Coleman says, also:

Coleman says, also, that the early Christian utterly discarded all the Jewish badges and customs of mourning, such as sackcloth and ashes and rent garments, and severely censured the Roman custom of wearing black.

Are not many of the usages and familiar forms of speech of modern Christendom a return to old heathenism? Are they not what St. Augustine calls a repudiation of the Christian faith? The black garments, the funeral dreariness, the mode of speech which calls a departed friend lost—have they not become the almost invariable rule in Christian life?

So really and truly did the first Christians believe that their friends were still one with themselves, that they considered them even in their advanced and glorified state a subject of prayers.

Prayer for each other was to the first Christians a reality. The intimacy of their sympathy, the entire oneness of their life, made prayer for each other a necessity, and they prayed for each other instinctively as they prayed for themselves. So, St. Paul says “Always in every prayer of mine making request for you always with joy.” Christians are commanded without ceasing to pray for each other. As their faith forbade them to consider the departed as lost or ceasing to exist, or in any way being out of their fellowship and communion, it did not seem to them strange or improper to yield to that impulse of the loving heart which naturally breathes to the Heavenly Father the name of its beloved. On the contrary, it was a custom in the earliest Christian times, in the solemn service of the Eucharist, to commend to God in a memorial prayer the souls of their friends departed, but not dead. In Coleman’s Antiquities, and other works of the same kind, many instances of this are given. We select some:

Arnobius, in his treatise against the heathen writers, probably in 305, speaking of the prayers offered after the consecration of the elements in the Lord’s Supper, says “that Christians prayed for pardon and peace in behalf of the living and dead.” Cyril, of Jerusalem, reports the prayer made after consecrating the elements in Holy Communion in these words:

A memorial of this custom has come into the Protestant Church in the Episcopal Eucharistic service where occur these words: “And we also bless thy Holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear, beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that we with them may be partakers of thy Heavenly Kingdom.” It will be seen here the progress of an idea, its corruption and its reform.

The original idea with the primitive Christian was this: “My friend is neither dead nor changed. He is only gone before me, and is promoted to higher joy; but he is still mine and I am his. Still can I pray for him, still can he pray for me; and as when he was here on earth we can be mutually helped by each other’s prayers.”

Out of this root—so simple and so sweet—grew idolatrous exaggerations of saint worship and a monstrous system of bargain and sale of prayers for the dead. The Reformation swept all this away—and, as usual with reformations, swept away a portion of the primitive truth—but it retained still the Eucharistic memorial of departed friends as a fragment of primitive simplicity.

The Church, furthermore, appointed three festivals of commemoration of these spiritual members of the great Church Invisible with whom they held fellowship—the festivals of All Souls, of All Angels, of All Saints.

Two of these are still retained in the Episcopal Church the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, and the feast of All Saints. These days are derived from those yearly anniversaries which were common in the primitive ages.

[Here we have a formal deprecation of the tendency of modern orthodoxy to withdraw from what was once regarded as a proper religious belief and sentiment, and which modern Spiritualists warmly accept, and make one of the chief grounds for their doctrine of intercommunication between the departed dead and the living. We expect to give our readers other papers by Mrs. Stowe in continuation of her discussion on the subject.

In the following letter, or extract from a letter, from Mr. Andrew Jackson Davis, one of the leading lights and exponents of Spiritualism at the present day, we have a voice from the inside, furnishing some information with regard to the state of spiritualistic affairs in America, and some of the expected results of the movement.]

“Spiritualism, for the most part, is a shower from the realm of intelligences and uncultured affections. It is rapidly irrigating and fertilizing everything that has root and the seed-power to grow. It is starting up the half-dead trees of Sectarianism, causing the most miserable weeds to grow rapid and rank, and of course, attracting very general attention to religious feelings and super-terrene existences.

