The Blessedness of the Holy Dead

AND I HEABD A YOIOE FBOH HEAVEN SAYING UNTO ICE, WBITE, BLESSED ABB THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LOBD FBOM HENCE-FOBTH.” — BEV. xiv, 1 3.

HE thought is a cheering, hallowed one to many a bereft parent — the numbers of beloved children now in glory. How many mothers have little angels before the Throne! How many youthful tongues beginning to lisp the praises of the Saviour on earth have been hushed in the Church below, only to resume the unending song in the Church of the Glorified! In a beautiful figurative sense may the words of the prophet Zechariah, uttered regarding the future earthly Jerusalem, be applied to the Heavenly one: “And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof” (Zech. viii. 5). That “voice from heaven “in the verse which heads this chapter, with its elevating and triumphant words, embraces, among others, these youthful members of the Celestial City: — little multitude, among that vaster multitude which no man can number.”

It is vain to inquire from whom this voice, addressed to St. John in the words which head this meditation, proceeded. This is left indeterminate. It may possibly have come from one of the four-and-twenty elders ppoken of in a preceding chapter (chap, vii.); — possibly it may have emanated from the Great Covenant Angel Himself — the August Being standing on the sea and the earth, with “the little book” in His hand. More probably it may have been uttered by one specially delegated from the ranks of the ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation; some heavenly Barnabas — some “Son of Consolation,” despatched on an errand of comfort to the lonely isle of Fatmos and its lonely Apostle-prisoner. Be this as it may, his voice has become “loud as the sound of many waters;” for the brief utterance, wafbed like a chime from the bells of the Upper Sanctuary, has awoke chords of responsive harmony in ten thousand thousand aching sorrowing hearts in the Valley of Tears.

Nor need we pause too curiously to ascertain the precise meaning and import of the term here used, “from henceforth.” It may simply indicate that, from the moment of death, when the spirit, young or old, is emancipated from its earthly fetters, that blessedness begins; or, as in the verse immediately preceding, where John speaks of “the patience(or endurance) of the saints” in the midst of their persecutions, it might be designed, in the first instance, as a special word of hope and comfort to those who had the prospect for themselves and their children of suffering and martyrdom. But it is by no means restricted to such. It is a message intended and adapted for all time, and for all places, and for all ages, wherever there are weeping eyes and bleeding hearts, — aye, too, for those gathered around the early deathbed or the early grave.

‘^ Blessed are the dead.^ Startling words are these, viewed by themselves and apart from the Gospel. ^’ Blessed are the dead! “How the death-chamber, it may be the little coach or cradle, belies the utterance, refuses to countersign the strange benediction! Where is the blessedness in the spectacle of that mute and voiceless marble? that shattered casket, from which the priceless jewel and glory hcks departed? for it is not the newly-kindled altar-fire only which is quenched, but the shrine itself is to be demolished. The green Bod or the silent stone is all that is left to memorialise departed beauty and promise. No, no! call it not “blessed.” There can be no gladness, no jubilee, surely, here. Stop the music of pipe and tabret; call in the hired minstrels; put, rather, sackcloth on the loins; sit in dust and in ashes; say, “Alas, my child!” “Ah, my brother!” or “Ah, my sister!” (Jer. xxii. 1 8). Mock not the dead, mock not the living with beatitude and benediction. The little ship has sailed to the silent land, we know not whither. No sign, no look of affection can be returned as we wave the tearful adieu. There is no retracing of the voyage; no homeward-bound vessel from these distant, mysterious shores. We need not hoist the signal; love need not light its beacon to greet the little wanderer, “for he shall return no more.”

Such is nature’s cold philosophy, nature’s sad solis loquy, uncheered and illumined by the Gospel. Such, too, is the sad musing of many to whom that Gospel has never come in its quickening and enlightening influences, — to whom the present is their “be all and end all,” who when the tempest arises — when the floods beat, and the winds blow, and the wrecks of earthly joy are seen strewing the waters — have no Rock of Refuge to which they can repair, no” blessed hope ‘* to which they can cling —

*’ Say, ye who tempt
Tho sea of life, by summer gales impelled;

A time will come For storms to try you, and strong blasts to rend Your painted sails, and shred your gold like chaff O^er the wild wave. And what a wreck is man If sorrow find him unsustained by God 1”

