All over the world to-day looms the brooding shadow of Death—that strange and solemn Mystery which to most of us seems a complete Disappearance for ever into the eternal Unknown. Though truly, if our faith in God be perfect, we should not look upon it as a Shadow, but a Brightness; a glorious fulfilment for which the experiences and trials of this present life are the needful training and preparation. Nevertheless, the ties of human affection are strong, and partings are always bitter—so that whether our beloved ones go away from us for weeks, months, or years—whether to a far country or to another world—it is hard to say “good-bye!” and the sorrow of separation is the sorrow of all the lives that are left thus lonely. The strongest and bravest of us know well enough that those we have lost are not really “dead,” but living elsewhere; yet the fact that they are not actually with us—that we cannot hear their voices or hold their hands in our own—is sufficient to crush us down under such a burden of grief that we feel as if we could never lift up our eyes to heaven again or trust the great Power Invisible which has allowed us to be deprived of all we hold most dear. Nothing can be said in the way of consolation that does not, at such a time, sound poor and trivial. A great grief is of all things the most sacred: and even the gentle words of the gentlest and most compassionate friend hurt like a careless touch on an open wound.

In this unspeakably wicked War much of our best and bravest British manhood has been sacrificed, to say nothing of the terrible losses suffered by our noble and resolute Allies. Young, promising, and heroic lives have been ruthlessly slaughtered on all the fields of battle, and it would not be too much to say that the whole of Europe is in mourning. It is the hour of supreme self-sacrifice; we are called upon to give the best of everything we have to our country, so that we may keep it safe from the invasion of a remorseless foe, and hold its liberty intact. Blood and treasure and tears are the price of our freedom; we hold nothing back. But an awful responsibility rests upon all those who primarily brought about this most un-Christian world-contest; for war and the murder of the many is always the result of the evil thoughts and passions of a misguided few. If Peoples in the aggregate were governed by strong, brave, honest men who loved equity more than their own advancement, there would be no wars. But as yet we are still seeking for even One strong, brave, honest man! Our national Poet speaks truth when he tells us,—

“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

Meanwhile, for the incalculable crimes of Dishonest Governments, the Peoples are bereaved of their children—their young manhood—and mothers, sisters, sweethearts, wives, and little ones are flung remorselessly into withering fires of agony, and drowned in a deep sea of tears. Who shall comfort these poor wounded hearts?—who shall fill these empty and desolate lives?—who shall raise them from their swooning despair amid the dust of graves and turn their hopes towards that Higher Life, which though unseen and unrealised, is as certain as what we understand to be life in this world? The Christian Faith is, or should be, the Comforter, if accepted in its true spiritual sense. We are too prone to deaden and cheapen its splendid teaching by the dullness of our own understanding: we seek to materialise into common earthiness that which is purely heavenly. If we trusted more absolutely in the Divine Intelligence, through whose will and power we have come into being, we should be entirely sure of the positive truth pronounced by St. Paul to the Corinthians:—

“There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.... So also is the resurrection of the dead; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.”

This is what all the scientific, theological, and psychical instructors that ever lived in the world have been striving to teach humanity through ages upon ages. But we still continue to cling to the natural “body”—not the spiritual—to the temporal, and not the eternal; and, despite both religion and science, we surround the episode of death with every sort of gloomy panoply and weeping protest against the Divine decree. Yet our men who have died at the front have died with extraordinary cheerfulness; it would seem that some God-given influence has surrounded them in the very midst of all the most awful ways of dying! Never a murmur—never a complaint—never a regret! Wonderful, and indeed miraculous is this, if we pause to think of it! It is as if they knew, or were being told, that there are many things in life worse than death! They face the Last Terror with a dauntless smile and unflinching eyes, and it may be that they see light where many of us, blinded by personal sorrow, are only conscious of darkness. Our Selves are the clouds which cover the sun.

