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DEATH TO THE INVALID.
 “To smell a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are the
thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.” Fuller.

“And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams,

Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.”
Henry Vaughan.

What subject is so interesting to the full of life as that of death? What

taste is so universal in childhood and youth as that for learning all that can
be known of the thoughts and feelings of the dying? Did we not all, in our
young days, turn to the death part in all biographies; to the death articles in
all cyclopædias; to the discourses on sickness and death in all sermon
books; to the prayers in the prospect of death in all books of devotion? Do
not the most common-place writers of fiction crowd their novels with death
scenes, and indifferent tragedy writers kill off almost all their characters?
Do not people crowd to executions; and do not those who stay at home
learn all they can of the last words and demeanour of the sufferers? Are not
the visions of heroic children, (and of many grown children), chiefly about
pain and a noble departure? Is there any curiosity more lively than that
which we all feel about the revelations of persons resuscitated from
drowning? Is it not their nearer position to death which makes sick persons
so awful to children who are not familiar with them,—so interesting a
subject of speculation to all? How is it then with the invalids themselves?
Nothing need be said here of short, sharp, fatal illness. Most of us know
that short, sharp illnesses, not fatal, have not enlightened us much in regard
to death and its appropriate feelings. Either pain or exhaustion usually
causes, in such cases, an apathy which leaves nothing to be remembered or
revealed. I was once told by a child, after some hours of exhausting pain,
what she had overheard below,—that if some contingency, which she
specified, did not arise, I should die before night. I fully believed it; and I
felt nothing, unless it were some wonder at feeling nothing. Almost every
person has a similar anecdote to tell; and there remains only the short and
pregnant moral, that all preparations for leaving this life, and entering on
the next, should be made while the body is well and the spirit alive.
 But how does death appear to those who rest half-way between it and
life, or are very gradually passing over from the one to the other?
Much depends, of course, on how far the vital forces are impaired—on
whether the condition be such as to obscure or to purify the spiritual vision.
If we want to know the effect of nearness and realisation, and not the
pathology of the case, we must suppose the vital powers to remain faithful,
however they may be weakened.
In such cases, I imagine the views of death remain much what they were
before, though they must necessarily become more interesting, and the
conception of them more clear. I know of no case of any one who before
believed, or took for granted, a future life, who began to disbelieve or doubt
it through sickness. I have known cases of those who disbelieved it in
health, seeing no reason to change their opinion on the approach of death,—
being content to have lived—satisfied to leave life when its usefulness and
pleasantness are gone—not desiring a renewal of it, but ready to awake
again at the word of their Creator, if indeed a further existence be in reserve
for them. Such cases I have known: but none of a material change of views
in the prospect of death.
To me, the presumption of the inextinguishable vitality of the spirit
afforded by the experience of material decay, is the strongest I am
acquainted with. No amount of evidence of any fact before the reason, no
demonstration of any truth to the understanding, affords to me such a sense
of certainty as the action of the spirit yields, with regard to its own
immortality, at times when there can be no deception from animal spirits, or
from immediate sympathy with other minds, or from what is called the
natural desire for life. It is a mistake to say, as is frequently said, that, with
regard to a future life, “the wish is father to the thought,” always or
generally. Long-suffering invalids can tell that there are seasons, neither
few nor short, when the wishes are all the other way,—when life is so
oppressive to the frame that the happiest news would be that we should
soon be non-existent,—when, thankful as we are that our beloved friends,
the departed and the remaining, are to live for evermore with God, and
enjoy his universe and its intercourses, we should be glad to, decline it for
ourselves, and to lie down in an eternal, unbroken rest. At these seasons,
when, though we know all that can be said of renewed powers and relish,
and a more elevated and privileged life beyond the grave, we cannot feel it;
and, while admitting all such consolations as truth, we cannot enjoy them,
but, as a mere matter of inclination, had rather resign our privileges;—in
these seasons, when the wish would be father to an opposite thought, the
belief in our immortality is at the strongest; the truth of our inability to die
becomes overwhelming, and the sleep of the grave appears too light to
satisfy our need of rest. I believe it to be owing to this natural and
unconquerable belief in our immortality, that suicide is not more common
than it is among sufferers. I am persuaded that the almost intolerable
weariness of long sicknesses, unrelieved by occasional fits of severe pain,
would impel many to put out a hand to the laudanum-bottle, in hours when
religious considerations and emotions cannot operate through the
indisposition of the frame, if it were not for the intense conviction that life
would not thus be extinguished, nor even suspended. I do not believe much
in the “natural love of life,” which is usually said to be the preventive in
such cases. I do believe in the vast operation of religious affections in
withholding from the act: but I also believe in frequent instances of
abstinence from death, from a mere despair of getting rid of life—a sense of
necessary immortality.
I have spoken of the relief afforded by visitations of severe pain. These
rally the vital forces, and dismiss the temptation, by substituting torture for
weariness—at times a welcome change. The healthy are astonished at the
good spirits of sufferers under tormenting complaints; and the most strait-
laced preachers of fortitude and patience admit an occasional wonder that
there is no suicide among that class of sufferers. The truth is, however, that
the influence of acute pain, when only occasional, and not extremely
protracted, is vivifying and cheering on the whole. The immediate anguish
causes a temporary despair: but the reaction, when the pain departs, causes
a relish of life such as the healthy and the gay hardly enjoy. Though a slow
death by a torturing disease is a lot unspeakably awful to meet, and even to
contemplate, there can be no question to the experienced, that illness in
which severe pain sometimes occurs is less trying than some in which a
different kind of suffering is not relieved by such a stimulus and its
consequent sensations.
Thus much it is useful to know,—useful to the student of human nature,
to the nurse, and to a sufferer under sentence of lasting disease. But
instances have been known, perplexing to those inexperienced in pain, of
devout thankfulness for the suffering itself, under its immediate and
agonising pressure; and this in men far superior to the superstition of
believing present pain the purchase-money of future ease,—the fine paid
down here for admission to heavenly benefits hereafter.
Strange as this rejoicing in misery may appear, it is to some minds as
natural and authorised by the laws of our being, as the joy which attends the
acquisition of a great idea, or the verification of a potent truth. It is as
verification that such pain is welcome. To men of the most spiritual tone of
mind, every attestation of the reality of unseen objects is a boon of the
highest order; and no such attestation can surpass in clearness that which is
afforded by the sensible progress of decay in the material part of the
sufferer’s frame. All attempt at description is here vain. Nothing but
experience can convey a conception of the intense reality in which God
appears supreme, Christ and his gospel divine, and holiness the one worthy
aim and chief good, when our frame is refusing its offices, and we can lay
