Chapter 31. Case of J. W. W., Largely in His Own Words

To-day, the 20th of January, 1890, is the anniversary of my mother's death, five years ago. I have decided to celebrate it by giving you some account of circumstances which I have hitherto kept to myself, and sacred in the recesses of my own heart and memory.

I need not tell you, I think, that my mother's last illness and death were, by immeasurable odds, the heaviest grief and pain I have ever known, or shall, probably, ever know. But it is also true that the memory of them is for all time my most precious and priceless possession.

That period was the supreme moment of my life and its deepest experience. In ordinary life we live only on the surface of things, our attention distracted endlessly by the shallowest illusions and baubles.

We discuss with a light heart, and very much at our own ease, the great problems we have been discussing lately in the college (of immortality and the infinite goodness), but are not deeply concerned in them, and care but little what their solutions may be.

But a great bereavement strips the scales from our eyes and compels us, in the intense solitude of our own souls, to gaze into the unfathomable depths in which we float and to question their vast and solemn meanings. It comes upon us clothed in thick darkness and mystery, and pierces our hearts with unutterable agony and grief, but it may be that the darkest hours of its visitation, the supreme moment itself, may also prove a revelation to our souls of the

Highest and bring us into the very presence of the Infinite Love and Tenderness.

For myself I cannot doubt that this was my own experience. To speak of it is to profane it. I am unworthy to so much as hint at it. But it has been the comfort of my life ever since.

Alas, for the years that have followed! One momentary glimpse into the ineffable brightness, followed by gathering clouds and darkness, painful stumblings and wide errors, unsupported by any recognizable spiritual aid or presence, the heavens deaf and careless to my most earnest prayers and agonizings, nay, even slighting them, so far as appeared. But through it all, like the steadfast shining of a clear star, the memory of that sacred time has remained deep in my heart, and I have never really doubted for a moment that an Infinite Wisdom and Love does encircle all our lives—tender, pitying and sympathizing. We may pass our lives without ever realizing it, doubting it, nay, flatly denying it. But it is there; and he to whom the vision has ever come at all, though in the briefest transient flash of momentary consciousness, can never again forget it, though his whole after path may be enveloped in darkness and he himself may fall into gross error and backsliding.

I received the ordinary orthodox training of the Presbyterian Church. I was baptized and was a regular attendant at church and Sunday school till well on in my teens.

I attribute at least equal importance, in the formative elements of my religious training, to the daily practice at home, while I was a boy, of family worship. I recall now, as I write, with reverent emotion, the tender tones of my mother's voice, as it pleaded especially for her only deeply loved child.

I was always a lover of books, and I was not far in my teens before I began to learn something of the opposition between the teaching of science and many of the beliefs I had been taught. This discovery was a gradual one, and I will only give a brief outline of the position in which I was ultimately landed.

I learned that the first chapter of Genesis was, at least, a very crude statement of the actual fact. At one time I was an ardent and enthusiastic student of Hugh Miller's books and rested content with the reconciliation he sought to establish between the teaching of his beloved science, Geology, and the Biblical record. But I had to give it up when I came to read and study Darwin's and other books and to acquaint myself with the most recent geological discoveries. I remember well the enthusiasm with which I copied in writing Professor Huxley's famous address to the Geological Section of the British Association, in which he traced the pedigree of the horse to its progenitors in the Eocene period and the clear evidence of its evolution.

Darwinism demolished for me the Biblical account of creation, the authority of the Bible and the account it gives of the origin of evil and the fall of man. This last clearly involves the whole theological superstructure based upon it, including the so-called scheme of redemption and the doctrine of the atonement. The legends of the flood, the tower of Babel, the dispersion of man and the origin of different languages were minor matters of comparatively trifling importance.

I remember the delight with which I read Tyndall's book on "Heat as a

Mode of Motion," and re-read it again and again. I read, too, his lectures on "Sound." These were my introduction to physics, from which I learned the great doctrines of the conservation and correlation of forces, as I had previously learned to realize in some degree the unity and uniformity of nature. In presence of such majestic and august conceptions the ordinary ideas of prayer and miracles seemed childish. I remember reading Tyndall's "Fragments of Science" and feeling this yet more strongly. I came in time to abandon the habit of prayer entirely.

One cannot read much in physiological science without serious reflection on the nature of consciousness, the relation between mind and physical structure and the bearings of all this on the belief in personal immortality. It has always seemed clear to me that the only logical outcome of the considerations put forward by science are flatly and altogether opposed to such belief.

