THE POWER OF THE DEAD

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3024, 10 March 1917, Page 11

THE POWER OF THE DEAD

GREAT TRUTH IN A RECENT NOVEL (By iMmiricn Maeterlinck, hi lliu "Daily Mail." hi "A Beleaguered City," si liltlo book which in its curious wsiy is a jsasterpioce, Mrs. OHphant shows us the dead of a provincial town luddenlv waxing indignant ovor the conduct and tho morals of thoso inhabiting the town, which they had founded. Thoy riso up in rebellion, invest the houses, the streets, the. niafket-placcs, an d, by tho prossuro of their innumerable' multitude, all-powerful though invisible, repulse tho living., thrust thorn out of doors, and, sotting a strict watch, permit them to rotuni to their roof-trees only after a treaty of peace and penitence has purified their hearts, atoned for their offences, and ensured a. more worthy future. There is undoubtedly a great truth beneath this fiction, which appears too far-fetched beoause we perceive only material and ephemeral The dead livo and movo in our midst Tar moro really and effectually than the most venturesome imagination could , doract. It is verv cloubtiul whether thoy romain in their graves. It even Bcems"" increasingly certain that they never allowod themselves to be confined there. Under tho tombstones where we beliovo them to lie imprisoned there aro only a few ashes, which are no longer theirs, which thoy have abandoned without regret, and which in all probability thoy no longer deign to remember.

All thnt was themselves continues to havo its tieing in our iriidst. How and under what asoect? After all these thousands, perhaps millions, of years we do not yet know; and 110 roJiirion has boon able to tell us with satisfying certaintv, though all havo striven to do_ so; but wo may, by means of certain tokens, hope to learn. Without further considering a mighty hut obscure truth, which ifc is for tho moment imixissible to stato precisely or to render i>a!nablo, let us concern ourselves with 'one which cannot be disputed. Their Abiding Place. As I have said elsewhere, whatever oar religious faith may bo,, there is in any case one place where our dead cannot perish, where they continue to exist as really as when thoy were in tho flesh, and often more actively; and this living abiding-place, this consecrated spot, which for those whom wo have lost becomes heaven or hell according as we draw close to or depart from their thoughts and thoir desires, is in us, And their thoughts and their desires are always higher than our own. It is, therefore, by uplifting ourselves that we approach them. It is we who must take the first steps, for thoy can no longer descend, whereas it is always possible for ua to riso; for tho dead, whatever they have been in life, become better than the best of üb. Tho east worthy of them, in' shedding the body, have shed its vices, its littlenesses, its weaknesses, which soon pass trom our memory as well; and the spirit alono remains, which is pure in every man and able to desire only what is good.

Ihere are, no wicked dead because tuere are :no wicked souls. This is why. as wo purify ourselves, we restore life to those who were no more and transform our memory, which they inhabit, "itr> heaven. ;

And- what was always true of all tho dead js far more true to-day, when only the best are choson for the tomb. In the region which wo believe to bo under the earth, which vo oall tho kingdom of the shades and which in reality is the othoreal region and the kingdom of light, there are at this moment perturbations no loss profound than those which wo are experiencing' on the surface of our earth. The young dead • are invading it every sido; and since the beginning of this world they have never been so numerous; so full of energy aud zeal. Whereas iu tho customary sequence of the years the dwelling-place of those who leave us receives only weary and exhausted lives, there is not on© in this incomparable host who, to. borrow Pericles' expression, "has not departed from life at tho height of glory."

Not one of them but has gone up, not down , , to his death clad in the greatest sacrifice that man can make for an idea which cannot die. All that we have hitherto believed, all that wo have striven to attain beyond ourselves, all that has lifted us to the level at which wo stand, all that has overcome the evil days and the evil instincts of human nature: all this could have been no more than lies and illusions if such men as these, such a mass of merit and of glory, wore really annihilated, .had really for ever disappeared, were for ever useless and voiceless, for ever without influences in a world to which they have givon life. It is hardly possible that this cqnld be so, as regards the external survival of tho dead; but it is absolutely certain that it is not so as regards their survival in ourselves. Here nothing is lost, and uo one perishes. Our memories are to-day Seopled by a multitude of heroos struck own in tho flower of their youth, and very different from the pale and languid cohort of tho past, composed almost wholly of the sick, and tho aged, who already had ceased to exist beforo leaving the earth. And Immortal Presence. We must tell ourselves thai now, in each of our homes, both in our cities and in tho countryside, both in the palace and in the meanest hovel, there lives and reigns a young dead man in the glory of his strength. Ho fills tho poorest, darkest dwelling with a splendour of which it had never ventured to dream. His constant pr<s- - imperious and inevitable, diffuses through it and maintains a religion and ideas which it had nevor known there beforo, hallows everything around ' it, forces the eyes to look higher and I tho spirit to refrain from desnonding, I purifies tho air that is breathed and j the speech that is held, and tlic | thoughts that aro mustered there, and, littlo by little, ennobles and uplifts a whole peoplo on a scale of unexampled vastnoss. Such dead as these have a power as ! profound, as fruitful as life and less ! precarious. It is terriblo that this experience should havo been made, for it is the most pitiless and the first in such enormous masses that mankind has over uudergono; but, now that'tlio ordeal is almost over, we shall suon derive from it tho most unexpected fruits. It will not bo long beforo wo too the differences inoroaso and the- destbies diverge between the nations which have acquired all thesn dead and all this glory, and those which wore deprived cf them; and we shall percoivo with amazement that those nations which have lost tho most aro those which havo kept their riches w\ tlieir men. Them are losses which aro inestimable. Rains, and there aro gains whereby tho future is lost. There are dead whom the living cannot replace smd tho mere thought of whom aeconmlishos things which their bodies could not perform. Thcro arc dead whoso energy surpasses death and recovers life; and wo aro almost, cvory one of us at- this moment, the ti'iimlalories <>! :i Mr.f. prealor, nobler, irravor. wiser, and 'mom Inilv living than ourselves. With all thoKO who accompany him, ha mill bo am jaigo, if it its 'tie fact

thai, thn dead weigh tho soul of tho living, and that on their yordict our happiness depends. Ho will bo our gindo, and our protector, for it is tho ni;«u time, since- history has revealed its misfortunes to us, that man has Jell, so great a host of such mighty dead soaring abovo his hoiid and speaking vituin his heart. . Wo shall livo henceforward ' liudor thoir laws, which will be moro just but not more sovoro nor more chcorlcse than ours; for it is a. mistake to suppose that tho dead lovo nothing bub gloom; they lovo only tho justico and tho truth which aro tho eternal forms of happiness. , From tho depths of ibis justice. ;md this truth hi which they aro all Jinmorsed, they will help us to destroy tho great falsehoods of existence; Jor war and death, if they sow innumerable miseries and misfortunos, havo at least tho merit of destroying us many lies as they occasion ovils. And all tne sacrifices which thoy have, made for us will havo been in vain—and this is nob possible—if they do not first or -ill bring about the fall of f> lies on which wo live and which it is not necessary to name, for each of us knows nisj own. and is ashamed- of them and will bo eager to make i\n end of tliwri. They will toach us, before a;.- else, from the depths of our hearts which are their living tombs, to lovo thoao who outlive them, since it is in them alono that tho.y- wholly exist.