BT 701 . F24 1894 Fallen angels Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/fallenangelsdisqOOunse FALLEN ANGELS FALLEN ANGELS A DISQUISITION UPON HUMAN EXISTENCE AN ATTEMPT TO ELUCIDATE SOME OF ITS MYSTERIES t ESPECIALLY THOSE OF EVIL AND OF SUFFERING BY ONE OF THEM GAY AND BIRD 5 CHANDOS STREET, STRAND LONDON 1894 All rights reserved ‘Instruct me, for thou knowest ; thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss, And mad’s t it pregnant : what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support ; That to the height of this great argument I may assert Eternal Providence, And iustifv the ways of God to men.’ — Milton. For such is His domain, So closely near, so everywhere, All faithful hands can sow some grain. And bring some seed to bear. Duke of Argyll : Poems , 1894. PREFACE Thousands of men and women, oppressed by the travail of life, its inferiority, its empty and unsatis¬ fying nature, are seekers after a rational explana¬ tion why the earth that is the Lord’s with the fulness thereof, should be full of rapine, violence, cruelty, suffering, and misery. 4 What are we, and whence come we ? What shall be our ultimate existence % What is our present ? — are questions answerless, and yet inces¬ sant.’ 1 The thoughts, words, and deeds of man, as chronicled by historians of all ages, and as dis¬ played in our newspapers of to-day, prove that he is but a poor creature. Occasionally he may throw out a sparkle of nobility, the impulsive utterance of a residue of original excellence, latent since the beginning of evil ; for the generation or the accept¬ ance of evil must have been subsequent to a con¬ dition originally pure. We are now imprisoned in its secreted incrustation. Evil has clothed us with a garment of degraded consciousness ; we have closed our eyes to the vileness of it, and love it as 1 Byron. VI FALLEN ANGELS part of ourselves ; but the originally good and bene¬ volent nature now and then coruscates in some deed of self-sacrifice. The love of our fellow-creatures forms part of our original composition, next in worth and honour to the love of the Divine ; and the love of our fellow- creatures can only be perfect when insepar¬ able from that of the Divine, and independent of regard for self The invasion and interpenetration of sin must have been through our own act ; for the God of Love, the All-good, would not have introduced it. Evil environs us ; evil is in us ; and we find it impossible to deliver ourselves from it. It would be well, on many grounds, that more efforts were made to ascertain why man should have to suffer ; for so a nobler belief than generally prevails might follow as to our destiny and respon¬ sibilities. The conviction of our immortality, becoming part of our daily thought, would work as an instinct toward a wise and true life. A poor affair indeed it is, this life of ours, if we choose to regard it subjectively. In some respects it is even grim, ghastly, and terrible. To live objectively, like bird, beast, fish, or butterfly, is perhaps the easiest. But with every one of us time passes ; we become decrepit, and some of us have only ephemeral joys for our retrospection. PREFACE Vll Now, if a man desire to be always cheerful, to be happy under any condition, and that at all times of life, but especially in old age ; and to contemplate with serenity the great change that must arrive, he must seek to have the conditions of his existence assume at least some appearance of the comprehen¬ sible. Creatures lower than he are unable to make any effort toward comprehension of this kind ; but the privilege is open to such souls as, having attained the human, are capable of putting a vital question. The daily labour for the daily necessities of the body are of the duties that lie at our door, and in doing the day’s work there is the day’s reward. The beauties of the growing world and the placid well-being of the lower creation generally, with all innocent delights of the sons of men, rejoice every generous heart ; but miseries are so mixed with them all as sometimes even to obliterate our per¬ ception of them. For these there is no consolation, as from them there is no deliverance but in some insight at least into the surpassing symmetry and resources and intent of the government over us. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we do not die. Habits of true thinking induce peren¬ nial cheerfulness. The following pages have therefore been printed in the earnest desire that they may yield of the Vlll FALLEN ANGELS comfort whence they have sprang to some of such who cannot, except in despair or in a blind faith, submit themselves to the higher administration of the affairs of the world upon which they find them¬ selves. In the city of Despair and its suburbs of Doubt, dwell many of the highly intelligent of our race, numbering amongst them some who have grandly distinguished themselves in various walks of life, but who, while careful to fulfil their personal responsibilities, do not seem to have either time or thought to expend upon things which affect the universal destiny. Of such, on the other hand, as cling tenaciously to any one of the many forms of a blind faith, there are but few capable of nourishing a perfect charity or a comforting hope with regard to others. Both classes are to be respected — the former in its noble discontent, the latter in its fulfilment of its imagined duty. It is, however, to be regretted that both should close, or at least leave unopened, the gates by which truth might enter, and whence surely they ought to issue on the search after it. Progress as the result of intelligent effort is a law of the universe. ‘ Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas The grains of strengthening comfort that I am desiring to sow, will be regarded by a majority with indifference, by some with contempt or pity ; and by PREFACE IX some even with scorn and indignation ; but I am encouraged to hope there may be a few to whom these pages will afford satisfaction, leading them to a further and more exhaustive inquiry into the things here advanced. They are but theses, not propositions. The writer has not the presumption to assert them as truths. Before every one of us lies the termination of our present form of life, inevitable and abrupt— after which, ivhat ? Let those who, in the manly courage but un¬ wisdom of their cairn despair, are possibly sinking to indifference, bethink themselves ; and let the assured, therefore inflexible, devotees remember that there are others who, with conviction equal to theirs, cling to what they condemn. Speaking of the many forms of creed to be found in White¬ chapel, Besant says : c It is difficult to select one which is more confident than another of possessing the real philosopher’s stone, the thing for which we are always searching—- the whole Truth.1 The air, the sea, and all organic Nature is in perpetual motion and change, and shall man alone remain inert ? The future will be the result of the present, as the present is the outcome of the past. In order to form some probable, or say possible, estimate of our future, this work humbly pleads for a more 1 All Sorts and Conditions of Men, chap, xxxvi. X FALLEN ANGELS industrious and liberal research into the past, based upon a free but reverent examination of the present. They are indeed few who look forward with joy to the part they must take in the next life, to becoming freemen of the spiritual world. The common prefixing of the word £ poor ’ to the name of a departed friend is evidence of little or no faith in a better condition. For myself, I can think of nothing more calculated to induce health of mind and body, or to set the fount of cheerfulness flowing, than a right hope for the future based upon a true recognition of the nature of our being. Love to God and to our neighbour is the one safe guide along the path of life. Following this guide, we shall not fear to meet such enemies as may stand by the gate that opens at the other end of it. No enemies will be there who can have any power over us ; nor shall we be afraid of the fellow-immortals with whom in our lower life we were in direct or indirect contact. In the suggestions offered, I would not presume to teach. They are but thoughts humbly presented by a human being to such of his fellows who are, like him, discontented with the inadequacy of this life ; and who would, with himself, but for certain cherished outlooks, or perhaps only hopes, revolt against its sufferings and incapacities. They must, these guesses at Truth, from the very PREFACE XI nature of the subject concerned, involve much that is indefinite ; but it is hoped the inquiry will be followed up by minds of scope, culture, and learning, and by them this pathway through the wild made plainer. If the present essay contribute to conviction in, or even hope of, the reality of an unseen govern¬ ment of absolute power, justice, wisdom, and charity, it will amply fulfil its object. Praying to be saved from presumptuous sins, the author finds abundant encouragement to search into the things that most nearly concern himself and his fellows. His work is a humble attempt to lessen some of ‘ the burden and the mystery Of all this unintelligible world.’ To such as may recoil impatiently from the first aspect of the work, I would respectfully repeat the remonstrance of Themistocles when Eurybiades threatened him with his stick : ‘Strike, but hear me/ ‘ Some theory of evolution is now the working theory of every prominent naturalist, with some dozen exceptions. Whether we like it or not, we must look this fact in the face. Instead of being afraid of it, I am scanning the horizon daily to see if there is not to be discovered a satisfactory theory of evolution. It will be a great day for religion when there is/ 1 1 Professor Henry Drummond in a lecture at Clifton Springs, U.S.A. , in 1887. Xll FALLEN ANGELS My essay is an appeal to my reader to ponder certain matters, and not refuse them a judgment. It is an endeavour so to present certain subjects of surpassing interest that men may be disposed to regard them with the childlike eyes of a true philosophy. No answers to such profound questions as are here dealt with can be capable of absolute demonstration. But ‘ certain considerations are moreover involved in a theory which, though they may not be stated as proofs or as complete argu¬ ments, may yet be presented as recommendations of the theory, from showing that certain substantial advantages attend the reception of it.’ 1 Throughout the work I am suggesting a jDOSsible hypothesis in the hope of stimulating research, not pretending to proclaim a theory founded on sufficient facts. I make no claim to originality. The thoughts of others have been very freely used, and if in any instance the name of an author whose words I have taken has been omitted, I herewith offer due apology for such accidental fault. Once more : the book is but an attempt to convey the result of studies taken up with the desire of finding support in the thoughts of others for con¬ clusions arising from the writer’s own deepest meditation during many years. He claims for it not even a distant approach to completeness. Any 1 R. S. Wyld, LL.D. PBEFACE Xlll representation whatever of the Divine system must necessarily be poor, and altogether fragmentary. Who, possessed of the highest development of human faculty, can depict a rose or a sunset ? ‘ But who can paint like Nature % Can imagination boast, Amid its gay creation, hues like hers ? Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows ? ’ 1 At the same time, the reverent study of Nature may teach the artist ‘ to attain By shadowing forth the Unattainable ; And step by step to scale that mighty stair Whose landing place is wrapt about with clouds Of glory of Heaven.’ 2 I ought to mention that in quoting I have some¬ times, for my own ends, used italics which are not the author’s. 1 From Thomson’s Seasons. 2 Tennyson. CONTENTS PAGE Preface, ........ v Chapter I.— Introductory — The Present, 1 II. — The Ygdrasil Tree, .... 4 III. — Past and Present, ..... 7 IY. — Pilgrims, . . . .11 Y. — Belief of Ancient Sages, . . . .14 YI. — Pre-existence, . . . . .19 YII. — Latent Memories, . . . . .22 VIII.— Suffering, . .30 IX. — Fallen Angels, . . . . .36 X. — God and his Sons, . . . . .42 XI.— Evil Spirits, . 47 XII. — The Mire, and our Extrication therefrom, . . 55 XIII. — Adam, ...... 60 XIV. — Sin, . 64 XV. — The Great Restorer, . . . .70 XYI. — Back to Heaven our Home, . , .76 XVII. — Evolution, . . . . . .80 XVIII. — The Elements and Forces, . . . .86 XIX. — Indestructibility, . . . . .88 XX. — The Upheaval, . . . . .94 XXI. — Animals are Souls, . . . . .99 XXII. — Natural and Spiritual Powers, . . .113 XXIII. — In Process of Change, .... 118 XXIV. — Incarnation and Re-incarnation, . . .127 XVI CONTENTS PAGE Chapter XXV. — The Second Commandment, . . .135 XXVI. — Beings in Bonds, .... 140 XXVII. — Our Education, .... 145 XXVIII. — Organisms, ..... 153 XXIX. — Discipline, . . . . 157 XXX. — Born Bad, . . . . .159 XXXI.— Birth, . 161 XXXII.— Heredity, . . . . .164 XXXIII. — Communities, Nations, Banks, . . 175 XXXIV. — Mystery of Man and of Created Things, . 181 XXXV. — Objections, ..... 185 XXXVI. — Our Previous Existence, and our Kestoration, 190 XXXVII. — Laws of Capability, of Compensation, and of Appearances, .... 202 XXXVIII. — Immortality, ..... 208 XXXIX. — A Lesson for Posterity, . . .211 XL. — Aspirations, . . . . .215 XLI. — Comfort, Consolation, Strength, . . 219 XLII. — Cui Bono 1 224 CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY THE PRESENT Have we any hold upon the Eternities ?— and if any, then to what extent can the connection be problematically, but with reasonable induction, traced ? Such inquiry is surely worth the while of the educated section of those who have arrived at the dignity of this human stao’e of existence ! O We find ourselves upon the surface of this little earth, and are conscious of certain capacities and of certain environments ; but the How, the Why, and the Wherefore have not received the full amount of profound and reverent study that the ineffably intrinsic importance of the subject to ourselves warrants. What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him ? 1 There may be an inherent strength, value, relationship, a residual magnetism latent in our nature, that has not been annihilated even by our follies, and to which we may appeal, on which we may build. An original faculty of growth and acquisition, in its nature limitless, may have become covered in by so many exudations and accretions of false reception and false judgment, that the exercise of the faculty may have become difficult. Freewill is always present, yet not free. Man came forth from the Spirit of the Divine, but, endowed with freedom to choose between good and evil, 1 Psalm viii. 4. A 2 FALLEN ANGELS swerved from the purity and beauty of absolute com¬ munion with his Origin ; by accretion upon accretion of pride and vanity, his perspicacity became enfeebled ; the scope of his perceptions, the freedom of his thought, the reach and power of his grasp, were immensely diminished. The action of the lower creatures is cribbed and cabined, at the same time that it is developed, by their environment ; happily, while man remains thus oppressed and unde¬ veloped, his action likewise is confined within narrow limits. The lower animals are subject to unseen, unappreciated influences. Thousands of sheep ranging over the vast plains of AVoolnorth, in Tasmania, have their fate deter¬ mined by six old gentlemen meeting fortnightly in London : these sheep are nowise aware of such dominion over them ; are unconscious of the orders that change their pasturages, and the laws that rule their shearing; the whole system and term of their sheep-life are in the hands of the potent, grave, and reverend directors of the Yan Diemen's Land Co., whose office is 11,000 miles distant from them. The savage tribes of Africa are equally unaware of the hidden, impalpable influences working to ameliorate their condition through the lines of geographical distinction drawn around them by far-off European forces. Beyond and over us all, in like manner, are the powers and influences of the unseen universe. To the very living of our life it is necessary that we should have outlook enough to be cheerful : it is with the hope of increasing the cheerfulness of the world, of helping toward its contentment, serenity, hope, and even joy, that these pages are being written. This, our present stage of existence, may appear — and to those to whom it so appears, it is — in many of its aspects, grim, ghastly, and terrible ; but there are many and full compensations, and ‘ things are not what they seem.5 THE PRESENT 3 Nevertheless, it is a merciful Providence that has made this life short. ‘ All things transitory But as symbols are sent ; Earth’s insufficiency Here grows to Event ; The Indescribable, Here it is done ; The Woman-Soul leadeth us Upward and on ! 5 ‘ Here ' means in the Spiritual World. The song is that of the Chorus Mysticus, which ends the concluding part of Faust — a poem seeming to me second only to the Book of Job. CHAPTER II THE YGDRASIL TREE ‘Anima est forma substantial^ hominis.’ Thomas Aquixas : Qucest. 76. 4. The head-gaoler of Lewes gaol stated to the writer that the prisoners condemned to the treadmill loathed their employment especially because it was aimless and unpro¬ ductive : are there not thousands of honest men also who fulfil their necessary daily toil perfunctorily and without enjoyment ? They have the honour of contributing their share of the world’s labour, but have nothing of the con¬ tentment that would accompany the consciousness that they were contributing an atom to the structure of the Divine System through which each is involved in an Eternity past and future. The Ygdrasil tree of the ancient Scandinavian legend had its roots in the earth — the past ; its trunk in the air — the present ; and its branches in the heavens — the future. If a reasonable conviction prevailed with a man that, in addition to his relation to the present, he had an un¬ avoidable part in the vast eternities between which the present stands, how much more nobly, and with what an augmented zest, would he not accept his responsibilities ? 4 He that would earn his freedom and existence Must daily conquer them anew.’ While incorporated in this passing show, we are not in freedom; we have to maintain a perpetual struggle against the degradations into which the world, the fleshy THE YGDRASIL TREE O and the devil would drag us. The five senses are con¬ stantly seeking satisfaction in the phenomena of appear¬ ance — in sight, sound, taste, smell, and feeling ; but these can never be enough — ‘ The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear tilled with hearing.’ 1 The instinct of the soul demands something more. In receiving merely there is no satisfaction, no repose. True rest is to be found in pro¬ gress, in something attempted, something done, that is of value to the universal. Let us ‘act that each to-morrow Find us further than to-day.5 To the incessantly occupied brain- worker the clolce far niente may be useful and pleasant for a change, but only for a change. Even in a common walk, there is more health when it has some aim or goal; how much more strongly may the statement be made when it has regard to the walk of life ! Although ‘ The proper study of Mankind is Man,5 there has been less determined research into our origin, existence, and destiny than into any of the natural sciences. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Darwin and others who have laboriously worked out the truth of the evolution of the body. The body is, however, but the vital wrappage or envelope of the man. It is the in¬ visible personality, the Soul, the Will, which alone has permanent, indestructible life. In it lies all action, its operation and direction. Not a hammer of itself strikes any anvil, nor does any arm of blacksmith wield one; neither of itself runs the mystic electric servant that carries the message of motion. The message issues from the Soul ; nerve and arm and hammer but give effect to 1 Eccles. i. 8. 6 FALLEN ANGELS the Will, the motive living force. Unless a live will aimed at some object, action would not be. The balance of judgment is in favour of this human life being worth living. Doubts do arise, but habits of experi¬ ence, become instinctive, overcome such pauses, as the c dead points ’ of an engine disappear in the swing of the fly-wheel. It is true that the influences stimulating to effort are and must be, with the majority, of a lower order, apt to become debased ; but there can be little doubt that the general Motive has in it a far larger amount of grow¬ ing nobility than it contained five hundred years ago. It has long appeared to me that the conditions of life would be much more intelligible, acceptable, and stimu¬ lative to action, if men held the theory that they had a history previous to their introduction into this world. I now endeavour to set forth the grounds on which I hold to this idea. CHAPTER III PAST AND PRESENT ‘ 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. ’ — Wordsworth. Jesus Christ lived before the earth was formed, and yet He came into this human stage as a baby, just as we come — ‘ born of a woman, born under the law.’ He called Himself * the Son of Man.’ He died, and rose again. ‘I came forth from the Father and am come into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father.’ We expect also to die and rise again, and enjoy a life to follow this : — why should we not also have lived before, like our Type, our Elder Brother, the Perfect Man ? His pre-existence accepted as a truth, why should ours appear impossible ? ‘ No man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven : ’ is not this saying true with regard to Enoch and Elijah as well as with regard to Christ ? Why not, then, with regard to others whose mode of ascent may be different ? A theologian may reply that we cannot like Him have come down from heaven, because we were conceived in sin and born in iniquity. This I at once admit ; but, with the admission, put the questions, When first did we sin ? and, How did we come to be thus conceived in sin and born in iniquity ? It is obvious to me that it must have 8 FALLEN ANGELS been at some period antecedent to our birtli upon earth that we first sinned, and that that alone can account for the statement that we were born in sin. The assertion that men are punished by their Creator for the misdeeds of their parents will not bear examination. The supreme Judge is surely more merciful, because more just, than any terrestrial magistrate ; and in no country, under no form of government except the most licentious and tyrannical, are men punished for sins they never committed. It is weak and outrageously fanciful to attribute so palpable an injustice to the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever¬ lasting Father, the Prince of Peace. God is our Father, and God maketh all things good, and still it is true that we have entered on this life as sinners. ‘ All have sinned.’ Children, at a very early age, begin to develop cruel, selfish, and even malicious habits, suggesting some sort of acquaintance with the life and habits of the lower animals. They have to be coercively instructed which way they should go, so that when they become old they should not depart from it. Of children who have been allowed to have their own way, it is commonly said that they have been ‘ badly brought up.’ It is God who hath made us, and not we ourselves ; and God would not originally create anything imperfect or deformed, still less anything criminal. That He should create us capable of falling Avas even essential to our com¬ pleteness ; for He Avould have us live creatures Avith free Avills, no automatons or dolls ; and from this freedom of choice springs of necessity the possibility of sliding into evil. The first thought of having value or Avorth in our¬ selves, apart from Him Avho made us, Avould be but the first step, and the cause of every subsequent step in de¬ terioration and loss of light, strength, and love. Upon that first step must folloAv degradation after degradation, until our original condition Avas forgotten in the blindness PAST AND PRESENT 9 hiding our present from us. ‘ Nemo repente turpissimus fuit.5 So, too, many stages of spiritual condition must be passed through on his way from the depth upward, before the returning prodigal can cry out, in the hope of restora¬ tion however distant, ‘ Thou art my refuge, because thou art my home ! ’ All admit that lower creatures have passed through gradations of ascent : why exclude man from the idea of an educational progression that shall restore his fitness to inhabit his lost home, his native country ? The perishing, changing, material, chemical part of us, our development outwardly, is from our earthly parents — the media through whom we are passed into this middle condition of being— but we are not from them. ‘ The body is yours, not you,’ declared Isocrates two thousand years ago. Our permanent individuality, always a spirit, fives temporarily in its bodily tabernacle. The latter has had earthly parents : the former had long since, and still has, one Divine Parent. Both the spiritual and the ma¬ terial being are liable to influences and to modifications ; both are acted upon by substances and forces external to themselves : but the original invisible spiritual being has no heredity of corruption like the visible bodily being. The sin, with the degradation and consequent obliquity of perception it has induced, arose from the waywardness of our wills, from the proud estranging of ourselves from the Divine Father. As there are some who at once refuse any novel proposi¬ tion unsupported by recognised facts, it may be well here to recall the concluding^ exhortation of Mr. Gosclien at his in- auguration as Lord Lector of Edinburgh Lmiversity: ‘ I ask you to consider as one of the most precious faculties which Providence has implanted in the human breast, that of wise, sympathetic, disciplined, prospective imagination.’ Declaring 10 FALLEN ANGELS himself somewhat antagonistic to a merely lively imagina¬ tion, Mr. Goschen defines as follows : — 4 This constructive imagination takes its start from facts, but it supplements them, and does not contradict them. It is a faculty the conceptions of which probably present truer pictures than those afforded by knowledge of fact alone — vivid, truthful pictures which knowledge of fact alone would not enable us to paint. It is employed sometimes retrospectively, when the aim proposed is to bring together and to depict conditions which no longer surround us, to lead our foot¬ steps backwards through the ages ; sometimes prospec¬ tively by those who would lead us forwards, who would “ dip into the future, as far as human eye can see,” and construct for us a vision of the days to come, and of con¬ ditions which are not yet existent.’ CHAPTER IV PILGRIMS 4 Loved ones have gone before, Whose pilgrim days are done. ’ Bennett. This life is constantly described as a pilgrimage. The place from which the pilgrim starts, and to which he expects to return, is naturally Home. As strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, we must elsewhere have a home, and from that have commenced this life’s journey. No one is so foolish as to imagine this world our home, or our pilgrimage from door to door of the house of our birth. The Scriptures frequently refer to our being ‘ strangers and pilgrims upon the earth ; ’ the Psalmist says, ‘ in the house of my pilgrimage.’ Jacob speaks to Pharaoh of his earthly life as the years of his pilgrimage, and of the lives of his fathers as pilgrimages.1 ‘ Life is a fragment, a moment between two eternities, influenced by all that has preceded, and to influence all that follows. The only way to illumine it is by extent of view.’ If, therefore, while on earth we are on a pilgrimage, it seems to me difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have lived before. For this essential stage, our human career, we, that is, our real selves, occupy a moveable house — a tent rather, 1 Refer Gen. xlvii. 9 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 15 ; Ps. xxxix. 12, cxix. 19 ; Heb. xi. 13 ; 1 Peter ii. 11. 12 FALLEN ANGELS as St. Paul calls it — namely, the house of the body, adapted to all the conditions, and for all the experiences, that have to be encountered during its period. This habitation of the soul is the best possible for us during this career, and when that is over the house is forsaken — or say dismissed : we pass from it, ‘ leaving door and windows wide,’ when it shares the fate of any other house abandoned by its inhabitants, falls to decay, becomes disintegrated, and disappears. This body is the organised semblance by which we appear to the consciousness of other beings similarly clothed for our recognition. It is a thing of growth, and there can be no growth without an invisible , intangible, immaterial something that is inappreciable by any of the senses, but appreciable through those senses. This im- palpable reality must exist already in order to gather to itself the body : the invisible is the real : the material only subserves its manifestation. ‘ Our days upon earth are a shadow,’ 1 of which we are the substance. Professor Tyndall has exhaustively proved by patient and prolonged experiments that, in the most favourable circumstances, neither can man create, nor any kind of matter possibly produce, even the lowest form of life. Thereto antecedent life is essential. The long-trained ingenuity of man is capable of producing a house, a ship, a locomotive, an electric light : but even the dress of a lily of the held is beyond the production of the highest human potency. A lily is the result of a productive force, in kind as well as in degree, beyond the highest construc¬ tive imagination of humanity- — yea, itself altogether beyond its conception. Professor Huxley has pointed out that all protoplasm is similar, whether of man, of animal, or of vegetable ; yet 1 Job viii. 9. PILGRIMS 13 the development from the one kind of protoplasmic cell is infinite in variety. It is the unseen vital principle that models the visible representative form ; the form itself is nowhere until thus modelled. Who, then, but the Almighty Father sends out of the spiritual world into each mass of protoplasm its special soul ? Like, it is true, begets like ; but only mediately, as an instrument, not as a creator. No man can foretell of what sex or character his offspring will be. Must the existence, not to say the character, of a child depend upon the mere chance rencontre of two of opposite sex ? Can such a notion be righteous towards the Divine ? Surely not ! the child has lived before, has become tainted, and is passed into this life for its regeneration. ‘ Call no man your father upon the earth ; for One is your Father, which is in Heaven.’ 1 The child is born in sin with no concurrence of its parents in, or responsibility of its parents for, the suffering to which it is heir ; it inherits not from them, but from its own previous actions. The parents are no more account¬ able for the character than for the faculties or sex of the child put under their care. What they are responsible for is its nurture, its education, and so much of the bent of its character as comes from association with them, and from the influences to which they knowingly submit the child. Thomas a Kempis had a profound conviction of each one of us being now in a state of banishment in this miser¬ able life. ‘ Hear the prayer of thy poor servant, who is exiled far from thee in the land of the shadow of death.’ 2 The children of God, the brethren of Christ, are not flesh and blood, but, with Christ himself, 'partakers of flesh and blood.’ 3 They are pilgrims and strangers here. 1 Matt, xxiii. 9. 2 Imitation of Christ, Book i. chaps. 13 and 17 ; Book ii. chap. 12 ; Book iii. chap. 59. 3 Heb. ii. 14. CHAPTER V BELIEF OF ANCIENT SAGES ‘ Fools, who think aught can begin to be which formerly was not, or that aught which is, can perish and utterly decay ! Another truth I now unfold : No natural birth is there of mortal thing, nor is death’s destruction final. Nothing is there but a mingling, and then a separation of the mingled, which are called a birth and death by ignorant mortals. ’ Empedocles. Although, in the vanity or egotism of self-satisfied superiority, the cynic of modern times is prone to regard the deliberated opinion of ancient sages with contempt, it is none the less desirable that we should ascertain the views of great and good men of the old time. ‘ Every soul of man has from its very nature beheld real existence, or it would not have entered into this human form. The soul which has never seen the Truth cannot enter into the human form ; for it is necessary that a man should understand according to a generic form which, proceeding from many perceptions, is by reasoning combined into one. And this is the reminiscence of those things which our soul formerly saw when journeying with the Gods, despising the things which we now say are, and looking up to that which really is.’ 1 The equivalent to Satan and his revolt is found in Egypt as the story of Typhon, in Greece as the war of the Titans. All may have had the same origin from a revela¬ tion to early mankind. The Pythagorean and Platonic schools and the Greek 1 Socrates. BELIEF OF ANCIENT SAGES 15 mythologists believed in metempsychosis; but did not debase themselves, like the Egyptians and the modern Hindus, to worship souls occupying bodies of a lower range than their own. Dr. Burnet, in his Archceologia, asserts that the account that Moses gives of Paradise before the fall is not fact but allegory. The same statement is made by Emmanuel Swedenborg, but the question does not require discussion here. Pythagoras taught that we had our origin in Heaven ; that we were emanations from the Supreme Being which assumed grosser forms as they receded from their source ; that before the soul can be received back to the home from which it first proceeded, it must undergo successive purgations until sufficiently purified, and to this end must be incarnated and re-incarnated as man or in forms lower than the human. He held that the forms of incarnation and their capaci¬ ties frequently change ; but that the eternal self continues, even though the soul may ‘ shrink and shrivel itself into an incapacity of contemplating aught but the present moment ; ’ and that each soul has its peculiar evil tastes, bringing it to the likeness of different creatures beneath itself, whereby it may well come under the necessity of assuming and abiding in the condition of that creature to whose nature it has assimilated itself. Hence it would follow that every form of life is but a variable manifesta« tion of the invariable essence. Origen,1 one of the most illustrious of the ‘ Christian Fathers,’ taught that the souls of men exist previous to conception, and are condemned to animate mortal bodies in order to expiate evils committed in their pre-existent state. He held also the doctrine of the universal restora¬ tion of the lost after necessary punishment. He supposed, 1 a.d. 250. 16 FALLEN ANGELS with Plato, that all souls were created at one time, and their bodies subsequently adapted to them. Justin Martyr, and many other fathers of the Church, were of the same belief as prevailed among the more learned of the Jews at the time when Jesus was on earth; namely, that the souls of men were created by God long anterior to the birth of the bodies for which they were destined. A striking instance of this conviction is afforded in the narrative of our Saviour’s miracle of the gift of sight to the man who had been born blind. His disciples put the question to the Lord, ‘ Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he Avas born blind V It is obvious that the question implies a not uncommon belief, whether their oAvn or not, that such a congenital lack might be the con¬ sequence of sin committed by the man himself — committed, therefore, in a state of existence previous to his association Avith the body he then occupied. In His ansAver, our Saviour does not deny the reasonableness of the sugges¬ tion ; says only that the infirmity had been imposed that the hand of God might be recognised in the cure of it. Ennius as Avell as Pythagoras believed in the transmigra¬ tion of souls. Aristotle held that, Avhen a human infant is born, a soul from above is supplied to the earthly form. The previous existence of souls iioav on earth is assumed in many parts of Plato’s books. He has no doubt that Ave bring Avith us to this earth some of the features or qualifi¬ cations of our former life.1 The tenets of previous existence and transmigration are supported, then, by the belief of such thoughtful men and 1 ‘Yet Plato calls it eternal, telling How its original lofty dwelling Was among the stars, till, fairly repining At eternally turning a pivot and shining, Heaven it cpiitted To dwell unpitied In a fleshly mansion . . . ’ Buchanan : The Undertone . BELIEF OF ANCIENT SAGES 17 seekers after God as Pythagoras, Empedocles, Euripides, Plato, Socrates, Euclid, Philo, Virgil, Cicero, Plotinus, and Proclus. That the ancient philosophers were more or less under the inspiration of God was the view of many of the early Christian preceptors, including Athanasius of Alex¬ andria ; and, in the same belief, St. Basil urged upon his pupils the great importance of the study of the Greek writers. Edwin, king of Northumbria, a.d. 627, urged to become a Christian, is reported to have said in a speech on the occasion : ‘ So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before , or what is to follow, we are ignorant.’ The ancient Druids held the doctrine that the soul has fallen from a previous state of light and happiness, and that it has to pass through successive stages to regain its lost position. Mede, in his Mystery of Godliness , says the reasonable doctrine of pre-existence is a key to some of the main mysteries of Providence which no other can unlock. Among others who have maintained the doctrine of our pre-existence are Robert Dodsley, the well-known author and publisher of last century; Sir Harry Vane; Joseph Glanvil, Rector of Bath in 1662 ; Rev. C. Berrow, 1762 ; and Bishop Warburton. The following verse is from Elizabeth Rowe’s Hymn on Heaven : — ‘ Ye starry mansions, hail ! my native skies ! Here in my happy, pre-existent state, (A spotless mind) I led the life of gods. — But passing, I salute you and advance, To yonder brighter realms allowed access.’ A sentiment of pre-existence is attributed to Sir Walter Scott, in support of which reference may be made to his B 18 FALLEN ANGELS Journal , Feb. 17, 1828; and to Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal , No. 93, new series. In the life of Shelley there are strong indications of his belief that infants are beings just arrived from some anterior state of existence. A quotation from one of the most popular works of Lord Lytton may in this regard be of interest : — ‘ And while he gazed wonderingly upon the gallery to the left, thin, mist-like, aerial shapes passed slowly up ; and when they had gained the hall they seemed to rise aloft and to vanish as the smoke vanishes in the measure¬ less ascent. . . . “ And what,” said the voice of Arbaces, “ are these galleries that, strangely and fitfully illumined, stretch on either hand into the abyss of gloom ? ” “ That,” answered the giant-mother, “ which thou beholdest to the left is the gallery of the unborn. The shadows that flit onward and upward into the world are the souls that pass from the long eternity of being to their destined pilgrimage on earth.” ’ 1 1 Last Days of Pompeii. CHAPTER VI PRE-EXISTENCE The inquiry, then, upon which we are now engaged is not a new one. Our contention is that, for reasons to be more fully developed as we go on, it claims more attention than it has yet received in modern times and in Christian countries. Not only was faith in a previous existence promulgated by many of the wisest and best of the ancient philosophers, but at the present moment it is cherished unquestioned by upwards of two hundred millions of our fellow-men. It is true that the religions of Buddha and Brahma are regarded with contemptuous pity by many whose Christian principles and habits of life have furthered civilisation and material success ; but those ancient systems must have had some noble origin and possess much excellence and truth to have held sway for so many centuries. This is fully recognised by Dr. Fairbairn in his recent work, The Doctrine of Morality. Whilst the interior conviction that they have lived before and will live again, no doubt entering their minds as to their immortality in one form or another, is to Orientals an abiding comfort, most Europeans think it not worth their while to occupy any of their busy time with a consideration of the subject. Most Englishmen will accept the favourite maxim of Carlyle and Kingsley, ‘ Do the duty that lies nearest to thee,’ and regard it as sufficing ; but man cannot live upon bread alone, and for the health of 20 FALLEN ANGELS the whole being there must be something to interest beyond the details of the round of labour. Some, therefore, may be found who will take up the inquiry as a recreation for their leisure hours, while a few may come to find it exercise a serious influence on their life and conduct. They are indeed but a very limited minority who take any thought as to why they exist, whence they come, where they are, how they live, whither they are going — yea, even as to who, that is, of what sort, they are. Those who most pride themselves on being practical men are the most indifferent as to the bases and realities of their existence, and most devote their energies to the things that cannot remain but must pass — turning life into a vain show, indeed, by dealing only with its shadows. They do their part of the necessary work of the external world ; let us be grateful to them : for them, they are content to have found themselves alive on the earth. As to where they and their bodies came from, and how they were united, they are so profoundly indifferent that they do not even recognise the ignorance which drives another to ponder and speculate. They care for none of these things. Some of them may indeed cast an occasional thought in the direction of their origin and history, but only to turn away again, as an ordinary labourer might turn from a magneto-electric machine, or a treatise on its motive force, its volts and ohms. Astronomers, who interest themselves in the past, present, and future history of the heavenly bodies, are not only regarded as men of ability, but men who employ their time worthily : of how much more importance to us are man’s origin and destiny than those of a comet ! Happily, the few are increasing who cherish the belief that, of all the sciences and knowledges essential to the conduct of human life, not one has such a practical bear¬ ing as Theology, the study of God’s dealing Avith man. PRE-EXISTENCE 21 God is our Father — that is, the Creator of our real selves, the souls which are we. For the development and exercise of love; for mutual dependence and protection ; for the growth and strength¬ ening of a sense of responsibility with regard to the offspring, a certain system has been divinely instituted — not for the creation, but for the procreation of children. Marriage is honourable in all ; the parents nowise sin against their infants in becoming their parents ; their infants are nowise wronged by them, for they are not made sinful by being born through them. That the existence of our self preceded its enclosure in a physical tenement, may be at least illustrated by the word of the Lord to Jeremiah: ‘ Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee : and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee.’ By such sympathetic recognition of him as his own offspring, the Lord encourages the prophet at the commencement of the arduous and dangerous task that lay before him, grounding on the deepest of all possible relations between them the exhortation, ‘ Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee.’ It is God who determines the entry of any soul into its prepared body. Man generates but the case or receptacle. ‘And / will make thy seed as the dust of the earth.'1 The breath of life is distinct from the body, both in animals and in men : ‘ All flesh wherein is the breath of life ’ : ‘ All in whose nostrils was the breath of life.’ 2 1 Adam ’ (red earth) was formed first out of the earth, a body ; then God breathed into it, ‘ and man became a living soul: 3 The body was made ready, and then the soul was sent into it. As with Adam, so it is now. Genesis xiii. 1(>. - Ibid. vii. lo, 22. s Ibid ii. 7. CHAPTER VII LATENT MEMORIES ‘ Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.’ Paradise Lost, Book ii. 582. The proposition of man's existence previous to his present manifestation lies open to many objections. Perhaps the chief of them is that we have no remembrance of such an existence. It may naturally be urged that, if man lived before, surely there would have remained in him some memory of that life ; and that the fact without any memory of it could be of no educational or deterrent value in this his new state of existence. In a word, either such pre-existence was not, or, being forgotten, is useless. Before proceeding further in our affirmative argument, it will be well to consider what answer we can give to this very important objection. Jesus Christ, when in his earthly condition, environed like ourselves with the flesh, did not make manifest much reminiscence of his previous state. He lived before his advent into this world, and now lives beyond it. He was man. We are men. ‘I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God.’ We too hope to return to our Father in heaven. Our dust shall return to the earth as it was, and our spirit unto God who gave it,1 1 Eccles. xii. 7. LATENT MEMORIES 23 Milton, in his Paradise Regained, more than implies that his previous life was hidden from our Saviour during his early youth, while none the less he rejoiced in the divine instincts within him. The Rev. James Stalker, M.A., has very recently with reverence raised a similar view.1 Those who carefully study the Miltonian text, compar¬ ing it with Scripture, will find nothing to justify a charge of heresy in this representation. It is to be noted that, in his Paradise Lost, Milton completely recognises the Divine Sonship, and constantly refers to his exalted posi¬ tion in Heaven previous to his brief sojourn upon earth as the Son of Man, during which, according to his later poem, the Lord had no complete memory of his former state. This view is accordant with many a passage in holy writ : he 4 was in all points tempted like as we are.’ In the romance, entitled Erewhon — a book which, I may remark, was a favourite with the Chevalier Bunsen — it is represented that, in coming from the spirit-world into the human condition, beings are aware that their past career will be hidden from them. None of us can remember events in which we were concerned during our earliest years in this world. Our parents tell us many things concerning those years which therefore we believe, but of which we have no personal knowledge whatever. ‘ There is evidence, and evidence of the most positive character, that memory for a definite period of time is lost.' 2 A child of three years is taken to a foreign country for two or three months. He exhibits intelligence, and con¬ sciousness of the change in his environment, but, making- no effort to lay up memories of those days, has, after ten or twenty years, no recollection of those months of his Imago Christi (1S93), p. 161. - J. Eridge Green, in Memory, chap. iii. 24 FALLEN ANGELS existence. A boy is bom in Sweden, and talks and under¬ stands the language of that country. At six years of age he is taken to Paris or London, and his connection with Sweden entirely ceases. Within ten or twenty years, every memory of the language of his earlier years has vanished. Not only is a portion of our infant-life in every case unknown to us, but a similar blank often occurs, although generally for a short period, in our later years. The use of an anaesthetic agent will seem to have destroyed for us minutes or hours of existence, while there is yet abund¬ ance of proof that, although we have forgotten what passed through our minds, we were anything but unconscious during the period. Days, weeks, even months of what is called unconsciousness, but which are only in reality a blank in the memory, occur in many cases of accident or illness. As, then, it is well established that there may be no remembrance of transactions in which we have taken part while in the human body, the absence of any memory of a pre-existence can be no proof that such has not been passed through by us : it might well be forgotten in the very different conditions of our new embodiment. In the several cases of infantile undevelopment, of the use of anaesthetics, and of insensibility through accident or disease, understanding and memory subsequently arrive or are restored, but the moments in question remain a blank. When we wake from sleep, also, we often know that we have dreamed, but do not know of what ; which gives ground for thinking it possible that, while so much of our sleep-life seems nothing but lost, it was yet never without its dream-consciousness. Death is frequently referred to in Scripture as a sleep. We arise from sleep, and we arise from death. We may have awaked from a previous death into our present stage of existence. And it may be that not only all our past LATENT MEMORIES 25 life in this world — even such parts of it as cannot be now recalled by the memory — but such life also as we may have passed in previous stages, will, when we are transferred by death to the next stage of our existence, be unfolded to us by the removal of physical obstruction, or, as regards what may have been antecedent to this life, by the vivification of the memory through the rebeholding of an environment once familiar to us. As far as we are able to discern, the butterfly gives no thought to, nor has any knowledge of, having previously been alive as a caterpillar — that is, of having had an earlier existence in another condition ; yet its butterfly life is the continuation of its caterpillar life. In the intermediate chrysalid form there is an apparent closing out of all external relations, and probably its caterpillar experience is forgotten : yet the creature is the same creature ; it lives with the same life as before, although consciousness of having known other conditions has been taken away. Therefore, present consciousness of the continuity of dif¬ ferent conditions is not necessary to such continuity, and still less is any clear memory of what is past. The butter¬ fly is unaware of previous facts concerning its own indi¬ viduality, yet remains the same being, else were the relation of his two shapes without significance. To the same vitality a new form has been adapted, and the creature gathers the harvest of an expanded experience. For aught we know to the contrary, the same vital prin¬ ciple may have had yet an existence and embodiment antecedent to its caterpillar condition : and man may have lived before knowing himself in this terrestrial body. Dante seems to recognise a former stage of existence in what he says to Casella, who has asked him why he is travelling : ‘ My Casella,’ he answers, ‘ I make this journey in order to return again there where I am.’ 1 1 Purgatorio, ii. 91, 92. 26 FALLEN ANGELS There may well be final causes, divine reasons, for our oblivion of such state or states. It may be it would be injurious to the individual, and if to the individual then to the race, to remember during the present stage that which went before. There is no absurdity in the supposition that the creating and redeeming Power may, for the true working of his plan of restoration, have so provided that, for man to 1 forget the days before, God shut the doorways of his head.’ 1 The recollection of some past episodes of our history might possibly fill us with such horror as to paralyse effort and sink us in despair, or might bring a renewal of the tempta¬ tion whose victory rendered necessary an utter change of our condition. Does no one, even in this brief life, cherish the thought of past sinful pleasures ? Do we never recol¬ lect with complacency some pride of this life, some lust of the eye, some victory of the flesh or the world ? Again, the memory of our far-past would of necessity interfere with the work of this earth. It would be a hindrance and not a help to the labour of the day, to the needful rest of the night. For these, or some similar rea- sons, is the record of our foregone evil career, whether in the spirit or in some form of flesh, closed to us. That we had such a career, and that it was evil, is evident from our being born sinful, and from our need of cleansing. But if memory of it were with us now, our past misconduct would be known to others, and we should be wretched in the knowledge that it was so, and the fact would deprive fresh opportunity of much of its value. It is enough that God knows our sins, and it is of the mere}' of the Father that such old memories should for this world lie quiescent. Certainly there might be reminiscences 1 In Memoriam, xliv. LATENT MEMORIES 27 of good as of evil.1 Our Saviour had no previous history but of the purest, most beautiful, most divine ; and of many who have sinned the memories would not be all of evil. Wordsworth may be right in representing us as occasionally charmed with visionary recollections of a happier time long left behind us : — 4 Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore : ’ except, however, where it will arouse to healthful effort, retrospect is useless ; a self-pitying, indolent retrospect is at any time worse than useless. Power comes of looking forward to better things. 4 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’ 2 Our powers of reminiscence are most probably in abeyance only, to revive at once when we 4 burst the flesh to live the spirit ; ’ but if we had now full memory of our previous life, it might be injurious, as adding an unnecessary burden to the weight we have to lay aside. When prisoners are herded together in gaol, they con¬ taminate one another. They experience an unhallowed pleasure in recalling and narrating their old misdeeds, and especially their successful infractions of the law. Suggestion and opportunity easily induce weak men to return to their follies. The very smell of the drug that has ruined a man is often an irresistible temptation to him. 1 Study the condition of Lazarus after he was raised from the dead, as imagined b}7 Browning in his Epistle of the Arab Physician. - Philippians iii. 13, 14. 28 FALLEN ANGELS The Kev. J. M. Wilson, late master of Clifton College, in his essay upon c Morality in Public Schools,’ draws attention to the mischief done the boys by reverting to their past stupidities, in these forcible words : — -c Again, it compels the boy’s mind to recur to the subject ; it keeps the fault in view ; it is keeping him in a tainted atmo¬ sphere. The boy ought not to be compelled to revert to it. It ignores the one great truth on the whole subject — that the real safety from such sins is to be found in flight. Temptations of the devil we can fight ; temptations of the world we can control ; but temptations of the flesh we must flee from, and there is no other way of dealing with them. A struggling penitent who is just safe by keeping the whole subject out of his thoughts, is perforce by such confession reminded of past sensual pleasure, and is weakened sometimes more by the memory than he is strengthened by the words of warning. One who is not penitent and not struggling, of course, gets harm unmixed with good. Further, it is inevitable that such matters would come to be spoken of with a certain degree of conventionality, and this would be most fatal ; the tone of its being a matter of course, would be most deadly.’ But, although the recollection of their lower experiences, aims, and follies be injurious to men so long as they are still in the flesh, it may be that in another, higher stage, whence they look back with shame on the body of their humiliation, a full memory of their previous history will be restored to them. ‘ I will reprove thee, and set before thee, the things that thou hast done.’ — Ps. 1. 21. Then will they be grateful to have travelled beyond that valley of the shadow of death, and full of horror at the contemplation of whatever sins made necessary LATENT MEMORIES 29 the discipline of such a pilgrimage. The retrospect of all our previous discipline, whatever its conditions, may prove most valuable to our education when we are released from its last form, the human, and enter the spiritual world ; but, apparently, it cannot be such until then, and is, therefore, now in large measure withheld. ‘ Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.’ CHAPTER VIII SUFFERING ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.’ — Romans viii. 18. ‘ There is no evil haps, but for some good Hereafter to be born.’ — Lady Chatterton. ‘ Perfect through sufferings. ’ — Hebrews ii. 9. How is it that so many have been sent into the world in misery, have lived in vice, and have died of its diseases ? Is J. S. Mill’s conclusion unnatural, either that there is no God, or that he is not loving, or if loving, then not all-powerful ? The clear explanation of this and many other difficulties lies in our having sinned in a previous state. The apostle to the Gentiles calls our present body ‘ the body of our humiliation/ 1 and therein implies some previous condition of existence. There are those who say that the pains, sufferings, and inabilities we have to submit to in this life cannot be punitive, being worthless as such so long as we do not know because of what sin they are imposed : magistrates sentence culprits, for offences they know, to punishments correspondent to such offences. But we must not confound punishment or retribution with correction : the former is human, the latter divine. God’s infliction of suffering must be for beneficial, corrective, restorative purposes, and cannot be fruitless. They are intended to give us health 1 Pliilippians iii. 21, R.V. SUFFERING 31 and purity and liberty from evil influence, to develop ©in¬ capacities, to fit us for a habitation in higher worlds. ‘ He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.’ Our present discipline has to do with our future life, and our past forgotten life has to do with our present discipline. Any man may well decline to submit himself to the judgment of another man, but there can be no reason save a bad one for hesitating to pray that our ways may be not only judged but ordered by the All- wise, from whose love nothing can separate us. We are all prodigal sons ; we have gone astray, and need to be reformed by painful experiences. ‘ But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion/ 1 We wandered from our home while yet in a spiritual condition ; when we shall have returned to that condition, the lessons we have had in the interval will be plainly understood. Freed from the flesh, we shall have a calm comprehension impossible to us now, and surely more rapid progress will then be made. Many worthy and pious people will revolt from the suggestion that we are not at once made perfect upon our entry into the next life. The panorama then unfolded to the sharpened appreciation of the seekers after God may well, indeed, cause a sudden start in the spiritual progress ; but to suppose the immediate perfection of a soul upon its finding itself free is to imagine rather the creation of a new soul than the redemption of an old personality. It is not enough that our sins be forgiven ; we must per¬ ceive and know in our very souls their ugliness, their hate¬ fulness, not merely their undesirableness and unwisdom. Multitudes of men and women, counting themselves Christians, pass through this life without any perception, not to say conviction, of the injustice to others involved in their sins and their selfishnesses. It is essential that at least the principle of doing unto others as we would have 1 Lam. iii. 32. FALLEN ANGELS O Q oZ others do to us be well learned if we would become fit for the company of the holy. And for such as have not learned it in this world, more time must yet be needed for a prolonged process of learning it, else would the change be a violent one, and contrary to all we know of God's previous ways with us. It would not be development but an arbitrary change, with which the will of the sinner had nothing to do, and which God might as well work on the worst unbeliever as on the unaspiring Christian. It is not unusual with some ministers to exhort their flocks to lead godly lives in order to avoid punishment in the world to come. But even in this world the sufferino’ O that not a few have to undergo seems inexplicable save on the supposition that this life bears the relation of a future to a former evil past. A poor woman recently cried out to me, ‘ Oh that I could feel free from pain but for half an hour at a time ! How I should appreciate it ! Oh that I could sleep for two hours without being awaked by pain ! Exhausted nature sometimes escapes it by sleep, but rarely for more than an hour ! ’ Perhaps it would have shocked her to be told that possibly the cause of her pain had its origin in her before she was clothed in human form, and that when she returned whence she came she would see the truth of the matter ; but how else, I ask, is the thing to be accounted for ? Suchlike calamities are seldom met by any attempt to render for them a reason ; they are regarded as impenetrably mysterious. Hinton, in his well-known Mystery of Pain, also Mrs. King, in her poem, The Disciples, endeavour to reconcile sufferers to pain by pointing out that it is in truth a de¬ sirable good, when not self-inflicted ; and doubtless there is much comfort in the thought of suffering being the ‘ world’s special grace ; ’ nor can I think that inquiry into the final cause of suffering is at all a hopeless task. ‘ The reason of our suffering,’ many say, ‘ is hid in the cloud of SUFFERING 33 God’s foreknowledge. The first book was written to send the cry of questioning pain from Chaldean pastures down forty centuries, and no answer yet has been given to it, nor will any be heard while we live ! ’ But in no part of Holy Writ is there any injunction against the attempt to 'justify the ways of God to men’ through reverent research. If the knowledge of those ways would bring help to suffering mankind, it is folly to declare the inquiry into them hopeless. Why assert before it be tried that a door, the unlocking of which might enhance the joy and comfort of many, and help the birth of faith in some not yet Christians, is one that can¬ not be opened ? Nay, is it not our duty to try to open it ? Do we not find God grieved with a people who erred because they had not known his ways ? 1 Our Lord him¬ self, speaking to the Sadducees, said, ‘ Ye do err, not know¬ ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.’ 2 ‘ It is not at all incredible that Scripture, which has so long been in the possession of mankind, may contain many truths as yet undiscovered. For all the same phenomena and the same facilities of investigation from which great discoveries have been made in the present day were equally in the possession of mankind several thousand years before.’ 3 One thing is certain, that God does not permit any un¬ necessary, any fruitless evil. And why should it seem more wonderful that we should suffer now for misdeeds committed in a previous state of life, than that we should suffer in a future state for things done in this ? ‘ Hence comes it that by sufferings they are taught.’ ‘ Tears and joys alike are sent To give the soul fit nourishment.’ ‘Foolish men are plagued for their offence, and because of their wickedness.’ — Ps. evii. 17. 1 Ps. xcv. 10. 2 Matt. xxii. 29. 3 Bishop Butler. C 34 FALLEN ANGELS ‘ Whoso is wise will ponder these things : and they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.’ — Ps. cvii. 43. To those who believe in the love of God, it is evident that for misused pleasures and unmerited pains there must be an antithesis, call it compensation or consolation, in the life to come. This is surely taught in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and must apply to any life- stages before the commencement of the present. The soul is the reality throughout, and continues the same soul, however many successive schools it may be necessary for it to pass through. That breath of God, that emanation of the Divine, which constitutes our original being, has become so incrusted and enveloped with various selfish accretions that we have ceased to recognise it for what it is. Yet is it a permanent witness of all our words, thoughts, and deeds ; is in most intimate knowledge of us, and is, or will be, called upon to give evidence against us. ‘ The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.’1 ‘Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?’2 This spirit we call our conscience. Sir Monier Williams, in his Modern Indict,2, mentions, among other names or descriptions of the Supreme Deity given in the Hindu sacred books, ‘ the One God hidden in all beings, and dwelling as a witness in their hearts.’ How often is it not said, as if it accounted for the occurrence of some fatal mine explosion or other terrible accident, that it is meant to cause measures for the pre¬ vention of such in the future ! But what consolation is it or would it be to the widowed, the orphaned, the beggared, to be told that mechanical or scientific means will be adopted in the future to obviate similar disasters ? Comfort can be found only in perfect submission to a re¬ cognised supreme Will watching over each individual of us, 1 Prov. xx. 27. 2 Luke xii. 57. 3 Page 186. SUFFERING 35 and taking upon himself whatever he permits to come to pass. ‘ And man can only pace the deck, nor sees (So dense the fog) his path from end to end. Though blurred his past, and vague the scene ahead, Yet is his fleeting present cheered to know That God was ever with him from the first.’ 1 God was ‘ our help in ages past,’ and is the same ‘yester¬ day, to-day, and for ever.’ The Almighty could not have given existence to us and so many other creatures for the sake of inflicting pain. He loves the thing1 he has made. It is not he that needs to be reconciled to us. His hand is ever giving, ever offering more ; it is we who will not stretch out our hand to receive what therefore he cannot give. ‘ Be ye reconciled to God,’ cries St. Paul. But how can we be reconciled in view of the terrible things he permits all about us ? There is, I venture to think, a true answer to the question. 1 Xoic and Then, by tbe Rev. A. F. Heaton. CHAPTER IX FALLEN ANGELS ‘ How art thou fallen from Heaven, 0 Lucifer, Son of the Morning ! How art thou cut down to the ground ! ’ — Isa. xiv. 12. ‘ I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Such I created all the Ethereal Powers And Spirits, both them who stood and them who failed ; Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have given sincere Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love, Where only what they needs must do appeared, Not what they would ? What praise could they receive ? What pleasure I, from such obedience paid, When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice), Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled, Made passive both, had served Necessity, Not me ? They, therefore, as to right belonged, So were created, nor can justly accuse Their Maker . . . They trespass, authors to themselves in all, Both what they judge and what they choose ; for so I formed them free, and free they must remain Till they enthrall themselves : I else must change Their nature, and revoke the high decree Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained Their freedom ; they themselves ordained their fall.’ Miltox : Par. Lost, Bk. iii. The main suggestion of this work, then, is, that human beings were angels, and dwelt originally in purity and light, as emanations from the Divine ; hut that, having fallen, we are being graciously led hack to Heaven by gradations of instruction. Throughout the hypothesis advanced in this essay, it is assumed that God acts always with unqualified justice FALLEN ANGELS 37 and love ; that it is because he is just and good that we undergo miseries. If it he admitted that God is the Father of our spirits, that God is love, and that God is Almighty, it must he concluded that God never does anything ill, or creates any sin. Yet we have Scriptural authority that we are unworthy creatures at our birth — filled with sin on our very entrance into this world ! Is it not then logical to argue from these admitted premises that we must have lived before our introduction into this world ? There is no statement in the Bible that our birth into this world is the beginning of our existence. Idle origin, the fountain of our being, is God himself ; the fountain of our evil is ourselves. £ But your iniquities have separated between you and your God.’ 1 The raison d’etre of this our earthly condition is the love of the Father, and his will to restore us to the ap¬ preciation of truth, virtue, and order ; so reconciling us, of our own free, intelligent will, to himself. In no other way can we become partakers of well-being or happiness. In the Church catechism, baptism is declared to signify ‘ a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness ; for, being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.’ Hence the Church of England recognises that we come into this world already sinful. And in the Ninth Article we read that ‘man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit.’ Our Saviour even said to his disciples, ‘ One of you is a devil.’ God is helping, and even forcing, us to perceive that, as fallen angels who have thrown off his rule, we cannot exist in happy state. We are ‘ justly punished for our offences,’ but in the anguish he sends God himself suffers. ‘ In all 1 Isa. lix. 2.. 38 FALLEN ANGELS their afflictions he was afflicted/ Our punishment is for our cure, as the pain inflicted by a surgeon. When persons injure or misjudge us, we would not hurt them ; we only desire their eyes opened to see that they do us wrong. In like manner God would have us see the truth ; but we think it hard, and resist instruction, instead of being grateful for it. God could, of course, interfere with such power as would compel us to behave ourselves justly : he could perhaps so change us by divine force that evil should vanish from us, and we should be righteous because we could be nothing else ; but such goodness would not be of divine value — compelled righteousness is no real righteousness. When we have suffered hardship enough to know our miserable condition ; when we perceive and lament our folly in de¬ parting from the living God, and so losing the original bliss of unity with the Divine ; when we submit, seeing the reasonableness of righteousness, and the heartless and unnatural wickedness of rising uji against the will of a perfectly loving Father, and hating and wronging our brothers and sisters, who are not merely bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, but spirit of our spirit, then shall we be restored to our ancient home. The painful lesson will then have been sufficiently learned, and our will dis¬ ciplined against the re-entrance of the fool-idea of merit in ourselves. When our silly pride is thoroughly humbled, we begin to be fit to live. The conclusion of Job, at the close of the specially pain¬ ful part of his education, was, ‘ Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is under¬ standing/ 1 The same must be the practical conclusion of every soul ere ‘ the times of restitution of all things ’ 2 can arrive. Before that time lie will come ‘ to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly 1 Chap, xxviii. 28. 2 Acts iii. 21. FALLEN ANGELS 39 among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ 1 Punishment does not always follow immediately upon guilt ; if it did, then, from fear of instant certain pain, there would not be room for the exercise of virtue. It is usually admitted that we do not come into the world by our own will and choice, and yet millions of us awake to consciousness in such circumstances as render sin and suffering almost inevitable. ‘ Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’ 2 ‘ Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.’ 3 The Rev. W. Archer says, ‘ Some children seem to be born into the world with a tendency towards some £>eculiar vices. This has been developed where children have been boarded out into families in which there is no trace of such infirmity.’ The present generation is loth to admit any life anterior to the present ; yet is quite ready to quote St. Paul, quoting the words of certain Greek poets, ‘ For we are also His offspring.’ 4 What means, then, our evil nature to which allusion is so common ? Whence is it derived ? The sin is in us, and not all of it consciously acquired by ourselves ; is God, then, the author of our sin ? Why should there be such an avoidance of the question we are now trying to consider ? The youngest children delight, at first ignorantly, but afterwards knowingly, in cruelty, such as pulling off the legs and wings of flies ; and they very early develop per¬ verseness. Does this not indicate evil originally assumed, and now instinctively manifested ? Why should it be regarded as preposterous that we should be descended from angels — now children, as it were, of our former selves ? Why should it be accepted as 1 Jude 15. 2 Gen. vi. 5. 3 Job v. 7. 1 Acts xvii. 28. 40 FALLEN ANGELS indubitable that each baby of us is a fresh, an altogether original creation ? Upon calm, rational reflection, unbiassed by orthodox prejudice, a previous existence will surely appear the more probable supposition ! We are a wicked and perverse generation, children of wrath and children of disobedience. How ! can Wrath and Disobedience generate children ? They can at least «/ produce evil children. If they cannot generate, they can degenerate — produce monsters that did not before exist. There is the Ego and the non-Ego — evervthing, that is. external to the Ego, from God downwards. There can he O 7 no action, no thought, no life in any man except by as¬ sociation with something external to him. That external may, however, be but a projection from himself, based or not upon some object that has come within the scope of his previous experience. A thought may be forced upon him from the things around him ; and if his will accepts and adopts that thought, then is he responsible for the result of the union. The whole series of such concurrences constitutes a presentment of his life. It is the man him¬ self. As such is he presented to the Invisible. In the next condition of life he is the child of this; in this, the child of his former state. He that is unjust is unjust still. He that is fllthv is filthy still. He that is holy is holy still. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life : but to be freed from our corruption, and be welcomed back to our old home, of which he has opened the gates, we must walk in the way, we must keep the truth, we must live the life. We must rise from our dead selves into the free air of the truth. We must not merely resolve to become, but become worthy. Surely we can even see in some cases that transmigration into a fresh body, with a fresh en- vironment, is necessary to the perception of truth, to the dispersion of illusions, to the destruction of such hanker¬ ings after vice as yet remain. FALLEN ANGELS 41 From rebellion we must be brought back to the obedience of sons ; and for this, compulsion must be so far laid upon us that we may know the way of transgressors to be hard, and that, even for what our ignorance and pride would count well-being, it is better to yield. ‘ He restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness.'- 1 As we sow, so shall we reap. Xo one has a right to complain of haying been born into the world under less fayourable conditions than another. We come into the world from God : shall not the Lord of all the earth do right ? Our birth here is but the sequence of a preyious life, a con¬ tinuity under new conditions of experience and trial — the best possible for us. ‘ That which hath been is named already, and it is known «/ ' that it is man.'- 2 Ps. xxiii. - Eccles. vi. 10. CHAPTER X GOD AXD HIS SONS ‘ Thou, 0 Lord, didst know me before the world was made.’ Thomas a Kempis. Let us now try to lift our contemplation toward the Great Creator, the Lord of all, the God, not of us only, hut of all the worlds ! Xo human intellect can approach the smallest realisation of the vastness of his power and wisdom. We see and understand according to the measure of ourselves. ‘For the eternal,’ says Olympiodorus,1 ‘is a total, exempt from the past and future calculations of time, and totally subsisting in a present abiding now. The perpetual sub¬ sists always, but is beheld in the three parts of time, the past, the present, and the future. Hence we call God eternal (to cllwvlov), on account of his being unconnected with time ; we do not denominate him perpetual (to aihiov), because he does not subsist in time.’ God himself is primary and immutable, but countless changes arrive to his productions in the second, third, and lower degrees. What we know respecting the almighty Origin of all things is from nature, consciousness, and revelation : from the growth of our needs, and the progress of our understandino'. O The one absolute definition of the almighty, self-existent, supreme Being is, that he is Love. In any consideration of the Divine relation to or action upon ourselves, upon 1 Of Alexandria, in the sixth century. Arist. Meteor., p. 32. GOD AND HIS SOXS 43 other men, upon the lower animal creation, upon every¬ thing he has made, it is essential to hear this fixed first truth always in mind. It is the central Sun around which all truth revolves. A statue or a picture is an image formed in the mind of a sculptor or painter, and put into lifeless outer form, for others to see it, by his hands. A house or a machine is the thought of architect or mechanician, carried out in material form : it is an embodiment of human spiritual activity. In correspondent manner, angels came into being as the result of God's embodying will in operation upon his thoughts. They are his ideas uttered in live shapes, not inanimate forms. God can will his thoughts alive. O In this world we may assume man the nearest to God of all the created. Created in his image, the main char- acteristic distinction between man and the lower creation is that he possesses the faculty of reflex reasoning. Dr. Wallace regards the faculty of perceiving abstractions, such as time and space, as a power that could not have been evolved. To me it seems probable that the power is a partial restitution of a more comprehensive intellectual light formerly possessed. All causes have their origin in the invisible, both such as operate on us, and such as we put in operation. The very gathering of our bodies about us, and so our appear¬ ance here, is the effect of causes having their root in the invisible. The conditions in which we find ourselves born upon the human stage are but the outcome of the Divine intent, fitted upon the result of our precedent use of our freedom of action. By his will each death, or change- period, brings us into fresh conditions, with fresh possi¬ bilities of new embodiment. Even the forces that cause the accretion of chemical organic compounds, to constitute the outward form by which we are known to others, have their origin in the invisible. 44 FALLEN ANGELS The saying of our Lord with regard to Judas, £ Good were it for that man if he had not been horn/ looks much as if Judas had had option in the matter of his birth. For we cannot suppose the all-merciful Father to have forced into the world a being expressly to wrong the Best, and be a curse to himself. ‘ Ye are the sons of the living' God.’ 1 O Our Creator, being all-wise as well as all-good, must necessarily know and be able to carry out the process best adapted for the building up of a perfect man. If, there¬ fore, we have been degraded from high estate to a condi¬ tion in which any of our faculties are suspended, it was an act of loving beneficence, possibly in aid of the indispens¬ able necessity that we ourselves should take part in the labour of our own restoration, and that of others. For we left Heaven of ourselves, and associated with others in so doing. Christ arrived straight from Heaven. Every other human being comes into the world in a condition of sin, and therefore does not arrive direct from that place in which no sin can dwell. Yet Christ speaks of us as his brethren, and everything he says must be received as absolutely true. Let no man dare try to explain awa}7 this all-comforting assertion ! Does it not suggest at least that Jesus Christ and we were once together in Heaven, whence, having sinned, we had to be banished ? Subjected to long processes of purification, to schoolings many and multiform, we are now making a toilsome pilgrimage homeward. St. John heard a loud voice proclaiming the advent of ‘ the kingdom of God and the power of his Christ : for the accuser of our brethren is cast down.’ 2 This is one of the many passages establishing brotherhood between all the sons of God. 1 Hos. i. 10. 2 Rev. xii. 10. GOD AND HIS SONS 45 In the book of .J ob we find Satan himself still reckoned with the angels as a son of God. ' When the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them.' O In happy contrast with the presumptuous accusation and daring malice of Satan is the modesty of his unfallen brothers who kept their first estate. ‘ Whereas,’ says Bishop Hall, ' the good angels of God are greater in power and might than any mortal creatures, and therefore might seem privileged to take more liberty upon themselves, yet when they appeared before God and have held, as it were, contest with the evil angels in his presence, have not cast railing accusations against them, but have left their judgment unto the Lord.’ 1 If with the worthy bishop we feel glad that these 'good angels ’ are battling for us, shall we not exult in the thought that our elder Brother, Jesus Christ himself, is our Advocate and Mediator before the great tribunal ? "Will he not plead every extenuating circumstance, every allowance that should be made for our temptations ? For does he not know the witching phantasms by which our former evil comrades, still in the incorporeal state, are incessantly endeavouring to allure us ? Only, there must be no mistake as to which we declare for ! Those of the angels who did not rebel were illuminated by the sight of Christ walking among men.2 There is no need for them to be incarnated. They learn by looking into these things. Early in the history of man is recorded a thorough contrast between two brothers. They were both born evil, but the offering of Abel was accepted, while that of Cain was rejected, whereupon Cain slew his more righteous brother. As the evil spirits of to-day are jealous of those of their brethren who have been advanced to the condition 1 2 Peter ii. 11. 2 Eph. iii. 10. 46 FALLEN ANGELS of humanity, so Cain could not endure the progress heavenward of his companion. The Lord is in no haste. A thousand years are with him as one day, and one day as a thousand years. Darwin, concerning himself only with the material body, concludes, from the wreck of system after system, ever with the survival of the fittest, that it must have required millions of years to produce a man. May it not be that God ‘ takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand him and he blessed ’ ? There can be no love without objects for love; there must be beings existent or anticipated. From the Divine love, therefore, and for its exercise, came creation. To take a simile from one of the forms in which he causes the multiplication of his creatures, God must have thrown off from himself multitudes of pure Spirits. Some of these, endowed with liberty, became, by self-separation from their source, less and less pure. Casting away their virtue, the things they would have retained — namely, power and pleasure — are taken from them. By these and other con¬ sequences of their evildoing, they are now being graciously led, through paths they do not know, and through many a phase of discipline, back from their banishment to their original home. Into the absolutely pure, unselfish, and perfect circle of God’s inner Heavenly Kingdom let no one think to enter before he has been made fit, before he is cleansed indeed ! CHAPTER XI EVIL SPIRITS s How are the mighty fallen ! ’ It is impossible to make much satisfactory progress in the comprehension of man and of nature, unless we admit that all was originally good as created by God ; and that, by regard for self, sin was generated and the angels fell. Of the existence of evil spirits there can be no doubt in any Christian mind, for the mention of them and of their influences is frequent both in the Old and in the Xew Testament. If God created all things, then he created the evil spirits. But, as he cannot have originally created them evil, they must have become so by their own act. Of themselves they ‘kept not their first estate/ But his fatherly interest as well as claim remains. His mercy is over all. Hence even evil spirits and fallen angels should still be regarded with solicitude, and as subject to his redeeming influences. But all real progress in building up is gradual. Humanity is an educational stage through which they even may have yet to pass, and so be drawn back to Home and Beauty. Plato, who stands in the front rank of the great and good of all ages, attributes to sin the fall of those souls who, thus becoming unworthy to live with the gods, were cast down and fettered in earthly bodies, through means of which they can by degrees be raised again out of the 48 FALLEN ANGELS illusive unrest of sensuous appearances and passions to the recollection of true being, of the highest good. God is no party to evil, but he does allow the power to sin; and sin brought forth in action is but the embodi¬ ment of the evil already existent, which is thereby capable of being subjected to curative processes. Many men and women condemn in others some vice to which they are themselves inwardly addicted, the fact that it is their own preventing them from seeing that the evil in them is the same vice. Lest, therefore, such incapacity remain in them for ever, the Lord may mercifully £ harden their hearts ’ so that there may be an outcome of the evil in them, which they will then recognise as evil, as theirs, and as deserving of the punishment it brings upon them. The disease, invisible in the heart and will, is thus driven outward by the Divine compassion — compelled into visible external manifestation, that it may be dissipated by punishment, by shame, and finally by repentance. Thus God may be said to ecluce evil, the evil that is there, but he can never be said to create sin. When he is said to create evil, that evil does not mean sin, but the physical evil which is the corrective of moral evil, as in the passages, ‘ I make peace, and create evil ; I the Lord do all these things : ’ 1 ‘ Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it ? ’ 2 And since he rewards virtue by giving of himself, shall he not also, by partially withdrawing himself, correct sin ? By the retirement of his restraining power, evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, will more and more show what they are, and so bring the needful and whole¬ some consequences of sin upon them. Jesus Christ is our Brother, and the Brother of the fallen angels — all sons of God, all created pure in spirit. But each is an independent soul, whose will can resist or follow the drawing of the Spirit of God toward himself. 1 Isa. xlv. 7. 2 Amos iii. 6. EVIL SPIRITS 49 In all nations on earth, from the most savage to the most civilised, there have always been diversities of rank. In heaven are angels, archangels, principalities, and powers. Satan, an archangel, the Son of the Morning, ‘ drew the third part of heaven’s host with him.’ Among this host innumerable would be every diversity and degree of guilt and folly, not one being in his evildoing, any more than in Ins original character, precisely similar to another : therefore all varieties of educational treatment and suffer¬ ing experience must be used to bring them individually out of the mire of sin, and set the feet of every one of them on the rock of righteousness. For this great uplift¬ ing there is a ceaseless, continuous, diversified process in operation — the one necessity for all being, to know Jesus Christ. * It becomes us to approach reverently the solemn fact that there was rebellion among the servants of the Eternal One. Those whom he had made to love and obey him defied him ; yea, in the very highest of them, the anointed cherub “who walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire ” (Ezekiel xxviii. 14), unrighteousness was found, and Satan was seen to fall like lightning from heaven by a witness that cannot lie. In the presence of the Everlasting there was impurity. His angels were charged with folly. They kept not their first estate, and were sent from the glory to the shades of hell. This much is told us of the fate of the rebels that preceded man’s creation.’ 1 Christ is a spirit — to us invisible, and he clothed himself in flesh. Might not, then, the fallen angels, also invisible spirits, become clothed in flesh ? Jesus humbled himself in taking flesh ; but angels would be humiliated by such embodiment, and so punished. Now, is it not even more reasonable and Godlike that 1 Open Doors , December 1SS5, page 300. D 50 FALLEN ANGELS Christ should take upon himself the form of flesh to save guilty spirits, than that he should do so to bring to heaven a new creation of inferior creatures ? Would he not have a more ardent sympathy with those once in purity, who had existed for untold teons, than with beings born in sin ? 'Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.' 1 He was ‘ not ashamed to call them brethren/ and he partook with the children ' to deliver them from bondage ; ’ and ' it behoved him to be like unto h is brethren.’ I hold, then, that man sinned before being clothed in the flesh, the body being an affliction for sin. ' Every sin that a man doeth is without the body.’2 At the same time, their incorporation is a huge advance from crawling on the floors of hell. ' Before I was afflicted I went astray;, but now have I kept thy word.’ 3 Angels and men are of the same family, are the same kind of beings in different conditions. They are con¬ stantly mentioned 'in the Scriptures together. Angels are called men, and men angels. At the sepulchre sat a young man ;4 ' two men stood by them;’ 5 after the Ascen¬ sion, 'two men stood by them.’ 6 ‘ Men ’ visited Abraham ;7 ' angels ’ came to Sodom.8 Even the archangel Gabriel is called by Daniel ' the man Gabriel.’9 We see, then, that the appellations of nan and angel are used indifferently. The Angel is a resident in heaven ; Man an inhabitant of earth, an angel clothed in flesh. Christ, the Son of God, existent before Adam and earthly times, is also called Man. Why, then, should not also his brother-men have existed in pre-terrestrial times ? 1 Heb. ii. 11 to IS. 2 1 Cor. vi. IS. 3 Ps. cxix. 67. 4 Mark xvi. 5. 5 Luke xxiv. 4. 6 Acts i. 10. 7 Gen. xviii. ; Judges vi. 8, 11. 8 Gen. xix. 1 ; Judges xiii. 6. 9 Dan. ix. 21. EVIL SPIRITS 51 The fall of man was but a repetition of the fall of the angels. Both arose from selfishness, of which there are two forms — vanity and greed. Vanity is the fault of the higher order, and greed of the lower. Any yielding to selfishness grows like a foul thing. Bishop Fraser, in laying the foundation-stone of Owens College, remarked that he could listen with interest whilst a learned professor speculated whether we are deteriorated angels or developed savages. That very many of the angels did deteriorate is undoubted, and the question now under consideration is, whether the human state be not a stage in their recovery of their pristine condition. It is usually admitted that we are habitually tempted and persecuted by Satan and his crew — fallen angels, who were once happy in the presence of God, but who for mis¬ conduct were cast out ; but few care to inquire why this should be. God's mercy enduretli for ever, even though it be shown in the slaying of mighty kings : the rebel host was banished to hell, but not to remain there for ever. Some less guilty, less defiant than others, would become, by learning the lessons of suffering, capable of sloiv redemption — the first step of which would be their confessing that they had been sinful and foolish. Such would first be embodied in human form, and against them would the spite of their unrepentant brethren be specially directed. Satan was high in Heaven ; and, fallen, became the chief of the fallen angels. He is called 'the god of this world. 1 A e are of this world, the people who mainly constitute the world : must we not be of his kind, to have been sent into the world of which he is called the god ? W e chose our chief, and had to follow his fate ; but, as we were deluded, misled by him, and in degree less wicked, there¬ fore easier to raise, we have been earlier put in the upward 1 2 Cor. iv. 4. 52 FALLEN ANGELS path to the door of Heaven, which, perhaps, through the painful experience of repeated incarnations, and anyhow through repentance, and the help of Christ, we shall at length find open to us. Our Father which is in heaven still remains our Father, and is Almighty. ‘ 0 Father, who dost promise still That they who mourn shall blessed be, Grant us to weep for deeds of ill That banish us so long from thee ! ‘ But, weeping, grant us faith to rest In hope upon thy loving care ; Till thou restore us with the blest, Their songs of praise in Heaven to share.’ It is generally agreed that the old prophets wrote many things of whose full import they were at the time ignor¬ ant; some of our poets may reasonably be supposed to have done the same : what if to their souls, yea, to our souls also, there come at times a faint, far-off echo of the angelic choirs, and through these once familiar harmonies we commune again with the nobler comrades we deserted ! We are banished now, but there is a way back by repent¬ ance not to be repented of, and the payment of the utter¬ most farthing of justice and righteousness. ‘ But we are fallen creatures here, Where pain and sorrow daily come ; And how can we in exile drear Sing out, as they, sweet songs of Home ? ’ We are fallen creatures, not because the one first ancestor of our bodies fell, but because each one of us, by his own will, and in his own person, is a fallen angel. Ordinary human reason, our innate sense of justice, revolts at the idea of the punishment of unborn millions because of Adam’s disobedience. Evil was already in the heart of Eve before her temptation. Satan only brought out into action what he knew was there latent. All mankind are EVIL SPIRITS 53 not punished because or in consequence of the surrender of one weak woman. In no court of justice is a man judged guilty because of the act of another with whom it is impossible he should have had any acquaintance. God created angels spiritual beings, without evil, but with the possibility of evil, a possibility inseparable from their nature as made for freedom. Having failed, he created new conditions and circumstances for them, namely, those of humanity, to give them fresh opportunity of recovery. Their first failure is constantly repeated, but a new struggle has been born in many, and will be born in all, to become successful at last. Many attribute all the evil of which they are conscious within them to the continued temptations of Satan : is it necessary we should do so ? or do we wish in this way to escape our responsibility ? Why should we regard the evil we recognise in us as anything else than the motions of our own souls, of our own old fallen selves, I would say ? ‘ Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ’ ‘ The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.’ There are two selves in us, one warring against the other — the Self-self and the God-self. As the earth itself has been undero’oino’ continuous O o change during millions of years, so may we have been changing through seons of time. Whilst matter has been under process for hundreds of thousands of years, must we look on man only as a thing of yesterday ? He appeared latest on the earth, and for him the earth exists. It had to be prepared for him, but it does not follow that it was prepared for one who did not yet exist. He may have long existed independent of his present abode, and now he may, if he will, live in hope of a safe return to the regions he kneAv before, although ‘ Long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.’ 