PHASES OF MODERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. No. IV.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4270, 21 July 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

PHASES OF MODERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. No. IV.

SCIENCE JLSD IMMORTAUTY. Said an old chief to King Edwin, " King, as we sit by night round the fire in the hall, and make good cheer, it often happens that a little bird flies for a moment into the light and heat. It comes out of the cold and darkness, and then goes out into the cold and darkness; but none know whence it comes, and none can tell whither it goes. And so is our own life. We come, and our wise men cannot tell us whence ; we go, and they cannot tell us whither. Therefore, if there be any who can give us certainty about a future state, in God's name let us hear them." But who can give this certainty? What traveller has ever returned from the spirit world to tell us of the life beyond * The old man's request was pardonable, because spontaneous and natural, it is the one universal request of all peoples in every clime. 'Whither do I tend? ia the most anxious and general enquiry of* modern times ; and it will ring through the ages with increasing pitch till the last of the human family have passed into the infinite. In the nature of things certainty is impossible on this side the grave, but the Christian is content to hope, and will not complain that the immortality of the soul is only a probability. This is a world of probabilities. There is no certainty that tomorrow's sun will rise again, but it is probable he will; no certainty that seed-time and harvest will continue, or the seasons run their course. All rests on a probability, but what a probability ! It is so over-power-ing that men derive from it the same serene composure as if nature's constancy could be proved by the rule-of-three. It is so regarding a future life. The most down-trodden and degraded of our race, —even the most animal-like,—who have no idea of God or gods, believe in thi persistence of life after death. The old Egyptians placed their dead before the judgment seat of Osiris ; the Jews traced theirs to the bosom of God ; the Greeks believed that their dead ancestors experienced material wants, and took part in human affairs ; the Romans imagined theirs to have become gods; and the Aryas of India held all sorts of fanciful notions about their buried fathers. So certain were they of the continued existence of the dead, that the faithful were most regular in pouring wine upon their graves, and in periodically opening them to supply them with other things. But the most singular thing is, that those Fijians and Australians, who haveno idea of God, and the aborigines of California, who were the most animal-like of all peoples, believed firmly in life after death. This general belief of mankind is no proof of itself of the immortality of the soul, for what everybody says may not be true; and William Rathlxrae Gregg is careful to remind us of this in his " Creed of Christendom." To him " the universal belief in a future state is only the natural result of universal love of life." He traces in earlier times the general belief of '' the possibility of a deathless existence upon earth," and thinks that as experience dissipated this dream or hope, so the dream of continuous existence elsewhere may pass away. No, it can never pass away. It is the most deep-rooted of all the religious instincts. The storms of scepticism may lash the human heart to fury through ten thousand ages, and ridicule may scathe and scorch it with the fiercest blasts of hell; suffering and dying mortals may be tantalised with the thought that immortality is only a hope, or what is worse, a delusion, — they will still believe it sufficiently to march with steady tread on that journey whence no traveller returns, believing with Tennyson :— : Thou wilt not lsare as In the dost; Thou modest man, he knows not why ; lie thinks be was not made to die : And Thou hast made him : Thou art just. But there are those who regard faith a* fanciful, and want proof of immortality; as though, forsooth, human life were lengthy enough and the human intellect able to solve this profouudest of all problems. Apart from ilevelation the problem can never be solved. Recent critics think Revelation does not solve it, and modern scientists who, having interrogated nature with such success, iuvade this realm of faith expecting the same results, must be told that science has now reached her limit. On this matter they know no more than the most lowly Christian at the plough's tail. The question is not susceptible of that proof which is the only one satisfactory to scientists, and if they will not rest the issue on Ilevelation Christians must decline the controrersy.

