The Monument

“There is no perpetual remembrance of the wise more than of the fool.” “Who knoweth whether his successor shall be a wrise man or a fool?”

THE noblest renown is posthumous fame; and the most refined ambition is the desire of such fame. A vulgar mind may thirst for immediate popularity; and very moderate talent, dexterously managed, may win for the moment the hosannas of the million. But it is a Horace or a Milton, a Socrates or a Sidney, who can listen without bitterness to plaudits heaped on feebler rivals, and calmly anticipate the day when posterity will do justice to the powers or the achievements of which he is already conscious. And of this more exalted ambition it would appear that Solomon had felt the stirrings. When he looked on the temple and the cedar palace, and still more when he thought of his literary exploits, his songs and his proverbs, and his lectures in science, the Non omnis moriar was a thought as natural as it was pleasing, and from the sense of nagging powers and the sight of a failing body he gladly took refuge in the promise of posthumous immortality. But even that cold comfort was entirely frozen in the thought which followed. From the lofty pinnacle to which, as a philosophic historian, he had ascended, Solomon could look down and see not only the fallibility of his coevals, but the forgetfulness of the generations following. He knew that there had often been great men in the world; but he could not hide it from himself, how little these great men had grown already, and how infinitesimal the greatest would become, if the world should only last a few centuries longer. And so far, Solomon was right. Few things would be mote pathetic than if we had some micrometer for measuring great men’s memories, — some means for ascertaing the decimal of a second which those great names subtend in our historic firmament, who filled their living age with lustre. Even Solomon’s own, — intellectually the brightest of a bygone dispensation, and with all the advantage of the Bible telescope to bring it near, — how little it enters into the actual thought of this modern world! What a tiny spark it twinkles through the foggy atmosphere of this material time! Had a life in the hearts of future men been all his immortality, how little worth the purchase! and how much wiser than their philosophic monarch were those “fools” in

Jerusalem, who took no thought to add this cubit to their age!

So, brethren, it is natural to wish to be remembered when gone; and as a substitute for the highest motive, or a succour to other motives, it is well to think of the generation following. But, as it usually flatters worldly men, this posthumous fame is a fallacy.* “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Amidst the importunate solicitations of daily business, many of us must accuse ourselves of unfaithfulness to the dead; and when tranquil moments call up their familiar images, we marvel how we can deal so treacherously with the great and good departed. Vanished from our view, expunged from our correspondence, dropped from our very prayers, no longer expected as visitors in our homes, — it is marvellous how faint and intermitting their memory has grown; and we upbraid our ungrateful fancy that it preserves so little space for old benefactors, and the once-cherished friends of our bosom. But the same

* “Are not all things born to be forgotten? In truth, it was a sore vexation to me when I saw, as the wise man saw of old, that whatever I could hope to perform must neces sarily be of very temporary duration; and if so, why do it? Let me see! What have I done already? I have learnt Welsh, and have translated the songs of Ab Gwilym; I have also rendered the old book of Danish ballads into English metre. Good! Have I done enough to secure myself a reputation of a thousand years? Well, but what’s a thou sand years after all, or twice a thousand years? Woe is me! I may just as well sit still.” — LAVENGRO.

fate awaits ourselves; we, too, are going hence, and when we are gone,

“A few will weep a little while,

Then bless our memory with a smile.” One or two may cling to it with tender fondness, while existence lasts; but even with friends affectionate and true, tenderness will soon soften into resignation, and resignation will subside into contentment, and contentment will dull away into sheer forgetfulness; and it will only be on some rare occasion, — some wakeful night, when memory is holding a vigil of all-souls, or when a torn letter, or an inscription in a book, or a name carved on the beechen tree conjures up the past, “and a spirit stands before you,” that the fountain of early love will now anew, and you will pay the tribute of the long-suspended tear. But even that will end. A race will arise that know not Joseph, and to whom Joseph’s friends will not be able to transfer their attachment; and when a fourth or a fifth generation comes upon the stage, so dim will be the name, and so diluted will be the interest in it, that the youth would be more concerned for the loss of a favourite hound than for the extinction of his grandsire’s memory.