54 FALLEN ANGELS ‘ And while we live according to virtue, we partake of the Gods, but when we become evil, we cause them to become our enemies ; not that they are angry, but because guilt prevents us from receiving the illumination of the Gods, and subjects us to the power of avenging daemons. But if we obtain pardon of our guilt through prayers and sacrifices, we neither appease nor cause any mutation to take place in the Gods; but by methods of this kind, and by our conversion to a divine nature, we apply a remedy to our vices, and again become partakers of the goodness of the Gods. So that it is the same thing to assert that divinity is turned from the evil, as to say that the sun is concealed from those who are deprived of sight.’ 1 In the same way Demophilus declares that ‘ Divinity sends evil to men, not as being influenced by anger, but for the sake of purification.’ In the Sanscrit poem, Mahabharata, it is taught that only by misconduct or neglect can evil enter in.'2 1 Sallust On the Gods and the World. 2 Nala and Adamayanti, translated by Sir Edwin Arnold. CHAPTER XII THE MIRE, AND OUR EXTRICATION THEREFROM ‘ Of what fault is this the fruit? I cannot call to mind a wrong I wrought To any — even a little thing — in act, Or thought, or word ; whence then hath come this curse ? Belike from ill deeds done in bygone lives It hath befallen, and what I suffer now Is payment of old evils undischarged.’ Sir E. Arnold : Indian Idylls. As our good works do follow us into the next higher o O sphere of existence, so our sins have followed us from a lower stage into this our earthly period. ‘ Facilis descensus Averni ; Sed revocare gradura, superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hie labor est.’ To destroy is easy ; but to build up requires patience, knowledge, effort, and courage. The Fall was easy. The first step downhill taken, the velocity of the descent in¬ creases, until happily a hell is reached, a check given, and the power of evil put under restraint. Created without sin, we were created to choose good — a choice of no significance were we not capable of choosing evil. ‘ Within himself The danger lies, yet lies within his power ; Against his will he can receive no harm. But God left free the Will ; for what obeys Reason is free ; and Reason he made right, But bid her well beware, and still erect, Lest by some fair appearing good surprised She dictate false, and misinform the Will To do what God expressly hath forbid.’1 1 Milton, Book ix. 348. 56 FALLEN ANGELS Freedom of will is a property exclusively pertaining to a moral being, by which the determination of his destiny is given into his own hand. No creature can be in any full sense good without it. The angels possessed this noble gift in perfect measure, and their well-being was secure so long as there was harmony between their wills and the will of their Creator. The abuse of freedom plunged the angels, as again it did man in his subsequent trial under fresh conditions, into loss inconceivable. Why any creature should have chosen so foolishly and frightfully to misuse his freedom is a mystery, an enigma which no philosophy can at present solve ; but the testi¬ mony of Scripture and the logic of facts establishes the fact of such a misuse. The subject of motives has been treated in a masterly way by the present Bishop of Exeter, as well as by Milton. In view of the foreseen catastrophe, means were pre¬ determined by the All-merciful by which the foolish angels might recover their forfeited estate and lost scope of faculty. But this recovery must still be dependent on their consent and choice to undergo the processes neces¬ sary for their restoration. They had sunk into unspeakably lower conditions, but a door was yet open by which they might return, to rise higher than before. If they confessed that they had sinned, their sins were forgiven ; but they must work out their salvation, that is, their deliverance from the evil in them — with fear and trembling. ‘ Thy sins are forgiven thee : ’ £ go and sin no more,’ are the Saviour’s declaration and injunction. To ascend to the lost position, to restore the ideal of the divine to its throne within, demands heavy, resolute self-denying, and long labour. c For which things’ sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience : in the which ye also walked aforetime.’ 1 1 Col. iii. 6, 7, R.v. THE MIRE, AND OUR EXTRICATION THEREFROM 57 ‘For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon ihe sons of disobedience. Be not ye therefore par¬ takers with them ; for we were once darkness , but are now light in the Lord.’ 1 We may renew communion with God or with the devil, and all of us appreciate the importance of the choice. There are many who still cleave to the citizenship they have seemed to abjure, and such may be found even in the company of the saints : they are with them but not ot them. Of the little band of disciples assembled at the last supper, Jesus declared one a devil. This life of embodiment which we call our condition of humanity is a half-way house on the journey up toward home. For those who like Judas look backward, it were better not to have been born into this life. Their second state they are making worse than their first, and there are lower states behind to which they may be remanded. Evil spirits, having before, I presume, occupied the form of man, even begged to be allowed to enter into the swine, rather than be left unclothed. An evil spirit left a man and went about seeking rest ; and finding none, he returned, joining himself again to the soul he had left. It is evident, therefore, that closest proximity and interchange of influences is possible be¬ tween spirits. The ministers of God and the ministers of evil may be struggling in our hearts for the mastery ; on the one side to set us free, on the other to keep us in bondage. Such a union with unrepentant men is sought by disembodied, or it may be by not yet embodied, evil spirits. Surely it was an evil spirit that was permitted of God to influence the court of Ahab before the battle of Ramoth- Gilead ! But its character was exposed by Micaiah. If we desire anything opposed to the Divine, evil spirits will 1 Eph. V. 6, R. V. 58 FALLEN ANGELS be at hand and ready to urge us in the wrong direction. We have but to lean in that direction, and avoid appeal to God, and they are with us. The Jews had the notion that the air was peopled with such. If so, these are probably spirits who have not yet sought the privilege of incarnation. Their pride revolts against what they regard as a humiliation, and, retaining always free will, they refuse the means of mace. The for- giveness of their sins is offered them, but their consenting will must receive it: they cannot have it while desiring sin. The}" will not accept the condition in which the dis¬ cipline needful for their restoration can be brought to bear upon them — the condition, namely, of humanity. By their own action the heavenly beings who turned to evil changed, not their nature, but their character, and be¬ came unfit to dwell where they had dwelt before : but they could not, as sons of God, be annihilated. God must still have the heart-interest of a creator in them, yea, an in- tense desire for their welfare, and to that end for their repentance. He would restore them : but ere they can be restored, every trace of their original sin must needs be eradicated from their being ; and, while all sinned both individually and, in supporting each other, collectively, there would be some, even were all equally guilty, more reclaimable than others. For it is not unreasonable to suppose that many would strongly desire to be reinstated in their former happiness, would entreat for this, and protest their repentance. But the glory of the Father's love lies in the inexorability of its demands. It is of his profound mercy that no one can get back until he has paid the uttermost farthing. There must be a purifying process. In answer to their prayers he would give them another trial, would let them see what their protestations were worth. In Adam they should see themselves : what t J one of them did. thev would all do! The Father knew THE MIRE. AND OUR EXTRICATION THEREFROM 59 that Adam would fail ; but he granted him and the rest of his rebel children, as many as would, the great boon of this second trial, that, their weakness becoming evident to them, they might thus begin to grow ready for a further grace, and through long discipline be restored. A part of the divine system has been to convince man¬ kind of the unprofitableness of sin, and of the overflowing goodness of God. Our own principal experiences, with the signs of similar experiences that we witness in others, are intended to compel our full appreciation of this fact. These experiences have to be given us over and over, and in many a varied form, until their lesson is thoroughly learned, until we see that it is and must be true, until its essence, distilled by contemplation of the facts, shall have become, as it were, an instinct of the being, compounded, so to speak, of the pneuma, or breath, of God, and the psyche of his own consciousness. But when any creature of God shall have once truly perceived what God is, it will no longer be from fear of hurt, or desire of security, that he will side with God, but from recognition of the absolute and essential loveliness of the will of God. Of his very nature will he then recoil from the intrusion of the thinnest edge of evil betwixt him and his Father. ‘ Be this Our wisdom with Omniscience to converse, Our joy the beaming of Eternal Light, Our strength to lean upon Almighty Power.’ 1 The inherent virtue thus represented by the Bishop of Exeter as indomitable in the unfallen angel, must be recovered by ourselves, and can be only through suffering. When no longer capable of yielding to the suggestions of our own or other evil spirit, however seconded by any remaining propensity of a body accustomed to surrender, we shall be free from temptation, and left in undisturbed possession of our regained inheritance. 1 Yesterday , To-day , and for Ever, canto v. CHAPTER XIII ADAM ‘ Ah, why should all Mankind For one man’s fault thus guiltless be condemned ? If guiltless !’ Paradise Lost , x. 822. The fall of Adam on earth was but a repetition of his fall long before when an angel in heaven. Each had the same origin : neither as angel nor as man did Adam resist the temptation to quarrel with his Maker’s restrictions; he thought he could do better for himself by disregarding them. In like manner failed his companions, desiring to live inde¬ pendent of God. But Love desired to restore them, and to Adam first was granted a fresh trial, in new circumstances, that what good remained in them might be built up afresh in the new form of humanity. Every condition was granted favourable to his endurance of the test. No onerous task was set, and but one thing forbidden. His renewed failure demonstrated how hopeless it was that any genuine regeneration would be initiated by a creature once gone astray. On this subject, that fervent lover of God and his neighbour, Jacob Bohmen, writes thus: I quote from R. A. Vaughan’s book on the Mystics : — ‘Adam was created to be the restoring angel of this world. His nature was twofold. Within he had an angelic soul and body, derived from the powers of heaven. Without he had a life and body derived from the powers of earth. The former was given him that he might be separate from and superior to the world. He was endowed ADAM 61 with the latter that he might be connected with and operative in the world. His external nature sheltered his inner from all acquaintance with the properties of our corrupted earth. His love and his obedience surrounded him with a perpetual paradise of his oavii. He could not feel the fierceness of fire, the rigour of cold ; he was inaccessible to want or pain. He was designed to be the father of a like angelic human race, who should occupy and reclaim the earth for God, keeping down the ever- emerging curse, and educing and multiplying the blessing which God had implanted.’ Some men look up toward God, some sink in the direc¬ tion of the lower creation. Both the better and the worse are urged to labour by necessity, and on the furrows of both falls the rain and shines the sun. What they sow they reap. ‘ Aide-toi, et Dieu t’aidera.’ But some begin at once to prey upon their neighbours, and this rouses the dormant energy of the better disposed. They must fight to live, and contest begins at once to develop their facul¬ ties, both physical and mental. It could do Michael and his angels nothing but good to fight with Satan and his angels. But the mind of Adam gradually declined from the paradisiacal life toward the life of the world. He com¬ menced his downward course by desiring to know the evil as well as the good of the things around him. He ate of the earthly tree, and the angelic life within him was over¬ laid, and for the time almost quenched. Bohinen contends stoutly that no arbitrary trial or penalty was imposed on Adam; that no divine wrath visited his sin on his descendants ; that his exposure to suffering and death was the natural consequence, in the divine ordering of things, of his breaking away from God and falling from the angelic to the animal life. It is char¬ acteristic of Bohmen’s theology to resolve acts of judgment, 62 FALLEN ANGELS or of sovereign intervention, as much as possible into the operation of law. He will not believe that God inflicts suffering on lost souls or devils. Their own dark and furious passions are their chains and flames. He shares this conviction with Swedenborg;' and with most of the Cl Protestant mystics. The redeeming function of Adam, as the first of the race to be embodied for a second trial, was thus lost. His possibilities were wasted, and a gradual degradation ensued. He must be reckoned more sinful than his suc¬ cessors, inasmuch as he commenced his career upon earth under more favourable circumstances; and he is never mentioned in Scripture with any honours. In the old Hebrew, a man of virtue and excellence is called Eesh, but Adam with ordinary men is named Adom, which Mr. Aaron Pick, Professor of Chaldee and Hebrew, renders man (made) of the earth. We may experience a senti¬ ment of sympathy with and pity for Adam, but he is not entitled to our veneration. There is nothings to his credit O in the fact that millions of men inhabit the painful earth ; nor does the Scripture give any ground for yielding him a father’s reverence. We are not indebted to Adam and Eve for our presence here. ‘ Thou cam’st not to thy place by accident ; It is the very place God meant for thee.’ 1 But, although Adam failed in his part, not therefore was the plan for his elevation in any way or degree a failure. On the contrary, an essential advance was thus made toward the subsequent evolution of the celestial soul in him. For he must, by his failure and its consequences, come to know himself ; and hence his incarnation was a great step tOAvard his restoration. It placed the lost soul, through its relations to the enclosing flesh, in a condition 1 Archbishop Trench. ADAM G3 far more favourable for discipline. By liis fall lie lias exchanged his lost position of probation for one of educa¬ tion. When a fallen spirit desires or consents to become human, it has already begun its progress upward ; the con¬ sent indicates a conquest of pride, and a willingness to become righteous. As St. James said to the council at Jerusalem, ‘ Known unto God are all his works from the beginning’ of the world; which indicates that the whole plan of this world for the abode and purification of man was in the 1 fivine Will from the first. It lay in £ the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself/ 1 It was pre-determined that the redemption of these lost souls should be effected when they had passed into the human stage, and that by the Son of God, who, to that end, should take upon himself the form of man. £ When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.’ Redemption is our deliverance from greed and hatred, and all the other pollutions of selfishness, and our return to that union with God which by our own act we had, as far as in us lay, destroyed. But we shall at length be restored — ‘ Through sin and shame and penitential tears, Through weird experiences of earthly life, Through suffering in exile patiently, Through death, the last of a long list of foes, To Life and Health in Heaven’s garden home.’ 2 Eph. i. 9. - Rev. A. F. Heaton : Now and Then. CHAPTER XIV SIN ‘ Acknowledge that to thyself alone is to be attributed sin, and the punishment due to sin.’ — Thomas a Kempis. Sin is a corruption of our original nature ; it is not essen¬ tial to it, only possible in it. All the angels did not for¬ sake their first estate. ‘ Selfishness,’ says Bishop Westcott, ‘ which exists poten¬ tially as soon as “ self ” exists, is the ground of all sin. Hence tve can see how a perfect finite being may yet be exposed to temptation, for the sense of limitation brings Avith it the thought, or the possibility of the thought, of passing the limit.' 1 ‘ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ 2 ‘ Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me.' 3 We ‘ were by nature children of wrath.’ 4 The origin of evil was pride and selfishness. The angels fell £ because that, when they knew Cfod, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened : professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.’ 5 Sins are spiritual ; the development of them in the flesh, 1 Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 166. 2 1 John i. 8. 3 Ps. li. 5. A Eph. ii. 3. See also John ix. 41. Exod. xxxiv. 9. Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. Rom. vii. 25. Heb. xiii. 11. Rom. viii. 3-10, 11. Rom. iii. 23. Dan. ix. 8, 11, 15. 2 Pet. ii. 4. 5 Rom. i. 21, 22. SIX 65 or in the material, is but the consequence of their mental acceptance. All sins have their inception and growth in the invisible, their outward embodiment in deeds that are manifest. If in any case, even in that of the fallen angels, who, having acquaintance with God, yet glorified Him not, we think we should have done differently, let us remember what the apostle says : ‘ Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself ; for thou that judgest doest the same things.’ 1 It may one day be unavoidably manifest to such as think themselves better than the demons that we all voluntarily turned ourselves from the Light, and that therefore our understandings have ever since been darkened. There are doubtless not a few who would here remind me that, in the Bible, the origin of all our sin and misery is attributed to the fall of Eve. But can men, capable of serious reflection, really reconcile themselves, and that with complacency, to the idea that myriads and myriads of men, women, and children — yea, even infants — are all their lives exposed to suffering incalculable through the weakness of one woman ? It cannot be. Such a conclu¬ sion is directly antagonistic to the sense of justice and reason with which we have been endowed by God himself, and which we are urged by him to exercise. It cannot be imagined that the soul has its origin of infection through its association with the material body, nnr can it be believed that God would force being’s that were previously pure and clean into bodies that would defile them. It is we who have already defiled ourselves, and evils have become combined with the house of our habitation. It is an affront to the Divine Justice to suppose that, as soon as we are born, yea, before we are born, we are subject 1 Rom. ii. ]. E 66 FALLEN ANGELS to wrath and in danger of torment, if our souls have been but newly created. For to be just is to give every one his due ; and how can punishment be due to innocent spirits coming immaculate from the hands of God, having neither thought nor done anything contrary to his will or law, and not yet indeed possessing the capacity of sinning ? If, again, we did not come pure from his hands, if he made us evil, our sin lies with him, not with us ; and as little do we deserve evil as if we had been created innocent. 4 Ah ! but the first of our order, our head and repre¬ sentative, sinned, and we in him ; therefore we contracted guilt as soon as we were capable of it, and so became liable to the punishment of his disobedience.’ This argument seems to some to solve all, and clear the great Judge from all shadow of unrighteousness ! But this is no argument ; for if my inclination to evil was trans¬ mitted with me through countless generations, I awoke to consciousness with sin already in me which did not originate in me. Neither will such a notion stand with the hypothesis of the soul’s immediate creation. For if I was then newly created when first in the body, what to me was Adam, who sinned six thousand years before I came into being ? If he represented me in the matter of guilt, because I was in him as an effect in a cause, then must he represent me in the bearing of the punishment ; of any evil which I could not help, he alone has the blame — no, not he alone, He also who shut up in him the helpless germ of my being. And suppose I who never chose it, yet somehow, as part of Adam, shared in his evil- doing — did this individual self which suffers choose then to do his evil ? I did not even choose him to represent me ! How then am I concerned, I say, in Adam’s sins Avhich never had my will or consent ? Certainly, if men could have been put to their choice whether they would SIN 67 come into being upon such terms, many of us would rather have been nothing for ever ! Would God make his creatures so that, without fault of theirs, they should have cause to wish themselves uncreated ? Those theologians, who calmly refer to Adam’s fall as the cause of the world’s condition, must be strangely indifferent to the injustice, the cruelty, the sufferings, the vice and the crime, that walk the earth ! Do they ever make any serious effort to account reasonably and justly for the anomalies that everywhere exist — such as some being born to disease, to defect, to crushing poverty, yea, to disgrace and contempt, and others to riches, rank, beauty, health, and honour ? A creature unendowed with faculties of reason and morality cannot commit sin : therefore, neither can he be a child of wrath. These faculties a child does not possess. If, therefore, every man is born into the world a child of wrath, he must have been a creature endowed with faculties of reason and morality at some epoch before he was born into this world. If it be said that we came holy out of the hands of God, and that we derive our corruption only from Adam, the question of course arises : By whose will is it that we derive corrupt humanity from Adam ? — by our own will or by the will of God ? If the former, then,/o?^ the exercise of that will, we must have existed before. If by the will of God, who is it that has changed my holiness into sin ? The Father himself. But this cannot be. Is it not, therefore, more reasonable to think that each one of us must have come upon earth both by the will of God and by his own choice ? If I was a corrupted, fallen spirit, laden with guilt, and deserving punishment and death, then, indeed, I may gratefully recognise that such a choice given me was an expedient of mercy for my restoration. By a decree recognising me as a sinner after the fashion 68 FALLEN ANGELS of Adam, my parent and representative, I was introduced into the Christian economy, and entitled to all the blessings that flow from Christ’s suffering and dying as a man also. Men are regarded as sinners in Adam because of Adam’s sin — Adam representing his whole sinful family ; but it is undoubtedly taught in Scripture that the death of Christ Avas determined before the fall of Adam, and even before the foundation of the world. Hence, is it not logical to conclude that the sin for which it was decreed to atone, must have likewise existed before the foundation of the world ? The death of Christ must have been decreed, not as the consequence of Adam’s sin, but of other sin charged upon certain creatures before Adam was man. The sin must have been, not that of Adam on earth, hut that of fallen spirits, to which class belonged Adam and all his future sons ; their past and future sins were all to be atoned for by the interposition of Him whom men heard speak to his Father of 'the glory which thou liadst given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world ’ ; 1 and who said to Mary, f Go to my brethren, and say unto them, 1 ascend unto my Father, and your Father : and to my God, and your God.’ 2 The degradation of the angels may not have been an immediate plunge ; it may have been a continuous falling. Evil doings would become evil habits, and evil habits would generate every wicked indulgence that perverted imaginations could devise. Single sins would develop into social wickedness. Invention itself would work to find yet lower pleasures. The strongest faculties would be the most prostituted. Indulgence would lead to satiety, and satiety grow to disgust ; but with the ashes of their apples in their mouths, they would still plant their trees of Sodom. Every faintest desire after return would at length die 1 John xvii. 24; 2 Tim. i. 9 : Rev. xiii. 8 ; Eph. iii. 9-11. 2 John xx. 17. SIX 69 out of their hearts ; they would dream no more of any shadow of purity or order, any air of the old heaven ; no glimmer of repentance would show itself, no sound be heard but of cursing and defiance. Evil had finished its course, worked out its history, reached the pit. From those that have not shall be taken even that which they have. They thought no heavenward thoughts ; spiritual power they had sent from them, therefore psychical force was taken away. Value and agency were continuously eliminated — each individual force becoming less kinetic and more latent. Even the potentiality lost its concentra¬ tion and became diffused. They had no cause of just com¬ plaint, Worth essential and faculty they had cast out by their own act and will — by unfitness voluntarily adopted. ‘ The washes of Sin is Death.' o CHAPTER XV THE GREAT RESTORER ‘ 0 thou soul’s leader to the realms of light — Hear ! and refine me from the stains of guilt ; The supplication of my tears receive, The punishments incurred by sin remit, And mitigate the swift, sagacious eye Of sacred justice, boundless in its view. By thy pure law, dread evil’s constant foe, Direct my steps, and pour thy sacred light In rich abundance on my clouded soul.’ Proclus : Hymn to the Sun-God. ‘ Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet ; Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.’ Tennyson : The Higher Pantheism . The permanent Jacob’s ladder, the link between heaven and earth, is Jesus Christ. The blood of Christ is his human life, of which his death is the crown. ‘For the blood is the life ; ’ 1 and the name of Christ is his whole character, which is the root and cause of his history. His grace we see now ; his glory we cannot see until his work of grace is done. The disease, disorder, and uncleanness that everywhere meet us in the earth cannot be other than repugnant to the God of purity and beauty. Our creation was in purity ; the disease, the disorder, the uncleanness, all are the results of sin. We left our Father. ‘ All we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own way.’ But a shepherd is come to seek the lost. ‘ I will not leave you orphans.’ 2 1 Deut. xii. 23. 2 John xiv. 18, R.V. margin. THE GREAT RESTORER 71 There are, alas ! many who will not recognise Jesus Christ as our Saviour. I do not allude only to Moham¬ medans, Buddhists, Parsees, or the heathen in general. Many are those born within Christian influences who say, ‘ Where is the saving ? Do we not die ? do we not suffer ? are we not in pain and misery ? Where is the promised kingdom ? ’ Such cannot recognise the invisible as the real ; for that invisible, that real, is not in them — they will not have it. They remain, therefore, under the illusion that the passing- shows of earth, and its elements so constantly interchanging, are the only things real : while the whole system of things visible is but a symbolism through whose help we may lay hold of the real. ‘For the invisible tilings of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.' 1 Those who scorn Christ, and have no aspiration after the things real and invisible, after truth, justice, purity, love, naturally fail in the laws of their human relations. ‘ These speak evil of those things which they know not : but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.’ 2 Through the Spirit, whose record is in the Old Testament, who is the immediate communication of God with the few highest of every age, and who is manifested in the genius of the Platonic and other philosophies, possibly also by influences of those removed from this life to the next higher, there has been a continual upward progress in humanity. The race, with its superior advantages, should at least make more rapid progress than the lower creatures do by mere survival of the fittest. From the very beginning of its new career, from the appearance of Adam, we may well believe that the Son of God must have lent sympathetic aid to his brethren ; but 1 Rom. i. 20. 2 Jude 10. 72 FALLEN ANGELS it was at tlie epoch of his appearance among them in human form that the great upheaval began. He intro¬ duced afresh the godlike principle of Love. Selfishness, the ruling passion, lay thenceforth under the divine curse, heard and understood ; it was condemned in the flesh, and doomed. At the last supper, when Jesus was about to complete his sacrifice for his brethren, he said to his com¬ panions, c A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another : as I have loved }Tou, that ye also love one another.’ 1 The soul of Peter caught the thought that filled the soul of his Master, and he responded with the words, ‘ Lord, I will lay down my life for thy sake.' 2 Very few of us cast off the predilection for self which is at the root of all spiritual, moral, and indeed physical evil. To their vanity some have even sacrificed their earthly lives — to the desire, that is, for the admiration of their fellow- men ; some, in the heat of brutal contest, to the passion for superiority ; some to the obstinate pride of cherished dogma, often with respect to merest forms of religious faith. But St. Paul says, ‘ If I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.’ 3 Love is the one destroyer of selfishness. There is an increasing number, however, who devote all their strength and faculty to the exercise of active love towards their fellows, a love based upon no personal know¬ ledge or preference, but upon the love of God and the necessities of man. How many nurses there are, who doubtless become tenderly attached to their patients, hut who begin their ministrations to each without any respect of person ! There are men and women everywhere, known each in his or her immediate circle as a light in a dark place, but unknown beyond it, who spend their lives in loving ministration and sympathy — the true disciples of - John xiii. 37. 3 1 Cor. xiii. 3, R.V. 1 John xiii. 34. THE GREAT RESTORER *"7 O / o Christ, in that they ‘ have love one to another,’ 1 and so give their lives to their brethren. Bible statements, oft repeated, are explicit enough that we are sons of God, and we are brethren of Christ in that we serve his brethren. ‘ Unto you/ and to all people, ‘ is born this day — a Saviour .’ 2 But many treat the Bible as if they thought it a romance, not an announcement of anything affecting themselves. Fcav indeed feel the life and labour of Jesus Christ to be of the stupendous interest involved in the descent and life of God upon earth ! He was rejected by the Jews because not the Messiah of their ambition; he is not received by us yet because ‘ Altruism * is not to our taste. Those who most nearly approach it are regarded by their neighbours as unpractical, sentimental, foolish. The coming of Christ could alone save mankind from ultimate brutality, could alone raise us permanently above the level of the beasts. We were already capable of rising, by being gifted with superior faculties. But had we in ourselves any ground for boasting of the possession of that superior intelligence by which higher things are possible to us than to birds, beasts, and fishes ? Wherein had any man or woman a claim to be sent into the world as a human being, and not as one of the inferior creatures ? His parents had no power in the matter — had no assurance concerning him until he was born. To be content with the knowledge that we are human because our parents were such, is but an indolent acceptance of what cannot be refused — no falling in with a great and noble destiny. Here we are, nevertheless, each a part of the privileged highest creation. And yet our nature, left uncultivated, does not show itself much removed from the savagery of the beasts. The greatest discovery ever permitted to this earth was the discovery of Christ. He had always existed ; but before 1 Jolin xiii. 3o. 2 Luke ii. 11. 74 FALLEN ANGELS John the Baptist, although dimly shadowed by many prophets, he had not been revealed. All the greatest discoveries to the benefit of mankind have been for a while scorned, ignored, contemned, resisted. It was so with Christ. The light kept in the world by the worship of the true God had become obscured almost to darkness by ceremony and the importance attached by the Phari¬ sees to minutiae of ritualism, while they forgot the prin¬ ciples which their symbols were originally intended to put them in remembrance of ; and, principles disregarded, how was the one live Principle to be recognised ? Perhaps the fig-tree without fruit signified the Jewish nation with its ceremonial mechanism from which the life and value had departed. The world was well-nigh dead in pride and self-indul¬ gence and cruelty, when it was saved from blindness and ruin by the advent of the Son of God. ‘ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness apprehended it not.’ 1 A few only realised the truth of the discovery, but they kept the light of Christianity burning, which by slow degrees must illumine all. Our Saviour was just the reverse of Satan: he had no pride and no greed. But he was the Truth, and must therefore recognise his own claim to be the King, the Master, the Judge of men. Not the less but the more was there in him a feminine tenderness and love. He was at once strong and gentle. ‘ Take my yoke upon you,’ he said, ‘ and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.' 2 A great part of the misery of our present experiences lies in this — that there are so many of our fellow-sinners, even within a mile of us, whom we are unable to help, so many, indeed, who will not be helped. If an ordinary human being, man, or even woman, endeavoured to take 1 John i. 4, 5, R.V. 2 Matt. xi. 29. THE GREAT RESTORER 7 5 upon him or herself the burden of the misery of the neighbourhood, such a one would go mad. The burden could no more be borne than a ship at sea could survive the concentration upon itself of all the blasts of a storm- area. Xo one could sustain that taken upon himself for his friend by the Persian King of Hinton's beautiful story.1 Only Christ is strong enough to realise and bear this load of misery. Many may have laid down their lives for others, but no one save Him could be conscious of, and sympathetically take upon himself, the miseries, physical, intellectual, and moral, of even a single generation. He wept over Jerusalem because he foresaw the seas of suffer¬ ing through which his brethren, because they loved the darkness rather than the light, would have to pass. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief : but his sorrows and his grief were all for others. 1 Scientijlc Romance s, No. 2. CHAPTER XYI BACK TO HEAVEN OUR HOME 4 That which is to be hath already been.’ — -Solomon. 4 0 grant us life that shall not end In our true native land with Thee.' Hymns Ancient and Modern, 311. What means ‘the work of redemption' except it be re¬ storation ? and how can it apply to babies, or even to man — insignificant man, with his few years of pilgrimage ? The thought has puzzled many earnest Christians filled with a sense of our littleness, our unworthiness. ‘ Why we should have been elected to such peculiar honour is as little to be explained as why it has pleased God to redeem men rather than fallen angels.’ The same writer 1 says : ‘ The one great lesson of all history is that man has by sin revolted against the kind and wise government of God, is totally unable to help himself, and still more to govern his fellow-men.’ But is it not too much to lay this upon Adam ? Apply it to the revolted angels, and the observa¬ tion will, with the following, possess that symmetry of justice and love which it now lacks. ‘ We can understand how, in the moral government of God, it may have been needful that the human race should pass through this painful experience of the impossibility of self-government on the part of sinful men. There are lessons that can be learned only by experience. The self-willed child may be best taught his folly by being allowed to taste its bitter fruits : but what parent would allow him to do so further 1 Grattan Guinness, Light for the Last Days. BACK TO HEAVEN OUR HOME *"7 1"^ / / than till he was willing once more to submit to lawful authority ! ’ Mercy flows in full so soon as lessons learned have rendered the sinner capable of receiving the mercy. But the lessons themselves are pure mercy. Surely the promise of our Saviour, * I will draw all men unto me/ means the persuading of all men, through the God-given reason in every man, to come to the light, and so be redeemed. Those of the fallen angels in whom any latent germ of recovery showed itself are being privileged to undergo as men long discipline, and be thus at last made fit for the restitution of their glorious appanages. The others, not yet worthy of preliminary embodiment, remain enemies to God and man, actively exerting themselves to spoil the work of Christ. Both classes abused the liberty with which they were endowed ; but the one went on to revel in wickedness beyond conception, while the other, composed of such as had been drawn in by their fellows, and had shared their guilt by acquiescence, ceased indeed to be angels, but only for a time. ‘ This my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found.’ 1 The pure in heart, whose aspiration is after a nearer walk with God, whose earnest desire is for the betterment of humanity, are surely the first to be allowed an insight into the ways of God : why should we not judge that great seeker after him, Thomas a Kempis, as fit as any ancient prophet to receive such an insight ? In his essay on the Profit of Adversity? he represents the human race, while upon earth, as ‘ being in banishment ; ’ and says in a following chapter that ‘ there is no man that is altogether free from temptation whilst he liveth on earth ; for the root thereof is in ourselves, who are born with inclination to evil. AVe shall ever have somethin^- to suffer, because we ar q fallen from the state of our felicity. ’ 1 Luke xv. 24. 2 Chap. xii. 78 FALLEN ANGELS If tlien, as all admit, we are bom sinners, it seems evident that the ‘state of our felicity'* from which we have fallen must have been antecedent to our being born on earth. Hither we are sent to receive the benefit of that association with Christ which is thus made possible. ‘For two-fold is the return of man to God “who is our home ; ” the return of the individual by the way of death, and the return of the race by fulfilment of its evolution, when the divine secret hidden in the germ shall be per¬ fectly unfolded; 1 Dante in his vision of Paradise (canto xxx. 113) beholds thousands of ranks of those who have returned to Heaven from earth : ‘ Yidi specchiarsi in piii di mille soglie Quanto di noi lassii fatto ha ritomo .’ E. Russell Gurney comments upon these lines : ‘ They have journeyed to no strange land, but have returned to their true Home.' Some of the composers of our hymns may have received a divine influence, causing them to embody in their verses a meaning beyond what they saw or intended at the moment ; and hence such as the following, which would at least equally serve our purpose who believe that the present home of the angels was our former and is our destined future home : — ‘ 0 God, our help in ages past.' ‘ Grant us thy peace upon our homeward way.5 ‘ Lead us, 0 Christ, when all is gone, Safe home at last.5 ‘ That we may stand to fall no more.5 ‘ Strangers and pilgrims here below, This earth we know is not our place, We seek a home above.5 1 Bellamy, Looking Backward, chap. xxvi. 79 BACK TO HEAVEN OUB, HOME ‘ My God, my Father, while I stray Far f rom my home on life’s rough way.’ ‘ I ’m but a stranger here ; Earth is a desert drear ; Heaven is my fatherland, Heaven is my home.’ ‘ Far from my heavenly home, Far from my Father’s breast.’ Our Father would not have driven us from our home, but ‘ I would not be controll’d, I was a wayward child ; I did not love my home, I did not love my Father’s voice, I loved afar to roam.’ Our brotherhood to Christ is shown in that, like our¬ selves, ‘A pilgrim through this lonely world The blessed Saviour pass’d.’ and, happily for us, ‘ Though now ascended up on high, He bends on earth a brother’s eye.’ But ‘ Faint and feeble are our praises While in exile we remain.’ CHAPTER XVII EVOLUTION ‘I wondered whether the ordinary baby of earth, looking so meditative and wise, is thinking of a world he has lately left.’ — Mortimer Collins. ‘The Spirit sleeps in the stone, dreams in the animal, and wakes in man. The awakening appeared to be sudden, it came as it were in a flash ; but it was the result of long processes, it followed the universal rule — a gradual advance, then a sudden unfolding. And in this way, I take it, all revelation comes.’— Edna Lyall : Donovan, chap, xxxvii. Beasts are so far superior to evil spirits, whose chief aim seems to be to thwart the love of God to men, that they do not oppose themselves to the will of God. Is it un¬ reasonable to imagine that they may be a link between the fallen angels and man — that their condition is a stage through which the returning angels have to pass on their way upward to the embodiment we call humanity ? God has begun all things that are now imperfect, but has created nothing to remain imperfect, any more than he ever made any creature sinful. Beasts have many de¬ ficiencies, and there have already been many stages between the original creation of their souls and their existing condition. There is nothing new under the sun, but there are endless changes and fresh developments horn the original life. Man, no more than beast or veget¬ able, causes these developments any more than he created his own life. All forms of life are but agents, and of new forms they are but voluntary or involuntary, conscious or unconscious, media. Each fresh form of life in which we EVOLUTION 81 may find ourselves is by the divine power, and is a divine gift toward our well-being : O O c And eacli hour has its lesson, and each life ; And if we miss one life , we shall not find Its lesson in another ; rather, go So much the less complete for evermore, Still missing something that we cannot name. Still with our senses so far unattuned To what the present brings to harmonise With our soul’s Past.’ 1 To be 4 dead,’ that is, to have passed through the present educational stage, is ground for congratulation. The 'dead’ are free from the burden that the ‘ living ' have yet to bear, namely, much suffering, the anxious prospect of dying, and the danger of committing further sins and follies. To have to die is a pain, but to be promoted out of the flesh is a delight : with our earthly eyes we cannot see Jesus, but ‘ I know that my Redeemer liveth, and after I shall awake, though this body be destroyed, yet out of my flesh shall I see God.’ 2 Heaven may be the sweet surprise of a perfect explanation ; but to see God is better still, is best of all. According to the ordinary representations of the Dar¬ winian doctrine, Evolution has its terminus in the human race. Man has been developed, it is therein concluded, from an original very low form of life. Species after species has died out, but the strongest and fittest of the individuals of each, conjoining by natural selection, have, before their extinction, produced individuals in advance of themselves, to be the progenitors in their turn of beings superior to them. M hile their circumstances, compelling conflict of the rudest kind, have allowed only the fittest to continue their kind, the necessities of existence and growth have more and more compelled adaptation to those environing 1 Mrs. King : The Disciples. 2 Job xix. 25, 26, margin. 82 FALLEN ANGELS conditions, causing more complex organisations, and de¬ veloping and quickening faculties of perception and acqui¬ sition. These laws have been at work through times illimitable, and the progress of any species has always re¬ acted upon and bettered its conditions in favour of the generations that follow. Thus, rising from the batrachian, or, vastly lower still, from the deep ocean-sunk bathybius, by numberless gradations, slowly but in sure foreordina¬ tion, man has at length appeared on the earth. The facts, demonstrated through repeated experiment, wide observa¬ tion, and careful comparison, from which the theory of evolution was itself evolved, are not to be disputed, nor has the present writer any desire to combat the now general belief in the results of those painstaking inquiries, or to detract from the high honour which the patient investi¬ gators have merited and gained from all thoughtful men. But Evolution does not go nearly far enough. It is poor, earthy, materialistic. It is not the whole truth ; it is but a dead reflex of it in lower kind. It treats only of the forms of organico-chemical interaction. It deals only with the destructible flesh, assuming that what is without forms what is within. It reverses the position of cause and effect, for the spiritual is the real, the formative, and the material but an outcome of it : ‘ the things that are seen are temporal ; but the things that are not seen are eternal.’ 1 Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some idea and body it forth. Heaven and Earth are but the time- vesture of the Eternal : ‘ For of the soule the bodie forme doth take, For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.52 Material evolution, as partially propounded by the de¬ spairing Koman poet Lucretius,3 and as more accurately propounded by modern philosophy, contemplates no 1 2 Cor. iv. 18. 2 Spenser : Hymne in Honour of Beautie. 3 De Natura Rerum. EVOLUTION 83 continued existence, no continuous development of the individual. But ‘ The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul 1 Whilst, then, acknowledging the changing sequence of evolution, so far as molecular structure and form are concerned, I come now to state my conviction that one and the same individual vital principle is embodied in an ever-advancing but perishing succession of individual embodiments ; that no individuality has ever been ex¬ tinguished ; that in differing forms of advance vital identity remains ; that the being, the creature, is promoted from one to another shell, husk, case, habitation, body, or house, just as its growth or development renders the change lit and necessary. Nor does this hypothesis stop with man as the ultimate outcome. Humanity is but an inferior stage of existence. There are other and nobler conditions and modes of life. Man is lord of creation on the earth ; but this speck of a planet does not constitute the whole of the universe, and endless possibilities remain for a being whose existence is progression. As emanations from God himself, we could not be ex¬ tinguished, but our forces could be localised ; and having, thus localised, rendered ourselves unfit for the wide freedom we once enjoyed, we were cast down to the abyss. But there is remedy for the haughty spirit that has had his fall, and that remedy must work through the slow and painful gradations of conditionary evolution. He is sent back to a lower, possibly to the lowest, condition of ex¬ istence, there to survive and thence to revive, in a state of blessedness, he dared to admit the thought that he had 1 In Memoriam , 55. 84 FALLEN ANGELS worth in himself, worth independent of his divine origin. It was untruthful vanity, ruinous pride. Essential reality was therein denied, and order, one of Heaven’s first laws, broken, with all the inevitable consequences. To prevent anarchy, the decree of expulsion was uttered. Conscious of indestructible immortality, the rebellious inhabitants of heaven offered resistance. c And there was war in heaven : Michael and his angels fought against the dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels.’ 1 The presumptuous were driven out, and there is for them no return to their place, to their lost home, save by long and laborious process. They had instincts before, now they must become wise. ‘To the wise the way of life goeth upward, that he may depart from Sheol.’ 