Lifted into this mood of feeling, so much loftier than that with which we began the chapter, we cannot close without turning a reverential gaze on other gatherings, in that state of being on whose precincts we and all the multitudes around us every moment tread. There is the gathering in the grave, “the silent waiting-hall where Adam meeteth with his children.” “The chief ones of the earth, the kings of the nations,” are “brought down there and the worm is spread over them, and the worms cover them.” And “there the rich and the poor meet together.” “The small and the great are there.” Who can count the sands on the sea shore—and who can cast up the number of the dead? Vast as it is already, the concourse in the great city of the grave shall in a few short years receive accessions of myriads more. The multitudes who crowd the streets of the Great Metropolis, in their way to the Palace of Industry, and all whom they represent in distant lands, will ere long descend to the “place of their fathers’ sepulchres.” This globe, as it sails round the sun, carries in its deep hold many a costly thing; but the dust of its buried generations is a freightage more precious than gold or silver!
Along with this there is the gathering of souls into invisible realms. It is consonant with reason and revelation, that we should believe in the conscious existence of minds after their separation from the body. While the mortal remains are preserved by Divine Providence for a mysterious restoration to life at the last day, the immaterial and immortal spirit enters into a separate condition of blessedness or woe, according to its character in the present state of being. “Lazarus died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.” “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” The emancipated souls of all the holy dead, through the mediation of the blessed Redeemer, are gathered together in his immediate presence where there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand where there are pleasures for evermore. “To that state all the pious on earth are tending; and if there is a law from whose operation none are exempt, which irresistibly conveys their bodies to darkness and dust, there is another not less certain and powerful which conducts their spirits to the abodes of bliss, to the bosom of their Father and their God. The wheels of nature are not made to roll backward, everything presses on to eternity: from the birth of time an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men towards that interminable ocean. Meanwhile heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature: is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and divine; leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but the objects and the slaves of concupiscence: while everything which grace has prepared and beautified shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world, to adorn that Eternal City which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” { 110} And terrific is it to think that as the multitude of the spirits of the just made perfect is thus ever augmenting, so also is there an increase of the crowds of fallen and lost beings in the abodes of despair. How many, it is to be feared, are hastening on, by their course in this world, not to paradise, but to prison—not to be with Christ, but to go with Judas to their own place!