^At Aix-la-Chapelle is the tomb of the great Emperor Charlemagne. He was buried in the central space beneath the dome ; but the manner of his burial is one of the most impressive sermons ever preached. In the death-chamber beneath the floor he sat on a marble chair — the chair in which kings had been crowned — wrapped in his Imperial robes. A book of the Gospel lay open in his lap; and as he sat there, silent, cold, motionless, the finger of the dead man's hand pointed to the words of Jesus : " What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " ^
I built me my own little world, Not God — but my world was fair ; I perfumed it fragrant with blossoms, I hedged it around with care.
> R. Brewin. » H. H. Griffiths.
ST. MARK 201
And I Baid, " It is well ; it is quarried Strong now, as strong love dare plan; A home for two hearts it is carven, Built by the will of a man."
And I shouted and sang "Jubilate I" The heart within me was light, It heard not the brooding footstep That bringeth the blinding night.
It saw not the cloud from the sun-set A man might hold in his hand, Yet it swam on nearer and blacker, To darken my pleasant Land,
And a wind span out 0* the East — God has four — a sword his breath, And he shook my portals and pillars With a shaking that meaneth death.
God 0' four winds ! Thine east wind smote it ; My fair world trembled and fell: Still I stood — at my feet in ashes Lay the World I loved so well.^
IL
The Life.
What is the Life ? The word psyche, here translated " life," and often translated " soul," is the equivalent of nephesh in Hebrew, the conscious life of feeling and desire. The New Testament distinguishes this life from merely physical animation on the one hand, and from the higher life of the pneuma on the other. Thus the life or soul (yjrvxv) holds a mediating position between the body {crwixa) and the spirit (Trvev/Ma), and the word is used with a lower or a higher reference in different contexts. So says Swete, and gives examples of the lower reference (Matt. ii. 20, vi. 25; John x. 15ff. ; Eom. xi. 3; Phil. ii. 30), and of the higher (Matt. xL 29 ; Mark xiv. 34; John xii. 27; Heb. vi. 19; 1 Pet. i. 22).
' Agnes H. Uegbie, The Rosebud Wall, 21.
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202 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
Life, says Menzies, stands here, not for one of several elements of the human person, as with Paul, but for the whole sentient life of the individual. Christ does not mean, says Stopford Brooke,^ a personal, selfish thing inside of you which was in danger of hell-fire or punishment, and which had first to be saved from them, and then put into a comfortable position in heaven. But He did mean all those qualities and their harmonies which make up in a man, in a society or in a nation, a character like the character of God, our Father.
*[f What an incalculable depth of gratitude we owe to our authorized English translation of the Bible ! But it has done us all the same a few wrongs; and among these not the least considerable is that often, even in the same passage, it has translated one word in the original at one time " soul " and at another time "life." The result is we have got into the habit of thinking that a man's soul is something mystical, something vague, something different from that actual, breathing, struggling human life which he knows so well. But it is not so. The soul is nothing else than the life, the sum of vital powers which we expend. To save your soul is nothing else than to preserve your lifC; to make the best of yourself jTto lose your soul is nothing else than to defile, to, spoil, to waste your vital powers, to make the worst of yourself, i Of course, if this is to be true, you must remember that your soul is yourself and yours beyond the grave ; and to save your soul is to make the best of yourself considered as an immortal being.^
^ What is it to lose the soul ? It is (1) to lose Christ and all spiritual enjoyments ; (2) to lose heaven and all its joys for ever; (3) to lose all rest and peace to all eternity (Kev. xiv. 11);
(4) to lose all hope of ever bettering our condition (Kev. ix. 6) ;
(5) to lose the very world itself (Luke xvi. 23, 24).^
^ Large numbers of men hardly seem to have a life to forfeit ; they can hardly be said to live ; their intellect has never felt the thrill which comes with a true intellectual awakening ; their conscience has never discovered how august duty is ; the infinite mystery and glory of the eternal Kingdom which environs every man has never been revealed to them ; there are the germs and the possibilities in them of a very great life, but the germs have never been quickened, the possibilities are remote from realisation.*