hold on no immediate outward support and solace. It is conceivable to the
healthy and happy, that, if waked up from sleep by a tremendous
earthquake, the first recoil of terror might be followed by an intense
perception of the fixity and tranquillity of the spiritual world, in immediate
contact with the turbulence of the outward and lower scene. It is
conceivable to us all that the drowning man may, as is recorded, see his
whole life, in all its minute details, presented to him, as in clear vision, in
one instant of time, as he lapses into death. Well,—something like both
these experiences is that of extreme and dissolving pain, to a certain order
of minds. The vision and the attestation are present, without the horrors
caused, amidst an earthquake, by the misery of a perishing multitude,
though at the cost of more bodily anguish than in the case of the drowning
man. Though there may be keen doubts in a modest sufferer how long such
anguish can be decently endured,—whether the filial submission will hold
out against torment,—there is through, above and beyond such doubts, so
overpowering an impression of the vitality of the conscious part of us, and
of the reality of the highest objects for which it was created and has lived,—
so inexpressible a sense of the value of what we have prayed for, and of the
evanescence of what we are losing,—that it is no wonder if the dying have
been known to call for aid in their thanksgivings, and to struggle for
sympathy even in their incommunicable convictions. If the shadows of the
dark valley part, and disclose to such an one the regions that lie in the light
of God’s countenance, it is no wonder that he calls on those near him to
look and see, though he is making the transit alone.
 Those who speculate outside on the experience of the sick-room, are
eager to know whether this solitary transit is often gone over in
imagination, and whether with more or less relish and success than by those
at ease and in full vigour. In my childhood, I attended, as an observer, one
fine morning, at the funeral of a person with whom I was well acquainted,
without feeling any strong affection. I was somewhat moved by the
solemnity, and by the tears of the family; but the most powerful feeling of
the day was excited when the evening closed in, gusty and rainy, and I
thought of the form I knew so well, left alone in the cold and the darkness,
while everybody else was warm and sheltered. I felt that, if I had been one
of the family, I could not have neglectfully and selfishly gone to bed that
night, but must have passed the hours till daylight by the grave. Every child
has felt this: and every child longs to know whether a sick friend
contemplates that first night in the cold grave, and whether the prospect
excites any emotions.
Surely;—we do contemplate it—frequently—eagerly. In the dark night,
we picture the whole scene, under every condition the imagination can
originate. By day, we hold up before our eyes that most wondrous piece of
our worldly wealth—our own right-hand; examine its curious texture and
mechanism, and call up the image of its sure deadness and decay, And with
what emotions? Each must answer for himself. As for me, it is with mere
curiosity, and without any concern, about the lonely, cold grave. I doubt
whether any one’s imagination rests there,—whether there is ever any panic
about the darkness and the worm of the narrow house.
As for our real future home,—the scene where our living selves are to
be,—how is it possible that we should not be often resorting thither in
imagination, when it is to be our next excursion from our little abode of
sickness and helplessness,—when it is so certain that we cannot be
disappointed of it, however wearily long it may be before we go,—when all
that has been best in our lives, our sabbaths, all sunset evenings and starry
nights, all our reverence and love that are sanctified by death,—when all
these things have always pointed to our future life and been associated with
it, how is it possible that we should not be ever looking forward to it, now
when our days are low and weary, and our pleasures few? The liability is to
too great familiarity with the subject. When our words make children look
abashed, and call a constraint over the manners of those we are conversing
with, and cause even the most familiar eyes to be averted, we find ourselves
reminded that the subject of a person’s death is one usually thought not easy
to discuss with him. In our retirement, we are apt to forget, till expressly
reminded, the importance of distinctions of rank and property in society, so
nearly as they vanish in our survey of life, in comparison with moral
differences; and, in like manner, we have to recal an almost lost idea, that
death is an awkward topic, except in the abstract, when our casual mention
of a will, or of some transaction to follow our death, introduces an awe and
constraint into conversation.
Such familiarity may be, and often is, condemned as presumptuous.
There may be cases in which it is so; but I think it would be hard to make
the censure general. The confident reckoning on the joys of heaven for
one’s self, on any grounds, while others are supposed to be condemned to a
contrary lot, is a superstition more offensive to my feelings than that which
renders a trembling soul, clinging to life, aghast at the idea of meeting its
Maker and Father. But a soul without any self-complacency, or ignorant
confidence, may yet be easy and eager in the prospect of entering upon that
awful new scene. Setting aside all the inducements from the hope of relief
and rest, the humblest spirit may be conceived of as tranquil and aspiring in
full view of the transition; and this under a full sense of its sins and failures,
and without reliance on any imaginary security,—without need of other
reliance than its Father in Heaven. There may be—there is—in some, so
continual a regard to God in life, that there cannot seem anything very new
and strange in going anywhere where He is. There maybe—and there is—in
some, so earnest a desire to be purified from sin, that they would undergo
anything on earth to be freed from it, and therefore fear nothing, but rather
welcome any discipline which may be reserved beyond. Knowing that the
revelation of the evil of their sin must be most painful, but also most
necessary to their progress, they are ready, even eager for it, pressing
forward to the suffering through which they hope to be made perfect. If
with such dispositions is joined that ardent, reverential filial love which
generates perfect trust, and rejects any interposition between itself and the
benign countenance in whose light it lives, there may be nothing blameable
or dangerous in the readiness for death, or in the happy familiarity with
which the event may be spoken of. It is a case in which every man should
be slow to judge his neighbour, while the natural verdict of thoughtful
observers would seem to be that a sufferer under irremediable illness, who
preserves a general patience, cares for others’ happiness more than for his
own, and has always lived in view of an eternal life, can hardly be wrong in
anticipating that life with ease and cheerfulness, whatever analysis or
judgment dogmatists may make of his state of mind.
Whether our imaginings of Death are more or less a true anticipation of
it, can be proved only by experience. It may be found that they are no more
just than my idea of the matter when I was a child, when my brother and I
dug a grave, and then lay down in it, by turns, and shut our eyes, to try what
dying was like. Practically, such failures of conception cannot matter much.
A person who is setting out on foreign travel for the first time, takes no
harm by expecting the voyage and the landing among foreigners to be
something very unlike what they prove. His preconceptions answered their
purpose, by rendering him ready and willing to go, and preventing his being
taken by surprise by the summons. Still, those of us have greatly the
advantage whose minds are enlarged by knowledge, and their imaginations
animated and strengthened by exercise. Some of the most innocent and
kind-hearted people I have known have been the most afraid of death,—not
from consciousness of sin, but from dread of overpowering novelty—from
a horror of feeling lost among scenes where there is nothing familiar; while,
in opposite cases, a philosophic interest and wonder have been known to go
far in reconciling a highly intellectual man to leaving the companions he
loved best in life.
There can be no question as to the difference in the ease of departure
