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Wikipedia Commons Illustrations to Blair's The Grave The Soul Hovering over the Body |
It took me a long time to realize how much William Blake's attitude toward death had been shaped by his mother's Moravian connection. William Blake must have learned early that the end of physical life is a stage on the journey of the the soul to his eternal home. His mother had lost her first husband while they were both members of the Moravian Meeting in Fetters Lane. Her first husband Thomas Armitage died in 1751, the first year that the Moravians buried members in God's Acre in London. The term God's Acre was chosen to indicate the continuity of the congregation where those who were called home were buried using identical flat stones marking the location. Burials were not in biological family groups but with others of the same gender and marital status indicating that their primary loyalty was to the continuing life of the community of believers.
In 1787 William lost his beloved younger brother Robert to tuberculous, the same disease which had taken his mother's first husband. Robert died at age nineteen representing an enormous loss to his brother. However William was able to continue his relationship with Robert on a spiritual level. Because William's spiritual sensation was acute he continued to converse with his brother, receive advice and instruction from him and enjoy the feeling that Robert's 'Mortal loss' was 'Immortal Gain.'
Being conscious that there is a physical world and a spiritual world, also that there is a physical life and a spiritual life, enables one to distinguish between the body which is transient and the spirit which continues after the body ceases to support physical life. Among Moravians exit from the physical world by the Immortal Spirit is thought of as a home-going, as the return of the soul to its Eternal Home.
Here are a few quotes from Adelaide Fries's book The Road to Salem, an account to the settlement of the Moravians in
North Carolina.
"I had long since learned not to use the word 'death' in connection with the departure of one of our members, that term being reserved for cases of outsiders of whose spiritual condition the Brethern knew little or too much." Page 158
"On August 29th a messenger came to Friedland telling us that a little before ten o'clock in the morning his soul had gone home, leaving his mortal remains to rest in peace." Page 263
"Once he whispered, 'O Thou, dear Savior,' but about seven o'clock he quietly and blessedly fell asleep. He had spoken of the beauty of a quick home-going, and it was granted to him." Page 266
Anna Catharina (Antes) Ernst, on
whose diary The Road to Salem is based, wrote this after the death of her
beloved first husband who was the community doctor:
"No light pierced my gloom until one day when the Lord sent a friend to show me a poem which had been written by our surveyor, Christian Reuter, as he was recovering from a serious attack of the dread fever. The lines set forth a dream he had had, in which two angels stood beside his bed, but passed him by because he was not yet ripe for the heavenly harvest; and a second dream in which he saw the Lord looking down upon sorely tried Bethabara, and heard Him say:
'This hundred-thousand-acre fieldNow truly consecrate shall be,
Therefore the angel reapers come
And bear the first fruits home to me.'
So that was what God's Acre meant! Not a place of burial, not
even a measure of land consecrated to God, but a field in which
the bodies of believers were laid awaiting the glories of the
resurrection! I knew that, of course, but I had never realized
what it could mean to one whose best beloved lay there. How sweet
it was to think of my Martin, one of the pioneers in this hundred-thousand-acre field that we call Wachovia, now one of the
first-fruits standing in that glorious presence, his labors
accepted, his soul ripe for the harvest. Humbly I accepted the
comfort which the Saviour gave me, and the last lines of Brother
Reuter's poem became my prayer:
'Lord Jesus Christ,
Thou art so true,
Thou art so merciful to all,
I pray for grace Thy will to do,
To trust Thy love whate'er befall.'
It is no wonder that the Moravian influence can be seen is the
poetry Blake wrote when he was young. This poem is from Poetical Sketches the book of his youthful poems published by his
friends in 1783. The poems were written between his twelveth and
twenty-first years. The dying young man in the poem, after
meditating on his own sinfullness, receives a vision of his soul
joyfully entering eternity. Later when his
younger brother Robert died, William is reported to have seen his
brother's 'released spirit ascend heavenward.'
Poetical Sketches, THE COUCH OF DEATH, (E 440-441)
"if I lift up
my head, sin covers me as a cloak! O my dear friends, pray ye for
me! Stretch forth your hands, that my helper may come! Through
the void space I walk between the sinful world and eternity!
...
The youth lay silent--his mother's arm was
under his head; he was like a cloud tossed by the winds, till the
sun shine, and the drops of rain glisten, the yellow harvest
breathes, and the thankful eyes of the villagers are turned up in
smiles. The traveller that hath taken shelter under an oak, eyes
the distant country with joy! Such smiles were seen upon the
face of the youth! a visionary hand wiped away his tears, and a
ray of light beamed around his head! All was still. The moon
hung not out her lamp, and the stars faintly glimmered in the
summer sky; the breath of night slept among the leaves of the
forest; the bosom of the lofty hill drank in the silent dew,
while on his majestic brow the voice of Angels is heard, and
stringed sounds ride upon the wings of night. The sorrowful pair
lift up their heads, hovering Angels are around them, voices of
comfort are heard over the Couch of Death, and the youth breathes
out his soul with joy into eternity." In his own voice Blake revealed his attitude toward death when he wrote letters to his dearest friends.
Letters, To Hayley, (E 705)
"Thirteen years ago. I lost a
brother & with his spirit I converse daily & hourly in the
Spirit. & See him in my remembrance in the regions of my
Imagination. I hear his advice & even now write from his
Dictate--Forgive me for expressing to you my Enthusiasm which I
wish all to partake of Since it is to me a Source of Immortal
Joy even in this world by it I am the companion of Angels. May
you continue to be so more & more & to be more & more perswaded.
that every Mortal loss is an Immortal Gain. The Ruins of Time
builds Mansions in Eternity."
Letters, To Linnell, (E 774)"I verily believe it Every Death is an improvement of the State of
the Departed."Letters, To Cumberland. (E 783) "I have been very near the Gates of Death & have returned
very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit &
Life not in The Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever.
In that I am stronger & stronger as this Foolish Body decays." Letters, To Linnell, (E 784)
"Flaxman is Gone & we must All soon follow every one to his
Own Eternal House Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature & her Laws
to get into Freedom from all Law of the Members into The Mind in
which every one is King & Priest in his own House God Send it so
on Earth as it is in Heaven"
Gospel of John (Phillips Translation)
12:23-26 - Jesus told them, "The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you truly that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat; but if it does, it brings a good harvest. The man who loves his own life will destroy it, and the man who hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. If a man wants to enter my service, he must follow my way; and where I am, my servant will also be. And my Father will honour every man who enters my service.
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