon." "to which medium shall i go?" said my daughter. "don't go to any medium. wait a little while, and you will see him with your own eyes." my daughter was a physical medium herself, though i had prevented her sitting for fear it should injure her health; and i believed, with her, that "annie" meant that her friend would manifest through her own power. she turned to me and said, "oh, mother, i shall be awfully frightened if he appears to me at night;" and "annie" answered, "no, you won't be frightened when you see him. you will be very pleased. your meeting will be a source of great pleasure on both sides." my daughter had just signed a lucrative engagement, and was about to start on a provincial tour. her next request was, "tell me what you see for me in the future." "annie" replied, "i cannot see it clearly. another day i may be able to tell you more, but to-day it is all dim. every time i try to see it a wall seems to rise behind your head and shut it out." then she turned to me and said, "florris, that coffin is very near you now. it hangs right over your head!" i answered carelessly, "i wish it would come and have done with it. it is eighteen months now, annie, since you uttered that dismal prophecy!" little did i really believe that it was to be so quickly and so terribly fulfilled. three weeks after that _séance_, my beloved child (who was staying with me) was carried out of my house in her coffin to kensal green. i was so stunned by the blow, that it was not for some time after that i remembered "annie's" prediction. when i asked her _why_ she had tortured me with the suspense of coming evil for eighteen months, she said she had been told to do so by my guardian spirits, or my brain would have been injured by the suddenness of the shock. when i asked why she had denied it would be one of my children, she still maintained that she had obeyed a higher order, because to tell the truth so long beforehand would have half-killed me as indeed it would. "annie" said she had no idea, even during that last interview, that the death she predicted was that of the girl before her. she saw her future was misty, and that the coffin was over my head, but she did not connect the two facts together. in like manner i have heard almost every event of my future through lottie fowler's lips, and she has never yet proved to be wrong, except in one instance of _time_. she predicted an event for a certain year and it did not take place till afterwards; and it has made "annie" so wary, that she steadfastly refuses now to give any dates. i always warn inquirers not to place faith in any given dates. the spirits have told me they have _no time_ in the spheres, but judge of it simply as the reflection of the future appears nearer, or further, from the sitter's face. thus, something that will happen years hence appears cloudy and far off, whilst the events of next week or next month seem bright and distinct, and quite near. this is a method of judging which can only be gained by practice, and must at all times be uncertain and misleading. i have often acted as amanuensis for lottie fowler, for letters are constantly arriving for her from every part of the world which can only be answered under trance, and she has asked me to take down the replies as "annie" dictated them. i have answered by this means the most searching questions from over the seas relating to health and money and lost articles whilst lottie was fast asleep and "annie" dictated the letters, and have received many answers thanking me for acting go-between, and saying how wonderfully correct and valuable the information "annie" had sent them had proved to be. of course, it would be impossible, in this paper, to tell of the constant intercourse i have had with lottie fowler during the last ten or twelve years, and the manner in which she has mapped out my future for me, preventing my cherishing false hopes that would never be realized, making bad bargains that would prove monetary losses, and believing in apparent friendship that was only a cloak for selfishness and treachery. i have learned many bitter lessons from her lips. i have also made a good deal of money through her means. she has told me what will happen to me between this time and the time of my death, and i feel prepared for the evil and content with the good. lottie fowler had very bad health for some time before she left england, and it had become quite necessary that she should go; but i think if the british public had known what a wonderful woman was in their midst, they would have made it better worth her while to stay amongst them. chapter xx. the mediumship of william fletcher. it may be remembered in the "story of john powles" that when, as a perfect stranger to mr. fletcher, i walked one evening into the steinway hall, i heard him describe the circumstances of my old friend's death in a very startling manner. it made such an impression on me that i became anxious to hear what more mr. fletcher might have to say to me in private, and for that purpose i wrote and made an appointment with him at his private residence in gordon square. i did not conceal my name, and i knew my name must be familiar to him; for although he had only just arrived from america, i am better known as an author in that country perhaps than in this. but i had no intention of gauging his powers by what he told me of my exterior life; and by what followed, his guide "winona" evidently guessed my ideas upon the subject. after the _séance_ i wrote thus concerning it to the _banner of light_, a new york spiritualistic paper:-- "i had seen many clairvoyants before, both in public and private, and had witnessed wonderful feats of skill on their part in naming and describing concealed objects, and reading print or writing when held far beyond their reach of sight; but i knew the trick of all that. if mr. fletcher is going to treat me to any mental legerdemain, i thought, as i took my way to gordon square, i shall have wasted both my time and trouble upon him; and, i confess, as i approached the house, that i felt doubtful whether i might not be deceived against my senses by the clever lecturer, whose eloquence had charmed me into desiring a more intimate acquaintance with him. even the private life of a professional person soon becomes public property in london; and had mr. fletcher wished to find out my faults and failings, he had but to apply to ----, say, my dearest friend, or the one upon whom i had bestowed most benefits, to learn the worst aspect of the worst side of my character. but the neat little page-boy answered my summons so promptly that i had no time to think of turning back again; and i was ushered through a carpeted hall, and up a staircase into a double drawing-room, strewn with evidence that my clairvoyant friend possessed not only artistic taste, but the means to indulge it. the back room into which i was shown was hung with paintings and fitted with a luxurious _causeuse_, covered with art needlework, and drawn against the open window, through which might be seen some fine old trees in the garden below, and mr. fletcher's dogs enjoying themselves beneath their shade. nothing could be further removed from one's ideas of a haunt of mystery or magic, or the abode of a man who was forced to descend to trickery for a livelihood. in a few minutes mr. fletcher entered the room and saluted me with the air of a gentleman. we did not proceed to business, however, until he had taken me round his rooms, and shown me his favorite pictures, including a portrait of sara bernhardt, etched by herself, in the character of mrs. clarkson in _l'etrangère_. after which we returned to the back drawing-room, and without darkening the windows or adopting any precautions, we took our seats upon the _causeuse_ facing each other, whilst mr. fletcher laid his left hand lightly upon mine. in the course of a minute i observed several convulsive shivers pass through his frame, his eyes closed, and his head sunk back upon the cushions, apparently in sleep. i sat perfectly still and silent with my hand in his. presently he reopened his eyes quite naturally, and sitting upright, began to speak to me in a very soft, thin, feminine voice. he (or rather his guide "winona") began by saying that she would not waste my time on facts that she might have gathered from the world, but would confine herself to speaking of my inner life. thereupon, with the most astonishing astuteness, she told me of my thoughts and feelings, reading them off like a book. she repeated to me words and actions that had been said and done in privacy hundred of miles away. she detailed the characters of my acquaintance, showing who were true and who were false, giving me their names and places of residence. she told me the motives i had had for certain actions, and what was more strange, revealed truths concerning myself which i had not recognized until they were presented to me through the medium of a perfect stranger. every question i put to her was accurately answered, and i was repeatedly invited to draw further revelations from her. the fact being that i was struck almost dumb by what i had heard, and rendered incapable of doing anything but marvel at the wonderful gift that enabled a man, not only to read each thought that passed through my brain, but to see, as in a mirror, scenes that were being enacted miles away with the actors concerned in them and the motives that animated them. "winona" read the future for me as well as the past, and the first distinct prophecy she uttered has already most unexpectedly come to pass. when i announced that i was satisfied, the clairvoyant laid his head back again upon the cushions, the same convulsive shudders passed through his frame, and in another minute he was smiling in my face, and hoping i had a good _séance_." this is part of the letter i wrote concerning mr. fletcher to the _banner of light_. but a description of words, however strongly put, can never carry the same weight as the words themselves. so anxious am i to make this statement as trustworthy as possible, however, that i will now go further, and give the exact words as "winona" spoke them to me on that occasion, and as i took them down from her lips. _some_ parts i _must_ omit, not for my own sake, but because of the treachery they justly ascribed to persons still living in this world. but enough will, i trust, remain to prove how intimately the spirit must have penetrated to my inner life. this is, then, the greater part of what "winona" said to me on the th of june, : "you are a child of destiny, who never was a child. your life is fuller of tragedies than any life i ever read yet. i will not tell you of the past _facts_, because they are known to the world, and i might have heard them from others. but i will speak of yourself. i have to leave the earth-world when i come in contact with you, and enter a planetary sphere in which you dwell (and ever must dwell) _alone_. it is as if you were in a room shut off from the rest of mankind. you are one of the world's magnets. you have nothing really in common with the rest. you draw people to you, and live upon their life; and when they have no more to give, nor you to demand, the liking fades on both sides. it must be so, because the spirit requires food the same as the body; and when the store is exhausted, the affection is starved out, and the persons pass out of your life. you have often wondered to yourself why an acquaintance who seemed necessary to you to-day you can live perfectly well without to-morrow. this is the reason. more than that, if you continue to cling to those whose spiritual system you have exhausted, they would poison you, instead of nourishing you. you may not like it, but those you value most you should oftenest part with. separation will not decrease your influence over them; it will increase it. constant intercourse may be fatal to your dearest affections. you draw so much on others, you _empty_ them, and they have nothing more to give you. you have often wondered, too, why, after you have lived in a place a little while, you become sad, weary, and ill--not physically ill, but mentally so--and you feel as if you _must_ leave it, and go to another place. when you settle in this fresh place, you think at first that it is the very place where you will be content to live and die; but after a little while the same weariness and faintness comes back again, and you think you cannot breathe till you leave it, as you did the other. this is not fancy. it is because your nature has exhausted all it can draw from its surroundings, and change becomes a necessity to life. you will never be able to live long in any place without change, and let me warn you never to settle yourself down anywhere with the idea of living there entirely. were you forced to do so, you would soon die. you would be starved to death spiritually. all people are not born under a fate, but you were, and you can do very little to change it. england is the country of your fate. you will never prosper in health, mind, or money in a foreign country. it is good to go abroad for change, but never try to live there. you are thinking of going abroad now, but you will not remain there nearly so long as you anticipate. something will arise to make you alter your plans--not a real trouble--but an uneasiness. the plan you think of will not answer." (this prediction was fulfilled to the letter.) "this year completes an era in your professional career--not of ill-luck, so much as of stagnation. your work has been rather duller of late years. the christmas of will bring you brighter fortune. some one who has appeared to drop you will come forward again, and take up your cause, and bring you in much money." (this also came to pass.) "you have not nearly reached the zenith of your success. it is yet to come. it is only beginning. you will have another child, certainly _one_, but i am not sure if it will live in this world. i do not see its earth-life, but i see you in that condition. * * * * * "your nervous system was for many years strung up to its highest tension--now it is relaxed, and your physical powers are at their lowest ebb. you could not bear a child in your present condition. you must become much lighter-hearted, more contented and at ease before that comes to pass. you must have ceased to wish for a child, or even to expect it. you have never had a heart really at ease yet. all your happiness has been feverish. * * * * * "i see your evil genius. she is out of your life at present, but she crossed your path last year, and caused you much heart-burning, and not without reason. it seems to me that some sudden shock or accident put an end to the acquaintance; but she will cross your path again, and cause you more misery, perhaps, than anything else has done. she is not young, but stout, and not handsome, as it seems to me. she is addicted to drinking. i see her rolling about now under the influence of liquor. she has been married more than once. i see the name ---- ---- written in the air. she would go any lengths to take that you value from you, even to compassing your death. she is madly in love with what is yours. she would do anything to compass her ends--not only immoral things, but filth--filth. i have no hesitation in saying this. whenever she crosses your path, in public or private, flee from her as from a pestilence." (this information was correct in every detail. the name was given at full length. i repeat it as a specimen of the succinctness of intelligence given through trance mediumship.) " will be a most unfortunate year for you. you will have a severe illness, your friends will not know if you are going to live or die, and during this illness you will endure great mental agony, caused through a woman, one of whose names begins with ----. you will meet her some time before, and she will profess to be your dearest friend. i see her bending over you, and telling you she is your best friend, and you are disposed to believe it. she is as tall as you are, but does not look so tall from a habit she has of carrying herself. she is not handsome, strictly speaking, but dark and very fascinating. she has a trick of keeping her eyes down when she speaks. she is possibly french, or of french extraction, but speaks english. she will get a hold upon ----'s mind that will nearly separate you." (at this juncture i asked, "how can i prevent it?") "if i told you, that if you went by the o'clock train from gower street, you would be smashed, you would not take that train. when you meet a woman answering this description, stop and ask yourself whether she is the one i have warned you against, before you admit her across the threshold of your house. * * * * * "----'s character is positive for good, and negative for evil. if what is even for his good were urged upon him, he would refuse to comply; but present evil to him as a possible good, and he will stop to consider whether it is not so. if he is to be guided aright, it must be by making him believe it would be impossible for him to go wrong. elevate his nature by elevating his standard of right. make it impossible for him to lower himself, by convincing him that he _would_ be lowered. he is very conceited. admiration is the breath of his life. he is always thinking what people will say of him or his actions. he is very weak under temptation, especially the temptation of flattery. he is much too fond of women. you have a difficult task before you, and you have done much harm already through your own fault. he believes too little in the evil of others--much too little. if he were unfaithful to those who trust him, he would be quite surprised to find he had broken their hearts. your work is but beginning. hitherto all has been excitement, and there has been but little danger. now comes monotony and the fear of satiety. your fault through life has been in not asserting the positive side of your character. you were born to rule, and you have sat down a slave. either through indolence or despair of success, you have presented a negative side to the insults offered you, and in the end you have been beaten. you make a great mistake in letting your female friends read all your joys and sorrows. men would sympathize and pity. women will only take advantage of them. assert your dignity as mistress in your own house, and don't let those visitors invite themselves who do not come for you. you are, as it were, the open door for more than one false friend. i warn you especially against two unmarried women--at least, if they are married, i don't see their husbands anywhere. they are both too fond of ----; one _very much_ too fond of him, and you laugh at it, and give your leave for caresses and endearments, which should never be permitted. if i were to tell them that they visit at your house for ----, and not for you, they would be very indignant. they give you presents, and really like you; but ---- is the attraction, and with one of them it only needs time, place and opportunity to cause the ruin of ---- and yourself. she has an impediment in walking. i need say no more. she wants to become still more familiar, and live under the same roof with you. you must prevent it. the other is doing more harm to herself than to anyone else. she is silly and romantic, and must dream of some one. it is a pity it should be encouraged by familiarity. ---- has no feeling for them beyond pity and friendship, but it is not necessary he should love a woman to make her dangerous to him. as far as i can see your lives extend, ---- will love you, and you will retain your influence over him if you _choose_ to do so. but it is in your own hands what you make of him. you must not judge his nature by your own. you are shutting yourself up too much. you should be surrounded by a circle of men, so that you might not draw influence from ---- alone. you should go out more, and associate with clever men, and hear what they have to say to you. you must not keep so entirely with ----. it is bad for both of you. you are making too great a demand upon his spiritual powers, and you will exhaust them too soon. a woman cannot draw spiritual life from women only. she must take it from men. there is another acquaintance i must warn you against ----; a widow, fair hair, light eyes, not clever, but cunning. she has but one purpose in visiting you. she would like to stand in your shoes. she would not hesitate to usurp your rights. be civil to her if you will, but do not encourage her visits. it were best if she passed out of your lives altogether. she can never bring you any good luck. she may be the cause of much annoyance yet. ---- should have work, active and constant, or his health will fail, living in idleness, spiritually and bodily. you tell him too often that you love him. let him feel there is always a higher height to gain, a lower depth to fall to, in your esteem. he is not the only man in the world. why should you deceive him by saying so? you are much to blame." (considering that mr. fletcher had never seen, or, as far as i knew, heard of the persons he mentioned in this tirade, it becomes a matter of speculation where or from whom he gathered this keen insight to their character and personalities, every word of which i can vouch for as being strictly true.) "many spirits are round you. some wish to speak.... a grand and noble spirit stands behind you, with his hands spread in blessing over your head. he is your father. he sends this message: 'my dear child, there were so many influences antagonistic to my own in your late married life, that i found it very difficult to get near you. now they are removed. the present conditions are much more favorable to me, and i hope to be with you often, and to help you through the life that lies before you.' there is the face of a glorified spirit, just above your head, and i see the name 'powles.' this spirit is nearer you, and more attached to you than any other in spirit land. he comes only to you, and one other creature through you--your second child. he says you will know him by the token, the song; you sung to him upon his death-bed. his love for you is the best and purest, and he is always by you, though lower influences sometimes forbid his manifesting himself. your child comes floating down, and joins hands with him. she is a very pure and beautiful spirit. she intimates that her name on earth was the same as yours, but she is called by another name in the spheres--a name that has something to do with flowers. she brings me a bunch of pure white lilies, tinged with blue, with blue petals, tied with a piece of blue ribbon, and she intimates to me by gesture that her spirit-name has something to do with them. i think i must go now, but i hope you will come and sit with me again. i shall be able to tell you more next time. my name is 'winona,' and when you ask for me i will come. good-bye...." this was the end of my first _séance_ with mr. fletcher, and i think even sceptics will allow that it was sufficiently startling for the first interview with an entire stranger. the following year i wrote again to the _banner of light_ concerning mr. fletcher, but will only give an extract from my letter. "i told you in my letter of last year that i had held a _séance_ with mr. fletcher of so private a nature that it was impossible to make it public. during that interview 'winona' made several startling prophecies concerning the future, which, it may interest your readers to know, have already been fulfilled. wishing to procure some further proofs of mr. fletcher's power before i wrote this letter to you, i prepared a different sort of test for him last week. from a drawer full of old letters i selected, _with my eyes shut_, four folded sheets of paper, which i slipped into four blank envelopes, ready prepared for them--still without looking--and closed them in the usual manner with the adhesive gum, after which i sealed them with sealing wax. i carried these envelopes to mr. fletcher, and requested "winona" to tell me the characters of the persons by whom their contents had been written. she placed them consecutively to the medium's forehead, and as she returned them to me, one by one, i wrote her comments on each on the side of the cover. on breaking the seals, the character of each writer was found to be most accurately defined, although the letters had all been written years before--(a fact which "winona" had immediately discovered). she also told me which of my correspondents were dead, and which living. here, you will observe, there could have been no reaction of my own brain upon that of the sensitive, as i was perfectly ignorant, until i reopened the envelopes, by whom the letters had been sent to me. two months ago i was invited to join in a speculation, of the advisability of which i felt uncertain. i went therefore to mr. fletcher, and asked for an interview with "winona," intending to consult her in the matter. but before i had time to mention the subject, she broached it to me, and went on to speak of the speculation itself, of the people concerned in it, and the money it was expected to produce; and, finally, she explained to me how it would collapse, with the means that would bring it to an end, putting her decided veto on my having anything to do with it. i followed "winona's" advice, and have been thankful since that i did so, as everything has turned out just as she predicted." * * * * * i think those people who desire to gain the utmost good they can out of clairvoyance should be more ready to listen and learn, and less to cavil and to question. many who have heard me relate the results of my experience have rushed off pell-mell to the same medium, perhaps, and came away woefully disappointed. were they to review the interview they would probably find they had done all the talking, and supplied all the information, leaving the clairvoyant no work to do whatever. to such i always say, whether their aim is to obtain advice in their business, or news of a lost friend, _be perfectly passive_, until the medium has said all he or she may have to say. give them time to become _en rapport_ with you, and quietude, that he may commune with the spirits you bring with you; for it is _they_, and not _his_ controls, that furnish him with the history of your life, or point out the dangers that are threatening. when he has finished speaking, he will probably ask if you have any questions to put to him, and _then_ is your turn for talking, and for gaining any particular information you may wish to acquire. if these directions are carried out, you are likely to have a much more satisfactory _séance_ than otherwise. chapter xxi. private media. people who wish to argue against spiritualism are quite sure, as a rule, that media will descend to any trickery and cheating for the sake of gain. if you reply, as in my own case, that the _séances_ have been given as a free-will offering, they say that they expected introductions or popularity or advertisement in exchange. but what can be adduced against the medium who lends his or her powers to a person whom he has never seen, and probably never will see, and for no reason, excepting that his controls urge him to the deed? such a man is mr. george plummer of massachusetts, america. in december, , when my mind was very unsettled, my friend miss schonberg advised me to write to this medium and ask his advice. she told me i must not expect an immediate reply, as mr. plummer kept a box into which he threw all the letters he received from strangers on spiritualistic subjects, and when he felt impressed to do so, he went and took out one, haphazard, and wrote the answer that was dictated to him. all i had to do was to enclose an addressed envelope, not a _stamped_ one, in my letter, to convey the answer back again. accordingly, i prepared a diplomatic epistle to this effect. "dear sir,--hearing that you are good enough to sit for strangers, i shall be much obliged if you will let me know what you see for me.--yours truly, f. lane." it will be seen that i transposed the letters of my name "lean." i addressed the return envelope in the same manner to the house in regent's park, which i then occupied, and i wrote it all in a feigned hand to conceal my identity as much as possible. the time went on and i heard nothing from mr. plummer. i was touring in the provinces for the whole of , and at the end of the year i came back to london and settled down in a new house in a different quarter of the town. by this time i had almost forgotten mr. plummer and my letter to him, and when in _december_, , two years after i had sent it, my own envelope in my own handwriting, forwarded by the postal authorities from regent's park, was brought to me, i did not at first recognize it. i kept twisting it about, and thinking how like it was to my own writing, when the truth suddenly flashed on me. i opened it and read as follows: "georgetown, november th, . "mrs. lane,--dear madam,--please pardon me for seeming neglect in answering your request. at the time of receiving your letter i could not write, and it got mislaid. coming across it now, even at the eleventh hour, i place myself in condition to answer. i see a lady with dark blue eyes before me, of a very nervous life--warm-hearted--impulsive--tropical in her nature. a woman of intense feeling--a woman whose life has been one of constant disappointment. to-day the current of life flows on smoothly but monotonous. i sense from the sphere of this lady, a weariness of life--should think she felt like alexander, because there are no more worlds for her to conquer. she is her own worst enemy. naturally generous, she radiates her refined magnetic sphere to others, and does not get back that which she can utilize. i see a bright-complexioned gentleman in earth life--brave, generous, and kind--but does not comprehend your interior life. and yet thinks the world of you to-day. i feel from you talent of a marked order. and yet life is a disappointment. not but what you have been successful in a refined, worldly sense, but your spiritual nature has been repressed. the society you move in is one of intellectual culture; that is not of the soul. and it is soul food that you are hungering for to-day. you are an inspired woman. thought seems to you, all prepared, so to speak. but it does not seem to free the tiny little messengers of your soul life. somehow i don't feel that confidence in myself in writing to you. the best kind of a reading is usually obtained in reading to a person direct. but if i don't meet your case we will call it a failure and let it go. the year of is going to be more favorable to you than for the last ten years. i think in some way you are to meet with more reciprocity of soul. as the divining rod points to the stream of water in the earth, so i find my intuitive eye takes cognizance of your interior life. you will in a degree catch my meaning through this, and it will come clearer, more through your intuition than through your intellect. i should say to you, follow your instincts and intuitions always through life. if this throws any light over your path i am glad.--i remain, most respectfully yours, george plummer." now there are two noticeable things in this letter. first, mr. plummer's estimate of my interior life almost coincides with mr. fletcher's given in , ten years before. next, although he read it through the medium of a letter written in , he draws a picture of my position and surroundings in . both these things appeared to me very curious as coming from a stranger across the atlantic, and i answered his letter at once, still preserving my slight incognita, and telling him that as he had read so much of my life from my handwriting of so long ago, i wished he would try to read more from words which went fresh from me to him. i also enclosed a piece of the handwriting of a friend. mr. plummer did not keep me waiting this time. his next letter was dated february th, . "dear madam,--i received yours of january rd, and would have answered before, but the spirit did not move. i have been tied to a sick room going on three months, with its cares and anxieties. not the best condition for writing. the best condition to reflect your life, to give your soul strength, is to be at rest and have all earth conditions nullified. but that cannot be to-day. so i will try to penetrate the mystery of your life as best i can, and radiate to you at least some strength. the relation of soul is the difficulty of your life, and you are so perfectly inspirational that it makes the condition worse. grand types of manhood and womanhood come to you from the higher life, and your spirit and soul catch the reflection, and are disappointed because they cannot live that life. but you are getting a development out of all this friction. now if you would come in contact with that nature that could radiate to you just what you could give to it, you would be happy. love is absolute, you well know. often in the exchange of thought we give each other strength. and then every letter we write, every time we shake hands, we give some of our own personality out. you are too sensitive to the spheres of people. you have such a strong personality of life that the power that inspires you could not make the perfect junction until you get so, you had rather die than live. that was a condition of negation. now you have been running on a dead level of nothingness for two years and a half." (this was exactly the time since my daughter had been taken from me). "_i mean it seems so to you._ such a sameness of things. i get from the writing of the gentleman. a good sphere--warm hearted--true to his understanding of things. he seems to be a sort of a half-way house to you. that is, you roam in the sea of ideality, down deep, you know. and he rather holds on to matter-of-fact--sort of ballast for you. you need it. for you are, in fact, ripe for the other life, though it is not time to go yet. although a writer, yet you are a disappointed one. no mortal but yourself knows this. you have winged your way in flights, grand and lofty, and cannot _pen it_, is what is the matter. now, in time you will, more perfectly than to-day, by the touch of your pen, portray your soul and its flights. then i see you happy. this gentleman is an auxiliary power, whether the power in full of your life i do not to-day get. you are emphatically a woman of destiny, and should follow your _impressions_, for through that intuitive law you will be saved. i mean by 'saved,' leap, as it were, across difficulties instead of going round. for your soul is more positive and awake to its necessities to-day than ever before in your life, particularly in the last six months. body marriages are good under the physical law--bring certain unfoldments. but when mortal man and woman reach a certain condition of development, they become dissatisfied, and yearn for the full fruition of love. and there is no limitation of this law. women usually bow to the heart-love law, that sometimes brings great joy and misery. the time is ripe for rulers. there will be put into the field men, and more specifically women, who have exemplified love divine. they will teach the law so plainly that they who run can read. and it can only be taught by those who have embodied it. some years ago, in this country, there was a stir-up. it did its work in fermentation. the next must be humanization. the material world must come under the spiritual. women will come to the front as inspired powers. this is what comes to me to write to you to-day. if it brings strength, or one ray of sun-shine to you, i am glad.