(moral conditions being supposed the same) of the housewife, whose days
and faculties have been occupied with the market, the shop, and the home
where her whole life has been passed, and the philosopher, whose nerves
thrill with delight, unmixed with terror, at the very first view of the new
wonders revealed by Lord Rosse’s speculum. It is striking, that a man about
to be thrust forth from life for a plot of murder on an enormous scale,
should, while waiting for death the next moment, whisper to a fellow-
sufferer, “Now we shall soon know the great secret;” while a pure and
beneficent being, beloved by God and his neighbour, should pray to be
loaded with any weight of years and sufferings rather than go from the
familiar scene on which he has opened his eyes every day for sixty years.
“Grand secrets” have no charms for him, but only horrors; and as for new
scenes, even within our own corner of the earth, mountains and waterfalls
overpower him, and he shuffles back to shops and streets.
 Let persons so constitutionally different be shut into a sick-room,
knowing that they will issue from it only by death, and what will they do?
By the habit of looking forward to this exit for relief, the timid may come to
speak and think of it as tranquilly as the speculative; but then, when the
sensation overtakes him, the difference is again apparent. It does seem as if
there were in the seizure of death a sensation wholly peculiar, and which
cannot be mistaken. Cases of unconsciousness are no evidence to the
contrary; and there are so many instances of decisive declaration by the
dying, as to make the fact pretty certain. Then finally appears (supposing
both conscious) the distinction in the act of dying, between the enlarged and
speculative mind and the contracted one which clings to details. Then the
harassed sufferer, who has a hundred times exclaimed, in the struggles of
disease, “O! this is dying many times over!” shudders out at last, in quite
another tone, “O God! this is death!” Then the exhausted debauchee, after
every hollow show of preparation by decorous prayer, mutters, in the terror
of the reality, “O God! this is death!” At such a time, the philosophic
physician, seizing his sole opportunity of experience of the phenomena of
death, keeps his finger on his pulse as his heart is coming to a stop, and
notifies its last beat as a fact in useful science. At such a time, the diligent
Christian—a judge, a rich man, without a crook in his lot—suddenly
sentenced, struggles to breathe into his wife’s bending ear his last words:
“This is death! Our children ... tell them—I have had everything man could
enjoy ... and all is nothing in comparison with holiness. Pure and holy—
make them. Care for nothing else! O! all is well!” When he could no longer
speak or move, his countenance was full of soul; not a trace of fear upon it,
but a whole heaven of joyful expectation. Here are differences!
Of course, there is no waiting till the last moment for these differences to
show themselves. Outside enquirers may be satisfied that invalids’
anticipation of death varies with their habits of mind. Some merely
anticipate; some contemplate. With some, the anticipation is merely of
relief and rest; with others it is worthier of our human and Christian hope.
In no case of permanent illness can I conceive the idea to be otherwise than
familiar, under one aspect or another; so familiar, as that it is astonishing to
us that we can obtain so little conversation upon it as a reality—a certainty
in full view. To us this seems more extraordinary than it would be if the
friends of Parry, and Franklin, or Back, were, as the season for a Polar
expedition drew nigh, to talk to them about everything else, but be
constrained and shy on that. I say “more extraordinary,” because it is not
everybody that is bound, sooner or later, to the North Pole, but only a few
crews; whereas, all have an interest in the passage of that other, that
“narrow sea,” and in the “better country” which is its further shore.
Perhaps the familiarity of the idea of death is by nothing so much
enhanced to us as by the departure before us of those who have sympathised
in our prospect. The close domestic interest thus imparted to that other life
is such as I certainly never conceived of when in health, and such as I
observe people in health do not conceive of now. It seems but the other day
that I was receiving letters of sympathy and solace, and also of religious
and philosophical investigation as to how life here and hereafter appeared to
me; letters which told of activity, of labours, and journeyings, which
humbled me by a sense of idleness and uselessness, while they spoke of
humbling feelings in regarding the privileges of my seclusion. All this is as
if it were yesterday: and now, these correspondents have been gone for
years. For years we have thought of them as knowing “the grand secret,” as
familiarized with those scenes we are for ever prying into, while I lie no
wiser (in such a comparison) than when they endeavoured to learn
somewhat of these matters from me. And besides these close and dear
companions, what departures are continually taking place! Every new year
there are several—friends, acquaintance, or strangers—who shake their
heads when I am mentioned, in friendly regret at another year opening
before me without prospect of health—who send me comforts or luxuries,
or words of sympathy, amidst the pauses of their busy lives; and before
another year comes round, they have dropped out of our world—have
learned quickly far more than I can acquire by my leisure—and from being
merely outside my little spot of life, have passed to above and beyond it.
Little ones who speculated on me with awe—youthful ones who ministered
to me with pity—- busy and important persons, who gave a cordial but
passing sigh to the lot of the idle and helpless; some of all these have
outstripped me, and left me looking wistfully after them. Such incidents
make the future at least as real and familiar to me as the outside world; and
every permanent invalid will say the same: and we must not be wondered at
if we speak of that great interest of ours oftener, and with more familiarity,
than others use.
Neither should we be wondered at if we speak with a confidence which
some cannot share, of meeting these our friends, and communing with
them, when we ourselves depart. We have no power to doubt of this, if we
believe at all that we shall live hereafter. I have said how intensely we feel
that our spiritual part is indestructible. We feel no less vividly that of that
spiritual part the affections are the true vitality; that they are the soul within
the soul—our inmost life. The affections cannot exist without their objects;
and our congenial friends—the brethren of our soul—therefore survive as
surely as God survives. If God is recognisable by the worshipper, and Christ
by the Christian, the beloved are recognisable by those who love. To demur
to this to the sufferer who (all other life being weakened and embittered)
lives by the affections, divine and human, is, to him, much like doubting
whether the atmosphere bears any relation to music, or the human
understanding to truth.
If there are hours when, through pain and weakness, we would fain
decline existence altogether, as a sick and wearied child frets at sunshine
and music, and would rather sleep in darkness and silence, there is no
moment in which we do not believe, as if we saw, that the departed
righteous are in communion, full and active, in exact proportion as the
ardour and fidelity of their mutual love deserves and necessitates. We
believe this as if we saw it, whatever be our own immediate mood, as, on
every night of winter, however cloudy, we are well assured that the
constellations are in the sky,—that Orion and the Wain have risen and are
circling, steady, clear and serene, whatever be the state of the elements
below them. As the life of the sick-room must necessarily be, whether its
objects be high or low, one of faith and not of sight, those who visit it may
easily perceive that it is not the appropriate field for demonstration. In its
own province Demonstration is supreme. There let it dictate and pronounce.
But we sufferers inhabit a separate region of human experience, where there
is another and a prophetic oracle; where the voice of Demonstration itself
must be dumb before that of the steadfast, incommunicable assurance of the
soul.
Here are some of the aspects of Death to the long-suffering Invalid.
 TEMPER.

