Part 10 (1/2)
The devil is in great force in this service, as is only right in a so generally barbarous an office: ”Let the enemy have no advantage of him;”
”defend him from the danger of the enemy;” ”renew in him whatsoever hath been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil;” ”the wiles of Satan;” ”deliver him from fear of the enemy;” all this must convey to the sick person a cheerful idea of the devil lingering about his bed, and trying to get hold of him before it is too late to drag him down to h.e.l.l.
Is there any meaning at all in the expression, ”the Almighty Lord....
to whom all things in heaven, in earth and _under the earth_ do bow and obey.” Where is ”under the earth ”? The sun is under some part of the earth to some people at any given time; the stars are under, or above, according to the point of view from which they are looked at. Of course, the expression is only a survival from a time when the earth was flat and the bottomless pit was under it, only it seems a Pity to continued to use expressions which have all but lost their meaning and are now thoroughly ridiculous. People seem to think that any old things are good enough for G.o.d's service. The last two prayers are remarkable chiefly for their melancholy and 'craven tone towards G.o.d: ”we humbly recomment,” ”most humbly beseeching thee.” Surely G.o.d is not supposed to be an Eastern despot, desiring this kind of cringing at his feet.
Yet the ”Prayer for persons troubled in mind or in conscience” is one pitiful wail, as though only by pa.s.sionate entreaty could G.o.d be moved to mercy, and he were longing to strike, and with difficulty withheld from avenging himself. When will men learn to stand upright on their feet, instead of thus crouching on their knees? When will they learn to strive to live n.o.bly, and then to fear no celestial anger, either in life or in death?
THE ORDER FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.
It is a little difficult to write a critical notice of a funeral office, simply because people's feelings are so much bound up in it that any criticism seems a cruelty, and any interference seems an impertinence.
Round the open grave all controversy should be hushed, that no jarring sounds may mingle with the sobs of the mourners, and no quarrels wring the torn hearts of the survivors. Our criticism of this office, then, will be brief and grave.
The opening verses strike us first as manifestly inappropriate: ”Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die;” yet the dead is then being carried to his last home, and the words seem a mockery spoken in face of a corpse. In the Fourth Gospel they preface the raising of Lazarus, and of course are then very significant, but to-day no power raises our dead, no voice of Jesus says to the mourners, ”Weep not.” The second verse from Job is---as is well known--an utter mistranslation: ”without my flesh” would be nearer the truth than ”in my flesh,” and ”worms” and body are not mentioned in the original at all. It seems a pity that in such solemn moments known falsehoods should be used.
The whole argument in the 15th ch of Corinthians is the reverse of convincing. Christ is not the first fruits them that slept A dead man had been raised by touching the bones of Ehsha (2 Kings xii). Elisha, in his lifetime had raised the dead son of the Shunamite (2 Kings iv.); Elijah, before him, had raised the son of the Widow of Zarephath (2 Kings xvii.); Christ had raised Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus, and the son of a widow. In no sense, then, if the Scriptures of the Christians be true can it be said that Christ has become the first fruits, the first begotten from the dead. ”For since by man came death;”
but death did not come by man; myriads of ages before man was in the world animals were born, lived and died, and they have left their fossilised remains to prove the falsity of the popular belief. We notice also that ”flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of G.o.d.” If this be so, what becomes of the ”resurrection of the flesh,” spoken of in the Baptismal and Visitation Offices? What has become of the ”flesh and bones” which Christ had after his resurrection and with which, according to the 4th Article, he has gone into heaven? Cannot Christ ”inherit the kingdom of G.o.d”? It is hard to see how, in any sense, the resurrection of Christ can be taken as a proof of the resurrection of man. Christ was only dead thirty-six or thirty-seven hours before he is said to have risen again; there was no time for bodily decay, no time for corruption to destroy his frame: how could the restoration to life of a man whose body was in perfect preservation prove the possibility of the resurrection of the bodies which have long since been resolved into their const.i.tuent elements, and have gone to form other bodies, and to give shape to other modes of existence? People talk in such superior fas.h.i.+on of the resurrection that-they never stoop to remember its necessary details, or to think where is to be found sufficient matter wherewith to clothe all the human souls on the resurrection morn.
The bodies of the dead make the earth more productive; they nourish vegetable existence; transformed into gra.s.s they feed the sheep and the cattle; transformed into these they sustain human beings; transformed into these they form new bodies once more, and pa.s.s from birth to death, and from death to birth again, a perfect circle of life, trans.m.u.ted by Nature's alchemy from form to form. No man has a freehold of his body; he possesses only a life-tenancy, and then it pa.s.ses into other hands.