--i remain, most respectfully yours, george plummer." mr. plummer is not occupying a high position in the world, nor is he a rich man. he gains no popularity by his letters--he hears no applause--he reaps no personal benefit, nor will he take any money. it would be difficult, with any degree of reason, to charge him with cheating the public for the sake of emptying their pockets. i fail to see, therefore, how he can obtain his insight to one's interior life by mortal means, nor, unless compelled by a power superior to his own, why he should take the trouble to obtain it. another medium, whose health paid the sacrifice demanded of her for the exhibition of a power over which, at one time, she had no control, and which never brought her in anything but the thanks of her friends, is mrs. keningale cook (mabel collins), whom i have mentioned in the "story of my spirit child." there was a photographer in london, named hudson, who had been very successful in developing spirit photographs. he would prepare to take an ordinary photograph, and on developing the plate, one or more spirit forms would be found standing by the sitter, in which forms were recognized the faces of deceased friends. of course, the generality of people said that the plates were prepared beforehand with vague misty figures, and the imagination of the sitter did the rest. i had been for some time anxious to test mr. hudson's powers for myself, and one morning very early, between nine and ten o'clock, i asked mrs. cook, as a medium, to accompany me to his studio. he was not personally acquainted with either of us, and we went so early that we found him rather unwilling to set to work. indeed, at first he declined. we disturbed him at breakfast and in his shirt sleeves, and he told us his studio had been freshly painted, and it was quite impossible to use it until dry. but we pressed him to take our photographs until he consented, and we ascended to the studio. it was certainly very difficult to avoid painting ourselves, and the screen placed behind was perfectly wet. we had not mentioned a word to mr. hudson about spirit photographs, and the first plate he took out and held up to the light, we saw him draw his coat sleeve across. when we asked him what he was doing, he turned to us and said, "are you ladies spiritualists?" when we answered in the affirmative, he continued, "i rubbed out the plate because i thought there was something on it, and most sitters would object. i often have to destroy three or four negatives before i get a clear picture." we begged him not to rub out any more as we were curious to see the results. he, consequently, developed three photographs of us, sitting side by side. the first was too indistinct to be of any use. it represented us, with a third form, merely a patch of white, lying on the ground, whilst a mass of hair was over my knee. "florence" afterwards informed me that this was an attempt to depict herself. the second picture showed mrs. cook and myself as before, with "charlie" standing behind me. i have spoken of "charlie" (stephen charles bernard abbott) in "curious coincidences," and how much he was attached to me and mine. in the photograph he is represented in his cowl and monk's frock--with ropes round his waist, and his face looking down. in the third picture, an old lady in a net cap and white shawl was standing with her two hands on mrs. cook's shoulders. this was her grandmother, and the profile was so distinctly delineated, that her father, mr. mortimer collins, recognized it at once as the portrait of his mother. the old lady had been a member of the plymouth brethren sect, and wore the identical shawl of white silk with an embroidered border which she used to wear during her last years on earth. i have seen many other spirit photographs taken by mr. hudson, but i adhere to my resolution to speak only of that which i have proved by the exercise of my own senses. i have the two photographs i mention to this day, and have often wished that mr. hudson's removal from town had not prevented my sitting again to him in order to procure the likenesses of other friends. miss caroline pawley is a lady who advertises her willingness to obtain messages for others from the spirit world, but is forbidden by her guides to take presents or money. i thought at first this must be a "_ruse_." "surely," i said to a friend who knew miss pawley, "i ought to take books, or flowers, or some little offering in my hand." "if you do she will return them," was the reply. "all that is necessary is to write and make an appointment, as her time is very much taken up." accordingly i did write, and miss pawley kindly named an early date for my visit. it was but a few months after i had lost my beloved daughter, and i longed for news of her. i arrived at miss pawley's residence, a neat little house in the suburbs, and was received by my hostess, a sweet, placid-faced woman, who looked the embodiment of peace and calm happiness. after we had exchanged greetings she said to me, "you have lost a daughter." "i lost one about twenty years ago--a baby of ten days old," i replied. "i don't mean her," said miss pawley, "i mean a young woman. i will tell you how i came to know of it. i took out my memoranda yesterday and was looking it through to see what engagements i had made for to-day, and i read the names aloud to myself. as i came to the entry, 'mrs. lean, o'clock,' i heard a low voice say behind me, 'that is my dear, _dear_ mother!' and when i turned round, i saw standing at my elbow a young woman about the middle height, with blue eyes and very long brown hair, and she told me that it is _she_ whom you are grieving for at present." i made no answer to this speech, for my wound was too fresh to permit me to talk of her; and miss pawley proceeded. "come!" she said cheerfully, "let us get paper and pencil and see what the dear child has to say to us." she did not go under trance, but wrote rapidly for a few moments and then handed me a letter written in the following manner. i repeat (what i have said before) that i do not test the genuineness of such a manifestation by the act itself. _anyone_ might have written the letter, but no one but myself could recognize the familiar expressions and handwriting, nor detect the apparent inconsistencies that made it so convincing. it was written in two different hands on alternate lines, the first line being written by "eva," and the next by "florence," and so on. now, my earthly children from their earliest days have never called me anything but "mother," whilst "florence," who left me before she could speak, constantly calls me "mamma." this fact alone could never have been known to miss pawley. added to which the portion written by my eldest daughter was in her own clear decided hand, whilst "florence's" contribution was in rather a childish, or "young ladylike" scribble. the lines ran thus. the italics are florence's:-- "my own beloved mother. _my dear, dear, dearest mamma._ you must not grieve so terribly for me. _and knowing all we have taught you, you should not grieve._ believe me, i am not unhappy. _of course not, and she will be very happy soon._ but i suffer pain in seeing you suffer. _dear mamma, do try to see that it is for the best._ florence is right. it is best! dear mother. _and we shall all meet so soon, you know._ god bless you for all your love for me. _good-bye, dear, dearest mamma._ your own girl. _your loving little florence._" i cannot comment on this letter. i only make it public in a cause that is sacred to me. to instance another case of mediumship which is exercised for neither remuneration nor applause. i am obliged in this example to withhold the name, because to betray their identity would be to ill requite a favor which was courteously accorded me. i had heard of a family of the name of d---- who held private sittings once a week, at which the mother and brothers and sisters gone before materialized and joined the circle; and having expressed my desire, through a mutual acquaintance, to assist at their _séances_, mr. d---- kindly sent me an invitation to one. i found he was a high-class tradesman, living in a good house in the suburbs, and that strangers were very seldom (if ever) admitted to their circle. mr. d---- explained to me before the _séance_ commenced, that they regarded spiritualism as a most sacred thing, that they sat only to have communication with their own relations, his wife and children, and that his wife never manifested except when they were alone. his earth family consisted of a young married daughter and her husband, and four or five children of different ages. he had lost, i think he told me, a grown-up son, and two little ones. william haxby, the medium, whom i wrote of in my chapter "on sceptics," and who had passed over since then, had been intimate with their family, and often came back to them. these explanations over, the _séance_ began. the back and front parlors were divided by lace curtains only. in the back, where the young married daughter took up her position on a sofa, were a piano and an american organ. in the front parlor, which was lighted by an oil lamp, we sat about on chairs and sofas, but without any holding of hands. in a very short time the lace curtains parted and a young man's face appeared. this was the grown-up brother. "hullo! tom," they all exclaimed, and the younger ones went up and kissed him. he spoke a while to his father, telling what they proposed to do that evening, but saying his mother would not be able to materialize. as he was speaking, a little boy stood by his side. "here's harry," cried the children, and they brought their spirit brother out into the room between them. he seemed to be about five years old. his father told him to come and speak to me, and he obeyed, just like a little human child, and stood before me with his hand resting on my knee. then a little girl joined the party, and the two children walked about the room, talking to everybody in turn. as we were occupied with them, we heard the notes of the american organ. "here's haxby," said mr. d----. "now we shall have a treat." (i must say here that mr. haxby was an accomplished organist on earth.) as he heard his name, he, too, came to the curtains, and showed his face with its ungainly features, and intimated that he and "tom" would play a duet. accordingly the two instruments pealed forth together, and the spirits really played gloriously--a third influence joining in with some stringed instrument. this _séance_ was so much less wonderful than many i have written of, that i should not have included a description of it, except to prove that all media do not ply their profession in order to prey upon their fellow-creatures. the d---- family are only anxious to avoid observation. there could be no fun or benefit in deceiving each other, and yet they devote one evening in each week to holding communion with those they loved whilst on earth and feel are only hidden from them for a little while, and by a very flimsy veil. their _séances_ truly carry out the great poet's belief. "then the forms of the departed enter at the open door; the belovéd, the true-hearted, come to visit me once more. * * * * * with a slow and noiseless footstep comes that messenger divine, takes the vacant chair beside me, lays her gentle hand in mine. * * * * * uttered not, yet, comprehended, is the spirit's voiceless prayer. soft rebukes, in blessings ended, breathing from her lips of air." in the house of the lady i have mentioned in "the story of the monk," mrs. uniacke of bruges, i have witnessed marvellous phenomena. they were not pleasant manifestations, very far from it, but there was no doubt that they were genuine. whether they proceeded from the agency of mrs. uniacke, my sister blanche, or a young lady called miss robinson, who sat with them, or from the power of all three combined, i cannot say, but they had experienced them on several occasions before i joined them, and were eager that i should be a witness of them. we sat in mrs. uniacke's house, in a back drawing-room, containing a piano and several book-cases, full of books--some of them very heavy. we sat round a table in complete darkness, only we four women, with locked doors and bolted windows. accustomed as i was to all sorts of manifestations and mediumship, i was really frightened by what occurred. the table was most violent in its movements, our chairs were dragged from under us, and heavy articles were thrown about the room. the more mrs. uniacke expostulated and miss robinson laughed, the worse the tumult became. the books were taken from the shelves and hurled at our heads, several of the blows seriously hurting us; the keys of the piano at the further end of the room were thumped and crashed upon, as if they would be broken; and in the midst of it all miss robinson fell prone upon the floor, and commenced talking in flemish, a language of which she had no knowledge. my sister understands it, and held a conversation with the girl; and she told us afterwards that miss robinson had announced herself by the name of a fleming lately deceased in the town, and detailed many events of his life, and messages which he wished to be delivered to his family--all of which were conveyed in good and intelligible flemish. when the young lady had recovered she resumed her place at the table, as my sister was anxious i should see another table, which they called "mademoiselle" dance, whilst unseen hands thumped the piano. the manifestation not occurring, however, they thought it must be my presence, and ordered me away from the table. i went and stood up close against the folding doors that led into the front room, keeping my hand, with a purpose, on the handle. the noise and confusion palpably increased when the three ladies were left alone. "mademoiselle," who stood in a corner of the room, commenced to dance about, and the notes of the piano crashed forcibly. there was something strange to me about the manifestation of the piano. it sounded as if it were played with feet instead of hands. when the tumult was at its height, i suddenly, and without warning, threw open the folding door and let the light in upon the scene, and i saw _the music-stool mounted on the keyboard_ and hammering the notes down. as the light was admitted, both "mademoiselle" and the music-stool fell with a crash to the floor, and the _séance_ was over. the ladies were seated at the table, and the floor and articles of furniture were strewn with the books which had been thrown down--the bookshelves being nearly emptied--and pots of flowers. i was never at such a pandemonium before or after. the late sir percy shelley and his wife lady shelley, having no children of their own, adopted a little girl, who, when about four or five years, was seriously burned about the chest and shoulders, and confined for some months to her bed. the child's cot stood in lady shelley's bedroom, and when her adopted mother was about to say her prayers, she was accustomed to give the little girl a pencil and piece of paper to keep her quiet. one day the child asked for pen and ink instead of a pencil, and on being refused began to cry, and said, "the _man_ said she must have pen and ink." as it was particularly enjoined that she must not cry for fear of reopening her wounds, lady shelley provided her with the desired articles, and proceeded to her devotions. when she rose from them, she saw to her surprise that the child had drawn an outline of a group of figures in the flaxman style, representing mourners kneeling round a couch with a sick man laid upon it. she did not understand the meaning of the picture, but she was struck with amazement at the execution of it, as was everybody who saw it. from that day she gave the little girl a sheet of card-board each morning, with pen and ink, and obtained a different design, the child always talking glibly of "the man" who helped her to draw. this went on until the drawings numbered thirty or forty, when a "glossary of symbols" was written out by this baby, who could neither write nor spell, which explained the whole matter. it was then discovered that the series of drawings represented the life of the soul on leaving the body, until it was lost "in the infinity of god"--a likely subject to be chosen, or understood, by a child of five. i heard this story from lady shelley's lips, and i have seen (and well examined) the original designs. they were at one time to be published by subscription, but i believe it never came to pass. i have also seen the girl who drew them, most undoubtedly under control. she was then a young married woman and completely ignorant of anything relating to spiritualism. i asked her if she remembered the circumstances under which she drew the outlines, and she laughed and said no. she knew she had drawn them, but she had no idea how. all she could tell me was that she had never done anything wonderful since, and she had no interest in spiritualism whatever. chapter xxii. various media. a very strong and remarkable clairvoyant is mr. towns, of portobello road. as a business adviser or foreteller of the future, i don't think he is excelled. the inquirer after prophecy will not find a grand mansion to receive him in portobello road. on the contrary, this soothsayer keeps a small shop in the oil trade, and is himself only an honest, and occasionally rather rough spoken, tradesman. he will see clients privately on any day when he is at home, though it is better to make an appointment, but he holds a circle on his premises each tuesday evening, to which everybody is admitted, and where the contribution is anything you may be disposed to give, from coppers to gold. these meetings, which are very well attended, are always opened by mr. towns with prayer, after which a hymn is sung, and the _séance_ commences. there is full gas on all the time, and mr. towns sits in the midst of the circle. he does not go under trance, but rubs his forehead for a few minutes and then turns round suddenly and addresses members of his audience, as it may seem, promiscuously, but it is just as he is impressed. he talks, as a rule, in metaphor, or allegorically, but his meaning is perfectly plain to the person he addresses. it is not only silly women, or curious inquirers, who attend mr. towns' circles. you may see plenty of grave, and often anxious, business men around him, waiting to hear if they shall sell out their shares, or hold on till the market rises; where they are to search for lost certificates or papers of value; or on whom they are to fix the blame of money or articles of value that have disappeared. once in my presence a serious-looking man had kept his eye fixed on him for some time, evidently anxious to speak. mr. towns turned suddenly to him. "you want to know, sir," he commenced, without any preface, "where that baptismal certificate is to be found." "i do, indeed," replied the man; "it is a case of a loss of thousands if it is not forthcoming." "let me see," said mr. towns, with his finger to his forehead. "have you tried a church with a square tower without any steeple, an ugly, clumsy building, white-washed inside, standing in a village. stop! i can see the registrar books--the village's name is ----. the entry is at page . the name is ----. the mother's name is ----. is that the certificate you want?" "it is, indeed," said the man; "and it is in the church at ----?" "didn't i say it was in the church at ----?" replied mr. towns, who does not like to be doubted or contradicted. "go and you will find it there." and the man _did_ go and did find it there. to listen to the conversations that go on between him and his clients at these meetings, mr. towns is apparently not less successful with love affairs than with business affairs, and it is an interesting experience to attend them, if only for the sake of curiosity. but naturally, to visit him privately is to command much more of his attention. he will not, however, sit for everybody, and it is of no use attempting to deceive him. he is exceedingly keen-sighted into character, and if he takes a dislike to a man he will tell him so without the slightest hesitation. no society lies are manufactured in the little oil shop. a relative of mine, who was not the most faithful husband in the world, and who, in consequence, judged of his wife's probity by his own, went, during her temporary absence, to mr. towns to ask him a delicate question. the lady was well known to the medium, but the husband he had never seen before, and had no notion who his sitter was, until he pulled out a letter from his pocket, thrust it across the table, and said, "there! look at that letter and tell me if the writer is faithful to me." mr. towns told me that as he took the envelope in his hand, he saw the lady's face photographed upon it, and at the same moment, all the blackness of the husband's own life. he rose up like an avenging deity and pointed to the door. "this letter," he said, "was written by mrs. ----. go! man, and wash your own hands clean, and _then_ come and ask me questions about your wife." and so the "heavy swell" had to slink downstairs again. i have often gone myself to mr. towns before engaging in any new business, and always received the best advice, and been told exactly what would occur during its progress. when i was about to start on the "golden goblin" tour in management with my son--i went to him to ask if it would be successful. he not only told me what money it would bring in, but where the weak points would occur. the drama was then completed, and in course of rehearsal, and had been highly commended by all who had heard and seen it. mr. towns, however, who had neither seen nor heard it, insisted it would have to be altered before it was a complete success. this annoyed me, and i knew it would annoy my son, the author; besides, i believed it was a mistake, so i said nothing about it. before it had run a month, however, the alterations were admitted on all sides to be necessary, and were consequently made. everything that mr. towns prognosticated on that occasion came to pass, even to the strangers i should encounter on tour, and how their acquaintance would affect my future life; also how long the tour would last, and in which towns it would achieve the greatest success. i can assure some of my professional friends, that if they would take the trouble to consult a trustworthy clairvoyant about their engagements before booking them, they would not find themselves so often in the hands of the bogus manager as they do now. a short time ago i received a summons to the county court, and although i _knew_ i was in the right, yet law has so many loopholes that i felt nervous. the case was called for eleven o'clock on a certain wednesday, and the evening before i joined mr. towns' circle. when it came to my turn to question him, i said, "do you see where i shall be to-morrow morning?" he replied, "i can see you are called to appear in a court-house, but the case will be put off." "_put off_," i repeated, "but it is fixed for eleven. it can't be put off." "cases are sometimes relegated to another court," said mr. towns. then i thought he had quite got out of his depth, and replied, "you are making a mistake. this is quite an ordinary business. it can't go to a higher court. but shall i gain it?" "in the afternoon," said the medium. his answers so disappointed me that i placed no confidence in them, and went to the county court on the following morning in a nervous condition. but he was perfectly correct. the case was called for eleven, but as the defendant was not forthcoming, it was passed over, and the succeeding hearings occupied so much time, that the magistrate thought mine would never come off, so he _relegated it at two o'clock to another court_ to be heard before the registrar, who decided it at once in my favor, so that i _gained it in the afternoon_. * * * * * one afternoon in my "green sallet" days of spiritualism, when every fresh experience almost made my breath stop, i turned into the progressive library in southampton row, to ask if there were any new media come to town. mr. burns did not know of any, but asked me if i had ever attended one of mrs. olive's _séances_, a series of which were being held weekly in the library rooms. i had not, and i bought a half-crown ticket for admission, and returned there the same evening. when i entered the _séance_ room, the medium had not arrived, and i had time to take stock of the audience. it seemed a very sad and serious one. there was no whispering nor giggling going on, and it struck me they looked more like patients waiting the advent of the doctor, than people bound on an evening's amusement. and that, to my surprise, was what i afterwards found they actually were. mrs. olive did not keep us long waiting, and when she came in, dressed in a lilac muslin dress, with her golden hair parted plainly on her forehead, her _very_ blue eyes, and a sweet, womanly smile for her circle, she looked as unlike the popular idea of a professional medium as anyone could possibly do. she sat down on a chair in the middle of the circle, and, having closed her eyes, went off to sleep. presently she sat up, and, still with her eyes closed, said in a very pleasant, but decidedly _manly_, voice: "and now, my friends, what can i do for you?" a lady in the circle began to ask advice about her daughter. the medium held up her hand. "stop!" she exclaimed, "you are doing _my_ work. friend, your daughter is ill, you say. then it is _my_ business to see what is the matter with her. will you come here, young lady, and let me feel your pulse." having done which, the medium proceeded to detail exactly the contents of the girl's stomach, and to advise her what to eat and drink for the future. another lady then advanced with a written prescription. the medium examined her, made an alteration or two in the prescription, and told her to go on with it till further orders. my curiosity was aroused, and i whispered to my next neighbor to tell me who the control was. "sir john forbes, a celebrated physician," she replied. "he has almost as large a connection now as he had when alive." i was not exactly ill at the time, but i was not strong, and nothing that my family doctor prescribed for me seemed to do me any good. so wishing to test the abilities of "sir john forbes," i went up to the medium and knelt down by her side. "what is the matter with me, sir john?" i began. "don't call me by that name, little friend," he answered; "we have no titles on this side the world." "what shall i call you, then?" i said. "doctor, plain doctor," was the reply, but in such a kind voice. "then tell me what is the matter with me, doctor." "come nearer, and i'll whisper it in your ear." he then gave me a detailed account of the manner in which i suffered, and asked what i had been taking. when i told him, "all wrong, all wrong," he said, shaking his head. "here! give me a pencil and paper." i had a notebook in my pocket, with a metallic pencil, which i handed over to him, and he wrote a prescription in it. "take that, and you'll be all the better, little friend," he said, as he gave it to me back again. when i had time to examine what he had written, i found to my surprise that the prescription was in abbreviated latin, with the amount of each ingredient given in the regular medical shorthand. mrs. olive, a simple though intelligent looking woman, seemed a very unlikely person to me to be educated up to this degree. however, i determined to obtain a better opinion than my own, so the next time my family doctor called to see me, i said: "i have had a prescription given me, doctor, which i am anxious, with your permission, to try. i wish you would glance your eye over it and see if you approve of my taking it." at the same time i handed him the note-book, and i saw him grow very red as he looked at the prescription. "anything wrong?" i inquired. "o! dear no!" he replied in an offended tone; "you can try your remedy, and welcome, for aught i care--only, next time you wish to consult a new doctor, i advise you to dismiss the old one first." "but this prescription was not written by a doctor," i argued. at this he looked still more offended. "it's no use trying to deceive me, mrs. ross-church! that prescription was written by no one but a medical man." it was a long time before i could make him really believe _who_ had transcribed it, and under what circumstances. when he was convinced of the truth of my statement, he was very much astonished, and laid all his professional pique aside. he did more. he not only urged me to have the prescription made up, but he confessed that his first chagrin was due to the fact that he felt he should have thought of it himself. "_that_," he said, pointing to one ingredient, "is the very thing to suit your case, and it makes me feel such a fool to think that a _woman_ should think of what _i_ passed over." nothing would make this doctor believe in spiritualism, though he continued to aver that only a medical man could have prescribed the medicine; but as i saw dozens of other cases treated at the time by mrs. olive, and have seen dozens since, i know that she does it by a power not her own. for several years after that "sir john forbes" used to give me advice about my health, and when his medium married colonel greck and went to live in russia, he was so sorry to leave his numerous patients, and they to lose him, that he wanted to control _me_ in order that i might carry on his practice, but after several attempts he gave it up as hopeless. he said my brain was too active for any spirit to magnetize; and he is not the first, nor last, who has made the same attempt, and failed. "sir john forbes" was not mrs. olive's only control. she had a charming spirit called "sunshine," who used to come for clairvoyance and prophecy; and a very comical negro named "hambo," who was as humorous and full of native wit and repartee, as negroes generally are, and as mrs. olive, who is a very gentle, quiet woman, decidedly was _not_. "hambo" was the business adviser and director, and sometimes materialized, which the others did not. these three influences were just as opposite from one another, and from mrs. olive, as any creatures could possibly be. "sir john forbes," so dignified, courteous, and truly benevolent--such a thorough old _gentleman_; "sunshine," a sweet, sympathetic indian girl, full of gentle reproof for wrong and exhortations to lead a higher life; and "hambo," humorous and witty, calling a spade a spade, and occasionally descending to coarseness, but never unkind or wicked. i knew them all over a space of years until i regarded them as old friends. mrs. greck is now a widow, and residing in england, and, i hear, sitting again for her friends. if so, a great benefit in the person of "sir john forbes" has returned for a portion of mankind. i have kept a well-known physical medium to the last, not because i do not consider his powers to be completely genuine, but because they are of a nature that will not appeal to such as have not witnessed them. i allude to mr. charles williams, with whom i have sat many times alone, and also with mrs. guppy volckman. the manifestations that take place at his _séances_ are always material. the much written of "john king" is his principal control, and invariably appears under his mediumship; and "ernest" is the name of another. i have seen charles williams leave the cabinet under trance and wander in an aimless manner about the room, whilst both "john king" and "ernest" were with the circle, and have heard them reprove him for rashness. i have also seen him under the same circumstances, during an afternoon _séance_, mistake the window curtains for the curtains of the cabinet, and draw them suddenly aside, letting the full light of day in upon the scene, and showing vacancy where a moment before two figures had been standing and talking. once when "john king" asked colonel lean what he should bring him, he was told _mentally_ to fetch the half-hoop diamond ring from my finger and place it on that of my husband. this half-hoop ring was worn between my wedding ring and a heavy gold snake ring, and i was holding the hand of my neighbor all the time, and yet the ring was abstracted from between the other two and transferred to colonel lean's finger without my being aware of the circumstance. these and various other marvels, i have seen under mr. williams' mediumship; but as i can adduce no proof that they were genuine, except my own conviction, it would be useless to write them down here. only i could not close the list of the media with whom i have familiarly sat in london, and from whom i have received both kindness and courtesy, without including his name. it is the same with several others--with mr. frank herne (now deceased) and his wife mrs. herne, whom i first knew as mrs. bassett, a famous medium for the direct spirit voice; with mrs. wilkinson, a clairvoyant who has a large _clientèle_ of wealthy and aristocratic patrons; with mrs. wilkins and mr. vango, both reliable, though, as yet, less well known to the spiritualistic public; and with dr. wilson, the astrologer, who will tell you all you have ever done, and all you are ever going to do, if you will only give him the opportunity of casting your horoscope. to all and each i tender my thanks for having afforded me increased opportunities of searching into the truth of a science that possesses the utmost interest for me, and that has given me the greatest pleasure. chapter xxiii. on laying the cards. at the risk of being laughed at, i cannot refrain, in the course of this narrative of my spiritualistic experiences, from saying a few words about what is called "laying the cards." "imagine!" i fancy i hear some dear creature with nose "tip-tilted like a flower" exclaim, "any sensible woman believing in cards." and yet napoleon believed in them, and regulated the fate of nations by them; and the only times he neglected their admonitions were followed by the retreat from moscow and the defeat at waterloo. still i did not believe in card-telling till the belief was forced upon me. i always thought it rather cruel to give imprisonment and hard labor to old women who laid the cards for servant girls. who can tell whether or no it is obtaining money upon false pretences; and if it is, why not inflict the same penalty on every cheating tradesman who sells inferior articles or gives short weight? women would be told they should look after their own interests in the one case--so why not in the other? but all the difference lies in _who_ lays the cards. very few people can do it successfully, and my belief is that it must be done by a person with mediumistic power, which, in some mysterious manner, influences the disposition of the pack. i have seen cards shuffled and cut twenty times in the hope of getting rid of some number antagonistic to the inquirer's good fortune, and yet each time the same card would turn up in the juxtaposition least to be desired. however, to narrate my own experience. when i was living in brussels, years before i heard of modern spiritualism, i made the acquaintance of an irish lady called mrs. thorpe, a widow who was engaged as a _châperon_ for some young belgian ladies of high birth, who had lost their mother. we lived near each other, and she often came in to have a chat with me. after a while i heard through some other friends that mrs. thorpe was a famous hand at "laying the cards;" and one day, when we were alone, i asked her to tell me my fortune. i didn't in the least believe in it, but i wanted to be amused. mrs. thorpe begged to be excused at once. she told me her predictions had proved so true, she was afraid to look into futurity any more. she had seen a son and heir for a couple who had been married twenty years without having any children, and death for a girl just about to become a bride--and both had come true; and, in fact, her employer, the baron, had strictly forbidden her doing it any more whilst in his house. however, this only fired my curiosity, and i teased her until, on my promising to preserve the strictest secrecy, she complied with my request. she predicted several things in which i had little faith, but which i religiously wrote down in case they came true--the three most important being that my husband, colonel ross-church (who was then most seriously ill in india), would not die, but that his brother, edward church, would; that i should have one more child by my first marriage--a daughter with exceedingly fair skin and hair, who would prove to be the cleverest of all my children, and that after her birth i should never live with my husband again. all these events were most unlikely to come to pass at that time, and, indeed, did not come to pass for years afterwards, yet each one was fulfilled, and the daughter who, unlike all her brothers and sisters, is fair as a lily, will be by no means the last in the race for talent. yet these cards were laid four years before her birth. mrs. thorpe told me she had learnt the art from a pupil of the identical italian countess who used to lay the cards for the emperor napoleon. but it is not an art, and it is not to be learnt. it is inspiration. many years after this, when i had just begun to study spiritualism, my sister told me of a wonderful old lady, a neighbor of hers, who had gained quite an evil reputation in the village by her prophetical powers with the cards. like mrs. thorpe, she had become afraid of herself, and professed to have given up the practice. the last time she had laid them, a girl acquaintance had walked over joyously from an adjacent village to introduce her affianced husband to her, and to beg her to tell them what would happen in their married life. the old lady had laid the cards, and saw the death card turn up three times with the marriage ring, and told the young people, much to their chagrin, that they must prepare for a disappointment, as their marriage would certainly be postponed from some obstacle arising in the way. she told me afterwards that she dared not tell them more than this. they left her somewhat sobered, but still full of hope, and started on their way home. before they reached it the young man staggered and fell down dead. no one had expected such a catastrophe. he had been apparently in the best of health and spirits. _what_ was it that had made this old lady foresee what no one else had seen? these are no trumped-up tales after the prediction had been fulfilled. everyone knew it to be true, and became frightened to look into the future for themselves. i was an exception to the general rule, however, and persuaded mrs. simmonds to lay the cards for me. i had just completed a two months' sojourn at the seaside, was in robust health, and anticipating my return home for the sake of meeting again with a friend who was very dear to me. i shuffled and cut the cards according to directions. the old lady looked rather grave. "i don't like your cards," she said, "there is a good deal of trouble before you--trouble and sickness. you will not return home so soon as you anticipate. you will be detained by illness, and when you do return, you will find a letter on the table that will cut you to the heart. i am sorry you have stayed away so long. there has been treachery in your absence, and a woman just your opposite, with dark eyes and hair, has got the better of you. however, it will be a sharp trouble, but not a lengthy one. you will see the wisdom of it before long, and be thankful it has happened." i accepted my destiny with complacency, never supposing (notwithstanding all that i had heard) that it would come true. i was within a few days of starting for home, and had received affectionate letters from my friend all the time i had been away. however, as fate and the cards would have it, i was taken ill the very day after they were laid for me, and confined for three weeks with a kind of low fever to my bed; and when weakened and depressed i returned to my home i found _the letter on my table_ that mrs. simmonds had predicted for me, to say that my friendship with my (supposed) friend _was over and done with for ever_. after this i began to have more respect for cards, or rather for the persons who successfully laid them. in , when i was touring with my company with the "golden goblin," i stayed for the first time in my life in accrington. our sojourn there was to be only for a week, and, as may be supposed, the accommodation in the way of lodgings was very poor. when we had been there a few days a lady of the company said to me, "there is such a funny old woman at my lodgings, miss marryat! i wish you'd come and see her. she can tell fortunes with the cards, and i know you believe in such things. she has told my husband and me all about ourselves in the most wonderful manner; but you mustn't come when the old man is at home, because he says it's devilry, and he has forbidden her doing it." "i _am_ very much interested in that sort of thing," i replied, "and i will certainly pay her a visit, if you will tell me when i may come." a time was accordingly fixed for my going to the lady's rooms, and on my arrival there i was introduced to a greasy, snuffy old landlady, who didn't look as if she had a soul above a bottle of gin. however, i sat down at a table with her, and the cards were cut. she told me nothing that my friends might have told her concerning me, but dived at once into the future. my domestic affairs were in a very complicated state at that period, and i had no idea myself how they would end. she saw the whole situation at a glance--described the actors in the scene, the places they lived in, the people by whom they were surrounded, and exactly how the whole business would end, and _did_ end. she foretold the running of the tour, how long it would last, and which of the company would leave before it concluded. she told me that a woman in the company, whom i believed at that time to be attached to me, would prove to be one of my greatest enemies, and be the cause of estrangement between me and one of my nearest relations, and she opened my eyes to that woman's character in a way which forced me afterwards to find out that to which i might have been blind forever. and this information emanated from a dirty, ignorant, old lodging keeper, who had probably never heard of my name until it was thrust before her, and yet told me things that my most intimate and cleverest friends had no power to tell me. after the woman at accrington i never looked at a card for the purpose of divination until my attention was directed last year to a woman in london who is very clever at the same thing, and a friend asked me to go with her and see what she could tell us. this woman, who is quite of the lower class, and professedly a dressmaker, received us in a bedroom, the door of which was carefully locked. she was an elderly woman and rather intelligent and well educated for her position, but she could adduce no reason whatever for her facility in reading the cards. she told me "it _came_ to her," she didn't know why or how. it "came to her" with a vengeance for me. she rattled off my past, present and future as if she had been reading from an open book, and she mentioned the description of a person (which i completely recognized) so constantly with reference to my future, that i thought i would try her by a question. "stop a minute," i said, "this person whom you have alluded to so often--have i ever met him?" "of course you have met him," she replied, "you know him intimately." "i don't recognize the description," i returned, fallaciously. the woman turned round and looked me full in the face. "_you don't recognize him?