“As an effect of this spiritualistic rain, you may look for an immense harvest of both wheat and tares—the grandest growths in great principles and ideas on the one hand, and a fearful crop of crudities and disorganizing superstitions on the other. There will be seen floating on the flood many of our most sacred institutions. Old wagon-ruts, long-forgotten cow-tracks, every little hole and corner in the old highways, will be filled to the brim with the rain. You will hardly know the difference between the true springs and the flowing mud-pools visible on every side. Many noble minds will stumble as they undertake to ford the new streams which will come up to their very door-sills, if not into their sacred and established habitations. Perhaps lives may be lost; perhaps homes may be broken up; perhaps fortunes may be sacrificed; for who ever heard of a great flood, a storm of much power, or an earthquake, that did not do one, or two, or all of these deplorable things? Spiritualism is, indeed, all and everything which its worst enemies or best friends ever said of it;—a great rain from heaven, a storm of violence, a power unto salvation, a destroyer and a builder too—each, and all, and everything good, bad, and indifferent; for which every one, nevertheless, should be thankful, as eventually all will be when the evil subsides, when the severe rain is over, and the clouds dispersed—when even the blind will see with new eyes, the lame walk, and the mourners of the world be made to rejoice with joy unspeakable.

“Of course, my kind brother, you know that I look upon ‘wisdom’ organized into our daily lives, and ‘love’ inspiring every heart, as the only true heaven appointed saviour of mankind. And all spiritual growth and intellectual advancement in the goodnesses and graces of this redeemer I call an application of the Harmonial Philosophy. But I find, as most likely you do, that it is as hard to get the Spiritualists to become Harmonial Philosophers as to induce ardent Bible-believers to daily practice the grand essentials which dwell in the warm heart of Christianity.”

It is not long since the writer was in conversation with a very celebrated and popular minister of the modern Church, who has for years fulfilled a fruitful ministry in New England. He was speaking of modern Spiritualism as one of the most dangerous forms of error—as an unaccountable infatuation. The idea was expressed by a person present that it was after all true that the spirits of the departed friends were in reality watching over our course and interested in our affairs in this world.

The clergyman, who has a fair right, by reason of his standing and influence to represent the New England pulpit, met that idea by a prompt denial. “A pleasing sentimental dream,” he said, “very apt to mislead, and for which there is no scriptural and rational foundation.” We have shown in our last article what the very earliest Christians were in the habit of thinking with regard to the unbroken sympathy between the living and those called dead, and how the Church by very significant and solemn acts pronounced them to be not only alive, but alive in a fuller, higher, and more joyful sense than those on earth.

We may remember that among the primitive Christians the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was not as in our modern times a rare and unfrequent occurrence, coming at intervals of two, three, and even six months, but that it occurred every Sunday, and on many of the solemn events of life, as funerals and marriages, and that one part of the celebration always consisted in recognizing by a solemn prayer the unbroken unity of the saints below and the saints in heaven. We may remember, too, that it was a belief among them that angels were invisibly present, witnessing and uniting with the eucharistic memorial—a belief of which we still have the expression in that solemn portion of the Episcopal communion service which says, “Wherefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy Holy Name.”

This part of the eucharistic service was held by the first Christians to be the sacred and mysterious point of confluence when the souls of saints on earth and the blessed in heaven united. So says Saint Chrysostom:

And in another place he says:

The continued identity, interest and unbroken oneness of the departed with the remaining was a topic frequently insisted on among early Christian ministers—it was one reason of the rapid spread of Christianity. Converts flocked in clouds to the ranks of a people who professed to have vanquished death—in whose inclosure love was forever safe, and who by so many sacred and solemn acts of recognition consoled the bereaved heart with this thought, that their beloved, though unseen, was still living and loving—still watching, waiting, and caring for them.

Modern rationalistic religion says: “We do not know anything about them—God has taken them: of them and their estate we know nothing: whether they remember us, whether they know what we are doing, whether they care for us, whether we shall ever see them again to know them, are all questions vailed in inscrutable mystery. We must give our friends up wholly and take refuge in God.”

But St. Augustine, speaking on the same subject, says:

Now let us take the case of some poor, widowed mother, from whose heart has been torn an only son—pious, brave, and beautiful—her friend, her pride, her earthly hope—struck down suddenly as by a lightning stroke. The physical shock is terrible—the cessation of communion, if the habits of intercourse and care, if the habit, so sweet to the Christian, of praying for that son, must all cease. We can see now what the primitive Church would have said to such a mother: “Thy son is not dead. To the Christian there is no death—follow his footsteps, imitate his prayerfulness and watchfulness, and that he may the better pray for thee, keep close in the great communion of saints.” Every Sabbath would bring to her the eucharistic feast, when the Church on earth and the Church in heaven held their reunion, where “with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven,” they join their praises! and she might feel herself drawing near to her blessed one in glory. How consoling—how comforting such Church fellowship!