To sum up: Science destroyed for me all belief in the Biblical legends of the creation and the fall of man, etc., and in the doctrine of the atonement, and at least gravely questioned all narratives of miracle, the probability of answer to prayer and the idea of personal immortality. The whole idea, too, of the divine incarnation of Christ on our insignificant atom of a world seemed out of keeping with the august spectacle of the infinite universe and its immeasurable duration. But my reading was never exclusively scientific, and my thoughts accordingly were always modified by other considerations.

I learned something of Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Spinoza. What the effect of it all was upon me it is impossible for me now to analyze or to tell. But let a man once get fairly into his head the teaching of Kant that time and space only exist as the condition of our consciousness, and the discussion of immortality will seem irrelevant—he will feel the very basis of his speculations crumble beneath his feet. From my earliest youth I have acknowledged two masters, to whom I continually turned and whom I have studied with ever-fresh interest and delight—Carlyle and Emerson—two widely different men but fundamentally alike in the absolute honesty and sincerity of their teaching, their noble and heroic character, and their steady, life-long consecration to the service of the highest. Both of them rejected the materialistic conception of the world, which they regarded as spiritual in its essence, and each believed in his own way in a divine purpose—Emerson with genial and growing optimism, Carlyle with an accompanying Hebraic sense of the mystery and terror of evil.

But neither from Carlyle nor Emerson will a student. derive any firm conviction on the subject of individual immortality. Carlyle preferred to leave it a mystery, about which nothing can be definitely said with true assurance, but about which much may be hoped. Emerson, in the main, really believed it, but may be quoted on both sides of the subject. "The questions we lust to have answered are," he declared, "a confession of sin." He preached an unconditional submission and trust. Believe with all your heart and soul that all is well and ask no questions. If it is best that you should continue you will do so; if not, you should not wish it. And the whole subject, he believed, belongs to a much higher plane than that on which it is usually discussed.

It is fifteen years since I carefully studied Tennyson, and especially his "In Memoriam." His arguments, however, seemed to me unconvincing though powerful. I came to prize the two volumes I had of Browning's selections, but could not give complete adhesion to his views either. My judgment was suspended with a leaning of the heart to the "Larger Hope." George Macdonald did me great and growing service, though I could never accept all his conclusions nor admire greatly his logic. On the other hand, the logic of George Eliot's creed seemed to me faultless, and her sympathy with opposite views complete. And her rigid and faithful devotion to truth and fact alone seemed to me to be rewarded in her art. George Macdonald's creations as a rule seem ghostly abstractions. George Eliot's are alive; prick them and they bleed. But the melancholy which her books create is undeniable, and the heart instinctively revolts from her creed. Matthew Arnold did me immense service by his theological books, and opened the Bible for me again as a book of living interest. But his famous axiom that miracles do not happen, and his elimination of the supernatural element, are unmistakable. But a careful study of Isaiah, with the help of his notes, gave me a clue to a higher view, in my judgment, than the one he himself arrived at. He, too, deprecates the ascription of personality to God, and so does away with the impulse to pray. For who can pray to a "stream of tendency"? Here, again, however, the light which he throws upon the character and teaching of St. Paul helps one also to realize better the teaching of Paul himself, which is higher than that of the critic. Ruskin believed in these things, but his authority is weakened by the evangelical teaching which he himself in time discarded. The great masters seemed to me inconclusive. The whole value of Dante's teaching is vitiated by his false and horrible presentations of eternal punishment. Shakespeare holds himself aloof from the subject, and his opinions do not lie on the surface. Goethe I believed to more explicitly teach the efficacy of prayer and individual immortality than he actually did. I had long had a slight knowledge of and much curiosity about Whitman, and twelve months before my mother died I read for the first time complete copies of "Leaves of Grass" and "Specimen Days," and felt the deep thrill of contact with a mighty spirit. And it seemed a great thing that he, of all men, taught the doctrine of immortality with quite new emphasis and authority.

The foregoing are only very crude and sketchy outlines of the intellectual gropings, questionings, studies and complex, many-sided experiences and difficulties of many years. But they will help you to partially understand my position at the time I write of.

And now to my narrative: I will not trouble you with any particulars which do not seem to me necessary for my purpose. And these I will give as briefly as is consistent with the clearness and right coloring of the picture I want to present. I feel, however, that I must, at the outset, make a disclaimer. I do not want you to judge of my character as a son from my devotion to my mother on her deathbed. As a matter of fact I was never in the true sense "a good son." I have too many grave faults and strong opposing idiosyncrasies for that. And I have innumerable bitter memories of harshness, temper, selfish

want of consideration and sympathy, things left undone that I ought to have done and things done that I ought to have left undone. They are past recall or expiation now, and I can only pray and strive for a better nature in future.

