CHAPTER V.

This life of mine

Must be lived out, and a grave thoroughly earned.

R. BROWNING.

The quantity of sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy he has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have? "Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness." The depth of our despair measures what capability and height of claim we have to hope. Black smoke, as of Tophet, filling all our universe, it can yet by true heartenergy become flame and brilliancy of heaven. Courage!

T. CARLYLE.

MARHAM.

I AM not afraid of death, Oliver, but some time perhaps I may be; for better men than I have grown so in old age. Dr. Isaac Milner, did you never read his life, Oliver? He was Dean of Carlisle. In one of his letters, written in tears, and with his door bolted, he said it seemed as though Almighty God had hidden his face from him; that his prayers were unanswered; that his heart failed him; and that it was no easy matter for him to look death and judgment in the face. Oliver, I do not dread death, but I may yet. For I think it is no clear view which I have of the next world; and I fear it is from this world's being too pleasant to my eyes.

AUBIN.

This world is more to you than the world to come is. Well, uncle, so I think it ought to be.

MARHAM.

But my thoughts of an hereafter are so vague.

AUBIN.

How should they be otherwise? This ought not to distress you. It is not littleness of faith. You have no clear notions of a future world; but you are doubtful, not about its certainty, but only about the place of it, and the look and the manner of it. Now, in these respects, nothing has been shown us of the world to come. Our next will be a spiritual state; and so, much more than the certainty of it could not be told us; for the things of a purely spiritual life could not be made to be understood by us, whose language and ways of thinking have come so largely from our bodily experience. This world we breathe, and feel, and see; but the world to come we can only have faith in.

MARHAM.

And so I am afraid, Oliver, that my faith in an hereafter is weaker than it ought to be.

It is not, uncle.

I know it is not.

AUBIN.

From my knowledge of you, Men are capable of faith in another life; some more, some less, than others. And I might have all faith in it, and not be the

better for it, but be nothing st ll. Our degree of faith is not a thing for us to be torturing ourselves about. But, uncle, you do believe in a future life, only not as strongly, perhaps, as you are conscious of being alive. Why, how should you? This green, familiar earth!-it is home to live in it. And to this domestic feeling the other world may well be foreign, sometimes.

MARHAM.

You think so, Oliver ?

AUBIN.

If your faith in the world to come were the strongest possible, it could not possibly be of the same nature as your faith in the existence of India, or in your being able to get to

Where the remote Bermudas ride

In the ocean's bosom unespied.

We can say a hundred and a hundred thousand things about the life we are living; but about the life we trust to live, we can say only one thing. And so it feels as though we were saying almost nothing, though the one thing we can say is the greatest that can be said; for we can say world of spirit there is, there certainly is. And so, as I was saying, uncle, your belief in an hereafter is greater than you think it. vague, it is because the world to

yet to us all.

that a

And if it feels

come is vague as

MARHAM.

What you say is a relief to me, Oliver.

AUBIN.

It is impossible that you could think of the future life in the same way as you think of to-morrow. In regard to the manner of the life to come, you can only say that it will be a spiritual world, a world of spirits. But of the way of the present life, a thousand things might be said. It is sleeping and waking; it is "Good night" on going to bed, and "Good morning" on getting up; it is to wonder what the day will bring forth; it is sunshine and gloominess; it is rain on the window, as one sits by the fire; it is to walk in the garden, and see the flowers open, and hear the birds sing; it is to have the postman bring letters; it is to have news from east, west, north, and south; it is to read old books and new books; it is to see pictures and hear music; it is to have Sundays; it is to pray with a family morning and evening; it is to sit in the twilight and meditate; it is to be well, and sometimes to be ill; it is to have business to do, and to do it; it is to have breakfast and dinner and tea; it is to belong to a town, and to have neighbours, and to be one in a circle of acquaintance; it is to have friends to love one; it is to have sight of dear old faces; and, with some men, it is to be kissed daily by the same loving lips for fifty years; and it is to

know themselves thought of many times a day, in many places, by children, and grandchildren, and many friends.

MARHAM.

You remind me, Oliver, of a passage in one of Hazlitt's works. I wish I could remember where; but I cannot. But I have interrupted you, which I ought not to have done.

AUBIN.

No, uncle, you did not. All that I was going to say was, that, this life being so many happy things to some men, it is no wonder, and no fault, if they do not long for a change. They know what this world is; it is all this happiness: the other world they do not know; they know that it is happiness, all happiness, but they do not know what.

MARHAM.

But, Oliver, we are to long for the future life, for the sake of being with God.

AUBIN.

And have not we God with us now, uncle? All I mean is this, that we ought not to distress ourselves about our piety, if this earth is so pleasant that we are not eager to be out of it. For did not God make the earth, as well as the heavens ?

MARHAM.

I think, Oliver, I cannot understand you.