Immortality
In connection with the foregoing remarks, it is well to quote the following passage from Mr. Bryant’s poem. “Flood of Years”:
So they pass
From stage to stage along the shining course
Of that fair river broadened like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way,
They bring old friends together; hands are clasped
In joy unspeakable; the mother’s arms
Are again folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled
Or broke are healed forever.
A gentleman who had been sorely bereaved was so struck by the unquestioning faith in immortality here expressed, that he wrote to Mr. Bryant, asking if the lines were to be understood as a statement of his own belief. Mr. Bryant instantly replied in the following note:
Cummington, Mass., Aug. 10, 1876.
Certainly I believe all that is said in the lines you have quoted. If I had not, I could not have written them. I believe in the everlasting life of the soul; and it seems to me that immortality would be but an imperfect gift without the recognition in the life to come of those who are dear to us here.
W. C. Bryant.