The practice of immortality

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THE

Practice of Immortality

BY

WASHINGTON GLADDEN

BOSTON

TLbc UMlorim press

CHICAGO

■N

Zbc practice of Immortality?

For I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that
he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against
that day. — 2 Tim. I : 12.

" That day" is the great day of the future,
the day of reckoning, when the secrets of
hearts shall be revealed and the fruits of time
shall be harvested. Toward some such sum-
ming up the great apostle is looking ; and
whatever may be the form under which we
conceive of it, the fact that the Future holds
the issues of the Present, and that we must
confront them, by and by, is a solemn fact
which we must not put aside. The apostle
anticipates that reckoning with confidence.
His interests are safe, because they are in
the keeping of One who will guard them
" against that day." What this deposit is,
the context makes plain, although the lan-
guage seems to be ambiguous ; whether we
should read "that which I have committed

4 Cbe practice of Immortality

to him," or " that which he has committed to
me," is not clear from the phraseology : it
maybe either; perhaps it is both. If Paul
is speaking of life, in the large meaning of
the word — of his self-hood, his personality,
— that is a trust committed to him by his
Maker, and a trust committed by him to his
Father. Your life is a charge God has given
you to keep ; and, if you are in the right
relation to him, it is a treasure which you
have given back to him to keep for you. It
is yours by the freedom with which he has
endowed you, and it is his by the faith with
which you have surrendered yourself to him.

" Our wills are ours, we know not how ;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine."

There is nothing mysterious about this ;
the deepest experiences of human affection
enable us to interpret these spiritual relations.

The great affirmation of the text is that
this treasure, in Paul's case, is safe. Paul
knows that his life, with all its possessions
and possibilities, is in the hands of One who

Gbe practice of flmmortalit^ 5

will take care of it. There is no question
about its continuance ; there is no question
about its welfare. That unknown future has
no terrors for him and no shadows. It will
be well with him in that eternal day.

For myself, I find some comfort in grasp-
ing the staff which this stalwart pilgrim passes
down to me, that I may steady my own
thought thereupon, as I look toward the
future. For the mighty shadow of the great
unknown has risen more than once of late
athwart my path and laid its spell upon me,
and I have been forced to think of the ques-
tions that it raises. One and another of
those whose friendship has for many years
been very precious to me — with whom I have
taken sweet counsel ; whose comradeship
was full of inspiration and solace — have
gone suddenly away into the darkness ; with-
out a sign or a warning they passed ; I had
not known that they were not standing in
their lot and doing their work as of old ; the
first tidings that I receive is that they are not
any longer in this world. The lines of Aid-

6 Gbe practice ot immortality

rich, about his friend, Edward Rowland Sill,
come home to me, — albeit the circumstance
is not the same : —

" I held his letter in my hand,
And even while I read,
The lightning flashed across the land
The word that he was dead.

" How strange it seemed ! His living voice
Was speaking from the page —
Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,
Light-hearted, witty, sage.

" I wondered what it was that died !
The man himself was here,
His modesty, his scholar's pride,
His soul serene and clear.

" These neither death nor time shall dim ;
Still this sad thing must be —
Henceforth I may not speak to him,
Though he can speak to me."

That is the sad thing, the unutterably sad
thing. These two friends of mine, — the one
a man of letters, scholar, teacher, writer of
books ; the other a man of affairs, grappling
with the business of the world in close en-
counter— but both of them brave, true.

£be practice of 1Tmmortalft£ 7

high-souled, strong-hearted, knightly men —
both of them vital to the finger-tips with the
life that is life indeed, both of them compan-
ions of my better self, and helpers of all my
worthiest endeavors, — I cannot speak to
them again. How can they go away into
silence ? Where are they now ? It is not
that I am lonely or forlorn, for all that is
worth most is left me ; it is only that one
cannot see the portals of eternity closing
behind those who have had a large part in
his life without being forced to think of what
lies beyond that barrier.

This is not a new theme to any of you, and
there is nothing new to say about it ; I am
only fain to share with you my wonder, and
my longing, and my hope. There is not one
of you, I dare say, to whom it is not a ques-
tion of deep and tender significance. So
many of those whom we loved are beyond
that vail ; what reason have we for hoping
that we shall see them again ?

For demonstration, whether physical or
logical, I do not look. For what people call

8 Gbe practice of HmmortaUtB

scientific evidence I do not ask. Such evi-
dence could not convince me, no matter how
much of it there might be. Proof that ap-
peals to any of my senses would never satisfy
me. All the noises, odors, or visions that
can be produced by whatever kind of incanta-
tion could not prove anything. That the
senses can be deceived and hoodwinked I am
perfectly sure. For that reason no miracle
would strengthen my faith. I must have
better grounds for believing than any super-
natural apparition could furnish me — some-
thing that appeals to my spiritual nature ;
something that satisfies my moral intuitions.
It is not through the avenues of sense that
we shall ever get sure report of spiritual
verities. That is the absurdity of spiritism!
Just as if anybody could find out whether
Faith and Hope and Love are eternal reali-
ties by the tooting of tin horns and the
thrumming of banjos !

