For with every friend that dies, dies also some especial form of social enjoyment, whose being depended on the peculiar character of that friend; till, late in the afternoon of life, the pilgrim seems to himself to have passed over to the unseen world in successive portions half his own spirit; and poor indeed is he who has not familiarized himself with that unknown, whither, despite himself, his soul is earnestly tending.
One of the deepest and most imperative cravings of the human heart, as it follows its beloved ones beyond the veil, is for some assurance that they still love and care for us. Could we firmly believe this, bereavement would lose half its bitterness. As a German writer beautifully expresses it, “Our friend is not wholly gone from us; we see across the river of death, in the blue distance, the smoke of his cottage;” hence the heart, always creating what it desires, has ever made the guardianship and ministration of departed spirits a favorite theme of poetic fiction.
But is it, then, fiction? Does revelation, which gives so many hopes which nature had not, give none here? Is there no sober certainty to correspond to the inborn and passionate craving of the soul? Do departed spirits in verity retain any knowledge of what transpires in this world, and take any part in its scenes? All that revelation says of a spiritual state is more intimation than assertion; it has no distinct treatise, and teaches nothing apparently of set purpose; but gives vague, glorious images, while now and then some accidental ray of intelligence looks out, —
“ —— like eyes of cherubs shining From out the veil that hid the ark.”
But out of all the different hints and assertions of the Bible we think a better inferential argument might be constructed to prove the ministration of departed spirits than for many a doctrine which has passed in its day for the height of orthodoxy.
First, then, the Bible distinctly says that there is a class of invisible spirits who minister to the children of men: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation?” It is said of little children, that “their angels do always behold the face of our Father which is in heaven.” This last passage, from the words of our Savior, taken in connection with the well-known tradition of his time, fully recognizes the idea of individual guardian spirits; for God’s government over mind is, it seems, throughout, one of intermediate agencies, and these not chosen at random, but with the nicest reference to their adaptation to the purpose intended. Not even the All-seeing, All-knowing One was deemed perfectly adapted to become a human Savior without a human experience. Knowledge intuitive, gained from above, of human wants and woes was not enough — to it must be added the home-born certainty of consciousness and memory; the Head of all mediation must become human. Is it likely, then, that, in selecting subordinate agencies, this so necessary a requisite of a human life and experience is overlooked? While around the throne of God stand spirits, now sainted and glorified, yet thrillingly conscious of a past experience of sin and sorrow, and trembling in sympathy with temptations and struggles like their own, is it likely that he would pass by these souls, thus burning for the work, and commit it to those bright abstract beings whose knowledge and experience are comparatively so distant and so cold?
It is strongly in confirmation of this idea, that in the transfiguration scene — which seems to have been intended purposely to give the disciples a glimpse of the glorified state of their Master — we find him attended by two spirits of earth, Moses and Elias, “which appeared with him in glory, and spake of his death which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” It appears that these so long departed ones were still mingling in deep sympathy with the tide of human affairs — not only aware of the present, but also informed as to the future. In coincidence with this idea are all those passages which speak of the redeemed of earth as being closely and indissolubly identified with Christ, members of his body, of his flesh and his bones. It is not to be supposed that those united to Jesus above all others by so vivid a sympathy and community of interests are left out as instruments in that great work of human regeneration which so engrosses him; and when we hear Christians spoken of as kings and priests unto God, as those who shall judge angels, we see it more than intimated that they are to be the partners and actors in that great work of spiritual regeneration of which Jesus is the head.
What then? May we look among the band of ministering spirits for our own departed ones? Whom would God be more likely to send us? Have we in heaven a friend who knew us to the heart’s core? a friend to whom we have unfolded our soul in its most secret recesses? to whom we have confessed our weaknesses and deplored our griefs? If we are to have a ministering spirit, who better adapted? Have we not memories which correspond to such a belief? When our soul has been cast down, has never an invisible voice whispered, “There is lifting up”? Have not gales and breezes of sweet and healing thought been wafted over us, as if an angel had shaken from his wings the odors of paradise? Many a one, we are confident, can remember such things — and whence come they? Why do the children of the pious mother, whose grave has grown green and smooth with years, seem often to walk through perils and dangers fearful and imminent as the crossing Mohammed’s fiery gulf on the edge of a drawn sword, yet walk unhurt? Ah! could we see that attendant form, that face where the angel conceals not the mother, our question would be answered.