_" she repeated in an incredulous tone, "then you must be very dull. well! i'll tell you how to recognize him. next time you meet a gentleman out walking who raises his hat, and before he shakes hands with you, draws a written or printed paper from his pocket and presents it to you, you can remember my words. _that_ is the man i mean." i laughed at the quaintness of the idea and returned home. as i was walking from the station to my own house i met the person she had described. as he neared me he raised his hat, and then putting his hand in his pocket he said, "good afternoon! i have something for you! i met burrows this morning. he was going on to you, but as he was in a great hurry he asked me if i was likely to see you to-day to give you this." and he presented me with a printed paper of regulations which i had asked the man he mentioned to procure for me. now, here was no stereotyped utterance of the cards--no stock phrase--but a deliberate prophecy of an unfulfilled event. it is upon such things that i base my opinion that, given certain persons and certain circumstances, the cards are a very fertile source of information. it is absurd in cases like those i have related to lay it all down to chance, to clever guessing, or to trickery. if my readers believe so, let me ask them to try it for themselves. if it is all folly, and any stupid, ignorant old woman can do it, of course _they_ must be able to master the trick. let them get a pack of cards and lay them according to the usual directions--there are any number of books published that will tell them how to do it--and then see if they can foretell a single event of importance correctly. they will probably find (as _i_ do) that the cards are a sealed book to them. i would give a great deal to be able to lay the cards with any degree of success for myself or my friends. but nothing "comes to me." the cards remain painted pieces of cardboard, and nothing more. and yet an ignorant creature who has no brains of her own can dive deep into the mysteries of my mind, and turn my inmost thoughts and wishes inside out,--more, can pierce futurity and tell me what _shall_ be. however, if my hearers continue to doubt my story, i can only repeat my admonition to try it for themselves. if they once succeed, they will not give it up again. chapter xxiv. spiritualism in america. i. _mrs. m. a. williams._ i went to america on a professional engagement in october, . some months beforehand a very liberal offer had been made me by the spiritualists of great britain to write my experiences for the english press, but i declined to do so until i could add my american notes to them. i had corresponded (as i have shown) with the _banner of light_ in new york; and what i had heard of spiritualism in america had made me curious to witness it. but i was determined to test it on a strictly private plan. i said to myself: "i have seen and heard pretty nearly all there is to be seen and heard on the subject in england, but, with one or two exceptions, i have never sat at any _séance_ where i was not known. now i am going to visit a strange country where, in a matter like spiritualism, i can conceal my identity, so as to afford the media no clue to my surroundings or the names of my deceased friends." i sailed for america quite determined to pursue a strictly secret investigation, and with that end in view i never mentioned the subject to anyone. i had a few days holiday in new york before proceeding to boston, where my work opened, and i stayed at one of the largest hotels in the city. i landed on sunday morning, and on monday evening i resolved to make my first venture. had i been a visitor in london, i should have had to search out the right sort of people, and make a dozen inquiries before i heard where the media were hiding themselves from dread of the law; but they order such things better on the other side of the atlantic. people are allowed to hold their private opinions and their private religion there without being swooped down upon and clapped into prison for rogues and vagabonds. whatever the views of the majority may be, upon this subject or any other (and heaven knows i would have each man strong enough to cling to his opinion, and brave enough to acknowledge it before the world), i think it is a discredit to a civilized country to allow old laws, that were made when we were little better than savages, to remain in force at the present day. we are far too much over-ridden by a paternal government, which has grown so blind and senile that it swallows camels while it is straining after a gnat. there was no obstacle to my wish, however, in new york. i had but to glance down the advertisement columns of the newspapers to learn where the media lived, and on what days they held their public _séances_. it so happened that mrs. m. a. williams was the only one who held open house on monday evenings for materialization; and thither i determined to go. there is no such privacy as in a large _hôtel_, where no one has the opportunity to see what his neighbor is doing. as soon, therefore, as my dinner was concluded, i put on a dark cloak, hat and veil, and walking out into the open, got into one of the cars that ran past the street where mrs. williams resided. arrived at the house, i knocked at the door, and was about to inquire if there was to be any _séance_ there, that evening, when the attendant saved me the trouble by saying, "upstairs, if you please, madam," and nothing more passed between us. when i had mounted the stairs, i found myself in a large room, the floor of which was covered with a thick carpet, nailed all round the wainscotting. on one side were some thirty or forty cane-bottomed chairs, and directly facing them was the cabinet. this consisted of four uprights nailed over the carpet, with iron rods connecting them at the top. there was no roof to it, but curtains of a dark maroon color were usually drawn around, but when i entered, they were flung back over the iron rods, so as to disclose the interior. there was a stuffed armchair for the use of the medium, and in front of the cabinet a narrow table with papers and pencils on it, the use of which i did not at first discover. at the third side of the room was a harmonium, so placed that the performer sat with his back both to the cabinet and the sitters. a large gas lamp, almost like a limelight, made in a square form like a lantern, was fixed against the wall, so as to throw the light upon the cabinet, but it was fitted with a sliding shade of red silk, with which it could be darkened if necessary. i was early, and only a few visitors were occupying the chairs. i asked a lady if i might sit where i chose, and on her answering "yes," i took the chair in the front row, exactly opposite the cabinet, not forgetting that i was there in the cause of spiritualism as well as for my own interests. the seats filled rapidly and there must have been thirty-five or forty people present, when mrs. williams entered the room, and nodding to those she knew, went into the cabinet. mrs. williams is a stout woman of middle age, with dark hair and eyes, and a fresh complexion. she was dressed in a tight-fitting gown of pale blue, with a good deal of lace about the neck and sleeves. she was accompanied by a gentleman, and i then discovered for the first time that it is usual in america to have, what they call, a "conductor" of the _séance_. the conductor sits close to the cabinet curtains, and, if any spirit is too weak to shew itself outside, or to speak audibly, he conveys the message it may wish to send to its friends; and when i knew how very few precautions the americans take to prevent such outrages as have occurred in england, and how many more materializations take place in an evening there than here, i saw the necessity of a conductor to protect the medium, and to regulate the order of the _séance_. mrs. williams' conductor opened the proceedings with a very neat little speech. he said, "i see several strange faces here this evening, and i am very pleased to see them, and i hope they may derive both pleasure and profit from our meeting. we have only one rule for the conduct of our _séances_, that you shall behave like ladies and gentlemen. you may not credit all you see, but remember this is our religion, and the religion of many present, and as you would behave yourselves reverently and decorously, if you were in a church of another persuasion to your own, so i beg of you to behave yourselves here. and if any spirits should come for you whom you do not immediately recognize, don't wound them by denying their identity. they may have been longing for this moment to meet you again, and doing their very utmost to assume once more the likeness they wore on earth; yet some fail. don't make their failure harder to bear by roughly repudiating all knowledge of them. the strangers who are present to-night may mistake the reason of this little table being placed in front of the cabinet, and think it is intended to keep them from too close an inspection of the spirits. no such thing! on the contrary, all will be invited in turn to come up and recognize their friends. but we make it a rule at these _séances_ that no materialized spirit, who is strong enough to come beyond that table, shall be permitted to return to the cabinet. they must dematerialize in sight of the sitters, that no possible suspicion may rest upon the medium. these pencils and papers are placed here in case any spirit who is unable to speak may be impressed to write instead. and now we will begin the evening with a song." the accompanist then played "footsteps of angels," the audience sung it with a will, and the curtains having been drawn round mrs. williams, the shade was drawn across the gaslight, and the _séance_ began. i don't think it could have been more than a minute or two before we heard a voice whispering, "father," and _three girls_, dressed in white clinging garments, appeared at the opening in the curtains. an old man with white hair left his seat and walked up to the cabinet, when they all three came out at once and hung about his neck and kissed him, and whispered to him. i almost forgot where i was. they looked so perfectly human, so joyous and girl-like, somewhere between seventeen and twenty, and they all spoke at once, so like what girls on earth would do, that it was most mystifying. the old man came back to his seat, wiping his eyes. "are those your daughters, sir?" asked one of the sitters. "yes! my three girls," he replied. "i lost them all before ten years old, but you see i've got them back again here." several other forms appeared after this--one, a little child of about three years old, who fluttered in and out of the cabinet like a butterfly, and ran laughing away from the sitters who tried to catch her. some of the meetings that took place for the first time were very affecting. one young man of about seventeen or eighteen, who was called up to see his mother's spirit, sobbed so bitterly, it broke my heart to hear him. there was not the least doubt if _he_ recognized her or no. he was so overcome, he hardly raised his eyes for the rest of the evening. one lady brought her spirit-son up to me, that i might see how perfectly he had materialized. she spoke of it as proudly as she might have done if he had passed some difficult examination. the young man was dressed in a suit of evening clothes, and he shook hands with me at his mother's bidding, with the firm grasp of a mortal. naturally, i had seen too much in england for all this to surprise me. still i had never assisted at a _séance_ where everything appeared to be so strangely human--so little mystical, except indeed the rule of dematerializing before the sitters, which i had only seen "katie king" do before. but here, each form, after having been warned by the conductor that its time was up, sunk down right through the carpet as though it were the most ordinary mode of egression. some, and more especially the men, did not advance beyond the curtains; then their friends were invited to go up and speak to them, and several went inside the cabinet. there were necessarily a good many forms, familiar to the rest, of whom i knew nothing; one was an old minister under whom they had all sat, another a gentleman who had been a constant attendant at mrs. williams' _séances_. once the conductor spoke to me. "i am not aware of your name," he said (and i thought, "no! my friend, and you won't be aware of it just yet either!"), "but a spirit here wishes you would come up to the cabinet." i advanced, expecting to see some friend, and there stood a catholic priest with his hand extended in blessing. i knelt down, and he gave me the usual benediction and then closed the curtains. "did you know the spirit?" the conductor asked me. i shook my head; and he continued, "he was father hayes, a well-known priest in this city. i suppose you are a catholic?" i told him "yes," and went back to my seat. the conductor addressed me again. "i think father hayes must have come to pave the way for some of your friends," he said. "here is a spirit who says she has come for a lady named 'florence,' who has just crossed the sea. do you answer to the description?" i was about to say "yes," when the curtains parted again and my daughter "florence" ran across the room and fell into my arms. "mother!" she exclaimed, "i said i would come with you and look after you--didn't i?" i looked at her. she was exactly the same in appearance as when she had come to me in england--the same luxuriant brown hair and features and figure, as i had seen under the different mediumships of florence cook, arthur colman, charles williams and william eglinton; the same form which in england had been declared to be half-a-dozen different media dressed up to represent my daughter stood before me there in new york, thousands of miles across the sea, and by the power of a person who did not even know who i was. if i had not been convinced before, how could i have helped being convinced then? "florence" appeared as delighted as i was, and kept on kissing me and talking of what had happened to me on board ship coming over, and was evidently quite _au fait_ of all my proceedings. presently she said, "there's another friend of yours here, mother! we came over together. i'll go and fetch him." she was going back to the cabinet when the conductor stopped her. "you must not return this way, please. any other you like," and she immediately made a kind of court curtsey and went down through the carpet. i was standing where "florence" had left me, wondering what would happen next, when she came _up again_ a few feet off from me, head first, and smiling as if she had discovered a new game. she was allowed to enter the cabinet this time, but a moment afterwards she popped her head out again, and said, "here's your friend, mother!" and by her side was standing william eglinton's control, "joey," clad in his white suit, with a white cap drawn over his head. "'florence' and i have come over to make new lines for you here," he said: "at least, i've come over to put her in the way of doing it, but i can't stay long, you know, because i have to go back to 'willy.'" i really didn't care if he stayed long or not. i seemed to have procured the last proof i needed of the truth of the doctrine i had held so long, that there is no such thing as death, as we understand it in this world. here were the two spiritual beings (for believing in the identity of whom i had called myself a credulous fool fifty times over, only to believe in them more deeply still) in _prôpria personæ_ in new york, claiming me in a land of strangers, who had not yet found out who i was. i was more deeply affected than i had ever been under such circumstances before, and more deeply thankful. "florence" made great friends with our american cousins even on her first appearance. mrs. williams' conductor told me he thought he had never heard anything more beautiful than the idea of the spirit-child crossing the ocean to guard its mother in a strange country, and particularly, as he could feel by her influence, what a pure and beautiful spirit she was. when i told him she had left this world at ten days old, he said that accounted for it, but he could see there was nothing earthly about her. i was delighted with this _séance_, and hoped to sit with mrs. williams many times more, but fate decreed that i should leave new york sooner than i had anticipated. the perfect freedom with which it was conducted charmed me, and the spirits seemed so familiar with the sitters. there was no "sweet spirit, hear my prayer," business about it. no fear of being detained or handled among the spirits, and no awe, only intense tenderness on the part of their relations. it was to this cause i chiefly attributed the large number of materializations i witnessed--_forty_ having taken place that evening. they spoke far more distinctly and audibly too than those i had seen in england, but i believe the dry atmosphere of the united states is far more favorable to the process of materialization. i perceived another difference. although the female spirits were mostly clad in white, they wore dresses and not simply drapery, whilst the men were invariably attired in the clothes (or semblances of the clothes) they would have worn had they been still on earth. i left mrs. williams' rooms, determined to see as much as i possibly could of mediumship whilst i was in the united states. chapter xxv. ii. _mrs. eva hatch._ i was so disappointed at being hurried off to boston before i had seen any more of the new york media, that i took the earliest opportunity of attending a _séance_ there. a few words i had heard dropped about eva hatch made me resolve to visit her first. she was one of the shaker sect, and i heard her spoken of as a remarkably pure and honest woman, and most reliable medium. her first appearance quite gave me that impression. she had a fair, placid countenance, full of sweetness and serenity, and a plump matronly figure. i went incognita, as i had done to mrs. williams, and mingled unnoticed with the crowd. mrs. hatch's cabinet was quite different from mrs. williams'. it was built of planks like a little cottage, and the roof was pierced with numerous round holes for ventilation, like a pepper-box. there was a door in the centre, with a window on either side, all three of which were shaded by dark curtains. the windows, i was told, were for the accommodation of those spirits who had not the power to materialize more than a face, or head and bust. mrs. hatch's conductor was a woman, who sat near the cabinet, as in the other case. mrs. eva hatch had not entered the cabinet five minutes before she came out again, under trance, with a very old lady with silver hair clinging to her arm, and walked round the circle. as they did so, the old lady extended her withered hand, and blessed the sitters. she came quite close to each one and was distinctly visible to all. i was told that this was the spirit of mrs. hatch's mother, and that it was her regular custom to come first and give her blessing to the _séance_. i had never seen the spirit of an aged person before, and it was a beautiful sight. she was the sweetest old lady too, very small and fragile looking, and half reclining on her daughter's bosom, but smiling serenely upon every one there. when they had made the tour of the room, mrs. hatch re-entered the cabinet, and did not leave it again until the sitting was concluded. there were a great many sitters present, most of whom were old patrons of mrs. hatch, and so, naturally, their friends came for them first. it is surprising though, when once familiarized with materialization, how little one grows to care to see the spirits who come for one's next door neighbor. they are like a lot of prisoners let out, one by one, to see their friends and relations. the few moments they have to spare are entirely devoted to home matters of no possible interest to the bystander. the first wonder and possible shock at seeing the supposed dead return in their old likeness to greet those they left on earth over, one listens with languid indifference, and perhaps a little impatience for one's own turn to come, to the whispered utterances of strangers. mrs. hatch's "cabinet spirits" or "controls," however, were very interesting. one, who called herself the "spirit of prayer," came and knelt down in the middle of the circle, and prayed with us. she had asked for the gas to be extinguished first, and as she prayed she became illuminated with flashes of light, in the shape of stars and crosses, until she was visible from head to foot, and we could see her features and dress as if she had been surrounded by electricity. two more cabinet spirits were a negro and negress, who appeared together, chanting some of their native hymns and melodies. when i saw these apparitions, i thought to myself: "here is a good opportunity to discover trickery, if trickery there is." the pair were undoubtedly of the negro race. there was no mistaking their thick lips and noses and yellow-white eyes, nor their polished brown skins, which no charcoal can properly imitate. they were negroes without doubt; but how about the negro bouquet? everyone who has mixed with colored people in the east or the west knows what that is, though it is very difficult to describe, being something like warm rancid oil mingled with the fumes of charcoal, with a little worse thrown in. "now," i thought, "if these forms are human, there will be some odor attached to them, and that i am determined to find out." i caught, therefore, at the dress of the young woman as she passed, and asked her if she would kiss me. she left her companion directly, and put her arms (which were bare) round my neck, and embraced me several times; and i can declare, on my oath, that she was as completely free from anything like the smell of a colored woman as it was possible for her to be. she felt as fresh and sweet and pure as a little child. many other forms appeared and were recognized by the circle, notably a very handsome one who called herself the empress josephine; but as they could not add a grain's weight to my testimony i pass them over. i had begun to think that "florence" was not going to visit me that evening, when the conductor of the _séance_ asked if there was anybody in the room who answered to the name of "bluebell." i must indulge in a little retrospect here, and tell my readers that ten years previous to the time i am writing of, i had lost my brother-in-law, edward church, under very painful circumstances. he had been left an orphan and in control of his fortune at a very early age, and had lived with my husband, colonel ross-church, and myself. but poor "ted" had been his own worst enemy. he had possessed a most generous heart and affectionate disposition, but these had led him into extravagances that swallowed up his fortune, and then he had taken to drinking and killed himself by it. i and my children had loved him dearly, but all our prayers and entreaties had had no avail, and in the end he had become so bad that the doctors had insisted upon our separation. poor "ted" had consequently died in exile, and this had been a further aggravation of our grief. for ten years i had been trying to procure communication with him in vain, and i had quite given up expecting to see him again. only once had i heard "bluebell" (his pet name for me) gasped out by an entranced clairvoyant, but nothing further had come of it. now, as i heard it for the second time, from a stranger's lips in a foreign country, it naturally roused my expectations, but i thought it might be only a message for me from "ted." "is there anyone here who recognizes the name of 'bluebell'?" repeated the conductor. "i was once called so by a friend," i said. "someone is asking for that name. you had better come up to the cabinet," she replied. i rose at once and did as she told me, but when i reached the curtain i encountered "florence." "my darling child," i said, as i embraced her, "why did you ask for 'bluebell'?" she did not answer me, except by shaking her head, placing her finger on her lips, and pointing downwards to the carpet. i did not know what to make of it. i had never known her unable to articulate before. "what is the matter, dear?" i said; "can't you speak to me to-night?" still she shook her head, and tapped my arm with her hand, to attract my attention to the fact that she was pointing vigorously downwards. i looked down, too, when, to my astonishment, i saw rise through the carpet what looked to me like the bald head of a baby or an old man, and a little figure, _not more than three feet in height_, with edward church's features, but no hair on its head, came gradually into view, and looked up in my face with a pitiful, deprecating expression, as if he were afraid i should strike him. the face, however, was so unmistakably ted's, though the figure was so ludicrously insignificant, that i could not fail to recognize him. "why, ted!" i exclaimed, "have you come back to see me at last?" and held out my hand. the little figure seized it, tried to convey it to his lips, burst into tears, and sank down through the carpet much more rapidly than he had come up. i began to cry too. it was so pitiful. with her uncle's disappearance "florence" found her tongue. "don't cry, mother," she said; "poor uncle ted is overcome at seeing you. that's why he couldn't materialize better. he was in such a terrible hurry. he'll look more like himself next time. i was trying so hard to help him, i didn't dare to use up any of the power by speaking. he'll be so much better, now he's seen you. you'll come here again, won't you?" i told her i certainly would, if i could; and, indeed, i was all anxiety to see my poor brother-in-law again. to prove how difficult it would have been to deceive me on this subject, i should like to say a little about edward church's personal appearance. he was a very remarkable looking man--indeed, i have never seen anyone a bit like him before or after. he was very small; not short only, but small altogether, with tiny hands and feet, and a little head. his hair and eyes were of the deepest black--the former parted in the middle, with a curl on either side, and was naturally waved. his complexion was very dark, his features delicate, and he wore a small pointed moustache. as a child he had suffered from an attack of confluent small-pox, which had deeply pitted his face, and almost eaten away the tip of his nose. such a man was not to be easily imitated, even if anyone in boston had ever heard of his inconsequential existence. to me, though, he had been a dear friend and brother, before the curse of drink had seemed to change his nature, and i had always been anxious to hear how he fared in that strange country whither he had been forced to journey, like all of us, _alone_. i was very pleased then to find that business would not interfere with my second visit to mrs. eva hatch, which took place two nights afterward. on this occasion "florence" was one of the first to appear, and "ted" came with her, rather weak and trembling on his second introduction to this mundane sphere, but no longer bald-headed nor under-sized. he was his full height now, about five feet seven; his head was covered with his black crisp hair, parted just as he used to wear it while on earth; in every particular he resembled what he used to be, even down to his clothes. i could have sworn i had seen that very suit of clothes; the little cut-away coat he always wore, with the natty tie and collar, and a dark blue velvet smoking cap upon his head, exactly like one i remembered being in his possession. "florence" still seemed to be acting as his interpreter and guide. when i said to him, "why! ted, you look quite like your old self to-day," she answered, "he can't talk to you, mamma, he is weak still, and he is so thankful to meet you again. he wants me to tell you that he has been trying to communicate with you often, but he never could manage it in england. he will be so glad when he can talk freely to you." whilst she was speaking, "ted" kept on looking from her to me like a deaf and dumb animal trying to understand what was going on in a manner that was truly pitiful. i stooped down and kissed his forehead. the touch seemed to break the spell that hung over him. "_forgive_," he uttered in a choked voice. "there is nothing to forgive, dear," i replied, "except as we all have need to forgive each other. you know how we all loved you, ted, and we loved you to the last and grieved for you deeply. you remember the children, and how fond you were of them and they of you. they often speak to this day of their poor uncle ted." "eva--ethel," he gasped out, naming my two elder children. at this juncture he seemed suddenly to fail, and became so weak that "florence" took him back into the cabinet again. no more spirits came for me that evening, but towards the close of the _séance_ "florence" and "ted" appeared again together and embraced me fondly. "florence" said, "he's so happy now, mother; he says he shall rest in peace now that he knows that you have forgiven him. and he won't come without his hair again," she added, laughing. "i hope he won't," i answered, "for he frightened me." and then they both kissed me "good-night," and retreated to the cabinet, and i looked after them longingly and wished i could go there too. chapter xxvi. iii. _the misses berry._ no one introduced me to the misses berry. i saw their advertisement in the public papers and went incognita to their _séance_, as i had done to those of others. the first thing that struck me about them was the superior class of patrons whom they drew. in the ladies' cloak room, where they left their heavy wraps and umbrellas, the conversation that took place made this sufficiently evident. helen and gertrude berry were pretty, unaffected, lady-like girls; and their conductor, mr. abrow, one of the most courteous gentlemen i have ever met. the sisters, both highly mediumistic, never sat together, but on alternate nights, but the one who did _not_ sit always took a place in the audience, in order to prevent suspicion attaching to her absence. gertrude berry had been lately married to a mr. thompson, and on account of her health gave up her _séances_, soon after i made her acquaintance she was a tall, finely-formed young woman, with golden hair and a beautiful complexion. her sister helen was smaller, paler and more slightly built. she had been engaged to be married to a gentleman who died shortly before the time fixed for their wedding, and his spirit, whom she called "charley," was the principal control at her _séances_, though he never showed himself. i found the _séance_ room, which was not very large, crammed with chairs which had all been engaged beforehand, so mr. abrow fetched one from downstairs and placed it next his own for me, which was the very position i should have chosen. i asked him afterwards how he dared admit a stranger to such close proximity, and he replied that he was a medium himself and knew who he could and who he could _not_ trust at a glance. as my professional duties took me backwards and forwards to boston, which was my central starting-point, sometimes giving me only a day's rest there, i was in the habit afterwards, when i found i should have "a night off," of wiring to mr. abrow to keep me a seat, so difficult was it to secure one unless it were bespoken. altogether i sat five or six times with the berry sisters, and wished i could have sat fifty or sixty times instead, for i never enjoyed any _séances_ so _much_ in my life before. the cabinet was formed of an inner room with a separate door, which had to undergo the process of being sealed up by a committee of strangers every evening. strips of gummed paper were provided for them, on which they wrote their names before affixing them across the inside opening of the door. on the first night i inspected the cabinet also as a matter of principle, and gummed my paper with "mrs. richardson" written on it across the door. the cabinet contained only a sofa for miss helen berry to recline upon. the floor was covered with a nailed-down carpet. the door which led into the cabinet was shaded by two dark curtains hung with rings upon a brass rod. the door of the _séance_ room was situated at a right angle with that of the cabinet, both opening upon a square landing, and, to make "assurance doubly sure," the door of the _séance_ room was left open, so that the eyes of the sitters at that end commanded a view, during the entire sitting, of the outside of the locked and gummed-over cabinet door. to make this fully understood, i append a diagram of the two rooms-- [illustration] by the position of these doors, it will be seen how impossible it would have been for anybody to leave or enter the cabinet without being detected by the sitters, who had their faces turned towards the _séance_ room door. the first materialization that appeared that evening was a bride, dressed in her bridal costume; and a gentleman, who was occupying a chair in the front row, and holding a white flower in his hand, immediately rose, went up to her, embraced her, and whispered a few words, then gave her the white flower, which she fastened in the bosom of her dress, after which he bowed slightly to the company, and, instead of resuming his seat, left the room. mr. abrow then said to me, "if you like, madam, you can take that seat now," and as the scene had excited my curiosity i accepted his offer, hoping to find some one to tell me the meaning of it. i found myself next to a very sweet-looking lady, whom i afterwards knew personally as mrs. seymour. "can you tell me why that gentleman left so suddenly?" i asked her in a whisper. "he seldom stays through a _séance_," she replied; "he is a business man, and has no time to spare, but he is here every night. the lady you saw him speak to is his wife. she died on her wedding day, eleven years ago, and he has never failed to meet her on every opportunity since. he brings her a white flower every time he comes. she appears always first, in order that he may be able to return to his work." this story struck me as very interesting, and i always watched for this gentleman afterwards, and never failed to see him waiting for his bride, with the white flower in his hand. "do you expect to see any friends to-night?" i said to my new acquaintance. "o! yes!" she replied. "i have come to see my daughter 'bell.' she died some years ago, and i am bringing up the two little children she left behind her. i never do anything for them without consulting their mother. just now i have to change their nurse, and i have received several excellent characters of others, and i have brought them here this evening that 'bell' may tell me which to write for. i have the pattern for the children's winter frocks, too," she continued, producing some squares of woolen cloths, "and i always like to let 'bell' choose which she likes best." this will give my readers some idea of how much more the american spiritualists regard their departed friends as still forming part of the home circle, and interested in their domestic affairs. "bell" soon after made her appearance, and mrs. seymour brought her up to me. she was a young woman of about three or four and twenty, and looked very happy and smiling. she perused the servants' characters as practically as her mother might have done, but said she would have none of them, and mrs. seymour was to wait till she received some more. the right one had not come yet. she also looked at the patterns, and indicated the one she liked