It is perhaps hardly necessary to speak of my mother. She was not without faults or weaknesses either. She had good qualities in an exceptional degree that I need not analyze or speak of. But it is necessary for my purpose that I should refer to what was her ruling passion—a deep, constant, absorbing and self-sacrificing love for her only son. Every one knows something of the sacred depths of a mother's love. But very few can sound their profound abysses as it has been my lot to do.

Many circumstances threw us more together than is usual. For one thing, my father was much from home. My own tastes and pursuits kept me more closely at home than is the case with most young men. Our natures, too, were similar in many ways. Naturally I was in many things my mother's confidant. Her sufferings and declining strength made her more and more dependent upon me and knit our hearts together more closely as time went on.

She suffered excruciating pains at times. She became lame and lost the power to stand. If my father was at home he would carry her upstairs at night to bed; if not, she crept to the foot of the stairs and pulled herself up step by step. But on no account would she let me carry her, fearing that I might strain or hurt myself. But eventually she had to allow me, and after that I always carried her upstairs.

She was always poorly in the morning and suffered great internal pain. I used to regularly take her up a cup of tea to breakfast, but she ate next to nothing.

Some eighteen months before she died she told me that she believed she suffered from an internal cancer. I had long urged her to let me call in a doctor, and I now insisted upon it.

For a long time she would not allow it, but finally yielded, and Dr. R. was called in. She seemed more bright and cheerful after his visit. She told me that his verdict was that it was not a cancer, but the facts which led her to think it was were the results of her rheumatism. It was a happy relief to me, and I dismissed altogether the dreadful ideas which had weighed like lead upon my heart. As a matter of fact it was a cancer, and my mother soon came to know it without a shadow of doubt. But in her self-sacrificing regard for me she kept all knowledge back from me, and in the weary, painful and gloomy months that followed I lived in absolute ignorance of the real facts of the case. Perhaps it was better so. I really believe that if I had known, the dreadful knowledge would have killed me. As it was I was supported by groundless hopes. And even so, the pain of it and the daily strain on my heart and mind were almost more than I could bear, and their effects have remained with me ever since.

I will say as little as possible of that time. I will only note her visibly declining strength, the solitude and many miseries of her lot, her absorbing and endless solicitude for me, her complete indifference to self and her constant

spirit of loving self-sacrifice and a love in both our hearts that grew more tender and profound as we realized more and more the coming and inevitable end. The countless heartaches and pains of those days only revealed more clearly the depth and strength of a love which was mightier than all adverse circumstances, even death itself.

So the days and weeks and months dragged on in ever-deepening gloom, till the fateful month of January, 1885. As my mother's strength became less and less her time for going to bed grew earlier, from ten to half-past nine, to nine, to half-past eight, to eight. It pained me excessively to note this, and every night after she had gone I felt unspeakably sad and wretched as I thought of the future. I could not bear to part with her. I used to keep her as long as possible, joke with her and do my best to cheer her as well as myself. But her weariness getting too great she would often lose patience and say, with pathetic entreaty, "Willie, do take me," "Why don't you take me?" or "Willie, do let me go." After that there was nothing for it but to take her at once.

On the 9th of January, 1885, I went to a birthday party. I was far from well, and I had no heart for it, but I went to tea, came home at eight to take my mother to bed (for the last time it turned out) and went back, not returning till between one and two. During the night I was awakened by my mother knocking at the wall. She felt faint, she said, and asked me to bring her a glass of water. I asked if I should make tea, and she said she preferred water, which I got her. I grieve to say that I was altogether harsh, unsympathetic and ungracious. I ought to have known that she needed more, and without a moment's thought for myself should have got it. She thanked me with her usual tenderness and I went to bed again.

Next morning when I took her tea it all came out. During the night she had crept out of bed and fainted on the floor. On recovery she had managed with much painful effort to get into bed again. She would not disturb or trouble me, knowing what she did, but felt compelled at last to rouse me and ask for a glass of water. Fancy it! Cold water! and rendered with unsympathetic grumbling at that. I have never forgiven myself for my far worse than stupidity and callousness. My mother, however, in her sweet, serene charity and loving kindness forgave me from the first.