It may be possible that a friend is sometimes taken because the Divine One sees that his ministry can act more powerfully from the unseen world than amid the infirmities of mortal intercourse. Here the soul, distracted and hemmed in by human events and by bodily infirmities, often scarce knows itself, and makes no impression on others correspondent to its desires. The mother would fain electrify the heart of her child; she yearns and burns in vain to make her soul effective on its soul, and to inspire it with a spiritual and holy life; but all her own weaknesses, faults, and mortal cares cramp and confine her, till death breaks all fetters; and then, first truly alive, risen, purified, and at rest, she may do calmly, sweetly, and certainly, what, amid the tempests and tossings of life, she labored for painfully and fitfully. So, also, to generous souls, who burn for the good of man, who deplore the shortness of life, and the little that is permitted to any individual agency on earth, does this belief open a heavenly field. Think not, father or brother, long laboring for man, till thy sun stands on the western mountains, — think not that thy day in this world is over. Perhaps, like Jesus, thou hast lived a human life, and gained a human experience, to become, under and like him, a savior of thousands; thou hast been through the preparation, but thy real work of good, thy full power of doing, is yet to begin.
But again: there are some spirits (and those of earth’s choicest) to whom, so far as enjoyment to themselves or others is concerned, this life seems to have been a total failure. A hard hand from the first, and all the way through life, seems to have been laid upon them; they seem to live only to be chastened and crushed, and we lay them in the grave at last in mournful silence. To such, what a vision is opened by this belief! This hard discipline has been the school and task-work by which their soul has been fitted for their invisible labors in a future life; and when they pass the gates of the grave, their course of benevolent acting first begins, and they find themselves delighted possessors of what through many years they have sighed for — the power of doing good. The year just past, like all other years, has taken from a thousand circles the sainted, the just, and the beloved; there are spots in a thousand graveyards which have become this year dearer than all the living world; but in the loneliness of sorrow how cheering to think that our lost ones are not wholly gone from us! They still may move about in our homes, shedding around an atmosphere of purity and peace, promptings of good, and reproofs of evil. We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses, whose hearts throb in sympathy with every effort and struggle, and who thrill with joy at every success. How should this thought check and rebuke every worldly feeling and unworthy purpose, and enshrine us, in the midst of a forgetful and unspiritual world,
with an atmosphere of heavenly peace! They have overcome — have risen — are crowned, glorified; but still they remain to us, our assistants, our comforters, and in every hour of darkness their voice speaks to us: “So we grieved, so we struggled, so we fainted, so we doubted; but we have overcome, we have obtained, we have seen, we have found — and in our victory behold the certainty of thy own.”
MRS. A. AND MRS. B.; OR, WHAT SHE THINKS ABOUT IT.
Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. were next-door neighbors and intimate friends — that is to say, they took tea with each other very often, and, in confidential strains, discoursed of stockings and pocket handkerchiefs, of puddings and carpets, of cookery and domestic economy, through all its branches.
“I think, on the whole,” said Mrs. A., with an air of profound reflection, “that gingerbread is the cheapest and healthiest cake one can make. I make a good deal of it, and let my children have as much as they want of it.”
“I used to do so,” said Mrs. B., “but I haven’t had any made these two months.”
“Ah! Why not?” said Mrs. A.
“Why, it is some trouble; and then, though it is cheap, it is cheaper not to have any; and, on the whole, the children are quite as well contented without it, and so we are fallen into the way of not having any.”
“But one must keep some kind of cake in the house,” said Mrs. A.