best. then, as she was about to retire, she whispered to her mother, and mrs. seymour said, to my surprise (for it must be remembered i had not disclosed my name to her), "bell tells me she knows a daughter of yours in the spirit life, called 'florence.' is that the case?" i answered i had a daughter of that name; and mrs. seymour added "'bell' says she will be here this evening, that she is a very pure and very elevated spirit, and they are great friends." very shortly after this, mr. abrow remarked, "there is a young girl in the cabinet now, who says that if her mother's name is 'mrs. richardson,' she must have married for the third time since she saw her last, for she was 'mrs. lean' then." at this remark i laughed; and mr. abrow said, "is she come for you, madam? does the cap fit?" i was obliged to acknowledge then that i _had_ given a false name in order to avoid recognition. but the mention of my married name attracted no attention to me, and was only a proof that it had not been given from any previous knowledge of mr. abrow's concerning myself. i was known in the united states as "florence marryat" only, and to this day they believe me to be still "mrs. ross-church," that being the name under which my first novels were written. so i recognized "florence" at once in the trick that had been played me, and had risen to approach the curtain, when she came _bounding_ out and ran into my arms. i don't think i had ever seen her look so charming and girlish before. she looked like an embodiment of sunshine. she was dressed in a low frock which seemed manufactured of lace and muslin, her hair fell loose down her back to her knees, and her hands were full of damask roses. this was in december, when hot-house roses were selling for a dollar a piece in boston, and she held, perhaps, twenty. their scent was delicious, and she kept thrusting them under my nose, saying, "smell my roses, mother. don't you wish you had my garden? we have _fields_ of them in the summer land! o! how i wish you were there." "shan't i come soon, darling?" i said. "no! not yet," replied "florence." "you have a lot of work to do still. but when you come, it will be all flowers for you and me." i asked her if she knew "bell," and she said, "o! yes! we came together this evening." then i asked her to come and speak to "bell's" mother, and her manner changed at once. she became shy and timid, like a young girl, unused to strangers, and quite hung on my arm, as i took her up to mrs. seymour's side. when she had spoken a few words to her in a very low voice, she turned to me and said, "i must go now, because we have a great surprise for you this evening--a _very_ great surprise." i told her i liked great surprises, when they were pleasant ones, and "florence" laughed, and went away. i found that her _début_ had created such a sensation amongst the sitters--it being so unusual for a materialized spirit to appear so strong and perfect on the first occasion of using a medium--that i felt compelled to give them a little explanation on the subject. and when i told them how i had lost her as a tiny infant of ten days old--how she had returned to me through various media in england, and given such unmistakable proofs of her _identity_--and how i, being a stranger in their country, and only landed there a few weeks, had already met her through mrs. williams, mrs. hatch and miss berry--they said it was one of the most wonderful and perfect instances of materialization they had ever heard of. and when one considers how perfect the chain is, from the time when "florence" first came back to me as a child, too weak to speak, or even to understand where she was, to the years through which she had grown and became strong almost beneath my eyes, till she could "_bound_" (as i have narrated) into my arms like a human being, and talk as distinctly as (and far more sensible than) i did myself, i think my readers will acknowledge also, that hers is no common story, and that i have some reason to believe in spiritualism. miss berry's cabinet spirits were quite different from the common type. one was, or rather had been, a dancing girl--not european, but rather more, i fancy, of the asiatic or egyptian type. anyway she used to come out of the cabinet--a lithe lissom creature like a panther or a snake--and execute such twists and bounds and pirouettes, as would have made her fortune on the stage. indeed i used to think (being always on the lookout for chicanery) that no _human_ creature who could dance as she did would ever waste her talents, especially in a smart country like america, on an audience of spiritualists, whose only motive for meeting was to see their friends, and who would not pay an extra cent to look at a "cabinet spirit." another one was an indian whom they called "the brave." he was also a lithe, active creature, without an ounce of superfluous flesh upon his body, but plenty of muscle. he appeared to like the ladies of the company very much, but evidently distrusted the men. one stout, big man who was, i fancy, a bit of a sceptic, wished to test the "brave's" muscular power by feeling his biceps, and was invited to step in front of the circle for that purpose. he had no sooner approached him than the indian seized him up in his arms and threw him _right over his head_. he did not hurt him, but as the gentleman got up again, he said, "well! i weigh pounds, and i didn't think any man in the room could have done that." the ladies in the circle mostly wore flowers in their bosom--bouquets, after the custom of american ladies--and they began, one and all, to detach flowers from their bouquets and give them to the "brave," "to give to his squaw." he nodded and gabbled some unintelligible sioux or cherokee in reply, and went all round the circle on his knees. the stout man had surmised that he was painted, and his long, straight, black hair was a wig. when he came to me i said, "brave! may i try if your hair is a wig?" he nodded and said, "pull--pull!" which i did, and found that it undoubtedly grew on his head. then he took my finger and drew it across his face several times to show he was not painted. i had no flowers to present him with, so i said, "come here, brave, and i'll give you something for your squaw," and when he approached near enough i kissed him. he chuckled, and his eyes sparkled with mischief as he ran chatting in his native dialect behind the curtains. in another minute he dashed out again, and coming up to me ejaculated, "no--give--squaw!" and rushed back. mr. abrow laughed heartily at this incident, and so did all the sitters, the former declaring i had entirely captivated the "brave." presently the cabinet curtains were shaken, and after a pause they parted slowly, and the figure of an indian squaw crept out. anything more malignant and vicious than her look i have seldom seen. mr. abrow asked her _who_ she wanted and _what_ she wanted, but she would not speak. she stood there silent, but scowling at me from beneath the tangles of her long black hair. at last mr. abrow said to her, "if you don't want to speak to anyone in the circle you must go away, as you are only preventing other spirits from coming." the squaw backed behind the curtains again rather sulkily, but the next time the "brave" appeared she came with him, and _never_ did he come again in my presence but what his "squaw" stood at the curtains and watched his actions. mrs. abrow told me that the "brave" had been in the habit of manifesting at their _séances_ for years, but that they had never seen the "squaw" until that evening. indeed, i don't think they were very grateful to me for having by my rashness eliminated this new feature in their evening's entertainment, for the "squaw" proved to be a very earthly and undeveloped spirit, and subsequently gave them some trouble, as they could not drive her away when they wanted to do so. towards the close of the evening mr. abrow said, "there is a spirit here now who is very anxious to show himself, but it is the first time he has ever attempted to fully materialize, and he is not at all certain of success. he tells me there is a lady in the circle who has newly arrived in america, and that this lady years ago sang a song by his dying bed in india. if she will step up to the cabinet now and sing that song again he will try and shew himself to her." such of my readers as have perused "the story of john powles" will recognize at once who this was. i did, of course, and i confess that as i rose to approach the cabinet i trembled like an aspen leaf. i had tried so often, and failed so often to see this dear old friend of mine, that to think of meeting him now was like a veritable resurrection from the dead. think of it! we had parted in , and this was --twenty-four years afterwards. i had been a girl when we said "good-bye," and he went forth on that journey which seemed then so mysterious an one to me. i was a middle-aged woman now, who had passed through so much from which _he_ had been saved, that i felt more like his mother than his friend. of all my experiences this was to me really the most solemn and interesting. i hardly expected to see more than his face, but i walked up to the cabinet and commenced to sing in a very shaky voice the first stanza of the old song he was so fond of:-- "thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream, and i seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream; oft i breathe thy dear name to the winds passing by, but thy sweet voice is mute to my bosom's lone sigh. in the stillness of night when the stars mildly shine, o! then oft my heart holds communion with thine, for i feel thou art near, and where'er i may be, that the spirit of love keeps a watch over me." i had scarcely reached the finish of these lines when both the curtains of the cabinet were drawn apart so sharply that the brass rings rattled on the rod, and john powles stood before me. not a face, nor a half-formed figure, nor an apparition that was afraid to pass into the light--but _john powles himself_, stalwart and living, who stepped out briskly and took me in his arms and kissed me four or five times, as a long-parted brother might have done; and strange to say, i didn't feel the least surprised at it, but clung to him like a sister. for john powles had never once kissed me during his lifetime. although we had lived for four years in the closest intimacy, often under the same roof, we had never indulged in any familiarities. i think men and women were not so lax in their manners then as they are now; at anyrate, the only time i had ever kissed him was when he lay dead, and my husband had told me to do so. and yet it seemed quite natural on meeting him again to kiss him and cry over him. at last i ventured to say, "o, powles! is this really you?" "look at me and see for yourself," he answered. i looked up. it was indeed himself. he had possessed _very_ blue eyes in earth life, good features, a florid complexion, auburn hair, and quite a golden beard and moustache. the eyes and hair and features were just the same, only his complexion was paler, and he wore no beard. "o!" i exclaimed, "where is your beard?" "don't you remember i cut it off just before i left this world?" he said; and then i recalled the fact that he had done so owing to a government order on the subject. and bearing on this question i may mention what seems a curious thing--that spirits almost invariably return to earth the first time _just as they left it_, as though their thoughts at the moment of parting clothed them on their return. this, however, was not john powles' first _attempt_ at materialization, although it was his first success, for it may be remembered he tried to show himself through miss showers, and then he _had_ a beard. however, when i saw him through miss berry, he had none, nor did he resume it during my stay in america. when we had got over the excitement of meeting, he began to speak to me of my children, especially of the three who were born before his death, and of whom he had been very fond. he spoke of them all by name, and seemed quite interested in their prospects and affairs. but when i began to speak of other things he stopped me. "i know it all," he said, "i have been with you in spirit through all your trials, and i can never feel the slightest interest in, or affection for, those who caused them. my poor friend, you have indeed had your purgatory upon earth." "but tell me of yourself, dear powles! are you quite happy?" i asked him. he paused a moment and then replied, "quite happy, waiting for you." "surely you are not suffering still?" i said, "after all these years?" "my dear florence," he answered, "it takes more than a few years to expiate a life of sin. but i am happier than i was, and every year the burden is lighter, and coming back to you will help me so much." as he was speaking to me the curtain opened again, and there stood my brother-in-law, edward church, not looking down-spirited and miserable, as he had done at mrs. eva hatch's, but bright and smiling, and dressed in evening clothes, as also i perceived, when i had time to think of it, was john powles. i didn't know which to talk to first, but kept turning from one to the other in a dazed manner. john powles was telling me that _he_ was preparing my house for me in the summer land, and would come to take me over to it when i died, when "ted" interrupted him. "that ought to have been _my_ work, bluebell," he said, "only powles had anticipated me." "i wish i could go back with you both at once, i am sick of this world," i replied. "ted" threw his arms round me and strained me to his breast. "o! it is so hard to part again. how i wish i could carry you away in my arms to the summer land! i should have nothing left to wish for then." "you don't want to come back then, ted?" i asked him. "_want to come back_," he said with a shudder; "not for anything! why, bluebell, death is like an operation which you must inevitably undergo, but which you fear because you know so little about it. well, with me _the operation's over_. i know the worst, and every day makes the term of punishment shorter. i am _thankful_ i left the earth so soon." "you look just like your old self, ted," i said; "the same little curls and scrubby little moustache." "pull them," he answered gaily. "don't go away, bluebell, and say they were false and i was miss berry dressed up. feel my biceps," he continued, throwing up his arm as men do, "and feel my heart," placing my hand above it, "feel how it is beating for my sister bluebell." i said to john powles, "i hardly know you in evening costume. i never saw you in it before" (which was true, as all our acquaintance had taken place in india, where the officers are never allowed to appear in anything but uniform, especially in the evenings). "i wish," i continued, "that you would come next time in uniform." "i will try," he replied, and then their time was up for that occasion, and they were obliged to go. a comical thing occurred on my second visit to the berrys. of course i was all eagerness to see my brother-in-law and "powles" again, and when i was called up to the cabinet and saw a slim, dark, young man standing there, i took him at once for "ted," and, without looking at him, was just about to kiss him, when he drew backwards and said, "i am not 'edward!' i am his friend 'joseph,' to whom he has given permission to make your acquaintance." i then perceived that "joseph" was very different from "ted," taller and better looking, with a jewish cast of countenance. i stammered and apologized, and felt as awkward as if i had nearly kissed a mortal man by mistake. "joseph" smiled as if it were of very little consequence. he said he had never met "ted" on earth, but they were close friends in the spirit world, and "ted" had talked so much to him of me, that he had become very anxious to see me, and speak to me. he was a very elegant looking young man, but he did not seem to have very much to say for himself, and he gave me the impression that he had been a "masher" whilst here below, and had not quite shaken off the remembrance in the spirit world. there was one spirit who often made her appearance at these sittings and greatly interested me. this was a mother with her infant of a few weeks old. the lady was sweet and gentle looking, but it was the baby that so impressed me--a baby that never whined nor squalled, nor turned red in the face, and yet was made of neither wax nor wood, but was palpably living and breathing. i used always to go up to the cabinet when this spirit came, and ask her to let me feel the little baby. it was a tiny creature, with a waxen-looking face, and she always carried it enveloped in a full net veil, yet when i touched its hand, the little fingers tightened round mine in baby fashion, as it tried to convey them to its mouth. i had seen several spirit children materialized before, but never such a young infant as this. the mother told me she had passed away in child-birth, and the baby had gone with her. she had been a friend of the misses berry, and came to them for that reason. on christmas eve i happened to be in boston, and disengaged, and as i found it was a custom of the american spiritualists to hold meetings on that anniversary for the purpose of seeing their spirit friends, i engaged a seat for the occasion. i arrived some time before the _séance_ commenced, and next to me was seated a gentleman, rather roughly dressed, who was eyeing everything about him with the greatest attention. presently he turned to me and said, rather sheepishly, "do you believe in this sort of thing?" "i do," i replied, "and i have believed in it for the last fifteen years." "have you ever seen anybody whom you recognized?" he continued. "plenty," i said. then he edged a little nearer to me, and lowered his voice. "do you know," he commenced, "that i have ridden on horseback forty miles through the snow to-day to be present at this meeting, because my old mother sent me a message that she would meet me here! i don't believe in it, you know. i've never been at a _séance_ before, and i feel as if i was making a great fool of myself now, but i couldn't neglect my poor old mother's message, whatever came of it." "of course not," i answered, "and i hope your trouble will be rewarded." i had not much faith in my own words, though, because i had seen people disappointed again and again over their first _séance_, from either the spirits of their friends being too weak to materialize, or from too many trying to draw power at once, and so neutralizing the effect on all. my bridegroom friend was all ready on that occasion with his white flowers in his hand and i ventured to address him and tell him how very beautiful i considered his wife's fidelity and his own. he seemed pleased at my notice, and began to talk quite freely about her. he told me she had returned to him before her body was buried, and had been with him ever since. "she is so really and truly _my wife_," he said, "as i received her at the altar, that i could no more marry again than i could if she were living in my house." when the _séance_ commenced she appeared first as usual, and her husband brought her up to my side. "this is miss florence marryat, dear," he said (for by this time i had laid aside my _incognita_ with the berrys). "you know her name, don't you?" "o! yes," she answered, as she gave me her hand, "i know you quite well. i used to read your books." her face was covered with her bridal veil, and her husband turned it back that i might see her. she was a very pretty girl of perhaps twenty--quite a gipsy, with large dark eyes and dark curling hair, and a brown complexion. "she has not altered one bit since the day we were married," said her husband, looking fondly at her, "whilst i have grown into an old man." she put up her hand and stroked his cheek. "we shall be young together some day," she said. then he asked her if she was not going to kiss me, and she held up her face to mine like a child, and he dropped the veil over her again and led her away. the very next spirit that appeared was my rough friend's mother, and his astonishment and emotion at seeing her were very unmistakeable. when first he went up to the cabinet and saw her his head drooped, and his shoulders shook with the sobs he could not repress. after a while he became calmer, and talked to her, and then i saw him also bringing her up to me. "i must bring my mother to you," he said, "that you may see she has really come back to me." i rose, and the old lady shook hands with me. she must have been, at the least, seventy years old, and was a most perfect specimen of old age. her face was like wax, and her hair like silver; but every wrinkle was distinct, and her hands were lined with blue veins. she had lost her teeth, and mumbled somewhat in speaking, and her son said, "she is afraid you will not understand what she says; but she wants you to know that she will be quite happy if her return will make me believe in a future existence." "and will it?" i asked. he looked at his mother. "i don't understand it," he replied. "it seems too marvellous to be true; but how _can_ i disbelieve it, when _here she is_?" and his words were so much the echo of my own grounds for belief, that i quite sympathized with them. "john powles," and "ted," and "florence," all came to see me that evening; and when i bid "florence" "good-bye" she said, "oh, it isn't 'good-bye' yet, mother! i'm coming again, before you go." presently something that was the very farthest thing from my mind--that had, indeed, never entered it--happened to me. i was told that a young lady wanted to speak to me, and on going up to the cabinet i recognized a girl whom _i knew by sight, but had never spoken to_--one of a large family of children, living in the same terrace in london as myself, and who had died of malignant scarlet fever about a year before. "mrs. lean," she said, hurriedly, noting my surprise, "don't you know me? i am may ----." "yes, i do recognize you, my dear child," i replied; "but what makes you come to me?" "minnie and katie are so unhappy about me," she said. "they do not understand. they think i have gone away. they do not know what death is--that it is only like going into the next room, and shutting the door." "and what can i do, may?" i asked her. "tell them you have seen me, mrs. lean. say i am alive--more alive than they are; that if they sit for me, i will come to them and tell them so much they know nothing of now." "but where are your sisters?" i said. she looked puzzled. "i don't know. i can't say the place; but you will meet them soon, and you will tell them." "if i meet them, i certainly will tell them," i said; but i had not the least idea at that moment where the other girls might be. four months later, however, when i was staying in london, ontario, they burst unexpectedly into my hotel room, having driven over (i forget how many miles) to see me play. naturally i kept my promise; but though they cried when "may" was alluded to, they evidently could not believe my story of having seen her, and so, i suppose, the poor little girl's wish remains ungratified. i think the worst purgatory in the next world must be to find how comfortably our friends get on without us in this. as a rule, i did not take much interest in the spirits that did not come for me; but there was one who appeared several times with the berrys, and seemed quite like an old friend to me. this was "john brown," not her majesty's "john brown," but the hero of the song-- "hang john brown on a sour apple tree, but his soul goes touting around. glory! glory! halleluia! for his soul goes touting around." when i used to hear this song sung with much shouting and some profanity in england, i imagined (and i fancy most people did) that it was a comic song in america. but it was no such thing. it was a patriotic song, and the motive is (however comically put) to give glory to god, that, _although_ they may hang "john brown" on a sour apple tree, his soul will yet "go touting around." so, rightly or wrongly, it was explained to me. "john brown" is a patriotic hero in america, and when he appeared, the whole room crowded round to see him. he was a short man, with a _singularly_ benevolent countenance, iron grey hair, mutton-chop whiskers, and deep china blue eyes. a kind of man, as he appeared to me, made for deeds of love rather than heroism, but from all accounts he was both kind and heroic. a gentleman present on christmas eve pushed forward eagerly to see the materialization, and called out, "aye! that's him--that's my old friend--that's 'john brown'--the best man that ever trod this earth." before this evening's _séance_ was concluded mr. abrow said, "there is a little lady in the cabinet at present who announces herself as a very high personage. she says she is the 'princess gertrude.'" "_what_ did you say, mr. abrow?" i exclaimed, unable to believe my own ears. "'the princess gertie,' mother," said "florence," popping her head out of the curtains. "you've met her before in england, you know." i went up to the cabinet, the curtains divided, there stood my daughter "florence" as usual, but holding in front of her a little child of about seven years old. i knelt down before this spirit of my own creation. she was a fragile-looking little creature, very fair and pale, with large grey eyes and brown hair lying over her forehead. she looked like a lily with her little white hands folded meekly in front of her. "are you my little gertie, darling?" i said. "i am the 'princess gertie,'" she replied, "and 'florence' says you are my mother." "and are you glad to see me, gertie?" i asked. she looked up at her sister, who immediately prompted her. "say, 'yes, mother,' gertie." "yes! mother," repeated the little one, like a parrot. "will you come to me, darling?" i said. "may i take you in my arms?" "not this evening, mother," whispered 'florence,' "you couldn't. she is attached to me. we are tied together. you couldn't separate us. next time, perhaps, the 'princess' will be stronger, and able to talk more. i will take her back now." "but where is 'yonnie'?" i asked, and "florence" laughed. "couldn't manage two of them at once," she said. "'yonnie' shall come another day," and i returned to my seat, more mystified than usual. i alluded to the "princess gertie" in my account of the mediumship of bessie fitzgerald, and said that my allusion would find its signification further on. at that time i had hardly believed it could be true that the infants who had been born prematurely and never breathed in this world should be living, sentient spirits to meet me in the next, and half thought some grown spirit must be tricking me for its own pleasure. but here, in this strange land, where my blighted babies had never been mentioned or thought of, to meet the "princess gertie" here, calling herself by her own name, and brought by her sister "florence," set the matter beyond a doubt. it recalled to my mind how once, long before, when "aimée" (mr. arthur colman's guide), on being questioned as to her occupation in the spirit spheres, had said she was "a little nurse maid," and that "florence" was one too, my daughter had added, "yes! i'm mamma's nurse maid. i have enough to do to look after her babies. she just looked at me, and 'tossed' me back into the spirit world, and she's been 'tossing' babies after me ever since." i had struck up a pleasant acquaintanceship with mrs. seymour, "bell's" mother, by that time, and when i went back to my seat and told her what had occurred, she said to me, "i wish you would share the expenses of a private _séance_ with me here. we can have one all to ourselves for ten dollars (two pounds), and it would be so charming to have an afternoon quite alone with our children and friends." i agreed readily, and we made arrangements with mr. abrow before we left that evening, to have a private sitting on the afternoon following christmas day, when no one was to be admitted except our two selves. when we met there the _séance_ room was lighted with gas as for the evening, but we preferred to close the door. helen berry was the medium, and mr. abrow only sat with us. the rows of chairs looked very empty without any sitters, but we established ourselves on those which faced the cabinet in the front row. the first thing which happened was the advent of the "squaw," looking as malignant and vicious as ever, who crept in in her dirty blanket, with her black hair hanging over her face, and deliberately took a seat at the further end of the room. mr. abrow was unmistakably annoyed at the occurrence. he particularly disliked the influence of this spirit, which he considered had a bad effect on the _séance_. he first asked her why she had come, and told her her "brave" was not coming, and to go back to him. then he tried severity, and ordered her to leave the _séance_, but it was all in vain. she kept her seat with persistent obstinacy, and showed no signs of "budging." i thought i would try what kindness would do for her, and approached her with that intention, but she looked so fierce and threatening, that mr. abrow begged me not to go near her, for fear she should do me some harm. so i left her alone, and she kept her seat through the whole of the _séance_, evidently with an eye upon me, and distrusting my behavior when removed from the criticism of the public. her presence, however, seemed to make no difference to our spirit friends. they trooped out of the cabinet one after another, until we had mrs. seymour's brother and her daughter "bell," who brought little "jimmie" (a little son who had gone home before herself) with her, and "florence," "ted," and "john powles," all so happy and strong and talkative, that i told mrs. seymour we only wanted a tea-table to think we were holding an "at home." last, but not least (at all events in her own estimation) came the "princess gertie." mr. abrow tried to make friends with her, but she repulsed his advances vehemently. "i don't like you, mr. mans," she kept on saying, "you's nasty. i don't like any mans. they's _all_ nasty." when i told her she was very rude, and mr. abrow was a very kind gentleman and loved little children, she still persisted she wouldn't speak "to no mans." she came quite alone on this occasion, and i took her in my arms and carried her across to mrs. seymour. she was a feather weight. i felt as if i had nothing in my arms. i said to mrs. seymour, "please tell me what this child is like. i am so afraid of my senses deceiving me that i cannot trust myself." mrs. seymour looked at her and answered, "she has a broad forehead, with dark brown hair cut across it, and falling straight to her shoulders on either side. her eyes are a greyish blue, large and heavy lidded, her nose is short, and her mouth decided for such a child." this testimony, given by a stranger, of the apparition of a child that had never lived, was an exact description (of course in embryo) of her father, colonel lean, who had never set foot in america. perhaps this is as good a proof of identity as i have given yet. our private _séance_ lasted for two hours, and although the different spirits kept on entering the cabinet at intervals to gain more power, they were all with us on and off during the entire time. the last pleasant thing i saw was my dear "florence" making the "princess" kiss her hand in farewell to me, and the only unpleasant one, the sight of the sulky "squaw" creeping in after them with the evident conviction that her afternoon had been wasted. chapter xxvii. iv. _the doctor._ i wonder if it has struck any of my readers as strange that, during all these manifestations in england and america, i had never seen the form, nor heard the voice, of my late father, captain marryat. surely if these various media lived by trickery and falsehood, and wished successfully to deceive me, _some_ of them would have thought of trying to represent a man so well known, and whose appearance was so familiar. other celebrated men and women have come back and been recognized from their portraits only, but, though i have sat at numbers of _séances_ given _for me_ alone, and at which i have been the principal person, my father has never reappeared at any. especially, if these manifestations are all fraud, might this have been expected in america. captain marryat's name is still "a household word" amongst the americans, and his works largely read and appreciated, and wherever i appeared amongst them i was cordially welcomed on that account. when once i had acknowledged my identity and my views on spiritualism, every medium in boston and new york had ample time to get up an imitation of my father for my benefit had they desired to do so. but never has he appeared to me; never have i been told that he was present. twice only in the whole course of my experience have i received the slightest sign from him, and on those occasions he sent me a message--once through mr. fletcher (as i have related), and once through his grandson and my son, frank marryat. that time he told me he should never appear to me and i need never expect him. but since the american media knew nothing of this strictly private communication, and i had seen, before i parted with them, _seventeen_ of my friends and relations, none of whom (except "florence," "powles," and "emily,") i had ever seen in england, it is at the least strange, considering his popularity (and granted their chicanery) that captain marryat was not amongst them. as soon as i became known at the berry's _séances_ several people introduced themselves to me, and amongst others mrs. isabella beecher hooker, the sister of mrs. harriet beecher stowe and henry ward beecher. she was delighted to find me so interested in spiritualism, and anxious i should sit with a friend of hers, a great medium whose name became so rubbed out in my pencil notes, that i am not sure if it was doctor carter, or carteret, and therefore i shall speak of him here as simply "the doctor." the doctor was bound to start for washington the following afternoon, so mrs. hooker asked me to breakfast with her the next morning, by which time she would have found out if he could spare us an hour before he set out on his journey. when i arrived at her house i heard that he had very obligingly offered to give me a complimentary _séance_ at eleven o'clock, so, as soon as we had finished breakfast, we set out for his abode. i found the doctor was quite a young man, and professed himself perfectly ignorant on the subject of spiritualism. he said to me, "i don't know and i don't profess to know _what_ or _who_ it is that appears to my sitters whilst i am asleep. i know nothing of what goes on, except from hearsay. i don't know whether the forms that appear are spirits, or transformations, or materializations. you must judge of that for yourself. there is one peculiarity in my _séances_. they take place in utter darkness. when the apparitions (or whatever you choose to call them) appear, they must bring their own lights or you won't see them, i have no conductor to my _séances_. if whatever comes can't announce itself it must remain unknown. but i think you will find that, as a rule, they can shift for themselves. this is my _séance_ room." as he spoke he led us into an unfurnished bedroom, i say bedroom, because it was provided with the dressing closet fitted with pegs, usual to all bedrooms in america. this closet the doctor used as his cabinet. the door was left open, and there was no curtain hung before it. the darkness he sat in rendered that unnecessary. the bedroom was darkened by two frames, covered with black american cloth, which fitted into the windows. the doctor, having locked the bedroom door, delivered the key to me. he then requested us to go and sit for a few minutes in the cabinet to throw our influence about it. as we did so we naturally examined it. it was only a large cupboard. it had no window and no door, except that which led into the room, and no furniture except a cane-bottomed chair. when we returned to the _séance_ room, the doctor saw us comfortably established on two armchairs before he put up the black frames to exclude the light. the room was then pitch dark, and the doctor had to grope his way to his cabinet. mrs. hooker and i sat for some minutes in silent expectation. then we heard the voice of a negress, singing "darkey" songs, and my friend told me it was that of "rosa," the doctor's control. presently "rosa" was heard to be expostulating with, or encouraging some one, and faint lights, like sparks from a fire, could be seen flitting about the open door of the cabinet. then the lights seemed to congregate together, and cluster about a tall form, draped in some misty material, standing just outside the cabinet. "can't you tell us who you are?" asked mrs. hooker. "you must tell your name, you know," interposed "rosa," whereupon a low voice said, "i am janet e. powles." now this was an extraordinary coincidence. i had seen mrs. powles, the mother of my friend "john powles," only once--when she travelled from liverpool to london to meet me on my return from india, and hear all the particulars of her son's death. but she had continued to correspond with me, and show me kindness till the day of her own death, and as she had a daughter of the same name, she always signed herself "janet _e._ powles." even had i expected to see the old lady, and published the fact in the boston papers, that initial _e_ would have settled the question of her identity in my mind. "mrs. powles," i exclaimed, "how good of you to come and see me." "johnny has helped me to come," she replied. "he is so happy at having met you again. he has been longing for it for so many years, and i have come to thank you for making him happy." (here was another coincidence. "john powles" was never called anything but "powles" by my husband and myself. but his mother had retained the childish name of "johnny," and i could remember how it used to vex him when she used it in her letters to him. he would say to me, "if she would only call me 'john' or 'jack,' or anything but 'johnny.'") i replied, "i may not leave my seat to go to you. will you not come to me?" for the doctor had requested us not to leave our seats, but to insist on the spirits approaching us. "mrs. powles" said, "i cannot come out further into the room to-day. i am too weak. but you shall see me." the lights then appeared to travel about her face and dress till they became stationary, and she was completely revealed to view under the semblance of her earthly likeness. she smiled and said, "we were all at the opera house on thursday night, and rejoiced at your success. 