We are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind
To suffer with the body.”
Shakspere.

“Behold thy trophies within thee, not without thee. Lead thine own
captivity captive, and be Cæsar unto thyself.” Sir
Thomas Brown.

It is very surprising, and rather amusing, to invalids whose constitution

and disease dispose them to other kinds of ill-temper rather than irritability,
to perceive how this tendency, and no other, is set up as a test of temper by
persons inexperienced in sickness. There are cases, and they are not few,
where an invalid’s freedom from irritability of temper is a merit of a very
high order indeed: but there are many,—perhaps more,—where, to award
praise on this ground, is like extolling the sick person for being worthy of
trust with untold gold, or for his being never known to game or get drunk.
This last, indeed, may,—amidst the sinkings of illness, with wine and
laudanum in the closet,—often be actually the greater merit. It is a case in
which every thing depends on the existence of temptation. Persons suffering
under frequent fever, or certain kinds of pain or nervous disturbance, or
afflicted with ill-qualified nurses, may be pardoned for almost any degree of
irritability, or may be unspeakably meritorious in resisting the tendency,
with more or less steadiness. But there are some of us who cannot but smile
at compliments on our freedom from irritability, when we feel that we never
have the slightest inclination to be cross, nor have the least excuse for being
so,—while we may be most abasingly aware of other kinds of frailty of
temper.
To me it appears that we are, for the most part, in greater peril from other
faults, because they are less looked for, less discussed and recognised, and
we are, therefore, less put upon our guard against them: and also because
their consequences are less immediately and obviously detrimental to our
own comfort. Besides that all persons grow up on the look-out for
irritability of temper, and therefore are more or less on the watch against it
when they come to be ill, it is clear to the idlest and most selfish mind, that
the whole hope of comfort in the sick-room depends on the freedom and
cheerfulness of the intercourse held in it,—a freedom and cheerfulness
forfeited by irritability on the part of the sufferer,—necessarily forfeited,
even if he were tended by the hands of angels. Children are the brightest, if
not the tenderest, angels of the sick-room; and the alternative between their
coming springing in, not only voluntarily but eagerly, and their being
brought, for observance’ sake, with force and fear, is of itself inducement
enough to self-control on the part of the most fretted patient, in the most
feverish hour. Even in the middle of the night, when no one is by but the
soundly sleeping nurse, the invalid feels admonished to suppress the
slightest moan, when he sees in fancy his little friends the next morning
either leaping from their beds at the joyful thought that they may visit him,
or asking, with awe and gravity, whether they must go, and how soon they
may come away. It is the sweetest of cordials to the heart of an invalid to
learn, by chance, that children count the days and hours till they may come,
and that all their gravity is about having to go away. It is the most refined
flattery to let one know it: and the knowledge of it may well be almost a
specific against ill-temper. And then again, the nurse. It is by no means
sufficient for one’s comfort that one’s nurse should be well qualified,—ever
so trust-worthy, and ever so kind: it is necessary too that she should be free
and happy. There must be no fear in her tread,—no reserve in her eye,—no
management in her voice—no choice in her tidings. There is no ill-temper
in that jealousy of the invalid’s spirit which requires assurance of being no
burden, and no restraint. It is a righteous jealousy, and among the most
effectual safeguards against the indulgence of ill-humour. That there are
disorders, and seasons of illness, which almost compel the forfeiture of the
mental and moral freedom and ease of the sick-room, is a painful truth; and
those who suffer under such irresistible or unresisted irritation are
supremely to be compassionated, whether their actual pain of body be more
or less. But it is quite as certain that a large number of sufferers are exempt
from temptation to this kind of failure, being subject, the while, to some
other,—more tolerable, as affecting only, or chiefly, their own happiness.
The very opposite failure to that of irritability,—which shows itself in
dissatisfaction with others,—is no less common,—unreasonable
dissatisfaction with one’s self. This lowering, depraving tendency to self-
contempt requires for its establishment as a fault of temper, long protraction
or permanence of illness: but when once established, it is as serious a fault
of temper as can be entertained. Where religious faith and trust are
insufficient for the need, this temper is almost a necessary consequence of
any degree of mental and moral activity in a sick prisoner. The retrospect of
one’s own life, from the stillness of the sick room, is unendurable to any
considerate person, except in the light of the deepest religious humility; and
the strongest faith in the all-wise ordering of the moral world, is no more
than sufficient to counteract that sickening which spreads from the
distressed body to the anxious heart, when intervals of ease and lightness
are few and brief. When to the pains and misgivings of such perpetual
retrospect are added the burdens of a sense of present and permanent
uselessness, and of overwhelming gratitude for services received from hour
to hour,—there is no self-respect in the world that will, unaided, support
cheerfulness and equanimity.
Without self-respect, there can be none of that healthy freedom of spirit
which animates others to freedom, and exerts that influence which is
ascribed to “a good temper,” which removes hesitancy from the transaction
of the daily business of life, and so permits life to appear in its natural
aspect. Instead of this, where the spirit has lost its security of innocence,
unconsciousness, or self-reliance, and become morbidly sensitive to failures
and dangers,—where it has become cowardly in conscience, shrinking from
all moral enterprise, and dreading moral injury from every occurrence, the
temper of anxiety must spread from the sufferer to all about him, whether
the causes of his trouble are intelligible to them or not. Moral progress, or
even holding what he has gained, seems out of the question for one so
shaken; for, constantly feeling, as he does, that he cannot afford to do the
least questionable thing, and every act being questionable in one aspect or
another, he can only preserve one incessant shrinking attitude before the
fearful ghost of Conscience, instead of bestirring himself to prove and use
his new opportunities of spiritual exertion and conquest. This abasement
may co-exist with the most perfect sweetness and gentleness of speech and
manners, and the sufferer may enjoy great credit for not being irritable,
when he is in a far lower moral state than often co-exists with irritability.
One effect, deplorably mean and perilous, of such a tendency, is
immediately opposed to the mood which prompts hasty words and
complaints. The sufferer’s spirits rise in proportion to the pain he
experiences. He is never so happy as when he feels his paroxysms coming
on,—not only because pain of body acts as relief from the gnawing misery
of his mind, but because every tangible proof that he is under chastening
and discipline, conveys to him a sense of his dignity—reassures him, as a
child of Providence. From this may follow too naturally his learning to
regard pain as a qualification for ease—as a purchase-money of future good
—a superstition as low and depraving as almost any the mind can entertain.