“So I have always heard, and thought, and practised,” said Mrs. B.; “but really of late I have questioned the need of it.”
The conversation gradually digressed from this point into various intricate speculations on domestic economy, and at last each lady went home to put her children to bed.
A fortnight after, the two ladies were again in conclave at Mrs. B.’s tea table, which was graced by some unusually nice gingerbread.
“I thought you had given up making gingerbread,” said Mrs. A.; “you told me so a fortnight ago at my house.”
“So I had,” said Mrs. A.; “but since that conversation I have been making it again.”
“Why so?”
“O, I thought that since you thought it economical enough, certainly I might; and that if you thought it necessary to keep some sort of cake in the closet, perhaps it was best I should.”
Mrs. A. laughed.
“Well, now,” said she, “I have not made any gingerbread, or cake of any kind, since that same conversation.”
“Indeed?”
“No. I said to myself, If Mrs. B. thinks it will do to go without cake in the house, I suppose I might, as she says it is some additional expense and trouble; and so I gave it up.”
Both ladies laughed, and you laugh, too, my dear lady reader; but have you never done the same thing? Have you never altered your dress, or your arrangements, or your housekeeping because somebody else was of a different way of thinking or managing — and may not that very somebody at the same time have been moved to make some change through a similar observation on you?
A large party is to be given by the young lads of N. to the young lassies of the same place; they are to drive out together to a picnic in the woods, and to come home by moonlight; the weather is damp and uncertain, the ground chill, and young people, as in all ages before the flood and since, not famous for the grace of prudence; for all which reasons, almost every mamma hesitates about her daughters’ going — thinks it a very great pity the thing has been started.
“I really don’t like this thing,” says Mrs. G.; “it’s not a kind of thing that I approve of, and if Mrs. X. was not going to let her daughters go, I should set myself against it. How Mrs. X., who is so very nice in her notions, can sanction such a thing, I cannot see. I am really surprised at Mrs. X.”
All this time, poor unconscious Mrs. X. is in a similar tribulation.
“This is a very disagreeable affair to me,” she says. “I really have almost a mind to say that my girls shall not go; but Mrs. G.’s daughters are going, and Mrs. C.’s, and Mrs. W.’s, and of course it would be idle for me to oppose it. I should not like to cast any reflections on a course sanctioned by ladies of such prudence and discretion.”
In the same manner Mrs. A., B., and C., and the good matrons through the alphabet generally, with doleful lamentations, each one consents to the thing that she allows not, and the affair proceeds swimmingly to the great satisfaction of the juveniles.
Now and then, it is true, some individual sort of body, who might be designated by the angular and decided letters K or L, says to her son or daughter, “No. I don’t approve of the thing,” and is deaf to the oft-urged, “Mrs. A., B., and C. do so.”
“I have nothing to do with Mrs. A., B., and C.’s arrangements,” says this impracticable Mrs. K. or L. “I only know what is best for my children, and they shall not go.”
Again: Mrs. G. is going to give a party; and, now, shall she give wine, or not? Mrs. G. has heard an abundance of temperance speeches and appeals, heard the duties of ladies in the matter of sanctioning temperance movements aptly set forth, but “none of these things move her half so much as another consideration.” She has heard that Mrs. D. introduced wine into her last soirée. Mrs. D’s husband has been a leading orator of the temperance society, and Mrs. D. is no less a leading member in the circles of fashion. Now, Mrs. G.’s soul is in great perplexity. If she only could be sure that the report about Mrs. D. is authentic, why, then, of course the thing is settled; regret it as much as she may, she cannot get through her party without the wine; and so at last come the party and the wine. Mrs. D., who was incorrectly stated to have had the article at her last soirée, has it at her next one, and quotes discreet Mrs. G. as her precedent. Mrs. P. is greatly scandalized at this, because Mrs. G. is a member of the church, and Mr. D. a leading temperance orator; but since they will do it, it is not for her to be nice, and so she follows the fashion.