'johnny' was so proud of you. many of your friends were there beside ourselves." i then saw that, unlike the spirits at miss berry's, the form of "mrs. powles" was draped in a kind of filmy white, _over_ a dark dress. all the spirits that appeared with the doctor were so clothed, and i wondered if the filmy substance had anything to do with the lights, which looked like electricity. an incident which occurred further on seemed to confirm my idea. when "mrs. powles" had gone, which we guessed by the extinguishing of the lights, the handsome face and form of "harry montagu" appeared. i had known him well in england, before he took his fatal journey to america, and could never be mistaken in his sweet smile and fascinating manner. he did not come further than the door, either, but he was standing within twelve or fourteen feet of us for all that. he only said, "good-luck to you. we can't lose an interest in the old profession, you know, any more than in the old people." "i wish you'd come and help me, harry," i answered. "oh, i do!" he said, brightly; "several of us do. we are all links of the same chain. half the inspiration in the world comes from those who have gone before. but i must go! i'm getting crowded out. here's ada waiting to see you. good-bye!" and as his light went out, the sweet face of adelaide neilson appeared in his stead. she said, "you wept when you heard of my death; and yet you never knew me. how was that?" "did i weep?" i answered, half forgetting; "if so, it must have been because i thought it so sad that a woman so young, and beautiful, and gifted as you were, should leave the world so soon." "oh no! not sad," she answered, brightly; "glorious! glorious! i would not be back again for worlds." "have you ever seen your grave?" i asked her. she shook her head. "what are _graves_ to us? only cupboards, where you keep our cast-off clothes." "you don't ask me what the world says about you, now," i said to her. "and i don't care," she answered. "don't _you_ forget me! good-bye!" she was succeeded by a spirit who called herself "charlotte cushman," and who spoke to me kindly about my professional life. mrs. hooker told me that, to the best of her knowledge, none of these three spirits had ever appeared under the doctor's mediumship before. but now came out "florence," dancing into the room--_literally dancing_, holding out in both hands the skirt of a dress, which looked as if it were made of the finest muslin or lace, and up and down which fireflys were darting with marvellous rapidity. she looked as if clothed in electricity, and infinitely well pleased with herself. "look!" she exclaimed; "look at my dress! isn't it lovely? look at the fire! the more i shake it, the more fire comes! oh, mother! if you could only have a dress like this for the stage, what a _sensation_ you would make!" and she shook her skirts about, till the fire seemed to set a light to every part of her drapery, and she looked as if she were in flames. i observed, "i never knew you to take so much interest in your dress before, darling." "oh, it isn't the dress," she replied; "it's the _fire_!" and she really appeared as charmed with the novel experience as a child with a new toy. as she left us, a dark figure advanced into the room, and ejaculated, "ma! ma!" i recognized at once the peculiar intonation and mode of address of my stepson, francis lean, with whom, since he had announced his own death to me, i had had no communication, except through trance mediumship. "is that you, my poor boy," i said, "come closer to me. you are not afraid of me, are you?" "o, no! ma! of course not, only i was at the opera house, you know, with the others, and that piece you recited, ma--you know the one--it's all true, ma--and i don't want you to go back to england. stay here, ma--stay here!" i knew perfectly well to what the lad alluded, but i would not enter upon it before a stranger. so i only said, "you forget my children, francis--what would they say if i never went home again." this seemed to puzzle him, but after a while he answered, "then go to _them_, ma; go to _them_." all this time he had been talking in the dark, and i only knew him by the sound of his voice. i said, "are you not going to show yourself to me, francis. it is such a long time since we met." "never since you saw me at the docks. that was _me_, ma, and at brighton, too, only you didn't half believe it till you heard i was gone." "tell me the truth of the accident, francis," i asked him. "was there foul play?" "no," he replied, "but we got quarrelling about _her_ you know, and fighting, and that's how the boat upset. it was _my_ fault, ma, as much as anybody else's." "how was it your body was never found?" "it got dragged down in an undercurrent, ma. it was out at cape horn before they offered a reward for it." then he began to light up, and as soon as the figure was illuminated i saw that the boy was dressed in "jumpers" and "jersey" of dark woollen material, such as they wear in the merchant service in hot climates, but over it all--his head and shoulders included--was wound a quantity of flimsy white material i have before mentioned. "i can't bear this stuff. it makes me look like a girl," said "francis," and with his hands he tore it off. simultaneously the illumination ceased, and he was gone. i called him by name several times, but no sound came out of the darkness. it seemed as though the veiling which he disliked preserved his materialization, and that, with its protection removed, he had dissolved again. when another dark figure came out of the cabinet, and approaching me, knelt at my feet, i supposed it to be "francis" come back again, and laying my hand on the bent head, i asked, "is this you again, dear?" a strange voice answered, with the words, "forgive! forgive!" "_forgive!_" i repeated, "what have i to forgive?" "the attempt to murder your husband in . arthur yelverton brooking has forgiven. he is here with me now. will you forgive too?" "certainly," i replied, "i have forgiven long ago. you expiated your sin upon the gallows. you could do no more." the figure sprung into a standing position, and lit up from head to foot, when i saw the two men standing together, arthur yelverton brooking and the madras sepoy who had murdered him. i never saw anything more brilliant than the appearance of the sepoy. he was dressed completely in white, in the native costume, with a white "puggree" or turban on his head. but his "puggree" was flashing with jewels--strings of them were hung round his neck--and his sash held a magnificent jewelled dagger. you must please to remember that i was not alone, but that this sight was beheld by mrs. hooker as well as myself (to whom it was as unexpected as to her), and that i know she would testify to it to-day. and now to explain the reason of these unlooked-for apparitions. in my husband, then lieutenant ross-church, was adjutant of the th madras native infantry, and arthur yelverton brooking, who had for some time done duty with the th, was adjutant of another native corps, both of which were stationed at madras. lieutenant church was not a favorite with his men, by whom he was considered a martinet, and one day when there had been a review on the island at madras, and the two adjutants were riding home together, a sepoy of the th fired at lieutenant church's back with the intent to kill him, but unfortunately the bullet struck lieutenant brooking instead, who, after lingering for twelve hours, died, leaving a young wife and a baby behind him. for this offence the sepoy was tried and hung, and on his trial the whole truth of course came out. this then was the reason that the spirits of the murdered and the murderer came like friends, because the injury had never been really intended for brooking. when i said that i had forgiven, the sepoy became (as i have told) a blaze of light, and then knelt again and kissed the hem of my dress. as he knelt there he became covered, or heaped over, with a mass of the same filmy drapery as enveloped "francis," and when he rose again he was standing in a cloud. he gathered an end of it, and laying it on my head he wound me and himself round and round with it, until we were bound up in a kind of cocoon. mrs. hooker, who watched the whole proceeding, told me afterwards that she had never seen anything like it before--that she could distinctly see the dark face and the white face close together all the time beneath the drapery, and that i was as brightly illuminated as the spirit. of this i was not aware myself, but _his_ brightness almost dazzled me. let me observe also that i have been in the east indies, and within a few yards' length of sepoys, and that i am sure i could never have been wrapt in the same cloth with a mortal one without having been made painfully aware of it in more ways than one. the spirit did not _unwind_ me again, although the winding process had taken him some time. he whisked off the wrapping with one pull, and i stood alone once more. i asked him by what name i should call him, and he said, "the spirit of light." he then expressed a wish to magnetize something i wore, so as to be the better able to approach me. i gave him a brooch containing "john powles'" hair, which his mother had given me after his death, and he carried it back into the cabinet with him. it was a valuable brooch of onyx and pearls, and i was hoping my eastern friend would not carry it _too_ far, when i found it had been replaced and fastened at my throat without my being aware of the circumstance. "arthur yelverton brooking" had disappeared before this, and neither of them came back again. these were not all the spirits that came under the doctor's mediumship during that _séance_, but only those whom i had known and recognized. several of mrs. hooker's friends appeared and some of the doctor's controls, but as i have said before, they could not help my narrative, and so i omit to describe them. the _séance_ lasted altogether two hours, and i was very grateful to the doctor for giving me the opportunity to study an entirely new phase of the science to me. chapter xxviii. v. _mrs. fay._ there was a young woman called "annie eva fay," who came over from america to london some years ago, and appeared at the hanover square rooms, in an exhibition after the manner of the davenport brothers and messrs. maskelyne and cook. she must not be confounded with the mrs. fay who forms the subject of this chapter, because they had nothing to do with one another. some one in boston advised me _not_ to go and sit at one of this mrs. fay's public _séances_. they were described to me as being too physical and unrefined; that the influences were of a low order, and the audiences matched them. however, when i am studying a matter, i like to see everything i can and hear everything i can concerning it, and to form my own opinion independent of that of anybody else. so i walked off by myself one night to mrs. fay's address, and sat down in a quiet corner, watching everything that occurred. the circle certainly numbered some members of a humble class, but i conclude we should see that everywhere if the fees were lower. media, like other professional people, fix their charges according to the quarter of the city in which they live. but every member was silent and respectful, and evidently a believer. one young man, in deep mourning, with a little girl also in black, of about five or six years old, attracted my attention at once, from his sorrowful and abstracted manner. he had evidently come there, i thought, in the hope of seeing some one whom he had lost. mrs. fay (as she passed through the room to her cabinet) appeared a very quiet, simple-looking little woman to me, without any loudness or vulgarity about her. her cabinet was composed of two curtains only, made of some white material, and hung on uprights at one angle, in a corner of the room, the most transparent contrivance possible. anything like a bustle or confusion inside it, such as would be occasioned by dressing or "making up," would have been apparent at once to the audience outside, who were sitting by the light of an ordinary gas-burner and globe. yet mrs. fay had not been seated there above a few minutes, when there ran out into the _séance_ room two of the most extraordinary materializations i had ever seen, and both of them about as opposite to mrs. fay in appearance as any creatures could be. one was an irish charwoman or apple-woman (she might have been either) with a brown, wrinkled face, a broken nose, tangled grey hair, a crushed bonnet, general dirt and disorder, and a tongue that could talk broad irish, and call "a spade a spade" at one and the same time. "biddy," as she was named, was accompanied by a street newspaper boy--one of those urchins who run after carriages and turn catherine-wheels in the mud, and who talked "gutter-slang" in a style that was utterly unintelligible to the decent portion of the sitters. these two went on in a manner that was undoubtedly funny, but not at all edifying and calculated to drive any enquirer into spiritualism out of the room, under the impression that they were evil spirits bent on our destruction. that either of them was represented by mrs. fay was out of the question. in the first place, she would, in that instance, have been so clever an actress and mimic, that she would have made her fortune on the stage--added to which the boy "teddy" was much too small for her, and "biddy" was much too large. besides, no actress, however experienced, could have "made up" in the time. i was quite satisfied, therefore, that neither of them was the medium, even if i could not have seen her figure the while, through the thin curtains, sitting in her chair. _why_ such low, physical manifestations are permitted i am unable to say. it was no wonder they had shocked the sensibility of my friend. i felt half inclined myself when they appeared to get up and run away. however, i was very glad afterwards that i did not. they disappeared after a while, and were succeeded by a much pleasanter person, a cabinet spirit called "gipsy," who looked as if she might have belonged to one of the gipsy tribes when on earth, she was so brown and arch and lively. presently the young man in black was called up, and i saw him talking to a female spirit very earnestly. after a while he took her hand and led her outside the curtain, and called the little girl whom he had left on his seat by her name. the child looked up, screamed "mamma! mamma!" and flew into the arms of the spirit, who knelt down and kissed her, and we could hear the child sobbing and saying, "oh! mamma, why did you go away?--why did you go away?" it was a very affecting scene--at least it seemed so to me. the instant recognition by the little girl, and her perfect unconsciousness but that her mother had returned _in propria persona_, would have been more convincing proof of the genuineness of spiritualism to a sceptic, than fifty miracles of greater importance. when the spirit mother had to leave again the child's agony at parting was very apparent. "take me with you," she kept on saying, and her father had actually to carry her back to her seat. when they got there they both wept in unison. afterwards he said to me in an apologetic sort of way--he was sitting next to me--"it is the first time, you see, that mary has seen her poor mother, but i wanted to have her testimony to her identity, and i think she gave it pretty plainly, poor child! she'll never be content to let me come alone now." i said, "i think it is a pity you brought her so young," and so i did. "florence" did not appear (she told me afterwards the atmosphere was so "rough" that she could not), and i began to think that no one would come for me, when a common seaman, dressed in ordinary sailor's clothes, ran out of the cabinet and began dancing a hornpipe in front of me. he danced it capitally too, and with any amount of vigorous snapping his fingers to mark the time, and when he had finished he "made a leg," as sailors call it, and stood before me. "have you come for me, my friend?" i enquired. "not exactly," he answered, "but i came with the cap'en. i came to pave the way for him. the cap'en will be here directly. we was in the _avenger_ together." (now all the world knows that my eldest brother, frederick marryat, was drowned in the wreck of the _avenger_ in ; but as i was a little child at the time, and had no remembrance of him, i had never dreamt of seeing him again. he was a first lieutenant when he died, so i do not know why the seaman gave him brevet rank, but i repeat his words as he said them.) after a minute or two i was called up to the cabinet, and saw my brother frederick (whom i recognized from his likeness) standing there dressed in naval uniform, but looking very stiff and unnatural. he smiled when he saw me, but did not attempt to kiss me. i said, "why! fred! is it really you? i thought you would have forgotten all about me." he replied, "forgotten little flo? why should i? do you think i have never seen you since that time, nor heard anything about you? i know everything--everything!" "you must know, then, that i have not spent a very happy life," i said. "never mind," he answered, "you needed it. it has done you good!" but all he said was without any life in it, as if he spoke mechanically--perhaps because it was the first time he had materialized. i had said "good-bye" to him, and dropped the curtain, when i heard my name called twice, "flo! flo!" and turned to receive my sister "emily" in my arms. she looked like herself exactly, but she had only time to kiss me and gasp out, "so glad, so happy to meet again," when she appeared to faint. her eyes closed, her head fell back on my shoulder, and before i had time to realize what was going to happen, she had passed _through_ the arm that supported her, and sunk down _through_ the floor. the sensation of her weight was still making my arm tingle, but "emily" was gone--_clean gone_. i was very much disappointed. i had longed to see this sister again, and speak to her confidentially; but whether it was something antagonistic in the influence of this _séance_ room ("florence" said afterwards that it _was_), or there was some other cause for it, i know not, but most certainly my friends did not seem to flourish there. i had another horrible disappointment before i left. a voice from inside the cabinet called out, "here are two babies who want the lady sitting under the picture." now, there was only one picture hanging in the room, and i was sitting under it. i looked eagerly towards the cabinet, and saw issue from it the "princess gertie" leading a little toddler with a flaxen poll and bare feet, and no clothing but a kind of white chemise. this was "joan," the "yonnie" i had so often asked to see, and i rose in the greatest expectation to receive the little pair. just as they gained the centre of the room, however, taking very short and careful steps, like babies first set on their feet, the cabinet spirit "gipsy" _bounced_ out of the curtains, and saying decidedly, "here! we don't want any children about," she placed her hand on the heads of my little ones, and _pressed them down_ through the floor. they seemed to crumble to pieces before my eyes, and their place knew them no more. i couldn't help feeling angry. i exclaimed, "o! what did you do that for? those were my babies, and i have been longing to see them so." "i can't help it," replied "gipsy," "but this isn't a _séance_ for children." i was so vexed that i took no more interest in the proceedings. a great number of forms appeared, thirty or forty in all, but by the time i returned to my hotel and began to jot down my notes, i could hardly remember what they were. i had been dreaming all the time of how much i should have liked to hold that little flaxen-haired "yonnie" in my arms. chapter xxix. vi. _virginia roberts._ when i returned to new york, it was under exceptional circumstances. i had taken cold whilst travelling in the western states, had had a severe attack of bronchitis and pneumonia at chicago, was compelled to relinquish my business, and as soon as i was well enough to travel, was ordered back to new york to recuperate my health. here i took up my abode in the victoria hotel, where a lady, whose acquaintance i had made on my former visit to the city, was living. as i have no permission to publish this lady's name, i must call her mrs. s----. she had been a spiritualist for some time before i knew her, and she much interested me by showing me an entry in her diary, made _four years_ previous to my arrival in america. it was an account of the utterances of a mrs. philips, a clairvoyant then resident in new york, during which she had prophesied my arrival in the city, described my personal appearance, profession, and general surroundings perfectly, and foretold my acquaintanceship with mrs. s----. the prophecy ended with words to the effect that our meeting would be followed by certain effects that would influence her future life, and that on the th of march, , would commence a new era in her existence. it was at the beginning of march that we first lived under the same roof. as soon as mrs. s---- found that i was likely to have some weeks of leisure, she became very anxious that we should visit the new york media together; for although she had so long been a believer in spiritualism, she had not (owing to family opposition) met with much sympathy on the subject, or had the opportunity of much investigation. so we determined, as soon as i was well enough to go out in the evening, that we would attend some _séances_. as it happened, when that time came, we found the medium most accessible to be miss virginia roberts, of whom neither of us knew anything but what we had learned from the public papers. however, it was necessary that i should be exposed as little as possible to the night air, and so we fixed, by chance as it were, to visit miss roberts first. we found her living with her mother and brother in a small house in one of the back streets of the city. she was a young girl of sixteen, very reserved and rather timid-looking, who had to be drawn out before she could be made to talk. she had only commenced sitting a few months before, and that because her brother (who was also a medium) had had an illness and been obliged to give up his _séances_ for a while. the _séance_ room was very small, the manifestations taking place almost in the midst of the circle, and the cabinet (so-called) was the flimsiest contrivance i had ever seen. four uprights of iron, not thicker than the rod of a muslin blind, with cross-bars of the same, on which were hung thin curtains of lilac print, formed the construction of this cabinet, which shook and swayed about each time a form left or entered it. a harmonium for accompanying the voices, and a few chairs for the audience, was all the furniture the room contained. the first evening we went to see miss roberts there were only two or three sitters beside ourselves. the medium seemed to be pretty nearly unknown, and i resolved, as i usually do in such cases, not to expect anything, for fear i should be disappointed. mrs. s----, on the contrary, was all expectation and excitement. if she had ever sat for materializations, it had been long before, and the idea was like a new one to her. after two or three forms had appeared, of no interest to us, a gentleman in full evening dress walked suddenly out of the cabinet, and said, "kate," which was the name of mrs. s----. he was a stout, well-formed man, of an imposing presence, with dark hair and eyes, and he wore a solitaire of diamonds of unusual brilliancy in his shirt front. i had no idea who he was; but mrs. s---- recognized him at once as an old lover who had died whilst under a misunderstanding with her, and she was powerfully affected--more, she was terribly frightened. it seems that she wore at her throat a brooch which he had given her; but every time he approached her with the view of touching it, she shrieked so loudly, and threw herself into such a state of nervous agitation, that i thought she would have to return home again. however, on her being accommodated with a chair in the last row so that she might have the other sitters between her and the materialized spirits, she managed to calm herself. the only friend who appeared for me that evening was "john powles;" and, to my surprise and pleasure, he appeared in the old uniform of the th madras native infantry. this corps wore facings of fawn, with buttons bearing the word "ava," encircled by a wreath of laurel. the mess jackets were lined with wadded fawn silk, and the waistcoats were trimmed with three lines of narrow gold braid. their "karkee," or undress uniform, established in , consisted of a tunic and trousers of a sad green cloth, with the regimental buttons and a crimson silk sash. the marching dress of all officers in the indian service is made of white drill, with a cap cover of the same material. their forage cloak is of dark blue cloth, and hangs to their heels. their forage cap has a broad square peak to shelter the face and eyes. i mention these details for the benefit of those who are not acquainted with the general dress of the indian army, and to show how difficult it would have been for virginia roberts, or any other medium, to have procured them, even had she known the private wish expressed by me to "john powles" in boston, that he would try and come to me in uniform. on this first occasion of his appearing so, he wore the usual everyday coat, buttoned up to his chin, and he made me examine the buttons to see that they bore the crest and motto of the regiment. and i may say here, that before i left new york he appeared to me in every one of the various dresses i have described above, and became quite a marked figure in the city. when it was made known through the papers that an old friend of florence marryat had appeared through the mediumship of virginia roberts, in a uniform of thirty years before, i received numbers of private letters inquiring if it were true, and dozens of people visited miss roberts' _séances_ for the sole purpose of seeing him. he took a great liking for mrs. s----, and when she had conquered her first fear she became quite friendly with him, and i heard, after leaving new york, that he continued to appear for her as long as she attended those _séances_. there was one difference in the female spirits that came through virginia roberts from those of other media. those that were strong enough to leave the cabinet invariably disappeared by floating upwards through the ceiling. their mode of doing this was most graceful. they would first clasp their hands behind their heads and lean backward; then their feet were lifted off the ground, and they were borne upward in a recumbent position. when i related this to my friend, dr. george lefferts (under whom i was for throat treatment to recover my voice), he declared there must be some machinery connected with the uprights that supported the cabinet, by which the forms were elevated. he had got it all so "pat" that he was able to take a pencil and demonstrate to me on paper exactly how the machinery worked, and how easy it would be to swing full-sized human bodies up to the ceiling with it. how they managed to disappear when they got there he was not quite prepared to say; but if he once saw the trick done, he would explain the whole matter to me, and expose it into the bargain. i told dr. lefferts, as i have told many other clever men, that i shall be the first person open to conviction when they can convince me, and i bore him off to a private _séance_ with virginia roberts for that purpose only. he was all that was charming on the occasion. he gave me a most delightful dinner at delmonico's first (for which i tender him in print my grateful recollection), and he tested all miss roberts' manifestations in the most delicate and gentlemanly manner (sceptics as a rule are neither delicate nor gentlemanly), but he could neither open my eyes to chicanery nor detect it himself. he handled and shook the frail supports of the cabinet, and confessed they were much too weak to bear any such weight as he had imagined. he searched the carpeted floor and the adjoining room for hidden machinery without finding the slightest thing to rouse his suspicions, and yet he saw the female forms float upwards through the whitewashed ceiling, and came away from the _séance_ room as wise as when he had entered it. but this occurred some weeks after. i must relate first what happened after our first _séance_ with miss roberts. mrs. s---- and i were well enough pleased with the result to desire to test her capabilities further, and with that intent we invited her to visit us at our hotel. spiritualism is as much tabooed by one section of the american public as it is encouraged by the other, and so we resolved to breathe nothing of our intentions, but invite the girl to dine and spend the evening in our rooms with us just as if she were an ordinary visitor. consequently, we dined together at the _table d'hôte_ before we took our way upstairs. mrs. s---- and i had a private sitting-room, the windows of which were draped with white lace curtains only, and we had no other means to shut out the light. consequently, when we wished to sit, all we could do was to place a chair for virginia roberts in the window recess, behind one of these pairs of curtains, and pin them together in front of her, which formed the airiest cabinet imaginable. we then locked the door, lowered the gas, and sat down on a sofa before the curtains. in the space of five minutes, without the lace curtains having been in the slightest degree disturbed, francis lean, my stepson, walked _through_ them, and came up to my side. he was dressed in his ordinary costume of jersey and "jumpers," and had a little worsted cap upon his head. he displayed all the peculiarities of speech and manner i have noticed before; but he was much less timid, and stood by me for a long time talking of my domestic affairs, which were rather complicated, and giving me a detailed account of the accident which caused his death, and which had been always somewhat of a mystery. in doing this, he mentioned names of people hitherto unknown to me, but which i found on after inquiry to be true. he seemed quite delighted to be able to manifest so indisputably like himself, and remarked more than once, "i'm not much like a girl now, am i, ma?" next, mrs. s----'s old lover came, of whom she was still considerably alarmed, and her father, who had been a great politician and a well-known man. "florence," too, of course, though never so lively through miss roberts as through other media, but still happy though pensive, and full of advice how i was to act when i reached england again. presently a soft voice said, "aunt flo, don't you know me?" and i saw standing in front of me my niece and godchild, lilian thomas, who had died as a nun in the convent of the "dames anglaises" at bruges. she was clothed in her nun's habit, which was rather peculiar, the face being surrounded by a white cap, with a crimped border that hid all the hair, and surmounted by a white veil of some heavy woollen material which covered the head and the black serge dress. "lilian" had died of consumption, and the death-like, waxy complexion which she had had for some time before was exactly reproduced. she had not much to say for herself; indeed, we had been completely separated since she had entered the convent, but she was undoubtedly _there_. she was succeeded by my sister "emily," whom i have already so often described. and these apparitions, six in number, and all recognizable, were produced in the private room of mrs. s---- and myself, and with no other person but virginia roberts, sixteen years old. it was about this time that we received an invitation to attend a private _séance_ in a large house in the city, occupied by mr. and mrs. newman, who had maud lord staying with them as a visitor. maud lord's mediumship is a peculiar one. she places her sitters in a circle, holding hands. she then seats herself on a chair in the centre, and keeps on clapping her hands, to intimate that she has not changed her position. the _séance_ is held in darkness, and the manifestations consist of "direct voices," _i.e._ voices that every one can hear, and by what they say to you, you must judge of their identity and truthfulness. i had only witnessed powers of this kind once before--through mrs. bassett, who is now mrs. herne--but as no one spoke to me through her whom i recognized, i have omitted to give any account of it. as soon as maud lord's sitting was fully established, i heard her addressing various members of the company, telling them who stood beside them, and i heard them putting questions to, or holding conversations with, creature who were invisible to me. the time went on, and i believed i was going to be left out of it, when i heard a voice close to my ear whisper, "arthur." at the same moment maud lord's voice sounded in my direction, saying that the lady in the brown velvet hat had a gentleman standing near her, named "arthur," who wished to be recognized. i was the only lady present in a brown velvet hat, yet i could not recall any deceased friend of the name of "arthur" who might wish to communicate with me. (it is a constant occurrence at a _séance_ that the mind refuses to remember a name, or a circumstance, and on returning home, perhaps the whole situation makes itself clear, and one wonders how one could have been so dull as not to perceive it.) so i said that i knew no one in the spirit-world of that name, and maud lord replied, "well, _he_ knows _you_, at all events." a few more minutes elapsed, when i felt a touch on the third finger of my left hand, and the voice spoke again and said, "arthur! 