By J.R. Miller
Consciousness of immortality is a mighty motive in life. If we think only of what lies in the little dusty circle about our feet, we miss the glory for which we were made. But if we realize even dimly the fact that we are immortal, a new meaning is given to every joy of our life, to every hope of our heart, to every work of our hands.
The realization of this truth of immortality in our personal consciousness, is partly at least a matter of education. We may train ourselves to think of our life in its larger aspect. We may allow our mind to dwell only on material things, and keep our eyes on the narrow patch of earth on which we walk in our daily rounds. Or we may persist in lifting our thoughts to things which are unseen and eternal. This really is most important in the truest religious training and discipline, and we should lose no opportunity to get glimpses of things which are imperishable.
A literary friend tells of an experience with an optometrist. Her eyes were troubling her, and she asked him if she did not need a pair of new glassed. He replied, after making an examination, that it was rest which her eyes needed, not different lenses. She assured him that this was an impossible prescription, telling him a little of what she must do day by day. After a moment's thought, he asked her if she had not some wide views from her windows. She replied enthusiastically that she had - that from her front porch she could see the noble peaks of the Blue Ridge and from her back window the glories of the Alleghany foothills. "That is just what you need," said the oculist. "When your eyes get tired with your reading or writing, go and stand at your back window or your front porch, and look steadily at your mountains for five minutes--ten will be better. This far look will rest your eyes."
The friend finds in this direction, a parable for her own daily life. "Soul of mine," she says to herself, "are you tired of the little treadmill round of care and worry, of the conflicts with evil, of the struggles after holiness, of the harrowing grief of this world--tired of today's dreary commonplaces? Then rest your spiritual eyes by getting a far vision. Look up to the beauty of God's holiness. Look in upon the throngs of the redeemed, waiting inside the gates. Look out upon the wider life which stretches away illimitably."
It is such an outlook that the thought of immortality gives to us. We live in our narrow sphere in this world, treading round and round in the same little circle. Life's toils and tasks so fill our hands, that we scarcely have time for a thought of anything else. Its secularities and its struggles for bread, keep us ever bent down to the earth. The tears of sorrow, dim our vision of God and of heaven. The dust and smoke of earth's battles, hide the blue of heaven. We need continually to get far looks to rest us, and to keep us in mind of the great world which stretches away beyond our close horizons. The glimpses of eternity which flash upon us as we read our Bible or look into Christ's face, tell us anew that we so easily forget that we are immortal, that our life really has no horizon.
It is very inspiring to think of human life in this way, as reaching out beyond what we call death--and into eternity. Dying is not the end of our life--it is but an incident, a phase or process of living. Dying is not a wall, cutting off our path--it is a gate, through which we pass into larger fuller life. We say we have only three score and ten years to live, and must plan only for hopes or efforts which we can bring within this limit. But, really, we may make plans which will require ten thousand years--for we shall never die.
Life is short, even at the longest. It is but a little which we can do in our brief broken years. We begin things and we are interrupted in the midst of them, before they are half finished. A thousand breaks occur in our plans. We purpose to build something very beautiful, and scarcely have we laid the foundation when we are called to something else, or laid aside by illness, or our life ends and the work remains unfinished. It is pathetic, when a busy man has been called away suddenly--for us to go into his office or place of business or work, and see the unfinished tings he has left--a letter half written, a book half read, a picture begun but not completed. Life is full of mere fragments, mere beginnings of things.
If there is nothing beyond death, but little can come of all this poor fragmentary living and doing. The assurance, however, that life will go on without serious break, through endless years, puts a new meaning into every noble and worthy beginning. The smallest things that we start in this world will go on forever.
Paul tells us, at the close of his wonderful chapter on the resurrection, that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Beyond our narrow horizon, a world of infinite largeness awaits us. Nothing done for Christ shall fail or be in vain. All good things shall live forever. The seeds we sow here which cannot come to harvest in earth's little years, will have abundant time for ripening in the measureless after years. The slowest ripening fruit will some day become mellow and luscious.
There is comfort in this for those whose life seems a failure here--crushed like a trampled flower under the heel of wrong or sin--broken and torn. There will be time enough in the immortal days for such broken lives to grow into strength and loveliness. Think of living a thousand years, a million years, in a world where there shall be no sin, no struggle, no injustice, no failure--but where every influence shall be inspiring and enriching; for in the immortal life all growth is towards youth, not toward the decrepitude of age.
The truth of immortality gives us a vision also of continued existence in love and blessedness, for those who have passed from us and beyond our sight. We miss them and we ask a thousand questions about them, yet get no answer from this world's wisdom. But looking through the broken grave of Christ, as through a window we see green fields on the other side, and amid the gladness and the joy we catch glimpses of the dear faces which we miss from the earthly circle. The New Testament shows us Jesus Himself beyond death, and He was not changed. He had the same gentle heart. He had not forgotten His friends. Thus it is that looking through the window of Christ's rent tomb--we have a vision of life as immortal and in the truth of immortality we find boundless inspiration, comfort for every sorrow, and gain for every loss.