Mrs. N. comes home from church on Sunday, rolling up her eyes with various appearances of horror and surprise.
“Well! I am going to give up trying to restrain my girls from dressing extravagantly; it’s of no use trying! — no use in the world.”
“Why, mother, what’s the matter?” exclaimed the girls aforesaid, delighted to hear such encouraging declarations.
“Why, didn’t you see Mrs. K.’s daughters sitting in the pew before us with feathers in their bonnets? If Mrs. K. is coming out in this way, I shall give up. I shan’t try any longer. I am going to get just what I want, and dress as much as I’ve a mind to. Girls, you may get those visites that you were looking at at Mr. B.’s store last week!”
The next Sunday, Mrs. K.’s girls in turn begin: —
“There, mamma, you are always lecturing us about economy, and all that, and wanting us to wear our old mantillas another winter, and there are Mrs. N.’s girls shining out in new visites.”
Mamma looks sensible and judicious, and tells the girls they ought not to see what people are wearing in church on Sundays; but it becomes evident, before the week is through, that she has not forgotten the observation. She is anxiously pricing visites, and looking thoughtful as one on the eve of an important determination; and the next Sunday the girls appear in full splendor, with new visites, to the increasing horror of Mrs. N.
So goes the shuttlecock back and forward, kept up on both sides by most judicious hands.
In like manner, at a modern party, a circle of matrons sit in edifying conclave, and lament the degeneracy of the age.
“These parties that begin at nine o’clock and end at two or three in the morning are shameful things,” says fat Mrs. Q., complacently fanning herself. (N. B. Mrs. Q. is plotting to have one the very next week, and has come just to see the fashions.)
“O, dreadful, dreadful!” exclaim, in one chorus, meek Mrs. M., and tall Mrs. F., and stiff Mrs. J.
“They are very unhealthy,” says Mrs. F.
“They disturb all family order,” says Mrs. J.
“They make one so sleepy the next day,” says Mrs. M.
“They are very laborious to get up, and enti
rely useless,” says Mrs. Q.; at the same time counting across the room the people that she shall invite next week.
Mrs. M. and Mrs. F. diverge into a most edifying strain of moral reflections on the improvement of time, the necessity of sobriety and moderation, the evils of conformity to the world, till one is tempted to feel that the tract society ought to have their remarks for general circulation, were one not damped by the certain knowledge that before the winter is out each of these ladies will give exactly such another party.
And, now, are all these respectable ladies hypocritical or insincere? By no means — they believe every word they say; but a sort of necessity is laid upon them — a spell; and before the breath of the multitude their individual resolution melts away as the frosty tracery melts from the window panes of a crowded room.
A great many do this habitually, resignedly, as a matter of course. Ask them what they think to be right and proper, and they will tell you sensibly, coherently, and quite to the point in one direction; ask them what they are going to do. Ah! that is quite another matter.
They are going to do what is generally done — what Mrs. A., B., and C. do. They have long since made over their conscience to the keeping of the public, — that is to say, of good society, — and are thus rid of a troublesome burden of responsibility.
Again, there are others who mean in general to have an opinion and will of their own; but, imperceptibly, as one and another take a course opposed to their own sense of right and propriety, their resolution quietly melts, and melts, till every individual outline of it is gone, and they do as others do.
Yet is this influence of one human being over another — in some sense, God-appointed — a necessary result of the human constitution. There is scarcely a human being that is not varied and swerved by it, as the trembling needle is swerved by the approaching magnet. Oppose conflict with it, as one may at a distance, yet when it breathes on us through the breath, and shines on us through the eye of an associate, it possesses an invisible magnetic power. He who is not at all conscious of such impressibility can scarce be amiable or human. Nevertheless, one of the most important habits for the acquisition of a generous and noble character, is to learn to act individually, unswerved by the feelings and opinions of others. It may help us to do this, to reflect that the very person whose opinion we fear may be in equal dread of ours, and that the person to whom we are looking for a precedent may, at that very time, be looking to us.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 487