I will not go into details of the illness that followed. She did not get up that day, though serenely cheerful, hopeful and loving. My father came home in the afternoon and she seemed a little better, but at night grew worse and slightly delirious. Early next morning (Sunday) I brought the doctor, and I learned for the first time, what others knew, that she had been really suffering from cancer all the time and that recovery was impossible, though the inevitable end might possibly be averted for a time. It was a horrible blow to me. I hunted up a nurse and was in constant attendance on her myself till the end came—nine days after.

On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday she continued to improve, and my heart grew lighter and more cheerful. Then she began to grow worse and went step by step down, down into the Valley of the Shadow.

I will pass on rapidly to the closing scenes. But I must note first the following

traits of my mother's behavior: An utter and complete forgetfulness of self, unfailing love and charity to all, serene cheerfulness and even gaiety, exerting herself always to cheer me with bright and loving smiles and consoling, hopeful words. This, of course, only while she was able. At night she always grew delirious, of which, more anon.

I am sorry to give you painful details, and I only do so where it is necessary for my ultimate purpose. But I am compelled to give you some details of closing scenes.

The night but one before she died was the most horrible night I ever spent. As usual, in such wasting diseases, the waste of the body, after devastating the muscular system, attacks the nervous system. When this stage is reached the patient enters on a period of horrible unrest and weariness, passionately longing for rest and incessantly and vainly seeking it by a change of position. Every night, in the delirium of her illness, she felt something of this weariness and would, at the close of the day, call on me, in the old familiar words, "Willie, do take me upstairs; do take me." On this particular night, similar cries rang in my ears the whole horrible night long—"Willie, do take me," "Do let me go," "Why don't you let me go?" The words pierced my heart. I knew that the rest she sought could only come in death, and my heart was hot in angry rebellion. I could not let her go. Fate was too much for me. But it was an unspeakable cruel fate, and every faculty in me rose in passionate protest and resentment. I changed her position again and again, adjusted and smoothed her pillow, and for a few brief moments she would lie quiet. Then again the old, incessant, heart-piercing cries, "Willie, do let me go," "Do take me," "Why don't you let me go?" And so, again and again, through the whole length of the horrible night.

Next day she was quieter. The doctor said it was only a question of hours. In the afternoon she seemed utterly exhausted and for a time we thought she was dying. My father, Mrs. D. (the nurse) and I stood looking on in momentary expectation of the end. I was quite tired out, heart and body, sullen and resentful. It was of a piece with the whole horrible thing that she should die thus, without any sign or leave taking. But it was not to be so and she revived again. About seven o'clock that night I was alone with her. She was unconscious. I kneeled at her bedside, my face down on the bed. My brain felt scorched and the whole thing a horrible nightmare. It was no longer my mother lying there but a ghastly automaton, I myself an automaton, both alike driven in a vast world machine, remorseless, brainless and heartless, crushing all before it. Later on, my father, coming upstairs, must have been alarmed about me and compelled me to go an errand, which he declared absolutely necessary. I think it probable that my going out for a short time saved my reason. Late at night my father drove me to bed. I refused. I could not go, or lose any of the precious time now left me with my mother, but I agreed ultimately to go for two hours at most, if he would rouse me sooner in case of change. Very reluctantly I went, but I was quite spent and I slept soundly till six, my father letting me sleep on. I at once hastened to the room and stayed there till the end, about one o'clock.

My mother was apparently the same, but weaker. She welcomed me with the sweet old smile, and responded always, as before, with loving kisses to mine. She was quite conscious but too weak to speak. The morning dragged on till noon, when I heard Mr. T. in the kitchen with my father. I asked her if she would like him to come up, and she nodded a pleased expression of her wish. He came and prayed at her bedside, my mother following it all with full appreciation, her head supported by my arm, shaking with the extreme palsy of coming death. She tried to express her thanks and followed him with grateful eyes as he left the room. Later, about one o'clock, my father and the nurse went downstairs. Mrs. D. remained, but I asked her to go, too, and leave me alone with my mother. I then asked mother if she would like me to pray with her. I had never done so, but I fancied that she wished it, and she assented with evident satisfaction. Standing at the foot of the bed I prayed briefly to God, our Father, to mercifully release my mother from her suffering and take her to Himself and guide and help me in the lonely path that lay before me. I then turned away a minute or two to the window. Looking around, I saw instantly that the last change had come. I hastened to moisten her lips, but her tongue was rigid. I went to the top of the stair and called to my father. He hastened up and was just in time to catch the last futile attempt at breath. In an access of strong emotion I cried out: "Thanks be to God, that giveth us the victory," and it seemed to my excited fancy that my mother's spirit nodded assent. It seemed to me for the moment that I stood in the very presence of the Infinite Love and felt it through my being.

