LECTURE LXVIII. OUR IGNORANCE OF OUR FUTURE MODE OF EXISTENCE. 1 JOHN iii. 2. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." It is the familiar experience of our thinking, that the mind is often led into questions, the pursuit of something not clearly known, and desired to be known. And many of these questions are such as, being pursued, soon lead the thinking spirit to the brink, as it were, of a vast unfathomable gulf. It is arrested, and becomes powerless at the limit; there it stands, looking on a dark immensity; the little light of intellect and knowledge which it brings or kindles, can dart no ray into the mysterious obscurity. Sometimes there seems to be seen, at some unmeasured distance, a glimmering spot of light, but it makes nothing around it visible, and itself vanishes. But often it is one unbounded, unvaried, starless, midnight darkness,-without one luminous point through infinite space. To this obscurity we are brought in pursuing any one of very many questions of mere speculation and curiosity. But there is one question which combines with the interest of speculation and curiosity an interest incomparably greater, nearer, more affecting, more solemn. It is the simple question-" WHAT SHALL WE BE?" How soon it is spoken!—but who shall reply? Think, how profoundly this question, this mystery, concerns us,—and in comparison with this, what are to us all questions of all sciences? What to us all researches into the constitution What-all investigations and laws of material nature? into the history of past ages? career of events in the progress of states and empires? What to us-what shall become of this globe itself, or all the mundane system? What WE shall be, we ourselves, is the matter of surpassing and infinite interest! There is in the contemplation a magnitude, a solemnity, which transcends and overwhelms our utmost faculty of thought. To think that we, who are here, and are thus in possession of an existence which is but as of yesterday,— shall continue to be in some mode, and in some scene of existence, for millions of ages, and that that will still be as nothing, in comparison with what is still to follow! that a duration passing away beyond all reach of the stupendous power of numbers, will still be as nothing! And that it will still be we ourselves, the very same beings. And that it will be a perfectly specific manner of being-with a full consciousness of what it is-an internal world of thought and emotion-a perfect sense of relations to the system in which we shall find ourselves placed;—and this a continual succession of distinct sentiments and experiences, and with the constant certainty of the train going on for ever! Reflect again, that it is we, ourselves, of whom we are saying this. How overpowered are we in the attempt to realize to thought, what nevertheless will be so!—" I, that am now, that am here, that am thus ;-what shall I be, and where, and how, when this vast system of nature shall have passed away ?" What,-after ages more than there are leaves, or blades of grass, on the whole surface of this globe, or atoms in its enormous mass, shall have expired? What-after another such stupendous lapse of duration shall be gone? Those terms, of amazing remoteness, will arrive; yes, those periods, the very thought of which engulfs our faculties, will be come, will be past! And through every step and advance, in the incalculable succession, on through those periods, the fact of what we then ARE, will be in mighty evidence pressing on all our perceptions, and then still onward, infinitely, eternally beyond; and will be definable, in certain terms of a language (shall we call it ?), in which we shall then form or express our conceptions. "I am "—but what will follow ? -what will the description be? what constitution, what manner, of existence? what faculties? how exerted? what feelings? what employments? what relations? what communications? what place? There will be the fact, the actual reality, answering to all these questions. But what it will be, there is but One Intelligence that perfectly knows. But here, even in our own breasts, are the intelligences that will know, and know in their own experience, -the incomparably most interesting manner of knowing. And is not this, beyond all others, the subject for deep and solemn musing-for intense inquisitiveness-for awful wonder? Think again, of what diminutive concern, in comparison, are many of those ambitious inquiries to reach the Unknown, which have been the most intense excitement to investigating minds. To ascertain, for instance, the yet unknown course of a great river, has excited the invincible ardour of some of the most enterprising of mortals—who, in long succession, have dared all perils, and sacrificed their lives. To force a passage among unknown seas and coasts, in the most frowning and dreadful regions and climates; to penetrate to the discovery of the hidden laws, and powers, and relations of nature; to ascertain the laws, the courses, the magnitudes, the distances, of the heavenly bodies;something is the truth, in all these subjects of ambitious and intent inquisition. But what if all this could be known?-If we could have the entire structure of this globe disclosed, to its very centre, to our sight or intelligence ;-if, through some miraculous intervention of divine power, we could have a vision of the whole economy of one of the remotest stars;-or if (to turn to a different department,) our intelligence could pass down, under a prophetic illumination, to the end of time in this world, beholding, in continued series, the grand course of the world's affairs and events;—what would any or all of these things be, in comparison with the mighty prospect of our own eternal existence?—with what is to be revealed upon us, and to be realized in our very being, and experience, through everlasting duration ? When we think of such a comparison we may justly indulge some regret and wonder, that very many inquisitive minds, perhaps the far greater number of such,-should feel an immeasurably greater degree of curiosity, interest, and even solicitude, in directing their thoughts to the unknown and the future of the inferior subjects of conjecture and anticipation, than to this superlatively important unknown. Not that we would wish to throw any disparagement on the conjectural inquisitive excursions of mind on any subject of inquiry. But surely it is a proof of strange perversion in the soul of man, that these eager excursions to penetrate into the remote and obscure, should go on every track rather than on the grand line of its own future existence! It would not be an adequate nor an honest plea, to allege that the knowledge is beyond our reach. In any matter where we feel a profound prospective interest, the thoughts, the imagination, will go that way, by an irresistible attraction. When certain that there is to be something great, and immensely important to ourselves—the spirit goes forth towards it, earnestly tries to look into the distance -eagerly seizes all glimpses, intimations, prognostics— revolves the probabilities, the possibilities-exerts its utmost power of reason, conjecture, invention-to form to itself an image of what the fact may be. And how prodigiously, how monstrously strange it were, that there should not be the very utmost of this ardent excitement in the anticipation of what we shall be, hereafter and for ever. This earnest tendency to look forward should be natural and rational, we think, notwithstanding that such darkness rests over the immense interminable scene of our future existence. But still, the question will arise, Why is it so overshadowed with darkness,-since it concerns us so deeply,since it is ours? There is something that is ours, which is to be a thousand years hence, a million of years hence, a million of ages hence, a million times that—and so forward; it is ours, for it is certain to be, and certain to be inseparable from us. It is to be even ourselves, as absolutely ours as the state we are to be in to-morrow is so ;—nay, as much as the state we are in this moment belongs to us. But then, the case being so,-why are we so precluded from a foresight which would in some measure enable us to realize, to our apprehension, that future state of ourselves ?—One obvious thing in answer is, the essential impossibility. Reflect, in the first place, how very imperfectly we comprehend even our present existence,—after all manner of experience of it, and intimacy with it. Diminutive as we are, we involve a world of mystery. The acutest, the profoundest investigators have been baffled. What is life? What is soul? What is even body? How combined ? And if we had the means of pursuing the inquiry into our future state, it may be presumed that every mystery would be aggravated upon us. It is true, that the great "Revealer of secrets" could have told us, by revelation, some things respecting the future state which we might, in some super |