Love that above; that peaceful world, Where warring winds no more shall vex But God shall wipe away all tears From every weeping eye. BOSTON, MASS. LIFE IN HEAVEN. BY B. F. TEFFT, D.D. "Heaven 's the perfection of all that can Be said or thought, riches, delight, or harmony, SHIRLEY. THE Duke of Buckingham was the prime minister of King James of England, the personal friend of Lord Bacon, and the greatest diplomatist of his age. He was employed by his sovereign to negotiate a marriage between prince Charles, the eldest son of James, and Henrietta Maria, sister of the young king of France. Having visited that country, and accomplished the high business on which he had been sent, he returned to England, greatly elated with his success. One circumstance, and only one, damped his joy. The king, set on by unworthy men, had committed the great philosopher to the Tower. No sooner had the duke dispatched his duties at the palace, than, with a grateful recollection of the virtues and mental qualities of his friend, he hastened to the prison to spend a few choice hours in conversation with the man, whom all subsequent ages have pronounced the profoundest and ablest of modern times. The duke found the philosopher in an ample dungeon, with a cheerful fire of coal burning in a grate, with lights blazing above his head, with a wide table spread out and covered with maps, charts, diagrams, and manuscripts, and with huge volumes of black-letter English, of paler Latin, and of jet-black Greek, lying in a rich confusion upon the floor. The prisoner was dressed in his gayest mode, with a philosopher's gown thrown over him, and with a fillet of oak leaves passing around his head. When the duke entered, the sage was so immersed in study, that he did not at once notice his visitor; but, as soon as he had been roused by the keeper of the prison, he arose with a peculiar dignity, saluted the officer, and, recognizing the familiar countenance of his friend, greeted Buckingham with a mingled ease and warmth, which only a great mind knows how to do without effort. 66 Thou art surrounded by the richest furniture of earth, my lord." 66 And I no longer envy the world's wealth and pride ; and, to say truth, noble duke, I am happier in this prison than I ever was in the palace of King James. With the cares of state upon my mind, I had but little opportunity for more genial pursuits; but now, more careless how the common world goes on, I have nothing to withdraw my attention from the great intellectual problems that lie scattered through the wide universe of God. This universe, sir, I now look upon as the residence of my spirit, the heaven-domed and star-lit palace of my mind. Here I dwell, and here I shall for ever dwell, only changing my condition, from age to age, as the caterpillar changes his, when the winged butterfly mounts upward from the low dwelling of the worm!" be "Thou thinkest, then, my lord, that the future state will very similar to this, and that whatever difference is experienced, will be chiefly or wholly in our position?" 66 Nothing, it seems to me, can be more probable. The universe may be regarded as an immense hollow sphere, as one single and glorious building, in which all beings, from the glow-worm to the archangel, dwell; but, in this great house there are numerous apartments, each apartment being fitted up for the special accommodation of a particular section of the great family of God. As the fish occupy the ocean, quadrupeds the land, and the fowls of heaven the circumambient air, so the various orders of intelligences, ranging between this planet and the throne of the Eternal, have their respective chambers particularly adapted to their wants; but, as the badger is the same being both when he burrows in the earth and when he basks in the sun, and as the frog is the same, whether he lives in the pool or leaps in the open air, so man changes not his essence, his personality, his character, but only his circumstances, in passing from one room or division of God's mansion to another. How does it seem, my noble friend, to thee? 66 'Not otherwise than thou hast said; only I have never been able to divert myself of the apprehension that death is to be the agent, or the harbinger, of a wonderful but unknown and mysterious change." "A change, certainly, not of nature, but of circumstances. The little tenant of the cradle, whose eyes have but just opened upon the sun's broad light, has passed, as I may say, from one world to another, but without changing his character as a living being. An hour or more since, and his whole existence was dependent upon the existence of another. From that other he derived the lifecurrents, that leaped through his arteries, and supported his young being. Through that other came to his triplyveiled spirit every impression from the greater world of material nature, by which the less was magnificently surrounded. Now he has come, by a kind of death, to live an independent and higher life, by more direct experience, within the second and larger sphere of his existence. But the nature of that existence is not altered. So, when death lays off the mortal coil that enwraps us all, we go into a yet wider theatre of life, but without alteration of the essential constitution of our real being. Death, whether in the former or latter case, neither creates nor destroys, but only, like a faithful messenger, leads us from one apartment to another of God's glorious dwelling, till we have ascended into his immediate presence. So, my lord, it seems to me. Do I offend thy judgment in these opinions?" |