The weekly Arizona miner., 1878-05-24
fCoatinu.d from6ssr paoe.) )

ian. Methodist, or universalist-of to-day, there is 4 difference both in spirit and act. SO radical. that the candid reasoner ought
 not to find material ia the past with which J to assai' the present. Because the fagot fires of heretics were kindIed centuries gone in the Plaza in Madrid. shall we say that the torch
 ought now to be applied to a thousand : institutions where sad robed women make
 of life one I0ag labor of charity and mercvl Because Calvin glowered upon Seryetus m Geneva three hundred years ago,
 shall we make haste to turn every Presby- terian meeting house into dance hall
 where Ganbrinas mag be worshiped instead
 of Goi!
 I do not think that our humanity would gain if faith in the hereafter were eliminated l from the coasciou sness of man, and the
 materiaIist's substituted. Take for one in
 stance fbe tender and soiemn rites. the
 costly and careful surroundings with winch we catomb our dead. 1.-the body has never been the home of an immortal spirit, why i treat it with respect! l suppose Mr. Inger- soil would appreciate and applaud the ] lamentations of the economical brother-in- l law. who remonstratcd with his sister az inst
 buryiag the deceased in his new clothes. l "A pretty sister you are. Here am I, with
 out decent suit to my back. and Jim's new clothes would just fit me, and you have put them on his remains. Forty dollars worth 1 of clothes to ten cents worth of worms. It's
 an outrage"
 The most noticeable point in the lectures
 of Mr. Ingersoll, this gentleman who has had a personal difficulty with God, this Anti Christ on the rampage, is his hatred of prayer. But who can find any abnegation of manhood. or los of the spirit or the fact # freedom. ia the attitude or the act of Dravsr! wh,n that prayer is addressed to
 the Grest Power supposed by the petitioner
 to live beyond this earth, and is directed to-
 ward unselfsh ends; and suppose that men
 do not often. in this age of the world at least,
 pray for'specifc, individual, material advan-
 tages; or if they do, it is probable that
 they are or will be conscious of the unfruit-
 ful character of their supplications:
 1 am not here to advocate or to attack
 tneologies. am not here to denounce or
 to uphold theories or forms. have simply 1
 endeavored in what have said to demon
 strate that the happiness of man, and the l
 peace and order of society. are prom ,ted by |
 . belief in an existence after the death of
 the body. and have attempted tp show that 1 such beief is reasonable, and natural, and | in harmony with the logic of things.
 But to sustain such belief might draw | on nature for countless illustrations, but one | or two will perhaps suffice Take the com
 mon but none the less wonderful process of vegetation for one.
 The life that dwells in a grain of wheat, entombed for four thousand years in the wrappings of a mummy bursts forth in beau ", splendor anu fEuitfuIness when warmed t.x-fl, htrfl, ,to,. 1 braced by the earth. I5ut that life was not in the elements alone, for the combined for ces of nature could not produce waving hill of corn from kernel of rock or an oak tree from an acorn of carved wood. Why may not the spirit, the divine germ of man l. when removed from these fieshly wrappings and planted where it can be cherished and nourished with the swee. and mighty infiu- ences of another life. de-eiope into an exis- tence of which our clogged and dumb senses have as little appreciation as has the acorn of the oak? Shall the grosSer forms of mat ter be indestruciable and vet the spirit ut- terly perish when matter changes it's form? The vine that is bare. brown and seemingly a lifeless branch of wood, covered with the snows of winter, becomes, when nursed by 1, the juices of the awakened earth. and warm ed by she suns of spring, beautiful, breath- ing arbor. The sun leaves Us, his last pick cts, with their weapons glittering with crim- son and violet 20 down into the dark and the world no longer pulses with life; but dark ness is not eternal, for tho morning will sure, , ly come again. Dreams come with slumber and waking after dreams, and deride it as We may, smother it with scientific phrases and load it down with sophisms as we may, l here lives in each human breast the intuit- ion, higher than reason, and stronger than the presence of death itself, that life is not limited to this denizenship of earth. You { have travelled at night over our deserts when the blear and dusty hills were only visible in outline against the night skies, and To before the ashen dawn was even pencilled with I sireaks of light, over the rim of the dark has { bubbled the trilling of the lark ''the herald . Df the morn,n so in each human breast there sings at times the voice that tells of immor- al life. And when it is hoard, all philoso- 5 phies may fly back into the night they would ! make eternal, all shadows of doom may ,rouch beneath ''the blanket of the dark,'' 'or heavens lark is singing of the morning ' hat will surely come. a
 have in this brief and imperfect effort { O answer those who say that tour little life s rounded with sleep" offered no argument O demonstrate the existence of a Supreme c I cannot consider that such f argument is necessary. That men should be Pantheists and Trinitarians, and DeiSts, and Christians, and Materialsts, and V ,piritualists, and Infijels, aud Believers, I an comprehend, for, in reasoning about q hose beings which arc incapable of mathe- T uaticsi physical demonstration, there is no init to oe placed to the operations of the . luman mind,
 But that any intelligent human creature, vho has beheld seed tms and harvest night md morning. sushine and tempest, winter md summer; who has seen grain of dry wheat become blade of green; who has 'ecn conscious while the centrifugal force s las whrled him from the sunset to the stars, rom the stars to the mornng--should yet 'e able to say that these mighty and regular processes of nature are not governed by law, 5 to me inexplicabie. And if governed by aw, then either the law itself. or the maker f the law must be an intelligence, and an intelligence superior to man.
 Among philosophers I express no choice, mong faiths | neither defend nor attack, mt, lot who wiilquestion, let who will scoff, st W ho will despair, know that there are moments when the thriii Of the infinite fife | possesses thls fieshly frame.
 | know that the time will come when not hese arms that gesture O you,not thsvoice hat speaks to you, not this bysun which is T lerely the poor loom on which unseen fin CTS weave imperfect fabrics of thought,- at the fife tllat shall survive them all. the All pirit that shall spurn tue dark house where hC le body may be hidden, will go ont into lE realms of fAtha~- fa hvaalar ftafSa- of