'arthur's ring.' have you quite forgotten?" this action brought the person to my memory, and i exclaimed, "oh! johnny cope, is it you?" to explain this, i must tell my readers that when i went out to india in , arthur cope of the lancers was a passenger by the same steamer; and when we landed in madras, he made me a present of a diamond ring, which i wore at that _séance_ as a guard. but he was never called by anything but his nickname of "johnny," so that his real appellation had quite slipped my memory. the poor fellow died in or , and i had been ungrateful enough to forget all about him, and should never have remembered his name had it not been coupled with the ring. it would have been still more remarkable, though, if maud lord, who had never seen me till that evening, had discovered an incident which happened thirty years before, and which i had completely forgotten. before i had been many days in new york, i fell ill again from exposing myself to the weather, this time with a bad throat. mrs. s---- and i slept in the same room, and our sitting-room opened into the bedroom. she was indefatigable in her attentions and kindness to me during my illness, and kept running backwards and forwards from the bedroom to the sitting-room, both by night and day, to get me fresh poultices, which she kept hot on the steam stove. one evening about eleven o'clock she got out of bed in her nightdress, and went into the next room for this purpose. almost directly after she entered it, i heard a heavy fall. i called her by name, and receiving no answer, became frightened, jumped out of bed, and followed her. to my consternation, i found her stretched out, at full length, on a white bearskin rug, and quite insensible. she was a delicate woman, and i thought at first that she had fainted from fatigue; but when she showed no signs of returning consciousness, i became alarmed. i was very weak myself from my illness, and hardly able to stand, but i managed to put on a dressing-gown and summon the assistance of a lady who occupied the room next to us, and whose acquaintance we had already made. she was strong and capable, and helped me to place mrs. s---- upon the sofa, where she lay in the same condition. after we had done all we could think of to bring her to herself without effect, the next-door lady became frightened. she said to me, "i don't like this. i think we ought to call in a doctor. supposing she were to die without regaining consciousness." i replied, "i should say the same, excepting i begin to believe she has not fainted at all, but is in a trance; and in that case, any violent attempts to bring her to herself might injure her. just see how quietly she breathes, and how very young she looks." when her attention was called to this fact, the next-door lady was astonished. mrs. s----, who was a woman past forty, looked like a girl of sixteen. she was a very pretty woman, but with a dash of temper in her expression which spoiled it. now with all the passions and lines smoothed out of it, she looked perfectly lovely. so she might have looked in death. but she was not dead. she was breathing. so i felt sure that the spirit had escaped for a while and left her free. i covered her up warmly on the sofa, and determined to leave her there till the trance had passed. after a while i persuaded the next-door lady to think as i did, and to go back to her own bed. as soon as she had gone, i administered my own poultice, and sat down to watch beside my friend. the time went on until seven in the morning--seven hours she had lain, without moving a limb, upon the sofa--when, without any warning, she sat up and gazed about her. i called her by name, and asked her what she wanted; but i could see at once, by her expression, that she did not know me. presently she asked me, "who are you?" i told her. "are you kate's friend?" she said. i answered, "yes." "do you know who _i_ am?" was the next question, which, of course, i answered in the negative. mrs. s---- thereupon gave me the name of a german gentleman which i had never heard before. an extraordinary scene then followed. influenced by the spirit that possessed her, mrs. s---- rose and unlocked a cabinet of her own, which stood in the room, and taking thence a bundle of old letters, she selected several and read portions of them aloud to me. she then told me a history of herself and the gentleman whose spirit was speaking through her, and gave me several messages to deliver to herself the following day. it will be sufficient for me to say that this history was of so private a nature, that it was most unlikely she would have confided it to me or any one, particularly as she was a woman of a most secretive nature; but names, addresses, and even words of conversations were given, in a manner which would have left no room for doubt of their truthfulness, even if mrs. s---- had not confirmed them to be facts afterwards. this went on for a long time, the spirit expressing the greatest animosity against mrs. s---- all the while, and then the power seemed suddenly to be spent, and she went off to sleep again upon the sofa, waking up naturally about an hour afterwards, and very much surprised to hear what had happened to her meanwhile. when we came to consider the matter, we found that this unexpected seizure had taken place upon _the th of march_, the day predicted by mrs. philips four years previously as one on which a new era would commence for mrs. s----. from that time she continually went into trances, and used to predict the future for herself and others; but whether she has kept it up to this day i am unable to say, as i have heard nothing from her since i left america. that event took place on the th of june, . we had been in the habit of spending our sunday evenings in miss roberts' _séance_ room, and she begged me not to miss the last opportunity. when we arrived there, we found that the accompanist who usually played the harmonium for them was unable to be present, and miss roberts asked if i would be his substitute. i said i would, on condition that they moved the instrument on a line with the cabinet, so that i might not lose a sight of what was going on. this was accordingly done, and i commenced to play "thou art gone from my gaze." almost immediately "john powles" stepped out, dressed in uniform, and stood by the harmonium with his hand upon my shoulder. "i never was much of a singer, you know, flo," he said to me; "but if you will sing that song with me, i'll try and go through it." and he actually did sing (after a fashion) the entire two verses of the ballad, keeping his hand on my shoulder the whole time. when we came to the line, "i seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream," he stooped down and whispered in my ear, "not _quite_ in vain, flo, has it been?" i do not know if my english spiritualistic friends can "cap" this story, but in america they told me it was quite a unique performance, particularly at a public _séance_, where the jarring of so many diverse influences often hinders instead of helping the manifestations. "powles" appeared to be especially strong on that occasion. towards the middle of the evening a kind of whining was heard to proceed from the cabinet; and miss roberts, who was not entranced, said, "there's a baby coming out for miss marryat." at the same time the face of little "yonnie" appeared at the opening of the curtains, but nearly level with the ground, as she was crawling out on all fours. before she had had time to advance beyond them, "powles" stepped over her and came amongst us. "oh, powles!" i exclaimed, "you used to love my little babies. do pick up that one for me that i may see it properly." he immediately returned, took up "yonnie," and brought her out into the circle on his arm. the contrast of the baby's white kind of nightgown with his scarlet uniform was very striking. he carried the child to each sitter that it might be thoroughly examined; and when he had returned "yonnie" to the cabinet, he came out again on his own account. that evening i was summoned into the cabinet myself by the medium's guide, a little italian girl, who had materialized several times for our benefit. when i entered it, i stumbled up against miss roberts' chair. there was barely room for me to stand beside it. she said to me, "is that _you_, miss marryat?" and i replied, "yes; didn't you send for me?" she said "no; i didn't send, i know nothing about it!" a voice behind me said, "_i_ sent for you!" and at the same moment two strong arms were clasped round my waist, and a man's face kissed me over my shoulder. i asked, "who are you?" and he replied, "walk out of the cabinet and you shall see." i turned round, two hands were placed upon my shoulders, and i walked back into the circle with a tall man walking behind me in that position. when i could look at him in the gaslight, i recognized my brother, frank marryat, who died in , and whom i had never seen since. of course, the other spirits who were familiar with mrs. s---- and myself came to wish me a pleasant voyage across the atlantic, but i have mentioned them all so often that i fear i must already have tired out the patience of my readers. but in order to be impressive it is so necessary to be explicit. all i can bring forward in excuse is, that every word i have written is the honest and unbiassed truth. here, therefore, ends the account of my experience in spiritualism up to the present moment--not, by any means, the half, nor yet _the quarter of it_, but all i consider likely to interest the general public. and those who have been interested in it may see their own friends as i have done, if they will only take the same trouble that i have done. chapter xxx. "qui bono?" my friends have so often asked me this question, that i think, before i close this book, i am justified in answering it, at all events, as far as i myself am concerned. how often have i sat, surrounded by an interested audience, who knew me too well to think me either a lunatic or a liar; and after i have told them some of the most marvellous and thrilling of my experiences, they have assailed me with these questions, "but what _is_ it? and what _good_ does it do? _what is it?_" there, my friends, i confess you stagger me! i can no more tell you what it is than i can tell you what _you_ are or what _i_ am. we know that, like topsy, we "grew." we know that, given certain conditions and favorable accessories, a child comes into this world, and a seed sprouts through the dark earth and becomes a flower; but though we know the cause and see the effect, the greatest man of science, or the greatest botanist, cannot tell you how the child is made, nor how the plant grows. neither can i (or any one) tell you _what_ the power is that enables a spirit to make itself apparent. i can only say that it can do so, and refer you to the creator of you and me and the entire universe. the commonest things the earth produces are all miracles, from the growing of a mustard seed to the expansion of a human brain. what is more wonderful than the hatching of an egg? you see it done every day. it has become so common that you regard it as an event of no consequence. you know the exact number of days the bird must sit to produce a live chicken with all its functions ready for nature's use, but you see nothing wonderful in it. all birds can do the same, and you would not waste your time in speculating on the wondrous effect of heat upon a liquid substance which turns to bone and blood and flesh and feathers. if you were as familiar with the reappearance of those who have gone before as you are with chickens, you would see nothing supernatural in their manifesting themselves to you, and nothing more miraculous than in the birth of a child or the hatching of an egg. why should it be? who has fixed the abode of the spirit after death? who can say where it dwells, or that it is not permitted to return to this world, perhaps to live in it altogether? still, however the almighty sends them, the fact remains that they come, and that thousands can testify to the fact. as to the theory advanced by some people that they are devils, sent to lure us to our destruction, that is an insult to the wisdom or mercy of an omnipotent creator. they cannot come except by his permission, just as he sends children to some people and withholds them from others. and the conversation of most of those that i have talked with is all on the side of religion, prayer, and self-sacrifice. _my_ friends, at all events, have never denied the existence of a god or a saviour. they have, on the contrary (and especially "florence"), been very quick to rebuke me for anything i may have done that was wrong, for neglect of prayer and church-going, for speaking evil of my neighbors, or any other fault. they have continually inculcated the doctrine that religion consists in unselfish love to our fellow-creatures, and in devotion to god. i do not deny that there are frivolous and occasionally wicked spirits about us. is it to be wondered at? for one spirit that leaves this world calculated to do good to his fellow-creatures, a hundred leave it who will do him harm. that is really the reason that the church discourages spiritualism. she does not disbelieve in it. she knows it to be true; but she also knows it to be dangerous. since like attracts like, the numbers of thoughtless spirits who still dwell on earth would naturally attract the numbers of thoughtless spirits who have left it, and their influence is best dispensed with. talk of devils. i have known many more devils in the flesh than out of it, and could name a number of acquaintances who, when once passed out of this world, i should steadfastly refuse to have any communication with. i have no doubt myself whatever as to _what_ it is, or that i have seen my dear friends and children as i knew them upon earth. but _how_ they come or _where_ they go, i must wait until i join them to ascertain, even if i shall do it then. the second question, however, i can more easily deal with, _what good is it?_ the only wonder to me is that people who are not stone-blind to what is going on in this world can put such a question. what good is it to have one's faith in immortality and another life confirmed in an age of freethought, scepticism and utter callousness? when i look around me and see the young men nowadays--ay, and the young women too--who believe in no hereafter, who lie down and die, like the dumb animals who cannot be made to understand the love of the dear god who created them although they feel it, i cannot think of anything calculated to do them more good than the return of a father or a mother or a friend, who could convince them by ocular demonstration that there is a future life and happiness and misery, according to the one we have led here below. "oh, but," i seem to hear some readers exclaim, "we _do_ believe in all that you say. we have been taught so from our youth up, and the bible points to it in every line." you may _think_ you believe it, my friends, and in a theoretical way you may; but you do not _realize_ it, and the whole of your lives proves it. death, instead of being the blessed portal to the life elysian, the gate of which may swing open for you any day, and admit you to eternal and unfading happiness, is a far-off misty phantom, whose approach you dread, and the sight of which in others you run away from. the majority of people avoid the very mention of death. they would not look at a corpse for anything; the sight of a coffin or a funeral or a graveyard fills them with horror; the idea of it for themselves makes them turn pale with fright. is _this_ belief in the existence of a tender father and a blessed home waiting to receive them on the other side? even professed christians experience what they term a "natural" horror at the thought of death! i have known persons of fixed religious principles who had passed their lives (apparently) in prayer, and expressed their firm belief in heaven waiting for them, fight against death with all their mortal energies, and try their utmost to baffle the disease that was sent to carry them to everlasting happiness. is this logical? it is tantamount in my idea to the pauper in the workhouse who knows that directly the gate is open to let him through, he will pass from skilly, oakum, and solitary confinement to the king's palace to enjoy youth, health, and prosperity evermore; and who, when he sees the gates beginning to unclose, puts his back and all his neighbors' backs against them to keep them shut as long as possible. death should not be a "horror" to any one; and if we knew more about it, it would cease to be so. it is the _mystery_ that appals us. we see our friends die, and no word or sign comes back to tell us that there _is_ no death, so we picture them to ourselves mouldering in the damp earth till we nearly go mad with grief and dismay. some people think me heartless because i never go near the graves of those whom i love best. why should i? i might with more reason go and sit beside a pile of their cast-off garments. i could _see_ them, and they would actually retain more of their identity and influence than the corpse which i could _not_ see. i mourn their loss just the same, but i mourn it as i should do if they had settled for life in a far distant land, from which i could only enjoy occasional glimpses of their happiness. and i may say emphatically that the greatest good spiritualism does is to remove the fear of one's own death. one can never be quite certain of the changes that circumstances may bring about, nor do i like to boast overmuch. disease and weakness may destroy the nerve i flatter myself on possessing; but i think i may say that as matters stand at present _i have no fear of death whatever_, and the only trouble i can foresee in passing through it will be to witness the distress of my friends. but when i remember all those who have gathered on the other side, and whom i firmly believe will be present to help me in my passage there, i can feel nothing but a great curiosity to pierce the mysteries as yet unrevealed to me, and a great longing for the time to come when i shall join those whom i loved so much on earth. not to be happy at once by any manner of means. i am too sinful a mortal for that, but "to work out my salvation" in the way god sees best for me, to make my own heaven or hell according as i have loved and succoured my fellow-creatures here below. yet however much i may be destined to suffer, never without hope and assistance from those whom i have loved, and never without feeling that through the goodness of god each struggle or reparation brings me near to the fruition of eternal happiness. _this_ is my belief, _this_ is the good that the certain knowledge that we can never die has done for me, and the worst i wish for anybody is that they may share it with me. "oh! though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside, if i but remember only such as these have lived and died." the end. united states book company's announcements and new publications. *.*_the books mentioned in this list can be obtained_ to order _by any bookseller if not in stock, or will be sent by the publisher post free on receipt of price_. lovell's international series =_ . on circumstantial evidence_=--by florence marryat this is a story in which love and intrigue are the two disturbing elements. miss marryat is well-known to the readers of sentimental novels. she has a bright and crisp way of presenting the frailties of the human race, which makes her stories entertaining.--_boston herald._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. =_ . miss kate, or the confessions of a caretaker_=--by rita this is a novel of much interest in the first part, of the objectionable "guilty love" order in the latter half. there are some beautiful bits of character drawing in it, and some very clever hits at american foibles. this story is exceedingly well told.--_nashville american._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. =_ . a vagabond lover_=--by rita is a mere sketch. the hero having been a child who was washed on shore from a shipwreck during a storm, and found by a man who believed that he had discovered the cause and generation of life. the child was made a subject for experiment; life was breathed into it, but only physical life and not its higher principle. the result is that the child grows up to manhood without one redeeming virtue, and seems to delight in doing all manner of evil.--_philadelphia record._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. _= . the search for basil lyndhurst=_--by rosa n. carey is a well written english novel, into which are woven numerous historical sketches, adding the merit of instructiveness to its other qualities.--_pittsburgh post._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. =_ . sylvia arden_=--by oswald crawfurd is a novel whose story is supposed to be told by a man who confesses at the outset that life has been with him a failure. he has been successful in nothing though trying everything--and the novel deals with the most remarkable incidents in that sort of a career. it is a cleverly done book, and there is much in it which is fresh as well as exciting.--_columbus, o., journal._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. =_ . young mr. ainslie's courtship_=--by f. c. philips it seems impossible for f. c. philips, the author of "as in a looking glass," to keep sensational tragedy out of his novels. in "young mr. ainslie's courtship" he has written a story which is charming, witty? and agreeable up to the very last chapter.--_san francisco chronicle._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. _= . the haute noblesse=_--by geo. manville fenn is a well wrought story of which the heroine is a child of the high aristocracy, but nevertheless such admirable traits and qualities that even the humblest reader cannot fail to love her.--_columbus, o., journal._ cloth. $ . . paper cover, cents. =_ . mount eden_=--by florence marryat miss florence marryat is well known to the readers of sentimental novels. she has a bright and crisp way of presenting the frailties of the human race, which makes her stories entertaining, even if they are devoid of all good moral purpose. they open one's eyes to the inconsistencies of life without wholly destroying his faith in his fellow citizens.--_boston herald._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. _= . a woman's heart=_--by mrs. alexander the name of this author is familiar to all lovers of fiction who will need nothing more to assure them that they will not regret the time spent in reading "a woman's heart." it is a refined and interesting story, pleasant and easy reading, as is usual with all mrs. alexander's works. cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. _= . syrlin=_--by ouida the announcement of a new novel by ouida, sends a thrill of delight through the countless host of faithful admirers of that petulant priestess of mild improprieties. her new books are just like her old ones. there is the usual abundance of gilded vice and wilful wickedness lugged in to give the book its wonted flavor.--_n. o. states._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. =_ . the rival princess_=--by justin mccarthy and mrs. campbell praed it is a romance of contemporary english politics wherein many well-known public men appear under thin disguises. there is a stuart princess with lineal claims to the english throne, and there is an unmasked mr. gladstone, who boldly urges the abolition of the house of lords.-_-charleston sunday times._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. _= . blindfold=_--by florence marryat is, in many respects, the best novel which has been given us by the prolific pen of the well-known englishwoman. the story is novel, well told, and events follow upon each other quickly, never allowing the interest to flag.--_denver news._ cloth, $ . . paper cover, cents. united states book company, publishers, n. y. transcriber's notes: text that was written in bold is marked =like this=. page , "marryatt" changed to "marryat" (normalising spelling of author's name) page , "nor" changed to "not" (a single medium of whom i have not) page , "bood" changed to "blood" (where the stain of his blood still remained) page , "briliant" changed to "brilliant" (a room that was unpleasantly brilliant) page , "tempered" changed to "tampered" (it had not been tampered with) page , "seing" changed to "seeing" (the possibility of seeing a "ghost,") page , "foreigh" changed to "foreign" (he was equally ignorant of foreign languages) page , "succssefully" changed to "successfully" (in order to imitate her manner and speech successfully) page , "gupyy" changed to "guppy" (as mrs. guppy came sailing over our heads) page , "it" changed to "if" (i inquired of every sitter if they had seen) page , "eartly" changed to "earthly" (as naturally as if she were their earthly form) page , "fitzgarald" changed to "fitzgerald" (mrs. fitzgerald was dining with us) page , "fitzgereld" changed to "fitzgerald" (returned through mrs. fitzgerald) page , "don" changed to "done" (perhaps, than anything else has done) page , added missing end single quote in probable correct place (through the life that lies before you.') page , "forgetten" changed to "forgotten" (i had almost forgotten mr. plummer) page , "mamed" changed to "named" (a photographer in london, named hudson) page , "instrument" changed to "instruments" (the two instruments pealed forth) page , "ocsion" changed to "occasion" (mr. towns prognosticated on that occasion) page , "conducter" changed to "conductor" ("did you know the spirit?" the conductor asked) page , "aquaintance" changed to "acquaintance" (soon after i made her acquaintance) page , "creature" changed to "creatures" (creatures who were invisible to me) page , "mr" changed to "mrs" (mrs. s---- and i slept in the same room) page , "christian" changed to "christians" (even professed christians experience what they term) end catalogue, no. , "circumstatial" changed to "circumstantial" (on circumstantial evidence) end catalogue, no. , "successfu" changed to "successful" (he has been successful in nothing) n.b. . some punctuation corrections have not been noted here. . two non-matching instances of latin word: "prôpria" and "propria". left as-is. the mansion [illustration: [see page "but how have i failed so wretchedly?"] the mansion by henry van dyke with illustrations by elizabeth shippen green [illustration] harper & brothers publishers new york and london . m . c . m . x . i copyright , , by harper & brothers printed in the united states of america published october, [illustration] the mansion there was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently applied. standing on a corner of the avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency and half-disdain. the house was not beautiful. there was nothing in its straight front of chocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring windows of plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors at the top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate the imagination. but it was eminently respectable, and in its way imposing. it seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewelers, the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers, the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail traders in luxuries of life, were beneath the notice of a house that had its foundations in the high finance, and was built literally and figuratively in the shadow of st. petronius' church. at the same time there was something self-pleased and congratulatory in the way in which the mansion held its own amid the changing neighborhood. it almost seemed to be lifted up a little, among the tall buildings near at hand, as if it felt the rising value of the land on which it stood. john weightman was like the house into which he had built himself thirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were incrusted. he was a self-made man. but in making himself he had chosen a highly esteemed pattern and worked according to the approved rules. there was nothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him. he was solid, correct, and justly successful. his minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date. at the proper time, pictures by the barbizon masters, old english plate and portraits, bronzes by barye and marbles by rodin, persian carpets and chinese porcelains, had been introduced to the mansion. it contained a louis quinze reception-room, an empire drawing-room, a jacobean dining-room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent of the styles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. that the hallways were too short for the historic perspective did not make much difference. american decorative art is _capable de tout_, it absorbs all periods. of each period mr. weightman wished to have something of the best. he understood its value, present as a certificate, and prospective as an investment. it was only in the architecture of his town house that he remained conservative, immovable, one might almost say early-victorian-christian. his country house at dulwich-on-the-sound was a palace of the italian renaissance. but in town he adhered to an architecture which had moral associations, the nineteenth-century-brownstone epoch. it was a symbol of his social position, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his business creed. "a man of fixed principles," he would say, "should express them in the looks of his house. new york changes its domestic architecture too rapidly. it is like divorce. it is not dignified. i don't like it. extravagance and fickleness are advertised in most of these new houses. i wish to be known for different qualities. dignity and prudence are the things that people trust. every one knows that i can afford to live in the house that suits me. it is a guarantee to the public. it inspires confidence. it helps my influence. there is a text in the bible about 'a house that hath foundations.' that is the proper kind of a mansion for a solid man." harold weightman had often listened to his father discoursing in this fashion on the fundamental principles of life, and always with a divided mind. he admired immensely his father's talents and the single-minded energy with which he improved them. but in the paternal philosophy there was something that disquieted and oppressed the young man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh air and free action. at times, during his college course and his years at the law school, he had yielded to this impulse and broken away--now toward extravagance and dissipation, and then, when the reaction came, toward a romantic devotion to work among the poor. he had felt his father's disapproval for both of these forms of imprudence; but it was never expressed in a harsh or violent way, always with a certain tolerant patience, such as one might show for the mistakes and vagaries of the very young. john weightman was not hasty, impulsive, inconsiderate, even toward his own children. with them, as with the rest of the world, he felt that he had a reputation to maintain, a theory to vindicate. he could afford to give them time to see that he was absolutely right. one of his favorite scripture quotations was, "wait on the lord." he had applied it to real estate and to people, with profitable results. but to human persons the sensation of being waited for is not always agreeable. sometimes, especially with the young, it produces a vague restlessness, a dumb resentment, which is increased by the fact that one can hardly explain or justify it. of this john weightman was not conscious. it lay beyond his horizon. he did not take it into account in the plan of life which he made for himself and for his family as the sharers and inheritors of his success. "father plays us," said harold, in a moment of irritation, to his mother, "like pieces in a game of chess." "my dear," said that lady, whose faith in her husband was religious, "you ought not to speak so impatiently. at least he wins the game. he is one of the most respected men in new york. and he is very generous, too." "i wish he would be more generous in letting us be ourselves," said the young man. "he always has something in view for us and expects to move us up to it." "but isn't it always for our benefit?" replied his mother. "look what a position we have. no one can say there is any taint on our money. there are no rumors about your father. he has kept the laws of god and of man. he has never made any mistakes." harold got up from his chair and poked the fire. then he came back to the ample, well-gowned, firm-looking lady, and sat beside her on the sofa. he took her hand gently and looked at the two rings--a thin band of yellow gold, and a small solitaire diamond--which kept their place on her third finger in modest dignity, as if not shamed, but rather justified, by the splendor of the emerald which glittered beside them. "mother," he said, "you have a wonderful hand. and father made no mistake when he won you. but are you sure he has always been so inerrant?" "harold," she exclaimed, a little stiffly, "what do you mean? his life is an open book." "oh," he answered, "i don't mean anything bad, mother dear. i know the governor's life is an open book--a ledger, if you like, kept in the best bookkeeping hand, and always ready for inspection--every page correct, and showing a handsome balance. but isn't it a mistake not to allow us to make our own mistakes, to learn for ourselves, to live our own lives? must we be always working for 'the balance,' in one thing or another? i want to be myself--to get outside of this everlasting, profitable 'plan'--to let myself go, and lose myself for a while at least--to do the things that i want to do, just because i want to do them." "my boy," said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do anything wrong or foolish? you know the falsehood of that old proverb about wild oats." he threw back his head and laughed. "yes, mother," he answered, "i know it well enough. but in california, you know, the wild oats are one of the most valuable crops. they grow all over the hillsides and keep the cattle and the horses alive. but that wasn't what i meant--to sow wild oats. say to pick wild flowers, if you like, or even to chase wild geese--to do something that seems good to me just for its own sake, not for the sake of wages of one kind or another. i feel like a hired man, in the service of this magnificent mansion--say in training for father's place as majordomo. i'd like to get out some way, to feel free--perhaps to do something for others." the young man's voice hesitated a little. "yes, it sounds like cant, i know, but sometimes i feel as if i'd like to do some good in the world, if father only wouldn't insist upon god's putting it into the ledger." his mother moved uneasily, and a slight look of bewilderment came into her face. "isn't that almost irreverent?" she asked. "surely the righteous must have their reward. and your father is good. see how much he gives to all the established charities, how many things he has founded. he's always thinking of others, and planning for them. and surely, for us, he does everything. how well he has planned this trip to europe for me and the girls--the court-presentation at berlin, the season on the riviera, the visits in england with the plumptons and the halverstones. he says lord halverstone has the finest old house in sussex, pure elizabethan, and all the old customs are kept up, too--family prayers every morning for all the domestics. by-the-way, you know his son bertie, i believe." harold smiled a little to himself as he answered: "yes, i fished at catalina island last june with the honorable ethelbert; he's rather a decent chap, in spite of his ingrowing mind. but you?--mother, you are simply magnificent! you are father's masterpiece." the young man leaned over to kiss her, and went up to the riding club for his afternoon canter in the park. so it came to pass, early in december, that mrs. weightman and her two daughters sailed for europe, on their serious pleasure trip, even as it had been written in the book of providence; and john weightman, who had made the entry, was left to pass the rest of the winter with his son and heir in the brownstone mansion. they were comfortable enough. the machinery of the massive establishment ran as smoothly as a great electric dynamo. they were busy enough, too. john weightman's plans and enterprises were complicated, though his principle of action was always simple--to get good value for every expenditure and effort. the banking-house of which he was the chief, the brain, the will, the absolutely controlling hand, was so admirably organized that the details of its direction took but little time. but the scores of other interests that radiated from it and were dependent upon it--or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that contributed to its solidity and success--the many investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, ecclesiastical, that had made the name of weightman well known and potent in city, church, and state, demanded much attention and careful steering, in order that each might produce the desired result. there were board meetings of corporations and hospitals, conferences in wall street and at albany, consultations and committee meetings in the brownstone mansion. for a share in all this business and its adjuncts john weightman had his son in training in one of the famous law firms of the city; for he held that banking itself is a simple affair, the only real difficulties of finance are on its legal side. meantime he wished the young man to meet and know the men with whom he would have to deal when he became a partner in the house. so a couple of dinners were given in the mansion during december, after which the father called the son's attention to the fact that over a hundred million dollars had sat around the board. but on christmas eve father and son were dining together without guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though a little slow at times. the elder man was in rather a rare mood, more expansive and confidential than usual; and, when the coffee was brought in and they were left alone, he talked more freely of his personal plans and hopes than he had ever done before. "i feel very grateful to-night," said he, at last; "it must be something in the air of christmas that gives me this feeling of thankfulness for the many divine mercies that have been bestowed upon me. all the principles by which i have tried to guide my life have been justified. i have never made the value of this salted almond by anything that the courts would not uphold, at least in the long run, and yet--or wouldn't it be truer to say and therefore?