Indeed, the only way, I think, to get any
firm assurance of any of these great funda-
mental facts of life, is not to try to prove

Zbe practice of 1Fmmortalit$ 9

them by what you call scientific evidence, but
to assume them, and build your life on them.

Foundations are always assumed. There
is not a building in this world which has not
been obliged to accept its foundation. It
rests on the earth. It depends for its sta-
bility on the stability of the earth. No
builder can find or fashion any other founda-
tion for his building than that which the
earth gives him. After all his digging and
blasting and boring he must finally trust the
earth. If he cannot trust the earth he can-
not build. If his building stands, the final
reason will be that the earth sustains it.

Just as the foundations of our architecture
are assumed, so are the foundations of our
science. Science begins with an assumption,
with something that cannot be proved, with
what Mr. Huxley calls a " great act of faith."
Science cannot stir a step without taking for
granted what can never be proved, — the uni-
formity of natural law. That is the one great
fact of science, the one underlying, overarch-
ing, all-encompassing, architectonic, scientific

io Cbe practice of irmmortalitg

truth, — but it is impossible to prove it: the
scientist just believes it, takes it for granted;
and goes ahead with his investigations as if
he were perfectly sure of it. It is by assum-
ing it that he becomes sure of it. If he
would not proceed until he had demonstrated
it, science would be at an end.

In the same manner, as we have seen in
other studies, the only way to be sure of God
is to assume his constant presence in our
lives and live accordingly. That will make
any man sure of him. The foundation of
religion, as of science, is an assumption. It
is no more unreasonable to begin in religion
by taking God for granted, than it is to begin
in science by taking the uniformity of law for
granted. It is no more unphilosophical to
assume that Reason and Goodness and Love
are universal, than to assume that Order and
Law are universal. No man can prove the
one by logic or scientific evidence any more
than he can prove the other ; but any man
who will assume that Love is infinite and
omnipresent and omnipotent ; that it rules

Gbe practice of Hmmertalits 1 1

the universe ; that it waits at every portal of
sense and spirit to bring him light and joy
and liberty ; any man who will assume this
as true and build his life upon it, will know
by an experience which all the logic in the
world cannot confute, that God is, and that
he is the rewarder of those who put their
trust in him. To his intellect as well as to
his heart this confidence will bring repose.

To assume that there is a good God who is
over all and through all and in us all does
make life rational. There is still much that we
cannot explain — just as there is much that
we cannot yet reconcile with the uniformity
of natural law — but we feel that a universe
of which that was true would be a rational
universe; that it would "make sense of life,"
in Mr. Dole's good phrase : that we could
go on and do our work in it hopefully and
happily, no matter what suffering and loss
might be required of us ; that if all things
were working together for good, life would
be worth living. And there is no other in-
terpretation of the world which any sane man

12 tTbe practice of HmmortalftE

can accept without intellectual confusion and
moral paralysis. Any other theory of life
makes it a blind struggle, a hopeless, be-
wildering tangle ; all is dark, meaningless,
unintelligible. The theory of a good God,
overruling it all, with eternity to work in,
making the wrath of man to praise him, from
seeming evil still educing good, is a theory
that makes sense ; when we assume that this
is so, there are clear and strong motives for
virtue. It is worth while to fight the evil in
ourselves and in the world about us ; it is
worth while to follow what we know to be
our own highest promptings in the face of
peril and scorn ; it is worth while to hold
fast and push on in the lines of progress, for
we know that though we die fighting the
victory is ours.

And not only to the intellect but to the
heart peace and assurance come, as the result
of this sublime assumption. We come to
know Him whom we have believed. He
does not fail us. When we assume that he
is with us, that he is working in us, that his

Zbe practice of fTmmortalfts 13

infinite grace is never beyond our reach, that
he will always help us to be brave and true
and faithful ; that whatever may happen to
our croods or grains, the real manhood, the
real womanhood are safe in his keeping, —
that we shall be strong in his strength to
do and to bear what we ought to do and
to bear ; that we are a hundred thousand
times safer trusting him and doing his will
than we could be with all the money of
the mart in our hands and all the armies of
the empires at our back, — when we are able
just to assume this — to make it the funda-
mental principle of life, — we are not left
in any doubt as to whether there is a God.
No man who was ready to risk everything
upon his faith in God was ever left in any
doubt about the existence of God.

