The Eternity of Our Affections (from the French of Madame Gasparin) [pp. 401-405]

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THE ETERNITY OF OUR AFFECTIONS.
HE power of God arrests, mayhap, our
individuality for a brief space of time
I within the tomb. At least we are willitng
to concede this much to those who would separate our attachments by death, and assert that
each particular and definite affection is merged
in the glory of universal love-who declare
that it is only to this latter love the word refers
when writing the assurance, "It shall never
perish."
Rather tell me, in place of so cold a sentiment, that we shall return to a no colder
chaos-to shadowy nonentity. In this case you
only destroy what was once dear, but which is
irrecoverably lost to us. Listen, then, to my
pleading for immortality. Tlhrough some divine
intuition or inspiration I have bestowed, and
hlave received in turn, the ineffable gift of a
heart. Our aspirations, our secret thoughts
up to a certain point, were so united that they
rushed from one to the other with the speed
of electricity. By some mysterious affinity I
seem to live only for him or for her, and love
performs the miracle of eradicating a great
self-worshlip. One smile fi-om lips that I love
illuminates my heart with joy-a veil of sadness
clouding that face shadows mine also with
gloom. Together we have bent the knee in
silent adoration, together with an earnest purpose have sought the Lord our God. The
anguishl of repentance, the felicity of deliverance, the cross of trial, the elevated joy of a
Christian life, have been ours in unison, and
can it be that, as soon as death severs the
strong links of human union, we must say,
"All is finished, and forever. Each personal
experience is now ingulfed in the ocean of
universal love. Thus has terminated all that
VOL. XXXI.-26*
was so delightful in our earthly intercourse.
The first soul that approaches mine in the land
of immortality will be neither dearer nor more
indifferent than the next I meet. Ahl, can it
be that an individuality so precious as that of
our dearly beloved, who passed to that better
country before us, has utterly and irretrievably
vanished?"
My heart protests against so freezing a thleory.
Let me repeat here the truth, that if I cease to
love those whom I have once and always loved
in a terrestrial life, if I cease to feel for them a
particular, positive, special affection, I cease to
be myself, and in leaving this world I am of all
creatures the most miserable. It seems to me,
also, that I am the most utterly humiliated.
Take from me the eternity of my purest affections; give me children, a wife, a father to
love, with this condition, that it is only for
time; prove to me that the coffin lid will shut
up eternally such definite tenderness and love
as it incloses the body, with only this difference, that the earth will, on some future day,
return the corporal part to my sight, but will
never bring backl the lost affections, and I
declare to you that I should then endeavor to
love them merely from a sordid selfishness that
would be a grossly coarse mnateiialism-nothing
more.
In such a case, if you propose to me the
Christian work of saving souls withl this general, undefined interest, where the individual
counts for nothing, I declare to you farther
still, that I would so degrade myself in it as to
accomplish my work by a species of "legerdclemain," a cunning maneuvering that induces as
little trouble as possible. Can we not thus
plainly understand what would follow a general
belief in the destruction of intimate and personal love of souls?