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Page 48
If any one should object to prayers for the dead because the privilege
and duty seem so distinctively a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church,
my only reply is that we should never ask who are the advocates of any
teaching, but, only, is it true? Each branch of the church emphasizes
some phase of truth. The Roman Church has given more prominence to
prayers for the dead than Protestants, and because of that it will have
the gratitude of many honest souls who cannot believe that they are
entirely and forever severed from those whom they have loved and still
love.
I am well aware that there are many difficult questions concerning this
subject which it is impossible for me to answer. Some truths are clearly
revealed and of others we have only glimpses. Concerning some we feel
more than we know, and feelings which are not selfish are prophetic.
What an earnest and inquiring spirit feels must be true is quite as
likely to be found true as conclusions which seem to have been reached
by a process of faultless logic.
I fully believe that we are justified in praying for those who have
departed this life, that the good may grow better, that the clouds which
obscure the vision of the unbelieving may be removed, that all taints of
animalism may be washed away; and that we should pray even for the
wicked, that the disciplinary processes through which they are passing
may some time and somehow lead them to submit their wills to the love
and truth of God. We may pray for our loved ones, not simply by way of
asking something for them, but in order that there may be a meeting
place,--a time for communion and fellowship between those here and those
beyond the veil. That meeting place must be found in our common
approach to God.
Does this teaching seem mystical and fanciful? What if it does? It is in
line with the human heart's deepest desires, and with the soul's
immortal aspirations. What they most earnestly affirm in their hours of
deepest need, and highest illumination, cannot be altogether without
foundation in reason and in the Scriptures.
The unity of life cannot be too strongly emphasized. Life is one. It is
all under the eye and in the strength of God. It has to do with spirit;
death, if there is any such thing, has to do with matter. Spirits always
grow because they always live. The universe is not composed of two
hemispheres, in the upper one of which are to be gathered all the good
and in the lower all the evil. It is saner and better to believe that
the universe is a sphere in which, in their own places, are all the
spirits of men, some beautiful with the holiness of God; some only
beginning to rise toward Him, like seed that has broken the soil and
begun to move toward the light; and still others like seed whose
possibilities are all hidden, but which are not destroyed and which some
day also will hear the divine call, feel the touch of God's light, and
begin to move toward Him.
We live in the midst of mystery. In the future we shall probably find
that our best attempts at rational answers to many questions have gone
wide of the mark. The most that any of us can do is to be true to
ourselves, and to respond to every call from above. In the midst of the
gloom of mortal existence it is safe to follow our hearts.
We long to commune with those who have gone, to help them and to be
helped by them. This longing is natural and rational. That it is not
without reason is proved by the example of our Master, who, after His
death, is represented as ministering to those whom He loved, and who, we
are told, ever liveth to make intercession for us.
What our hearts desire, what harmonizes with reason, what is confirmed
by the revelations and example of our divine Teacher, will persuade none
far from the path which leads to light and felicity.
Those whom men call dead, it is best to believe, have but entered upon
another phase of the eternal life of the spirit.
The Roman Church has an act or service called "The Culture of the Dead."
It means the "practice of the presence" of those who, though gone from
us, in spirit are with us. The Creed has an article which reads, "I
believe in the communion of saints." The Christian year has one day
called "All Saints' Day." We shall not be far from the traditions of
the church when we pray for our beloved, whether they be in the body or
out of the body.
Those who would realize the beatitude of this privilege should remember
the truth in this stanza from "In Memoriam:"
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