The melancholy dirge which succeeds this chapter sounds like a wail of despair: man ”hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.” Can any teaching be more utterly unwholesome? It is the confession of the most complete helplessness, the recognition of the futility of toil. And then the agonised pleading: ”O Lord G.o.d most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.” But if he be most merciful, whence all this need of weeping and wailing? If he be most merciful, what danger can there be of the bitter pains of eternal death? And again the cry rises: ”Shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O G.o.d most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge Eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.” It is nothing but the wail of humanity, face to face with the agony of death, feeling its utter helplessness before the great enemy, and clinging to any straw which may float within reach of the drowning grasp; it is the horror of Life facing Death, a horror that seems felt only by the fully living and not by the dying; it is the recoil of vigorous vitality from the silence and chilliness of the tomb.
After this comes a sudden change of tone, and the mourners are told of G.o.d's ”great mercy” in taking the departed, and of the ”burden of the flesh,” and they are bidden to give ”hearty thanks” for the dead being delivered ”out of the miseries of this sinful world.” Can anything be more unreal? There is not one mourner there who desires to share in the great mercy, who wants to be freed from the burden of the flesh, or desires deliverance from the miseries of this world. Why should people thus play a farce beside the grave? Do they expect G.o.d to believe them, or to be deceived by such hypocrisy?
It is urged by some that the Church cannot have a ”sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life” as regards some of those whom she buries with this service; and it is manifest that, if the Bible be true, drunkards and others who are to be cast into the lake of fire, can scarcely rise to eternal life at the same time, and therefore the Church has no right to express a hope where G.o.d has p.r.o.nounced condemnation.
The Rubric only shuts out of the hope the uhbaptized, the excommunicated, and the suicide; all others have a right to burial at her hands, and to the hope of a joyful resurrection, in spite of the Bible.
We may hope that the day will soon come when people may die in England and may be buried in peace without this cry of pain and superst.i.tion over their graves. Wherever cemeteries are within reasonable distance the Rationalist may now be buried, lovingly and reverently, without the echo of that in which he disbelieved during life sounding over his grave; but throughout many small towns and country villages the Burial Service of the Church is practically obligatory, and is enforced by clerical bigotry. But the pa.s.sing knell of the Establishment sounds clearer and clearer, and soon those who have rejected her services in life shall be free from her ministrations at the tomb.
A COMMINATION OR DENOUNCING OF G.o.d'S ANGER AND JUDGMENTS AGAINST SINNERS.
THIS service is too beautiful to be pa.s.sed over without a word of homage; the spectacle of the Church raving and cursing is too edifying to be ungratefully ignored. ”Brethren, in the primitive Church there was a G.o.dly discipline that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved.... Instead whereof (until the said discipline may be restored again, which is much to be wished), it is thought good,” &c. That is, in other words: ”In days gone by, we were able to bite, as well as to bark; now that our mouths are muzzled we can only snarl; but, until the old power comes back, which is much to be wished, let us, since we cannot bite, show our teeth and growl as viciously as we can, so that people may understand that it is only the power that is wanting, and not the will, and that, if we could, we would torture and burn as vigorously as we curse and d.a.m.n.” And promptly the priest begins with his curses, and all the people say Amen: what a pretty sight--a whole church full of Christians with one consent cursing their neighbours! Then comes an exhortation; as so many curses are flying about we must take care of our heads: ”Let us, remembering the dreadful judgment hanging over our heads, and _always ready to fall upon us_, return to our Lord G.o.d.” Always ready to fall; but is G.o.d, then, always lying in wait to catch us tripping, and crush us with his judgments? Does he punish gladly, and keep his blow suspended, to fall at the first chance our weakness gives him? If so, by no means let us return to our Lord G.o.d, but let us rather try to put a considerable distance between himself and us, and endeavour, like the prophet Jonah, to flee from the presence of the Lord. ”It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living G.o.d: he shall pour down rain upon the sinners, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest.” And who made the sinners? Who called them into the world without their own consent? Who made them with an evil nature? Who moulded them as the potter the clay?
