02.14. "Alas, My Brother"
Chapter 14 "ALAS, MY BROTHER" The words of the caption of this chapter were uttered by an old backslidden prophet over the corpse of a young man of God, whom he had led astray and caused to be destroyed. Through his words the unfortunate being had been influenced to disobey God, and so came to an untimely and dreadful death. And yet here he was bewailing the young man’s fate. Told that the young prophet’s dead body was lying in the road, he remarked in a complacent, magisterial way, "This is none other than the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord." Later on he stood over the corpse and said, as he viewed the mutilated and lifeless body, "Alas, my brother."
Here is an irony of fate, indeed, when the person who ruins another sits in a kind of sympathetic judgment over the victim. This is the sorrow expressed by the saloon-keeper over the drunkard found frozen to death at his door. This is the regret of the world over the suicide of a man whom it has driven to despair.
"Poor fellow," says the world, as they hear of the man’s starvation, heart-break or suicide. And yet, by its own traps, dens, temptations and beguilements, it had led him astray until he was willing to do the desperate deed.
We have attended the burial of individuals who belonged to some Lodge or Fraternity. We remember that the white-aproned procession marched around the open grave wherein rested the coffin, threw in sprigs of cedar or arbor vitae, and said, as they circled around, "Alas, my brother."
We marvelled then if they knew where the words they used came from. We wondered if they were aware that they were the utterance of an old prophet over a man of God whom he had ruined!
Truly it is a most unfortunate selection by the fraternities, not only because of the original circumstance, but because of the suggestions it make to the mind that here again the destroyer is uttering words of pity over the destroyed. The fraternity in the first place beguiles the man from his family and accustoms him to frequent absences from the home circle. Next it regales him with banquets and convivial gatherings, throws him with all sorts and sets of men, and in a word, furnishes a toboggan slide for him to shoot away with increasing velocity from duty, home and loved ones, until the final plunge comes into the grave and eternity.
After that it is in order for the society or lodge to announce the death in the papers, and with white aprons and regalia complete, parade around the open grave and, while throwing in sprigs of cedar on the unconscious form, say, "Alas, my brother."
It is certainly a most appropriate utterance. It covers the case. In fact, it covers both cases, the destroyers and the destroyed. Whether looking at the silent body in the coffin, or at the moving ring of men about the grave, the true description of the whole scene which springs from the heart to the lips, is the old time sentence, "Alas, my brother!" In glancing again at the scriptural incident before us in the case of the destroyed young prophet, we are taught the utter vanity of earthly pity and compassion, so far as the ruined party is concerned.
What good did it do the slain man of God for an old, white-haired, backslidden prophet to wring his hands over him and say, "Alas, my brother!"
What comfort, help and blessing can possibly be realized by the victim of the world, when the destroyers of character and soul gather around the coffin with sighs and bowed heads, and place flowers upon the bier of the man or woman whom they caused to forget duty and God and dragged down to hell. What advantage when the papers publish the tidings of the sudden death, and friends and acquaintances of the departed meet on the street and say, "Have you heard that A. is dead? Poor fellow!" What possible consolation can come to a soul writhing in the torment of the damned, from the hurried expression, "Poor fellow," dropped upon the streets, and as quickly forgotten by speaker as well as hearer in the whirl of pleasure, the rush of business and the struggle for gain and for fame.
These very men helped to ruin the man whose funeral is disappearing down the street. And yet the next day they begin to forget him, and in a week’s time he has been completely dropped out of mind. Meantime the victim is lifting up his voice in everlasting anguish in hell.
What if his friends have silver lettering on the handsome coffin lid which spells the two words, "at rest!" Does this metallic falsehood put an end to the gnawing of the undying worm, and draw the wailing lost soul from the Pit? The club, the fraternity and society, boon companions united to bring him to hell, and now they hire an undertaker for a few dollars to put him in heaven with the words, "At Rest," on his casket. Sometimes, to heighten the delusion, a cross or anchor of beautiful flowers is laid just above or below the glistening falsehood.
Some time ago we were standing on a street in a large city watching a funeral procession of a very prominent man. Not only fraternities were in the line of march with their regalia, but detachments of infantry, cavalry and artillery. Two or three large brass bands poured forth their solemn dirges upon the air, and thousands of people lined the streets of the city which had thus bestirred itself to do this public honor to its deceased son. A chosen orator at a great hall had delivered a glowing eulogium upon the life and character of the dead. He said the city regarded him with just pride. He had made a fortune through his own enterprise, built a great hotel and public place of amusement in the community where he had resided, had represented his State in the Legislature and in Congress, and all were justly proud of him. Young men were exhorted to take pattern after him, imitate his many virtues and excellences and go down into history enshrined in the hearts of the people as did this great man, etc., etc., etc. The real history of the individual was that he had made part of his fortune by an accident, the other half by a fraud, built the aforementioned structures for the profit in them, had two living wives, and possessed a most unenviable record in other ways. He was taken sick while on a drunken spree and had died without repentance, giving no sign whatever of salvation. So that, while the orator on the funeral occasion was glorifying him as a model for the young manhood of the country to imitate, he, the eulogized, was wringing his hands in everlasting agony and despair in hell. While the brass bands were sounding forth the solemn strains of a dead march, whose minor chords made the blood to tingle and the eyes to fill, the man himself was far away in the world of the lost where, Christ says, is heard the voice of "weeping and wailing," "where their worm dieth not, and the flame is not quenched."
What mattered it, we thought, to that poor, eternally destroyed soul, that a magnificent funeral ceremony and parade was granted him, and was at that moment passing along the streets of his city, while he, millions of miles away, was in the Bottomless Pit, writhing with undying torment. While the speaker was praising him, conscience was lashing his own spirit into torture.
While the bands were wailing on the street, he was wailing in hell. "At Rest" was on the coffin lid.
"Poor fellow," dropped from the lips of old-time acquaintances on the street. "Alas, my brother," was spoken by the fraternities at the grave. But the devil meanwhile went into convulsions of merriment over the make-believe, the stupendous farce on earth, while he was witnessing the real truth, the frightful, everlasting tragedy of a lost soul in hell.
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