LONG LIFE AND DEATH

I have recently read the two volume letters and memories of Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) published in 1890. Kingsley was an Anglican clergyman who wrote the popular novels Westward Ho, and Water Babies, was an accomplished naturalist, a professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, poet, scholar, and much involved in sanitary reform to combat cholera and other social scourges among the poor working class. He was beloved by all types of people for his compassionate pastoring and sought to witness to Christianity in the midst of much of the scientific and religious debates of his time. His parish was near Sandhurst Army College and Aldershot Army Camp and attracted many military officers and other ranks with his version of muscular Christianity. He was chaplain to Queen Victoria, preached at the Royal Chapels and also appealed to gypsies and rural laborers.

In a visit to the USA in 1874 he spoke at the Lotus Club in New York. Here is an example of his approach to life which may challenge us in our modern desire for longevity.

“One of the kind wishes expressed for me is a long life. Let anything be asked for me except that. Let us live hard, work hard, go a good pace, get to our journey’s end as soon as possible – then let the post-horse get his shoulder out of the collar. I have lived long enough to feel, like the old post-horse, very thankful as the end draws near. Long life is the last thing that I desire. It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires more and more the painful consciousness of the difference between what ought to be done and what can be done, and sits down more quietly when one gets the wrong side of fifty, to let others start up to do for us things we cannot do for ourselves. But it is the highest pleasure that a man can have who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill at last, to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him and catch the lamp of Truth, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even feet.”

In a sermon preached at the Chapel Royal in 1862 entitled The Victory of Life he said,

“Those who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do not really taste death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a change of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, active beings, which they were here on earth. I say active. Rest they may: rest they will, if they need rest. But what is the true rest? Not idleness, but peace of mind. To rest from sin, from sorrow, from fear, from doubt, from care; this is true rest. Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of all – knowing one’s duty, and yet not being able to do it. That is true rest; the rest of God, who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them. Perfect rest, in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits, till the final consummation of all things, when Christ shall have made up the number of his elect. I hope this is so. I trust that this is so. I think our Lord’s great words can mean nothing less than this. And if it be so, what comfort for us who must die! What comfort for us who have seen others die, if death be but a new birth into some higher life; if all that it changes in us is our body. Where is the sting of death then, if death can sting and poison and corrupt nothing of us, for which our friends have loved us; nothing of us with which we could do service to men or God? Where is the victory of the grave if, so far from the grave holding us down, it frees us from the very thing which holds us down – the mortal body.

Death is not death, then, if it kills no part of us save that which hindered us from perfect life. Death is not death, if it raises us from darkness into light, from weakness into strength, from sinfulness into holiness. Death is not death, if it brings us nearer to Christ, who is the fount of life. Death is not death if it perfects our faith by sight, and lets us behold him in whom we have believed. Death is not death, if it gives to us those whom we have loved and lost, for whom we have lived, for whom we long to live again. Death is not death, if it rids us of doubt and fear, of chance and change, of space and time, and all which space and time bring forth and then destroy. Death is not death; for Christ has conquered death, for himself, and for those who trust in him.”