Who made it impossible for them to go to Jesus unless he drew them, and then did not draw them? If G.o.d wants to pour fire and brimstone on anybody, he should pour it on himself, for he made the sinners, and is responsible for their existence and their sin. ”It shall be too late to knock when the door shall be shut; too late to cry for mercy when it is the time of justice.” How utterly repulsive is this picture of the popular and traditional G.o.d: how black the colours wherein is painted this Moloch; surely the artist must have been sketching a picture of the devil, and by mistake wrote under it the name of G.o.d when he should have put the name of Satan. If, however, we submit ourselves, and walk in his ways, and seek his glory, and serve him duly--that is, if we acknowledge injustice to be justness, and cruelty to be mercy, and evil to be good--then we shall escape ”the extreme malediction which shall light upon them that shall be set on the left hand.” On the whole, brave men and women will prefer to do rightly and justly here, caring much about serving man, and nothing about glorifying such a G.o.d, and leaving the malediction alone, very sure that no punishment can befal a man for living n.o.bly, and that no fear need cloud the death-bed of him who has made his life a blessing to mankind.
Of course, after all this preface, come cringing confessions of sin. The 51st Psalm leads the way, the congregation having by this time become so thoroughly confused that they see no incongruity in saying that when G.o.d has built the walls of Jerusalem, he will be pleased with burnt offerings and oblations, and that ”then shall they offer young bullocks upon thy altar.” As a matter of fact, they have no intention of offering young bullocks at all--bullocks having become too useful to be wasted in that fas.h.i.+on, but they have so thoroughly left the realm of common sense that they have become unconscious of the absurdities which they repeat.
The gross exaggeration of the concluding prayers must be patent to everyone; they are full of the hysteria which pa.s.ses for piety. ”We are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sins,” although most of the congregation will forget all about the burden before they leave the church: we are ”vile earth and miserable sinners;” we ”meekly acknowledge our vileness.” One longs to shake them all, and tell them to stand up like men and women, instead of cringing there like cowards, whining about their vileness. If they are vile, why don't they mend, instead of saying the same thing every year? They should be ashamed to tell G.o.d of their miserable condition year after year, when his grace is sufficient for them, and they might be perfect as their Father in heaven.
The Church in all this service reminds one of nothing so much as a wicked old crone, who whines to the parson and scolds all the children.
In days gone by the old woman has been the terror of the village, and her st.u.r.dy arm has been shown on many a black eye and bruised face; now she can no longer strike, she can only curse; she can no longer tyrannise, she can only scowl; her palsied tongue still mutters the curses which her shrivelled arm can no longer translate into act, and in her bleared eye, in her wrinkled cheeks, in her shaking frame, we read the record of an evil youth, wherein she abused her strength, and we see descending upon her the gloom of a dishonoured age, and the night of a fathomless despair.
FORMS OF PRAYER TO BE USED AT SEA.
There is now a special service used at the launching of her Imperial Majesty's war-vessels which has not yet found its way into the Prayer-Book; curious thoughts arise in the mind in contemplating that fas.h.i.+on, conjoined to the office to be ”used in her Majesty's navy every day.” How does G.o.d protect ”the persons of us, thy servants, and the fleet in which we serve?” Does prayer make bad s.h.i.+ps more seaworthy, or supply the place of stout iron and sound wood? If the s.h.i.+p is not safe without prayer, will prayer make it so?
If not, what is the use of praying over it? Either the s.h.i.+p is seaworthy or it is not; if it is, it will sail safely without prayer; if it is not, will prayer carry the rotten s.h.i.+p through the storm? If prayer be so efficacious, would it not be cheaper to use less wood and more prayer? Bad materials roughly put together would serve, for a curate would be cheaper than a s.h.i.+pwright, and much prayer would enable us to dispense with much labour. In ”storms at sea,” a special prayer is to be used; ”O most powerful and glorious Lord G.o.d, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage thereof:” ”O send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds and the roaring sea.” Is not this the prayer of utter ignorance, the prayer of an unscientific age? For what does the prayer imply? Only the modest request that the state of the atmosphere round the whole globe may be modified to suit the convenience of a small s.h.i.+p! And not only that, but also that the whole course of weather may be changed during countless yesterdays, the weather of to-day being only an effect caused by them.
Such prayers were offered up in former days by a people who knew nothing of the inviolability of natural order, and who imagined that the weather might be changed at their bidding as the clerk may push on the hands of the church clock. The sailors are very frank in their confession: ”When we have been safe and seen all things quiet about us, we have forgot thee, our G.o.d... But now we see how terrible thou art in all thy works of wonder; the great G.o.d to be feared above all.” At any rate they cannot be accused of hypocrisy in their dealings with G.o.d! Nor is this all. Short prayers are provided for those who have no time for the long ones; and if the danger grows very pressing, everybody who can be spared is to join in a special confession of sins, taken from the Communion Office. It would surely be well to avoid a very pious crew, as they might be wasting the time in prayer which might save the s.h.i.+p by work.