2 In the primary condition of instinc¬ tive knowledge of good, the created spirit failed : he must now, through experience of himself, through a compulsory maintenance of all the lower forms of order, and through the discipline of law, have his ideas, and at length his will, so disciplined with obedience, and so enlarged toward reason, that his being shall become strong and clear. He must be, as it were, repossessed by a dominant instinct, an instinct grandly different from the former, inasmuch as that of the new man is an all-pervading rectitude, and a love whose very being is its reason. The forced limi¬ tations of law have revealed to him the indispensable truths on which they were founded ; and when at length he is able to lay hold of them, grace and truth come by Jesus Christ, and our generous elder Brother gives us the power by which alone we can regain our lost Home. The consent of a free will, at first necessary to the initiation of the process, may continue to have its place in it. The spirits may not only submit to but fall in with the processes for the realisation of the hopes held out to them. 1 Rev. xii. 7. - Prov. xv. 24, R. V. EVOLUTION 85 Those who at first refused the means of restoration un¬ folded to them may persist in their revolt, and keep turning away in pride from their needful humiliation, preferring to remain fallen angels. They may continue to abhor the discipline of inferior conditions, and decline to owe their rescue to the Son they despise, neither coming in themselves, nor letting others come in if by any device they can prevent them. Such are, even now, labouring on to defeat the purposes of the Father. Let us be thankful and glad that we have advanced so far in the human stage as in a measure to understand what love and devotion mean ! But there can be no failure with God. The vast design, the beneficent labour of the Kins' of Righteousness, working ever from lowest to highest, is O 7 1 Doomed to prevail and conquer, till at length O’er man’s consenting spirit it reigns supreme.’ 1 1 Cremer : Vision of Empires, chap. i. 30. CHAPTER XVIII THE ELEMENTS AND FORCES ‘ All are but parts of one stupendous whole Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul.’ Pope : Essay on Man. The earth gets no lighter. It was proved by Nordenskjiold, and confirmed by Mattieu Williams, that our globe even acquires a small annual increase in weight. Change there is in the positions of its component parts, but no loss. The Romans might destroy Carthage, but they could destroy no atom of which it was built. Every ounce of the compounds of silicon, aluminium, magnesium, calcium, iron, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, once constructed into certain forms by the will and skill of man, and called Carthage, remains even now, either in Africa or elsewhere, upon the globe. These materials have, by the action of various forces, been more or less disintegrated and rendered unfit for their former uses ; but not an atom of any of them has ceased to exist, or, passing beyond the sphere of the earth's attraction, has left the world. Consider, say, the park of Hatfield House : it has pro¬ duced, through the last hundred years, thousands of tons of hay : all this weight of grass is brought into visible, ponderable, palpable existence, chiefly out of the invisible and impalpable, by the mysterious force of an altogether invisible, imponderable, intangible, immaterial vital prin¬ ciple. Vegetable life, life of all kinds, has the mysterious faculty of appropriating such molecules as, coming within its scope, are fitted to combine for the production of its outward form and the organs belonging thereto. All forces o o o are invisible : Science sets them operating one way, and THE ELEMENTS AND FORCES 87 Life another. No chemist has yet been able to imitate vegetable life in its method of decomposing carbonic acid. Vegetables and animals mutually supply each other’s needs. Animals inhale the oxygen of the atmosphere, compound it with carbon, and breathe out carbonic acid. To breathe it in is death to any animal ; but instead of being noxious to vegetable life, this gas constitutes its chief food. Vege- tables appropriate the carbon, clothe themselves mainly in it, and breathe out again the oxygen for the use of the animals to which it is so precious. The main business, indeed, of oxygen is a carrying one: it relieves the factories of the animals of their refuse carbon, and conveys it to those of the vegetables. There is no annihilation, no ceasing of the passive lower thing: is it likely that the superior active force should cease ? All forms doubtless pass away ; but there is that we cannot see which produced them, without which they could not continue, and which, though it remains invisible, still exists. The material atoms of them continue indestructible ; so does the force that gathered those atoms into passing shapes. It is presumption to declare that the vitality, once in conjunction with any palaeontological remnant, has ceased to be. The time may come when the adherents to such an opinion will be re¬ garded as scientific dodos. A deeper -searching Loyal Society may have left the contemplation of dead exuviae for the more exalting pursuit of the laws of vital forces. How, indeed, should there be any destruction of a vital principle issuing from God ? How should man, or any other creature, or force of Nature, annihilate that substantial reality which is obviously superior to the matter upon which it acts, and which it controls ? There is no proof of any such annihilation ; vet the notion of it has been, in the most unreasoning way, almost universally accepted, and, indeed, treated as an article of faith. CHAPTER XIX INDESTRUCTIBILITY ‘ Learn how to produce eternal children, not such as may supply the wants of the body in old age, but such as may nourish the soul with per¬ petual food. ' — Demophilus. To consider what are called the forces of Nature : — it is now in science a recognised law, since the brilliant dis¬ coveries of Joule, that there is a perfect conservation of energy, that no force can be destroyed. A steam-engine is worked by heat ; the heat disappears, but that of which heat is but a form remains ; it cannot be destroyed. It has become mechanical force — which again may be con¬ verted into electricity, while that, in its turn, may be evolved as light. In this series are various transforma¬ tions, but no loss. Man can neither create energy nor destroy it. He can only lay hold of and direct it. To descend from forces to elements : consider whether each of the seventy elements composing the earth has not in its ultimate atoms an individual identity. At the Royal Institution on January 20, 1893, and again on January 19, 1894, Professor Dewar exhibited a pint of blue fluid to which he had condensed oxwen mas ; but it was still oxygen, and ready, so soon as the compressing force should be withdrawn, to resume its prior gaseous con¬ dition. Must not an indivisible atom of hydrogen be always the same atom ? Each atom of hydrogen may unite with another atom of hydrogen, as where two of hydrogen and one of oxygen unite to constitute water ; INDESTRUCTIBILITY 89 but when, by electric force, the molecule of water is again separated into the atoms which composed it, does not each atom remain the same atom, and was it not the same while yet forming the molecule of water ? In any condition is not each atom distinct from the other ? Either may enter into a neiv combination, and take its part in forming a molecule, say, of ammonia : but it remains inherently the same individual all the time, retaining the same relations, the same qualities, the same dimensions even. The original atom of hydrogen may, in the course of its unknown, incalculable existence enter into twenty, or even a hundred, different kinds of compounds with carbon and other elements, but it remains undestroyed and indestruc¬ tible. It may have millions of times changed the con- ditions of its existence, but itself remains the same. On the theory that has been commonly received of the nature of an atom, this is indisputable. The same, of course, must be said of every atom of every other of the supposed elements — element being the name given to any sub¬ stance that cannot be separated into other substances, or produced by any combination of other substances. It should be remarked, however, that scientists are not yet fully agreed as to the exact nature of an atom. The air, or any gas, although invisible, is as material as a liquid or a solid. If a gas possessed consciousness but not retrospective knowledge, it would imagine itself free as well as permanent. Man, however, can easily change a gas into a solid by compression and cold. So may any rebel against law imagine himself free until the consequences of his action begin to close him in. ‘ The powers of the spiritual world lie fixed in a clod according to God’s love and anger,’ says Bohmen ; and such may be said of every human being who lias not yet been set free by restored harmony with God. In There evad Back is depicted the character of a man who found him- 90 FALLEN ANGELS self what he found himself, and was content with the find, who therefore asked no questions as to whence he came, and was to himself as if he came from nowhere, which made it easy for him to imagine that he was going no- wliither. He had not yet reflected that he did not make himself, and that there might he a power somewhere that, having called him into being, had a word to say to him on the matter ! But there are others, as the same writer says, to whom the present cannot be good save as a mode of the infinite. In such their divine origin is asserting itself. Once known for what it is, the poorest present moment is a phial holding the elixir of life. Men of the one class imagine themselves free because they are in such slavery that they do not feel it ; men of the other feel themselves in bondage until the Son sets them free — brings them into harmony, that is, with the will of his Father and theirs. A creed, ancient as well as modern, is that chance, or vague Nature, determined all genesis. It is but a pseudo¬ scientific fancy. What might well to an uninstructed eye he anarchy is a vast procession of evolution. If Professor Tyndall regards Nature as at first ‘ all being, latent in a fiery cloud : ' if, as Tennyson says, ‘ This world was once a fluid haze of light,’ 1 that same fire-mist was acted upon, not only by forces inherent, but by pre-existent qualities, magnetic and other, of the environment in which the confused nucleus found itself. And all must have had an origin. While in every organisation there must be a vital principle, as to the elements there is a capacity, inherent in each, by which it is characterised, and which constitutes its relation to other elements, its affinity-power. Certain forces may act in some respects similarly on all matter ; in other respects ] The Princess. INDESTRUCTIBILITY 9 1 may have special relations to different molecules or atoms according to the characteristic force, life, or indwelling potentiality of each. The inherent special power of union, or adoptive com¬ bination with other elements, may be called the soul of each element, and has its correspondence with will. Each element or compound acts by its own internal force, as a will at liberty to carry out its likings. It seems to me, indeed, that there is in the lower creation no absolute extinction of the principle of will ; that the mysterious power of affinity found in every element, which in action will appear as its liking or choosing of this or that com¬ panion, constitutes its soul, and manifests itself like an expression of will. The scope for the exercise of such will is no doubt very limited, for it is unassociated with any power of independent movement. When we ascend to the vegetable world, in which appear organisation and a surer individuality, whose roots reach far out after the water that holds its food, and whose leaves delight in the stimulus of the sunlight and the cleansing of the rain, there is a far ampler field for the exercise of what modification of will has been granted. The dynamic power manifested in the spring of the year over a few acres of cultivated land is tremendous — in the multitude of vegetable bodies that thrust themselves out of the earth and raise themselves upwards, the superior power of their vitality overcoming the resistent inferior force of gravity. With the various ascending genera of the animal world the scope of action continues to enlarge, and the opportunities of it to multiply, until at length man appears, to whom is permitted a liberty involving complete respon¬ sibility. This progress of liberty through its varied degrees is doubtless correspondent to the fitness of the different creatures, and its further development must vary with the development of the human character. 92 FALLEN ANGELS When Disraeli, at Oxford in 1864, dealt with the cele¬ brated question, £ Is man an ape or an angel ? ’ he declared himself ‘ on the side of the angels.' Perhaps if the question had been put with ‘ has been ’ instead of ‘ is/ the lit response would have been ‘ Both.' Man, while endowed with reason and aided by experi¬ ence, both assuring him that any infringement of the moral law must bring mischief on himself and on the lower creation, yet continually abuses the liberty he possesses, the privileges accorded to him : whence it is clear that it would have been unsafe to establish free communication between him and the lower creatures — the animals and vegetables, perhaps even the minerals. Man is not nearly honourable enough to be trusted with a limitless power. His demoniacal propensities must be closed within walls. We are not yet fit to be let loose, and are happily restrained by the force of gravitation, by the laws of space and time, by the limitations of sea and air, by the bonds of the brain, by the restriction, perhaps by the paucity, of our senses, by the many burdens of the flesh, by indeed count¬ less manacles and fetters. But as we grow capable of using it aright, our liberty will be enlarged. While, however, the kinetic possibilities of each of the three kingdoms are shut in by restraints belonging to their several conditions, there is yet always progress. The mineral is elevated by the force of the invisible vital prin¬ ciple, or soul of the plant, to become part of its embodi¬ ment. Grass is converted by the wonderful process of digestion into flesh of sheep and oxen. Man, in turn, consuming these, gathers his body from the earth, the air, and the water, largely by help of the lower creatures as intermediates. Yet is he but a poor ‘ lord of the creation.’ His earthly career occupies but a very brief span. His tenure of the flesh has not nearly so long a duration as that of many trees, Ashes, birds, and beasts. His know- INDESTRUCTIBILITY 93 ledge of the ground lie stands upon does not extend to even the depth of a mile from its surface. He is liable to many diseases and ills of which the lower animals know little or nothing. His sufferings rise with his position. We must continue to live because our life is a force. But if we continue to live when removed from our present shells, why should we think that the life once in fossils, or in any other previous embodiment, has been extin¬ guished ? Why should not the individual life have advanced in character, correspondent to the advance in the new embodiment of life ? The former has individual value, the latter none. Why should it not have continued the same in its new clothing ? ‘ If that which we call matter never dies, Enduring ever though transfused in forms, Can this great thing that so self-conscious lies Melt more to nothing than the dust of storms'?1 1 Duke of Argyll : Poems, 1894. CHAPTER XX THE UPHEAVAL £ Arise and fly The reeling fawn, the sensual feast ; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die. 5 — Tennyson. The difference between Instinct and Reason is more one of gradation than of kind. In sleep we are governed more by instinct, and less by reason ; and there are many waking conditions in which the will is ruled by other forces than those of judgment and intended direction. £ Many psychologists hold the view that when anything is known so well as to become an integral part of ourselves, then there is no memory in the process of remembrance. They say we do not remember that a stone is hard.5 1 Many acquisitions may thus have been made during the processes of our evolution — amongst the rest, much of the knowledge of the lower animals — without our retaining any memory concerning them : they have been burnt into us, as it were, and form part of ourselves. Evolution recognises that life and all its phenomena are the outcome of forces in foregone conditions ; that all facts are effects, the results of causes, which effects become causes in their turn. This is now almost universally admitted. How, then, did each one of us come irpon the earth, endowed with our special characteristics, qualities, faculties ? 1 Eridge Green on Memory. THE UPHEAVAL 95 Why should the search for origin be, in the vital science, neglected ? By life, life is reintroduced, but no finite being can create a new individuality. The apostles of evolution are still struggling in the dark, and must there struggle so long as they do not work upon the basis that the continuous soul, abandoning ever the inferior state for a higher, is the cause of the superior vital development. The vastness of the numbers concerned, the difficulty in grasping the thought of such multitudes of separate individualities in successive generations, need not, then, cause any difficulty in the way of accepting the continued existence of all things made. There is no reason for welcoming the idea of their annihilation to relieve the oppressive notion of the measureless and endless swarming of life. There is the far better idea that no life perishes, but the individual, the vital essentiality, the personality, reappears in a fresh form, ascending from form to form, through forms innumerable. Why should it alone be lost, seeing that no material element is lost, seeing that no force whatever is lost, but is the same in a new shape, and seeing that between these insensible elements and forces and any lowest vitality there is a great gulf of difference in value ? Not to speak of the exercise of will, its highest manifesta¬ tion, the vital principle of a goat or a daisy is far greater, that is, nobler, than the principle in electro-motive force or in gravity. Evolutionists, while partly admitting the evolution of mind in animals, yet allow that there are difficulties in their own hypothesis beyond their compre¬ hension. Mr. Wilson, late of Clifton College, says : ‘ If we have evidence to convince us of the gradual and derivative origin of these bodies, it is obvious that we accept the de¬ rivative origin of their mental faculties ; but the processes of derivation are quite beyond us. AVe understand neither the inheritance of instinct, nor the inheritance of form ; the variations of ability are as unintelligible as the varia- J O 96 FALLEN ANGELS tions of structure or colour, yet instinct and ability are inherited; the law of selection of the fittest must hold. We accept the theory of mental evolution even though we cannot form any conception of the processes of mind or their transmission/ Constantly these students of Nature fail to grasp the missing link. They snap oft* the individuality upon each change. Their great mistake is in regarding the material body, and not the invisible vital principle, as the reality. This, the vital principle, I contend, is permanent, and advances from stage to stage, passing ever to the next the moment it is fitted for it by the experience of the last. Evolution must indeed be an individual progress if ‘ Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.’ 1 If we believe that our souls are to emerne from these o our bodies, and assume some other condition in the future, why, I would ask, may they not have done so in the past ? and why should we find it difficult to imagine that other lives should but change their forms nor be subjected to annihilation any more than we ? It cannot be more diffi¬ cult for God to hold in progression the life of an individual than to create continually fresh individuals ! Why should we have the vanity to suppose that the soul of man alone of all created live forces shall hold fast to its identity ? Are some of us so much better than some of the lower creatures ? Mr. Wilson recognises £ of necessity some general theory of connection between all forces of life, vegetable and animal/ Darwin revealed the true modus operandi of Nature in giving origin to new species — -one of the greatest discoveries of the century ; but there are problems of life wholly untouched by Darwin. We know nothing 1 Browning. THE UPHEAVAL 97 as yet of the causes of permanence of species, of heredity, or of slow variation and sudden start. Wilson, however, cherishes an encouraging belief: ‘We cannot doubt,’ he says, ‘ that further steps will but verify and complete the theory of evolution — the theory, that is, that the cosmos which we see, organic and inorganic, physical and mental, has become what it is by successive stages of ordinary development.’ Further he says: ‘The study of origin is becoming a necessity in all branches of study. Whatever study we take up, it runs back ulti¬ mately into the study of origin.’ Doubtless ; and what does such study result in ? It can only be that the origin is God, who sustains as well as creates. ‘ In him we live, and move, and have our being,’ in however many shells or shapes or bodies that being may have manifested itself. Even the grand parable, or legendary record, or divine myth, in the Book of Genesis, seems to hint at a progressional creation cul- minatino' in man. O R. A. A aughan, B.A., shows that the Mystics are of one mind as to man’s having in him all the rest of creation. ■ A ith all the Theosopliists man is a microcosm, the harmonised epitome of the universe ; a something repre¬ sentative of all that is contained in every sphere of being is lodged in his nature.’ 1 • The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man, And the man said, “ Am I your debtor ? ” And the Lord, Xot yet, but make it as clean as you can, And then I will let you a better.”’ 2 One of the earliest propounders of the theory of evolu¬ tion was Anaximander, who believed that living beinsrs were evolved from the fluid that first constituted the earth. Heraclitus, about 500 b.c., attributed origin to fire 1 See George Herbert’s well-known poem called Man. - Tennyson, Demeter and other Poem*, 1889. G 98 FALLEN ANGELS holding that transformations were, in his time as before it. continually going on. Empedocles, who also flourished about 500 b.c., was resolute in upholding that no annihi¬ lation was possible, and that nothing could come into sentient existence on earth which had no previous being. Lamarck was an evolutionist, and also Leibnitz ; Herder, Lessing, and Goethe believed in the law of development the last maintaining that the universe, under the direction of its Creator, is still progressing in a harmonious system of transformation. Power precedes matter. There is this similarity in vital principles of all kinds,, that they possess the capacity of selecting and appro¬ priating certain material substances from the things en¬ vironing them, by means of which they come into material, and through them into spiritual, relations with other vitalities similarly embodied. 4 The soul is an everlasting essence, which can never be wholly extinguished, for it is of the lire of God ; it exists, and must be somewhere.’ 1 4 Imprimis hoc volunt persuadere non interire animas, sed ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios, atque hoc maxi me ad virtutem excitari putant, metu mortis ne- glecto.’ 2 — 4 Especially they are of belief, that souls are not buried, but that after death they pass into others, and they think this excites them to valour, not having fear of death.’ The transmigration of souls for purposes of educa¬ tion was believed in by many of the greatest ancient philosophers. It has always been recognised that invisible souls occupy visible bodies. 1 Booh of Enoch, p. 67. 2 Caesar : de Bello Galileo, vi. CHAPTER XXI ANIMALS ARE SOULS ‘Benedicite, omnia opera.5 £ I believe in one who fills all things, by whom all things consist, and therefore I do believe in the immortality of animals.5 — Edna Lyall. Luther fully expressed Lis belief tliat animals might share in the life to come ; but I would appeal to a higher authority: it seems to me that, unless we deliberately narrow the meaning of the words of St. Paul, he clearly asserts the deliverance of the whole creation ‘from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ The herd of swine into which the evil spirits were allowed to enter, possessed a power which their bodies obeyed, until another force overpowered its ordinary direction. The swine were invaded by more active in¬ visible agencies ; and ran, against their own nature, into the sea. It seems from this that the animals had free power ; for if they had been but material bodies, they could not have been so acted upon by spirits. Quiescent, following their ordinary habits, a foreign power usurped the rule of their beings and compelled their obedience : this power must therefore have been of the same kind as themselves.1 1 It was a doctrine of Syrianus and of Proclus that a soul might trans¬ migrate into a new body rational to itself, or that it might be companion to another soul in the same body. The souls thus associated in one body took lessons each from the experiences of the other, each assisting or retarding the other. 100 FALLEN ANGELS Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king¬ dom of God : the lower animals may be — I think are — born again, and so enter into the field of humanity, carrying with them the lessons of their previous lives. A horse learns to subordinate his power to the will of his intel¬ lectual superior and become a willing, generous servant : many servants have evidently not been horses yet. If animals are not souls, or, to use the common false mode of speech, have no souls, what a poor, aimless exist¬ ence is theirs ! Why are they here ? How poor and aimless ant-life, for instance, seems, unless it has a power in it of progress, and the prospect of permanence ! Surely to make their life intelligible, to accord them a raison d’etre, we must suppose a future for them. Except for compensation of some worthy kind in store, how are we to regard their sufferings ? The survival of the fittest implies untold pain and misery. One creature ruthlessly preys upon another, and then in its turn has to undergo torture and anguish. All creatures are subject to disease and mutilation. Some are condemned to a wretched existence of almost unceasing privation and misery. Can what we see be all the Creator cares to do for his creatures ? Can he be content to bestow upon them a wrretched existence whose sole redeeming condition is that it must by-and-by cease for ever ? Perfect reconciliation is possible, however, between the evident facts and our eternal ideas of justice and mercy. We have but to know and understand what has gone before and what is to come after. The present cannot surely stand alone in regard to the lower animals, any more than in regard to the higher. A present without past or future is something idiotic. But suppose all these terrible things experienced by the fallen spirits for their restoration, and the world changes its aspect. Mr. B. Carlill, in an article in The Nineteenth Century ANIMALS ARE SOULS 101 of August 1888, written with the object of demonstrating that the pleasures of the lower animals exceed their pains, is driven to admit that those of them which have failed in the struggle of life ‘ have had an existence on the whole of more misery than happiness.’ ‘ Possibly, Archoepteryx was not happy, but the birds who succeeded him have solved the problem of existence, and their happiness has been cheaply purchased by his vicarious sacrifice.’ In his Animal Intelligence, Professor Romanes admits that there must be a psychological no less than a physio¬ logical continuity throughout the length and breadth of the animal kingdom, which would bracket animals with men in evolution of mind as much as of body. As man anticipates higher faculties when removed from the present body, is it not easy to suppose many succes¬ sive previous advances ? The soul of the animal, escap¬ ing at every death, and by its previous life rendered fit for more liberty, has, I hold, been re-embodied with an enlarged horizon of being. It is a fallen spirit on its return -journey, gradually, by every new stage, regaining something of the capacity it had lost. H. X. Pearson, while not accepting the future existence of animals, as commonly understood, yet declares that the difterence in mental power between the lowest man and the highest animal is but very small, and rather of degree than of kind. In a brilliant essay in The Nineteenth Century of January 1891, he says that ‘ the precise nature of an animal mind is a force, complex, of great power and high capabilities, and in many cases does not fall short ot the mental level which in man we deem compatible with immortality.’ Mr. Romanes (summing up the researches on this sub¬ ject made by Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Grant Allen) judges that ‘ they clearly point to the conclusion, which I 102 FALLEN ANGELS do not think is open to any one valid exception, that pains are the subjective concomitants of such organic changes as are harmful to the organism — or, we must add, to the species ; ’ and further, ‘ they must have been evolved as the subjective accompaniment of processes which are re¬ spectively beneficial or injurious to the organism, and so evolved for the purpose or to the end that the organism should seek the one and shun the other.’ Surely such discipline might be more satisfactorily regarded as a portion of the process of evolution to which the lower creation is subjected for purposes of instruction and moral elevation. Why should Mr. B. Carlill’s very ancient winged creature have been unhappy ? If he was to have no personal benefit in his sufferings, but his successors only, however good they might be for them — and they have not been greatly benefited by them, I should think, in their consciousness of bliss — it was surely hard for him ! If no consideration of eschatology is to be ad¬ mitted in the case of the individual animal, then the sufferings and cruelties to which he is subjected must remain morally unaccountable. What I contend for is this : that, if each atom of, say, carbon, iron, zinc, or hydrogen is indestructible, much more is each vital principle indestructible. While the former are capable of many and many a combination, the latter is capable, being higher in kind, of many and many an alliance ; and, wherever a vital principle exists, it is capable of being developed. The lowest lessons of experience are needful for the acephaloids and the amoebae, creatures which are corporeally nothing but a stomach, and which may be turned inside out and experience no great incon¬ venience. The scale upwards to ape, dog, or horse is very gradual in its ascent, and equally gradual is the ascending scale of method in their instruction, until at length we come to threat, look, articulated sounds, and, last of all, ANIMALS ARE SOULS 103 appeal, when the borderland of humanity is reached. If a responsible father spare the rod of correction, the child will be spoilt ; but this rod the Almighty Father will not spare in regard to any of his creatures, for he loves them, and will have them grow more and more capable of loving and being loved. We can imagine a beast happy so long as he can eat, drink, and sleep well, and is able to exercise all his corporeal functions. The happiness of a fish may be said to be as great as that of a man if he lias all he can hold ; but a very poor and pitiful life is that which is devoid of any hope beyond the continuance of existing favourable con¬ ditions, or the arrival of better. That man is able to cherish hope in respect of his imperfect nature, constitutes his transcendent superiority over the lower creation. Happy indeed are those who have ‘ La concreata e perpetua sete Del deiforme regno 5 1 — an appetite only to be satisfied with the water whose gracious gift the woman of Samaria besought. f Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ The elaborate process in the assimilation of minerals into vegetable body, and of vegetable body into animal body, is nowise comprehended : is it wonderful, then, that the assimilation of its spiritual food by a growing soul in the far abysmal depths of its animal or vegetable re¬ development should be to us incomprehensible ? 1 he progress of the creation is a matter beyond dispute : what is there to say as to a previous downfall from angel¬ hood, and a return to life and light ? Evil must have existed before man appeared on the earth, if we take the story of the serpent deceiving Eve to 1 Dante : Paracliso, ii. 19 ; also Burg. xxi. 104 FALLEN ANGELS represent in any way, as fact or parable, truth historic or metaphysical : the revolt of the angels must have preceded this event. ‘ Evil, unknown till thy revolt, Unnamed in Heaven, how hast thou disturbed Heaven's blessed peace, and into Nature brought Misery, uncreated till the crime Of thy rebellion ! 5 1 Some of the mythological legends may be grossly corrupted forms of oral tradition, having their origin in the earliest times — such as that of the war between the Gods of Olympus and the Titans, which may represent what, in our adopted traditions, is represented as the war of the angels in Heaven. The charming allegory of Cupid and Psyche, as related by Apuleius, is an embodiment of the idea of the lapse of the soul. The difficult tasks which Psyche is obliged to execute are images of the mighty toils and anxious cares which the soul must necessarily endure to atone for her guilt and recover her ancient residence. Enslaved to a corporeal life, plunged in obscurity, and deprived of the comfort of truth and the assurance of reality, Psyche labours in sad dismay. Empedocles says : ; I fled from deity and heavenlv light, To serve mad discord in the realms of night.’ He thought that the souls of men and animals were souls which had been banished from Heaven for their offences, and doomed to do penance in some body of the lower earth. He describes himself as ‘ an outcast from God-home and a wanderer, a slave to raving;’ strife.’ Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans held the generic identity of human and animal souls ; and the doctrine of metempsychosis is taught by Plato in his Republic. G. AY. Lewis supposed lapsed intelligences to be the origin of all instincts. Mr. Carlill holds that ‘ instinctive o 1 Paradise Lost, Book vi. ANIMALS ARE SOULS 105 acts are not performed purely mechanically ; they require the co-operation of different nerve-centres and the guid¬ ance of the head of the nervous system. And originally, no doubt, the great majority of actions now instinctive were done intelligently and deliberately, and have through long usage and through the effects of heredity now come to be done instinctively/ Kingsley, in his Westminster sermon on Death, says that the passage in the 104th Psalm, ‘ Thou makes t dark¬ ness, and it is night ; wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep* forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God/ has been a constant source of comfort to him, from its recognition that the suffering and death of the dumb animals is by God’s law. He con¬ troverts the hypothesis that the fall of Adam was the cause of their destroying and devouring each other, seeing that, long ages before man existed upon the earth, the seas swarmed with sharks and other monsters, which not only died as animals do now, but devoured — of which there is actual proof — their fellow-creatures, and that the same process went on likewise upon the land. 4 The rocks and soils beneath our feet are one vast graveyard full of the skeletons of creatures, almost all unlike any living now, who, long before the days of Adam, lived and died, genera¬ tion after generation, and sought their meat — from whom, if not from God ? ’ In the reflection that all this was by the arrangement of a God of love, Kingsley confesses himself comforted ; and so would many another pious soul. But in these days there are other than pious souls — shall we say ? — who ask, ‘ How can he be a God of love who would contrive and send out such a creation ? ’ Are these souls, sceptical and unhappy, to be abandoned among the difficulties that beset the path of their aspirations ? are these not worth an effort to bring them help ? 106 FALLEN ANGELS Let no one be content with declaring thoughtlessly, ‘ I believe God’s word ; that is enough for me ! ’ while what they do believe may be merely a fancied meaning attributed to that word. Let no one revel in a selfish Paradise, content that things should be just as they seem to be, nor caring to seek explanation that may justify the ways of God to men. The heart without the head is not to be relied upon, any more than the head without the heart. In the parable of the sower, it is he who understandeth as well as heareth that is called the good ground ; neither the stony nor the thorny ground has any understanding. 1 The world is full of sad mysteries ; but every year fresh light arises in every department of human investigation. Should we, then, be justified in superstitiously closing our minds against thoughtful inquiry into the subjects that most of all affect our history and destiny ? It is from what has been that what will be can be most safely anticipated. If it can be reasonably shown that man has been developed from the Trilobite and similar forms of ancient life, what large amount of capacity and hope fulfilled may we not expect to find laid up for us in store ! Kant, one of the profoundest thinkers of the race, held that the human body has been developed from that of the lower animals.2 The demonstrations of Darwin and his school, when first enunciated, shocked as well as startled the world. The demonstrators were inveighed against as preposterous, absurd, even blasphemous lunatics. Their conclusions are now generally accepted, nor is it against them that they are altogether incomplete. ^Giat there is of their chain is strong, although fast at neither end. They have discovered the fact that life has been making a continuous progress out of awkwardness, ugliness, and helplessness, into grace and beauty and liberty. They have unwittingly aided our religious hopes and aspirations by 1 Matthew xiii. 19-22. - Kritik der UrtheilsJcraft , 1790. ANIMALS ARE SOULS 107 evidence of tlie evolution of good from bad, of superior from inferior. They are, nevertheless, throughout material¬ istic, and yield no recognition of the indispensable Master- hand. Neither do they recognise a progression of states of the same consciousness, or any continuance of the indi¬ vidual life through the grades of change and improvement in external form. So far as they see or show, everything belongs to death : nothing lives save to die. No Phoenix arises from any ashes. There is no Redivivus. According to their deathly doctrine, the individual is the thing of least account in the universe ; he but emerges to become extinct. He is not : happier live the next ! According to these dwellers in the dry, the chemical affinities are greater than the vital forces. They say, ‘ The things that are not seen are temporal ; but the things that are seen are eternal ! ’ The materialistic philosophers hold that no matter can be destroyed, and even that no force can be annihilated ; also that the affinities and the inorganic forces act in¬ voluntarily. But the organic forces or vital agencies are great disturbing and modifying powers in Nature. The growth, probably with a dim consciousness, of vegetation, and the more active will and necessities of the lower animals and of men, are powers that cause the material elements and the immaterial forces to conform to certain desired syntheses and changes of condition. Why, then, should we be expected to believe that many species, and even whole genera, of such live powers have ceased to exist, have become extinct for ever, while the unconscious elements and forces which were, in a measure at least, sub¬ ject to them and always serving them, continue in change¬ less being ? Does not the demand imply a lamentable subordination of the greater to the less ? Let me say a few words to the religious. Do not we and the animals alike perish, so far as our flesh is concerned ? 108 FALLEN ANGELS Does not the word, ‘ Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,’ apply to both ? If it was not spoken of the soul of man, what right have we to say that it was spoken of the living principle in the lower forms of creation ? What possible suggestion do the words give of any distinc¬ tion ? Man having been gradually developed through a long course of lower and inferior forms up to what he now is, why should we have the presumption to declare that, while we are in process of being saved, no good was ever intended for the live creatures beneath us ? Let us open our minds to natural ideas of justice. Why should we refuse even to contemplate the notion of a gradual improvement in them, a gradual exaltation of their faculty ? Why should we be either vain or proud of being born men ? What credit may one claim that he is not a horse, a sheep, a pig, a fish ? What had we done to predetermine such our superior fortune ? Can our birth, as superior to theirs, be explained ? To answer that we are happy as we find ourselves, and do not care to inquire, is unworthy of such as profess to believe in the justice, love, power, and beauty of the divine system of things. What can be more full of joy, what exercise more refreshing to the soul, than the endeavour to search out what we may of the Father’s dealings with his children ! How much stronger is our faith when the justice and wisdom and goodness of any portion of them is clear to us ! Inasmuch as the coming of our Saviour was foreordained, it may not be without significance that he v'as born into association with creatures whose souls were not yet pro¬ moted to the human stao-e. O Mr. Wilson says, in his essay on evolution : ‘We may look back on man’s history and accept the overwhelming pro¬ babilities of the view that connects him physically with other animals in a far distant age. We may accept as proved the develojnnent of his reasoning faculties, his ANIMALS ARE SOULS 109 instincts, his affections, and we may therefore connect them remotely with the reasoning faculties, the instincts, and the affections of animals.’ The tyranny of the body limits the capabilities of man, and hence our earthly tenement is called ‘ the body of our humiliation : ’ but with the beasts it is a body of degrada¬ tion. They are dumb or nearly so, and cannot leave thoughts behind them. Of some great author it maybe said that, ‘ being dead, he yet speaketh ; ’ but of no beast can it be said. Still, while the lower animals are manifestly inferior to man, they have some faculties we neither possess nor understand. The Re y. J. Cl. Wood, in Man and Beast, gives many instances of the power of animals to discern spirits. This is especially affirmed of dogs in the popular American work, The Gates Between, It meets with some partial support from Charles Kingsley ; and a notable instance of the possession of this perception is given in the story of Balaam and his ass. Some dogs, by their gestures and gaze, very strongly suggest that they must be imprisoned spirits. A Sussex relative of mine gave a dog to a friend at Arundel. His new owner was captain of a vessel trading from Littlehampton, and he took the animal with him on his voyage thence to Sunderland. After an interval, the dog presented himself, in an exhausted condition, at the residence of his former master, near Horsham. How the animal found his way back on his feet from the county of Durham is a veritable mystery. The Baroness Blom- field, in her Reminiscences of Court Diplomatic Life, men¬ tions a similarly astonishing incident. Her grandfather, Sir Henry Liddell, sent a hound by sea from Newcastle to London shortly after she had had pups. She disappeared, and in a short time arrived at the kennel at Ravenswortli, a mere skeleton, having run two hundred and eighty miles. 110 FALLEN ANGELS She just got home, lay down, and died. Carrier-pigeons and birds of passage show similar faculty.1 No animal, human or inferior, no plant even, calls into being another of the same race. Parents are only instru¬ ments for the preparation of a dwelling. My belief is that they only mediate between a new form and a previous existence ; they help to prepare a new house for an old householder. Primary life is the pnennia or emanation of the divine ; the soul, or vital principle of plant or animal, exercises its force of reproduction oidy through its immediate connection with the orioinatino’ Life.2 All o o life-power, however seemingly intrinsic, is derived. Much confusion and difficulty would end with the recognition that the divine individuality of no creature can he destroyed. George MacDonald, in Bonal Grant, says of his hero that he had long abjured the notion of anything in the vegetable world being without some sense of life, or with¬ out pleasure and pain in mild form and degree. Evolution indicates progression : why should not its theory include possible degradation ? This whole world, indeed, may itself he a degradation. The dead human body was once interpenetrated with life : why may not the lower forms of creation, without organised functions, have once had or have now an invisible life in them l Why may they not be the visible presentments of a life of exceeding low development ? Of the spiritual essence of Deity, and possessed of a distinct personality, these may be lives that had so far degraded themselves as to be caused 1 There were remarkable leading articles in the Standard and St. James’s Gazette of April 17, 1889, upon a meeting of the Folk-Lore Society, at which a paper w'as read upon Totemism, or the derivation of men from animals, and their relationship. The interest involved consists in the evidence of the wide extent of the tradition amongst savage tribes. 