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on the wing . I will meet thee in the deepest recesses of the conscience where we have never yet ventured together . I will meet thee on the highest summit of hope on which we have hitherto dared to fasten our gaze . But shall we not oftenest meet in the region which lies behind ? When we first
entered it together , was it not with the knowledge that every future path would lead us back to it again ; that , however spiritualized we might find it
at each return , it would be our own familiar home for ever ? Surely it must be thus with the mortal life of every one . Jesus himself must surely thus resort perpetually to the period of probation , finding the scene irradiated with the glory of bis faith ; his companions made meet for his friendship through the purification of his gospel ; and his most deadly foes made
benignant through the softening influences of his own compassion . Can I not spare thee to attain a power like this , when I myself hope to attain it also ? Shall I say that I have lost thee when we are carrying on the same work through power granted at the same time by Him who worketh in us alike ? We must exalt our hope , we must spiritualize our being ; thou in heaven , I for a while on earih .
What was it that I doubted so painfully a while ago ? Not the fact that the dead arise . If in the moonlight I had seen a winged one couched at the foot of each of those graves ; if in the sunrise , I had seen the tombs teeming with shadowy forms , if in the butterflies which now hover over the turfy hillocks I had seen , not an emblem , but an embodying of a departed spirit , I could not be more sure than I now am that death is only an eclipse and not an extinction ; and that this , like every other mystery of nature , shall be revealed and explained when we who survive shall be fit for the revelation . Man has seen how , by an invisible hand , the black shadow has been drawn over
the radiant cope above , unnoticed till an answering shadow crept over the earth ; and how the sun has ever shone forth again according as the voice of
nature promised . Man has also witnessed how a like impenetrable shadow has stolen upon the light of his life , and cast a chill on whatever drank in its beams $ and how , from behind this obscurity , Being has again shone forth in renewed glory , according as the word of God had been passed . The same hand wrought in the firmament and in the chamber of death ; the same voice spoke in the whispers of nature and in the silence of the empty sepulchre . This has never been , this can never be , my doubt .
Was it the benignity of Providence that I doubted?—of that Providence which made all that I have reverenced , and gave all that I have loved ? It was benignity which so organized that now slumbering being that all influences wakened up its harmonies ; that all tended to expand , to refine , to ennoble it till , but a few hours since , it retired to await its welcome into a new rank . It was benignity which led that spirit high and deep , and poured over it a flood of joy , which bathed every scene of nature , every circumstance of life , in its own vitality . And , O ! it was benignity which made all these mine ; which made to each of us the otherwise incommunicable revelation of
what the human spirit is ; which sanctioned this revelation by the fact , proved to me to-day—that what spirits are to one another they must be for ever . How benign has been the superintendence of our life !—our first meeting , our mutual pleasures leading to mutual pains , the stirring sympathies , the calm confidence , the incalculable aids , the peace pervading all—how benignly have all these been ordered , while somewhat of the same has blessed every living soul , —while they who bear the throne of God have interchanged hi gj h thoughts , and playmates have caressed each other in the green shade With a touch , merciful as his who had compassion on the blind , have our
Untitled Article
372 Sabbath Musings .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1831, page 372, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2598/page/12/
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