ical world of abstractions, it enters at last the domain of spiritual experience. Its course is not yet ended, nor has it as yet taken its complete and perfect form, in which it can satisfy the demands both of the reason and of the religious nature. But it cannot go back to any of its previous forms. Their defects having been once fully seen, the possibility of their recovering their former influence is forever prevented. The course of this doctrine, like that of all theology, is forward-tending toward the time which shall see realized the harmonious union of reason and revelation, of faith and works, of the supernatural and the natural, of the spirit and the understanding, of the faith of the heart and the faith of the intellect. J. F. C. E. Migglesuvi ART. II.-IMMORTALITY. MISS SEDGEWICK, in her "Home" represents a little boy as dictating a sermon for his mother to write down, in the following words. "My peoples, if you are good, you'll go to heaven, and if you a'nt you won't." This seems to us the substance of all preaching and the chief support of goodness. The belief in immortality and future retribution is the great source of hope and fear, and the only solution of the enigma of our present condition. It illumines what is dark in us and raises and supports what is low. It is the chief foundation of self-respect and of respect for others, the great motive for self-culture, the great stimulus of virtue. The philanthropist labors for beings, the philosopher for wisdom, that shall endure forever. Without this belief, the motives to goodness would diminish with increasing years. The strong sense of religious obligation grows out of the strong sense of immortality. Our duty is commensurate with our destiny. The moral nature of man has slowly reached its present state of advancement by means of the combined action of thousands of minds in successive ages. To give men the dispositions which some persons think natural, philosophers and philanthropists have labored in all past time. Every clear exposition of Divine truth, every bright exhibition of Christian character has lent its aid to make them what they are. As sculpture brings out a graceful statue from a rugged rock, so Christianity has brought to light the Divine image in man. The immortal hope which it holds forth has made him worthy of immortality. But we are slow to perceive the force of external influences, as the notions of many among us abundantly show. We live in the last of a long line of generations which have been moulded by the operation of revealed truths. With the progress of time, these truths have been sinking deeper and deeper into the constitution of society and the nature of man. They have incorporated themselves with all our literature; with our whole code of moral principles and positive laws; with all our habits of thought, of speech, and of action; with our whole education, direct and indirect, from the earliest dawn of thought and feeling. The infant drinks them with his mother's milk, we breathe them with the vital air. And yet men are found among us who proclaim that they have no need of a revelation. They do not see the atmosphere that encompasses them, and so deny that it sustains their lives. With such facts before our eyes, it would not be strange if we should not be aware how much the thought of a future state of retribution operates on us. A man may say that in doing or avoiding any act he seldom has this idea in his mind. And it may be true that it is not often the immediate motive of his conduct; but it is the great primary motive giving efficacy to a thousand obvious ones. He has been trained to believe in a future state. He feels nearly the same assurance of it that he does of his present existence. The work of self-improvement he habitually regards as the education of a nature which is to exist forever. His powers of thought and action, of self-direction and self-control derive their chief interest from his consciousness of immortality. This consciousness, though it may not always be distinctly recognised, is always present. The very fact that it operates uninterruptedly, tends to prevent it from attracting attention. If a carpenter were asked why he had put a strong timber into a particular part of a house, it would be natural for him to reply, that in was intended to bear a great weight. If his questioner were then to remark, 'I perceive that you always keep in mind the great principle of the gravitation of all substances on the earth's surface towards its centre,' he might perhaps reply, that so far from always thinking of it, he hardly ever had it in his mind. Yet it would be obvious that the principle was hardly ever out of his mind, but being always taken for granted was seldom the subject of distinct thought. And in like manner we act under the constant conviction that we have entered on a state that shall never end. The thought that the consequences of well or ill-doing may extend through distant ages gives intensity to the remorse which follows sin and the gratification which follows well-doing. These are proportioned to our sense of the consequences of our conduct. The more distinct our conviction that our conduct is liable to affect ourselves and others to a degree beyond our power of conception, the more acute will be our moral sensibility. Under the influence of such a belief "descent and fall to us is adverse." It has sometimes been questioned whether the doctrine of immortality should have prominent place among the motives to goodness presented to children; but when we observe how easily men accommodate themselves to circumstances, and calmly sanction the greatest outrages upon right, if they have been educated