To persons in health, and at ease, this detail of the tempers of a sick-
room may well appear fanciful, irrational, and shocking enough. But the
time may come when they may recognise it as true; and, meanwhile, it will
be their wisest and kindest way to receive it with belief. It may possibly
prove the key, even now, to a mystery which otherwise they can make
nothing of, when they see one under tedious suffering, gentle but low when
at ease—evidently borne down by speechless sadness—while, on the first
return of pain, the spirits rise, and the more restless is the distressed body,
the more at ease does the spirit appear. Such a state may be morbid and
perilous; but, the more it is so, the more desirable it becomes that the
attending friend should have an insight into the case, and a respectful and
tender sympathy with it.
As to the remedy, it is easy to say that it is to be found in a cheerful trust
in the Ordainer of our lot. While no one questions this, who can show how
this trust is to be made available at every need, when the workings of the
spirit are all confused, its vision impaired, and its powers distorted? The
only advice that even experience can give in such an instance, is to revive
healthy old associations, to occupy the morbid powers with objects from
without, and to use the happiest rather than the lowest seasons for leading
the mind to a consideration of its highest relations. As the case is opposite
to that most commonly discoursed of in connexion with the sick-room, so
must a wise ministration be also opposite to common notions; the appeal
must be, in seasons of ease and enjoyment, to the sense of dependence on
God; and, in times of mental distress, to the principles of endurance and
self-mastery.
Other tempers of the sick-room are more easily understood by those
without. The particularity about trifles is one. This, though often reaching a
point of absurdity, should be scrupulously indulged, because no one but the
sufferer can be fully aware of the annoyance of want of order in so confined
a space and range of objects. A healthy person, who can go everywhere at
pleasure, leaving litters to be put away by servants during absence, can have
no idea of the oppression felt by a feeble invalid, when looking round upon
the confusion left in one little room by careless visitors,—chairs standing in
all directions, books thrown down here and there, and work or papers
strewed on the floor. It is easy to laugh at such trifles—easy to the invalid
himself at times; but if any healthy person will recal his feelings during
convalescence from any former illness, he will remember the sort of painful
sympathy with which he saw the servants going about their work—how his
frame ached at hearing of a long walk, or even at seeing his friends sitting
upright upon chairs. If he considers what it must be to have this set of
feelings for life, he will think the particularity of the invalid not only worth
indulging, but less absurd than in the eye of reason it appears; and if it be
too much to expect of men, it may be hoped that women visiting the sick
may be careful to leave the spaces of the room clear, not to shake the sofa or
the table, to put up books upon their shelves, and leave all in such a state
that the invalid may, immediately on being left alone, sink down to such
rest as can be found.
No one challenges this particularity when it relates to hours. The most
careless observer must know that it is illness of itself to a sick person to
have to wait for food or medicines, or to be put off from regular sleep.
Meantime, the invalid cannot keep too careful a watch upon the increase of
his own particularity—his refuge in custom. There is something shocking to
us invalids, when we fix our meditation upon this, in our attachments to our
own comforts, and cowardice about dispensing with them. I have myself
observed, with inexpressible shame, that, with the newspaper in my hand,
no details of the peril of empires, or of the starving miseries of thousands of
my countrymen, could keep my eye from the watch before me, or detain my
attention one second beyond the time when I might have my opiate. For two
years, too, I wished and intended to dispense with my opiate for once, to try
how much there was to bear, and how I should bear it: but I never did it,
strong as was the shame of always yielding; and I have now long given up
all thoughts of it. Moreover, though as fully convinced as ever of the moral
evil and danger of being wedded to custom and habits, I have now a far too
decided and satisfactory impression that the sick-room is not the place for a
conquest of that kind, and that it is enough if the patient breaks through his
trammels when he casts off his illness, and emerges again into the world,
which is the same thing as acquiescing in the invalid for life being a life-
long slave to custom and habit. Bad as this is, I do not see how it is to be
helped; for the suffering and injury caused by irregularity of methods, and
uncertainty of arrangements in the sick-room, seem to show that freedom of
this kind does not belong to an invalid life: and perhaps the most that ought
to be required or desired of the sick person is, rather to welcome than
complain of any necessary interruption to his ways, by a change of nurse, or
other accidental interference with ordinary comforts,—not to extend his
particularity beyond the bounds of his own little domain, and no more to
expect the healthy and active to be, in their own homes, as strict and
punctual as himself, than to desire the servants to leave off rubbing tables
and lighting fires, because it makes his frame ache to think of such work. If
he can preserve sympathy enough in the impulses of the active abroad, he
may hope for indulgence in his particularity at home.
There are other liabilities which may be clear to observers, or easily
conceivable when mentioned. I hardly know whether we may allude, under
the head of Tempers, to the despair which I believe to be universally felt
(however discountenanced), by all, on the assault of very severe pain. The
reason may speak, and even through the lips, of hope and courage; but the
sensation of which I speak is peculiar, so peculiarly connected with bodily
agony, that I cannot but believe it felt wherever bodily agony is felt. It has
nothing to do with the courage of the soul; affords not the shadow of
contradiction to patience, fortitude, religious trust. I mean simply that when
extreme pain seizes on us, down go our spirits, fathoms deep; and, though
the soul may yet be submissive and even willing, the sickening question
rises,—“How shall I bear this for five minutes? What will become of me?”
And if the imagination stretches on to an hour, or hours, there is no word
but despair which expresses the feeling. The by-standers can never fully
understand this suffering; no, though they may themselves have suffered to
extremity. The patient himself, in any interval, when devoutly ready to
endure again, cannot understand, nor believe in his late emotion, or fancy
that he can feel it again. As it is thus peculiar and transient, there could be
no use in mentioning it, except for two possibilities; that some sufferer may,
in the moment of anguish, remember that the sensation has been recognised
and recorded; and that attendants, on witnessing a sudden abasement of
high courage, on seeing horror of countenance succeed a calm
determination, may remember, at the right moment, that there is that
passing within of which they can have no conception, and certainly no right
to judge.
I might add, as a justification for allusion to so painful a subject, that it
may teach us to honour, in some less faint degree, the strength of soul of
those who, with any composure, die of sheer pain,—of the most torturing
diseases. If, amidst successive shocks of this despairing sensation, their
