On Death and Immortality.
Did it ever strike you, dear reader, that it must
be a particularly pleasant thing to be dead? To
say nothing hackneyed about the blessed freedom
from the cares and vexations of life—which we cling
to with such tenacity while we can, and which, when
we have no longer the power to hold, we let go all
at once, with probably a feeling of exquisite relief—
and to take no account of this latter probable but
totally undemonstrable felicity, it must be what
boys call awfully jolly to be dead.
Here you are, lying comfortably upon your back—
what is left of it—in the cool dark, and with the smell
of the fresh earth all about you. Your soul goes
knocking about amongst an infinity of shadowy
things, Lord knows where, making all sorts of silent
discoveries in the gloom of what was yesterday an
unknown and mysterious future, and which, after
centuries of exploration, must still be strangely
unfamiliar. The nomadic thing doubtless comes back
occasionally to the old grave—if the body is so fortunate
as to possess one—and looks down upon it with
big round eyes and a lingering tenderness.
It is hard to conceive a soul entirely cut loose from
the old bones, and roving rudderless about eternity.
It was probably this inability to mentally divorce soul
from substance that gave us that absurdly satisfactory
belief in the resurrection of the flesh. There is
said to be a race of people somewhere in Africa who
believe in the immortality of the body, but deny the
resurrection of the soul. The dead will rise refreshed
after their long sleep, and in their anxiety to test
their rejuvenated powers, will skip bodily away and
forget their souls. Upon returning to look for
them, they will find nothing but little blue flames,
which can never be extinguished, but may be
carried about and used for cooking purposes. This
belief probably originates in some dim perception
of the law of compensation. In this life the body
is the drudge of the spirit; in the next the situation
is reversed.
The heaven of the Mussulman is not incompatible
with this kind of immortality. Its delights,
being merely carnal ones, could be as well or
better enjoyed without a soul, and the latter
might be booked for the Christian heaven, with
only just enough of the body to attach a pair of
wings to. Mr. Solyman Muley Abdul Ben Gazel
could thus enjoy a dual immortality and secure a
double portion of eternal felicity at no expense to
anybody.
In fact, there can be no doubt whatever that
this theory of a double heaven is the true one,
and needs but to be fairly stated to be universally
received, inasmuch as it supposes the maximum of
felicity for terrestrial good behaviour. It is therefore
a sensible theory, resting upon quite as solid a
foundation of fact as any other theory, and must
commend itself at once to the proverbial good sense
of Christians everywhere. The trouble is that some
architectural scoundrel of a priest is likely to build
a religion upon it; and what the world needs is
theory—good, solid, nourishing theory.