in the practice of them; when we see slave-holding, which is abhorred at the North, upheld by the mass of slave-holders in our Southern States as conformable to reason and Scripture; when we look back at the gladiatorial shows of ancient Rome, in which troops of men were compelled to butcher each other in the amphitheatre, for the amusement of all classes and both sexes in that highly civilized city; and when we remember that there is hardly a vice which was not practised among the enlightened Greeks and Romans as a religious rite, in honor of some one of their crowd of gods, we shall be slow to believe in such a natural constitution of the mind, as would enable us, in the education of children, to dispense with any of the motives to the practice of virtue which religion presents. Least of all can we dispense with the strongest. The habitual thought of immortality seems to us as indispensable as the habitual fear of God. In fact the VOL. XXXIX. 4TH S. VOL. IV. NO. I. - 3 former is the chief support of the latter. It is the feeling of our eternal dependance on the Almighty, which fills our souls with overpowering awe when we think of him. "Whither can I flee from thy presence?" says the Psalmist. But this question would lose its terrible significance, if men could throw off their dependence with their lives. The doctrine of immortality is the great source not only of our sense of religious obligation, but of our respect for ourselves and our race. We look into ourselves, and see how partial is our culture and how imperfect our views. We look around us, and see multitudes of half educated beings despising others whose education is different but perhaps not more incomplete, and these in their turn. regarding the former with contempt. The man of action despises the slowness and indecision of the man of speculation. The latter despises the superficial views of the former, his ignorance of principles, and mere aptitude for details. Each sex sees the deficiencies of the other. The sight of the decaying faculties of age continually suggests painful thoughts of the possibility of the extinction of the soul. Under this consciousness of imperfection, and amid this exhibition of weakness and decay, our principal satisfaction is found in the revelation of a future state in which the soul may have freer scope, and develope its energies without the clog of a material frame, which decays like other material organizations, and for a time makes its immortal partner share in its infirmity. Ought not a doctrine so important be presented often and strongly in the instruction of the young? If immortality is the great motive to goodness held out in the Gospels; if it gives to ourselves, to our fellow-men, and to the present life their chief worth in our eyes; if every death brings it to our minds, and every prayer for the dead makes it the mourner's chief consolation; if literature, preaching, and religious conversation are full of it; if "the dread magnificence of heaven," as it daily and nightly passes before our eyes, awakens in us a burning desire to soar from earth and explore the wonders of remote creation; if all our hopes of an extended knowledge of spiritual natures, and of God himself, rest on the expectation of a future life; if our horror at vice and our delight in virtue are infinitely increased by the thought that they may carry with them. weal or woe forever; if the soul "shrinks back on herself and startles at destruction;" if every step in our progress shows the hollowness of all merely earthly good; if no reasonable man would live over again any year of his past life; then our best thoughts and hopes must centre in the future; and how can we abstain from teaching the young to govern themselves by the motive which mainly governs us? In order to train children to act as immortal beings, it is important early to impress them with the idea of their immortality. The character of the present life is determined by the continuance of existence beyond the grave. Man's immortality raises him from an animal to a spiritual being, makes him but little lower than the angels, and "crowns him with glory and honor." We should not teach a child to look upon retribution as confined to a life beyond the grave, for retribution is taking place continually. All future time, here or hereafter, will be a state of retribution. But we should teach him that as the future will never end, the consequences of well and ill-doing may be endless. We do not see how the full extent of these consequences can be shown, without a frequent reference to the doctrine of immortality. We do not know on what ground the habitual inculcation of this doctrine can be deemed objectionable, unless it be thought that there is something ignoble in a continual reference to a state of retribution as a motive for action. We cannot look on such a motive in such a light. "Happiness" is "our being's end and aim." We seek it at the beginning of life through means purely selfish; but, with the progress of years, the selfish and benevolent feelings become beautifully mingled. The infant has no reference to any feelings but his own. As his mind opens, he gradually becomes conscious of the necessity of restraining his impulses and regarding the feelings of others. The longer he lives, the more clearly he sees the intimate connexion of their good with his own. His benevolent feelings are more and more developed, and he discovers at length, that, to attain the highest happiness of which he is capable, he must labor heartily for the good of his fellow-men. Thus, by a beautiful arrangement of Providence, the love of self is made to cooperate with and stimulate the love of others. |