n.

XI

_PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD_

The wisest of men have little to guide them when they approach that
mysterious realm from which no traveler has ever returned. With humility
and the consciousness that we must, at the best, walk in the twilight, I
take up one of the most mysterious and fascinating of themes. No one has
any right to speak positively on such a subject, and I shall not do so.
Those who have the assurance of sight when they write about what lies
beyond the grave are both to be envied and to be pitied,--envied because
of their confidence, pitied because they may be self-deceived.

Let me make my exact purpose as plain as I can by an illustration. A
dear friend, one with whom you have associated for years, enters the
silent life. The morning following, as has long been your custom, you
offer your prayers to the Heavenly Father, and, as usual, mention that
friend by name. Suddenly you stop and say to yourself, "I can no more
offer that petition, for my friend is now beyond the need of my poor
prayers." Then, suddenly and swiftly, come the questions, Although my
friend is called dead is he any less alive than when he was in the body?
Will not all that constituted his personality continue to grow in the
future as in the past? Does the death of the body do anything more than
change the mode of the spirit's existence? And the result is that you
say to yourself, "I will continue to pray for my friend, for, if he is
alive now, every reason which led to prayers before his death justifies
their continuance."

From more than one person I have heard words similar to these which I
have put into this hypothetical form; and because of these expressions
of sane and sacred experience I am led to ask my readers to follow me in
the consideration of a subject which is seldom mentioned, except with
incredulity, by most Protestants.

No one who may not appreciate the importance of this subject should be
either troubled or heedless. We learn our lessons concerning the
profounder mysteries simply by living. No one can be blamed for not
appreciating what he is not yet, either intellectually or spiritually,
ready to receive. Providence takes good care of us. When we are prepared
for the reception of any truth it usually finds us.

This subject has been regarded with suspicion by two classes of
thinkers: Protestants who have revolted from the extent to which praying
for the dead has been carried in the Roman Catholic Chu