Socrates faced death with the magnificent calm bred of dignified familiarity.He had built for himself a desired heaven of colour, light, and precious stones - the philosophic formula of those who set the spiritual above the material, and worship truth in the beauty of holiness.He is not troubled by doubts or regrets, for the path of the just lies plain before his face.He forbids mourning and lamentations as out of place, obeys minutely and cheerily the directions of his executioner, and passes with unaffected dignity to the apprehension of that larger truth for which he had constantly prepared himself.His friends may bury him provided they will remember they are not burying Socrates; and that all things may be done decently and in order, a cock must go to AEsculapius.
Long before, in the days of the Captivity, there lived in godless, blood-shedding Nineveh an exiled Jew whose father had fallen from the faith.He was a simple man, child-like and direct; living the careful, kindly life of an orthodox Jew, suffering many persecutions for conscience' sake, and in constant danger of death.
He narrates the story of his life and of the blindness which fell on him, with gentle placidity, and checks the exuberance of his more emotional wife with the assurance of untroubled faith.
Finally, when his pious expectations are fulfilled, his sight restored, and his son prosperously established beside him, he breaks into a prayer of rejoicing which reveals the secret of his confident content.He made use of two great faculties: the sense of proportion, which enabled him to apprise life and its accidents justly, and the gift of in-seeing, which led Socrates after him, and Blessed John in lonely exile on Patmos, to look through the things temporal to the hidden meanings of eternity.
"Let my soul bless God the great King," he cries; and looks away past the present distress; past the Restoration which was to end in fresh scattering and confusion; past the dream of gold, and porphyry, and marble defaced by the eagles and emblems of the conqueror; until his eyes are held by the Jerusalem of God, "built up with sapphires, and emeralds, and precious stones," with battlements of pure gold, and the cry of 'Alleluia' in her streets.
Many years later, when he was very aged, he called his son to him and gave him as heritage his own simple rule of life, adding but one request: "Keep thou the law and the commandments, and shew thyself merciful and just, that it may go well with thee....
Consider what alms doeth, and how righteousness doth deliver....
And bury me decently, and thy mother with me." Having so said, he went his way quietly and contentedly to the Jerusalem of his heart.
It is the simple note of familiarity that is wanting in us; that by which we link world with world.Once, years ago, I sat by the bedside of a dying man in a wretched garret in the East End.He was entirely ignorant, entirely quiescent, and entirely uninterested.The minister of a neighbouring chapel came to see him and spoke to him at some length of the need for repentance and the joys of heaven.After he had gone my friend lay staring restlessly at the mass of decrepit broken chimney pots which made his horizon.At last he spoke, and there was a new note in his voice:-"Ee said as 'ow there were golding streets in them parts.I ain't no ways particler wot they're made of, but it'll feel natral like if there's chimleys too."The sun stretched a sudden finger and painted the chimney pots red and gold against the smoke-dimmed sky, and with his face alight with surprised relief my friend died.
We are one with the earth, one in sin, one in redemption.It is the fringe of the garment of God."If I may but touch the hem,"said a certain woman.
On the great Death-day which shadows the early spring with a shadow of which it may be said UMBRA DEI EST LUX, the earth brought gifts of grief, the fruit of the curse, barren thorns, hollow reed, and the wood of the cross; the sea made offering of Tyrian purple; the sky veiled her face in great darkness, while the nation of priests crucified for the last time their Paschal lamb."I will hear, saith the Lord; I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn and wine and oil, and they shall hear Jezreel, and I will sow her unto me in the earth; and Iwill have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy, and I will say unto them which were not my people, 'Thou art my people,' and they shall say 'Thou art my God.'"The second Adam stood in the garden with quickening feet, and all the earth pulsed and sang for joy of the new hope and the new life quickening within her, to be hers through the pains of travail, the pangs of dissolution.The Tree of Life bears Bread and Wine - food of the wayfaring man.The day of divisions is past, the day of unity has dawned.One has risen from the dead, and in the Valley of Achor stands wide the Door of Hope - the Sacrament of Death.
Scio Domine, et vere scio...quia non sum dignus accedere ad tantum mysterium propter nimia peccata mea et infinitas negligentias meas.Sed scio...quia tu potes me facere dignum.