--my affairs have been wonderfully prospered. there's a great deal in that text 'honesty is the best'--but no, that's not from the bible, after all, is it? wait a moment; there is something of that kind, i know." "may i light a cigar, father," said harold, turning away to hide a smile, "while you are remembering the text?" "yes, certainly," answered the elder man, rather shortly; "you know i don't dislike the smell. but it is a wasteful, useless habit, and therefore i have never practised it. nothing useless is worth while, that's my motto--nothing that does not bring the reward. oh, now i recall the text, 'verily i say unto you they have their reward.' i shall ask doctor snodgrass to preach a sermon on that verse some day." "using you as an illustration?" "well, not exactly that; but i could give him some good material from my own experience to prove the truth of scripture. i can honestly say that there is not one of my charities that has not brought me in a good return, either in the increase of influence, the building up of credit, or the association with substantial people. of course you have to be careful how you give, in order to secure the best results--no indiscriminate giving--no pennies in beggars' hats! it has been one of my principles always to use the same kind of judgment in charities that i use in my other affairs, and they have not disappointed me." "even the check that you put in the plate when you take the offertory up the aisle on sunday morning?" "certainly; though there the influence is less direct; and i must confess that i have my doubts in regard to the collection for foreign missions. that always seems to me romantic and wasteful. you never hear from it in any definite way. they say the missionaries have done a good deal to open the way for trade; perhaps--but they have also gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. yet i give to them--a little--it is a matter of conscience with me to identify myself with all the enterprises of the church; it is the mainstay of social order and a prosperous civilization. but the best forms of benevolence are the well-established, organized ones here at home, where people can see them and know what they are doing." "you mean the ones that have a local habitation and a name." "yes; they offer by far the safest return, though of course there is something gained by contributing to general funds. a public man can't afford to be without public spirit. but on the whole i prefer a building, or an endowment. there is a mutual advantage to a good name and a good institution in their connection in the public mind. it helps them both. remember that, my boy. of course at the beginning you will have to practise it in a small way; later, you will have larger opportunities. but try to put your gifts where they can be identified and do good all around. you'll see the wisdom of it in the long run." "i can see it already, sir, and the way you describe it looks amazingly wise and prudent. in other words, we must cast our bread on the waters in large loaves, carried by sound ships marked with the owner's name, so that the return freight will be sure to come back to us." the father laughed, but his eyes were frowning a little as if he suspected something irreverent under the respectful reply. "you put it humorously, but there's sense in what you say. why not? god rules the sea; but he expects us to follow the laws of navigation and commerce. why not take good care of your bread, even when you give it away?" "it's not for me to say why not--and yet i can think of cases--" the young man hesitated for a moment. his half-finished cigar had gone out. he rose and tossed it into the fire, in front of which he remained standing--a slender, eager, restless young figure, with a touch of hunger in the fine face, strangely like and unlike the father, at whom he looked with half-wistful curiosity. "the fact is, sir," he continued, "there is such a case in my mind now, and it is a good deal on my heart, too. so i thought of speaking to you about it to-night. you remember tom rollins, the junior who was so good to me when i entered college?" the father nodded. he remembered very well indeed the annoying incidents of his son's first escapade, and how rollins had stood by him and helped to avoid a public disgrace, and how a close friendship had grown between the two boys, so different in their fortunes. "yes," he said, "i remember him. he was a promising young man. has he succeeded?" "not exactly--that is, not yet. his business has been going rather badly. he has a wife and little baby, you know. and now he has broken down,--something wrong with his lungs. the doctor says his only chance is a year or eighteen months in colorado. i wish we could help him." "how much would it cost?" "three or four thousand, perhaps, as a loan." "does the doctor say he will get well?" "a fighting chance--the doctor says." the face of the older man changed subtly. not a line was altered, but it seemed to have a different substance, as if it were carved out of some firm, imperishable stuff. "a fighting chance," he said, "may do for a speculation, but it is not a good investment. you owe something to young rollins. your grateful feeling does you credit. but don't overwork it. send him three or four hundred, if you like. you'll never hear from it again, except in the letter of thanks. but for heaven's sake don't be sentimental. religion is not a matter of sentiment; it's a matter of principle." [illustration: "it is not a good investment"] the face of the younger man changed now. but instead of becoming fixed and graven, it seemed to melt into life by the heat of an inward fire. his nostrils quivered with quick breath, his lips were curled. "principle!" he said. "you mean principal--and interest too. well, sir, you know best whether that is religion or not. but if it is, count me out, please. tom saved me from going to the devil, six years ago; and i'll be damned if i don't help him to the best of my ability now." john weightman looked at his son steadily. "harold," he said at last, "you know i dislike violent language, and it never has any influence with me. if i could honestly approve of this proposition of yours, i'd let you have the money; but i can't; it's extravagant and useless. but you have your christmas check for a thousand dollars coming to you to-morrow. you can use it as you please. i never interfere with your private affairs." "thank you," said harold. "thank you very much! but there's another private affair. i want to get away from this life, this town, this house. it stifles me. you refused last summer when i asked you to let me go up to grenfell's mission on the labrador. i could go now, at least as far as the newfoundland station. have you changed your mind?" "not at all. i think it is an exceedingly foolish enterprise. it would interrupt the career that i have marked out for you." "well, then, here's a cheaper proposition. algy vanderhoof wants me to join him on his yacht with--well, with a little party--to cruise in the west indies. would you prefer that?" "certainly not! the vanderhoof set is wild and godless--i do not wish to see you keeping company with fools who walk in the broad and easy way that leads to perdition." "it is rather a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh, turning toward the door. "according to you there's very little difference--a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! well, it's one or the other for me, and i'll toss up for it to-night: heads, i lose; tails, the devil wins. anyway, i'm sick of this, and i'm out of it." "harold," said the older man (and there was a slight tremor in his voice), "don't let us quarrel on christmas eve. all i want is to persuade you to think seriously of the duties and responsibilities to which god has called you--don't speak lightly of heaven and hell--remember, there is another life." the young man came back and laid his hand upon his father's shoulder. "father," he said, "i want to remember it. i try to believe in it. but somehow or other, in this house, it all seems unreal to me. no doubt all you say is perfectly right and wise. i don't venture to argue against it, but i can't feel it--that's all. if i'm to have a soul, either to lose or to save, i must really live. just now neither the present nor the future means anything to me. but surely we won't quarrel. i'm very grateful to you, and we'll part friends. good-night, sir." the father held out his hand in silence. the heavy portière dropped noiselessly behind the son, and he went up the wide, curving stairway to his own room. meantime john weightman sat in his carved chair in the jacobean dining-room. he felt strangely old and dull. the portraits of beautiful women by lawrence and reynolds and raeburn, which had often seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting. he fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their expression, as if they were staring through him or beyond him. they cared nothing for his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes; they belonged to another world, in which he had no place. at this he felt a vague resentment, a sense of discomfort that he could not have defined or explained. he was used to being considered, respected, appreciated at his full value in every region, even in that of his own dreams. presently he rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library, where the shaded lamps were burning. his eye fell upon the low shelves full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. even the carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost their attraction. he paused for a moment before an idyll of corot--a dance of nymphs around some forgotten altar in a vaporous glade--and looked at it curiously. there was something rapturous and serene about the picture, a breath of spring-time in the misty trees, a harmony of joy in the dancing figures, that wakened in him a feeling of half-pleasure and half-envy. it represented something that he had never known in his calculated, orderly life. he was dimly mistrustful of it. "it is certainly very beautiful," he thought, "but it is distinctly pagan; that altar is built to some heathen god. it does not fit into the scheme of a christian life. i doubt whether it is consistent with the tone of my house. i will sell it this winter. it will bring three or four times what i paid for it. that was a good purchase, a very good bargain." he dropped into the revolving chair before his big library table. it was covered with pamphlets and reports of the various enterprises in which he was interested. there was a pile of newspaper clippings in which his name was mentioned with praise for his sustaining power as a pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of wise and prudent reform movements, for his discretion in making permanent public gifts--"the weightman charities," one very complaisant editor called them, as if they deserved classification as a distinct species. he turned the papers over listlessly. there was a description and a picture of the "weightman wing of the hospital for cripples," of which he was president; and an article on the new professor in the "weightman chair of political jurisprudence" in jackson university, of which he was a trustee; and an illustrated account of the opening of the "weightman grammar-school" at dulwich-on-the-sound, where he had his legal residence for purposes of taxation. this last was perhaps the most carefully planned of all the weightman charities. he desired to win the confidence and support of his rural neighbors. it had pleased him much when the local newspaper had spoken of him as an ideal citizen and the logical candidate for the governorship of the state; but upon the whole it seemed to him wiser to keep out of active politics. it would be easier and better to put harold into the running, to have him sent to the legislature from the dulwich district, then to the national house, then to the senate. why not? the weightman interests were large enough to need a direct representative and guardian at washington. but to-night all these plans came back to him with dust upon them. they were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. the son upon whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back upon the mansion of his father's hopes. the break might not be final; and in any event there would be much to live for; the fortunes of the family would be secure. but the zest of it all would be gone if john weightman had to give up the assurance of perpetuating his name and his principles in his son. it was a bitter disappointment, and he felt that he had not deserved it. he rose from the chair and paced the room with leaden feet. for the first time in his life his age was visibly upon him. his head was heavy and hot, and the thoughts that rolled in it were confused and depressing. could it be that he had made a mistake in the principles of his existence? there was no argument in what harold had said--it was almost childish--and yet it had shaken the elder man more deeply than he cared to show. it held a silent attack which touched him more than open criticism. suppose the end of his life were nearer than he thought--the end must come some time--what if it were now? had he not founded his house upon a rock? had he not kept the commandments? was he not, "touching the law, blameless"? and beyond this, even if there were some faults in his character--and all men are sinners--yet he surely believed in the saving doctrines of religion--the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting. yes, that was the true source of comfort, after all. he would read a bit in the bible, as he did every night, and go to bed and to sleep. he went back to his chair at the library table. a strange weight of weariness rested upon him, but he opened the book at a familiar place, and his eyes fell upon the verse at the bottom of the page. "_lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth._" that had been the text of the sermon a few weeks before. sleepily, heavily, he tried to fix his mind upon it and recall it. what was it that doctor snodgrass had said? ah, yes--that it was a mistake to pause here in reading the verse. we must read on without a pause--_lay not up treasures upon earth where moth and rust do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal_--that was the true doctrine. we may have treasures upon earth, but they must not be put into unsafe places, but into safe places. a most comforting doctrine! he had always followed it. moths and rust and thieves had done no harm to his investments. john weightman's drooping eyes turned to the next verse, at the top of the second column. "_but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven._" now what had the doctor said about that? how was it to be understood--in what sense--treasures--in heaven? the book seemed to float away from him. the light vanished. he wondered dimly if this could be death, coming so suddenly, so quietly, so irresistibly. he struggled for a moment to hold himself up, and then sank slowly forward upon the table. his head rested upon his folded hands. he slipped into the unknown. * * * * * how long afterward conscious life returned to him he did not know. the blank might have been an hour or a century. he knew only that something had happened in the interval. what it was he could not tell. he found great difficulty in catching the thread of his identity again. he felt that he was himself; but the trouble was to make his connections, to verify and place himself, to know who and where he was. at last it grew clear. john weightman was sitting on a stone, not far from a road in a strange land. the road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. it was more like a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across the open country in the same direction. down in the valley, into which he could look, the road seemed to form itself gradually out of many minor paths; little footways coming across the meadows, winding tracks following along beside the streams, faintly marked trails emerging from the woodlands. but on the hillside the threads were more firmly woven into one clear band of travel, though there were still a few dim paths joining it here and there, as if persons had been climbing up the hill by other ways and had turned at last to seek the road. from the edge of the hill, where john weightman sat, he could see the travelers, in little groups or larger companies, gathering from time to time by the different paths, and making the ascent. they were all clothed in white, and the form of their garments was strange to him; it was like some old picture. they passed him, group after group, talking quietly together or singing; not moving in haste, but with a certain air of eagerness and joy as if they were glad to be on their way to an appointed place. they did not stay to speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one another as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like him to be with them. there was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and receding across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high horizon, and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness against the tender blue, before it vanished over the hill. for a long time he sat there watching and wondering. it was a very different world from that in which his mansion on the avenue was built; and it looked strange to him, but most real--as real as anything he had ever seen. presently he felt a strong desire to know what country it was and where the people were going. he had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to be sure. so he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down through the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group of people. one of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. it was an old man, under whose white beard and brows john weightman thought he saw a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for him years ago, when he was a boy in the country. [illustration: "welcome! will you come with us?"] "welcome," said the old man. "will you come with us?" "where are you going?" "to the heavenly city, to see our mansions there." "and who are these with you?" "strangers to me, until a little while ago; i know them better now. but you i have known for a long time, john weightman. don't you remember your old doctor?" "yes," he cried--"yes; your voice has not changed at all. i'm glad indeed to see you, doctor mclean, especially now. all this seems very strange to me, almost oppressive. i wonder if--but may i go with you, do you suppose?" "surely," answered the doctor, with his familiar smile; "it will do you good. and you also must have a mansion in the city waiting for you--a fine one, too--are you not looking forward to it?" "yes," replied the other, hesitating a moment; "yes--i believe it must be so, although i had not expected to see it so soon. but i will go with you, and we can talk by the way." the two men quickly caught up with the other people, and all went forward together along the road. the doctor had little to tell of his experience, for it had been a plain, hard life, uneventfully spent for others, and the story of the village was very simple. john weightman's adventures and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing history, full of contacts with the great events and personages of the time. but somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it, walking on that wide heavenly moorland, under that tranquil, sunless arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace, where the light was diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all things were luminous. there was only one person besides the doctor in that little company whom john weightman had known before--an old bookkeeper who had spent his life over a desk, carefully keeping accounts--a rusty, dull little man, patient and narrow, whose wife had been in the insane asylum for twenty years and whose only child was a crippled daughter, for whose comfort and happiness he had toiled and sacrificed himself without stint. it was a surprise to find him here, as care-free and joyful as the rest. [illustration: that free air of perfect peace] the lives of others in the company were revealed in brief glimpses as they talked together--a mother, early widowed, who had kept her little flock of children together and labored through hard and heavy years to bring them up in purity and knowledge--a sister of charity who had devoted herself to the nursing of poor folk who were being eaten to death by cancer--a schoolmaster whose heart and life had been poured into his quiet work of training boys for a clean and thoughtful manhood--a medical missionary who had given up a brilliant career in science to take the charge of a hospital in darkest africa--a beautiful woman with silver hair who had resigned her dreams of love and marriage to care for an invalid father, and after his death had made her life a long, steady search for ways of doing kindnesses to others--a poet who had walked among the crowded tenements of the great city, bringing cheer and comfort not only by his songs, but by his wise and patient works of practical aid--a paralyzed woman who had lain for thirty years upon her bed, helpless but not hopeless, succeeding by a miracle of courage in her single aim, never to complain, but always to impart a bit of her joy and peace to every one who came near her. all these, and other persons like them, people of little consideration in the world, but now seemingly all full of great contentment and an inward gladness that made their steps light, were in the company that passed along the road, talking together of things past and things to come, and singing now and then with clear voices from which the veil of age and sorrow was lifted. john weightman joined in some of the songs--which were familiar to him from their use in the church--at first with a touch of hesitation, and then more confidently. for as they went on his sense of strangeness and fear at his new experience diminished, and his thoughts began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency. were not these people going to the celestial city? and was not he in his right place among them? he had always looked forward to this journey. if they were sure, each one, of finding a mansion there, could not he be far more sure? his life had been more fruitful than theirs. he had been a leader, a founder of new enterprises, a pillar of church and state, a prince of the house of israel. ten talents had been given him, and he had made them twenty. his reward would be proportionate. he was glad that his companions were going to find fit dwellings prepared for them; but he thought also with a certain pleasure of the surprise that some of them would feel when they saw his appointed mansion. so they came to the summit of the moorland and looked over into the world beyond. it was a vast, green plain, softly rounded like a shallow vase, and circled with hills of amethyst. a broad, shining river flowed through it, and many silver threads of water were woven across the green; and there were borders of tall trees on the banks of the river, and orchards full of roses abloom along the little streams, and in the midst of all stood the city, white and wonderful and radiant. when the travelers saw it they were filled with awe and joy. they passed over the little streams and among the orchards quickly and silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city should vanish. the wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it, for it was made only of precious stones, which are never large. the gate of the city was not like a gate at all, for it was not barred with iron or wood, but only a single pearl, softly gleaming, marked the place where the wall ended and the entrance lay open. a person stood there whose face was bright and grave, and whose robe was like the flower of the lily, not a woven fabric, but a living texture. "come in," he said to the company of travelers; "you are at your journey's end, and your mansions are ready for you." john weightman hesitated, for he was troubled by a doubt. suppose that he was not really, like his companions, at his journey's end, but only transported for a little while out of the regular course of his life into this mysterious experience? suppose that, after all, he had not really passed through the door of death, like these others, but only through the door of dreams, and was walking in a vision, a living man among the blessed dead. would it be right for him to go with them into the heavenly city? would it not be a deception, a desecration, a deep and unforgivable offense? the strange, confusing question had no reason in it, as he very well knew; for if he was dreaming, then it was all a dream; but if his companions were real, then he also was with them in reality, and if they had died then he must have died too. yet he could not rid his mind of the sense that there was a difference between them and him, and it made him afraid to go on. but, as he paused and turned, the keeper of the gate looked straight and deep into his eyes, and beckoned to him. then he knew that it was not only right but necessary that he should enter. they passed from street to street among fair and spacious dwellings, set in amaranthine gardens, and adorned with an infinitely varied beauty of divine simplicity. the mansions differed in size, in shape, in charm: each one seemed to have its own personal look of loveliness; yet all were alike in fitness to their place, in harmony with one another, in the addition which each made to the singular and tranquil splendor of the city. as the little company came, one by one, to the mansions which were prepared for them, and their guide beckoned to the happy inhabitant to enter in and take possession, there was a soft murmur of joy, half wonder and half recognition; as if the new and immortal dwelling were crowned with the beauty of surprise, lovelier and nobler than all the dreams of it had been; and yet also as if it were touched with the beauty of the familiar, the remembered, the long-loved. one after another the travelers were led to their own mansions, and went in gladly; and from within, through the open doorways, came sweet voices of welcome, and low laughter, and song. at last there was no one left with the guide but the two old friends, doctor mclean and john weightman. they were standing in front of one of the largest and fairest of the houses, whose garden glowed softly with radiant flowers. the guide laid his hand upon the doctor's shoulder. "this is for you," he said. "go in; there is no more pain here, no more death, nor sorrow, nor tears; for your old enemies are all conquered. but all the good that you have done for others, all the help that you have given, all the comfort that you have brought, all the strength and love that you have bestowed upon the suffering, are here; for we have built them all into this mansion for you." the good man's face was lighted with a still joy. he clasped his old friend's hand closely, and whispered: "how wonderful it is! go on, you will come to your mansion next, it is not far away, and we shall see each other again soon, very soon." so he went through the garden, and into the music within. the keeper of the gate turned to john weightman with level, quiet, searching eyes. then he asked, gravely: "where do you wish me to lead you now?" "to see my own mansion," answered the man, with half-concealed excitement. "is there not one here for me? you may not let me enter it yet, perhaps, for i must confess to you that i am only--" "i know," said the keeper of the gate--"i know it all. you are john weightman." "yes," said the man, more firmly than he had spoken at first, for it gratified him that his name was known. "yes, i am john weightman, senior warden of st. petronius' church. i wish very much to see my mansion here, if only for a moment. i believe that you have one for me. will you take me to it?" the keeper of the gate drew a little book from the breast of his robe and turned over the pages. "certainly," he said, with a curious look at the man, "your name is here; and you shall see your mansion if you will follow me." it seemed as if they must have walked miles and miles, through the vast city, passing street after street of houses larger and smaller, of gardens richer and poorer, but all full of beauty and delight. they came into a kind of suburb, where there were many small cottages, with plots of flowers, very lowly, but bright and fragrant. finally they reached an open field, bare and lonely-looking. there were two or three little bushes in it, without flowers, and the grass was sparse and thin. in the center of the field was a tiny hut, hardly big enough for a shepherd's shelter. it looked as if it had been built of discarded things, scraps and fragments of other buildings, put together with care and pains, by some one who had tried to make the most of cast-off material. there was something pitiful and shamefaced about the hut. it shrank and drooped and faded in its barren field, and seemed to cling only by sufferance to the edge of the splendid city. "this," said the keeper of the gate, standing still and speaking with a low, distinct voice--"this is your mansion, john weightman." an almost intolerable shock of grieved wonder and indignation choked the man for a moment so that he could not say a word. then he turned his face away from the poor little hut and began to remonstrate eagerly with his companion. "surely, sir," he stammered, "you must be in error about this. there is something wrong--some other john weightman--a confusion of names--the book must be mistaken." "there is no mistake," said the keeper of the gate, very calmly; "here is your name, the record of your title and your possessions in this place." "but how could such a house be prepared for me," cried the man, with a resentful tremor in his voice--"for me, after my long and faithful service? is this a suitable mansion for one so well known and devoted? why is it so pitifully small and mean? why have you not built it large and fair, like the others?" "that is all the material you sent us." "what!" "we have used all the material that you sent us," repeated the keeper of the gate. "now i know that you are mistaken," cried the man, with growing earnestness, "for all my life long i have been doing things that must have supplied you with material. have you not heard that i have built a school-house; the wing of a hospital; two--yes, three--small churches, and the greater part of a large one, the spire of st. petro--" the keeper of the gate lifted his hand. "wait," he said; "we know all these things. they were not ill done. but they were all marked and used as foundation for the name and mansion of john weightman in the world. did you not plan them for that?" "yes," answered the man, confused and taken aback, "i confess that i thought often of them in that way. perhaps my heart was set upon that too much. but there are other things--my endowment for the college--my steady and liberal contributions to all the established charities--my support of every respectable--" "wait," said the keeper of the gate again. "were not all these carefully recorded on earth where they would add to your credit? they were not foolishly done. verily, you have had your reward for them. would you be paid twice?" "no," cried the man, with deepening dismay, "i dare not claim that. i acknowledge that i considered my own interest too much. but surely not altogether. you have said that these things were not foolishly done. they accomplished some good in the world. does not that count for something?" "yes," answered the keeper of the gate, "it counts in the world--where you counted it. but it does not belong to you here. we have saved and used everything that you sent us. this is the mansion prepared for you." as he spoke, his look grew deeper and more searching, like a flame of fire. john weightman could not endure it. it seemed to strip him naked and wither him. he sank to the ground under a crushing weight of shame, covering his eyes with his hands and cowering face downward upon the stones. dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt their hardness and coldness. "tell me, then," he cried, brokenly, "since my life has been so little worth, how came i here at all?" "through the mercy of the king"--the answer was like the soft tolling of a bell. "and how have i earned it?" he murmured. "it is never earned; it is only given," came the clear, low reply. "but how have i failed so wretchedly," he asked, "in all the purpose of my life? what could i have done better? what is it that counts here?" "only that which is truly given," answered the bell-like voice. "only that good which is done for the love of doing it. only those plans in which the welfare of others is the master thought. only those labors in which the sacrifice is greater than the reward. only those gifts in which the giver forgets himself." the man lay silent. a great weakness, an unspeakable despondency and humiliation were upon him. but the face of the keeper of the gate was infinitely tender as he bent over him. "think again, john weightman. has there been nothing like that in your life?" "nothing," he sighed. "if there ever were such things, it must have been long ago--they were all crowded out--i have forgotten them." there was an ineffable smile on the face of the keeper of the gate, and his hand made the sign of the cross over the bowed head as he spoke gently: "these are the things that the king never forgets; and because there were a few of them in your life, you have a little place here." * * * * * the sense of coldness and hardness under john weightman's hands grew sharper and more distinct. the feeling of bodily weariness and lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a lightness, in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the silvery bell-tones. the chimney clock on the mantel had just ended the last stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table. thin, pale strips of the city morning were falling into the room through the narrow partings of the heavy curtains. what was it that had happened to him? had he been ill? had he died and come to life again? or had he only slept, and had his soul gone visiting in dreams? he sat for some time, motionless, not lost, but finding himself in thought. then he took a narrow book from the table drawer, wrote a check, and tore it out. he went slowly up the stairs, knocked very softly at his son's door, and, hearing no answer, entered without noise. harold was asleep, his bare arm thrown above his head, and his eager face relaxed in peace. his father looked at him a moment with strangely shining eyes, and then tiptoed quietly to the writing-desk, found a pencil and a sheet of paper, and wrote rapidly: "my dear boy, here is what you asked me for; do what you like with it, and ask for more if you need it. if you are still thinking of that work with grenfell, we'll talk it over to-day after church. i want to know your heart better; and if i have made mistakes--" [illustration: "god give us a good christmas together"] a slight noise made him turn his head. harold was sitting up in bed with wide-open eyes. "father!" he cried, "is that you?" "yes, my son," answered john weightman; "i've come back--i mean i've come up--no, i mean come in--well, here i am, and god give us a good christmas together." the end produced from images generously made available by the internet archive.) _price, cents_ do the dead return? a startling story from life crown publishing company san francisco [illustration: dr. louis schlesinger.] do the dead return? a true story of startling seances in san francisco _notice_ _this work is copyrighted. editors are warned not to make unlawful abridgments._ crown publishing company san francisco copyright, by crown publishing co. table of contents. page introduction the author's story the "examiner" seance some startling daylight seances character of the narrators introduction. before this little volume is read a few words of explanation should be carefully weighed, for otherwise the reader might go away with many false impressions. the author desires to say that every word here printed is absolutely and literally true. nothing has been added or suppressed, but the entire truth has been expressed, usually in the exact language of the distinguished gentlemen whose narratives make the bulk of the book. in most instances the witnesses summoned wrote their accounts with their own hands, and the original manuscripts are still preserved. though many years have passed since the events recorded herein transpired, all who witnessed the phenomena are still alive, and all are well-known and reputable citizens of san francisco. it was only a few days ago that the author met captain w. s. barnes, who was district attorney of the city and county of san francisco in (the date of the occurrences with which the book deals), and he said: "what i saw in the presence of the medium has puzzled me all these years. i can truthfully say that the things that took place at mayor ellert's office are the most wonderful events that i have ever come upon. they are absolutely beyond my understanding." the circumstances with which the narrative deals are an important contribution to the history of psychic research, and they are presented for what they are worth while the witnesses and actors in the story are alive. the author. _san francisco, september, ._ chapter i. the author's story. in the autumn of , the author of this narrative was business manager of the modesto (california) _daily news_. one afternoon while he was engaged in an important consultation with the late senator j. d. spencer, one of the owners of the _news_, there was a knock at the door of the editorial rooms. in a twinkling an old gentleman entered; he was a venerable-looking, long-bearded man, with hebraic features. before senator spencer and i could say, "good day, sir!" the old man said something like this: "gentlemen, i am dr. louis schlesinger, the famous spiritualist medium. it is well known that i can talk with the good angels, and i desire to have a series of seances here in modesto." "our advertising columns are open," i said, "and we shall be pleased to announce your meetings at the regular rates." "i have no money to spare," he replied; "but i think you will say something about me when i show you that man lives after death." the senator whispered to me (on discovering that the old gentleman was quite deaf), "i guess he's escaped from the stockton lunatic asylum." stockton was but twenty miles away, and i assented, but said, "suppose we sound him before we send for an officer." so we agreed to give dr. schlesinger an opportunity to convince us that he was a man of rare endowments, as he pretended to be. coming to the point, it was arranged that the senator should retire to the press-room while i remained with the aged suspect. "take eight or ten slips of paper," said dr. schlesinger, "and write one name on each--some of living, some of dead persons; and don't tell me or anybody on earth what names you have written on the slips. roll them into little pellets--and come back here with your mind at rest, for i am not insane, as you think." we were somewhat surprised, for both were certain that the old gentleman could not have heard senator spencer's whispered doubt concerning our visitor's sanity. in a few minutes senator spencer returned, bearing a number of paper pellets which he held in his clenched right hand. doors were closed and a table was rolled to the center of the room. dr. schlesinger closed his eyes and appeared to fall into a light slumber. at once there were many distinct raps on the table, as if some one had thumped upon it with a finger. this was rather singular, as we could see that our visitor's hands in no manner touched the table. suddenly the old man opened his eyes and said: "gentlemen, are you satisfied that i do not know any of the names on those papers?" as senator spencer was as truthful and honorable a man as ever lived, one whose word was better than most men's bonds, i replied: "i am sure you have not seen the names and that you do not know one of them." "and some of the names are not known to anybody in california," added the senator. "then i'll have to show you that i can talk with the spirits of the departed," said dr. schlesinger. without further delay he said: "i see the spirit of your mother standing over you. she calls you dillard, which is your middle name, and she says she died in kansas city, and was buried in the old cemetery at westport. am i right?" senator spencer turned pale and said: "that is absolutely correct. which one of the pellets bears her name?" he then held the bits of paper between his right finger and thumb, and when he had picked up three or four of them, the medium said, "that is the one which contains your mother's maiden name." i have now forgotten the maiden name of the senator's mother, though i think it was dillard. the answer, however, was correct. next, without asking me to write anything down, the medium thus addressed me: "i see the spirit of your mother's mother. her name was eliza johnson, and she calls you 'my son,' and says, 'tell anne that immortality is the glorious truth of human life.' anne was the name of her eldest child--your mother." if senator spencer was convinced that dr. schlesinger had told him the truth, i had the same kind of conviction in my case; for every word uttered was correct. i have never understood how this old man came to the results announced, nor have i ever seen any one who was able to explain his power. with the memory of my modesto experiences fresh in mind, i