A mother under such circumstances would feel no temptation to resort to doubtful, perplexing sources, to glean here and there fragments of that consolation which the Church was ordained to give. In every act of life the primitive Church recognized that the doors of heaven were open through her ordinances and the communion of love with the departed blest unbroken.

It has been our lot to know the secret history of many who are not outwardly or professedly Spiritualists—persons of sober and serious habits of thought, of great self-culture and self-restraint, to whom it happened after the death of a friend to meet accidentally and without any seeking or expecting on their part with spiritualistic phenomena of a very marked type. These are histories that never will be unvailed to the judgment of a scoffing and unsympathetic world; that in the very nature of the case must forever remain secret; yet they have brought to hearts bereaved and mourning that very consolation which the Christian Church ought to have afforded them, and which the primitive Church so amply provided.

In conversation with such, we have often listened to remarks like this: “I do not seek these things—I do not search out mediums nor attend spiritual circles. I have attained all I wish to know, and am quite indifferent now whether I see another manifestation.” “And what,” we inquired, “is this something that you have attained?” “Oh, I feel perfectly certain that my friend is not dead—but alive, unchanged, in a region of joy and blessedness, expecting me, and praying for me, and often ministering to me.”

Compare this with the language of St. Augustine, and we shall see that it is simply a return to the stand-point of the primitive Church.

Among the open and professed Spiritualists are some men and women of pure and earnest natures, and seriously anxious to do good, and who ought to be distinguished from the charlatans who have gone into it merely from motives of profit and self-interest. Now it is to be remarked that this higher class of spiritualists, with one voice, declare that the subject of spiritual communication is embarrassed with formidable difficulties. They admit that lying spirits often frequent the circle, that they are powerful to deceive, and that the means of distinguishing between the wiles of evil spirits and the communications of good ones are very obscure.

This, then, is the prospect. The pastures of the Church have been suffered to become bare and barren of one species of food which the sheep crave and sicken for the want of. They break out of the inclosure and rush, unguided, searching for it among poisonous plants, which closely resemble it, but whose taste is deadly.

Those remarkable phenomena which affect belief upon this subject are not confined to paid mediums and spiritual circles, so called. They sometimes come of themselves to persons neither believing in them, looking for them, nor seeking them. Thus coming they can not but powerfully and tenderly move the soul. A person in the desolation of bereavement, visited with such experiences, is in a condition which calls for the tenderest sympathy and most careful guidance. Yet how little of this is there to be found! The attempt to unvail their history draws upon them, perhaps, only cold ridicule and a scarcely suppressed doubt of their veracity. They are repelled from making confidence where they ought to find the wisest guidance, and are drawn by an invisible sympathy into labyrinths of deception and error—and finally, perhaps, relapse into a colder skepticism than before. That such experiences are becoming common in our days, is a fact that ought to rouse true Christians to consideration, and to searching the word of God to find the real boundaries and the true and safe paths.

We have stated in the last article, and in this, what the belief and the customs of the primitive Christians were in respect to the departed. We are aware that it does not follow, of course, that a custom is to be adopted in our times because the first Christians preached and taught it. A man does not become like his ancestors by dressing up in their old clothes—but by acting in their spirit. It is quite possible to wear such robes and practice such ceremonies as the early Christians did and not to be in the least like them. Therefore let us not be held as advocating the practice of administering the eucharist at funerals, and of praying for the dead in the eucharistic service, because it was done in the first three centuries. But we do hold to a return to the spirit which caused these customs. We hold to that belief in the unbroken unity possible between those who have passed to the higher life than this. We hold to that vivid faith in things unseen which was the strength of primitive Christians. The first Christians believed what they said they did—we do not. The unseen spiritual world, its angels and archangels, its saints and martyrs, its purity and its joys, were ever before them, and that is why they were such a mighty force in the world. St. Augustine says that it was the vision of the saints gone before that inspired them with courage and contempt of death—and it is true.

In another paper we shall endeavor to show how far these beliefs of the primitive Church correspond with the Holy Scripture.