power of reaction, in the intervals, remains unimpaired, and they retain their
spiritual dignities to the end, no degree of admiration can transcend their
claims.
One strong peril to temper, in the case of a permanent invalid, I do not
remember to have seen noticed, while, I am sure, none can be more worthy
of being guarded against. By our being withdrawn from the disturbing
bustles of life in the world; by our leisure for reading and contemplation of
various sides of questions, and by our singular opportunities for quiet
reflection, we must, almost necessarily, see further than we used to do, and
further than many others do on subjects of interest, which involve general
principles. Through the post, we hold the best kind of correspondence with
the society from which we are withdrawn; we have the opinions of the wise,
and the impressions of the active, transmitted to us, stripped of much of the
passion and prejudice in which they would have been presented in
conversation. Instead of one newspaper or pamphlet, we now have time to
look over several, and can hear all sides. Far removed from the little
triumphs or disappointments of the day, which warp the judgments of all
men who have hearts to feel, whatever may be their abstract wisdom;
endowed with long night hours of wakefulness, when our spirit of
Humanity is all alive; permitted sequestered days, when our review of
historical periods may be continuous, and when some great new idea, a
stalactite of long formation, at length descends to our level, and touches our
heads, or a diamond of thought, slowly distilled, drops into our hand as we
penetrate and explore;—when some such gain—the guerdon of our
condition—is frequently occurring, it cannot be but that—unless we are
fools, our judgments of things must be worth something more than
formerly. If formerly we associated with our equals, it cannot be but that we
must now see further than they, on such questions of the time as interest us.
Such divergences of opinion as hence arise require care on the part both
of sick and well, if a perfectly just and generous understanding is to be
preserved between friends.
 The liability of us sick is double. We are in danger of forgetting, amidst
the inevitable consciousness of our own improved insight and foresight, that
the activities of life have a corrective as well as a disturbing influence; and
that transient incidents and emotions which do not reach us, may form real
elements of a great question for the week or the year, though lost in our
abstract view of it. In this way, our judgment may involve great
imperfections, which it behoves us to remember all the more, the less we
can supply them. A worse liability is that to our tempers, of impatience at
others not seeing so far as we do. There is something strange, disappointing
and irritating, in finding those whom we have always regarded as sensible
and clear-headed, holding some expectation which we see to be
unreasonable, and offering to our consideration some fallacy or misty
notion, whose incorrectness is to us as distinct as a cloud in the sky. While
religiously careful not to fret ourselves “because of evil doers,” being so
expressly desired, we are sadly prone to the far worse weakness of fretting
ourselves because of mistaken thinkers. We long to send by a carrier-pigeon
the answer or refutation which seems to us so clear: the post is too slow for
us; and if we do not disburden our minds of their weight of wisdom, we are
apt to spend the night in reiterating to ourselves our triumphant arguments,
in the strongest and most condensed language we can find, till, exhausted
by such efforts, at last the thought occurs to us whether truth cannot wait,—
whether, supposing us ever so right intellectually, we are not morally wrong
in our perturbation. This confession looks foolish and humbling enough in
black and white; but I cannot escape making it, if, as I intend, I complain of
some little injustice on the other hand, sustained by us.
Where such divergences of opinion arise, men of activity (and women,
no less) are apt, whatever may be their abstract respect for closet
speculators, and reverence for sequestered sufferers, to speak with regret, or
at least with respectful compassion, of the warping influences of seclusion
and illness, as particularly illustrated by the case in point. They attribute all
differences to these causes, and never doubt that the old agreement would
exist, by the invalid’s views being the same as their own, but for the
distorting medium through which the sick are compelled to regard events;
or but for the influence which certain parties have obtained over his mind,
by service or sympathy. This may be more or less true, in individual cases.
Still, it is for the interests of truth and temper to remind the healthy and
busy that the warp may possibly not be all on one side, and the
enlightenment on the other; and that there may be influences in the life of
the meditative invalid which may render his views more comprehensive,
and his judgments more, rather than less, sound than heretofore. If there is
any practicable test of this, it must be looked for in his habitual tone of
mind and life. Unless this proves perversion or folly, his mind must, in
justice, be held as at least as worthy of consideration as at any former
season of his life. If his fundamental opinions have undergone no change,
but rather enlargement with special modifications, they are decidedly
worthy of more respect than ever.
Thus does my experience moralize for both parties. If, in ordinary life,
there is no peace of mind for those whose happiness depends on the good
opinion of everybody, much less can there be tranquillity of mind in the
sick-room for such. When we are in the world, our presence breaks down
mistaken or slanderous allegations, and we are sure to be seen as we are,
and to be rightly understood, by large numbers of persons,—by all, indeed,
whose opinion is of value to us. But, while sequestered in the sick-room, we
are, in point of reputation, wholly at the mercy of those who speak of us. It
is true, most persons are so humane, and those about us are so touched by
our affliction, as that the best construction is put on our manners and
conduct by the greater number of reporters. But it is strange and fortunate if
there be not, among our acquaintance, some intrusive person whom we
have to keep at a distance,—some meddler whom we have to check, some
well-meaning mischief-maker, of impenetrable complacency, who will most
affectionately and compassionately report us as sadly changed, unable to
value our best friends, or to estimate the most important services. Whether
charges like these arise, or old misrepresentations reappear, while we are
invisible and defenceless, we may be miserable enough if we let such things
trouble us. Those least in danger, as to temper, are persons of note, who
have had former experience of the diversities of the world’s opinion. They
can smile and wait. But it may be easily conceived that such incidents may
be trying to invalids who are the subjects of notoriety for the first time,—of
that sort of notoriety which affliction creates, through the universal
sympathy of human hearts. Under so new an experience, the sufferer may
feel more vexation by the accidental knowledge of one unjust
representation of his state of temper, than cheered by a hundred evidences
of the esteem and sympathy of those about him. For the evil there is no
help; but there are abundant resources against the vexation,—the same
resources which enable the humble and hoping Christian, whether strong or
weak, rich or poor in outward blessings, to go through good or evil report
with a heart tranquil in Divine Trust, and occupied with human love.
 BECOMING INURED.
“Sunt homines qui cum patientiâ moriuntur: sunt autem quidam perfecti
qui cum patientiâ vivunt.” St. Augustin.