2 An analogue to this may be found in the induced electricity of the Ituhmkorff coil, which possesses a borrowed, not an intrinsic power. ANIMALS ARE SOULS 111 to occupy, or to gather around them, or perhaps even to send out from them, such fittingly low embodiments as those of the crystallised minerals. Sunk, and so condemned to a level thus low, and com¬ pelled to adjust themselves thereto, they may thereby be driven to make an effort, or at least to generate a wish, to rise. It may be that, when so many angelic beings were no longer fit to remain in heaven, it was in love decreed that some portion of them should at once be reduced to a level in which they could not sin, and from which they would then be more recoverable than if they had been allowed to fall to it step by step. It might be mercy to the prodigals to let them touch the bottom promptly and eat husks. Different levels of degradation might be exactly fitted to different degrees and kinds of guilt. The All- seeing could determine precisely at what stage of reduction from conscious power the spirits would cease to develop rebellion, at which point a slow return upward would begin to be possible. They must carry evil into whatever place they entered. Any body they occupied must be corrupted, and the corruption would entail disease and decay. To God, any and all kinds of suffering must be painful : how could it be otherwise than painful to its Creator to see even a fly self-burnt in a candle, or a wasp struggling in the water, or a trog starving in a cellar ! If such things were of no use, how could he permit them ? Suffering must be of service for deliverance, seeing it has place in the system of the God of love. He who embodied the vitalities of fly, wasp, and trog must have done so for their good, and through that for his joy ! Suppose that, between each upward metamorphosis, the vital principle or soul of such creature had a moment’s consciousness of its original condition, would not the mental picture of its past career, and the anticipation of 112 FALLEN ANGELS embodiments yet to be undergone, work powerfully for its redemption ? Line upon line of sucli lessons must follow, as fabled in MacDonald’s Wise Woman, until the refining process was complete. The Maker of all the earth will do right. He will not punish unnecessarily any more than afflict willingly. Everything he does is and will be essential to our °'ood. Shall we not receive chastise- o ment ? We have strayed, and by dire personal experi¬ ence we must be taught our folly. God himself could not preserve the unfflial from suffering, save by uncreating them. Into these things the unfallen angels may look ; and as some learn by pictures and tales and histories, so they may learn by watching our follies and the means of our redemption from them. CHAPTER XXII NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL POWERS £ To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’ Wordsworth. No man can possibly believe that any event happens without a cause. What, then, is the cause of the existence of the many substances with certain potentialities, whose aggregate we call the world ? Who will undertake to prove that they are not the expression of live entities ? There may be an indwelling, pre-existent spiritual principle present in each various form of the animal, vegetable, and even mineral kingdom. Power cannot be conceived otherwise than as arising from an unseen and immaterial cause. It is equally difficult to imagine any power which has not first been generated by some will — that is, intelligent force — which has in itself life and continuance. The world with all the forms therein may be a massing of life-powers, derived from the Self-existent and dependent upon him, infinitely varied, acting on each other in innumerable ways of com¬ bination and opposition, all existent and operative for the slow, sure development in each of an individual will for the will of the Eternal. Such development would be the return, with a knowledge of both good and evil, and with more than a free choice — with a boundless hungering and thirsting of the nature — to the home they had forsaken but could not get out of — the heart of Him, namely, in H 114 FALLEN ANGELS whom all the time, whether knowing it or not, they lived, moved, and had their being. To help the reception of this idea, I would present for consideration some well-known facts with regard to the natural forces, the unconscious influences and operations of matter upon matter. The atoms and molecules of a body repel one another, so that not one of them is ever or can be in actual contact with another. The interspaces may be occupied by the supposed aether ; but that, impalpable, and apparently with¬ out influence upon masses, can hardly be the cause of their separation. On the other hand, within a certain distance these particles attract one another until a certain degree of proximity is attained, and then their mutual repulsion operates. The heavenly bodies, and all terrene masses as well, act upon each other from a greater or less distance. However diminished in quantity, the quality or special nature of any light, as shown by the spectroscope, is un¬ affected by distance. A magnet acts through the air or through solid bodies. o o O A copper wire has forces of its own as a copper wire, but active electric force will embody itself in particle after par¬ ticle of this copper, and so pass along or through it, the force remaining intact, and the wire unaltered. In other conditions this force will decompose certain combinations and recompose others. It is difficult to imagine the existence of any force except in association with that which we call matter. Matter itself may be but the embodiment or housing of a more latent form of power : the cause of its existence is the presence of the Life, mediately or immediately. Is there, we are driven to ask, any such thing as dead matter in the world ? Is not every form of it a dwelling of force ? And is not this force a dwelling of the primal Power ? NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL POWERS L 1 5 All leads up to the higher idea of conscious powers inhabiting organisms to whose construction and opera¬ tions, all the powers above alluded to have contributed and do contribute. Such habitations are the bodies of all animals and vegetables, and perhaps, approximately, all crystals. Spiritual powers in all degrees may be asso¬ ciated with organisms after their kind — how low we can say neither of the one nor the other. According to the nobility of the indweller would his dominion be over his house and the inferior forces within it. It is quite imaginable that an angel, having knowledge of the forces liberated by decomposition and recomposition, could so influence his immediate environment as to be himself visible or invisible, or change his form at will. That nearly all the elements can be made to take either the solid, gaseous, or liquid form facilitates the conception. A free spirit might have vastly more power over the lower forces than imperfect and imprisoned man. Who can say what the power of his very will might be ! We know how the various conditions of the mind, how the mere imagina¬ tion, will affect for good or evil the organic processes and bodily faculties ! We are surrounded and familiar with what may be called the upward progress of matter under the influences of neighbour forces. Thus, the amorphous iron in the ore becomes the steel rail, or the majestic iron-bodied and iron-clad vessel. The iron remains the same that under¬ goes these changes. Why should we refuse progressive upward changes to the vital principle of the beast, the bird, the fish, or the insect ? Are we jealous of increase to their intelligence or capabilities as subversive of our privileges or the morals of the universe ? Christians expect, when freed from the tabernacle of the body, to receive large augmentation of capacity and perception, still retaining their individuality : how can they, without 11 G FALLEN ANGELS selfishness, refuse to hope at least for suchlike advance¬ ment in the lower ranges of intelligence ? One of the admirers of Goethe, Ernest Weiss, draws attention to the fact that the great German insists ‘ on the unity of God and Nature, so that just as little as we can conceive of God’s mind beino’ inactive, can we think of o 7 Nature standing still.’ 1 The same God who caused the universe to develop according to his own harmonies, is still at work ; Nature is still in process of transformation from less to more, from good to better, from incomplete to perfect. ‘ Diess also hatten wir gewonnen ungesclieut behaupten zu dtirfen, dass alle volkommen organische Naturen, wo- runter wir Fische, Amphitoren, Vogel, Saugethiere, und an den Spitze der letzten den Menschen sehen . . . sich noch taglich durch Fortpfianzung aus und umbilden.’ 2 What if the outward advancement of any organised life be the outward show and sign of an analogous progress in the spiritual heart of the same ? Man is of more value than a sparrow because he has advanced to a higher posi¬ tion than the bird has yet attained, and has had a larger capacity, I would say, restored to him, having grown fit to be intrusted with it. It must be the personality of the sparrow — what else should it be ? — that the F ather cares for. By experience the sparrow-soul becomes fit for a body capable of inhabiting and using higher conditions. ( All created things in which there is life must live for ever. There is onty one life, and all living things only live as being recipients ; so that, as that life is immortality, all its recipients are immortal.’ 3 1 £ Was war ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse ! Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse ! Ihm ziemt’s die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen, So dass was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist, Nie seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst. ' 2 Transactions of Goethe Society, 1890. 3 Rev. J. G. Wood. NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL POWERS 117 The wild lilies have at least their clothes looked after by God. ‘ Little Flower ; — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.’1 There were generations of ‘ every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.’ 2 ‘ 0 all ye Green Things upon the Earth, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever ! ’ The first created have fallen away from the will of their Genitor, and his light, given to them, has been swallowed up in their darkness. None the less, the spirit or breath of God, their essential life, remains, for it is incapable of corruption.3 Of the breath of God is born the Psyche, or the conscious will of man : this soul is that which has degraded itself, and been sent, therefore, in hope of its redemption, into alliance with various forms of this world’s matter. 1 Tennyson. - Gen. ii. 5. Dr. R. S. Wyld regards the soul, or sentient principle, to be ‘in its nature of the same spiritual essence as its Author, to be moreover possessed of a distinct personality, and to be gifted with a measure of those spiritual powTers or attributes which we believe its Divine Author to possess. ’ CHAPTER XXIII IN PROCESS OF CHANGE ‘The spiritual essence fair Which doth innerve this outward show of things.’ Lewis Morris. We are not lost: the glory of God still rests within us indestructible. We degraded ourselves to the dust ; but out of the dust our perfect Father is lifting us. We are of the earth earthy, but not incapable of deliverance and uprising. By loss of loyalty — that is, loss of truth — we have lost power, perception, position. By the grace that restores character or fitness we shall receive them all again. ‘Foundations which have to bear the weights of an eternal life must be surely laid. . . . The law of assimilation is by far the most impressive truth which underlies the formula of sanctification. . . . All things that he has ever seen, known, felt, of the surrounding world are now within him, have become part of him, in fact are him. . . . They are transfused through him ; they are not in his memory, they are in him. His soul is as they have filled it, made it, left it.’ 1 Professor Tyndall cites evidence that ‘ the vegetable shades into the animal by such fine gradations, that it is impossible to say where the one ends and the other begins.’ 2 Huxley says : ‘ The difference between animal and plant is one of degree rather than kind, and the 1 Professor Drummoud : The Changed Life. 2 Fortnightly Re dev:, Nov. 1875. IN PROCESS OF CHANGE 119 problem whether in a given case an organism is a plant may be essentially insoluble.’ 1 Haeckel has suggested an intermediate kingdom to include the debatable members of the other two. There seems no absurdity, then, in sup¬ posing that if, for its education, a fallen angel may be associated with the body of an animal, so it may be with a vegetable organism. As there are some instinctive perceptions in the lower animals that are unknown to man, so there are capabilities in vegetation which cannot by us be comprehended. The means chiefly employed by the invisible vital principle, say of an acorn, for the acquisition of weight, external develop¬ ment, and form, are the decomposition of the carbonic acid brought in contact with it by the atmosphere, and the appropriation of the carbon ; but the nature or the power of the vital principle is altogether unknown to us. In this action there is no exercise of will by the plant, and the ascent of the sap in it, like the circulation of the blood in animals, is entirely independent of any will ; at the same time, as a living organism, it may not be devoid of sensation. Xo chemist has been able to imitate, except in some small operations, the work of vegetation. The Lord that clothes the lily of the field with a glory greater than that wherewith any Solomon could clothe himself gave to the invisible, imponderable 'psyche of the tree the power to cover itself with the vital garment of its existence, with¬ out the knowledge of the simplest law familiar to the chemist. Vegetation is beautiful and symmetrical, without any exercise of active will ; while animals are beautiful and symmetrical in proportion to the fulness of their exercise of an active will. Vegetation merely absorbs such nourishment as is adapted for its full develop- 1 Lecture at Royal Institution, 1870. 120 FALLEN ANGELS ment; what vague, suppressed aspirations it may have, who can tell ! ‘ These in flowers and men are more than seeming, Workings are they of the self-same powers Which the poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. ‘ In all places, then, and in all seasons, Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, Teaching us by most persuasive reasons How akin they are to human things ! : 1 Both vegetables and animals possess a vital principle, but the latter have arrived at powers of locomotion, and a higher instinct than the former. Both take means to secure their food. Animals search out their food by change of place ; the tree does so by the growth of its roots in this direction or in that, and depends upon its susten¬ ance being brought to it by air and water. As creation rises, so in proportion effort becomes more needful. It is not within the compass of the present work to dilate upon the remarkable capacities of plant-life, or to instance the numerous links between the vegetable and the animal There are few more interesting pages in botany than those of Dr. Taylor in his Sagacity and Morality of Plants. The facts he adduces show some¬ thing very like psychological action. The very titles of some of his chapters — Misunderstanding, Stating the Case, Floral Diplomacy, Woodcraft, Hide-and-Seek, Defence not Defiance, Co-operation, Bobbery and Murder, Poverty and Bankruptcy, Turning the Tables, Social and Political Economy of Plants — countenance the idea that a debased amorphous soul might gain some education and develop¬ ment through a vegetable embodiment. Does not God’s cloth i no- of the lilies indicate that the O 1 Longfellow. IN PROCESS OF CHANGE 121 flowers have invisible vital principles, or individualities, whose clothing: is their revelation ? ‘And let them be. For in those tender flowers is hid the life That once was mine. All things are bound in one In earth and heaven, nor is there any gulf ’Twixt things that live, — the flower that was a life, The life that is a flower, — -but one sure chain Binds all, as now I know/ 1 Romanes2 and Darwin3 have demonstrated that some kind of mind is associated with organised matter in very low forms of life. Whence comes the construction of mineral habitations so different from each other as those of the turritella , the cardium , the ostrea , the cyprcea, the rnurex, and the pecten ? The diversities predicate so many varying vital qualities, and not mere inanimate chemical affinities. There is present in each a latent but selective mind. Heredity affords no explanation. It is a mere word indicating a fact. How should we believe that such vital selective forces must for ever have passed away ? And pari passu with the com¬ plexity of the nervous system is developed the degree of consciousness. Amongst the similarities that might be specified between men and animals, one noted by Dr. Kingsbury deserves mention. Hypnotism is a condition produced by the operation of one mind upon another : he states that horses, dogs, birds, and other creatures can be hypnotised equally with human beings. May not this have been the secret of Rarey, the horse-tamer ? 4 The recognition by each one of us of himself as an exist¬ ence separate from others, and individually responsible, may, 1 presume, be called universal. The same, in lower degree, may be supposed at least of every animal, for he 1 Morris : Epic of Hades. - Mental Evolution in Animats, p. 6‘J. Movements of Plants, p. 573. 4 Nineteenth Century , January 1891. 122 FALLEN ANGELS acts upon this principle in the circumstances that belong to him. The habitual performance of any function by an organic existence such as plant or animal, may be exercised with a very nearly total absence of sensation : but has the exist¬ ence, therefore, no individuality ? Some actions of man himself, such as walking, may be unconsciously performed. To those in whom evil has by long indulgence become in¬ grained — to habitual criminals, for instance — might it not be a merciful dispensation to deprive them of power to add to their own sins and to injure their fellows, and hold them in forceful repression, captive to an inferior organism ? Were it not well that, wherever sin has obtained control, power should be curtailed, and scope reduced to a lower range ? ‘For a bad man may be the cause of an infinitely greater number of evils than a brute/ 1 1 repudiate the notion of any life in matter in and by itself ; and that a self should be derived from any pro¬ gression of matter, I hold absurd. Is there any self-force in a steam-engine or in a watch ? Is there any in tides or winds ? Ft is the pneuma , the out-breathed and in-breathed life of God, that alone gives life at first, and continues its growth through species after species into the liberty of the divine atmosphere. When the life of God comes into immediate contact with the conscious individuality of a man, the pneuma with the psyche, the man is born again, and this spirit of God is in the spirit of man, and alone, as the cause of its being, can lift it up into a higher life. The breath — the life, that is — of God, which is the life of a man, cannot, however he fail, become impure ; and, re¬ maining in the man, is not only the sole source of his continued life, but gives the only possibility of his redemp- 1 Aristotle : Ethics, Book vii. chap. vi. IX PROCESS OF CHANGE 123 tion from evil. No soul need be lost. ‘ The Lord is long- suffering to us- ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.' 1 ‘ The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.’ 2 We must, therefore, work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for our Father ‘will have all men to be saved.’3 Let the words of Origen encourage any to whom they themselves or others may seem floundering in a hopeless quagmire : ‘ Will and practice, with God’s blessing, can achieve what appears to be next to impossible.’ Heartily do I hold with Robert Buchanan that ‘ there is no form of humanity, however degraded, which is beyond the possibility of moral regeneration.’ Bishop Westcott, in his anxiety to enhance the value of Christ’s resurrection as a revelation, goes out of his way to establish that pure reason can give no assurance of the personality of the soul. But ‘ it may,’ he says, ‘ have some inherent energy in virtue of which it manifests itself throughout the ages, now in this form, now in that. It may — but that seems harder to conceive — have gained on earth the means of realising a personal existence here¬ after.' 4 ■ W ith patience the mulberry leaf becomes satin,’ says an Italian proverb : surely the elaborate and expensive building-up of morals and intelligence in animals and in men is as unlikely to be wasted as the materials and forces, of which nothing is ever lost, that have combined to help him toward what he is. Can waste be permitted by Nature only in her highest work ? Are means alone of value, and their accomplished or yet unattained ends worth nothing ? O The learned bishop just quoted says, in the same book (page 165), that ‘ what appears to us in the light of suffering 1 2 Peter iii. 9. - Romans ii. 4. 4 The Gospel of the Resurrection , p. 154. 3 l Tim. ii. 4. 124 FALLEN ANGELS and decay in beings wholly unlike ourselves, may to a higher intelligence assume a different aspect ; or the fate of the physical and animal creation may be bound up by some mysterious influence with that of man.' Man is nearer to God in having a more lasting love of his offspring than the lower animals ; but it is not true of all of them that their affection towards their young ceases as soon as these have attained their full growth. ‘ If we have come up from the animals to be what we are, the boy Clare must have formerly been a dog of a good, faithful breed, for he did right now as by some ancient instinct.’ 1 Bird, beast, and fish have each something, a necessary enough, of the Divine Essence inalienable from their being, which must at length develop in them their in¬ dividuality, its child, the psyche of a separate though in¬ separable existence. How greatly to be pitied are the thousands, the millions of men who are content to live on from day to day with no desire for the development of the divine thing which is the root of all they are, whether they know it as of them or not ; who prefer to keep their soul as it is ; who would not have the breath of God make it grow any more ; who would grovel still, be content with the commonplace, devote themselves to the flesh, turn their backs on the light, and let the invisible see to itself ! The natural man cares nothing for the things of the spirit, which are yet the life of the outward existence he prizes. His Alpha and Omega are the body and its desires, come of the soul and its aspirations what may ! The earth is improved by plants and by worms. A^ege- tation is improved by the ministering of bees, and of many other creatures, including frogs and men. The improve¬ ment of lower kinds of being in qualities and conditions is largely affected by the sympathy, ministration, love, 1 MacDonald : A Rough Shaking, chap. xxxv. IN PROCESS OF CHANGE 1 2 5 and authority of beings superior to themselves. The millions of tropical Africa have remained the same — who shall say for how long ! — having never been brought under the influence of men higher than they. Professor Drum¬ mond felt it a ‘ wonderful thing to look at that weird world of human beings, half animal, half children, wholly savage and wholly heathen.' He says : ‘ It is an education to see this sight, an education in the meaning and history of man. To have been there is to have lived before Menes. It is to have watched the dawn of evolution. It is to have the great moral and social problems of life, of anthropology, of ethnology, and even of theology, brought home to the imagination in the most new and startling light.' Farther in the same book 1 he says : ‘ I often wished I could get inside an African for an afternoon, and just see how he looked at things, for I am sure our worlds are as different as the colour of our skins.' These may be regarded as yet but a little way beyond the confines of the animal existence from which they have emerged. They, like us, may have passed through many a condition inferior to that of man, and have so acquired all the faculties of the mineral, vegetable, and animal world before being intrusted with the responsibilities of manhood. They are not beings in whom sin has been or is merely punished. The punishment of a sin is nowise sufficient. The cause of it must be destroyed in us. To cut off a weed at the surface of the ground is in general the merest temporary, unsufficing remedy ; the weed must be rooted up. When God ‘ remembered Noah,' he likewise remembered ' every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark.' 2 The covenant that God instituted with him and his seed after him had equal relation to every other living creature of all flesh.3 1 T ropi cal A f ri co . Gen. ix. 9 to 17. 2 Gen. viii. 1. 126 FALLEN ANGELS In the Thirty-sixth Psalm we read that the Lord saves both man and beast. Man may well sympathise with every sentient creature, for ‘ He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all.’ ‘ Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.' 1 ‘ “ She (the old pony) has a process to go through out of which she will come so much the better.” “Good gracious! you’re not going to have an operation performed on her at her age ?” “She is going to have her body stript off her ! ” “ Good gracious ! ” cried Barbara again, but with vet greater energy — then, seeing what he meant, laughed at her mistake. “But then,” she said, with eager resumption, “you must believe there is something to strip her body off ? I do ! I have always thought so ! ” “ So have I, and so do I indeed !” answered Wingfold. . . . “What I do believe is, that there is a God who is even now doing his best to take all men and all beasts out of the misery in which they find themselves.” “But why did he let them come into it?” “That the God will tell them, to their satisfaction, so soon as ever they shall have become cap¬ able of understanding it.”’ — There and Bach , by George MacDonald. 1 Rev. v. 13. CHAPTER XXIV INCARNATION AND RE-INCARNATION ‘ Delayed it may be for more lives yet ; Through worlds I shall traverse not ’a few ; Much is to learn, much to forget, Ere the time be come for taking you. Browning : Evelyn Hope. There may be celestial meaning latent in portions of Holy Scripture, of which we cannot comprehend the full beauty so Ions: as we are in the flesh. But there are here and o there distinct, emphatic statements that appear not so fully borne out as could be desired. It is customary in such cases to slur over the full natural meaning of the words, and rest content with a partial lulfilment of them. This cannot be, and ought not to be, satisfactory. Recourse to such treatment of what we so revere may possibly be the result of our having accepted a meaning never intended. In the childhood of this or that portion of the race, men were content with a lower quality and range of reasoning than will satisfy or ought to satisfy those whose knowledge is greater, whose faculties are more developed. Many false dogmas in science were for centuries taught as indubitable, and only abandoned with reluctance after a great struggle and much sacrifice of feeling. Instances will occur to the reader : the commo¬ tion caused by the discovery of Galileo, nearly costing him his life, may serve as sufficing example of how the truth fares. The charge of irreverence must no longer be brought against those who endeavour, in love of the truth, to re- 128 FALLEN ANGELS concile the words of the Bible with the ascertained facts of science or human experience. There is difficulty in reconciling the statement that the Lord is ‘ merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, for¬ giving iniquity, and transgression, and sin,’ with the words that follow : c visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.’1 Note also a repetition of the same seeming inconsistency in the law set down in Deut. xxiv. 16, as compared with the latter half of the above quotation : ‘ Neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers ; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.’ Refer also to the whole eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, in which it is stated that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet, saying : ‘ Behold, all souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth, it shall die. If a wicked man beget a son that seeth his father’s sins and doeth not such like, he shall not die for the iniquity of the father, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.' Refer also to 2 Kings xiv. 6 : ‘ But the children of the mur¬ derers he slew not : according unto that which is written in the book of the lawof Moses, wherein theLord commanded, saying, ‘ The fathers shall not be put to death for the chil¬ dren, nor the children be put to death for the fathers ; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.’ It is written also in 2 Chron. xxv. 4, that, whilst Amaziah slew those who had killed his father, he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the law. Refer also to the same principle in Jer. xxxi. 29, 30. 1 Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7. INCARNATION AND RE -INCARNATION 129 Is there, then, a discrepancy between the character of God as declared in the second commandment, and his later commands and revelation of himself ? Is the state¬ ment in the commandment to be taken as commonly understood ? In the New Testament, declaring the New Covenant of Love, there is no mention of such a law. It is but a loose explanation of its seeming injustice to say that children cease to be respected, and are under many disadvantages, because of the misconduct of a parent — it is merely to say that man too is unjust ; neither in many cases does it hold. While the sins of the fathers may in some sense, as part of the children’s punishment, be visited upon their children, that very punishment may show its other side, as at length all punishment must, to be nothing but blessing. The father of a certain well-known and prosperous professional man was a corn-broker who lost fortune and position because of gross fraud, for which he underwent disgrace and imprisonment : the son, thus reduced to poverty, was pitied and aided by friends, and in many ways benefited by the exposure of his father’s crime and the share he had in his disgrace. The souls of parents, by virtue of the indwelling spirit of God, occasion indeed the corporeal embodiment of another soul, but have no choice concerning, or any power over, the soul to be embodied. They have absolutely no voice as to which soul or what kind of soul they shall produce. They have neither fitness, capacity, nor oppor¬ tunity for selection. To the third and fourth generation, however, some of their characteristics may be impressed upon both the invisible soul and the visible body of their child, who may also be much influenced in the develop¬ ment of those characteristics by the circumstances of his parents. And that the child should be placed under the disadvantage of being born, say, the son of an irresponsible maniac, or a burglar, is evidence to my mind that this is i 130 FALLEN ANGELS not the first stage of his existence, for the God of Justice could thus punish only the guilty. We may be sure that the souls to be embodied are, with due consideration of what they have already gathered, sent, by mediation of their new earthly parents, into con¬ ditions exactly fitted to their needs — -that is, conditions in which they may readiest acquire the next necessary things they are now capable of acquiring. It may be that the parents are such as the souls themselves would by ‘ natural selection 5 have chosen. It is nowise fit to cast pearls before swine : and a soul besotted and defiled by sordid aims and vile propensities generated of the indulgence of base self-love, would be as much out of place re-born in an environment of loveliness, as would be a vampire which came to itself in the nest of a bird-of-paradise. One thing we may be certain of — that there is no injustice, and that what seems such, is the one way in which justice can be secured. The education of the human race can only be gradual. A cannibal just above the level of a tiger may require many generations of re-birth to become tit for the next condition beyond that of this life. How many earnest souls are there not who feel constantly that they must be born again ! c The child is father of the man,5 and we are all children who ‘ may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.’ Nor is it hard to imagine that a man who wilfully opposed himself to every effort made to elevate him, might be degraded, and sent a few generations back to the lower discipline for which he had refitted himself by refusing the lessons of the higher. In such case, his changed condi¬ tion would be the child of his chosen character. In his lowered condition, whether that of an inferior man or a lower animal, he would be the child of himself in a higher condition. Once created we cannot be annihilated, but INCARNATION AND RE-INCARNATION 131 we may go upward or downward, appearing in ever new conditions, correspondent to the characters we have generated for ourselves. We are the fathers of our own coming manifestation, whether one of shrunken show or of further development. Those who have resisted evil, who have loved and not hated, will doubtless find their mere infirmities mercifully treated, and will require no degradation. A Central African is in a condition wherein he can hardly receive anything of the best ; hut he is in the condition possible to him, and best for him at the moment : why should he not, by-and-by, when fit for it, have the privilege of re-incarnation in higher conditions ? Why should we have been born Christians, unless we had become fit by previous spiritual development ? — which advantage neglected may again be taken from us. Verily, pride of birth is an empty boast where our ancestors have gained no honour by duty fulfilled or service done ! In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, we are plainly taught that those who make no noble use of riches will have a position of poverty as their next experience. It may be that the opposite experience is in all cases necessary to supplement the other. A man has to learn that he is not a rich man in himself, nor a pitiable man although he has nothing. He has to learn to be a man. We may be assured that, in whatever condition, we shall not be the sport of chance, or of caprice, which is moral chance, but children whom the Father will always put in the best place for them, whether that place be heaven, or earth, or hell. A man has choice and is responsible for what he chooses — whether to cultivate the better part of him, or to pamper the animal of his nature. Upon death we fall back help¬ less into God’s hands, for God’s judgment again. We may have chosen capriciously, but the God who makes the great clock of the heavens keep time to a second will 132 FALLEN ANGELS redispose each of us according to his fitness ; he will place each where best he may learn of him. The theory of transmigration seems to have been held with confidence by some of the wisest and best of the old philosophers : whence did these pure-minded men derive their conviction ? and what evidence can be produced that their faith was not founded in fact ? The purest of the Latin poets, Virgil, deals lovingly, in the sixth book of his great work, with the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Ancliises makes known to JEneas that souls may revisit earth in a corporeal vesture, and, being transferred to a fresh career on earth through family media, are thus not new creations. When any soul does not rise to the standard implied by its occupancy of this or that bodily form, it is unworthy of its embodiment, and must be degraded — sent back to inferior conditions, for the grace of another chance of development. Let us therefore be humble and faithful and just towards our neighbour, whether that neighbour be animal or human ; for 4 pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’ 4 Ah ! who can tell what transformation hideous Comes o’er the features of the inner man, In one who yields to Satan’s lures insidious, Distorting God’s own image with their ban ? ’ 1 None can deny that children are originally God-created. Eve named her first-born Cain, meaning 4 received ’ or gotten from the Lord. Abel came to the earth through the medium of the same parents. Yet was there appar¬ ently a fundamental difference in their dispositions, and a contrary direction of the forces of their being. George MacDonald speaks in one of his books of a woman whose nature had not been unaided in its reversion toward the vague animal type from which it was developed. 4 In 1 Heaton: City of the Soul. INCARNATION AND RE -INCARNATION 133 the curve of her thin lips as they prepared to smile, one could discern the veiled snarl and bite.’ The retention by human beings of some of the specialties of their lower stages may be hinted at in the following passage in There and Back , by the same writer : — £ “ The enmity of that child is praise,” said the parson : “ I wonder how the Master would have treated her ? He could not have taken her between his knees and said who¬ soever received her received him ! A child-mask with a monkey inside it will only serve a sentimental mother to speak platitudes about ! ” ‘ “ Don’t be too hard on the monkeys, Tom,” said his wife ; “ you do not know what they may turn out to be after all.” £ ££ Surely it is not hard on the monkeys to call them monkeys.” £££No, but when the monkey has already begun to be a child.” £ ££ There is the whole point. Has the monkey always begun to be a child when he gets shape as a child ? ” ’ If any man in this life refuse to live as a man, and so manifests unfitness for the rank, what is to be done Avith him ? The punishment of hell, as commonly understood, AA'ould not be of much use. What better or other can there be for him than to be relegated to some lower form, probably of brute life, and so begin again to receive the kind of education of Avhich alone he is capable ? Hoav can such souls be reached at all save by some such treatment ? Into their neAv embodiments they would carry their e\dl dispositions, of course ; but A\ritli an impres¬ sion ol the consequences of yielding to them, with less inclination to do so, and Avith some sense of a fresh start. A certain canon has given utterance to the idea that men aa’Iio brutally ill-treat animals may, for educational retribution, liaA’e allotted to them for a AATliile an animal 134 FALLEN ANGELS form to inhabit. The history of the ‘Great Nation of the Do-as-you-Likes/ in The Water Babies, was not written by Charles Kingsley for the sake of amusement only. The writings of that eminent Churchman contain many in¬ dications of his belief in the possibility of a degradation from the human nature. ‘ In brute creation why this weird resemblance, Caricature, grotesque, of human frame ? The startling sight should keep man in remembrance How dread the disobedient body’s shame.’ 1 1 Heaton : City of the Soul. CHAPTER XXL THE SECOND COMMANDMENT ‘ Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past.’ — Science Siftings, vol. v. As a sequel to the preceding chapter, let us here look at the comminatory clause of the Second Commandment more closely. It is very significant that in all the three instances of it being stated in our Bible that the children of the third and fourth generation shall have visited upon them the sins of their fathers, the word ‘ generation ’ does not exist in the original Hebrew. Exodus xx. 5 reads thus : ‘ I, the Lord thy God a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth of them that hate me.’ The hiatus has been filled in by the translators with the word, according to their judgment, adapted to represent the intended meaning; and, I may ask, why should not this denote re-hirtli, re-production ? Mark ! generation is the word used, not generations ; also the children, not their children ; nor is there mention of mothers or parents. In every case of genealogy, such as Gen. v. 1, Gen. xi. 10, Gen. xi. 27, Ruth iv. 18, 1 Chron. i. 29, 1 Chron. vii. 9, the plural is used. If in Exod. xx. 5 and xxxiv. 7, and in Xumb. xiv. 18, the generation of fresh or new persons through earthly fathers had been intended, the same word would surely have been used as in genea¬ logies. ‘In the generation of Jesus Christ,’ Matt. i. 1, the 136 FALLEN ANGELS singular is used, similar to the word interpolated in Exod. xx. 5 : our Saviour’s incarnation was a re-birtli, a succession or continuation of a previous life. Their use of the word in the singular number may well indicate that the trans¬ lators designed it to convey a different signification from that which has become attached to it. This is of special importance, from the habitual association of the word generation (Hebrew clour) with individuals living ; whereas in the plural (Hebrew toulclouth, clour oath) it is used to represent earthly descent of different persons. The sons of Jacob were emphatically recognised by their father as having been given him from God, Gen. xxxiii. 5. They were souls localised on earth as his children. In Psalm cxxvii., children are declared to be an c heritage of the Lord.’ Jesus Christ was accounted as the ‘son of David/ and came upon earth as a child. Refer to Isaiah ix. 6 ; compare also Matt. xxii. 42. The Holy Scriptures deal with more than mere externals, so that ‘ visiting sins ’ would involve more than the allot¬ ment of bodily ills. We need not adopt a supposition that the great Dispenser of perfect justice inflicts penalties of heredity upon innocent souls, however guilty may have been their fleshly progenitors. There seems to me, indeed, no room for an incongruity so repugnant to the moral sense with which Christianity has endowed us, when con¬ tinued identity can so rationally be regarded as the true explanation. ‘ 0 Lord, thy hands have made me, and fashioned me. O give me understanding, that I may learn thy command¬ ments. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. And my delight shall be in thy com¬ mandments which I have loved. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments which I have loved, and my study shall be in thy statutes.’ — Ps. cxix. I am unaware of any evidence, in the Book of Psalms or THE SECOND COMMANDMENT 137 elsewhere in the Bible, of the clause of the Second Com¬ mandment in question being understood in the same sense in which it is generally accepted nowadays. To attribute to the Living God the characteristics of the false 2fods of the heathen would be the blackest abomination. Inconsistency of representation, perversion of truth, out¬ rages upon heart and intellect, may tend to keep some honest sympathisers with love and justice from the folds of religious communities. The Lord enjoined upon Moses that death should be the penalty of a parent giving his children to Moloch, thus expressly prohibiting the infliction of bodily suffering and the sacrifice of children. Surely, then, He who issued this injunction will not hold children unto the fourth descent responsible for the sins of their fathers, irrespective of their own conduct. What ! con¬ demned before their birth to misery, and to inherent evil of soul, as a consequence of the wickedness of a father not of their selection ! Such horror cannot be ! This cannot fully interpret the correct nature of the revelation made upon Mount Sinai. The mystery of the ages is that men (fallen angels) have sinned grievously anterior to their being passed into this stage of existence, and that a succession of fresh conditions becomes needful before they will allow their own complete purification. If we genuinely believe in Christ, our sins are forgiven ; our Saviour has opened the gates of Heaven tor us. True Christians not only regard death without dismay, but are serenely joyful, whilst humble, in the prospect ot admission into the higher life of the spiritual world. I here are, however, myriads of African savages who have died without having known Christ; also there are millions of j^ersons on other continents as well as that of Africa, who do not know him at the present moment. Jesus saith, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometli 138 FALLEN ANGELS unto the Father hut by me.’ Shall, then, those who have not followed ‘the way/ or will n ot follow the way, but prefer the other way — albeit the way of fools — he sentenced at their death to an eternal chastisement of torture ? They are unfit for heaven, being nowise in harmony there¬ with : but a true Christian charity is happier in hoping for seventy times seven of forgiveness, and in imagining for them educational corrections by successive disciplinary incarnations or other experiences until fitness for release has been effected. * God our Saviour will have all men to he saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth; 1 We are cognisant of only very little of the forces or unseen realities above, below, and around us. The total of our knowledge is hut as a cup of water in comparison with the ocean of truth and wisdom beyond. We are imprisoned for our sins in chains of limit, and in darkness of ignorance. Ah ! how little power are we yet fit to be trusted with ! But the retrospection of past experiences will open the eyes of our soul when freed from the shutters of the flesh ; for, as the children of God, we have the sure hope not to be for ever closed out from Paradise, or from the pre¬ sence of the Lord. Let us, with David, sing of mercy and judgment; and, after standing before the judgment-seat of Christ, hope to be liberated by his redeeming power from all our shackles. In addition to the texts quoted in the preceding chapter, there are man}^ others distinctly in disproof of the false morality here exposed. The seeming self-contradictions of Numb. xii. 18, and of Exod. xxxiv. 7, disappear if the arcanum of the word omitted be rendered as representing the next purgatorial stage of the same being who had committed idolatry. Justice then takes the place of the palpable injustice that has shocked millions of faithful jDeople, and occasioned apologetic and evasive explanations 1 1 Tim. ii. 4. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT 139 that betray the falsity of the supposed truth. How clear, how fair, how reasonable this Sinaitic revelation appears when it is comprehended that the same soul is punished in his own following life-stages by the effects of his mis¬ deeds being naturally continued (like any other cause and effect) into its subsequent embodiment, even to the third or fourth generation of himself ! Every one is the sculptor of himself, whether he become an angel or a lower creature. He lives again (as all must live again) with the character that stamps him, for it is practically himself. He is the same man after his resurrection, and not another. At this point I respectfully ask the reader to do me the favour to re-peruse the Preface. It will be seen that I disclaim any pretension to teach, much less to dogmatise. The object of this work is one of inquiry. If it be thought there have been too positive assertions, I would explain that such have been used for sake of conciseness of argument ; not for enforcement of doctrine. CHAPTER XXVI BEINGS IN BONDS 4 The soul of every brute and of the plants By its potential temperament attracts The ray and motion of the holy lights.’ Dante : Paradiso , c. vii. Bishop Butler did not doubt the existence of the animals beyond death. Nineveh in the time of Jonah was saved because of the people and much cattle that were in it. God remembered the cattle when he remembered Noah. Like men, the cattle were not to do any work on the Sabbath day. They are finally to be freed from the bondage of corruption. The lower creatures are often subjected to cruel suffer¬ ing. Only on the supposition that they have committed some sin, can our conscience or sense of justice be recon¬ ciled to such suffering as consistent with the goodness of the Creator. If a goat be worried by a bull-dog, and a child bitten by a viper, shall we say the child has sinned and not the goat ? To say that therein lies a mystery will not suffice every inquiring soul. If we say that the goat has not sinned, ought we not to limit the statement to his present goat-life, and say the same of the child in his present child-life ? There is a very gradual transition from every part of creation to the part next it ; and why should vain man presume to draw any line at himself ? The distinction between the lowest degree of a human quality and the highest degree of that same quality in an animal is recognised as very slender. In regard to the BEINGS IN BONDS 141 moral virtues, indeed, there is many a man to whom it could well he said, ‘ Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.’ How then arbitrarily shut the animals out of eternity ? Those who believe that there is a soul within the form we call that of man, may ill deny the brutes a soul, which, however differentiated from that of man, has proceeded from the same source. All have the principle of life. We look for man to burst his shell and emerge into a grander life of spirit ; and in like manner some of us think there must be a continuous re-birth of the lower creatures to find themselves ever by fresh embodiment qualified for states of life for which in a previous condition they had no correspondent capacity. More has been given them, and their lack lessened. Power before fitness would involve misuse, and injury to the higher races. Animals know nothing of causing fire, and wild ones at least regard it only with fear. Were it otherwise, how disastrous would it not be ! The system of human law supposes that there is no wrong without a remedy : how much more certainly must not this be the case with God, who hates iniquity, loves righteousness, and is all-powerful ! Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. To reconcile the system of Nature with the benevolence of the Deity, it is only neces¬ sary to regard well the fact that it is but a part of a whole; that it is a stage in a great progress; and that what redress may be due is in reserve. St. Paul himself declared that if in this life only they had hope, Christians were — in his time at least — of all men the most miserable. If animals and infants have less hope, they have less fear ; but this has in it no compensa¬ tion for what they suffer. Surely our sense of justice demands for both, something beyond the mere cessation of 142 FALLEN ANGELS suffering at death: surely, for some at least — and for whom more than the animals ? — there must he compensa¬ tion, and that in part at the hands of men ! The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty can make no compensation to the poor, tortured horse ! The compensation to Lazarus was his elevation to Abraham’s bosom, not his beholding of Dives in torment. It is more tolerable for men or animals to have their affliction here, than to have it carried forward into a higher state. All protoplasm is the same up to a certain point : why should we have the privilege of being born men, unless by having gone through the previous stages ? The sufferings and sorrows, the oppressions and cruelties, so horrible to realise, that assail the animals — what can they imply but a previous willing surrender to wrong-doing, which has separated them from the safety of God and left them to their own devices, to prey upon each other with tooth and claw, poison and fraud, and so unintentionally awake in each other the conscious need of deliverance ? That the grand utterance of St. Paul in the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans applies to the whole of the animal creation was, according to Dr. Whitby, 4 the ancient and almost primitive exposition of these words ; ’ and Dr. Blomfield sees 'no necessity to abandon this ancient and commonly received opinion.’ Amono’st the eminent men who have cherished a belief o in the immortality of animals may be named Jeremy Taylor, Dr. Bull, Wesley, Tillotson, Lactantius, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Danhauer, Doddridge, Knappe, Rosen- nuller, Locke, Hildrop, Kingsley, Kirby, Greswell, Bishop Wilson, and Robert Buchanan. There can be no annihila¬ tion of any creature of God. The conversion of even a grain of sand into nothing is inconceivable. Wesley does not fall in with the common view that the ts animals were subjected to suffering because of man’s sin. BEINGS IN BONDS 143 ‘ Through all the vanity/ he says, ‘ to which the meaner creatures are now subjected, let us look to what God has prepared for them : yea, let us habituate ourselves to look forward beyond this present scene of bondage to the happy time when they will be delivered therefrom into the liberty of the children of God.’ The frightful condition of humanity described by St. Paul in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans could not have been its primitive, its original state, and may have been the result in part of special influences exerted by the unrepentant powers of darkness. Omnipotence and infinite wisdom, however, will not be defeated either by the machinations of such as continue adversaries, or the frailties of such as are on the path of improvement to redemption. Even such as have to pass through the lowest embodiments of the vegetable or of the brute staofe, must eventually praise the Lord for his goodness to the children of men, and specially in having subjected them to the debased and humiliating conditions essential to their resuscitation. Fishes, reptiles, insects, birds, beasts, do not exist primarily either for man’s amusement or use or dread. They are born and they suffer, like man himself, because of their own previous sin, and for the sake of their reformation and upward change. To believe them born, suffering, and dying without continuance, is to cherish a wretchedly low idea of the Power that brought them into being. It is admitted that men are born sinners : why not the beasts also who suffer so much ? If f man is like to vanity/ if ‘ his days are as a shadow that passeth away/ the same is true of the lower animal. But the death of both is the transfer of the vital principle or soul from a lower to a higher form, and is a new birth, the result or child of its former state. The pride of the angels that went before their fall, and the haughty spirit that caused their destruction, demanded a cure that could 144 FALLEN ANGELS onl}r be effected by abasement, compulsory reflection, and gradual elevation. ‘ The Lord is good to all ; And his tender mercies are over all his works.’ The lower animals may not have sinned in this life : the worst of them may be only following an evil nature. But whence is the evil of that nature ? Whence is derived the cruel, mischievous, envious, revengeful, heartless character of so many of them ? Did a devil make them ? Or are they in the same category with ourselves, souls undergoing purgation ? There is a great diversity in the character of animals, as well as in that of men. The revolt many people feel against the idea of their having* once been beasts, whilst futile as an argument against it, evidences the value of such a doom as a restora¬ tive punishment. The very pride of a beautiful woman in having been born such, is of the same kind as the pride that bred rebellion, and is false, hollow, and groundless as that. Man and beast have each five senses, and how many other qualifications in common ! If, I say once more, we anticipate a change into higher conditions of being, con¬ cerning which we know nothing, where is our reason against the upward renovation of animals into the condi¬ tions of humanity ? CHAPTER XXYII OUR EDUCATION £ The animal creation, with all its manifold instincts and powers, is still, if we rightly reflect, a constant revelation of the Divine mind. ’ — Dean Stanley : Sermons in the East. There is no proof that the brutes have no souls, any more than that men have not. The great Leibnitz has expressly stated his belief that they have imperishable souls. Bishop Butler, admitting that the arguments he has used for immortality may apply equally to the lower animals, concludes that brutes may have latent powers which lit them to be immortal.1 £ But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still his master’s own, Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth, Denied in Heaven the soul he held on earth.’ 2 What nobler scheme can be imagined than the restitu¬ tion of the fallen angels through lessons learned in lower ranges of being ! In such case no pain will have been wasted ; no wretchedest life will have been undergone in vain. c I cannot believe that any creature was created for uncompensated misery ; it would be contrary to the attri¬ butes of God’s mercy and justice.5 3 As the lot of man is happier in some countries than in others, so also with animals. It is our generous duty to 1 Analogy, chap. i. : ‘ Of a Future Life.’ 2 Byron. 3 Mrs. Somerville, p. 349. K 146 FALLEN ANGELS be kind to all those in a lower range than our own. The solicitude of our noble Queen with suffering of all classes of her subjects has oft been exemplified, and she has a gentle heart for the lower creation. ‘No civilisation is complete which does not include the dumb and defence¬ less of God’s creatures in the sphere of charity and mercy.’ 1 Christ is the Mediator and Intercessor for all humanity, including the infants of it : how, as regards faculty for committing sin, is a baby superior to a lower animal, and what claim can it allege to a higher destiny ? The diffi¬ culty is no longer to be found when a previous existence of both is admitted. Throughout all life there is a bond of gradation, and in the higher orders of the animals we see a plain approach to the faculties of man. Many beasts and birds draw conclusions from premises, and show them¬ selves ingenious, and sometimes knavish. They often display affection and unselfishness. They have sympathy and memory and some understanding of language. They have a sense of responsibility and of humour ; and, in a word, reveal many attributes of the soul-nature. A being passed through the lower grades would already have gained nearly all the faculties of a man. Leaving the experiences of the yet lower vegetable forms out of con¬ sideration, think what such a being would have gathered. From feline experience he might have learned the neces¬ sity of effort, even when yielding to his hunting impulse : had he not his family to provide for, and so appease his affections ? As a horse he might have acquired patience and obedience, learning the surrender of his will to the trusted behests of a stronger and wiser power. The dog learns to exercise restraint, and not injure the less gifted of the other domestic animals. The live essence whose temporary embodiment is a bee learns contrivance and 1 Her Majesty Queen Victoria: speech at Royal Albert Hall, July 4, 1887. OUR EDUCATION 147 thrift. Spiders are remarkable for perseverance. Ants are industrious, and their ways afford man himself a study of sociology and politics. Goethe, Sir .John Lubbock, and Dr. Dollinger have been special students and admirers of ants. Those of the same nest never quarrel, but those of different nests are usually hostile. Each community of rooks has a government. Various classes of birds, and even fishes, seem to come together for temporary purposes. The poisons of plants, insects, and reptiles, and indeed the bad qualities of all animals, are carried on into the higher race of man. The uncultivated savage is in general nearest of men to the beast. In the Mosaic account of the creation, the word ‘ living soul ; is applied equally to the lower creatures with Adam. The vanity of man appropriates to his race the declaration that God is Love ; whereas Love, to be Love, must embrace all things capable of suffering or of sorrow, all things capable of advance. It includes the slaves of humanity, and all other slaves. There can be no unfair distribution of misery by God, nor any wanton suffering inflicted by him. ‘There is no creature so small and abject that it represented not the goodness of God.' 1 ‘ The negro has many good laws as to constancy and fidelity, but his innate cruelty is a terrible thing. A man will woo a woman with accounts of the devilry he has been guilty of, for the women delight in it ; and I have seen things done to captives, the remembrance of which makes the blood run cold. Burning alive is amongst the Barotsi of constant occurrence ; also tying the victim hand and foot and laying him near a nest of black ants, which in a few days pick his bones clean.’ 2 These devilries betray a devilish origin ; the worst forms of evil have not yet been driven out of these degenerate spirits. They 1 Thomas a Kempis, Book ii. chap. iv. - Arnott : ‘ Central Africa,’ In Regions Beyond. 148 FALLEN ANGELS have not yet had the time nor the discipline needed. Human fathers and mothers too often compare un¬ favourably with their animal inferiors in the treatment of their own offspring. The number of cases of their cruelty recorded in The Child’s Guardian is almost beyond belief. Here is one. ‘ The suicide had grown up in a home which pressed upon itself all the blighting influences of paternal vice and brutality. Life to her meant a brutal father, a brutal mother, and day after day of drunken torture and bestiality. Home to her meant hell, and her hell was let be by the great world ; so there came to be only one door by which the hunted child could escape from it. For fourteen years she bore the cross laid upon her by parental vice, and left undisturbed by civic apathy ; then she preferred death to continuous degradation, and so drowned herself. She felt no repugnance in flying to the “ undiscovered country,” being too deeply conscious of present evil to conceive of any worse state of existence.’ Let us ask the question, not avoid it : ‘ How can such things be ? 5 To allege that a man’s sinful proclivities are due to his father or his great-grandfather does not carry the inquiry back far enough ; nor does the explanation of a distin¬ guished J ewish rabbi give any logical content : £ One man may possess sufficient ferociousness to murder his infant offspring with his own hand, whilst another is so tender¬ hearted that he is incapable of killing a mouse or a fly. These differences may arise from the various dwellings of man — mountains or plains, inland or maritime, and from their respective air and climate, each of which perhaps exercises its peculiar influence.’ 1 The dark enigma of life can have the apparently cruel and unjust illumined out of it only by the recognition of a previous and subsequent existence for both parents and child. The main buttress 1 Joseph Albo : The Ikkarim, chap. xxv. OUR EDUCATION 149 of our theory is, that it harmonises a greater number of seeming contradictions than any other. It dispels the sense of injustice in the life of the lower animals, and accounts for our possession of some of their worst habits. Darwin and his school have built up for us the ever increasingly symmetrical body of a belief, but it is without soul. ‘ The progress of physiology has led us to apprehend clearly that the vital forces whose play is seen in the phenomena of animal life, are not the result, but the cause, of organisation, inasmuch as material organs are merely the special forms built up and fashioned by these forces for the discharge of special functions.’ 1 There is no reason why that which Homer affirms of man should not equally apply to animals : ‘:Tis true, ’tis certain, man, though dead, retains Part of himself ; th’ immortal mind remains, The form subsists without the body’s aid.’2 Aristotle regarded material things as an end more than Plato did, who regarded them as appearances ; yet Aristotle describes a human body as composed of {A?;, matter, and e2So?, form : vovs, a mind, a pure eZSo? special to man, joined him at birth, left him at death, and was indestructible. Plato considers the material as not real, or actually existing, but as appearance clothing genuine life. 4 1 disbelieve in the existence of matter as firmly as Bishop Berkeley,’ writes Charles Kingsley to John Butler.3 ‘ Those who have fulfilled their appointed path on earth 1 Duke of Argyll, Good Words, 1S65, p. 274. 2 Iliad , xxiii. 103. J In that most charming of romances, The Water Babies, Kingsley may have introduced the psyche of the drowned dog with serious intent. Tom was safe in following the form of the dog from the wreck, since the dog's instinct, now freed from the body, was likely to lead straighter than his own judgment, not yet perfected. In another place Kingsley protests, ‘ How do we know that bees have no souls ? 5 150 FALLEN ANGELS in the season which was allotted them may }Tet have an opportunity elsewhere to rise to a still higher summit. Everything in Nature begins from something undeveloped, and progresses to higher and higher stages of develop¬ ment/' 1 Saint Francis called the birds his brethren. Perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that birds might be spiritual beings too, incarnate like himself in mortal flesh, nor saw degradation in the claim of loving kindred with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful.2 Man is lord of the creation, but the feathered race may not irrationally regard him without envy, and even with pity. Birds are able to see, and probably hear, at a greater distance than the superior animal. They can travel the air, and many of them swim better than he ; while they may well look with compassion upon some of our infirmi¬ ties — on our need of clothing and fire, on our barns and storehouses, on our cumbrous contrivances for travel. They hold council together, and at once, without mediating impediments, set out on their flight to winter or summer quarters. It has been established beyond a doubt that the same birds, year after year, find their way back to the same spot. In the selection of a site for their nest, and in the choice and arrangement of materials, they give evidence of a reasoning' faculty. It looks as if under- standing had been added to, or developed from instinct, by experience, and made them capable of comparison and choice. The chicken hatched in an incubator, can have had no lessons, yet it takes the earliest opportunity of scratching the earth aside with its feet, and looking for any seed or dainty insect it may have uncovered. What does this 1 Oersted : Soul in Nature, p. 130. 2 He also called the wolf his brother. OUR EDUCATION 151 indicate ? May it not indicate tlie resurrection of a power appertaining to a past life, the memory of which indeed lies dormant, but isolated experiences of which return in the shape of what philosophers have called instinct ? The term instinct and the theory of heredity usurp the place of inquiry as to how, whence, and what the natural fact is. I take it to be the coming into play, through favourable conditions, of an inherent faculty for fitting means to ends, developed in a previous existence. It is not difficult to imagine that living creatures might possess faculties dormant in one state but ready for expres¬ sion in another. Children have latent gifts, intellectual and moral, which may not appear until the circumstances of later life afford occasion for their development and manifestation. ‘ An immaterial principle unquestionably exists in every animal similar to that which, by its excellence, places man so much above him. To my mind, one special proof of this lies in the love not unfrequently manifested for each other bv two animals of different genera — as far disparted, say, as a horse and a goose. But, indeed, most of the arguments in favour of the immortality of man apply equally to the permanency of the immaterial prin¬ ciple in other living beings.’ 1 Kingsley thus befriends my argument : ‘ And if any one shall hint to us that we and the birds may have sprung originally from the same type ; that the difference between our intellect and theirs is one of degree and not of kind, we may believe or doubt, but in either case we shall not be greatly moved. So much the better, we will say, for the birds, and none the worse for us.’ 2 The real living bird is invisible as our own veritable selves. Like us, it has been temporarily involved in the three dimensions. Death, which is but a change of 1 Agassiz : On Classification , sect. 7. 2 A Charm of Birds, p. 24. 152 FALLEN ANGELS circumstances, is a pure benefit ; it brings advance in capability and state. The external form of every living creature as well as of man is built up, and represents life, by force of the invisible vital principle within. ‘Words¬ worth, though a profound lover of visible Nature, loved and worshipped through the visible materiality an invisible and real Nature.’1 Death is only of the appearance; the psyche emerges alive from the pain and effort of its separa¬ tion.2 Why should not that which we now recognise as a bird or a butterfly live for ever ? Why should not their life go on for ever like the revolution of the earth ? To decree the one is not more difficult than to decree the other. Birds and butterflies die ; fresh birds and butter¬ flies of the same kind appear : why should they not be the same identical birds and butterflies, for whom their previous embodiment, in the same kind of form, was too brief ? ‘ Why should they be the old and not new ones ? ’ says the objector. The answer is obvious: the one theory shows a disregard for the bird or butterfly ; the other shows the belief that the death which befalls every creature is not its annihilation. Or if the same bird or butterfly does not return, it is because it is advanced into an embodiment higher than that of bird or butterfly. Semper meliora latent. Other creatures of less advanced condition are brought into the butterfly and bird condition ; those that have left it are passed onward to the greater freedom of higher faculties. 1 Dr. E. Abbott : Through Nature to Christ, p. 319. 2 Charles Dickens, in a letter to Maclise which mentions the death of his raven, speaks of its having ‘gone,’ and says its body had been sent to be stuffed. Maclise, in sending the letter to Forster, adds a sketch, styling it ‘ Apotheosis,’ of the body of the raven with the spirit leaving it. CHAPTER XXVIII ORGANISMS 4 The study of the laws by which the Almighty governs the universe is, therefore, our bounden duty. — The Prince Consort : Speech at the Opening of the Birmingham Institute. 4 Life existed before Organism, and is its Cause.' — Huxley. A prodigious variety of organic forms has been developed, each one of which must he the exact outcome of its in¬ visible vital specialty. To suppose that matter preceded force has the unreason of reversing our own experiences, and setting the cart to draw the horse. Matter may be associated with forces, and occasion their exercise ; but the matter itself, with these forces, could only have pro¬ ceeded from anterior mind-force, originally that of an almighty Will. A share in this force has been given to O J O the live creatures which this Will has brought into being, and there are various degrees of the gift. Some creatures seem to be more within the divine circle than others, but all are within it, and dependent on its centre ; no one of them has any power or merit of his own making. Virtues and powers are gifts, by the abuse of which the creatures have earned their demerits. There is nothing new under the sun. Man has never created even a grain of sand, much less any living entity. Professor Romanes defines reflex action as ‘ a non-mental neuro-muscular adjustment, due to the inherited mechanism of the nervous system. . . . Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported an element of consciousness. The term is, therefore, a generic one, comprising all those 154 FALLEN ANGELS faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and end attained, but similarly per¬ formed, under similar and frequently recurring circum¬ stances, by all the individuals of the same species.’ 1 But here let me ask how, by what chemical, magnetic, or other energy, a mincl-mode may be transmitted? Can any physio¬ logical explanation of such a transmission be given ? The eminent biologist, Prof. Weismann of Freiburg, concludes that characteristics acquired by the parent are not trans¬ mitted to the offspring. As Grant Allen puts it in his review of Weismann’s essay : ‘ Parent and offspring resemble one another not because the parent produces the offspring, but because both arise from the self-same substance, which merely develops earlier in the parent and later in the off¬ spring. To use a transparent metaphor, the father is thus reduced to the position of an elder brother to his own son.’ Now, I contend that there can be no instinct, or even neuro-muscular adjustment, unless there has been a previous life of whose suspended or occult faculties these psychic phenomena are revivifications. As instinct is pos¬ sessed at birth, the potentiality of that instinct must have been in the individual ; the power of it must have preceded the manifestation ; the faculty must have preceded the discovery of occasion for its profitable use; and it could have become inherent only by previous intelligence. The cells of the honeycomb are always constructed hexagonal. For economy of space, and combined strength and capacity, there is no comparable form. Whence is derived this constructive habit of the bees ? To call it instinct is only to shelve the inquiry, not to answer it. Naturalists seem content to refer the marvel to heredity ; but even then it must have begun in one before it could 1 Animal Intelligence,. ORGANISMS 155 be inherited by another. Heredity at most is but trans¬ mission, and nowise touches origin. Instinct is but memory inherited from a bygone and forgotten condition of the Ego. No mental effort is required for the exercise of any instinct. It has been acquired by past experience, and is now a property. If it were argued that the honeycomb is produced, in the same way as the green crystals of copperas are formed by the interaction of sulphuric acid, water, and iron, we should be no nearer the mystery : whence is the force in the one case or in the other ? If it is inherent, how did it get there to inhere ? What is the catalysis or the motion that brought about the combination ? If we grant that there is present a power of many faculties, all dormant, say, but one, things begin to grow clearer. If in the mineral kingdom the forces are, indeed, blind and passive, they become, in the vegetable kingdom, dimly sentient. With the lower animals an exercise of will or choice is per¬ ceptible, but within very circumscribed limits. Our own re¬ moteness from a full development of the faculty, of which we are clearly conscious, gives hope for them with ourselves. Every stage owes its progress to the action of the in¬ dividuals on their new conditions, and the action of their new conditions on them ; but no bee as bee could have had time or growth sufficient to arrive at the invention of the hexagonal as the best shape for the honey-cell. It must have come to him from afar. In the nobler stage of man we have our former possession of reason, less partially restored ; and our spiritual nature, hitherto in chains, is now being moulded into higher and highest liberty — the liberty of atonement with the will of God. And we look for ‘ Another world For all that live and move — a better one !’ 1 1 Southey. 156 FALLEN ANGELS The hypothesis that we, and the various lower lives also, are of the fallen angels, will reach to solving the mystery of so-called inherited instinct. It solves also that of the existence, not only of apparently useless, but of destructive, poisonous plants, and of birds and beasts of prey. ‘ The cure of sin is a long and a painful process. Christ the great Healer, the great Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us, from the remains of our old sins, the consequences of our own follies. Not, indeed, at once, or by a miracle, but by slow education.5 1 1 Kingsley : Daily Thoughts, p. 169. CHAPTER XXIX DISCIPLINE ‘ To know the divine laws and harmonies of this universe must always be the highest glory of a man, and not to know them the greatest disgrace for a man.' — Carlyle. All wise and affectionate parents put force upon tlieir feelings, and subject their children, where it is necessary, to the discipline of pain for their benefit — themselves suffering with them in the process. Children do not look much to what lies before them ; their parents have to do so for them. In this they are but followers of God in his treatment of man and beast, educating their souls for higher functions. When the object is not gained through one embodiment, another follows, and many embodiments may be necessary. Even one and the same body is subject to constant changes during the soul’s progress to another — these very changes, with the experiences they bring, being themselves means of the man’s inward progress. His sentiments and convictions are often very different in old age from what they were in early manhood. He is the child of his former self. ‘ It is thy duty to put on the new man and to be changed into another man.’ 1 ‘ Every day, by new visitations of grace, the inward man is created anew according to the image of God.’ 2 Gregory of Xyssa, speaking of the discipline and healing process of this life, says that, when the evil intermingled with men’s nature has been, after some long period, eradi- 1 Thomas a Kempis : chap. xlix. 2 Id. chap. liv. 158 FALLEN ANGELS cated, there shall be a restoration to their primal state of those now lying in evil.1 General Gordon says : ‘ I think that this life is only one of a series of lives which our incarnated past has lived. I have little doubt of our having pre-existed.’ 2 The doctrine of transmigration is taught by one of the Jewish rabbis, who says that ‘ the souls of the righteous whose conversation is with the law, and who only need a purification, go into fish.’ 3 In Finland there is a collection of traditional songs, called the Kalewcde, in which the hero Joukarainen is happy that his soul had passed through every form of life and experience ‘ since heaven was unrolled.’ Drummond says that ‘Evolution is the ever-recurring theme in theology as in Nature.’4 ‘ Yet who shall trace By what hid processes of waste and pain The great Will is fulfilled, and doth achieve The victory of Good ? ’ 5 1 Orat.; Catech. xxxv. ; also De anima et resurrectione. - Letter en route ivoin Suakim to Berber, Jan. 16, 1S7S. 3 Sharon Turner : History of the World , vol. i. p. 205. 4 Hie Expositor, Feb. 1885. 5 L. Morris: Songs Unsung. CHAPTER XXX BORN BAD ‘ All have sinned.5 — Romans iii. *23. ‘ There is none righteous, no, not one." — Romans iii. 10. That tlie liuman heart is corrupt is scarcely disputed. ‘ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.5 1 We are ‘ born in sin ; 5 c dead in sin ; 5 ‘ evil is present with us.5 Millions of infant sufferers bear their testimony to this truth. Although, as infants, they have never transgressed the laws of God, they suffer for their original sin, committed before their introduction to the O ' present life. Kingsley indorses the saying of Goethe that ‘ a demoniac element underlies man’s nature and all nature.5 2 Another German moralist says : ‘ Even in the good there lurks a certain kind of sin of which themselves are not conscious, and this must be corrected by some severe remedy.' 3 It is such evil remainder that gives entrance and lodgment to the spiritual enemy. It is the ‘ body of this death; from which St. Paul agonised to be delivered. The writer of this essay recently asked a London clergy¬ man why it was that a bull-dog should, leaving the high¬ road, have attacked a harmless goat in a meadow, tearing1 out pieces of his flesh, so that the poor animal died after 1 Jeremiah xvii. 9. 3 Rosenm tiller. - American Lectures , p. 3. 160 FALLEN ANGELS hours of agony : the answer he received was, that animals may have some devilry still left in them. If we inquire further what could be the benefit derivable from such a horrible transaction, better answer we cannot have than the words of In Memoriam : ‘ Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; That nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete.’ As no life is ever lost, and as God could not have created those two animals for cruelty on the one side and pain on the other, may we not conclude that the suffering of the goat will be of service not to him only, hut to the dog also, by opening his eyes in a later condition to a sense of his brutality ? There can surely be no pain without full correspondent advantage to him who suffers it, and to his neighbours as well ! ‘ Then let the beasts of earth, with varying strain, Join in creation’s hymn, and cry again Alleluia !’ Many would doubtless jeer at such an explanation; but what better or other will they offer ? To say that animals only obey their nature is no answer. How is their nature such ? Whence came that nature ? It is not the nature of Him who made them. £ There is no wild beast but is found in us.’ 1 We men, more advanced than the brutes, are like con¬ victs with £ a ticket of leave : ’ shall we by our conduct perfect our release, or by our conduct fall back into utter wickedness and stupidity ? 1 Archbishop Leighton. CHAPTER XXXI BIRTH Where did you come from, baby dear ? ” “ Out of the everywhere into here.’” — MacDonald. As Death is not a termination of life, only a change, so Birth is not a beginning, only the other side of the change. It is a metamorphosis in the continuity of a developing existence. The consciousness of identical existence may be interrupted for a while, but I doubt it. To the human creature neither birth nor death is an original experience, and some think both are passed through unconsciously. ‘ I sometimes think that man may be a relic of some higher material being, wrecked in a former world, and regenerated in the hardships and struggle through chaos into conformity or something like it. But even this higher pre- Adamite supposititious Creation must have had an origin and a creator, for a Creation is a more natural imagination than a fortuitous concourse of atoms.’ 1 ‘ The death of the soul is for it to descend into matter, and be filled with its impurity, till it returns to a superior condition, and elevates its eye from the overwhelming mire. For to be plunged into matter, is to descend to Hades, and fall asleep.’ 2 Each fresh allocation of a soul to a new form is by a power beyond his understanding ; but as to the kind of that form much will depend on the person himself, inasmuch as 1 Lord Byron, in his Journal : Life by Moore, vol. ii. , 1S03. 2 Plotinus, Ennead, lib. viii. p. SO. L 162 FALLEN ANGELS it will be given to every man according to his works. Whatever we choose to hear, see, or do, is forming the book of our history. For the body of every human child a soul is selected, and placed in it by the Creator. The place of any of our re-births is precisely that adapted for us, and determined as such by our previous history. Whatever it be, it is but temporary, and there is better to follow it — if we will. According to the attainment of the soul-kernel is its allotment to the protective husk suitable for its next school of beneficial experience. Our will or judgment is nowise consulted; an unseen power of jurisdiction deter¬ mines without us. Those who so love their fellows as to claim for them liberty, equality, and fraternity may lament that persons born in Africa should be so far from the advantages of such as are born Europeans, and may well be anxious for their elevation to a higher level; but there is no room for indignation against the Power that has determined the difference. They may rest assured that each individual birth is in everything fit. That body and those surroundings were the fittest for that soul at that period in his eternity. Every creature must regard the main conditions of his existence as essential to him, and feel that to change his individuality would be to cease. This is the outcome of bare consciousness. But any man, saving his conscious personality, might be very willing to 4 be born again.’ Even the humble whelk or mussel, insignificant in our eyes, is not so to itself, but constructs its protecting shell by an impulse derived from a vague sense of individuality. Even a mollusk, could it realise the proposal, would, with all its force, resist any change in its conscious individuality, which is itself. It might well rejoice, however, to find that consciousness existent in the form of a roving herring or a lordly salmon. The soft mollusk, the ignorant savage, the degraded Whitechapel- BIRTH 163 weed of humanity, requires to be re-incarnated. No one of such can have any part in effecting the necessary change in its condition — that must come from above ; but each personality would joyfully acquiesce in the transmutation of its form into one capable of and gifted with a larger scope. It is the moment of change only that would, by an instinct Wisdom has implanted in us, be dreaded. But the most advanced overcome this dread, and live glad in the prospect of their approaching preferment. The uncreate, self-subsisting, omnipotent God must be good ; for his work has been, and is, to create life for blessedness. To destroy is the self-generated impulse of devils. It is we who mar the benevolence of our Father, and obstruct our own predetermined good. Every use or abuse of the possibility and opportunity afforded us, is taken account of by him, and has its part in making our history. But oh, what joy to find ourselves in any sense his sons, witnessed such by the very form we wear — that of the Son of God ! What privileges may we not look for¬ ward to as we advance ! Meanwhile, even ‘ this world means something to the capable.’ 1 For the rest, ‘ Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither : Bipeness is all.’ 2 Subjection to change after change, even temporary rele¬ gation, is better than extinction. In every successive re-embodiment are given us fresh advantages for the attainment of our end — the recovery of our lost estate. 1 Goethe : Faust, part ii. - Shakespeare : King Lear, act v. CHAPTER XXXII HEREDITY ‘ Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.’ — Psalm cxix. 18. ‘ I am a stranger in the earth ; hide not thy commandments from me. ’ — Psalm cxix. 19. For the sake of family influences and the development of social relations, each child is given to a father and mother ; but every birth is a re-genesis of a previous existence, not an original production of its parents. True heredity is the faculty of using in one stage of growth some portion of the experiences gathered in a previous, and for the time being forgotten, stage. After the death of the body, the soul continues, and its character continues, which is the karma, the result, or child, of all its foregone thoughts, words, deeds. The immortal thing may then, perhaps, be allowed an interval of retro¬ spection. Nothing is forgotten by God, and in such intervals it may be that man also will forget nothing. ‘ Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides ; Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.5 1 As our present condition is an incarnation for our good, what suftieient reason can be brought against further incarnation with the same object ? Some of us cannot but feel that it would give us fresh opportunity for and help towards the overcoming of some frailty, some stupi¬ dity, some infatuation, some lunacy, that we are now 1 King Lear. HEREDITY 165 unable to cast out — some devilish remnant that must be expelled before we can attain to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. ‘ Out of the deep I cry, The woful deep of sin, Of evil done in days gone by, Of evil now within.’ In each transmutation, it is the karma of the previous embodiment, the real self, further developed, that is re¬ embodied. The new child is the old self bettered and con¬ tinued, not another — save, indeed, it be a worse self, that has to be sent back to a former condition, or one lower than any previous. But a moment comes when the man may be called redeemed, not only prospectively in Christ, but redeemed in himself ; and then he goes from strength to strength. According to the doctrine of the first spiritualists, the soul was not created with the body, neither at the same time as the body, to be put into it ; its existence was far anterior. It was generally believed by the Jews that the souls came from sublime repositories into the bodies about to be born. ‘ Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee.’ 1 Heredity after the flesh is of little importance. No doubt, certain troubles are inherited from earthly parents as part of the punishment of the children for their sins in bygone ages : but impiety is not transmitted. This is shown in the genealogy of our Saviour. Of King David. God says: ‘I will be his Father, and he shall be my son; if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and the stripes of the children of men ; but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.’ This human ancestor of Christ was a grievous sinner, as were many others in a 1 Jeremiah i. 5. 166 FALLEN ANGELS direct line between them. Impiety is not transmitted ; it is of the individual self. The doctrine of the derivation of souls cannot find much support in Holy Writ. In the first chapter of the New Testament, the Blessed Virgin has a genealogical roll which, in this regard, will by no means bear scrutiny. Besides Tamar, Kahab, and Bathsheba, it includes several whose habits would suffice to render a pure derivation impossible. Each one of us is, I repeat, what he is by his heredity of his own past, and not by inheriting from a multitude of forefathers. ‘ Lord, I find the genealogy of my Saviour strangely chequered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations. ‘ 1. Rehoboam begat Abiah, that is, a bad father begat a bad son. ‘ 2. Abiah begat Asa, that is, a bad father, a good son. ‘ 3. Asa begat J eliosaphat, that is, a good father, a good son. ‘ 4. Jehosaphat begat Joram, that is, a good father, a bad son. ‘ I see, Lord, from hence that my father’s piety cannot be entailed . That is bad news for me, but I also see that actual impiety is not always hereditary ; that is good news for my son.’ 1 The past that was is still ours, although it is in the present embodiment, and probably was in previous embodi¬ ments, concealed from us. It is in us a power, although we are not aware of it as our past ; and it will, in a time to come, lie open to our backward gaze. It is difficult for many to realise the fact that the body is but a perishing house for the ever-living soul. This body, or house, has its heredity, its relations to other creatures from whom it is descended, involving the 1 Thomas Fuller. HEREDITY 167 possibility of latent disease, and a hundred individual peculiarities affecting its indweller’s career. Upon the earthly origin of the body depend the conditions of the soul’s environment — climate, society, and innumerable other things that influence it, such as rank and means, ways and habits, and state of health and strength ; but through all these the soul, the man, remains himself, and inherits from his own past ; while his present embodiment is the best, the fittest possible, the exact complement of his past embodiments — and of his future embodiments, where such are yet to come. We are all of us of the same age, were all created at the same time. We are, however, now in very different stages, according to the varieties of our original sin, its conse¬ quences in us, and the progress of its expulsion from us. We sinned as individuals, as families, and as a great army of rebels ; we have entered into new educational conditions, and the hour is on its way when it will be rendered to every man according to his work in this the world of his embodiment.1 Our position here is the outcome of our previous doings, not the result of the weakness of our mother Eve. Upon the individual his responsibility lies : ‘ If ye call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.’ 2 Let those who adhere to the belief that their existence commenced with their human infanc}r remember the fact that it is He who hath made us, and not we ourselves, and ponder the impossibility of God’s creating human beings to perish : let them weigh the impossibility, I say, of God’s having sent into this world, as original creations, such men and women as are described by S. G. 0. in the Times of September 18th, 1888 ! 1 Ps. lxii. 12 ; 1 Cor. iii. 8 ; Prov. Rev. xxii. 12; Job xxxiv. 11. 2 1 Peter i. 17, R.V. xxiv. 12 ; Matt. xvi. 27 2 Cor. v. 10 ; 168 FALLEN ANGELS Witliin a short walk of palaces and mansions are tens of thousands of our fellow-creatures, begotten and reared in an atmosphere of godless brutalities, in a kind of spiritual sewage, filled with the dregs of the vilest of human vices ! What pen can describe, what mental power realise, child- life in such a surrounding ? Born in conditions devoid of the commonest decency, reared in an air wherein blasphemy and obscenity are common almost as speech, living in dens where he is familiarised with scenes of bestiality, the street his play¬ ground before he can walk, the child is from the first so familiar with the worst that nothing can well be repulsive to him. Such hideous conditions of re-birth I imagine to be in natural sequence to the wasted privileges of a favoured position, in which, notwithstanding, the heedless soul has wilfully reverted to such foul ways as characterise the tiger, the ape, the swine. But better surely to be re-born into a worse state of things, for which by growing worse we have made ourselves fit, than to be cast out altogether ! To show more manifestly that the conditions into which many are born require some such hypothesis to account for them, let me give an extract from a powerful article in the Daily Telegraph of July 22, 1889, entitled ‘ The Weeds of Whitechapel, by One who Knows them : ’ — ‘ Troops of boys and girls marry, and are parents of rickety children before they are out of their teens. They have no more forethought than rabbits, and they give to the world whole swarms of miserables condemned to an existence of hunger, darkness, pain, and disease. Anybody who dwells in Whitechapel will tell you how the terrible thing in this business is that charity is not a morsel of use. If a good man went about and saw the loathly and piteous sufferings of the weeds in the by-streets, and if he there¬ upon decided to give away five millions, he would work ruin deeper than any known before. How would it be to HEREDITY 169 go through, the life of one typical woman picked from among those who supply the race of weeds ? The White¬ chapel girl begins her apprenticeship to the pavement very early. She is a dodger as soon as she can toddle, and she acquires more and more animal cunning until she reaches the age when she can comb her hair hack and grease it and tie it in a net. Then she is ready at once for the great end of life — “ going out to meet the chaps.” She does not care for domestic service. If she took a situation she would soon hate her mistress, and her mistress would rid the house of her. The girl will slave at any indoor em¬ ployment so long as she can he free at some time in the evening, and then the street is her academy. When good men are teaching the gutter children to pray, I wish they would teach them to play as well. Our young girl- graduate of the byways knows no games, and she and the “ chaps ” merely stroll up and down a little, make ugly rushes, run at each other with yells, and talk the most vile obscenities. The idea of a rational game or a rational pursuit does not occur to this girl and her chap. I could never rightly make out what class of men compose the songs which these young rowdies of both sexes sing — the girls are always the worst. When the knowledge of reading and writing first became spread among the gutter folk, the girls gave infinite trouble by their habit of scrawling on walls, and the school-keepers had to watch like cats. The lads were not nearly so tiresome in that way. Well, in the streets the boys are nasty, but the girls are indescribable : and if, on a fine night, a few of the hussies can form into ranks, they will make your hair rise. I have known shanty-men on board ship sing in risky style, but no shanty-man could equal the British maiden of the east. After a time our girl gets a nickname, and she usually carries that as long as she remains in the neighbour- hood ; for the one word, harmless or indecent, is constantly 170 FALLEN ANGELS used to describe her. “ Carrots,” “ Podgy,” “ Tripe,” “Snowball” — that is the better style of name. Let us choose “ Snowball ” and leave the others. After Snowball has gone out with the chaps for a while she selects one, and, before she reaches sixteen, you may see her hanging about with a wizened baby on her arm. She pets the child, but she uses the foulest gutter epithets in her endearments. I do not in the least hate Snowball. I would not harm her ; I want sorely to help and save her ; but we must have the truth regarding her, and she is not a nice individual. You cannot call her immoral; she is merely unmoral, and you might as well speak about the immorality of a lower animal as of hers. Snowball can lie splendidly and cunningly, she is uncleanly, her hair is unpleasant, she has no useful accomplishment, and she could not cook a potato. If you befriend her, you must not expect gratitude ; she may talk in carneying tones, but she probably laughs at you behind your back. If ladies entice her to classes or meetings, she goes for what she can get, and she is impudent and very greedy. After the wizened infant is born, the mother may possibly become a draggletail, especially if she has been permanently bound to her chap ; but if the male partner chooses to dissolve partnership, then Snowball looks out for herself, and “ encumbrances ” are somehow got rid of by one device or other. Snowball has her time of joyance — joyance of a sort ; you may see her at holiday-time, with arms akimbo, dancing up to her partner in a riotous jig. On Saturday nights she is in the bar, and, until the time of incoherence arrives, she holds the usual mysterious conferences, broken by shrill and explosive shrieks of laughter. If you are friends with her, she will coax from you anything you care to bestow ; if she has a comrade who beats her at times, she is his slave, and will give him anything. She works, sometimes regularly, and sometimes by fits and starts. HEREDITY 171 but task-work is shockingly ill-paid, and Snowball does not care for it overmuch. Her best time arrives when she can go off with her mate and take a spell in the hop- grounds ; into the sweet country she carries her vile songs, her vile oaths, her vile habits; and she joins in those frantic carousings which make night hideous — and morn- ing too, for that matter. Poor Snowball is no conscious lover of scenery, but she gains good from her trip. ‘ The days pass by, and you find that Snowball has left her miserable room, and she is seen in common lodging- houses ; her vitality is low, and she scarcely uses bad language at all till the drink is in her. She often sits in an attitude expressive of vast despondency ; but she does not think, she cannot. She is often hungry, and the men have grown very shy of giving her food and drink. She tries to work, but her strength is small, and any effort galls her. Sometimes when the lodgers gather in the kitchen a cadger may give Snowball some broken meat, but she mostly has to live on over-boiled tea and scraps of bread. If she does by any chance get a drink from some man, it affects her dreadfully, and next morning her life is more than ever a burden. She can hardly bear to breathe, for her mouth is so drawn, and she will beg for a glass of “ all sorts " from a publican's pail. Her ordinary companions are elderly men, who give her little food or money ; some of them are sulkily kind, some strike her. If luck is fairly good, Snowball can get drink at times, and then she and her friend alternately fight and snivel. All the while her looks are changing; purple blotches appear on her skin, her mouth falls in, she grows flabby, and her hands are coarse and clumsy. She is still comparatively young, but she looks old — so old 1 Then comes the fatal night when she cannot enter the lodging-house, and she must limp away into the streets. On hot summer nights she can go into a court and find company, for the men, women, 172 FALLEN ANGELS and children are generally driven out by the vermin, and they sprawl, naked or nearly naked, on the stones, so that Snowball may lean her back against the wall amid them, and get some sleep. But in winter it goes very hard with the poor wretch ; the very area-cats regard her as nothing. She is an outcast, and she crawls into any hole available. On bad nights the galloping squalls come hurling along the wider roads, and chance eddies of wind whistle into the side entrances, bearing the lashing sleet or snow ; the place is all grim ; the ugly mouths of the courts leer at her, and they seem to moan as the gusts fly through. Snowball has no clothing save her scrimped gown, ragged boots and stockings, and frail shawl. With the tawdry shawl hugged in her numb wet hands, she cringes into any shelter ; but the wind searches her out and shoots to her bones in dull throbs of agony. It is very cold. There is not a drover or stoker or labourer of the lowest class that will offer Snowball a shelter, for she is now a “ Jack.” ‘ Snowball would gloat over a spark of fire, but there is none for her, and she has no hope for the morning ; she cannot reflect any more than the dumb beasts, but despair, as sharp as the east wind’s knife, can cut to her poor heart. How does it end ? Maybe in the hospital. Or, perchance, Snowball is racked by bodily ailments till she can bear her pain no more. She has a gnawing anguish from lack of food. The low sky sheds rain on her, and she mechanically resolves to end it all. There is the water at the dock looking quiet and grey under the light poppling of the rain. It is an easy drop. The cold water stops her poor pulses, and she goes down to the ooze until the gate lifts and the undertow draws her out. Then the women say, “ Nobody seen nothing of - old Snowball?” Nobody. Adieu, Snowball ! God pardon you and all of us.’ But the children of even the most refined parents do not always come into the world good as lambs and sweet HEREDITY 173 as honey. If they did, should we ever see an infant of two years stamp his feet with passion ? Are the caresses of his mother and the cares of his nurse the cause of a child becoming, at the age of four years, a liar, a thief, or an obstinate glutton ? That infants, like domestic animals, are sometimes jealous and envious, has not to be proved. By example, and the training that includes coercion, their innate evil has to be combated. On the other hand, what satisfying explanation can be given of the numerous instances of infant genius, where no similar or allied excel¬ lence is known among the ancestors ? May we not con¬ clude such to reveal a restitution of lost faculty, or a development of latent faculty, through prior incarnation ? In regard to our failings, it is mean to attribute them either to Adam or to our parents ! As to the children of Whitechapel, and others equally unhappy, it cannot be too often asked, ‘ How and why should such things be ? ’ Why are children born to such things ? The difficulty of the question lies in the fact that both those who ask and those who cannot answer it take cognisance only of the very small human portion of a life, as if that were the whole of it — as if it included the beginning and the end of it, whereas it is only the middle part of it, in vital, though hid, continuity with that which went before and that which is to come after. The poor creatures are born into what they are fit for at the time, in the hope and with the design that thence they may advance, as there it will be possible for them to begin. ‘ And reproofs of instruction are the way of life.’1 These children of sin, born in evil, are fallen angels, in their degradation still children of God. The primal fire of immortality is in them. Re-incarnations many may be needed before this divine thing, tended and cherished by the wisdom and love of Christ, burst into flame. It is 1 Proverbs vi. 23. 174 FALLEN ANGELS difficult even to impossibility for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, ‘ but with God all things are possible.’1 It is as possible with him to give one a hundred embodi¬ ments as it was to give him the one unquestioned incarna¬ tion, and at the same time to leave him in each unaware of any that had preceded. Since the residence of our Saviour on earth there lias been marvellous improvement in the race, but the mass of evil still to be removed is appalling. Our part is to fight sin in ourselves, seeking communion with the Father of Jesus Christ, and helping every man we can help. So best shall we speed the coming of the kingdom — ‘ Days such as earth saw never, Such as Heaven stooped down to see.’ So shall we be fellow-workers with Christ, and contribute towards the reinstatement of ourselves and all men as the angels of God. 1 Matt. xix. 26. CHAPTER XXXIII COMMUNITIES, NATIONS, RANKS ‘ But in that other world Shall each man reap his own inheritance, Such heritage as he has left behind For those who follow here, who are the worse Or better for his sojourning with them.’ Mrs. Kixg : The Disciples. That there was a countless host of happy spirits existent before the making of the world, and that they were under various leaders or dominations, we learn from sundry passages of Scripture. It may he matter of surprise to many that, apparently for the sin of one person, whole families should he afflicted — nay, that towns and countries should herein fare in like manner with families. But the seeming injustice at once dissolves, as in so many other cases, when pre¬ existence is recognised. It cannot seem unreasonable that those associated in previous guilt should, by the ministra¬ tion of Providence, be brought together on earth to undergo the same forms of punishment and cleansing. Sodom was destroyed because there were not ten righteous persons to be found in the whole city. When Jerusalem and its inhabitants were destroyed, there were no Christians in it : they had withdrawn to Pella. \J There must have been angelic associations as well as human. ‘ Principalities, virtues, and powers ’ imply orders at the head of which they stand. In the old heaven there may have been such divisions of the inhabitants as 176 FALLEN ANGELS have since reappeared with them on the earth. Some less sinning than others, and by them deluded, may have taken their new places as Israelites, loved of God, and specially watched over, or as others of the apparently more favoured nations of the world. Like individuals, some nations receive their education more kindly; others, harder to teach, have not yet left their childishness behind them. But the common recognition by the more developed of their duty towards humanity is a sign that we are one family, that every human being is a child of the divine Father, and that we are therefore members one of another.1 ‘ Each Christian society is a “ body of Christ,” of which the members are charged with various functions, and these “ bodies ” aofain are “ members ” of other “ bodies ” wider and greater, and these at last “ members ” of that universal Church which is the “ fulness of Christ,” its heavenly head.’ 2 Religions associate men for the health of the soul, as secular systems do for the well-ordering of their outward affairs. Of the former, the Christian, notwithstanding the imperfections of its development as yet, must, even by an outsider, be regarded as the most excellent. Its infirmi¬ ties and abuses are being removed by divine degrees, for the truth in it keeps it open to betterment and progress. That progress is essential to life is the testimony of every individual Christian consciousness, for its standard of beauty and strength is Christ himself. Now, what are the chief objects of all religious gather¬ ings in church and chapel ? Are they not to persuade and be persuaded to cease to do evil and learn to do well, to let what is bad go, and lay hold of what is good ? The acknowledged need of constantly recurrent exhortation to righteousness and against wrongdoing implies our natural state of evil, and the necessity of effort to get rid of it. 1 Eph. iv. 25, 32. 2 Westcott : Gospel of the Resurrection. COMMUNITIES, NATIONS, RANKS 1 77 Are not we in these assemblies constantly reminded that, having no good in ourselves, we may yet attain to purity, holiness, and every good, by submitting to the love of God, obeying his Son, and opening the doors of our hearts to the influences of his Spirit ? If one would learn any natural science, if one would directly learn anything at all, one must make the necessary effort. Indolence must be overcome, love of ease must be resisted ; the chains of habit — beyond all, of evil habit — must be broken ; the natural enticements of things relatively valueless must be contemned. Neither must our outward environment be allowed to sway us, nor the closer environment of our earthly tenements to enslave us. We must be humble toward those who, by their own precedent labours, have grown capable of teaching us. In the spirit of learning alone can we gain knowledge, become able to carry human discovery further, and And out for ourselves things we long to understand. Equally in religion and in science the great intellectual obstacle to such progress lies in the love of preconceived opinions, and in slavery to predilections. By these we shut out the light. The wisest of moderns, the author of the Magna Instauratio and the Novum Organum, devotes nearly fifty pages to the necessity of freeing our minds from prejudice if we would have the truth come in. This most difficult of tasks is but rarely achieved. HoAvever we may flatter ourselves that we have risen superior to such weakness, there is almost always some pride, some gratification, or some dislike, that we have made so much a part of ourselves as to have lost the power of perceiving that, in its nature, it is but a parasite. If a dog be loved by his master in proportion to his understanding of his will, and his obedience to the same, surely he who studies God’s dealings with man, seeking to understand Him, that he may do His will, best pleases 178 FALLEN ANGELS Him. For this highest of all studies one thing only is indispensable — that he who studies should he of the Truth. ‘ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ There is a fine passage in the second part of Faust , in which Mephistoplieles, not perceiving the direction of a certain truth, is commiserated by Faust : ‘ All that is far beyond thy reach. How canst tliou know what men beseech \ Thy cross-grained self, in malice banned, How can it know what men demand 2’1 It may seem strange that, after nearly nineteen hundred years of Christian influences, there should still exist so much spiritual ignorance, wickedness, and folly. But it must be remembered that the yoke of Christ has to be taken , that the will of men must be operative in the thing, and that the will is the last thing developed in the human. The ranks of sin are recruited by the arrival of every baby in the community to which its previous history causes it to belong. Each infant has to undergo its own individual discipline, receive its own essential education. ‘ This is a great mystery ; but we are animals, in time and space ; and by time and space and our animal natures we are educated. Let God our Father teach his own lesson his own way. Let us try to learn it well, and learn it quickly; but do not let us fancy that he will ring the school-bell, and send us to play before our lesson is learnt.’ 2 Buddhists would shudder at the blasphemy of many so- called Christians in attributing to injustice and caprice the creation of some men to rank, riches, health, and wisdom, and others to poverty, suffering, imbecility, and deformity. Can the God of Love, in whose sight all men are equal, 1 Goethe's Faust, vol. ii. act 4. - Charles Kingsley : Letters and Memoirs. COMMUNITIES, NATIONS, HANKS 179 ever have done an injustice ? The thing is impossible. Where were his love without justice ? His love involves justice. It is we ourselves who have brought about our unhappy condition. And now, when the gracious hand is held out to all, Iioav many of us decline to take it ! Some are indeed under disadvantages in this life, from having passed into it through parents who have trans¬ gressed the divine laws. But this fact also is part of the individual discipline, contributes its share to the deliver¬ ance through suffering. And if there is any not induced by our own fault, it must be for the sake of others, and will be very amply made up to us. For we live, not for one time, but for all time. And if we suffer in the flesh, there may be those already passed into the spiritual world who, possessing enhanced sensibilities, are subjected to much greater pain in the knowledge that our infirmities are in part derived from relationship to them, and to whom the knowledge is a purifying fire.1 Allah’s punishment was carried into the next world, for it is expressly declared that, as a retribution to him, his immediate relatives should be cut off. The merited evil which fell upon his descendants was a punishment to him also, who, instead of checking their inborn wickedness, encouraged it by his evil example. The angels chose spiritual independence, threw off* the soul-oneness with God : on earth they have been permitted to try all sorts of experiments in government, and in every kind of relation to their fellows, through long ages, that they may be taught, by painful experience, their helpless¬ ness, their hopeless impotence even for such good as they can understand, apart from him. They have been and are allowed, under restrictions to prevent their irrecoverable 1 ‘ Those same pathetic, haunting eyes of thine, For which some soul doth suffer punishment.’ The Disciples: ‘ Sermon in the Hospital,’ p. 109. 180 FALLEN ANGELS ruin, to take their own stupid way. Time is of small importance with the Eternal : he can afford to wait. At length they will find and understand that Truth is the only possibility of life; and then will be fulfilled the promise that only a perfect God could have given : ‘ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah : not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt ; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts ; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people : and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord ; for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.’ 1 1 Heb. viii. 8-12. CHAPTER XXXIY MYSTERY OF MAX AND OF CREATED THINGS ‘ That which I see not, teach thou me.’ — Elihu : Job xxxiv. 32. ‘ For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I have been known.5 St. Paul : 1 Cor. xiii. 12, R.V. There are things that, whilst we are still on the earth, we shall not know : we may rest well assured that they are such as in nature we cannot know, such as we are not yet sufficiently developed to know, or such as it is best for us not to know now. At the same time, it stands to reason that more should be known of the divine economy by such as are fitter to know. It is better to see, through a glass darkly, a blurred representation of the things of God and his creation, than not to see them at all. But what shall be said of such as, gifted with superior powers, care no more for the Truth for which they were created, than a horse for a drawing or a dog for a book ? O O We cannot picture to ourselves any object without having previously seen it, or heard or read of it : how did man conceive the idea of a living God, unless he had communicated with some of their race, or the know¬ ledge was already in his being, gathered from previous experience ? ‘ Men have long been questioning whether it be a divine philosoplieme or a literal fact ; whether man arose in one, or, like the fauna and the flora which surround him, in many centres ; whether the material elements of which our 182 FALLEN ANGELS bodies are composed sprang at a single creative fiat into full-grown and perfect manhood, or in virtue of one omnific law had been swept by the magic eddy of Nature’s unseen agencies through generations of lower organisms ; whether Adam and Eve, and the happy garden, and the tempting serpent, and the waving sword of the cherubim, and the trees of knowledge and of life, be transparent allegory or historic narrative. Enter, my brethren, if you will, into such inquiries, secure and undismayed, if you but carry in your hands the golden clews of humility and prayer ; nothing doubting that by such a spirit you shall know of the truth, and the truth shall make vou free.’ 1 There have been many seekers after God, seekers for an explanation of the mysteries of life. In regard to ‘ trans¬ parent allegory,’ Farrar quotes Coleridge and Horsley, adding that ‘ the opinion has been held without blame, by divers of the most unimpeachable orthodoxy, and most averse to the allegorising of Scripture history in general ; and, indeed, no unprejudiced man can pretend to doubt, that if in any other work of Eastern origin he met with trees of life and knowledge, or talking snakes, ... he would want no other proofs that it was an allegory that he was reading, and intended to be understood as such.’ May not, then, this allegory represent the intrusion of sin among the angels when in a pure state, just as well as its introduction into the nature of man ? We are all taught to consider ourselves sinners : why ? Have we acted contrary to our nature ? If not, where is our sin ? Is it true that we are here in this life just to shake off sin — to resist unto blood, striving against it ? Then we were at one time not sinful, and became such ; and God who loves us has put us here to get rid of it. Ours is a very imperfect state of life, and he desires us to recognise it as such, and look for a better. In itself it 1 Archdeacon Farrar. MYSTERY OF MAN AND OF CREATED THINC4S 183 is obviously not a permanent condition, but a passing experience. Loneliness, isolation are not consonant with an infinite, pure, and all-powerful Love : why should not angels, or men, spiritual emanations from Love, have been in exist¬ ence from a period distant beyond our power of concep¬ tion ? Nay, why should we not imagine that Clod may have caused us to exist from eternity as well as to eternity ? • We may even now be under many and powerful in¬ fluences on the part of superior beings altogether beyond our cognisance. Think of our own influences upon creatures weaker than ourselves, of which they have no consciousness whatever, and for which they cannot there¬ fore feel any gratitude. We cultivate and cherish plants and flowers : we send instructions to a distance for the health of favourite plants, birds, beasts, or even fishes. We welcome photographs of child-relations in the Colonies, whom we have never seen ; we send them many an evidence of our love. Trees, shrubs, flowers, animals, and those far-off children receive our benefits and return us no love. So God deals with us, and, alas ! so in general do we deal with God ! Let us seek to know him who loves us and is our life ! 'As man is endowed with a triple soul, vegetable, animal, and rational, he walks in a triple path. ‘ Inasmuch as he is vegetable, he seeks utility, in which he has a common nature with plants ; inasmuch as he is animal, he seeks for pleasure, in which he participates with brutes ; inasmuch as he is rational, he seeks for honour, in which he is either alone, or is associated with the angels. ‘Whatever we do appears to be done through these three principles.5 1 1 Dante : De Vulgari Eloquentia. 184 FALLEN ANGELS ‘ What is that to thee, Who livest not for one time, but for all ? God keeps account of that.5 1 4 Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round.5 2 Man, a living soul in tliis body which the Saviour has honoured, is the result of untold ages of preparation and development, and is in the last stage of the soul’s educa¬ tional deliverance. He alone can come into sympathy with the indwelling spirit of his Maker. If he has done so, he is now ready to burst his bonds, and, freed from the earth and its oppressions, to rise into the liberty of the Sons of God. If he will not arise and go to his Father, love may, perhaps, yet send him back for a re-experience of lower conditions. My degrading self-love caused me to turn my face from my Father and feed with the swine. Is it possible after my such folly — oh, far worse than folly ! — I should ever be permitted to re-enter my home even in lowest con¬ dition of service ? Nay, poor soul, but thou shalt be welcomed as a son! Your Eternal Father has never lost sight of you even at your worst. It is he who has been leading you by ways unknown, by unimagined paths, by painful experiences — and the more plainly loving that they are painful, for he affiictetli not willingly- — back to that only home. 1 King : ‘ Sermon in the Hospital.5 ? George Herbert : On Sinne. CHAPTER XXXY OBJECTIONS ‘ The ruling religious system of a country is apt to be regarded by many of its ministers as a monopoly of the truth.’ — Anon. e Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.’ Moore : Lalla Roolch. It lias been objected to the main ideas of this treatise that they are not orthodox — that is, not in accordance with the teaching generally recognised as true. Rut has not the orthodoxy of every bygone age shown itself, in the growing light from the Spirit of God, at least incomplete ? Has not the discovery in later times of many a truth unperceived before, rendered Christianity the more wel¬ come — appearing more in its real character, as less misrepresented by those who, loving it well, yet under¬ stand it ill ? Many a verity lies latent in the Bible, as numberless facts, which will one day go to enlarge science, lie latent in Nature; and the very doctrines that many Christians now love best are and have been rejected with loathing by Christians at least as honest as themselves. Some will at once dismiss the suggestion here made as to their secondary origin, because of the humiliation they imagine involved. Sinners themselves, they so look down on other sinners that they scorn to be associated with them even in idea. By others the subject is permanently shelved from 186 FALLEN ANGELS merest indolence ; and by others still, perhaps, from spiri¬ tual pride. An elderly clergyman to whom the suggestion was recently made, at once refused it the smallest consider¬ ation, saying, 'Jesus Christ is sufficient for me.’ The rejoinder might have been made: 'And, happily, for all Christians; but is that Christian sufficient for Jesus who is never so far troubled about his fellows as to desire to justify the ways of God to them ? ’ Are not some men at least sometimes aware of impulses to commit a wicked deed ? Each who is so, knows that the suggestion is against reason and hurtful even to him- self, and resists it. But how does it arise ? wdience does it come ? Many will answer that such temptations are directly from Satan : here at once is a support to my hypothesis. God has never, could never, have created any sin ; }ret, if there were not in us a soil for their culti¬ vation — that is, a sinful soil — such poisonous seeds could not even have entered our consciousness. While it seems a human instinct to associate suffering' with wrongdoing, as is shown in the arguments of the three friends of Job, yet we often see persons injured and disqualified for many enjoyments because of no sin of which they have any present remembrance, or of which they manifest any sign. Men suffer from railway accidents, poisons, noxious exhalations, fevers, slanders, misappre¬ hensions. It would surely be more satisfactory to our inborn sense of justice if the prevalence of these apparent evils could be accounted for. Why should we rest in ignorance and apathy as to their causes ? In scientific matters — of much less moment — we are never tired in the search for explanation. It is surely worth the labour of Christians, at least, to endeavour the removal of the un¬ belief that arises from doubt as to the justice of God ! Aristotle does not regard as of educational value the temporary combination of the soul with the human and OBJECTIONS 187 * corruptible ’ whilst nevertheless it is £ immutable and eternal ; ’ for he says, ‘ We have no recollection of any former existence, and we shall have none hereafter of our life on earth.’ But with reference to this opinion, the Bishop of Durham, in his very valuable work on the Resurrection (p. 151), writes thus : ‘ At least, any presump¬ tion that we shall be conscious hereafter of our present life, while we are not conscious of that which we have passed through before, could only be drawn from the observation of a corresponding difference between the con¬ ditions and circumstances of our present and past lives, which obviously lies wholly without the range of our faculties.’ At the same time, although we should not remember, much less be able to prove, our past condition, it remains none the less conceivable that we should have passed through a long series of changes, whose influences yet remain in our nature. ‘ Where is one that, born of woman, altogether can escape From the lower world within him, moods of tiger or of ape ? Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages, Shall not amn after aeon pass and touch him into shape ? ’ 1 Man is the highest creature on earth, and may have passed through all the lower gradations before being promoted to the human body. But the Christian religion teaches us that his soul will be liberated from that body — surely to return to more ethereal conditions than those of this our reformatory. Then his memory may be restored in full vigour and scope, along with all the other faculties lost by his degradation. The element hydrogen is rarely found in its original condition as a pure gas ; its atoms have almost all been undergoing a prolonged series of changes of companion¬ ship. Combined with oxygen as water, with carbon as 1 Tennyson : The Making oj Man. 188 FALLEN ANGELS coal, with sulphur as sulphuretted hydrogen, in scores of compounds such as oils and acids, or in organic forms, vegetable or animal, who would recognise its individuality by any character of its own ! Scarcely ever, save in the instant of changing from one combination to another, is it alone. But in such a moment, if ever things are for any cosmic reason restored to the simple conditions of their creation, every atom of the hydrogen that existed at the beginning will he found to exist so and such still. It will be the same with every human soul. Many pious persons find objection to the notion of a previous life on the ground of there being no mention of such an existence in the Bible. They do not consider how very little there is in the Old Testament to support the notion of future immortality, in the truth of which their confidence is profound. Calmly pondered, it will perhaps be found that the Bible evidence in the two directions is not so very unequal. St. Paul tells us to put off ‘ the old man;’1 and in the beautiful baptismal service of the Church of England the same phrase is used in connection with the newly born. It is the business of this life to ‘ put off the old man.’ Surely among the legitimate uses of imagination- — that is to say, the power of conceiving with the mind things not perceptible to the senses— the first and noblest must be for the realisation to our minds of the things delivered con¬ cerning our future state and the invisible world of life surrounding us. But there are multitudes who make no use of their imagination to help them to believe anything. They are unable or too indolent to grasp any real thought ; and dwell in the vanity of an ignorance, that would hold itself too wise to be cozened into credence. ‘ To oppose,’ says a modern philosopher, ‘ to refuse, to deny, is not to know, the truth — is not to be true any more than it is to 1 Rom. vi. 6 ; Eph. iv. 22 ; Col. iii. 9. OBJECTIONS 189 be false. Whatever good may be in the destroying of the false, the best hammer of the iconoclast will not serve to carve the celestial form of the Real. When the iconoclast becomes the bigot of negation, and declaims the non¬ existence of any form worthy of worship, because it has destroyed so many unworthy, he passes into a fool.’ Goethe’s Mephistopheles is of the spirit of denial or negation. He says he is a part of that which was once the whole — meaning the darkness. God’s ways, it is true, are past our finding out ; but we may get a little nearer to the comprehension of some of their outer circles : and no real knowledge of them, how¬ ever limited, can fail to fit us for worshipping him better. There is great encouragement in the Scriptures to humble inquiry. They c erred in their hearts ’ who £ had not known his ways.’ CHAPTER XXXYI OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORATION ‘ All things whate’er they be Have order among themselves, and this is form That makes the Universe resemble God ! ’ Dante : Faradiso, canto i. ‘ Here in the body pent, Al^sent from Him I roam, Yet nightly pitch my moving tent A day’s march nearer home.’ — Montgomery. The fact of our being unaware of any life before our birtli into tliis world, which itself we do not remember, is often assumed as a proof that our earthly parents have to do with the origin of our life. Those who thus argue often cherish no inward conviction of a life beyond. They belong to two very opposite classes. The first and more numerous is of those who avoid all mental effort beyond such as is actually needful for their daily material welfare. The second, of small but in¬ creasing number, is to be found amongst those of our scientists who refuse to take cognisance of anything that does not come within the range of the senses. Any opinion, if such a thing be, of the former class is of no account. They need to be stimulated to any really in¬ tellectual movement even of the lowest kind : to shame / them out of the mud in which they wallow is hardly possible. Nor is the opinion of the second class of much greater value, so long as they have to confess that such questions do not interest them. OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORATION 191 ‘The more thoughtful a man is, and the more conscious of what is going on within himself, the more interest will O O 7 he take in what he can know of his progenitors, to the remotest generations.’ A modern writer says this a propos of the regard to ancestral honours, which he asserts ‘ is a plant rooted in the deepest soil of humanity.’ Per¬ haps it is a plant having its origin in the old heavenly garden ! But lie in whom it flourishes must surely take a yet stronger interest in liis higher origin — that beyond his roots in this earth. Not a few, nevertheless, appear to cherish contempt for the faculties b}r which they are mainly distinguished from their fellow-animals — foxes, tigers, snails, or flies. Neither more nor less strange is it that there should still be some who are proud of not fulfilling their share of the world’s labour, and who are therefore yet lower, in that regard, than many, perhaps all other, animals. If any spiritual or mental gift comes from the parents, how is it that so few, possessing genius, transmit it to their children ? Burns neither inherited his from his parents nor passed it on to his descendants. I knew an uneducated child in a Sussex village, endowed with such an innate sense of form that she could cut out in paper the figures of animals and flowers with an asto¬ nishing accuracy which was the more marvellous that she was unable to draw. Why should we, hugging our materialism, refuse the easy explanation that a life, an individuality, is brought from the spiritual world to inhabit a material form pre¬ pared for it ? A tree grows, and drops acorns from which spring other oaks. The oak produces the acorns, but is it by an exercise of its own will ? Or has it created the vital principle in itself by which it appropriates from material substances its visible form ? This vital principle is no doubt greatly influenced in its 192 FALLEN ANGELS operation by its material surroundings, the kind and quality of which affect both the shape and dimensions it assumes ; but without its invisible, imponderable force, no form at all would appear. Through man, and through the lower powers of life, forms are produced, but none of them can create even a form. They can but produce and modify. Common justice must not, cannot, admit punishment or misery as due to any who have not wilfully sinned ; but some may have sinned more than others before being introduced into this world, whence both their nature and their lot are worse than those of others. ‘ The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.’ 1 We ‘ were by nature the children of wrath.’ 2 But the prospect of pardon and the recovery of their lost privileges might reconcile even such to a body of greater humiliation. What will not some in the present stage willingly undergo, to secure the favour of God ! The nature of their efforts may be grounded in ignorance, but not the less are they marvellous. It is commonly said that we are not here by any choice of our own ; but this cannot be proven. The less proud of those angels might well be willing to pass through de¬ gradation to restoration, consenting that their power and range of will should be for a while in abeyance, and that they should fall into oblivion of their identity with their former selves — which willing consent would be the first step in their repentance. Dante represents one of the souls in Purgatory as aware of the long, painful cleansings that lay before him, yet ready to let Virgil go that he misfht advance to meet and endure them. In the ascending scale up to man, there is an ever- increasing restoration of liberty and power. The minerals have not the capacity of growth and production like a tree, 1 Psalm lviii. 3 ; Psalm li. 5. 2 Eph. ii. 3. OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORATION 193 nor has anything vegetable the power to change its place like the lowest of the animals. Among men, some are not only willing but even anxious that the will and influence of God should take the place of their likings and desires : they would have their fallen nature restored. Such desire is not felt by the lower ranges of men any more than by the lower creatures ; neither class is yet sufficiently advanced in its spiritual recovery to be able to cry, ‘ Abba, Father!’ The majority of mankind still prefers to look downward, while the Father, all-merciful and all-loving, is ever drawing them upward. They must be clean before they can approach his presence with gladness. Falsehood once admitted into their being by the angels, such a love of lies and such an obliquity of vision would follow, that any falsehood they desired would appear to them a truth. The slightest departure from uprightness is the beginning of confusion and anarchy. Every angle of deviation, however small, must, in the progress of thoughts as well as things, cause at length a separation immeasurable. The rebellious spirits knew themselves immortal as come from God ; but even the knowledge that they were the sons of God served only, under the influence of their vain presumption, to divide them the further from him. ‘ Rumour, and the popular voice They look to, more than truth ; and so confirm Opinion, ere by art or reason taught.5 1 What has become of their myriads ? Where are they now ? Some, weakly following those who took the lead, must from the first have been easier to bring back to the enjoy¬ ment of truth and beauty, than those whose passion of self-worship had altogether blinded them ! These latter, the chiefs of revolt, would be deaf to argument and remon- 1 Dante. N 194 FALLEN ANGELS strance ; the very idea of submission would be to them as annihilation. Punishment might soon open the eyes of the less guilty to understand what they had done, and contrition might follow like a returning tide. They would remember whence they had fallen, and repent. Nor would they despair of forgiveness upon submission. But they could no longer be left to themselves. This thing must not he again. They must he rendered incap¬ able of it for ever — incapable, by enlargement of heart and will. So far as they could understand, they would themselves desire the same. They would choose that the lack in their nature, the crowded spots and blemishes, the disson¬ ance with the divine will, should be done away, and that Truth in their inward parts should be made supreme ! The pride, however, of perhaps most of the rebel angels would altogether revolt against the seeming disgrace of a body of humiliation, and they would prefer to remain in the Hell to which they had at once fallen, where they would do their utmost to prevent any of their companions from scaling the steep ascents of return. Hence it comes that, knowing in man his tendency to evil, and in each individual easily learning his besetting weakness, they pamper and stimulate everything low, and clog every movement toward good. Gladly would they drag down to the dust those they see drawn homewards ! But, happy in having been advanced to be men, and having begun to be Christians, let us, how¬ ever assailed by invisible foes, remember that on the other hand Ave are not unshielded, not unbefriended. ‘ LikeAvise there is joy in HeaA^en 0A7er one sinner that repenteth.’ We must take up our burden, our cross, ‘ aAATake, arise or be for ever fallen.’ We liaAre forgotten our preAuous life, AAutliout Avhich oblivion the trial A\rould be insufficient, in a measure unreal, and comparatively inoperative ; but our conscience is alive. Too clear a revelation AAnuld imperil OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORATION 195 our liberty, and diminish, the value of our endeavours ; the knowledge could not be safely borne. But hope is alight within us. ‘ Help thy vain worlds to bear thy Light/ was the aspiration of the Poet Laureate. As parents, when the fitting hour arrives, talk to their children of events in- fluencing their lives of which they were previously unaware, so may beings superior to us, aware of portions of our life hidden from us, reveal them to us when our time is come. As man is aware of phases in the career of the butterfly unknown to it, so to beings above us are known various phases of our individual continuity unknown to us. In either case, the succession of forms might have been open to the consciousness; but a higher wisdom had judged it inexpedient. ‘ Now I know^ in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ What is death ? It is but a change of state. As we now inhabit an organisation which we vitalise, we see things only through its enclosing structure ; but this house of flesh is not us : it is but our gaoler and repre¬ sentative. The humiliating encumbrance doubtless renders us good service, but we hope to be ere long delivered from it, and enter into liberty. We speak of having seen a friend, but in strictness we have seen but the earthly form gathered about his real self, by which he partially knows, and by which he is partially known, to other spiritual existences clothed like himself in earthly and temporary form. To be clothed in any material form is a banishment from Heaven, a seclu¬ sion from free intercourse with the spiritual world. But by-and-by the body disintegrates, and the soul is liberated. When a pheasant is shot, the dead body of the bird weighs as much as it did before. But it is evident that something, and a very important something, has gone out of that body. Plainly it is not the bird. It cannot fly, it can exercise no volition as before. An invisible force is 19G FALLEN ANGELS gone from it. Is that invisible force shot and slain ? who will dare to say it ? It was invisible before ; it is invisible now. The life of the body was not its own. It is gone to live ; the body remains to perish. Under the influence of certain invisible forces inherent in them, the elements that constitute the physical earth combine in certain fixed proportions, and under similar conditions present invariably the same phenomena ; but when their forces, which are lower, are subjected to the superior vital forces — that is, such as dwell in organisms — they present phenomena constantly varying : no man, woman, or child was ever precisely alike any other. Con¬ sciousness and will are forces far more superior to these vital forces than these are to attraction and electricity. Consciousness and will reveal the soul of a man as a whole and simple power, as an indivisible individuality, and consequently as an indestructible persistency. If men be not responsible, by their own doings, for the miseries of their condition, then God must have caused the fearful mass of their suffering and that of the animals by the physical laws of his universe. This appalling con¬ clusion is the logical outcome of materialistic Deism ; and is surely some ground for believing that they must have lived at least one life before the present, and at some time made themselves thus responsible. The believers in the Old and New Testaments are divided into many sects of dogmatism ; but, all put together, they are greatly outnumbered by the adherents to more ancient faiths : and the time is past for ignorant sneers at the religious convictions of others. He who confines his way to a ditch or channel hollowed by the feet of his predeces¬ sors, is a pitiful object to such as walk on higher ground, yielding them an outlook over the sects. Some Christians, proud of that which if truly believed would make them humble, would stigmatise Buddhists, OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORATION 197 Brahmins, Mohammedans, Parsees, and Jews, as alike slavishly adherent to superstitious prejudice. But could their several religious systems have so long endured unless they had some truth in them ? Would it not be presumption and far worse to assert that God left all his children but the Jews, for so many centuries before the advent of his Son, in total darkness ? Where but in one so believing, should the slave of prejudice be found ? As to the descendants of Abraham, they remain to this day a standing miracle of the preservation of a race that knows not Christ ; but has good ceased out of their religion ? There is enough of truth in the Jewish faith now, as before his coming, to keep the hearts of its believers alive. Other religions also remain, and have their influence for good ; God does not preserve the worthless. Whence did the Buddhists derive their profound belief in successive stages of embodiment and education ? £ Long after — when enlightenment was full — o o Lord Buddha, being prayed why thus his heart Took fire at first glance of the Sakya girl, Answered, “ We were not strangers, as to us And all it seemed; in ages long gone by A hunter’s son, playing with forest girls By Yamun’s springs, — And while the wheel of birth and death turns round, That which hath been must be between us two.” Long after — when enlightenment was come — They prayed Lord Buddha touching all, and why She wore this black and gold, and stepped so proud. And the world-honoured answered, “Unto me This was unknown, albeit it seemed half-known ; For while the wheel of birth and death turns round, Past things and thoughts, and buried lives, come back. I now remember, myriad rains ago, What time I roamed Himala’s hanging woods A tiger, with my striped and hungry kind ; I who am Buddh, couched in the Kusa grass 198 FALLEN ANGELS Gazing with green blinked eyes upon the herds Which pastured near and nearer to their death Round my day lair ; or underneath the stars I roamed for prey, savage, insatiable, Sniffing the paths for track of man and deer. Amid the beasts that were my fellows then, Met in deep jungle or by reedy jheel, A tigress, comeliest of the forest, set The males at war ; her hide was lit with gold, Black-broidered like the veil Yasodhara Wore for me ; hot the strife waxed in that wood With tooth and claw, while underneath a neem The fair beast watched us bleed ; thus fiercely wooed. And I remember, at the end she came, Snarling, past this and that torn forest-lord Whom I had conquered, and with fawning paws Licked my quick-heaving flank, and with me went Into the wild with proud steps, amorously. The wheel of birth and death turns low and high. • ••••• For so our Scriptures truly seem to teach That — once, and whereso’er and whence begun — Life runs its round of living, climbing up From mote, and gnat, and worm, reptile and fish, Bird and shagged beast, man, demon, deva, God, To clod and mote again ; so are we kin To all that is, and thus if one might save Man from his curse, the whole wide world would share The lightened horror of this ignorance Whose shadow is still fear, and cruelty Its bitter pastime. What good gift have my brothers, but it came From search and strife, and loving sacrifice ? ” 5 1 Our present condition, the present condition of any¬ thing, is the result of foregone causes. What is the main Is it not that we may better understand the present, and form some judgment con¬ cerning the probable future ? Theologians insist that our future depends upon our conduct in the present : must not the present have de¬ pended on our conduct in the past ? 