And we shall get our assurance ol immor-
tality, I think, in just the same way. The
way to be sure of it is to assume it as one
of the fundamental facts, and build your life
upon it. There is not much use in arguing
about it ; you are no more likely to prove it

14 £be Practice of UmmortalttE

by logic than you are to prove by logic the
uniformity of the natural order, or the uni-
versality of the divine love. There are argu-
ments which will come in to confirm your
conviction of its truth, but the sure founda-
tion is laid by taking it for granted and living
as if it were true.

Here, too, you will find that it verifies
itself to your reason and your experience.
It makes sense of life. If this world is not
the end, if there is a life after death, if
eternity carries forward and completes the
work of time, then the universe is rational.
Things that would be dark and hopeless and
intolerable if death were the end, wear a very
different look when this light is thrown upon
them. If we can say, with Abt Vogler : —

" There shall never be one lost good ! What was shall

live as before ;
The evil is null, is naught, is silence, implying sound ;
What was good shall be good with, for evil, so much

good more ;
On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, the perfect

round.

Gbe practice of UmmottaUtE 15

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall

exist ;
Not its likeness, but itself ; no beauty nor good nor

power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the

melodist,
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too

hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the

sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ;
Enough that he heard it once ; we shall hear it by

and by," —

if such confidence as this be ours in the
fruitions and completions and compensations
of the future, then it is possible to construe
the universe in terms of reason. For the
wrongs that never are righted here, there is
recompense hereafter ; the rogues that go
unwhipped, the hypocrites that stalk abroad
unsuspected, the giant oppressors who gather
by tribute the wealth of continents and build
their fortunes on the ruins of homes, — for
all these sure retribution is coming ; the mills
of the gods grind slowly, but no malefactor

1 6 Zbc practice of flmmortalit^

is done with them when men screw down his
coffin lid ; on the other shore he will awake
to hear the sullen music of their fateful
wheels, and before they are through with
him, he will be ground exceeding small. Do
not distrust that sense of justice in your
breast which cries out against the honor and
power and fame which come to greedy and
unscrupulous and cruel men ; there is a day
after to-day ; and you will live to see every
one of these men measured up for just what
he is worth and put just where he belongs.
The eternal years of God are long enough
for justice.

So, too, the great army of sufferers and
burden bearers ; the hapless millions who
were born in the dark and never had a
chance ; the poor little babies whose whole
experience of life was suffering, and who
have gone wailing out of this world with the
curse of prenatal sin upon them — for all
these there is a day after to-day ; wait for the
recompenses of the world to come before you
estimate the worth of life to them !

Gbe practice of Immortality 1 7

And there are few of us who do not feel,
sometimes, that justice demands for us another
and a larger opportunity ; that there are possi-
bilities in us, which, in this world, can never be
realized ; needs, crying needs of our souls,
which this world may never satisfy ; that if we
should know, at the end, that we were going
away into nonentity, we should feel that this
is a lying universe ; that it equips us with
powers which can never be used and fills us
with longings which can never be satisfied.
Assume that death ends all, and you have a
theory of the universe which confounds your
reason, and scoffs at your sense of justice, and
takes the nerve out of your courage, and
freezes hope at the bottom of your heart.
Assume that death ends all, and the spring-
time has no promise for you, and the sunrise
no gospel, and the stars in the black vault
overhead mock you at your prayers.

You simply cannot assume any such theory.
If you think you do, it is only because you
have not thought it through ; you do not
know what it means. You cannot thought-

1 8 Zbe practice of Ummortalih?

fully and consistently accept a theory of life
which brings intellectual confusion and moral
paralysis. You know that that cannot be
a right theory. You know it, because the
moment you try to live by it you find that it
does not work. It makes nonsense of your
thinking and foolishness of your toiling and
striving.

Assume the other theory then. One or the
other you have got to assume. On one or the
other you have got to rest your soul. To
the one or the other you must make your
life conform. Assume the affirmation instead
of the negation of life beyond the grave.
Assume it, just as you assume the uniformity
of law, the universality of love. Indeed, after
you have assumed God, you cannot, without
doing violence to your reason, fail to assume
immortality, for if love is the heart of the
universe, the universe is not a fraud, and the
deepest instincts of our lives can be trusted.
Assume that they are telling you the truth,
and build your life on that foundation ; live
as you ought to live, if life goes on forever

XLbc practice of "{Immortality 19

and the future is the harvest of the present.
Think as you must think, if there is a day
after to-day and the eternal years of God
belong to truth and justice and righteousness.
Bring your own sorrows, disappointments,
losses, struggles, privations, under that aeo-
nian light and consider them there. Let that
light shine into the city slums, into the sod-
den faces of the sinking throng, into the lives
of the men and women who have been the
victims of greed and cruelty, into all the
hopeless entanglements of earth and time.
Think of all these children of men as heirs of
immortality and as the sons and daughters
of One whose mercy endureth forever. What
a great uplift of hope and confidence and
courage comes to you with this assurance!
If this is true, God's in his heaven, and it is
all right with the world. If this is true,
life does make sense ; and all the tangles
will be straightened out in God's own time.
It is worth while to fight and wait and endure ;
the end is sure. The spring renews her
promise, the sunrise tells again of life after

20 ftbe practice of Hmmortalits

death, and the stars rekindle in our hearts the
assurance of hope. We walk abroad under
the sun with the light of God in our faces,
and in the slow watches of the night we

" Hear, at times, a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space
In the deep night that all is well."

