^ My belief in the immortality of the soul springs from the idea of activity : for when I persevere to the end in a course of restless activity, I have a sort of guarantee from Nature that when the present form of my existence proves itself inadequate for the energising of my spirit, she will provide another form more appropriate.^
3. The works — what they are and what they have done for
1 W. Garrett Horder, The Other- World, 60, '^ Goethe.
REVELATION xiv. 13 251
the man — follow as the shadow follows the man, the one thing inseparable from the other, when the sun is in the sky. Beauti- fully has it been said that the good works of Christians do not go ^ before them to open heaven ; but they must follow after, to make it a place of blessedness. The Psalmist says of the rich man, " When he dieth he shall carry nothing away ; his glory shall not descend after him." Not so with the man who is rich toward God. Character goes with us into the other world. Many work on materials that cannot follow them to eternity. The artist works for months on the canvas : he dies, and leaves the portrait behind him. The sculptor works on the marble for years: he dies, and leaves the sculpture behind. But the good man works on a material that will bear transferring to the other world. He draws beautiful lines — draws them upon his own soul, upon himself. He has sought the best material to work on, material that will last when the rocks melt. And his work in others will remain; it is cut deep enough, so that it shall be visible in the judgment, and can be read at the opening of the books.
^ It is only in death that a man enters into full possession and use of what he produced within himself. What mental treasures he gathered in, all his life, what fills his memory, what pervades his feelings, what his mind and fancy created, is to remain his property for ever.^
II For the great sympathy was his — that love of the neighbour which is thrown like a mantle over the shoulders of some men, making them different from their fellows, securing to them that love of great and small, which, perchance, follows some, where they are dead, to that place where a human testimony may not be all in vain.^
^ I must be permitted to give the following fragment from The Book of the Sparkling Stone. It is strangely beautiful : —
" Understand, now, that this is the mode of progress ; in our going towards God, we ought to carry our being and all our works before us, as an eternal offering to God ; and in presence of God we shall surrender ourselves and all our works, and dying in love, we shall pass beyond all creation into the super-essential kingdom of God. There we shall possess God in an eternal death to ourselves. And this is why the Spirit of God says in the book
1 G. T. Fechner, On Life After Death, 55. * H. S. Merriman, The Soivers, chap. xxiv.
252 THE DEAD IN CHRIST
of the Apocalypse, * Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.' Eightly indeed does He call them the blessed dead, for they remain continually dead to themselves and immersed beyond their own nature in the gladdening unity of God. And they die ever newly in love, by the attracting refreshment of that same unity. Furthermore, the divine Spirit saith, ' They shall rest from their labours, and their works shall follow them.' In this finite existence, where we are born of God into a spiritual and virtuous life, we carry our works before us as an offering to God ; but in that unconditioned life, where we die anew in God, into a life of everlasting blessedness, our good works follow us, for they are one life with us." ^
IV.
The New Era.
1. The words " from henceforth " form a difficulty ; the reason for their introduction is to be found in the state of trouble which the previous verses of this chapter describe: the righteous are happy in being taken away from the evil to come. Or may it be that the words are designed to console the mourners in an age when dark unbelief robs them of the sweet resurrection trust, and writes over its graves, " Farewell for ever " ? If the climax of world-power should be bitter scorn of the idea of a life to come, and complacent satisfaction with a portion in this world, then words of faith, proclaiming that the dead are happy and restful, and that their work is not in vain in the Lord, may find new force to sustain a fainting courage or a wavering trust.
II 'Air cipTi, " from this time forth " (John xiii. 19, xiv. 7), must be connected, as its position shows, not with fiuxdpioi (" blessed "), but with 0/ d'TrohyiGTiovrsg ("which die"); nothing is said with regard to the past, the purpose of the revelation being to bring comfort to those who in the coming persecutions would need a strong consolation. It is a message in the first instance for a particular age, and referred to those who were to be called to suffer for their faith. Yet in view of the quite general terms in which it is couched, the later Church has felt herself at liberty to use it for the comfort of her mourners.^