Bereaved parent or parents, you who know what the Gospel is in its saving power and its glorious illimitable hopes and anticipations, is it over some early grave you are now stooping with broken heart and tearful eye? Behold this heavenly vision vouchsafed of old to the Seer of Patmos, and be comforted. Listen to that accompanying voice with its many suggestive solaces. Forecast in thought your departed child’s future. Conjure up all the possibilities in the battle of life — its sore struggles and conflict, and think of him or her now! Trial, and pain, and sorrow, never more to be either felt or feared; serving God without interruption. No baffled labour, no crushing disappointments; no wearing anxieties; no treacheiy of tried and trusted friends; no dumb secret griefs, wUch, unknown to the world, take from life its sweetest ingredients; no evU heart of unbeUef; no feilure of cherished plans and brilliant hopes; no sickness, laying its paralysing hand on successful toil and crip;iin™e waLor on L very eye of conquest; but rather permitted to complete the unfulfilled purpose, and, uncloffffed by all material hindrances, to ffo forth, shai we sain youthful-missions and minlstrirof loyl ing service! It will be “the rest without a rest” of an old writer, — the rest that has never known the fatigues and weariness of the pilgrim way, — the rest in God. “Blessed are such dead!” Yes! take these words of the unknown Apocalyptic Voice as a brief missive of consolation. I repeat, it is beautiful to find in the very midst of a book of strange and portentous figurations — amid its voices of thunder, and flashes of fire, and smoke of darkness — this gleam of heavenly sunshine, — an olive branch of comfort, borne to the lonely exile and lonely heart in the midst of the storm.

What can more touchingly evince God’s tender interest alike in the dying of every age (every age of time and every age of existence), and in those who are mourning their departure, than when He thus hushes the tempest’s breath, that this balm-word may fall first on the ears of the island prisoner, and through him on the ears of a whole weeping world? — “From henceforth!” Before that time how little had the world known, how poorly had it recognised this “blessedness of the sainted dead ‘*! How hesitating the guesses of the noblest heathen regarding ‘^ the land beyond the Stygian river”! AU was vague and uncertain — a dreary, dreamy, groping in the dark. Their Elysium, too, when spoken of, is one crowded with materialistic images, never touching the realm of the spiritual. Explorers of the Boman Catacombs, or of their subterranean treasures transferred elsewhere, have frequently noted the cheerless, hopeless form in which the grief of Pagan mourners is expressed. No Divine, loving Hand recognised; no unerring Wisdom trusted. Inexorable Fate is the cold abstraction presiding over human destiny. Here is the translation of one such inscription from the “Lapidarian Gallery “: — “Caius Julius Maximus, aged 2 years and 5 months. O relentless Fortune, who delightest in cruel death, why is Maximus so early snatched from us? He who used to be beloved in my bosom! This stone now marks his tomb! Behold his mother!” While in contrast listen to the following well-known and touching inscription from the Cemetery of Calixtus (probably of date the middle of the third century). It thus begins: — “Alexander Mortws non est, sed vrvn super astra. In Christo” (Alexander is not dead, but lives beyond the stars in Christ).^ What is this, but the translation by a sorrowing heart of the far nobler and grander

See Boldetti.

legend now so familiar to us in this volume, written by the great Apostle on the catacombs and graves of universal Christendom: — “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren; concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” 1

Come, believer! come, mourning parents, to the sepulchre of your beloved dead, and ‘• comfort one another with these words.” Kindle around their bier lamps of fire — not the lamps which superstition places around the shrines of the departed, but the holy lights which God’s own servants and God’s own Scriptures have given you. They have joined the ranks on the distant shore, and with child-voice and child-hand beckon you to follow. Be not “disobedient to the heavenly vision.” Grasp their tiny torches of love and innocence and dutifulness, as sacred legacies they have left to bear you on in your darkened way. And if in some cases their bright young example and simple faith have bequeathed to you cherished memories, let these only consecrate your own resolves and quicken your longings and aspirations,

“Till God*s love set you at their side again.”

Meanwhile, as regards not them but yourselves, as

I Thess. iv. 13, 14.

Christians, let all we have said serve to divest the closilig’hour and the closing scene of its terrors. Death has somewhere been called one of the ^’ gates of pearl “spoken of in this same Book of Revelation. Not so, as we have seen, is it, assuredly, from the earthly view. No! there it is rather a gloomy portal; stem, repulsive, iron-barred. But seen by angels and the saintly multitude from “the other side,” “every several gate was of one pearl” (Rev. xxi. 21).