And this, my friends, I believe to be the
only sure remedy for doubt concerning this
great matter. The only thing for you to do,
if you want to be sure of it, is just what Aris-
totle told you to do many centuries ago, —
" Live as nearly as you can the immortal
life." Live it, and it will prove itself. Live
the kind of life you ought to live if you are
to live forever, and your doubts will disappear.
And the principle which has come to light in
this discussion — that all fundamental things
have to be assumed — makes it plain that this
is no rash venture, but the soundest and
sanest philosophy.

A good man of the Catholic faith has

Cbe practice of ITmmortalttE 2 1

written a book entitled "The Practice of the
Presence of God." What a luminous title!
That is just what religion is. It is the prac-
tice of the presence of God ; living all the
while as if you were always in his presence ;
as if he were, as the Psalmist says, at your
right hand, momently, to shield you, to keep
you, to guide you, to inspire you. What a
true, brave, quiet, strong, victorious life a
man would live of whom this was true ! And
how sure he would be of God ! Is there any
other way to be sure of him ?

The truth of the life to come will be verified
in the same way. As Aristotle tells us, we
must practice immortality. We have theorized
about it, argued about it, hunted the universe
over for proofs of it, sought it, alas ! in many
incantations and juggleries; suppose we stop
speculating about the immortal life and be-
gin to practice it. That is not a mystical
injunction. You know well enough what
kind of life it is that ought to continue. Live
that life. Take all its great implications
and expectations and assurances into your

22 Gbe practice of -ffmmortalftE

thought, and let them rule there. Take its
great hopes into your heart and make them
welcome there. Be the kind of man you
ought to be if this doctrine is true. What
will happen to you if you do ? Do you not
know ? Are you not sure that it would make
you a strong, brave, happy man ? Would
you not face life with courage and confi-
dence ? Do you not feel that St. John's
words would prove true : " Every man that
hath this hope in him purifieth himself?"

If this is the kind of fruit the doctrine
would bear in a good man's life, is not that a
pretty strong evidence that the doctrine is
true ? If you know that to believe in the
eternal life and live by that belief would
make you a stronger, happier, better man, is
there not in that about as good reason as
you could find for faith in the eternal life?
When a theory works you know that it is true.

Here, then, for you and me, is the path of
certitude, as we stand in the presence of that
Shadow, feared of man, " who keeps the keys
of all the creeds." My two friends who have

Gbe practice ot Immortality 23

disappeared behind that Shadow were not
afraid of it. It had often fallen athwart their
path, but it had no terrors for them. I never
heard from either of them a note of appre-
hension. They were living the immortal life
every day ; how was it possible for them to
doubt its reality ? As life wore on with them
into the sunny afternoon, and ripening wis-
dom made them more sure of their relations
to the universe, there must have come to
them a deepening consciousness of an outfit
of natural powers wholly unsuited to this
span of earthly life ; a growing sense of time
as only the beginning of existence, the thresh-
hold of achievement ; a certainty that for
the mighty inward imperative which sum-
moned them to be men, to complete their
manhood, there must be time and room
somewhere in God's universe. And so I
cannot doubt that they went away into that
darkness, with a great expectation in their
hearts. They are in the light now, with
many more, dear to you and me. They
understand some things better than we do,

24 Gbe practice of Immortality

no doubt. Yet for them there are yet prob-
lems to solve, summits to gain, manful and
helpful work to do. They would not be
happy in any other kind of world.

So, comrades all, who have gone on, and
to whom the Great Hereafter has become
the Glorious Here, we send our thoughts
after you to-day, with no misgiving. We are
one with you, — living the same life, the
Eternal Life. The frontier of mortality is
but an imaginary line. With the great multi-
tude of heroic and faithful men on the earth
who have accepted their inheritance of im-
mortality instead of waiting for it, and have
traveled on through all their days in the joy
and strength of it, we seek to join ourselves.
It is their voice we hear, ringing through the
poet's martial lines : —

" No, at noonday, in the bustle of man's work-time,
Greet the unseen with a cheer !
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be :
'Strive and thrive,' cry, ' speed, fight on, fare ever
There as here ! ' "

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