DR. DODDRIDGE’S DREAM

Dr. Doddridge was on terms of very intimate friendship with Dr. Samuel Clarke, and in religious conversation they spent many happy hours together. Among other matters, a very favorite topic was the intermediate state of the soul, and the probability that at the instant of dissolution it was introduced into the presence of all the heavenly hosts, and the splendors around the throne of God. One evening, after a conversation of this nature, Dr. Doddridge retired to rest, and “in the visions of the night” his ideas were shaped into the following beautiful form.

He dreamed that he was at the house of a friend, when he was taken suddenly and dangerously ill. By degrees he seemed to grow worse, and at last to expire. In an instant he was sensible that he had exchanged the prison-house and sufferings of mortality for a state of liberty and happiness. Embodied in a slender, aerial form, he seemed to float in a region of pure light. Beneath him lay the earth, but not a glittering city or a village, the forest or the sea were visible. There was naught to be seen below save the melancholy group of his friends, weeping around his lifeless remains. Himself thrilled with delight, he was surprised at their tears, and attempted to inform them of his happy change, but by some mysterious power, utterance was denied; and as he anxiously leaned over the mourning circle, gazing fondly upon them and struggling to speak, he rose silently upon the air, their forms became more and more indistinct, and gradually melted away from his sight. Reposing upon golden clouds, he found himself swiftly mounting the skies, with a venerable figure at his side, guiding his mysterious movements, and in whose countenance he discovered the lineaments of youth and age blended together, with an intimate harmony and majestic sweetness.

They traveled together through a vast region of empty space, until, at length, the battlements of a glorious edifice shone in the distance, and as its form rose brilliant and distinct among the far-off shadows that flitted athwart their path, the guide informed him that the palace he beheld was, for the present, to be his mansion of rest. Gazing upon its splendor, he replied that while on earth he had often heard that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor could the heart of man conceive, the things which God hath prepared for those who love him; but notwithstanding the building to which they were rapidly approaching was superior to anything he had before beheld, yet its grandeur had not exceeded the conceptions he had formed. The guide made no reply—they were already at the door, and entered. The guide introduced him into a spacious apartment, at the extremity of which stood a table, covered with a snow-white cloth, a golden cup, and a cluster of grapes, and then said that he must leave him, but that he must remain, for in a short time he would receive a visit from the lord of the mansion, and that during the interval before his arrival, the apartment would furnish him sufficient entertainment and instruction. The guide vanished, and he was left alone. He began to examine the decorations of the room, and observed that the walls were adorned with a number of pictures. Upon nearer inspection he perceived, to his astonishment, that they formed a complete biography of his own life. Here he saw depicted, that angels, though unseen, had ever been his familiar attendants; and sent by God they had sometimes preserved him from imminent peril. He beheld himself first represented as an infant just expiring, when his life was prolonged by an angel gently breathing into his nostrils. Most of the occurrences delineated were perfectly familiar to his recollection, and unfolded many things which he had never before understood, and which had perplexed him with many doubts and much uneasiness. Among others he was particularly impressed with a picture in which he was represented as falling from his horse, when death would have been inevitable had not an angel received him in his arms and broken the force of his descent. These merciful interpositions of God filled him with joy and gratitude, and his heart overflowed with love as he surveyed in them all an exhibition of goodness and mercy far beyond all that he had imagined.

Suddenly his attention was arrested by a knock at the door. The lord of the mansion had arrived—the door opened and he entered. So powerful and overwhelming, and withal of such singular beauty was his appearance, that he sank down at his feet, completely overcome by his majestic presence. His lord gently raised him from the ground, and taking his hand led him forward to the table. He pressed with his fingers the juice of the grapes into the golden cup, and after having himself drank, he presented it to him, saying, “This is the new wine in my Father’s kingdom.” No sooner had he partaken than all uneasy sensations vanished, perfect love had now cast out fear, and he conversed with the Saviour as an intimate friend. Like the silver rippling of a summer sea he heard fall from his lips the grateful approbation: “Thy labors are finished, thy work is approved; rich and glorious is the reward.” Thrilled with an unspeakable bliss, that pervaded the very depths of his soul, he suddenly saw glories upon glories bursting upon his view. The Doctor awoke. Tears of rapture from this joyful interview were rolling down his cheeks. Long did the lively impression of this charming dream remain upon his mind, and never could he speak of it without emotions of joy, and with tender and grateful remembrance.