Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away… By this imagery it is clear we are meant to understand that there is a record before God of all that we do here. Words and acts of ours which may have escaped our own memory are not lost sight of by Him. In one of the Bridgewater treatises, published some fifty years ago, Babbage pointed out what is in a certain sense true, however overstrained the speculation may have been, that there exist at this moment traces of every word ever spoken upon earth. We are all familiar with the facts that sound takes time to travel and that the further it travels the fainter it becomes. We know also that the air pulsations set in motion by our words do not cease to propagate themselves when they become inaudible to our ears, but that they travel on in fainter pulsations capable of being discerned by organs more sensitive than ours. Babbage's remark was that no limit can be assigned to this propagation; that the waves of air raised by any spoken word within some twenty hours have communicated to every atom of the atmosphere an altered motion due to the infinitesimal portion of the primitive motion conveyed to it through countless channels, which altered movement must continue to influence its path through its future existence. "Those aerial pulses, unseen by the keenest eye, unheard by the acutest ear, unperceived by human senses, are yet demonstrated to exist by human reason." True they may be infinitely small; but modern science concerns itself much with the infinitely little. Babbage's speculation, then, was that if a man possessed unbounded knowledge of mathematical analysis he would be able to calculate the minutest consequence of any primary impulse given to our atmosphere; or conversely from every slightest deviation from its orderly motions to detect the operation of a new cause, to trace the time of its commencement and the point of space at which it originated. Thus, he says, "the air itself may be regarded as a vast library on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said or even whispered. If we could imagine the soul in an after state of existence connected with a bodily organ of hearing so sensitive as to vibrate with motions of the air even of infinitesimal force, all the accumulated words pronounced from the creation of the world would fall at once upon the ear. Imagine in addition a power of directing attention entirely to any one class of vibrations; the apparent confusion would vanish, and the punished offender might hear still vibrating on his ear the very words uttered perhaps centuries before, which at once caused and registered his condemnation." And so in like manner he contends, "the earth, air, and ocean are eternal witnesses of the acts we have done. No motion impressed by natural causes or by human agency is ever obliterated. The track of every vessel which has yet disturbed the surface of the ocean remains for ever registered in the future movements of all succeeding particles which may occupy its place. The solid substance of the globe itself, whether we regard the minutest movement of the soft clay which receives its impression from the foot of animals or the concussion produced from fallen mountains rent by earthquakes, equally retains and communicates through all its countless atoms their apportioned share of the motions so impressed. Thus while the atmosphere we breathe is the ever living witness of the sentiments we have uttered, the waters and the more solid materials of the globe bear equally enduring testimony to the acts we have committed." Fanciful as this speculation of Babbage's may be, I could not help being reminded of it by the invention of the phonograph, an invention which seems destined to advance to greater perfection, through which what might seem to be the most transient thing in nature, the utterances of the human voice, are permanently fixed, so that words spoken in America have been heard in our islands, and it seems likely that men of future generations will be enabled to compare the very tones of the voice of actors or orators of our day. These things are only worth mentioning just as enabling the imagination to familiarise itself with the fact that words and actions of ours, transient as they are, can write themselves in permanent record. But there are ways in which they do so which come more practically home to us than those I have mentioned, which one is tempted to dismiss as a mere scientific fancy. In the first place, our words and actions are written in the book of our own memories. In fading characters, no doubt. Yet we know that many things which we seem to have long forgotten are not really blotted out of our recollections. Some accident often brings up to our remembrance events or conversations of times long gone by, which had been absent from our minds for years. A statement made by the late Admiral Beaufort has been often quoted. He was rescued from drowning, and reanimated after he had for some time lost consciousness. He stated that in the last few moments of consciousness a host of long buried memories had suddenly started into life, and that he seemed in these few moments to peruse the history of his whole past life. But this writing of the book of your memory is a trivial thighs in comparison of what I wish next to speak of: the writing on the book of your character. I had better explain what I mean by this word character. Mr. Mill long ago asserted that you could with certainty predict any man's actions on any occasion if you knew his character and knew the motives that were influencing him. The assertion is not true if you use the word character in its ordinary sense. A man may have deservedly got the character of being miserly, and. yet you cannot be certain that he will not act generously on some particular occasion, and vice versa. The sense in which the proposition is true is, if you understand by "character" the degree of susceptibility to different motives at any particular instant. So understood, the proposition is true, but it is one of those identical propositions which convey no information. You can tell with certainty whether or act a man wilt be impelled to action by a certain motive if you know