the unseen land; servants were even slain, that they might attend their master; and the Hindoo widow consumed herself on the funeral pile of her husband, in the confidence that their union would be perpetual. In the classic nations of antiquity, the retributions of Elysium and of Tartarus were, to the popular mind, as much realities as the existence of superior beings. Lucretius treated both as equally popular delusions. The belief of the people, in fact, retained the primitive consciousness; a consciousness so universal that, even in the Old Testament, the immortality of the soul was rather presupposed than formally and frequently asserted. It was never a discovery; those who denied it were always the fewer and the later. The poets described as poets; but their boldest fictions would have been tasteless and powerless, had they not found in the reader this strong consciousness. Some of their images appear to have been borrowed from the patriarchal and Hebrew belief, through uncertain tradition. Other passages spring up directly from the heart. The heroes of Homer pass into a world of deep shadows; and, though the Hades to which he makes Ulysses descend is far less distinct and impressive than that of Virgil, yet the dead have all the traits of the living. "O dearest Harmodius," exclaims an Athenian poet, "thou art not dead; but in the islands, they say, of the blessed, where, they say, are the swift-footed Achilles, and Diomed Tydides." In a lofty and solemn strain, Pindar reveals the deep belief which lay behind all their mythology. But it is in the personal expectations of the bereaved, and of those who were approaching the grave, that the reality of the ancient belief is most palpably evident. Even in the skeptical verses of Adrian, to his own soul, the sense of continuous life is expressed under all uncertainty of the place and the manner. "I shall part from hence," said Socrates, and go to enjoy the felicity of the blessed." Neither ancient nor modern eloquence can easily match that sublime expression of the affection and hope of Cicero. "What," says he, "is more desirable than to go to them whom, though dead, we still in life had loved, and to enjoy a perpetual life with those, who so much laboured by precept and example that we might honourably live and cheerfully die! To me it seems, assuredly, that nothing more delightful can befall me, than, if death open an entrance to other regions, to come to those, and be with those whom I have chiefly loved, and never can cease to love and praise. Oh, how shall I exult, when I attain the society of my kindred and my friends! What intercourse can be more joyous, what meetings and embraces more sweet! O blessed death, which shall open the entrance to a life most blessed!" "Thou, therefore," he thus apostrophizes his departed daughter, "now separated from me, not deserting me, but sometimes. looking back, lead me, where I may yet enjoy thy conversation and the sight of thee!" This was not rhetoric, but the aspiration of his mind and heart; he says, that he would not willingly relinquish the persuasion, even though it were untrue; and so high, to such a consciousness of immortal life, could the classic Pagans reach, and not philosophers only, but all who could think and feel, here on this isthmus of a middle state." XXXVIII. Beathen Craditions of Life after Death "Guide My pathless voyage o'er the unknown tide, To scenes of endless joy, to that fair isle, Where bowers of bliss and soft savannahs smile; BOWLES. THE traditions and opinions of mankind concerning the state after death, have, apart from written revelation, a sufficient uniformity to attest a foundation in the voice of nature, or in truth revealed at the beginning. If they have such a foundation, they cannot but speak a language which, however perverted, has a deep significance; for nature and primeval revelation are equally from God. On the Egyptian monuments, the soul is represented as brought, after death, into the presence of its judge, attended by accusing and approving spirits. The Greek mythology carried it across the Styx, in the boat of Charon, to the bar of three righteous judges, under whose award it passed to an appropriate abode, according to its works on earth. We have no uninspired writings, apparently, that are older than the poems of Homer. In these, a shadowy gloom overspreads the world of the departed. Achilles, after seeing Patroclus, his dead friend, in a dream, exclaims: ""Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; th' immortal mind remains; The form subsists without the body's aid, Aerial semblance, and an empty shade!" The spirits of slain warriors speed through their wounds into air, and hasten to that dim land, where even the joy of virtuous heroes seems almost gloomy. So thick, to heathen eyes, is the mist of futurity. The Scandinavians said, that the brave were to revel for ever in the halls of Valhalla, and drink mead offered them by maidens, from the skulls of their enemies. Some of the Pagan Arabs said, that of the blood near the brain a bird was formed, which once in a century visited the sepulchre; and some believed a resurrection. The first natives of America, whom the Spaniards discovered, said, that the souls of good men went to a pleasant valley, where the guava and other fruits grew in abundance; that the dead walked abroad in the night, and feasted with the living. Charlevoix says, that the Indians paid great regard to dreams, as embracing intercourse with spirits. They supposed a Paradise in the West, a sunset land. The Mexicans distinguished three places; the House of the Sun, for men who died in battle or captivity, and women who died in childbed; the place of the God of Water, for the drowned, for children, and for those who died of dropsy, tumours, and such diseases, or of accidental wounds; and the place of darkness, in the centre of the earth, or in the North. An Indian told David Brainerd, that he had been dead four days, and would have been buried but for the absence of some relations; that he went to the place where the sun rises, and above that place, high in the air, was admitted into a vast house, miles, he supposed, in length, and saw many wonderful things. The Patagonians call the dead those who are with God, and out of the world. The Tongo people suppose the souls of their dead chiefs to be in a delightful island of shadows, to the northwest, "Some safer world in depths of woods embraced, The Yucatanese represented the abode of the good as a delightful land of plenty, under the shade of a mighty tree. The Chickasaws, on the other hand, told Wesley that they believed the souls of red men walked up and down near the place where they died, or were laid; and that they had often heard cries and noises where prisoners had before been burned. The Indians of Cumana supposed echo to be the voice of the departed. It was a common opinion of the Indians of America, that the spirits of the slain haunted their tribe till they were avenged. But the idea of transmigration has also been found, in Africa, amongst the Egyptians; in Asia, with the Brahmins; and in America, amongst the Tlascalans. Sometimes, even, a higher fate has been assigned to the chiefs and sages, while the lowlier orders of men were supposed to pass into the forms of the lower orders of animals. The idea, however, of transmigration, is itself but an anomaly; and can only be regarded as one of the vagaries of the human mind, in its attempt to penetrate some of the mysteries of existence. The general current of the traditions of all nations points to a future, spiritual life; to a separation there, according to the character and actions here; to joys awaiting the good, joys, of which the images were borrowed from the knowledge or pursuits of each people; and to a very close connection between this life and that life to come, in the identity of individuals, in the recollection there, in the revival of acquaintance, and in occasional appearances of the departed here, or glimpses of their forms, or echoes of their voices; though all is represented as distant and shadowy. This |