ll not have
still more there, or be there himself? Whether old acquaintance
shall be all forgot or be well remembered there, is an inquiry
which must profoundly interest all who have hearts to love their
companions, and minds to perceive the creeping shadows of mystery
drawing over us as we approach the sure destiny of age and the dim
confines of the world. It is a theme, far removed from noisy
strifes and vain shows, penetrating that mysterious essence of
affection and thought which we are. The thing of first importance
is not the conclusion we reach, but the spirit in which we seek
and hold it. The Christian says to his friend, "Our souls will be
united in yonder heaven." Danton, with a horrible travesty, said
to his comrades on the scaffold, "Our heads will meet in that
sack."

Before engaging directly in the discussion, it will be interesting
to notice, for an instant, the verdict which history, in the
spontaneous suppositions and rude speculations of ancient peoples,
pronounces on this subject.1 Among their various opinions about
the state after death, it is a prominent circumstance that they
generally agree in conceiving it as a social state in which
personal likenesses and memories are retained, fellow countrymen
are grouped together, and friends united. This is minutely true of
those nations with the details of whose faith we are acquainted,
and is implied in the general belief of all others, except those
who expected the individual spirit to be absorbed in the soul of
the universe. Homer shows Ulysses and Virgil in like manner shows
Aneas upon his entrance into the other world mutually recognising
his old comrades and recognised by them. The two heroes whose
inseparable friendship on earth was proverbial are still together
in Elysium:

"Then, side by side, along the dreary coast Advanced Achilles' and
Patroclus' ghost, A friendly pair."

In this representation that there was a full recognition of
acquaintances, all the accounts of the other world given in Greek
and Roman literature harmonize. The same is true of the accounts
contained in the literature of the ancient Hebrews. In the Book of
Genesis, when Jacob hears of the death of his favorite child, he
exclaims, "I shall go down to my son Joseph in the under world,
mourning." When the witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel,
Saul knew him by the description she gave of him as he rose. The
monarch shades in the under world are pictured by Isaiah as
re