or be bewildered, for a moment, but our distinct individuality will revive and stand out as the great headland in the sea of our existence. VIII. INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE DEAD AND THE LIVING. "But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain, Can those who have loved forget? We call them far, through the silent night; But they speak not from cave nor hill; We know, we know that their land is bright, We have here an inquiry of touching interest, and one that requires to be treated with great delicacy. We have already shown that the righteous dead are with Christ. To wish that they were constantly with or around us would be as selfish as it would be unkind. We delight in the society of those nearly allied to us on earth-our children— and yet we send them forth from us because we know the great ends of our common being require it. Heaven we know is the home of the angels of God; but we also know that they go forth-nay, even come down to earth as ministering spirits. By this means there is a strange, mysterious intercourse between the ministering angels and living men. They are not always away from heaven, nor would we wish them to be. We would almost fear that something earthly and gross might be contracted by them, and that even their own joy might be marred by their too constant intercourse with sinful and sorrowing beings. We would have them return often to heaven, to bathe in its celestial light, to catch anew its holy joy, and thus to come back to us again, to labor with more ardent zeal for our salvation. So should we feel in relation to the dead in Christ-our own loved dead! Among those myriads of angelic messengers is it not possible that there should sometimes be found one who was once an inhabitant of earth? Is it not possible that our departed kindred-our parents, our companions, our dear children that passed from us in the bloom of life, a loved brother or sister-may revisit earth, and come to minister to us in that which is holy and good-to breathe around us influences that will draw us heavenward? If it be possible to revisit earth, this, no doubt, is the glorious mission on which they would desire to come. Is such return to earth possible? One, at least, we may claim on Bible authority, has revisited earth, if the spirit of Samuel appeared to Saul after the incantations of the sorceress of Endor. "Had it been satisfactorily known," says Bishop Burgess, "through any other channel than Divine Revelation, that Saul saw Samuel on the eve of his own fall, and heard his words, 'To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me,' it would still have been a fact in the history of mankind, and would have proved, as truly as now, the possibility of such apparitions. That there was a real appearance of Samuel is the plainest interpretation of the language, was the belief of the ancient Jews, and has been supposed by the best divines. He came, not through any power of the sorceress, it would seem, but to her utter amazement. Once, therefore, a departed spirit has revisited the earth, and has been seen and heard; and it is worthy of remark that he took the form and aspect in which he might be the best recognized." But whatever question or room for doubt there may be in relation to this appearance of Samuel, there can be none in relation to the return of Moses and Elias, many centuries after their removal to the world of spirits. They were seen and heard by Peter, James, and John upon the Mount of Transfiguration. Dr. Adam Clarke expresses it as his opinion that spirits from the invisible world, including also human spirits which have gone there, may have intercourse with this world, and even become visible to mortals. They are not brought back into mortal life, but only brought within the sphere of visibility. All along through the Bible the thing, at least by implication, is again and again recognized. As when Peter, miraculously delivered from prison, appeared at the gate, the frightened disciples exclaimed, "It is his angel!" or when the Savior appeared walking upon the water, "they supposed it had been a spirit." We might also cite the universal belief of all ages in not only the possible, but the actual occasional return of the departed from the spirit-world to revisit the earth. There have been numerous accounts of their actual apparition in all ages, but for the most part those apparitions have been made under circumstances that precluded the possibility of proof beyond the testimony of the persons to whom they were made. In other instances a morbid imagination and an excited state of the nerves have furnished the most ready solution. Many other alleged cases, on investigation, have been found wholly wanting in any proper validity from any responsible witnesses. And it must, I think, be conceded that "no single instance of ghostly apparition has been sufficiently authenticated to take its place in history as an acknowledged fact." But, after all, the idea can not be set down as an exploded fancy; for we must yet, with Johnson, regard it, even after so many ages of inquiry and observation, as still an undetermined question. We are still inclined, after setting aside the great number of such alleged events as fictions or as mistaken conceptions, to believe the occurrence of such a thing possible, if not actual. While this view is clearly authorized by the fairest deductions from the Bible, it involves, so far as we can perceive, neither in reason nor in the nature of things, any impossibility. The form in which the spirits of the departed might be expected most frequently to visit us would be in that of spiritual communion. There are seasons when the soul seems to recognize the presence of, and to hold communion with, the departed. They are like angelic visitants; we meet them in our lonely walks, in our deep and solemn meditations, and in our closet communings; we meet them when the lengthening shadows hallow the eventide-mysterious and solemn is their communion; we meet them when sorrows encompass us round about, and hallowed is the influence their presence imparts. Who shall say that at such times there is not a real communion between the living and the dead? Who shall say that there is not, then, a real presence of the dead with the living? Neander speaks of a custom among the early. Christians of cherishing the memory of departed friends by celebrating the anniversary of their death in a manner suited to the Christian faith and hope. "It was usual on this day," says he, "to partake of the communion under a sense of the inseparable fellowship of those who had died in the Lord. A gift was laid on the altar in their name as if they were still living members of the family." So also, he says, "the whole Church would celebrate the anniversary of those who had died as witnesses of the Lord-the holy martyrs; and the communion was celebrated in the consciousness of continued fellowship with them." This is a sublime, beautiful idea! How simple, and yet how deep and earnest, the faith of the early and holy people of God! "The communion of the saints," says Dr. Nevin, "regards not merely Christians on earth, but also the sainted dead; according to the true words of the hymn, 'The saints on earth and. all the dead but one communion make.' There is a pernicious view in the religious world at the present time by which the dead are taken to be so dissociated from the living as to have no part further in the onward movement of Christ's kingdom." It was the impression of Mr. Wesley concerning Emanuel Swedenborg, whom he knew personally, that the strong impression on his mind of the presence of deceased friends, at particular moments, was produced by their actual but invisible presence. Oberlin, also, for many years, claimed to enjoy intimate communion with the dead. And thousands of Christians have had, at times, as clear and overpowering a consciousness of the spiritual presence of departed friends as of their own self-being. And what is peculiarly to be observed is that this communion has been realized only by those most spiritual in their nature, and peculiarly allied by the power of a living faith to Christ. There is one other fact bearing upon this subject which we can not now forbear. It is the affecting recognition of` the presence of the dead in Christ, which is sometimes realized by the dying saint. Parents have recognized departed children as present to welcome them, just at the moment of their own departure; so have children recognized the presence of a sainted father or mother; also brothers and sisters have thus seemed to meet each other on the dividing line between this world and the next. Hannah More, when dying, extended her arms as if to embrace some one, called the name of a beloved sister long before departed, exclaimed, "Joy!" and expired. Most touching is the story of Carnaval, who was long known as a lunatic in Paris. His reason had been unsettled by the early death of the object of his tender and most devoted affection. He could never be made to comprehend that she was dead, but spent his life in the vain search for the longlost object of his love. She was the absorbing idea of his |