HUMAN LIFE AFTER DEATH 115 (1) That it will be human life, but with greater powers than human life has now. (2) That it will be a continuation, with full memory of the past and full recognition of friends, of our life before death, but not under the conditions and limitations of earth. (3) That its home will be the Divine Home of the spiritual universe,—that is, the universe as God knows it, not subject to space and time, and therefore to decay and death. I think you will allow that we have here a good deal of very definite knowledge given us about that life beyond death, of which it is so often mistakenly said that we "know nothing." It is true indeed that we have no immediate personal experience of it; that is impossible until we enter it. But this is not a cause for alarm. We can have no immediate experience of anything which has not yet happened to us. Every child looks forward to being “a grownup" some day. He does not know in the least what it feels like. When that experience comes to him he will probably look back with the greatest amusement on his childish fancies about it. Yet, despite this lack of experience, we seldom meet with a child who is frightened at the idea of being grown-up, and never with a sane man or woman who has not been able to adapt him or herself, to the difference between childhood and adult age. I have likened the difference between the life before and after death to that of a beautiful view through a window, and travelling at will through the length and breadth of the land. I might equally well liken it to the difference between the child's and the grown man's way of looking at the world of nature and human life. The former is very beautiful in its way, very touching and innocent, but the latter is wider, deeper, far stronger and truer. To the man many things are clear which to the child were hopelessly perplexing. So to us when we pass out of our earthly surroundings to the larger life beyond, the answers to many of those questions unanswerable here, will stand forth as clear as the day, and we shall smile perhaps at our former difficulties, as a grown man or woman smiles at the remembered difficulties of the child. I have so far referred only to the Christian idea of the life beyond death, but as you know, belief in it is by no means confined to Christianity. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Scandinavians, and indeed nearly all people, civilised or barbarous, have pictured to themselves some kind of continued life. BELIEF IN LIFE AFTER DEATH 117 Often it is very poor and unsubstantial. No one could look forward without shrinking to such a future as that which Greek mythology assigned to the shades of men in the Elysian Fields. "Shades" is indeed the right name for them, mere phantoms in phantom surroundings. The Norse heroes in their Walhalla have more semblance of reality, but their coarse feasting and carousing is no more attractive than the shadowy joys of the Greek Elysium. It is nevertheless deeply interesting to note how widespread and agelong the belief in life beyond death is. One characteristic of it is specially remarkable, viz., that after death comes a judgment, whereby the good are separated from the bad, the former being rewarded and the latter punished. This belief in judgment after death is very ancient indeed. It was strongly held by the Egyptians, and among their religious writings still left to us is one, The Book of the Dead, which describes minutely the passage of the spirits of men among the stars, from phase to phase of judgment till the final sentence is reached. As in so many other instances, we find the Christian faith gathering into itself, illuminating and ennobling in its supreme revelation, these scattered hints of a judgment as well as a life to come. For a very long period in the history of the Church, however, lasting almost down to our own day, belief in this judgment took a false and debased form. Its terrors were so vividly and realistically dwelt upon that they added greatly to that natural shrinking from death which we have already considered, and gave rise to many cruel thoughts of God, and consequent false beliefs and practices among men. I need hardly tell you that the New Testament does not countenance these views. They arise through a misunderstanding of its teaching, and chiefly from forgetting that God reveals Himself to us as our Father; so that even His rebellious children who need and receive punishment, He still regards as His children, whom He does not cease to love, whom indeed He punishes because He loves them. In true love there is severity as well as tenderness, severity towards everything that may injure the life or well-being of the loved person, whether that something is within or without them. Nothing so injures our spiritual life, so surely leads to its decline and death, as wilful disobedience to the highest we know, disobedience to the "heavenly vision," as St Paul calls it. Consequently towards this GOD PUNISHES IN LOVE disobedience our God and Father, because He is our Father, -is severe. 119 just The mistake that has been made is to limit His forgiveness (which He tells us is so full and free,) to the little time of our life on earth, and to confuse spiritual suffering (so often, as in bodily suffering, the sign of returning life,) with spiritual death. Better than to dwell on mistakes, however, is the effort to lay hold on the truth, and find its practical application. This in the next chapter we will endeavour to do. |