HERE AND HEREAFTER.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4652, 1 December 1883, Page 1

HERE AND HEREAFTER.

The ascetic and depreciating view of life, inculcated by ordinary Christianity, appears to us erroneous, both in its form and in its foundations. How much belongs to Christ, how much to the Apostles, and how much was the accretion of a subsequent age, is not easy to determine. It appears in the Epistles as well aB in the Gospels; and in the hands of preachers of the present day it has reached a point At whjch it is unquestionably*, unsound, noxious, and insincere. la Christ this asceticism assumes a mild and moderate form; being simply the doctrine of the Essenes, modified by his own exquisite judgement, and sympathies, and dignified by the conviction that to men, who had so arduous and perilous a work before them as that to which he and his disciples were pledged, the interests, the affections, the enjoyments of this lite must needs be , of very secondary importance. I That the Apostles, called to fight against principalities and powers, obliged to hold life and all its affections cheap, b cause the course of action in which' they wore

engaged periikd Ihvtto at every step—im* pressed,.moreover, with the solemn and tremendous conviction that the world was falling to pieces, and ; that their own days and their own vision would witness the final catastrophe of nature :■— that the Apostles should regard with unV loving eyes that world of which their hold was. so' precarious, and their tenure so short, and should look with amasement and indignation upon men who would cling to a doomed and perishing, 'habitation, instead of gladly sacrificing everything to obtain a footing .in the new Kingdom was natural, and, granting the premises, rational and wise. But for Divines in this day; when the profession of Christianity is attended with no peril, when its practice eyen demands no sacrifice, save that preference of duty to^ enjoyment which is the first law of cultivated, hunianily, to repeat the language, profess the feelings, inculcate the notions of men who lived in daily dread of such awful martyrdom, and under the excitement of such a mighty misconception ; to cry down this world, with its profound beauty, its thrilling interest?, its glorious ,works, its noble and holy affections ; to exhort their hearers Sunday "after Sunday, to detach their hearts from this earthly life as inane, fleeting and urt» worthy, and fix it upon Heaven, as the only sphere deserving the love of theloving or the meditation of the-wi3e,»*appears to us, we confess, frightful insincerity, ihe enactment of a wicked and gigantic lie. The exhortation is delivered and listened to as . a thing of course ; and an hour afterwards the preacher, who has thus usurped and profaned the language of an Apostle, who wrote with the faggot and the cross full in view, is sitting comfortably with his hearer over his claret-; they are fondling their children, discussing public affairs or •private plans in life with passionate interest, and yet can look at each other without a smile or a blush for the sad and meaningless farce they have been acting ! Yet the closing of our connection with this earthly scene is as certain and probably as near to us as it vras to the : Apostles. Death is as close to us as the end of the world was to them. It is not therefore their misconception on this point which makes their view of life unsound and insincere when adopted by as. We believe it to be erroneous in itself, and to proceed upon false conceptions of our relation to time and to futurity. The doctrine as ordinarily set forth, that this world is merely one of probation and preparation, we entirely disbelieve. The idea of regarding it as merely a portal to another is simply an attempt to solve the enigma of life; a theory to explain the sufferings of man, and to facilitate the endurance of them ; to supply the support and consolation which , man's weakness cannot dispense with, but which he has not yet learned to draw from deeper and serener fountains. We, on the contrary, think that everything tends to prove that this life is, not perhaps, not probably, pur only sphere, but still an integral one, and the one with which we are meant to be concerned. The present is our scene of action—the future is for speculation and for trust. We firmly believe that man was sent upon the earth to enjoy it, to study it, to love it, to embellish it—-to make the most of it, in short. It is his country on which he should lavish his affections and his efforts. It should be to him a house, cot a tent—a home, not only a school. If, when this house and this home are taken from him, Providence in its wisdom and its bounty provides him with another; lot him be deeply grateful for the gift—lethim transfer to that future,: when it has become his present, his exertions, his researches, and his love. But let him rest assured that ho is sent into this world, not to be constantly hankering ■ after, dreaming of, preparing for, anothe^. i which may or may not be in store ior *,' im * —but to do his duty and fu^i jjjg destiny on earth—to do all <v aa^lie s in his power fto improve :; 'to render it a scene of .elevated h" - ; Eegs to himself, to those around Lib* to *£ ose wbo are to come after him. go wHI ho aroi a those . tormenting r oon t esta v jjth Nature—those ' struggles to 3U p press affections which )* 0(i >*&B implanted, sanctioned, and enwith irresistible supremacy, which now embitter the lives of so many earnest and sincere souls; so will he best prepare for that future which we hope, for—if it come; —so will he best have occupied tbe present, if- the present be his all. To demand that we shall love 'Heaven more than earththat the Unseen shall hold a higher place in our affections than the Seen and Fumiliar-^is to ask that which cannot be obtained without subduing Nature, and, inducing • a morbid condition of the soul. This love 'of the world in which our lot is cast, has in it nothing necessarily low or sensual. It is wholly apart from love of wealth, of -fame, of ease, of splendor, of power, of what is commonly called worldliness. It is the love of earth as the garden on which the Creator has lavished such miracles of beauty, as the habitation of humanity, the arena of its conflicts, the scene of its -illimitable progress, the dwelling place of the wise, the good, the aelive, the loving, and the dear. It is difficult to decide whether exhortations to ascetic undervaluing of this life, as an insignificant and unworthy portion of existence, have done most injury to ' our virtue, by demanding feelings which are unnatural," and which, therefore if attained, must be morbid, if merely professed must be insincere—or to the cause of social progress, by teaching us to look ' rather to a future life for the corupensation. of social evils, than to this life for their cure. It is only those who feel a deep interest in, and affection for this world, wlid will work resolutely for its amelioration ; those whose affections are transferred to Heaven acquiesce easily in the miseries .cf .earth; give them up as hopeless, as befitting, as ordaiued; and console themselves with the idea of the amends which are one day to bo theirs. If we had looked upon this earth as our . only sccpe, it is doubtful if wo should so long have tolerated its more monstrous anomalies and more curable evils'. But it is easier to look to a future paradise then to .strive to make one upon earth ; aud the depreciating and hollow language of preachers has played the hands both of the insincerity and the indolence of man. I question whether the whole system of professing Christians is not;'based in- a mistake, whether-it be not an error to strive after spirituality— after a'frame of mind afctainable only by incessant conflict with the instincts of.-our. unsophisticated nature; " by disparaging what wese'o be beautiful, know to be wonderful, feel to be unspeak- • ably dear and fascinating; by putting down the nature which God has given us, to struggle, after, one. which he has not jro3toweci.. Man is Benfc into tbe world,

not a spiritual but a composite being, a being made up of body and mind—the body having, as is fit and needful in a materinl world, its full, rightful, and allotted share. Life should he guided ! by a full recognition of this fact; not denying it as we do in bold words/and admitting it in weaknessess and inevitable failings. The body will be dropped at •death = —till then God meant it to be commanded, but never to be neglected, despised or ignored, under pain of heavy consequences. It is a question whether the world, ie. the human race, will"not be more benefitted by the labors ot those who look upon Heaven as a state to be attained on earth by future generations, than by those who regard it as the state to be attained by themselves after death in another world. The latter will look wholly, or mainly to the improvement of their own character and capacities :—tbe former will devote their exertions to the amelioration of their kind and their habitation. The latter are too easily induced to give up earth as hopeless- and incorrigible :—the former looking upon it as the scene of blessed existence to others hereafter, toil for its amendment and its emoellishment. —W. R. Gees. ■■■■':-]■>