And while we continue to sit in the shadow and mourn for our absent, though never lost ones, it is well we should bear in mind that no life lived on earth, however long extended, is complete. No lesson is ever thoroughly learned, no accomplishment ever entirely mastered. No poet, musician, or painter ever produced a “perfect” work. Why? Because here we are only in a preparatory school—wider instruction is to come. The fullness of existence which is ultimately destined to be ours is an ever-increasing perfection and power which are at present impossible for us to conceive. Just as when we came into this world we had no knowledge beforehand of its natural beauties and delights, so in the same way we cannot, in our present condition, realise the “Shall Be” of the Hereafter. Our bodies, to which we attach such undue importance here, are composed entirely of particles or atoms which are constantly changing, and none of us possess the same body we had seven or fourteen years ago. That body has already suffered death—not by violence, but by change. The manner in which the change has been effected is not perceived by ourselves, yet it has occurred. Identity of person does not depend on the identity of these atoms; the individual Spirit is the same, despite the shifting forces or renewal of cells in its tenement of clay. Continuity, persistency, and individuality are eternal laws, and remake the vesture of the soul according to its needs. Therefore our beloved dead are not truly dead, for, “as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”

Many of us find it difficult—even impossible—to accept this reasoning, and why? Because our minds are always more or less attuned to the lower key of Self—Self, and our own private and particular sorrow. As long as this is the case the light will never come through the gloom; we shall never “see God.” We shall never understand that the lives sacrificed with such splendid heroism, for the freedom and purification of the whole world, have not ceased to live, and that they have simply “passed on.” But—is not the parting from them cruel? Ah, yes! but partings even more cruel are common in the most ordinary daily life. When love grows cold—when fair illusions perish—when the friend we trusted is treacherous and ungrateful—when we have to “let go” those we have most dearly cherished to other loves and new surroundings—are not these things “cruel”? Crueller far than death!—for death most usually clears up many misunderstandings and sets the true soul right with itself and with that which it has loved faithfully. For there are many kinds of so-called “love” which is not love at all, but merely the passion or caprice of the moment, and which, if resolved into marriage between the two persons concerned, ends in mutual indifference and life-long unhappiness, and in such cases, death is a release which separates finally and for ever. But there is another sort of love which is so deep and unselfish, and loyal, that it needs no earthly bond to make it eternal, and which, no matter how long the parting, whether by absence or death, is so truly love in the highest sense that all the powers of earth or heaven could not hinder its complete union with the beloved.

“Shall we meet again?” sighs the bereaved mother, the lonely wife, the despairing lover! Most assuredly you will!—by all the known laws of attraction in this glorious Universe you must meet again, if your love be love indeed! Love is not limited by time or space; we know that we can obtain light from a star many millions of miles distant, and in the same way we can give and receive love from our parted dear ones, and can exert this power far beyond the confines of our bodies. But only when love is really true can this happen. For, when the veil is withdrawn from heaven and the released Spirit goes hence, it sees and knows clearly which of all its friends on earth has loved it most unselfishly and sincerely—whose sorrow is the most tender—whose faith is most entirely faithful! And only shall such an one meet it again and rejoice in everlasting union. We find our own: we discover our beloved ones in that state of clear vision and life-fulfilment to which we are all hastening. And in realising this we shall also realise that in all the truths of science and of reasoning there is No Death; and that we deceive ourselves in the confusing shadow of our personal griefs when they are strong and bitter as they are to-day, because of our own “personal” sense of loss.

“It is because my beloved is gone!” is the cry—“Because I shall see him no more!”

Patience! He has not “gone” far! Just into the next room of existence, whither you yourself will soon go; there is but the slightest partition between you! And you will see him, as it were, directly—and you will know him, as he will see and know you!—and you will wonder why you shed so many tears when all the while he is alive, and happy in the consciousness of having done something in his earthly life to prepare a cleaner, safer world for the generations coming after him.

But, if this is so, some of us ask, why are we not given the proofs of it? Why does not God make us sure? You might as well demand why, in the former ages of the world, the learning and science of the present day were not revealed. “Sound-waves,” “light-rays,” “radium,” “electric force,”—all these existed from the very beginning of creation—why were we not told? Simply because, by universal law, all advancement is, and must be the result of gradual evolvement, suited to the slowly expanding capacity of the human brain and its attendant mental spirituality, and because it is decreed that we shall “work out our own salvation.” One thing is certain, and that is, that—if we knew—if we were told the smallest part of the wondrous hidden future awaiting us, hardly any of us would have the resolution to live this preparatory life through! We should all hurry ourselves out of the world, for we would not have the patience to endure its schooling. We could not wait. We would rush to grasp our glory; we would not work to win it, and so we might lose what we must ourselves deserve to gain. Hence arose the saying, “Those whom the gods love die young.” For their schooling has been brief and easy—“Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours.”