THE GATES BEYOND.

“I shall ealvdy march up to the Co ««.” — Dying Words. “Through the gata into the ct’t.” — Rev. xxii. 14.

Dear Lord, I resigu; accepting as Thine

Whatsoe’er in Thy wisdom awaits; Submissive and still, let me bow to Thy will:

‘I shall calmly march up to the Gates.’

When the Master shall caU, and the shadows shall fall,

And all must be left that relates
To this passing world, with banner unfurled

‘I shall calmly march up to the Gates.’

My vision grows dim, but I gaze upon Him

Whose glory no death-gloom abates.
My warfare is done, and the victory won —

*I shall calmly march up to the Gates.’

Lo! crowding the shore, I see those gone before;

From each a glad welcome awaits; No bonds there shall sever; with Christ, and for ever;

* I shall, yoy/i/^, march up to the Gates! ’

NO UNTIMELY GRAVES.

“A time to die.” — Eccles. iii. 3.
“To die it vain.” — Phil. i. ai.

Let those who make this fleetiug earth their all,

And its horizon bound their happiness,

Talk of untimely graves! No flower can drop

Too soon, if ripe for gloiy. Early plucked

Is early bliss. If the great clock of time

Has in life’s sunny morning tolled its knell

And numbered earthly hours, it hastens heaven.

An early deathbed is an early crown I

The best hereditary laurels pale

Before such peerless honours; canonised

Among the good and holy of mankind:

No patrimony to compare with this.

Nobler than noblest human epitaph —

“Blest are the dead departing in the Lord!”

If with high festival we keep the day

Of the frail body’s entrance into life,

And earthly friends are gathered in to oiTcr

Their joyous gratulations; shall it be

With sighs we celebrate the natal hour

Of the undying spirit, entering

Its heritage of never-ending bliss?

How diverse earth and heaven the closing scene

Regard! On Earthy — a spectacle of tears!

In speechless agony each knee is bent

Around the couch, importunate for life,

While still life’s pulses beat. In Heaven is heard

An invocation also from the lips

Of mightier than mortal Intercessor;

Iinmanuel pleads; but His is not the prayer

For an extension of the transient breath;

He pleads for life immortal as His own.

28o THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE HOLY DEAD.

“Father, I will, that this beloved one I have redeemed, be with Mo where I am, To share the glory Thou hast given Me.” His voice is heard! — Omnipotence responds — “Son, Thou art ever with Me; all I have Is Thine.” To execute the embassy, Eager, an unseen retinue attends. “Go, angels I — speed ye to the bed of death. And bear the ransomed to his early crown!”

Wouldst thou prefer that answer had been made
To the request below or that above?
Eternal joys deferred or realised?
The cross continued or the kingdom won?
Warfare protracted or eternal rest?

On earth you hear the stifled sob. In heaven The bells of glory ring the joyous chimes — ‘* There shall be no more sin, nor death, nor pain, Because the former things are passed away.”

Keep in abeyance selfish love, and say Wouldst thou arrest these bright celestials. As up they bear their trophy to the skies. And bring him back to earth? Couldst thou entreat The righteous Intercessor to revoke His wondrous ‘’ will; “and at the gates of bliss When ‘’the new song” was bursting on his lips. Recall the youthful victor, to resume The din of battle and the vale of tears T

HERE AND THERE.

“And Vurt shall he no more deaths neither torrcw, nor cr)fing, nHOiet AcM Ikert fte any more pain: for the former thing* are pasted aioay.” — Bby. toI. 4.

Here oft your joys are fleeting, Like tidal waves retreating. And leaving rippled footprints upon the sandy shore;

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But, in that world of glory, No Yoice can tell the story Of early griefs and early grayes, and those that are no more.

Here there are vacant places,

Here absent yonthful faces. Or smUes that mutely greet you from portraits on the wall;

But there afiUction never

The dearest ties can sever, Nor the presence of bereavement sad memories recall.

Your dearest child is mortal,

He too must pass Death’s portal. The icy sceptre touches, and the chilling shadow fa]l&

Rejoice! — through gateway glorious,

He entereth victorious, Upon the everlasting Life, within the jasper- walls I