What Peace Means | Page 8

the presence of death, but
trusting all to your love and to God's, and taking just what came from
day to day, from hour to hour. And then suddenly the light went out in
the shining eyes. The brave heart stopped. The soul was gone. Lost,
perished, blotted out forever in the darkness of death? Ah, no; you
know better than that. That clear, dawning intelligence, that deepening
love, that childlike faith in God, that pure innocence of soul, did not
come from the dust. How could they return thither? The music ceases
because the instrument is broken. But the player is not dead. He is
learning a better music. He is finding a more perfect instrument. It is

impossible that he should be holden of death. God wastes nothing so
precious.
"What is excellent As God lives is permanent. Hearts are dust; hearts'
loves remain. Hearts' love will meet thee again."
But I am sure that we must go further than this in order to understand
the full strength and comfort of the text. The assertion of the impotence
of death to end all is based upon something deeper than the prophecy of
immortality in the human heart. It has a stronger foundation than the
outreachings of human knowledge and moral effort towards a higher
state in which completion may be attained. It has a more secure ground
to rest upon than the deathless affection with which our love clings to
its object The impotence of death is revealed to us in the spiritual
perfection of Christ.
Here then, in the "power of an endless life," I find the corner-stone of
peace on earth among men of good-will Take this mortal life as a thing
of seventy years, more or less, to which death puts a final period, and
you have nothing but confusion, chance and futility,--nothing safe,
nothing realized, nothing completed. Evil often triumphs. Virtue often
is defeated.
"The good die young, And we whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket."
But take death, as Christ teaches us, not as a full stop, but as only a
comma in the story of an endless life, and then the whole aspect of our
existence is changed. That which is material, base, evil, drops down.
That which is spiritual, noble, good, rises to lead us on.
The conviction of immortality, the forward-looking faith in a life
beyond the grave, the spirit of Easter, is essential to peace on earth for
three reasons.
I. It is the only faith that lifts man's soul, which is immortal, above his
body, which is perishable. It raises him out of the tyranny of the flesh
to the service of his ideals. It makes him sure that there are things

worth fighting and dying for. The fighting and the dying, for the cause
of justice and liberty, are sacrifices on the Divine altar which shall
never be forgotten.
II. The faith in immortality carries with it the assurance of a Divine
reassessment of earth's inequalities. Those who have suffered unjustly
here will be recompensed in the future. Those who have acted wickedly
and unjustly here will be punished. Whether that punishment will be
final or remedial we do not know. Perhaps it may lead to the extinction
of the soul of evil, perhaps to its purifying and deliverance. On these
questions I fall back on the word of God: "The wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
III. The faith in immortality brings with it the sense of order,
tranquillity, steadiness and courage in the present life. It sets us free
from mean and cowardly temptations, makes it easier to resist the wild
animal passions of lust and greed and cruelty, brings us into eternal
relations and fellowships, makes us partners with the wise and good of
all the ages, ennobles our earthly patriotism by giving us a heavenly
citizenship. Yea, it knits us in bonds of love with the coming generation.
It is better than the fountain of youth. We shall know and see them as
they go on their way, long after we have left the path. The faith in
immortality sets a touch of the imperishable on every generous impulse
and unselfish deed. It inspires to sublime and heroic virtues,--spiritual
splendours,--deeds of sacrifice and suffering for which earth has no
adequate recompense, but whose reward is great in heaven. Here is the
patience of the saints, the glorious courage of patriots, martyrs, and
confessors, something more bright and shining than secular morality
can bring forth,--a flashing of the inward light which fails not, but
grows clearer as death draws near. What noble evidences of this come
to us out of the great war.
"Are you in great distress?" asked