“No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep

Crowned woes awake, as things too wise for sleep:
But reverend discipline, religious fear,
And soft obedience find sweet biding here!

The self-remembering soul sweetly recovers

Her kindred with the stars: not basely hovers
Below—but meditates the immortal way
Home to the source of light and intellectual day.”
Crashaw.

We hear, every day, benevolent and compassionate persons, in

discussing the woes of sufferers, dwelling on the thought of such sufferers
becoming inured; and we see them, if possible, reposing on this as the
closing and conclusive idea. How natural this is! How often and how
undoubtingly we did it ourselves, in our days of ease! But how differently it
sounds now! How quickly do we detect in it the discharge and dismissal of
uneasy sympathies! How infallibly do we see how far it may be true; and
what a tale could we tell of what is included in the phrase, “becoming
inured,” where it may be most truly applied! of what experience is involved
in the process, where it is shortest and easiest!
I was lately speaking to a tender-hearted woman, who had known
suffering, but not torment, of more than one case of persons who, dying
slowly under a torturing disease, simply and naturally declared, shortly
before death, the season of their illness to have been the happiest part of
their lives. There are different ways of explaining this fact, which, though I
always believed it, I did not till lately understand. My friend, however,
found no difficulty. She said, in a tone of pitying tenderness, but of perfect
decision, “O! they become inured to it.” I replied by some slight description
of the suffering in the case which had impressed me most, and asked if she
thought use and experience could soften pain like that. “O yes,” she again
said, “they become inured to it. That is certainly the thing.”
Is it so? I am persuaded it is not. To the great majority of evils men may
become inured; but not to all. To almost every kind, and to vast degrees of
privation, moral and physical, they may become inured; and to chronic
sufferings of mind and body; but I am convinced that there is no more
possibility of becoming inured to acute agony of body than to paroxysms of
remorse—the severest of moral pains. For the sake of both sufferers and
sympathisers, it would be well that this should be thoroughly understood,
that aid may not fall short, nor relief be looked for in the wrong direction.
The truth is, as all will declare who are subject to a frequently recurring
pain, a familiar pain becomes more and more dreaded, instead of becoming
lightly esteemed in proportion to its familiarity. The general sense of alarm
which it probably occasioned when new, may have given way and
disappeared before a knowledge of consequences, and a regular method of
management or endurance; but the pain itself becomes more odious, more
oppressive, more feared, in proportion to the accumulation of experience of
weary hours, in proportion to the aggregate of painful associations which
every visitation revives. When it is, moreover, considered that the suffering
part of the body is, if not recovering, growing continually more diseased
and susceptible of pain, it will appear how little truth there is in the
supposition of tortured persons becoming inured to torture.
The inuring process which I hold to be impossible in the cases
mentioned is, however, practicable and frequent in almost all cases of
inferior suffering. But, while all join in thanking God for this, there is a
wide difference in the view taken of the fact by those who feel and those
who only observe it. To the last, it is a clear and satisfactory truth, shining
on the rock of futurity, which they can sit and gaze at from the window of
their ease, commenting on the blessing of such a beacon-light to those who
need it. To those who need it, meanwhile, it is far far off—sometimes
hidden and sometimes despaired of, as the waves and the billows go over
them, and the point can be reached only through sinkings and struggles, and
fears and anguish, with scanty breathing-times between. Why is this not
admitted in the case of the invalid as it is in that of the person losing a
sense? One who is becoming blind or deaf is sure to grow inured in time;
but through what a series of keen mortifications, of bitter privations! Every
one sees and understands this; while in the case of the invalid, many spring
to the conclusion, overlooking the process of discipline which has, in that
case, as in the other, to be undergone. It should never be forgotten how
different a thing it is to read off this lesson from the clear print of assertion
or observation, and to learn it experimentally, at a scarcely perceptible rate,
“line upon line and precept upon precept;” when every line is burnt in by
pain, and the long series of precepts are registered by their degrees of
anguish.
When the nature of the process has been sufficiently dwelt upon to be
understood—that the hearts of the happy may be duly softened, and those of
the suffering duly cheered by sympathy—then let all good be said of the
inuring process; at least all the good that is true; and that is much. No wise
man will declare that it is the best and healthiest condition for any one. No
wise man will deny that the healthiest moral condition is found where there
is the most abundant happiness. Happiness is clearly the native, heavenly
atmosphere of the soul—that in which it is “to live and move and have its
being” hereafter, and in proportion to its share of which, now and here, it
makes its heavenly growth. The divinest souls—the loftiest, most
disinterested and devoted—all unite in one testimony, that they have been
best when happiest; that they were then most energetic and spontaneously
devoted—least self-conscious. This must and may joyfully be granted. But,
as the mystery of evil is all round about us, as we have no choice whether or
not to suffer, we may be freely thankful next for the inuring process, as
being the possible means, though inferior to happiness, of divine ends.
Far, indeed, does the sufferer feel from reaching those ends, when he
contrasts his own state with that of the truly happy man. When he looks
upon one so “little lower than the angels,” on his frame, so nerved and
graced by health, his eye emitting the glow of the soul, his voice uttering
the music of the heart, his hand strong to effect his purposes, his head erect
in the liberty of ease, his intellect and soul free from perplexities and cares,
and not only at leisure for the service of others, but restless to impart to
them of his own overflowing good; when the sufferer contemplates such a
being, and contrasts him with himself, he may well feel how much he has to
do, to approach this higher order of his race. Aware of his own internal
tremblings at the touch of the familiar pain, sinking in weakness before the
bare idea of enterprise, abashed by self-consciousness, smarting under
tenderness of conscience, perplexed and bewildered by the intricacy and
vastness of human woe, of which his own suffering gives him too keen a
sense, well may he who is in the bonds of pain look up humbly to him who
walks gloriously in joy; and the humility might sink into abjectness if the
matter ended here, if the inuring process were not at work. But herein is
ample ground for hope now, and greatness in the future; and if a secondary,
still a sufficient greatness.
The sufferer may well be satisfied, and needs be abashed before no
mortal, if he obtains, sooner or later, the power to achieve divine ends
through the experience of his lot. If, beginning by encountering his familiar
pain, and putting down the dread of it by looking merely to the comfort of
the reaction when it ceases, he attains at length to conquering pain by the
power of ideas; if, ease of body being out of the question, he makes activity
of spirit suffice him; if, his own future in this life being a blank, he becomes
absorbed in that of other men; if, imprisoned by disease, kingdoms and
races are not wide enough for his sympathies; if, as this or that sense is
extinguished, or this or that limb is laid fast, his spirit becomes more alive
in every faculty; if familiarity with pain enables him so to deal with it, as
resolutely to cut off every morbid spiritual growth to which he has been
made liable by pain; if, instead of succumbing to unfavourable conditions,
he has struggled against dwarfage and distortion, and diligently wrought at
the renewal of the inward man, while the outward frame was decaying day
by day, he may surmount his humiliations, whatever cause for humility
maybe left by so impaired an existence. For him the inuring process will
have done its best.
For those who from constitutional irritability cannot become inured,
there is, daily opening, and at shorter distance, the grave, where “the weary
are at rest.”
For those on whom the inuring process acts amiss,—petrifying instead of
vivifying the soul, we may and must hope, on the ground that they are in the
hands of one whose ways and thoughts are not ours, nor within our ken.
They are a mystery to us, like the cankered buds and blighted blossoms of
our gardens. Or it may be, that there is no corruption or decay, but only
torpidity, induced by the protraction of their polar night of adversity. It may
be, that their life is only hidden away for a season, and that when the breath
of the eternal spring shall dissolve their icy bonds, they may start forth as
new-born, and their preceding deadness be mercifully counted to them but
as a long dream.
 There is no danger, no false security to one’s-self, in hoping thus much
for them; for one must be as far from reconciling one’s-self to their
condition as from preferring dreams to contemplation, or the sleep of the
frame to the life of the spirit.
 POWER OF IDEAS IN THE SICK-ROOM.

“Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope.”

Zechariah.

“Wherefore, for virtue’s sake

I can be well content
The sweetest time in all my life
To deem in thinking spent.”
Lord Vaux.

