There are doubtless some to whom it would be very dreadful to think of thus meeting on the threshold of eternity the wronged, the deceived, the forsaken. But for most of us, God be thanked, no dream of celestial glory has half the ecstasy of the thought that in dying we may meet--and _meet at once_, before we have had a moment to feel the awful loneliness of death--the parent, wife, husband, child, friend of our life, soul of our soul, whom we consigned long ago with breaking hearts to the grave. Their “beautiful” forms (as that dying lady beheld her brother and sister) entering our chamber, standing beside our bed of death, and come to rejoin us for ever,--what words can describe the happiness of such a vision? It _may_ be awaiting us all. There is even, perhaps, a certain probability that it is actually the natural destiny of the human soul, and that the affections which alone of earthly things can survive dissolution will, like magnets, draw the beloved and loving spirits of the dead around the dying. I can see no reason why we should not indulge so ineffably blessed a hope. But, even if it be a dream, the faith remains, built on no such evanescent and shadowy foundation, that there is One Friend,--and He the best,--in whose arms we shall surely fall asleep, and to whose love we may trust for the reunion, sooner or later, of the severed links of sacred human affection. FOOTNOTES: [36] There is an argument which, I believe, now influences more or less consciously the minds of many intelligent persons against the belief in the immortal life. It amounts to this: Granted that there is a God, and that he is absolutely benevolently disposed toward mankind, it does not follow (as commonly assumed) that He will bestow immortality on man, because _it is quite possible that there may be an inherent absurdity and contradiction in the idea of an immortal finite creature_,--it may, in short, be no more within the scope of divine power to create an immortal man than to make a triangle with the properties of a circle. If we could be first assured that the thing were _possible_, then arguments derived from the justice and goodness of the Deity might be valuable, as affording us ground for believing that He will do that possible thing. But, while it remains an open question whether we are not talking actual nonsense when we speak of an ever-living created being, such reflections on the moral attributes of God are beside the mark. No justice or goodness can be involved in doing that which, in the nature of things, is impossible.