what is at the moment the amount of his susceptibility in respect of that motive. But what I want now to remark is that character (in this, which may be called the scientific sense of the word) is in a state of continual change. Not to speak of changes of disposition resulting from changes of bodily health, every one of our words and acts in some degree influences our character, which results as the integral of a number of very small influences. The amount of change at any moment is imperceptible. The friend whom we meet day by day seems to us in bodily form the same to-day as he had been yesterday; until one day perchance it strikes us how much altered he is from what we can remember him, and in any case one who has not seen him for some time is struck at once with the change, perhaps finds it difficult to recognise him. In like manner it occurs to us from time to time to Cake notice of changes in a friend's character. We may take notice, for example, that he is less easy to deal with, more snappish in temper than he used to be. The topic does not need to be enlarged upon, what enormous alteration can be matte by the accumulated effect of minute changes, each separately, it may be, absolutely undiscernible. But what, though obviously true, much needs to be borne m mind is that none of these minute changes takes place without a cause. It changes in character take place, it is because every incautious word that falls from our lips, every thoughtless action, though our own attention may have been scarce conscious of it, is writing itself on our nature in characters far more deep and more practically important than in those traces on inanimate nature which formed the subject of Babbage's speculation. But there is yet another larger book on which our words and actions write themselves; for they influence not only ourselves, but others. Babbage spoke of the traces spoken words leave on the physical atmosphere. There is a moral atmosphere which presses on as all, though as in the ease of the physical atmosphere we feel not the pressure, and scarce take note of its existence unless when its motions are unusually violent. I mean, as of course you understand, the public opinion of the community in which we live, which is practically the law that regulates our conduct. On the wholesomeness of this atmosphere our moral health in great measure depends. But it too responds obediently to every impulse communicated to it by those who live in it. Public opinion is in short nothing but the aggregate representation of the moral sentiments of each individual of the community; and plainly each change in the moral condition of any individual affects that of the community. In an infinitely small degree, no doubt, but I have been all along pointing out that all the great changes in nature are the results of the accumulation of movements each infinitesimally small. Yet, however small the direct effect of the action of one individual on the whole community, it might be large enough in his own immediate neighbourhood. Poisonous miasma might be enough to make a whole house uninhabitable which might have no perceptible effect when diffused through the whole atmosphere. But no comparison with the action of completely inanimate bodies gives an adequate illustration. If you insert a little leaven into a lump of dough, it would be a delusion to imagine that the amount to which the character of the mass had been altered could be estimated by comparing the weight of the newly inserted matter with the weight of the entire. Now, as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. The same temptations which assail us beset others too; if we are sensible of higher and nobler motives, so are others. The sight of a brave and generous deed excites admiration, which soon leads to imitation; the fall of one man leads others to think lightly of a similar fall as natural and pardonable. If it be true that every sound we make sets waves of air in motion which spread in wide and wider circles, far more is a similar statement true of the moral effect of the waves we set in motion. For the mere physical effect is so attenuated as it spreads as to become in a moment or two imperceptible to our senses, but as I just pointed out, it is otherwise in the moral atmosphere. Each disturbance brings new forces into action, so that the effect resulting from a single impulse may be immensely greater than any one could have predicted as due to the original force. Thus, though what we have said or done be not recorded by pen, ink or paper, it may be written in more permanent form by its influence upon others or ourselves. If I have seemed to you over subtle in elaborating the proof of this, remember I am doing no more than insisting that that is always taking place, instances of which are perpetually striking you. We may, if we look back on our own history, be able to trace in some degree how events were linked together and how trifles helped to bring us to form important decisions. But of the greater part of this we know little. And if God could enable us to read the book of our own lives we should be astonished to find how the performance of some petty act of duty has been blessed by Him as the means of giving us strength for higher service in His cause; or how some apparently trifling opportunities neglected had checked our own spiritual life or had resulted in serious injury to others. When the books are opened God may permit us to see, as He can see, each act written by its consequences. Nothing would make us more hate and dread sin than if we could see how each act of sin may not only be written in terrible stains on our own hearts and consciences, but even on those of persons dear to us, who may have drunk in poison from our example, which cannot be neutralised even by our repentance. I have not spoken of that book which most naturally suggests itself to a reader of the text, the book of God's omniscience, but I have shown that without going beyond what our own reason and experience tell us of we can see that our own words and actions do permanently record themselves. (G. Salmon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. |
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