This is not an ingenious wriggling out of the dilliculty, nor will it be considered cantto say '' the argument is utterly inappreciableto the mere acute logician ; it is foolishness to him, 'becauseit is spiritually discerned.'"" These are the words of a. great living mathematician, Professor F. \V. Newman, the socalled " Religions Sceptic," who certainly must be regarded as an impartial witness for us. His work on " The Soul f. its Sorrows and Aspirations," is considered by many a dangerous book, but it teems with worldly wisdom; and if his more orthodox judges would only keep this argument on spiritual grounds as he does, there might not be an increasing number of disbelievers in immortality, as the author of " The Unseen Universe" alleges iathe case. Professor Newman writes :—"The question is spiritually discerned. This is as it should be. Can a mathematician understand physiology, or a physiologist questions of law ? A true love of Goa in the soul itself, an insight into Him depending on that love, and a hope rising out of that insight, are prerequisite for contemplating this spiritual doctrine." To him it is something more than an intellectual dogma, it is a lofty aspiration. He continues: —"It is very wholesome to nourish this expectation [of perpetual life with God] : for the higher thoughts we hold of our nature and our destinies, the more fervent will be our upward effort. Herein we discern some probability that the highest state which the soul here reaches, is not and cannot be meant by Gcd as its ultimate and absolutely highest; bnt that His work begun in it must needs go on towards perfection, unchecked by the .limit which we call death. That God should, as it were, elaborately train a soul for serving and loving Him, and then suddenly abandon His own workmanship, when its lineaments were beginning to exhibit the hand of the Divine Artist, appears a harsh and cruel thought." But being one of those desponding and doubting souls who, like Thomas, wants proof, his heart nervously, palpitates to think that for the human spirit " Confidence there is none, and hopeful aspiration is her highest state. Bnt, then, there is herein nothing to distress her, no cloud of grief crosses the area of her vision as she gazes upward ; for if her Lord, infinite in love and wisdom, sees that it cannot be, she herself could not wish it." And thus concludes this "dangerous'' writer: " Either Heaven is an empty name and foolish delusion, or it is a heaven on earth to be God's true servants. In any case, therefore, it remains to rest our on a faithful Creator, knowing that whether we live, we live unto Him ; or whether v. c die, we die unto Him." This, then, ;.s trie resting place of one who has sounded :. ; :ne depths of recent speculations ami pas=.<-d not unhurt through the fiercest conflicts o£ modern thought.

But there aro those who cannot rest in ] hopo, and we aro well aware that a recent writer in the Contemporary pooh-poohs our trusting to probabilities. All those who, with him, want "a settled end sure principle of assent and assurance which leaves no manner of room for doubt or hesitation," must be told plainly that concerning the Unseen this is impossible. It is almost grotesque to see some men groping about for this proof. Readers of Maudesley, Bain, and Buchner will remember some of their singular experiments to demonstrate that man is only a living organism, and while we perceive the general acceptance of their writings, we need not wonder at increasing doubts about the soul's immortality. To counteract their influence, leading theologians have undertaken to meet them on scientific grounds-, and they argue that the soul being a substance is utterly imperishable. This law of indestructibility, of course, is well known to every chemist; but, concerning the soul, we think it assumes too much, and is not necessary. Palcy and Butler and Leibnitz could take this ground in their day with more success than wo can now, because it is not so much What is the soul ? as Where is the sou! ? that our age is concerned with. Scepticism has gono deep down to the very root of human nature, and we are asked, with all the assurance of men who know we cannot do so, to prove that man has a soul. They will admit memory in every part of the body, but will not believe on our mere iptc dixit that after the dissolution of the body, the soul, or spirit, or living principle,—whatever we please to call it- still lives. They say, prove it, and we know that the proof they require is inipossib'e. But for those who are not utterly saturated with modern scepticism, there is abundant proof.

The inspired volume rests absolutely on the doctrine of future existence ; the whole race groans and travails in hope of that existence, and the Son of God has encouraged that hope with the promise, " Because I lire, ye shall live also. This is our immortality. Not the fanciful immortality of Buchner in the race, or of Plato and modern Brahmins in metempsychosis,— not the immortality of the savage, which knows change and decay, or the gross material existence of the Chinese, but the personal and conscious immortality of life with God, in purity and peace. This is the high :yid holy aspiration of our race, and but for this, "man, the most down-trodden of all creatures, would wrap his mantle about his face, creep like a wounded hare into a corner, and sob to death," eays Baring Gould ; and well he might, for, as Theodore Parker observes, " There is no hope for anyone in a body without a soul, an earth without a heaven, a world without a God." Citizen.