Out of the Deep: Words for the Sorrowful. Charles Kingsley
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will come when the world, and every human being in it who has really groaned and travailed, would not give up its past pangs for the sake of its then present perfection, but will look back on this life, as the mother does on past pain, with glory and joy.
I write to you because every expression of human sympathy brings some little comfort, if it be only to remind such as you that you are not alone in the world. I know nothing can make up for such a loss as yours. 1 But you will still have love on earth all round you; and his love is not dead. It lives still in the next world for you, and perhaps with you. For why should not those who are gone, if they are gone to their Lord, be actually nearer us, not further from us, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it may be, influencing and guiding us in a hundred ways, of which we in our prison-house of mortality cannot dream?
Yes, do not be afraid to believe that he whom you have loved is still near you, and you near him, and both of you near God, who died on the Cross for you. That is all I can say. But what comfort there is in it, if one can give up one’s heart to believe it!
. . . All that I can say about the text, Matt. xxii. 30 [of Marriage in the world to come], is that it has nought to do with me and my wife. I know that if immortality is to include in my case identity of person, I shall feel for her for ever what I feel now. That feeling may be developed in ways which I do not expect; it may have provided for it forms of expression very different from any which are among the holiest sacraments of life. Of that I take no care. The union I believe to be eternal as my own soul, and I leave all in the hands of a good God.
Is not marriage the mere approximation to a unity that shall be perfect in heaven? And shall we not be reunited in heaven by that still deeper tie? Surely if on earth Christ the Lord has loved—some more than others;—why should not we do the same in heaven, and yet love all?
Do I thus seem to undervalue earthly bliss? No! I enhance it when I make it the sacrament of a higher union! Will not this thought give more exquisite delight; will it not tear off the thorn from every rose; and sweeten every nectar cup to perfect security of blessedness in this life, to feel that there is more in store for us—that all expressions of love here, are but dim shadows of a union which will be perfect if we but work here, so as to work out our own salvation?
That is an awful feeling of having the roots which connect one with the last generation seemingly torn up, and having to say, “Now I am the root, I stand self-supported, with no other older stature to rest on.” 2 But this one must believe that God is the God of Abraham, and that all live to Him, and that we are no more isolated and self-supported than when we were children on our mother’s bosom.
Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if, as I surely believe, they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those whom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain. Their sympathy is a further education for them, and a pledge, too, of help, and, I believe, of final deliverance for those on whom they look down in love.
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.”
They rest from their labours. All their struggles, disappointments, failures, backslidings, which made them unhappy here, because they could not perfectly do the will of God, are past and over for ever. But their works follow them. The good which they did on earth—that is not past and over. It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following on in their path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto everlasting life, not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and in generations yet unborn.
“A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father,” said our Lord when speaking of His own death to His sorrowing disciples. And if it be so with Christ, then is it so with those who are Christ’s, with those whom we love. They are the partakers of His death, therefore they are the partakers of His resurrection. Let us believe that blessed news in all its fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them, and again a little while and we do not see them. But why? Because they are gone to the Father—to the source and fount of all life and power, all light and love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His power, light from His light, love from His love—and surely not for nought. Surely not for nought. For, if they were like Christ on earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone, if they are to be like Christ when they shall see Him as He is, the more surely will they not use their powers for themselves, but as Christ uses His, for those they love? Surely, like Christ they may come and go even now unseen. Like Christ they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, “Peace be unto you.” And not in vain—for what they did for us when they were yet on earth they can do more fully now that they are in heaven.
They may seem to have left us, and we may weep and lament. But the day will come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes and we shall see them as they are—with Christ and in Christ for ever—and remember no more our anguish, for joy that another human being has entered into that one true, real, and eternal world, wherein is neither disease, disorder, change, decay, nor death, for it is none other than the bosom of the Father.
And what if earthly love seems so delicious that all change in it would seem a change for the worse, shall we repine? What does reason (and faith, which is reason exercised on the invisible) require of us, but to conclude that if there is change, there will be something better there?
What is the true everlasting life—the life of God and Christ—but a life of love, a life of perfect active, self-sacrificing goodness, which is the one only true life for all rational beings, whether on earth or in heaven—in heaven as well as on earth. Form your own notions as you will about angels and saints in heaven, (for every one must have some notions about them,) and try to picture to yourself what the souls of those whom you have loved and lost are doing in the other world; but bear this in mind, that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love, and of good works.
There are those who believe what we are too apt to forget, and that is that the everlasting life cannot be a selfish and idle life, spent only in being happy oneself. They believe that the saints in heaven are not idle—that they are eternally helping mankind, doing all sorts of good offices for those souls who need them. I cannot see why they should not be right. For if the saints’ delight was to do good on earth, much more will it be to do good in heaven. If they helped poor sufferers, if they comforted the afflicted here on earth, much more will they be willing to help and comfort them, now that they are in the full power, the full freedom, the full love and zeal of the everlasting life. If their hearts were warmed and softened by the fire of God’s love here, how much more there! If they lived God’s life of love here, how much more there, before the throne of God and the face of Christ!
And if any one shall say that the souls of good men in heaven cannot help us who are here on earth, I answer—When did they ascend into heaven to find out that? If they had ever been there, let us be sure they would have had better news to bring home than this, that those whom we have honoured and loved on earth have lost the power which they used once to have of comforting us who are struggling below.
No, we will believe—what every one who loses a beloved friend comes sooner or later to believe—that those whom we have honoured and loved, though taken from our eyes, are near to our spirits; that they still fight for us under the banner of their Master, Christ, and still work for us by virtue of His life of love, which they live in Him and by Him for ever.
Pray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of any self-will of their own. They do God’s will, and not their own; and go on God’s errands, and not their own. If we pray to God our Father Himself,
Death of a Husband.
Death of a Parent.