It is amusing (in a somewhat mournful way, however,) to sick people, to

observe how children and other inexperienced persons believe,
notwithstanding all explanation and assurance, that it must be a very
pleasant thing to be ill—gently ill, so as not to be groaning with pain, or
confined to bed. They derive an impression of comfort and luxury from
what they see, which it is impossible to weaken by descriptions of suffering
which they have never felt, and cannot conceive of. They see the warm
room in winter, with its well-cushioned couch, and think how comfortable it
must be never to have the toes frozen, or a shower of sleet driven in one’s
face. The fire in the chamber all night—the flowers and books that lie
strewed about all day—the pictures on the walls—the dainty meals—the
punctual and careful attendance—these are things which make illness look
extremely pleasant to the healthiest people, who are those that have the
keenest relish for pleasure. Few of such are there who have that insight of
sympathy which drew from my little friend at my elbow the sighing
exclamation—“Ah! but there is the unhealthiness! that spoils everything!”
Even if the ordinary run of inexperienced persons could see the whole of
our day, I should not expect them to understand the matter much better. If
they saw us turn from the dainty meal, and wear a look of distress and fear,
in the midst of everything that to them indicates comfort and security, I
imagine that they could only wonder, till they knew for themselves how
bodily distress excludes pleasure from outward objects, and how the mental
weaknesses which prevail amidst an unnatural and difficult mode of life
convert the most innocent and ordinary occurrences into occasions of
apprehension, or of self-distrust or self-disgust.
If they must witness the painful and humbling aspect of the mode of life,
it is much to be wished that they might also see another fact belonging to it
—to them, perhaps, no less mysterious than the misery; but not the less
salutary for that, as it may teach them that there is much, both of good and
evil, in our condition, which it will be wiser in them to observe than to
judge of.
The benign mystery which I would have them witness is, the power of
ideas over us. A child knows something of this in his own way. In wartime,
little boys leave their pet plays to run about and tell everybody the news of
a great battle. A child cannot eat the best dinner in the world on the day of
first going to the play. The doll is thrown into a corner, when news comes of
any acquaintance being burnt out in the middle of the night; or when
anecdotes are telling of any old martyr who suffered heroically. In their own
way, children are conscious, when reminded, of the power of ideas; but they
cannot conceive of our way of experiencing the same force—to us so
renovating! If it is at times surprising to the most enlightened and
sympathising of our companions, it may well be astonishing to those in the
early stages of observation.
They see, with a sort of awe, how priceless are certain pictures to us, in
comparison with all others. They hear us speak of the landscapes, the
portraits, the graceful and beautiful images which adorn the walls; but they
observe how, when restless and distressed, we steal a glance upwards at one
picture, and find something there which seems to set us right—to rally us at
once. If such a picture as the Christus Consolator of Scheffer be within
view of the sick-couch—(that talisman, including the consolations of
eighteen centuries!—that mysterious assemblage of the redeemed Captives
and tranquillised Mourners of a whole Christendom!—that inspired epitome
of suffering and solace!)—it may well be a cause of wonder, almost
amounting to alarm, to those who, not having needed, have never felt its
power. If there were now burnings or drownings for sorcery, that picture,
and some who possess it, would soon be in the fire, or at the bottom of a
pond. No mute operation of witchcraft, or its dread, could exceed the silent
power of that picture over sufferers. Again—if the inexperienced chance to
see us in an unfavourable hour, when our self-control cannot rise beyond
constraint—when our words are fewest, however gentle the voice—when
our posture is rigid, because we will not be restless, and our faces tell the
distress we think we are concealing; if, at such a time, the post comes in,
how miraculous must seem the change to one who does not know what we
have just read in letters or newspapers—and, perhaps, could not understand
its efficacy, if he had seen. He sees us start up on the couch, hears us
become voluble, and talk in a free and joyous tone;—beholds us eat and
drink, without thinking what is put before us;—perhaps is surprised at a
flow of tears, which seems to dissolve the misery, whatever it was; and
finds, to his amazement, that all this is caused by something to him so dry
as the appointment of a committee in the House—a speech on some
hustings—an improved quarter’s revenue;—or, perhaps, something not dry,
but merely curious, and to him anything but moving,—a new appearance
attending an eclipse—an arrangement for embanking the Nile, or cutting
through the Isthmus of Panama, or some vast discovery in science or the
arts. He may, again, see the relaxation yet more complete,—may perceive,
without a word being spoken, that we are well for the hour,—the eye
swimming in happiness, the voice full of gentle joy; so that he is convinced
that illness does not “spoil everything.” In this case, some comfort has
come, too sacred to be told,—at least then; some news or appeal from the
primary christians and confessors of our day,—the American abolitionists,
—some opening to us for doing some little service,—or, as not seldom
happens, some word of true sympathy which rouses our spirit, as the
trumpet stirs the war-horse,—some sudden light showing our position on
our pilgrim path,—some hint of our high calling,—some apt warning of a
pregnant truth, administered by a wise and loving comforter.
If I were asked whether there is any one idea more potential than any
other over every sort of suffering, in a mode of life like ours, most hearers
of the question would make haste to answer for me that there is such a
variety of potential ideas, suited to such wide differences of mood of mind
and body, that it must be impossible to measure the strength of any one.
Nevertheless, I should reply that there is one, to me more powerful at
present than I can now conceive any single idea to have been in any former
states of my mind. It is this; that it matters infinitely less what we do than
what we are. I can conceive the amazement of many at this announcement,
—of many even who admit its truth, and feelingly admit it, as I myself did
when it was first brought home to me from the printed page of one friend by
the heart-breathing voice of another. I care not who wonders, and who only
half understands, while there are some few to whom this thought may be
what it is to me. No one will be so short-sighted as to apply it as an excuse
for indolence in the active and healthy,—so clear is it that such cannot be
what they ought to be, unless they do all they can. But perhaps it is only the
practised in human sorrows who can see far enough into the boundless truth
of this thought to appreciate its worth to us. Suffice it here that it has the
power I ascribe to it, and that we whom it has consoled long to administer it
when we see old age restless in its infirmity, activity disappointed of its
scope or instruments, or the most useful agents of society, the most
indispensable members of families paralysed by disease. We long to
whisper it in the dungeons of Spielberg, where it opens a career within the
narrowest recess of those thick walls. We long to send a missive to every
couch, of the sick, to every arm-chair of the aged and the blind, reminding
them that the great work of life is ours still,—through all modes of life but
that of the madhouse,—the formation of a heavenly soul within us. If we
cannot pursue a trade or a science, or keep house, or help the state, or write
books, or earn our own bread or that of others, we can do the work to which
all this is only subsidiary,—we can cherish a sweet and holy temper,—we
can vindicate the supremacy of mind over body,—we can, in defiance of
our liabilities, minister pleasure and hope to the gayest who come prepared
to receive pain from the spectacle of our pain; we can, here as well as in
heaven’s courts hereafter, reveal the angel growing into its immortal aspect,
which is the highest achievement we could propose to ourselves, or that
grace from above could propose to us, if we had a free choice of all possible
conditions of human life. If any doubt the worth of the thought, from the
common habit of overlooking the importance of what is done in its
character of index of what the agent is, let him resort at once to the
fountain-head of spiritual exemplification, and say whether it matters most
what Christ was or what he did.
The worth of this particular thought is a separate consideration from that
of the worth of any sound abstract idea to sufferers liable to a besetting
personal recollection, or doubt, or care. But, before I speak of this, I must
allude to a subject which causes inexpressible pain whenever it occurs to us
sick prisoners. I have said how unavailing is luxury when the body is
distressed and the spirit faint. At such times, and at all times, we cannot but
be deeply grieved at the conception of the converse of our own state, at the
thought of the multitude of poor suffering under privation, without the