But if this be the phantom for which the worldling toils and sighs, there is a posthumous fame which is no illusion. If there be no eternal remembrance of the world’s wise men any more than of its fools, it is otherwise with the wise ones of the heavenly kingdom. God has so arranged it that “the righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance.” “They that,” in his sight, “are wise, shall shine as the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.” Great men may covet admiration, but good men crave affection. Admiration is the state-room, formal and rarely used; but to be admitted into the affections is to be domiciled in the heart’s own home, — to live where lives the soul itself. Arid into this inmost shrine of good men’s souls God admits all the holy; nay, with reverence speaking it, He admits them into his own. The love of Jehovah is a sanctuary where every holy being has a home. But not content with giving to the just made perfect, the immortality of his own unchanging love, a gracious God secures them the attachment of congenial minds; and at this instant there is not in all the universe a holy being but God has found for it a resting-place in the love of other holy beings, and that not temporarily, but for all eternity. The only posthumous fame that is truly permanent is the memory of God; and the only deathless names are theirs for whose living persons He has found a place in his own love, and in the love of holy beings like-minded with Himself. Many a casket has been broken, and the gems of fine fancy have been scattered on the world, and the name of the self-immolating genius is now forgotten; but that box of ointment which the weeping penitent crushed over the feet of Jesus, will pour its fragrance through all time; for wherever there is a Gospel the Lord Jesus has secured that there shall be spread the story. And so — war, wisdom, wit, — these three have all made deep indentations on the mind of man; and some deeds have been so brave, and some inventions so beautiful, and some sayings so brilliant, that people vowed they never would be forgotten. But, alas! it was the fragile imagination of sinful man, and it has long ago disintegrated. It was the soft and viscid memory of selfish man, and new interests and new objects have since flowed in and filled up the oozy record. But although we dare not say that any thought of earth is so sublime as to merit a record in heaven, on the highest authority we know that no act of faith is so insignificant but it secures a registration there. And although, fearful of posthumous flattery, the dying Howards of our species may direct, “Place a sun-dial on my grave, and let me be forgotten,” — they cannot expunge their labours of love from the book of remembrance, and they will never be forgotten by God.

But even beyond posthumous fame, most men would like to be perpetuated in well-doing and affectionate children. And here again, a gloomy foreboding darkened the mind of Solomon. He had greatly extended his hereditary kingdom; he had amassed an unprecedented fortune; he had built such palaces as only Eastern extravagance had dared to dream; he had covered his name with glory as a statesman and a lawgiver and a sage; and all this glory — these palaces, — yon piles of treasure, — that splendid empire, — the whole was such a prize that if he felt sadness in leaving it, he also felt anxiety about transmitting it. He had a son; but, from expressions here escaping, it would almost seem as if Kehoboam already betrayed the senselessness and arrogance which were afterwards to make him the detestation of his subjects, and the butt of his neighbours. The heathen marriages and the on-goings of the father, at once unkingly and ungodly, were destined to yield their bitter fruits in the son; and it is possible that the backslider already felt punished in foreseeing all the mischief coming on the kingdom through the pride and the blunders of this wayward youth. “Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun; because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.”

Let those be very thankful who feel that they are better off than Solomon. You have not a sceptre, a title, a vast income to bequeath; but you have well-doing children. By their industry and mutual affection, above all, by promising appearances of personal piety, you are encouraged to hope that those who come after you will be an honour to your name.

What a mercy! Solomon would have given his sceptre in exchange for your son. But why should not this mercy be yet more frequent? It is true that “grace does not run in the blood, though sin does.” But it is also true that God makes his grace more gracious by often causing it to run in the channel of the natural affections. “The promise is unto you, and to your children.” And where there is a pious affection, the best gifts will be those we shall covet most earnestly for its objects. Where parental affection is also devout, it will prompt the prayer which David offered at once for himself and for Solomon:” Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness unto the king’s son.” And in that pious affection the Lord sympathizes, and such parental intercessions He delights to hear.

And although, when we think what sort of life Solomon for a long period led; when we reflect that Rehoboam’s boyhood and youth were spent in the lap of luxury, and amidst scenes of the most extravagant revelry; when we consider that a polygamist like Solomon can never have a home, and a child like Rehoboam can have no such playmates as are found in an undivided family; when we recall the idolatry and impiety to which his early years had been inured, and remember how bad was the example which his own father set him, — we can scarcely wonder that the son of Solomon proved a heart break to his father and a stigma on his line: still we are not the less persuaded, that where there is faithfulness to God as well as affection to one’s children; where there are earnest prayer and a corresponding pattern; and, especially, where both parents are of one mind, and agreed as touching this thing, God will do it for them, and the promise still hold true, “to you and to your seed after you.” The “entail of the covenant” is largely borne out by religious biography, and our Churches are mainly composed of the pious children of Christian parents. Happy they who, instead of a tablet in the church yard wall, are thus commemorated by polished stones in the living temple! *

* Isaiah liv. 11 — 13.

September 22, 1850.