1 Sir Ed won Arnold : Light of Asia. OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORA TION 199 Certain souls seem to have been pre-ordained to pass into the flesh of humanity. The advents of Cyrus and of Josiah were foretold. Samson was promised. The coming and character of John the Baptist were revealed to his father. It may he that, in specially passive moments, isolated facts or sensations of the past return upon the pausing soul ; for one of the common phenomena of consciousness, though of the hardest to explain, is the passing conviction that something of which we are at the moment aware, we have experienced before. It does not follow that we have experienced it ; it may have been foreshown to us as part of an extended whole, of which this fragment has re¬ appeared. Even now there seems in the human soul a power, generally latent, of prophetic insight. Goethe, upon a certain journey, saw himself, in a peculiar suit, riding in the opposite direction : eight years later he did so ride. Through whatever changes any soul may have passed, the divine has never forsaken it. If the original pneuma, or breath of God, remains, without which the lowest could not exist, it is a small thing to say that, like the residual magnetism in a rod of soft iron round which an electric current has passed, a latent spark of beauty lingers in the worst of the fallen souls. Through and through our nature everywhere the divine current must flow, if we would indeed live. Wherever it is impeded in its natural course, there lies moral disease, there lies sin ; and as the purity of the copper or other metal is essential to a free electric current, so is a pure nature neces¬ sary to the full potency of the divine in and through us. The divine current is sorely impeded in us now, for we are prodigal sons and gone astray ; but Love is yearning after every one of us — love infinitely greater than it is possible for us to conceive. Before we can know it in ourselves, 200 FALLEN ANGELS however, we must will heartily against everything in us that is false, selfish, mean, paltry, impure. Love divine has provided an antidote against all the poison of our sin. The Physician himself is the antidote : we must know him. Through him knowing God, we are at home. The main strength of our hope of existence after death lies in the fact that our Saviour rose again : but the hope dwells as an instinct in the race ; whence is this instinct ? No instinct being developed as the result of meditation, it must either be born in us. or derived from antecedent ex¬ perience. ‘ I say, then, that every human soul hath looked aforetime upon the true existences, or she could never have entered into man. But from this world to remember that, is no easy task for souls; not easy for those who, falling thitherward, have suffered hapless fate, and, follow¬ ing evil fellowships, forget the sanctities which once they saw. ’ 1 The most ancient records of humanity are lost, but these instincts may themselves be the rudimentary remains of a revelation, in some long past epoch, directly from the divine. Because of its overwhelming importance to the race, the memory or stamp of it may have wrought itself, in the human consciousness, into the shape of an instinct. The future naturally has more interest with us than any past, and the knowledge that man was eternal would absorb the generations of old more than any record. At the same time, does not the very word eternity imply an unbeginning past as well as an unending future ? Even for the greater assurance of the future, the inquiry into the past with which this essay is concerned com¬ mends it to consideration. Although the belief that man has had a previous career, and has occupied and may yet occupy lower forms, is 1 Plato : Phcedon. OUR PREVIOUS EXISTENCE, AND OUR RESTORATION 201 deeply seated in the minds of many millions, the thought of their having- ever inhabited the bodies of animals is so repulsive to many other millions, that they at once reject it as unendurable. But our human body itself is in some aspects a repulsive object, and is only rendered other than repulsive by our indwelling life. If a soul can be incorporated with the material frame of man, why should it not in like manner be incorporable with that of one of the many brutes which it so much resembles ? By the refusal even to regard the idea of a previous and less developed existence, many a difficulty in the relations of man to Nature continues unsolved. The hypothesis opens a region of possibilities in which every stumbling- block might be removed. We may have lived before : nine-tenths of all the mass of solid trees were at one time invisible gases. The ethnologist Haddon has ascertained that ‘ the belief in the transmigration of souls is general among the whole O O O of the Australian tribes, and also extends to the Torres Straits. The people holding it imagine that immedi¬ ately after death they are changed into white people or Europeans.’ CHAPTER XXXVII LAWS OF CAPABILITY, OF COMPENSATION, AND OF APPEARANCES ‘ And things are not what they seem.’ Longfellow. What subject can be of more surpassing interest to an intelligent mind than the ultimate destination of man ? And there can be but one more noble or more useful study. Who am I ? What am I ? Where am I ? Wherefore am I ? What must I become ? The first essential toward the inquiry is to get rid of the notion that the body is the man. The objects around us so constantly press themselves upon our attention, that we yield to their pressure, and continually forget ourselves, God, and all that is unseen. Most philosophers, when they speak of our circum¬ stances, imply things and conditions which act first upon the body, and through that upon the person. It is the body itself, however, which is the first and chief circumstance. It is in constant change, while the person remains the same. In the man lies the power to resist the tyranny of the material, and lay open his being to the spiritual, to the true. He must drive out the evil and the inferior, that there may be room for the good and the high. He must arouse the courage made possible to him, and stir up his perseverance. ‘ Lead thine own captivity captive. Climb into virtue, do not think to slide thereto.’ 1 1 Sir Thomas Browne, 1605. LAW OF CAPABILITY 203 Those who permit their whole attention to be absorbed by the common things of the outer life, gradually lose the power of looking into the unseen. It is not the material body, our environment, but the constant recurrence of our thoughts to things material, that shuts in our souls, and parts them from one another. ‘ We cry For God’s face, who have never looked upon The poorest soul’s face in the wonderful Soul-haunted world. A spirit there once dwelt Beside me, close as thou — two welded souls. We mingled, flesh was mixed with flesh— we knew All joys, all unreserves of mingled life ; Yea, not a sunbeam filled the house of one But touched the other’s threshold. . . I never knew that soul. All touch, all sound, All sight was insufficient. The soul pent In its strange chambers cried to mine in vain : We saw each other not.’ £ I believe that the deadest and most ignorant soul may be awakened if it can once be brought to believe that there is some one who still loves it, and will really strive to help it.’ 2 In some barbarous nations, stealing and other vices are regarded without repugnance, and even with approbation. Many an educated European regards, like them, cunning as wisdom. Civilisation extends, and morals rise, but morals do not always rise as civilisation extends. A system of laws and of moral and social economy is, however, by degrees evolved, which renders violence, and in part knavery — unless of a quite superior kind — unremu- nerative. Even so much is doubtless of educational value ; but so long as tve are preserved in a right course only by artificial restraints, nothing is gained. Goethe, in the 1 Robert Buchanan : The Book of Orm. - Dr. Goodchild : Chats at AmpeyJio, p. 194. 204 FALLEN ANGELS second part of his great poem, shows the struggle of Faust to realise the beautiful and the true in spite of his liberty , in spite of the power to do evil at and for his pleasure. We must so resist the devil that not only will he flee from us, but cease to waste his time in attempts he knows would he unavailing. ‘ By manly mind Not even in sleep is will resigned.’1 Every suggestion to the infraction of any Christian prin¬ ciple must be regarded with aversion before we can be fit or able to re-enter our lost home. There is no waste in Nature — nothing is lost; and the same may be reasonably predicated in the world of real or spiritual force. No reality acquired here will ever cease to have room for application. The labour of learning mathe¬ matics, chemistry, mechanics, is not lost, however long the learner may have been gone from this world. Nothing but the wicked indulgence of our own desire is a waste. ‘ Where Providence has ordained that complete physical health should not be possessed by any one, there is very often found a compensation in larger mental activities and moral power.’ 2 The Lord himself has given us some insight into a law of compensation.3 Miseries of condition will be abundantly reversed hereafter. Some of us who seem specially favoured here may be Lazaruses in our next state of life. Our real life ‘ is hid with Christ in God.’ 4 A person while yet unborn may have waiting for him rank, landed property, and other riches. Should there be any pride in a man that he is born to a kingdom or a dukedom ? Should there not instead be gratitude for the power of exercising a healthy influence ? Should there not be humility and fear at the thought of 1 Lady of the Lake. Luke xvi. 52. 2 J. W. Brockman. 4 Col. iii. 3. LAW OF COMPENSATION 205 how mucli will be required ? Without labour, effort, or will of his own he has had entailed upon him responsi¬ bilities that have been well marked out by the parable of Dives. Can credit be claimed for what, so far as the indi¬ vidual took part in it, is an accident ? Let a man’s pride explain why he was not sent into the cottage of a labourer, the wigwam of an Indian, or the hut of a Negro — or, indeed, why he was not born a bird, or a beast, or a fish. There is a reason for it : every living soul is created, and placed where it is, by God, who does all things as they ought to be done ; but what can the proud man claim or regard as his right ? If nothing, why is he proud ? But truth reveals itself only to him who is tit to behold it. There are certain obscure markings on a rock in Siam, which are said to show the image of Buddha more or less distinctly according to the faith and moral worth of the Buddhist who contemplates them. The flavour of the fabled wine of Chios was according to the taster of it. ‘Deeper insight, wider sympathies, grander aspirations, have been granted to men in the progress of ages.’ 1 But the great majority of men prefer being absorbed in the lower things of earth, to soaring beyond the tyranny of daily necessities, and regarding the glorious things beyond. Like goats or sheep on the mountain-slopes, they crop the herbage with their eyes downward. Within their vision lie rich plains, fertile valleys, range upon range of hills, an endless delight of sky and sea : they care for none of these things ; they are content Avith food and Avithout aspiration. Man gets through his accustomed day by the help of his meals, of his usual Avork, of the values of stocks, of billiards, and of suchlike things. Hoax much further is he at the end of the Aveek because of the Sisyphus-round he has gone through ? Is there nothing beyond the passing sIioac ? There is ; 1 Westcott. 206 FALLEN ANGELS but we must take the trouble to look for it. Solid, abiding riches are to be had only by obedience and labour. Tire true gold is hid in deep mines. For the lower animals, to get through their time may suffice ; that is enough to call out their full capacities. But man does not use his to anything like the demand they make upon him. His life is intended neither as a playground nor yet as a field from which to gather bread, for by that alone he cannot live. It has for its end some¬ thing better far. That end is his education — the bring¬ ing out of the hidden Godlike in him. Why are children sent to school ? it involves expense to the parents and labour to the child. Is it not more or less conscious love that dictates the thing — even to parents far from the best? In like manner we are sent to the school of this earthly life by our Father in Heaven, who loves us perfectly. It costs him labour and much pain to make us blessed creatures, able to receive and reflect his love. Our wills have to be set right, for they are our deepest selves. There is no absorption of them in his, but such an educa¬ tion of them by the will of God, that they shall seek their perfection in harmonising with his perfect Will. Kant in his ethics calls the only absolute good the good will. We can gain this highest good only by the highest help, by fellowship with Christ, yea, with God the Father through the knowledge of Christ. Our progress depends on our will, and God’s is the great will of progress, and teaches ours. Let us be patient ! Every step forward is unveiling the past, and we shall comprehend this life when we have passed its confines. ‘ God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.’ But if the life in us be lower than our condition, there may be retrogression both in form and condition. As the limpet, however, sticks to its rock, alternately covered and LAW OF APPEARANCES 207 uncovered by tlie tide, while through the dome of its protecting shell no outward revelations reach it even of its own ocean by which it lives, and the great world of which it forms a part continues altogether unknown to it ; so millions of the higher animal man are conscious of the flowing and ebbing tides of day and night, and of the events of their outer lives, and are content, or, which is worse, try to be. They are proud of their thick-skinned selfishness towards others, and heedless of aught that affects their own nature and history. They have no aspira¬ tion after any knowledge of the stupendous world of spiritual life, without whose ceaseless and varied activities they could not exist, and of which, in virtue of the in¬ destructible germ of immortality with which they were originally endowed, they each form a part. Pride and selfishness hold them to their rocks. ‘ What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? ’ The human-limpet life is, however, far superior to the life which enjoys itself in active evil. There are many men who, carried away by the vile fancy of good in evil — nay, sometimes from sheer malignity — ally their forces with those of the evil spirits, and, by wilful self-degradation and injury done, render themselves inferior to their embodi¬ ment : is it not mere justice that such should be sent down to occupy a lower condition, either as savages, or in the forms of yet lower animals ? Let us then be live souls, and struggle for the mastery over our lower selves, lest we sink to be such as, degraded in nature, must be correspondingly degraded in form also. CHAPTER XXXVIII IMMORTALITY ‘ Truly there needs Another life to come ! If this be all And other life awaits us not — for one, I say ’tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure — I for one protest Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn. ’ Browning : Paracelsus. Scientific men say every mental effort, every thought, is represented by the disintegration of a correspondent weight of brain matter. However true this may be, not the less is thought itself immaterial, no 'phenomenon , but a fact invisible. A fact, a reality it is ; for we may, and very frequently do, meditate upon the thoughts we once enter¬ tained. We may even foresee the thoughts that will arise in the mind of another. Our thoughts, such of them as are real and worthy to be called thoughts, rule our actions, and our actions are but the external demonstration of our thoughts — that is to say, the bodied results of the willing, ordering thoughts. If so much grey matter of the brain has been de-organised, and has ceased to be brain in the act of every thought, the matter which once was that brain is carried away and disappears, and as brain is no more ; but the thought, and the memory of the thought remain. Thought is not material, and the memory of it is not material. They have, without help of matter, been stowed away, and are kept for future use. Is it not, then, fair to conclude that the individual conscious self, in which all the processes IMMORTALITY 209 pass, is something separable from, and in its essence inde¬ pendent of the matter through whose association and help it acts upon the world ? We can positively assert what were the metaphysical ideas of a friend twenty years ago. His thoughts are not material. Is our vital principle material which can thus lay hold of his immateriality ? Must not such a principle be independent of the chemical elements, however organic¬ ally compounded ? If we have not lived before, neither have any life to come, how very poor, aimless, and inconsequent is this human existence ! How unworthy the grandeur, the nobility, of any believable God, to have created us but for the short, doubtful spasm of this world’s experience ! But men sacrifice their future, sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, and eat up their reversion, instead of fructify¬ ing the present with the interest of a wise renunciation, and so laying up treasure in Heaven to be found when needed. Gibbon writes that ‘ four different opinions have been held respecting the origin of human souls : — 1. That they are eternal and divine. 2. That they are created in a separate state of existence before their union with the body. 3. That they have been propagated from the original stock of Adam, who contained in himself the mental as well as the corporeal seed of posterity. 4. That each soul is occasionally created and embodied in the moment of conception. The last of these sentiments appears to have prevailed among moderns : and our spiritual history has grown less sublime without becoming more intelligible.’ 1 Adam was created in the likeness of God, but the glorious image was disfigured by Adam’s faithlessness. The saints will again become like unto the form of the Son of God,2 1 Hist., chap, xlvii. 2 See 1 John iii. 2 ; Col. iii. 4. O 210 FALLEN ANGELS ‘ who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.’ 1 Christ is the second Adam.2 From being a King and a Priest, privileged with daily intercourse — yea, communion— with the Most High, Adam became a wretch so conscious and ashamed of his new condition that he sought to cover himself with leaves, and hide himself among the trees of the garden. On the very day that he ate the forbidden fruit, was the penalty ful¬ filled, for he lost sight of God. At the same moment, losing his purity, he became subject through his body to infirmity and disease. The body of Christ, born of woman, was like that of other men ; but as he had not sinned, his body was in the danger of no infirmity or disease, and there were powers in it not yet developed in man. He walked on the sea ; he appeared and disappeared at will ; and even about his person seems to have dwelt healing. 1 Phil. iii. 20, 21. 2 1 Cor. xv. 45-49 ; Rom. v. 14. CHAPTER XXXIX A LESSOX FOR POSTERITY ‘ By view whereof it plainly may appear That still as everything cloth upward tend, And further is from earth, So still more clear and fair it grows.5 Spenser: Hymn of Heavenly Beauty. 4 Oh, that there would be granted to the world some mighty wave of thought and joy Lifting mankind amain ! 5 Professor Momerie defines the Book of Job as ‘ the history of a soul in its struggle after God/ Job had to J oo learn that riches, strength, influence, the love ever given us by others, are not possessions. The things may even work to dispossess us of our only true possessions. The heart of J ob was sorely troubled and perplexed when they were taken from him ; but by the educating scourge he learned that these were but accidents of the true life, which is the knowledge of God. He inquires where wisdom is to be found, and concludes that it does not consist in any knowledge of created things, but in the knowledge of God himself. ‘ Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is understanding/ 1 The trials with which he had been so sorely beset by the apostate son of God, who sneeringly denied any good in man, wrought for the purification and refining of his soul. He became perfect through suffering, gaining, like Paul and 1 Chap, xxviii. 28. 212 .FALLEN ANGELS many another afflicted saint, an insight into realities that would not otherwise have been possible to him. £ I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.’1 The joyful irradiation came to him after terribly harassing doubts even as to God’s justice. He had gone through agonizing struggles to find some explanation of his treatment of him ; and neither the sympathising Elipliaz, the stern Bildad, nor the fiery Zophar could say one word to deepen the trust which yet he cherished in the Most High. They could give him no comfort ; indeed, they did not try to comfort him, but assailed him as one of the wicked whom God therefore afflicted. Yet he clung to his faith in spite of the almost desperate failure of his endeavours to assure himself as to the faithfulness of God. Out of the deep he kept calling to him, and a grand contenting calm resulted. ‘Now mine eye seeth thee!’ Past, present, and future were opened to him, and his soul was glad. The conviction of a life to come grew strong. He knew in himself that his individual soul, he himself, would not be extinguished, but live and behold Him — - 1 whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.’ 2 Elipliaz, Bildad, and Zophar, not having been themselves tried in a like furnace of afflic¬ tion, imagined joys and sorrows allotted in proportion to deserts. Exposed to the same temptations as Job, thejT would not, probably, have resisted so well. Let Christians remember him in their sufferings. No weight heavier than they can bear will be laid upon them. ‘ As thy days so shall thy strength be.’ ‘ My grace is sufficient for thee.’ God made Job again able ‘ to deliver the poor that cried, and to cause the widow’s heart to sing with joy.’ Again he gave judgment in righteousness, and was a father to the poor ; and the cause which he knew not he 1 Chap. xlii. 5. 2 Chap. xix. 27, R. V. marg. A LESSON FOR POSTERITY 213 searched out. Again he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. Again he broke the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.1 Such power of service to others was infinitely greater compensation for the past than his doubled multitudes of sheep and camels and oxen. But the exceeding great reward of his enduring faith must have been the exposure to himself of the vanity that had begun to gain upon him, and the falseness of his estimate of prosperity, by which purifying of his soul he became able to see God. The history of J ob is a lesson to angels and men. His afilictions, painful enough at the time, were but a small thins: beside the benefits resulting from them to thousands O O of his fellow-creatures. There is no sign that this fact in relation to them was revealed to the sufferer. While he was in the human stage, it might have proved a yet greater temptation to his pride, than his sufferings had been to his faith. It was enough that his own rectitude and sense of justice should dwindle before the truth and righteousness of the Perfect. I have thus dwelt on the history of Job because it exemplifies the history of man in general, according to the idea of this book. It justifies the ways of God to man. Job was no wicked man. His consciousness of integrity made him hotly resent the imputations of his friends ; yet he fully admitted his sinfulness before God. He had not done wickedly as his friends would have had him confess, and he feels a terrible incongruity in his being chastised as for sins that, so far as he knew, he had never committed. But when with the inward eye he saw God, he saw himself too, and was aware of the impurity of his nature. ‘ Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’ 1 Chap. xxix. 11-17. 214 FALLEN ANGELS There are some who consider the book a poem merely, and no record of actual occurrences ; but this is met by the allusions in other portions of Holy Writ to the various localities named in it, and by the emphatic reference to Job in the New Testament as a real person. CHAPTER XL ASPIRATIONS ‘ The light which we have gained was given ns, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge.’ —Milton : Prose Works. ‘ But if, abandoning all earthly things, thou givest up thy whole nature to the search, thy soul itself shall be light, thy spirit shall partake of the wisdom of God.’ The reverence in which are held both the Book of Job and the work akin to it by Germany’s greatest genius, arises from their dealing with the mysterious nature of our hidden selves. The tAvo parts of Goethe’s Faust depict a life-struggle of tremendous human interest. The drama imitates the Book of Job in its Prologue in Heaven. The protection of the divine is, at the instance of Satan, temporarily withdraAvn from the hero of each. Faust, endoAved AAdth stronger passions than ordinary men, haunted Avith impulse, and plied Avith temptation intel¬ lectual as Avell as sensual, sinks into the pit prepared for him ; but the original good of his nature frequently asserts itself, as in his fierce and scathing denunciation of Mephi- stopheles A\dien he discovers the deceit of the fiend in reference to Gretchen. The experiences of Faust as cour¬ tier, as financier to an empire, as \fictorious general, and as landoAAmer, Avell depict the temptations and dangers of such positions. The fight for the possession of Faust upon his escape from his body is of thrilling interest. FeAV lines can exist of such concentrated beauty as those that ter¬ minate the second part — the ‘ Chorus Mysticus ’ of angels in the intermediate state. 216 FALLEN ANGELS In every soul not enslaved by things live aspirations after a higher life, and therein lies the secret of the power of Goethe’s masterpiece. Faust is the embodiment of the poet’s idea of the history of humanity ; it represents the struggles of the human soul against the limitations of the finite and imperfect, and its triumph in its self¬ reconciliation to the eternal law of the All-wise and the All-loving. ‘Whether in the story of Job or in Goethe’s drama, the dominant idea is undoubtedly that of all-ruling divine providence which embraces even the Hells in its dominion.* ‘ The solution of the deep problem of human happiness is reached in the discovery of the law of use, of mutual ser¬ vice of man to man, as the highest ideal of society, the divine destiny of man.’ 1 There are a few — it is to be feared but a very few, happily, however, an increasing few — who are hungering and thirsting for a better, a nobler state of things than lias hitherto prevailed upon our planet. For the contempla¬ tion of that limited number, and, it is hojied, for the com¬ fort and consolation of some part of it, these thoughts are put forth. To some whom false pride at least does not delude, they may be welcome as in harmony with a chord that sounds in their own hearts. But every one should be open-eyed for any ray of light, ready to yield to every slightest motion of the majestic Force that would draw us upward and onward. Light falls upon us from the pure, unseen universe much more freely than is commonly imagined ; but it is always more or less blurred and obscured by the lack of singleness in our eye, of purity in our heart. Our cherished infirmities, stupidities, presumptions, allow but a little of it to filter through the one and enter the other. Its radiance is lost in the thick atmosphere of selfishness in which we have 1 Frank Sewall. ASPIRATIONS 217 shrouded ourselves. Every gift of God needs our recep¬ tion to make it a gift ; hence his light is not always our illumination. He is ready to give us all things, hut we are not able, not lit, even not willing, to accept them. Our lower nature resists his pure spirit. We are even ready to fancy that in our prayers we are doing him service. To submit unreservedly to the divine is the most difficult of all achievements. The pride of the fallen angel clings, through many disguises, to every one of us. How many who think themselves workers for God, if not even fellow- workers with him, look down with pity, even with aversion, upon others also trying to do something for their kind ' They will not even worship in the same place with them ! ‘They follow not with us!’ they cry, not knowing them¬ selves what spirit they are of. They would die for this or that dogma, yet have but the poorest notion of the Truth for which the Lord died. To die for one's belief is not necessarilv to bear witness to the truth. The Mohammedan will die more readily than most Christians, yet Mohammed is not greater than the Christ. No best-proven faith can demonstrate the possession of any absolute truth. There is a truth for all, a truth without which a man perishes ; but not until he is single of eye — that is, true of heart — can any man see that truth aright. Instead of striv- ing after this purity of heart and eye, most Chris¬ tians spy out the mote in the e}'e of their neighbour, nor trouble themselves about the blinding beam in their own. The one hope for humanity lies in the approach of every man to God. This is the true end and object of this and every stage of our existence. We squander our very life in the useless jealousies and strifes of opinion. Sure there yet abide Faith, Hope, and Charity; and the greatest of these is still, and for ever, Love. At the meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute in 218 FALLEN ANGELS Chester a few years ago, one of the chief dignitaries of the cathedral responded to the toast of ‘ The Bishop and the Clergy of the District, of all Denominations/ in these words : ‘ The special wording of the toast has been so formed at my own desire. There is so fearful a mass of vice, misery, and ignorance to contend with, that the religious denominations, the opposing forces to these, cannot afford to weaken themselves or lessen their strength by quarrels, or even distrust, amongst themselves.’ He is presumptuous who despises any such as desire to do the will of their Lord and ours. He is the sectarian, the schismatic, who repulses his neighbour. Let us rejoice in every aspiration, every effort to arise from the dust ! To contemn, to despise, to scorn our neighbour is to lay ourselves in the mire. Aversion to anything human is devilish. Only, let us not mistake : nothing vile is human ; it is devilish. The human is God’s good in us. If we are children of God, we are dwellers in the infinite. Nay, dwells not the infinite in us to whose life and growth there is no end ? Can we, then, be too eager to cast off* our swaddling bands, nay, our swathing grave-clothes, and rise and live and grow — £ that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God ’ ? 1 Let such as are oppressed by the consciousness of the insufficiency of this life turn to the doors that open on the Eternal. ‘ I am weary already of the prison- house, the body, and certainly await the day when the divine nature within me shall be set free from matter.’ 2 It belongs to such as are listlessly satisfied with low aims to ridicule him who would understand the enigma of life. 1 Eph. iii. 17-19, R.Y. 2 Plotinus, a.d. 260. CHAPTER XL I COMFORT, CONSOLATION, STRENGTH ‘ We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try and make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.’ — Huxley : Lay Sermons. ‘ There be many that say, Who will shew us any good ? ’ — Psalm iv. 6. ‘ The heavenly Father will give His good spirit to the soul seeking Him.’ — Thomas a Kempis : De Recog. propr. fragilitatis , ii. 2. A remarkable article in one of our chief organs for the public intercommunication of thought, recently drew attention to a certain restlessness that increasingly per¬ vades the world, and notably the more intellectual classes. The excitements of boat-races, theatres, dinners, balls, travelling, and other amusements, but postpone or cause them to forget for a while the gnawing of this lack of content. The Rev. J. M. Wilson says : ‘ Hence, speaking for myself, I find in this doctrine of evolution fresh ground for responsibility, for faith, for hope. For it isolates and exhibits to the reason the absolute moral law, the impera¬ tive of duty.’ There must be absolute law in Heaven, otherwise it could not be Heaven. The least infraction of it would destroy the individual, or the society of individuals, who should be guilty of it. What wonder, then, that those whom God has created in perfect law, should be miserable when they have so little regard to law ! How should the)' fail to lose their pleasure in life ? If men would think but lightly of the temporal and earthly, would deny themselves 220 FALLEN ANGELS any troublous effort after it, would patiently endure tlie sufferings of this sorrowful life as the wholesome conse¬ quences of sin, and set their minds upon heavenly things, love and truth and righteousness, the people that sit in darkness would see a great light. We forget that God is our Father, as no man can be a father ; we forget that his love and power cannot fail us. We forget that our house, the world in which we live, is of his building, and that his presence is constantly necessary to the working of the laws that rule its economy. We forget that all in it as well as we have him for Creator, and that the lowest life in it calls for his sympathy with its incompleteness, for his rescue from its bondage. We forget that the invisible soul is the man, that the body is but a temporary appendage to the man, and that we are here that we may go yonder. Were once these things so realised by a man as to be daily and hourly felt, as to become in him, if not an abiding consciousness, yet an ineradicable habit of thought, then would he be on the verge of a great peace. c Then he thought, how wise must be a God, who to work out his intent would take all the endeavours of all his children, in all their contrarieties, and out of them bring the right thing. If he knew such a God, one to trust in absolutely, he would lie still without one movement of fear, he would go to sleep without one throb of anxiety about any he loved ! The perfect Love Avould not fail because one of his children was sick !’ ‘ Yes, yes,’ many will say impatiently, ‘ we know all that !’ But one may know a thing and be none the wiser. Only he Avho acts on what he knows, really knows it. ‘ Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.’ 1 Plotinus declared himself grateful that he was ‘ not tied to a material body.’ All the forms of matter stand for signs or symbols 1 Eccles. xii. 7. COMFORT, CONSOLATION, STRENGTH 221 of truth, and truth may therefore be called the soul of matter : but most men are too well satisfied with the mere earthly outside of them to look once into the realities i which they represent. Let us begin to learn that nothing is dead, that there cannot be a physical abstraction, that nothing exists for the laws of its phenomena. Let us learn to feel that the world is alive. ‘ Two worlds are ours : ’tis only sin %> Forbids us to descry The mystic heaven and earth within, Plain as the sea and sky.: 1 There is an instinct placed in us, as in all other animals, to take care of our lives, to cherish our relation with the outside world : but * A good name is better than precious ointment : and the day of death than the day of ones birth.’ 2 Cicero says, £ Death must be a blessing, because it is universal’ He was not one to think of it as extinction, but as a grand change. O O 4 The slayer thinks he slays ; the slain Believes himself destroyed ; the thoughts of both Are false : the soul survives, nor kills, nor dies.’ 3 For contentment it is essential that we should grasp the conviction of another life : and the belief is not nearly so much a matter of course as many persons imagine. Man’s repugnance to death arises chiefly from the idea that it involves a separation from those we love. But is the idea a true one ? Our loved ones who remain lose us for a while, and perhaps, for a while, we lose them : but is that loss which is but for a moment ? c And I shall know him when we meet.’ 4 When a man is hopeful, he feels strong, and can work. 1 Keble. 3 The Katha Upanishad. - Eccles. vii. 1. 4 Tennyson : In Mar.oriam. 222 FALLEN ANGELS But ‘ liow little of the hopeful there is in the English or in any other language ! The song of hope is, indeed, written in many hearts, but few sing it. Yet it is of all songs the sorest needed for strengthening men.’ There is no persistent happiness in this world. Neither religion in any form, nor irreligion in every form has pro¬ duced it. But there are many ways that lead toward it, gradually growing fewer by running together. These will at length form one only, leading to God and absolute unity with him. When we reach this, unity with each other will be perfected ; — unity, I say, not that dull, dead, unprogressive uniformity which so many seem to desire. The one is on the mountain-top, the other in the swamp. Let him whose soul is invaded with sadness, look around him to see, not how many are more unhappy than he, but who there may be whom he can help toward something good — for whom, man or beast, he can make life more peaceful, more blessed, or even more endurable ! If he can do nothing better, let him think of any mere harmless pleasure it may be in his power to confer ! Let him cease to think of his own happiness, and help that of others ! Let him become a worker with Christ by self-renunciation ! Our duty is to be useful — to be of service ; therein only can true joy be found. The Son of God could not have been happy in the bosom of the Father one moment after the hour had arrived when his bodily presence would be life to miserable men. ‘ It is more blessed to give than to receive ; ’ and this holds of gifts to the minds and spirits of men yet more than of gifts to their earthly necessities : the latter give relief, the former strength. In the second century of the Hegira lived a Persian female saint named Rabia, The following anecdote is translated from Tholuck by Vaughan : — c By the sick-bed of Rabia stood two holy men. One of them said, “ The COMFORT, CONSOLATION, STRENGTH 223 prayers of that man are not sincere who refuses to bear the chastening strokes of the Lord.” The other went beyond him, saying, “ He is not sincere who does not rejoice in them.” Rabia, detecting something of self in that very joy, surpassed them both as she added, “He is not sincere who does not, beholding his Lord, become totally unconscious of them.” ’ Bohmen taught that the real philosopher’s stone, to be sought for by all, is ‘ the near life in Christ Jesus.’ ‘ In him was life, and the life was the light of men.’ 1 ‘For God alone is our salvation; to know him is salva- tion. He is in us all the time, else we could never move to seek him.’ 2 ‘ The pathway lies Only through sorrow to the sinless skies : Then, when the riddle of the world is read, And hate, and pain, and time, and toil are dead, Then shall ye learn the lesson of the years And wear the coronal Endurance wears.’3 ‘ Nothing clear, nothing satisfactory, can be spiritually obtained in which selfishness has ever so slight a share. You, if indeed I deserve your gratitude for the aid I have given you, you will be able to search out the matter more certainly, being in the position of one soul waking for another.' 4 1 John i. 4. 3 Sir Edwin Arnold. 2 George MacDonald. 4 Marie Corelli. CHAPTER XLII cm boxo ? ‘ 'Tis more life, and fuller, that we want.’ Testnttsox : The Two Voices. It may be demanded, ‘ Of what use is this hypothesis of yours ? Why waste time upon it ? What shall we gain by adopting it even if it be true ? We know enough to fulfil our plain duties in this life : for any life before or after it, if such there be — it will be time enough when we find ourselves in the next. We must be practical, nor occupy ourselves with matters beyond our scope. Of such things we can know nothing.’ ‘ I admit,’ I answer, ‘ that inquiry as to our possible past and our possible future is not a necessity to our animal life, any more than to a cat, a dog, or a horse. It is, however, a necessary part of wisdom to devote some attention to that life in man which lies below the surface, and which he knows to be there ; and to this more real life such inquiry as I urge will prove serviceable. To dismiss it with contempt or indifference, is unworthy of the as:e into which we have been born. Manv difiiculties have now been overcome which at one time, for the time, were insurmountable. Labour in experiment and patience in failure have overcome them. -Julius Ca?sar could not telegraph to Rome the news of his landing in Britain : yet all the materials necessary for doing so lay in the earth waiting.’ O Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word GUI BONO? 225 that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ Not hearkening to the words of God, he may indeed vegetate, or live an animal life, but he cannot live a human life — the life for which he wears the form of a man ; and some of the words of God surely refer to our future life at least ! Some years since, 1 happened, in a railway carriage, to he conversing with a relative upon our spiritual nature, its aspiration and expansive possibilities. A fellow-pas¬ senger, on our arrival at a station, opened the door of the compartment furiously, and, jumping to the platform, exclaimed in a vehement hurst of indignation, ‘ I can’t stand any longer such - foolery ! ’ ‘ Men are hut children of a larger growth,' 1 and hence the absorbing interest of the majority of men in matters merely objective. The tangible, the visible, the passing, occupies them infinitely more than the real, the persistent, the changeless. ‘More servants wait on man than he’ll take notice of.’2 ‘ We all live on far lower levels of vitality and of joy than we need to do. We linger in the misty and oppressive valleys Avhen we might be climbing the sunlit hills.’ 3 My desire is to lead men to see that suffering is one of these servants — no enemy to embitter life and strangle hope. ‘ Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.’ 4 The truth rarely lies on the surface we see ; if we wish to find it, we must search for it. Some may object to my theory that it involves much difficulty, and lacks the notable characteristic of all truth — simplicity. They will say that it is the glory of both the moral laws and the Gospel that a child can under¬ stand them, the ignorant and unlearned appreciate them. 1 Dryden. 3 Archdeacon Farrar. 2 George Herbert, in poem Man. 4 Psalm cvii. 43. 226 FALLEN ANGELS Scripture itself, however, avowedly contains not only milk lor babes, but solid meat for those of mature intelligence, specially lor those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. It is the same with Nature. The fundamental and essential laws on which existence depends, lie on the surface, and commend themselves to the least developed intelligence. But has Nature no precious secrets which she yields only to patient observation, earnest search, and much meditation ? Where would he our progress if all undiscovered causes, influences, and laws were regarded as necessarily destitute of practical importance ? If man had been content with simply surveying the surface of the ground, the riches of the earth would even now lie hid from our eyes. Will the marvels of chemistry ever unfold themselves to him who considers only the mechanical properties of matter ? Does any superficial reader under¬ stand the labours of Dante or Shakespeare or Browning ? He cannot even escape the delusion that he does under¬ stand them ! And are we to imagine that, while these things and thoughts demand the highest intelligence, the depths of the Book of God may be fathomed with ease by the shallow, self-confident, and inexperienced ? That were a notion destructive to any theory of inspiration. ‘ Ought we not rather to expect in the oracles of God heights and depths of hidden wisdom which shall utter themselves only to those who earnestly seek wisdom, watching daily at her gates, and waiting at the posts of her doors ? ’ 1 The hypothesis that we are the fallen angels on our way back to our home, explains many mysteries and seeming incongruities ; it lends a majesty to our race in its past, present, and future, and casts light on the divine dealings with us, and on the mission o± Jesus Christ. How poor and inconsequent and inconsistent, without some such 1 Grattan Guinness. CUI BONO ? 227 explanation, is our little life ! How meaningless and worth¬ less the life and death equally, of a gnat, of a shark, of a horse ! It is small wonder that most men regard the animals as in themselves of little interest and no con¬ sequence : their interest in the death of man, woman, or child soon passes ! The well-being of the eternal principle in themselves they regard with no anxiety, because with no interest, while they are capable of absorption in matters of ephemeral amusement, of bodily health, or material pro¬ sperity ! How different would they be if they realised that each one of us is existent from remote antiquity, and must live to remotest ages ! Our old association with Christ himself would render more clear his glorious efforts and sacrifices for our safety. It may well be said that he died for us, not because of any worth in us, but because of our great need of him. Why then, I rejoin, should it not be recognised that he has left out of his salvation no creature capable of and otherwise doomed to gainless suffering ? It is not the simple heart that cries out ‘ Irreverence ! ’ in the face of the words that tell us not a sparrow 'dies without God. The word has too long been a stumbling-block in the way of religious pro¬ gress : shall it still obstruct those who would find and give reasons for a yet larger hope ? Many stigmatised as irre¬ verent possess a far nobler, more adoring, and loving con¬ ception of the divine than is possible to their accusers. The faith which gives little light is always ready to assume superiority over that which gives more. The disease of our sin is a disease closer to us than any malformation or derangement of our material body and more difficult to deal with. Physicians study the signs or symptoms of bodily disorder that they may understand its hidden causes ; but how little attention has ever been devoted to the origin of our universal misfortune, namely, inherent and, so far as our human condition goes, con- FALLEN ANGELS genital evil ! The world has hitherto been supinely con¬ tent with the story of the generation and transmission of that evil by our common mother, Eve. But Adam and she have been the media, not of our creation — of our pro¬ creation only ; and, sinful as they were, we have not, there¬ fore, the less reason to be glad that they were our parents, and have initiated us into this state of humanity as a necessary experience in the course of our redemption. To lay to their charge the pain of all their millions of de¬ scendants is outrageous. They were not weighted with so solemn a responsibility. They were never told that any would suffer for their sin beyond themselves, neither do any suffer therefor. Kind-souled, reflective men feel an anxious desire to be of substantial benefit to their fellow-creatures, and it frets them that they can do so little. Let them be just toward them — that is essential — help them where the}’ can, and leave the rest to the Maker of men, happy in the convic¬ tion that by his power all will end well. Their duty to their neighbour, the duty of justice and mercy and loving¬ kindness, is the part they can and must take in the re¬ forming work. Taking this part, they act with the divine — are fellow- workers with God. The chief value of the study of history lies in the aid it gives to the understanding of the present, and to the form¬ ing thereby a judgment concerning the probable future. This applies to the history of an individual, of any com¬ bination of men, of a science, of a belief, just as well as to the history of a nation, or to what we call universal history — that of our little planet. This essay, it is true, can claim but little historical basis, nor is it written for such as demand nothing but certainty ; it is intended for such as are in sorrowful doubt whether things should be as they are — whether the world is governed by love and guided by wisdom. CUI BONO ? 229 Its object is not to induce empty ponderings upon tlie life to come, but to stimulate to noble lives and good works, encouraging the conviction that all effort, toil, and endurance, must of a certainty have their large reward in the growing capacity for heavenly labour. ‘ His servants shall do him service.’ 1 Much would be gained by a calm, acquiescent resigna¬ tion to the present conditions of our existence, and the possession of our souls in patient endeavour to help our race, if but by causing two blades of grass to grow where grew but one. Discomposing trifles would then have little influence either on our minds, or on our domestic or social relations. The attempt to see a little further into the life that is our own, cannot reasonably be condemned by thinking beings, however the vast majority, the unthinking, may turn from its most prominent phenomena as of no account. The routine of necessary duties will be none the less thoroughly fulfilled because of the happy knowledge that in their well-doing lies an infinite value, that nothing happens by chance, but that everything has its place in the divine purpose. From the tyranny of things relief may be gained by the study of art or science, or by travel and change of scene ; but such relief, where it can be had, is only ephemeral, and anything but satisfying even while it lasts. Rest is to be found only in absolute confidence in the divine will. ‘ My peace I give unto you : not as the world give tli, give I unto you.’ ‘ The weight of a load depends upon the attraction of the earth. But suppose the attraction of the earth were removed ? A ton on some other planet where the attrac¬ tion of gravity is less does not weigh half a ton. Now, Christianity removes the attraction of the earth, and this is one way in which it diminishes men’s burden. It makes 1 Rev. xxii. 3, R.V. 230 FALLEN ANGELS them citizens of another world. What was a ton yester¬ day is not half a ton to-day. So that without changing one’s circumstances, merely by offering a wider horizon and a different standard, it alters the whole aspect of the world.’ 1 1 Drummond : Pax Vobiscum. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press.