A striking illustration of faith in God and the future life has been given to us in these days of darkness by the heroic martyrdom and death of Edith Cavell, murdered by human brutes for whom Christianity has become a dead letter. Her resignation, and her thanks to God for her “ten weeks’ quiet before the end”—her unaffected devotion to the Christian Faith—her simple “Good-bye” to her spiritual adviser with a happy smile and her confident assurance, “We shall meet again!” make a brilliant and inspiring contrast to the doubt and distrust of God’s mercy openly manifested by many of those who are bereaved and mourning in the “Valley of the Shadow.” Prayerfully one wonders when the inhabitants of this small planet of ours will come to realise the fixed law of its being?—a Law which knows no changing! Namely, that Progression towards Good—Good, not only for one’s Self, but for Humanity—brings peace and prosperity; while Retrogression towards Evil results in war and ruin! God Himself cannot undo this Law, which is part of His own Eternal Existence—it is as fixed as the poles. We dare not blame His Almighty justice for the evil we have deliberately brought upon ourselves. No one can deny that all the nations now warring together have for many years past sought to put God altogether out of their countings, while societies and individuals, rejoicing in prolonged good fortune and taking as their right the blessings bestowed upon them through the mercy of a beneficent and kindly Providence, have forgotten to Whom they should give thanks, and have become “puffed up,” as the Psalmist says, with pride, and enervated by luxury. We have had innumerable warnings, but we would not listen. We have made a jest and a mockery of all those who sought to rouse us from our lethargy. We have permitted such inroads of vice and atheism into our lives and morals, our art and letters, as might make pagans blush. The Press of the world has not occupied itself with the uplifting of the brotherhood of the peoples,—on the contrary, it has taken pleasure in sowing the seeds of discontent and rebellion, and has given prominence to the unworthy, praising the stage-mime more than the statesman—the materialist more than the idealist. Moreover, so far as our foe is concerned, it has left no stone unturned that could rouse the Teuton wolf from its lair. Bitter mockery, stinging gibe, misplaced sneers—these have all been flung at Germany for the past ten years or more, and, though they have been written chiefly by half-educated young men and boys who in the might of an ineffable conceit “rush in where angels fear to tread,” they have had harmful effect. A great statesman said to me recently, “Had there been no Press there would have been no war.”

This may or may not be true,—but whether true or false the eternal verities make no mistake in their summing-up of evil things to a fatal figure. Thoughts give place to words, and words to actions. The War-thought is the embryo of the War-deed. Let us not, therefore, in the bitterness of our own personal sorrows blame God, or demand “Where was He?” when our dear ones have been slain. The nations have brought this chastisement of terror upon themselves; and that the innocent must suffer with the guilty is the worst part of the punishment. The world was becoming sordid, covetous, and materialistic; and now the young and strong and brave of our best manhood are called upon to cleanse it of its foul humours and to leave it clean. Some thousands of lives must be sacrificed in this great struggle for Freedom and for Right, but better to die honoured than live shamed! Life, as generally lived, is not worth the pains we take to preserve it; we do our loved ones an infinite wrong when we assume that their best chance of happiness is to eat and sleep and play, and make the wherewithal to eat and sleep and play. A brave death is more valuable than an ignoble life; death itself being the admission to a more vital and splendid experience.

This being so, we should not mourn as “those having no hope.” We, who have loved and lost for a time, will go on loving till we find our lost again, as we shall surely do. We shall meet and know each other on that higher plane where life is life indeed and love is love indeed; and we shall make amends for all our weeping and complaint. We shall see how slight and brief, after all, were the troubles of this present, compared with the perfect joy of the attained future. And we shall read the Book of the Wisdom of God without mistaking one word or letter of its meaning, and we shall learn that Love alone is the conqueror of all kingdoms. So lift up your weeping eyes, ye million mourners!—lift them to the Light and Life Eternal, which shall not fail you even in this dark Battle-Dream of Death!