I went downstairs and told Mrs. D. and the nurse that all was over, and they went upstairs to render the last sad offices. I came into this room (the room in which this paper was read) and gave myself up to a long, heavy fit of sobbing—sobbing, however, no longer of grief, but of great relief, recognition of the mighty comfort that had come into my heart and of resigned and loving farewell.

During the days that followed and until after the funeral I felt a great calm and peace of mind and heart, a peace of mind which I venture to say was no other than "the peace of God that passeth all understanding." It passed away, but the memory of it remained. Grief and the sense of irrecoverable loss had their natural course, and I spent many weeks of sleeplessness and tears.

I have no hope that my words will convey more than a poor fraction of the real facts. At best I can only sketch these in rudest outline. But I will ask you to consider a few of the most prominent in the narrative I have given you.

Remember what I have said of the spiritual questionings of many years and their results. Consider how my mother's long and frightful suffering revealed and strengthened as nothing else could, not only the sweet and lovable qualities of her heart and mind and the strength of the hope and faith which sustained her through it all, but also the length and breadth and depth of her wonderful self-sacrificing love for me, which grew only stronger, deeper and more tender as she advanced further into the shadow of our inevitable parting. And when the last stroke fell upon her and she was confined to her bed never

to rise again, think how grateful and sweet to me were those days of slight improvement, when I was privileged to attend her constantly and show her, as I never could before, the reality and depth of my responding love and receive her entire forgiveness for all the thoughtlessness and wrongdoing of the past and her heartfelt blessing. And hastening on to the closing scene: Think of the horrible night, when her incessant cries rang out to me to "let her go," and I knew that it meant let her go to the last rest of death, and my heart stood out in passionate resentment and protest against a cruel and merciless fate. Think of that scene next day, when her strength seemed gone and we watched for the end and I felt, with sullen resentment, that it was only of a piece with all the rest that she should die thus, without any sign or leave taking, in the presence of comparative aliens, not of her own household, while I, her son, born of her body, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, the one person whom she loved with all the mighty love of her great heart, stood as an outsider beyond her consciousness. Think of the hour that evening when, with scorched brain, I felt through and through my being the dreadful significance of the materialistic creed, that we were mere automatic parts of a vast machine, brainless, heartless, merciless and cruel. Think of the providence by which restoring and healing sleep was granted me to make me capable of a truer vision. Think of the tender grace of our next morning's communion, my mother's full consciousness and the sweet tokens of her undying love. Think of the providence which led Mr. T. to come within an hour of the end and offer up solemn prayer, in which my mother could join with full appreciation in company with my father and myself. Think of the fitness of the arrangement by which, at the last moment, my mother and I were left alone, as she would have wished. Think of the divine training by which my rebellious heart was bowed into acquiescence and resignation. Think of the course by which my antagonism and scepticism were laid low, and I was led, with my mother's pleased concurrence, at last to "let her go" and to call audibly on the Divine Father of all to take her to Himself. And think how immediately the prayer was answered and God revealed himself to me and I felt through all my being, in the moment of her death, the presence of the Infinite Love, the Divine Comforter, soothing me with a strange and ineffable peace.

Human words are poor instruments for the expression of such realities. But beyond the touch of all possible argument, despite the apparent experiences of my life since and my backslidings, I knew that a divine providence was at work in my hour of utmost need summing up the long gropings and processes of the past, and despite all earthly darknesses and sin illumining all my future course with an infinite hope.

I no longer trouble myself with the difficulties raised by metaphysics and philosophy about the personality of God, for, however that may be, I know that there is that in Him to which I may address myself as to a loving friend and father. I no longer trouble myself with the discussions about God's providence and the contrary evidences of life and experiences, for I have seen His providence visibly at work, summing up in a crowning experience the processes of long years, in events which were entirely natural in their order and course,

but were also visibly supernatural and miraculous, too. I no longer trouble myself with doubts about God's love, and the contrary evidences furnished by the world's sin and endless miseries, for in the midst of the heaviest grief of my own life I have seen an ineffable tenderness and love revealed, which crowned and justified the sufferings which preceded it, and illumined much that lay dark and mysterious in the past. However this poor outline may strike you, I know that the actual facts were more fit and beautiful than any earthly poet could have conceived in his most gracious and tender mood. I no longer trouble myself with the current discussions about immortality, for I know that my mother is secure and that all is well with her, for, unworthy as I am, I have myself seen the ineffable glory of the love which received her when she was taken from me.