decided, when i came upon dr. schlesinger in san francisco, in , to institute a series of daylight seances in the presence of some of the most distinguished citizens of san francisco. as i was then a writer of the san francisco _daily examiner_ staff i found rare opportunities for enlisting the men desired in the experiments. i was not then, nor am i now, in any manner affiliated with spiritualists, nor do i set forth the facts of this narrative for the purpose of making converts to any theory of mind or matter. the manuscript from which this work is printed was written at the time of the matters recorded, on an order from the _examiner_. owing to the fact that mayor ellert afterwards regretted that he had allowed a seance to be held in his office, the _examiner_ was induced to suppress the story, which now appears in detail for the first time. it should be borne in mind that all that follows was written at the time of the events described. chapter ii. the "examiner" seance. that the reader may fully understand the origin of the experiments recorded in the narrative that follows, it is necessary to state again that i was a writer for the _examiner_ in the autumn of , and that i was on the alert for what newspaper men call "stories," or special articles--things a little outside of the ordinary run of news. ambitious to arrange something of unusual interest, i approached mr. hearst and s. s. chamberlain, who were in charge of the news department of the paper. i told them what i had seen dr. schlesinger do in modesto, and outlined the plans that were afterwards carried out--seances at the office of mayor ellert and the chief of police, in the presence of prominent citizens. first, however, it was necessary for the editors to see the medium at their offices; for they feared there would be some failure, and that the citizens invited would be disgusted because of their loss of time in useless experiments. for these reasons, therefore, the first sittings were at the editorial offices of the _examiner_, where the editors were as much puzzled as anybody else. they were at once convinced that, however he performed his feats, dr. schlesinger was at least not a bungling master of the black art. several intelligent observers were present, among them one or two of the brightest newspaper men in the city. the experiments were not only carefully noted, but they were viewed with grave suspicion. they were, however, wholly informal and merely preliminary to the more important and prolonged seances that followed at the office of the mayor of the city, and later at the office of and in the presence of the city's chief of police. a few facts concerning the occurrences at the _examiner_ office are given that the reader may have the full benefit of the story. one of the investigators (managing editor a. b. henderson) wrote a number of names on slips of paper, before dr. schlesinger arrived. they were not seen or known to any one save the person that prepared them, and the slips on which they were written were carefully folded and clasped in a bundle, by a rubber band or elastic. great pains was taken by mr. henderson to prevent the medium from handling or seeing the slips. without seeing the writing, dr. schlesinger at once gave the names correctly. one of them was that of thaddeus stevens, the eminent pennsylvanian; and when the folded slip on which his name was written was touched by mr. henderson, the medium said: "that is the name of thaddeus stevens, who knew you well. he calls you alexander, and sends you his love." then the name of the sitter's deceased uncle was properly announced, though it had not been written on any of the slips. correct information was also given concerning the uncle's religion while "in the flesh." s. s. chamberlain, now managing editor of the philadelphia _north american_, (then news editor of the _examiner_) was one of the investigators. he wrote down, on separate slips of paper, the names of many living and dead persons, but, contrary to the medium's request, he did not write the names of persons he had ever known. in a few moments dr. schlesinger read the names correctly while the slips were beyond his reach, and firmly clasped in chamberlain's hand. they were of such persons as john ruskin, ralph waldo emerson, shakespeare, longfellow, etc. a faithful report of all that occurred was submitted to the managing editor of the paper, who at once decided that a series of similar experiments, conducted at the office of the mayor of the city and others, in broad daylight, would make the basis for some interesting sunday specials. under his instructions i arranged the seances, and was present at all of them. i subsequently wrote a faithful account of what occurred, but the articles were rejected by the editor of the sunday _examiner_ for personal reasons. this volume embraces the substance of what was then prepared. chapter iii. some startling daylight seances. it was on september , , that a number of the most prominent citizens of san francisco held a daylight seance (at high noon) at the office of mayor ellert. the company had assembled in response to the _examiner's_ invitation, and all of the witnesses had agreed in advance to observe everything closely and write an absolutely fair account of what they saw, adding any theory or explanation that seemed sufficient to account for the phenomena. it is as well to say that is was a mirthful assembly at the outset, and the newspaper man who had arranged for the experiments was the butt of many little jokes. the idea that the medium could do anything more than a little clever juggling seemed farthest from anybody's thoughts. dr. louis schlesinger, then a man about sixty-one years of age, was the spiritualist medium who said he could convince all present that the dead return, and that he could hold communion with the living. the following spectators were present, and the written reports of some of them are given in full in the subjoined narrative: mayor levi r. ellert, district attorney w. s. barnes, president theodore f. bonnet, of the san francisco press club, ex-president grant carpenter, of the same club, h. h. mccloskey, then a state central committeeman of the republican party, and many other casual observers. at another seance chief of police crowley, judge robert ferral, dr. r. e. bunker, and attorney charles l. patton were the principal investigators, though captain wright and many others saw all that was done. at this seance the observations were conducted under the test conditions arranged by chief crowley, dr. bunker, and attorney patton. the reader should satisfy himself concerning the mental and moral qualifications of all the witnesses named by glancing at the biographical sketches elsewhere in this volume. at the mayor's office dr. schlesinger was announced as a resident of no. polk street. he said he knew none of the committee, and nobody present except the _examiner's_ representative knew the doctor.[ ] [ ] he now lives in boston.--editor. "i can converse with the spirits of your deceased friends," said the medium, "and i am giving my life to this work. i gave up a great tea business to teach my fellow men that life does not end at the grave. my home is constantly filled with bands of angels from the celestial depths, but i am able to call a few spirits around any box, table, or desk. i want you to satisfy yourself that all that is done here is absolutely honest." before proceeding further the doctor produced a testimonial from editor will s. green, of the colusa _sun_ (afterwards state treasurer), which explained that dr. schlesinger's performances could not be explained on the theory of trickery. a clipping from the _sun_ of september , , gave an account of matters that had puzzled the people of colusa. the investigations began, therefore, with a great deal of interest, and before their conclusion the old doctor had greatly puzzled all present. they could not tell whether it was some psychic power by which he operated, or whether they had been basely deceived. at his own request, dr. schlesinger was not introduced to any of the persons present. he soon called their names, however, and said they were given to him by the spirits in the raps that all could hear on the desk. the doctor's favorite method of communicating startling information was to have the sitters write, before they came into his presence, fifteen or twenty names of living and dead friends. each name being on a separate piece of paper, the visitors were requested to fold each slip tightly, so as to preclude any possibility of its being read by the medium. this done, the slips, all of equal size, were put into a hat and thoroughly shuffled. the doctor would then say: "pick out any slip yourself, and i will read it without looking and before you yourself know what the name is." there would then be raps, and in a few seconds the doctor would give the name correctly. these names were written and folded in a room apart from the doctor. "granting that there is such a thing as mind-reading," said chief crowley, "i do not think mind-reading would account for what was done for me, because he read things that were not in my mind, telling me my mother's maiden name and where she died." dr. schlesinger calls his gift clairaudient mediumship, and says his right ear is deaf to all terrestrial sounds, but quickened, as with a sixth sense, for communications from the other world. he says he can both see and hear spirits, and that bands of them encircle him, and at times, in the presence of some peculiarly "fit" visitors, manifest themselves with great clearness and power. to prove that the sounds he hears are celestial voices, he does many things which baffle those who witness the strange phenomena which abound in his presence wherever he goes. it was with much difficulty that those who participated in these seances and whose accounts of what they saw are subjoined, were induced to give the medium a hearing. chief crowley was particularly opposed to giving serious attention to what he denounced as "trickery and sleight of hand," and afterwards called "marvelous and beyond power of explanation." finally he wrote down a number of names on separate slips, as explained in the foregoing, and among those names appeared that of his mother--her maiden name. the medium at once told the chief which pellet contained his mother's name, then read it, and in a few moments told where she died and where she was buried. a few minutes later the aged doctor said: "the spirit of detective hutton, who died a violent death, hovers near you." the medium then spoke of matters that were known to nobody but chief crowley and the dead detective. this greatly puzzled the chief, who was later deeply affected over purported messages from a son and others who had been dear to him in life. speaking of the purported message from his dead mother the chief said: "i cannot explain this, which is marvelous, for i do not believe a human being in san francisco knew that my mother's maiden name was elizabeth mccarthy, that she died in new jersey and was buried in new york." chief crowley then wrote down a list of years, among them the year of his mother's death. dr. schlesinger pointed to the year as that of her death. "correct!" replied chief crowley; whereupon the medium said, "and the name of your father, patrick j. crowley, is also here, and he comes with your son lewis, who has not been dead long." the chief thought it the most wonderful performance he had ever seen. "he does marvelous and inexplicable things," said the chief, "and i'll admit i cannot tell how it is done. while i cannot believe he converses with spirits, i am puzzled. i want to see him again and look into the matter further." [illustration: ex-chief of police p. crowley.] the experiments with mayor l. r. ellert, who sprang from his chair and positively declined to be thrown into a trance condition when the doctor requested him thus to visit the spirit world, were fully as startling as those with chief crowley. mayor ellert took a chair in front of his official table, which had thus been dedicated to spiritual uses, and asked if any spirits desired to communicate with him, whereupon the medium grasped his honor's hands and the line of communication with the spirits was declared fully established. quite distinct raps were then heard on the table, and dr. schlesinger looked at the mayor and said: "you are a medium yourself, sir! my, what a power!" the mayor was urged "to sit alone often and be patient," and was told that he could develop much power by such a course. [illustration: hon. l. r. ellert.] mayor ellert then wrote down ten of fifteen names of living and dead friends, on separate slips of paper. he refused to use the paper handed him by dr. schlesinger, but cut up an official letter head which lay on his own desk. as he began to write the names, the medium stepped away and engaged in conversation with district attorney barnes and mr. bonnet at the other side of the room, so that he could not see what mayor ellert wrote. the mayor carefully folded the slips, put them in a hat, and shuffled them. he then brought one forth from the hatful. "that's a dead one," said dr. schlesinger. "open it and see whether i am correct; but don't let me see it." the mayor obeyed the request, and answered, "yes, this is a dead person's name!" "don't let me see it," said the mysterious visitor, "and i'll tell you what it is," whereupon he at once correctly pronounced the name of the mayor's sister, which was not ellert. the mayor then announced that he was unable to explain the phenomena. he watched the medium's movements and convinced himself that there had been no juggling in the shuffle, and said that his visitor out-hermanned hermann. he would leave the solution of the phenomena to others learned in the arts of divination. [illustration: charles l. patton.] the outcome of the seances and the story of what occurred may best be told by those who were present, and the subjoined versions are given:-- attorney patton's story. "i desire to preface what i have to say by remarking that while i have never been nor am i now a spiritualist, nor have i ever before been present at the performance of a medium, yet what i saw of dr. schlesinger's so-called manifestations from the spirit world is entirely inexplicable to me upon any scientific hypothesis with which i am familiar; yet at the same time i must admit that i cannot explain the phenomena exhibited upon any theory of legerdemain or sleight of hand within my knowledge. therefore, i merely state that i have seen, or seemingly seen, and heard the following remarkable things, during the sitting or seance with dr. schlesinger, leaving it to others more competent than i to determine whether they are the manifestations of some psychic force at present unadmitted by scientists or the legerdemain of a sleight-of-hand performer. "the facts are as follows: at the request of the doctor, i wrote eight or ten names of different persons on as many slips of paper, two of the number being dead, and folded the slips in such a manner that the doctor could not read them; and so far as i can judge, the doctor could not have had any method of knowing what names i wrote. i then placed the folded papers in a hat, and one of the other gentlemen present drew them out one by one. the doctor, as each paper was drawn out, asked some question, such as 'guide, is this the one dead?' finally, after all the papers had been held up and the questions asked, some raps on the table, seeming to have indicated according to the doctor that the persons whose names were on two of the slips were dead, i, on examination, found that he was correct in his judgment. he then without (so far as i could see) having had any opportunity to have seen the names, desired me to place the slips with the names on in my pocket. presently he said: 'i see two faces over your shoulder; the name of one is j. b. the other says: "i am glad you have commemorated my name by writing it here," the name is v. c.;' the doctor being correct in naming the deceased person in each instance, and the message being appropriate to the character of the deceased person. i will add, that, so far as i know, dr. schlesinger had no possible means of knowing the name or anything about either person. one of the names, i feel confident, was not known to any person in california outside of myself. "chas. l. patton." barnes was puzzled. district attorney barnes gives the following account of the seance:-- "i was completely surprised at the performance in the mayor's office. it was the first seance i had ever attended, and i must confess that i had not the slightest respect for such manifestations other than a natural admiration for the quickness of the operator. i had always supposed that batteries, wires, a tolerable acquaintance with the sitter, all aided by darkness, were the causes of the effects produced by the medium. in this case, however, the seance took place in broad daylight, and no attempt was made, so far as i could see, to use any mechanical means. the medium sat two or three feet from the mayor's desk, and only touched the desk occasionally with his hand, yet from that desk came the spirit rappings that were clearly audible to all of us in the room. i watched the others write lists of names containing each the name of some dead person, and saw the quickness with which dr. schlesinger picked out the persons who had passed away, and gave messages from them. when it came my turn i wrote a number of names on small slips of paper, folded them and held them in my hand. among these names was that of a classmate of mine at harvard, who died long ago at philadelphia, who had never been in california, and whose name i have not mentioned for years. hardly had i sat down when dr. schlesinger called his full name and gave me a message from him, recalling an occurrence, so far as i am aware, known only to the dead man and myself. to say that i was amazed but feebly expresses it; and when i asked the doctor whence he got his information, he replied, 'it is borne to me on angels' wings.' [illustration: attorney w. s. barnes.] "whether it was or not, it was a most remarkable thing, and deeply impressed upon me that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.' "william s. barnes." seven years after the foregoing was written, mr. barnes expressed himself as still deeply puzzled. "i cannot think of any experience in life so marvelous," he said, "so beyond my power to explain." judge ferral's testimony. ex-judge robert ferral's narrative largely corroborates what the others said. he presents the case in his own way. "having taken a deep interest from early boyhood in exhibitions of a marvelous nature, such as magic, legerdemain, mesmerism, hypnotism, mind-reading, and spiritualism, it was with pleasure that i accepted the kind invitation to visit dr. schlesinger and personally witness his experiments and manifestations. "i found the doctor an aged, venerable man, in a large room, surrounded by a company of ladies and gentlemen, bright, cheerful, and intelligent, all apparently bent upon the rational enjoyment of this life, and happy in the belief of companionable intercourse with the realm of spirits. "retiring to more quiet quarters, consisting of an ordinary bedroom and parlor, the business began without waste of words or loss of time. having written the names of half a dozen persons, living and dead, each name on a separate slip, carefully folded and looking precisely alike, which were tossed into a hat and well shaken up, the doctor proceeded to name the contents of each paper as it was drawn out. occasionally he made a mistake, but in nearly every instance succeeded at the first or second trial. he first separated the living from the dead, without opening the slips, and sometimes not even touching them; then proceeded to give the names. afterward, upon writing place and cause of death, age, occupation, etc., upon other slips, the same result followed. some of the names submitted by me were peculiar, and i believe known to no one else in this city, yet they were announced--read off, as it were--with but little hesitation and generally exactly as written. the same thing occurred as to the diseases and places of death. [illustration: judge robert ferral.] "during this manifestation of his power dr. schlesinger simply formed a circle or chain of hands, connecting with himself, frequently tapped the table, and appealed to an unseen 'guide' for his information. raps were said to have been heard also, but of this i cannot bear testimony. "how was this done? by mesmerism? no; for there was nothing in the nature of sleep or putting to sleep. mind-reading? possibly; although some of the slips of paper were read correctly when the contents were for the time forgotten and unknown to myself. hypnotism? don't know, having but a faint idea how far these phenomena extend. by sharpness of sight, trickery, sleight of hand? i cannot answer, at least for the present, remaining, as before, an agnostic on these matters; unable to give an intelligent explanation, but at the same time not disposed to jeer or scoff at what i do not understand. respectfully, "robert ferral." september , . dr. bunker's narrative. the following is dr. r. e. bunker's account, written at his old office, no. kearny street, just after the seances and while he was still in charge of the city receiving hospital:-- "i saw dr. schlesinger in company with the other gentlemen named, and i saw wonderful things which i am wholly unable to explain. the phenomena, manifestations, or things that occur in the medium's presence are not only interesting, but marvelous. i went possessed of something like eight or ten slips of paper, on each of which i had previously written (at my office) a name of some person i had known--some living, some dead. not a soul ever saw the slips, for i was alone when i wrote the names. furthermore, they were so folded that no one could possibly have read a single name. dr. schlesinger at once picked out the names of living and dead persons, while the slips were held between my fingers and when i did not know what person's name was on the particular slip that i held. he pronounced every name correctly while i held the pellet, or as it lay untouched on his table. "to say that what he did was by the aid of wires or batteries would be to impart to wires and batteries more intelligence than the greatest philosophers have ever possessed. this is no explanation; nor has any one ever been able to explain to me how these things were done. i do not believe it was mind-reading (a term that conveys no intelligent idea to me anyhow), for i did not know the name on the slip under question--not until i afterwards unfolded it and corroborated the doctor's readings. you understand that the entire bunch had been thoroughly shuffled in a hat before any slip was picked up. "to come to specific instances, let me give a few cases as they occurred. on one slip i had written my mother's maiden name, which was not known to anybody in san francisco. it was placed among eight or ten other names of women--some married, some unmarried, some wholly fictitious. all slips were folded alike and placed in a hat under the table, which i held in my hands. dr. schlesinger asked me to pick out the pellets, one at a time and hold them between my finger and thumb. he would say, 'that is not the name, throw it aside;' and so on, until he hesitated at one pellet and said, 'that is your mother's maiden name; it is emily j. laumann.' "the answer was correct, and in a similar manner he read other names and told me all about the persons. i had written the name of dick foster on one slip. foster had died of consumption at the old bella union theater, on june st. the medium did not read his name, but wrote a message backwards--that is, from left to right--very rapidly, and when i held it up to the light with the written surface from me, i could read the following:-- _i am glad to be here, and if i can obtain the appropriate conditions i will show my identity._ _dick foster._ "this was a puzzling thing, and i should like for some one to explain how it was done, if there was not communication with some invisible intelligence. in regard to foster's name it should be said that the medium had not seen nor heard it, and that his hand flew over the paper very fast while he wrote the backward message. so far as i could see, dr. schlesinger was quite deaf and near-sighted. he was an old man of heavy weight and clumsy fingers. his manner was that of a devout believer in the genuineness of his theory. if any one can explain to me how these things were done, he will interest me far more than dr. schlesinger did, and it should be said that my attention to what he did was held without interruption from the start. there were several other like tests wherein he read for me other names by a process equally startling, making one feel that he had marvelous powers. "r. e. bunker, m. d." what mr. bonnet saw. theodore f. bonnet, who was a reporter for the _daily report_ at the time of the seance at the mayor's office, was a guest of the author during the seance. mr. bonnet, who is now editor and owner of _town talk_, an influential weekly newspaper, wrote the following account of what he saw and handed it to the author just after the seance:-- "after witnessing the efforts of dr. schlesinger as a medium, one cannot but be impressed by his marvelous powers of divination. they are impossible of explanation on any hypothesis calculated to reduce his work to the vulgar plane of legerdemain. yet the manifestations, as he is pleased to call his marvelous, puzzling and apparently supernatural revelations concerning matters with which he could not become familiar under ordinary circumstances, are after all, unsatisfactory to the person engaged in testing his power. i must give him credit, however, for having startled me by one message. i had written on small slips of paper, which were then carefully folded--all this an hour or more before the meeting. one of the names was joseph touhill, an oakland burglar, who had been killed by a policeman who caught him robbing a saloon. i had known touhill, and had been quite friendly with him in late years, but had never suspected that he was of the jekyll and hyde species. the medium did not at once direct me to the piece of paper on which touhill's name was written, but afterwards he suddenly said: 'the spirit of the man with whom you wish to communicate is here now.' [illustration: editor theodore f. bonnet.] "i signified my willingness to hear from the spirit, whereupon the doctor said, 'old boy, i'm not quite as dead as you think.' then he mentioned the name of joseph touhill. now, this circumstance deeply impressed me, because the language was so characteristic of the dead burglar, it having been customary with him to address me as 'old boy.' mind-reading will have to be rejected as an explanation, because the doctor subsequently read a name that was on a pellet that i had not opened, and knew nothing about until i subsequently read it. i picked up the pellet from the desk where i had put it with a number of others, and handed it to mayor ellert, who, without examining it, deposited it in his vest-pocket. then came rappings on the table, and the medium said: 'behind you stands the spirit of the man whose name is on that paper. he was an eminent person, and he died far away from here. he is waving a flag over your head, and on it is written the name of victor hugo.' "the name was correct. subsequently the doctor correctly read the name of william cullen bryant, which i had also written. the doctor quoted the spirit of the poet as saying that he was delighted that i was interested in demonstrating that there was a world of spirits. dr. schlesinger's feats are bewildering to the human mind. if he is a mere trickster he possesses in a marvelous way the skill to disguise his character, for his appearance and demeanor are those peculiar to fanaticism or strong faith in a cause. "theo. f. bonnet." mr. m'closkey's version. the following is the narrative of mr. h. h. mccloskey, a resident of merced at the time of the seance, but now a san francisco lawyer:-- "i did not attend the little seance at the mayor's office by appointment. i was on my way to finish up some business and catch the -o'clock boat, when district attorney barnes suggested that i drop in and see the fun. intending to remain but a few moments, i accepted the invitation, and have no reason to regret having done so. as to what happened there, while i remember perfectly well what was done, and kept careful note of all that i saw, i am unable to account for it on any other hypothesis than that the doctor was, as he claims to be, a spiritual medium. at the same time i am not prepared to admit that much. "what i saw i saw clearly; it was real and devoid of illusion. there being no one present but the mayor and thoroughly reputable gentlemen, collusion by which a portion of the events of that afternoon might be accounted for is, of course, out of the question; and neither collusion, mind-reading, nor anything else could account for all that occurred. "the doctor requested me to write on seven slips of paper, one on each slip, the names of six acquaintances, five of whom were living and the sixth dead. on the seventh my own name was to be written. i had never seen the doctor before, and have no reason to suppose that he had ever seen me. i used my own pencil in writing the names, and wrote upon paper furnished by the city and county for the use of his honor the mayor. when writing the names i was twenty feet away from the doctor, and as i wrote upon each slip i folded it up carefully, so that i myself could not see anything of the writing, nor tell one of the seven slips from the others. five of the names were those of intimate personal friends, the sixth of a man whom i knew in a business way, but for whom, while i was not at all intimate with him, i had always a great regard. this man is dead, and has been so for a couple of years. "in obedience to the doctor's request, i placed the seven slips on the table. taking the hand of mr. barnes, i holding the hand of the latter, the doctor proceeded to take the slips one by one from the table. the first he held a second and dropped. the second he handed to me saying, 'this contains your name.' upon opening it i found the doctor to be correct, and asking him what my name was he promptly told us. "i confess i was a little mystified, but the doctor didn't stop there. continuing, he picked up the other slips until the fifth one had been reached. 'this is the name of your dead friend. his name is v. c. w. hooker--not exactly, but a name very similar. i can't quite make it out. he says he will talk to you at another time.' as you saw when i opened the slip it showed as i had written it the name of v. c. w. hooper, a man who was quite prominent in merced during his lifetime. just how the doctor found that out i leave to others who were there to explain when they have time after accounting for the mysterious things that happened to themselves. i cannot and will not pretend to. it was not mind-reading, however. of that i am satisfied. for as he picked up the fifth slip and said, 'this is the name of the dead man,' he did not get that information by reading my mind, for there were two more slips remaining, and i couldn't say which was which. that is beyond any explanation. mind-reading will not fit it at all. "one of the party--i think it was mr. barnes--wrote the name of _two_ dead men in his list. leaving out the first problem--the picking up of the right slip--putting that aside, how is it to be explained that the doctor chose the right name of the two dead ones? mr. barnes did not know. he had not opened the slip; therefore the doctor could not read his mind. for myself, i give up the conundrum. "very truly. "h. h. mccloskey." chapter iv. character of the narrators. to any one who has a fair knowledge of human nature, a glance at the line pictures of the gentlemen who participated in the events with which this book deals will tell that they are men of character and keen observation. in san francisco and throughout the west many of them are as well known as the governor of the state. their names need no introduction, and since they have been representative men for many years it is not necessary to say much about them. for the benefit of persons who know nothing concerning them, however, the following information is submitted:-- patrick crowley, chief of police, was born in albany county, new york, on march , . when quite young he went to new york and worked in different printing-offices. he came to san francisco in , and worked in the mining-camps for two or three years. he was engaged in the boating business here, when in he was elected to the office of town constable on the democratic ticket. he was re-elected on the same ticket in , and from he was re-elected every two years on the old people's party ticket till , when he was elected chief of police. he held that office by election for six years, when he quit the force and went into the brokerage business. in , by an act of the legislature, the board of police commissioners received the power to appoint the chief of police. the office was tendered him, and after considerable pressure he reluctantly accepted it, as he was making an excellent living at his business. he held the office by election or appointment for twenty-four successive years. his wide experience with criminals, bunko-men, and all sorts of tricksters gave him excellent training and amply fitted him for a thorough inspection of all that was done during the seances. in fact, it was his boast at the beginning of his sitting with dr. schlesinger that he had helped to trap the eddies and other disreputable mediums, and that he would soon expose the fraud in the case in hand. william s. barnes, son of the eloquent and famous general w. h. l. barnes (known all over america as the greatest living after-dinner orator, and known all over the united states as a republican orator), is a graduate of harvard and a man of fine legal attainments. he is one of the most prominent native sons, and is famous for his shrewdness as prosecuting attorney for the great city and county of san francisco. it was he who prosecuted and convicted theodore durrant in one of the most marvelous criminal cases of the century. he was also the star lawyer in the prosecution of the great sydney bell footpad case. mr. barnes was the organizer and president of the association of district attorneys of california; is an active member of california lodge no. , f. & a. m., a member of the pacific-union club, also of the union league, of which he is one of a committee on political action, of the juarez manufacturing company, of which he is president. thus his mastery in the legal profession is no less equaled in his social and business associations. attorney charles l. patton is grand master of california masonic fraternity, and is a gentleman of the highest personal and professional character. he was a strong competitor against mayor phelan, and was chosen by the republican party a few years ago as the best candidate against the present ( ) mayor of the city. mr. patton is a man of much erudition and wide experience with men and books. he, like all his associates, and like the writer of this book, was and is a skeptic regarding the truth of so-called spiritual phenomena. his account speaks for itself. mayor l. r. ellert is a man of legal attainments and of wide business interests. he was a popular reform mayor, and was in office at the time of the occurrences narrated. he is to-day one of the best-known and most highly respected lawyers and business men of san francisco. for many years he was a skillful pharmacist, and his wide knowledge of drugs and physiology was useful in the attempted solution of the various problems presented by the medium. judge robert ferral is the warhorse of democracy, and one of the nestors of the california bar. he made some of the most spirited races ever entered upon for congress, and polled the largest vote ever known for an unpopular political party in the old days. as a judge and criminal lawyer of wide experience, as well as by reason of his unexcelled literary attainments and extended experience in the science of hypnotism and kindred phenomena, the judge was an invaluable spectator and participant, especially as his native wit usually enables him to see through many things that puzzle other men. here, however, he stood dumbfounded. dr. r. e. bunker is a regular physician of high reputation and personal standing. he was at the time of the matters recorded in charge of the city receiving hospital, and was considered one of the most careful and competent observers at the seance. like all others named, dr. bunker's word is absolutely above reproach, and there is not a more competent man in the country. theodore f. bonnet was at the time of the seance a reporter for the _daily report_. he was afterwards elected to the important position of license collector, and is now editor and owner of _town talk_. this is one of the best weekly papers in the united states, and its success dates from its purchase by the gentleman named. mr. bonnet is an elk of high standing, and a man of good family and social position. in addition to all these facts, it should be borne in mind that his long training as a reporter fitted him in a peculiarly advantageous way for the duties of trying to detect what was done by the medium. h. h. mccloskey was a casual visitor at the seance, being the guest of district attorney barnes. mr. mccloskey was at the time a resident of merced, and was a prominent lawyer and politician. he was also a republican state central committeeman and was considered one of the ablest of the party. he is to-day a well-known san francisco attorney. his account of the seance explains just what occurred. these facts, with some of the pictures, will give the reader an idea of the men whose narratives he has doubtless read with pleasure. in conclusion, it should be remembered that this book is sold by the publishers only. it will be sent to any address for fifty cents. if you have enjoyed reading it, recommend it to the next friend you meet.