Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-08-09
NO 222
SOULS IMMORTALITY.

Interesting Services at the Cathedral Last
Erening---AJls and Eloquent Sermon by
bishop Spaldip0, Of Illinois.
The services Mt the Cathedral were listened
to with more than usual interest yesterday.
owing in great degree to The presence in
the city of Rt. Rev. j. L. Spalding, bishop of
the diocese of Peoria, ILL.,, who is paying
visit to Bishops Grace and Ireland, and who
was announced to preach last evening. The
announcement drew out an audience which
filled the spacious Cathedral, notwithstard-
ing the threatening state of the weather.
Bishop Spalding, although comparatively
young man, has national reputation as man
of rare abilities aud force of character. His
sermon last evening was an entirely ex-
tempore address, and was listened to with
rapt attention By the crowded audience. The
following is an epitome of the sermon:
If were asked to point ont, my brethren,
that doctrine which most distinguishes our
blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, from all
other religious teachers, should say il ia the
doctrine of the immortality of the sonl. Not
that he first preached this truth, which is part
OF our very self-consciousness, but because he
has preached that in a manner which stamps
and marks it as peculiarly his own which
makes it forever impossible for our race of man
to defeat his own original destiny. These
teachings of the survival of the soul run
through the whole of our blessed Lords minis
tration. No religion, though sprung from the
grossest and most dense ignorance, has been
able to affect this grand truth. Everywhere
men have believed in future life. Every
where has there been some idea of immortal
ity. some conviction of some kind of future
punishment attached to this life, and concomi-
tant with this, state of bliss. Indeed, some
of the most enlightened minds that preceded
the coming of our blessed Savior point ont the
beauty of this divine truth. know of moth
ing in all literature 30 beautiful as the dis
courses of Socrates TO his friends, which have
been handed down to us by Plato, during his
whole life as a philosopher until he drank the
fatal hemlock, where he points out to them
with all the force of his argument that he was
certain that there Was some future for this
mortal body, some other state of existence
that he was not to die altogether, and that there
was SOME portion of him that could not be
buried here. These remarks form some of the
choicest and most sublime themes that the hu-
man mind is capable of dwelling upon.
Then again We have Cicero, and the pages
which he has made memorable, in which he
showed the Immortality of the soul. And
we must acknowledge and realize this fact
that men in all forms and conditions of re-
ligion have accepted the truth that the soul
is immortal. and the highest, the best, the
noblest of men have pointed out and demon
strated many of the arguments upon which
this principal is founded, This teaching of
the immortality of the soul has distinguished
our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ more
than all other doctrines from all other re-
igious teachers. Why? Because he had such
an insight into all our consciousness that he
has become very part OF our nature, and man
cannot forget it, cannot deny it, without
making himself miserable and showing there
IS no blessing and no enjoyment, and no
pleasure in this life.
Mans whole nature reyolts at the idea that
there is no future existence. What shall it pro-
fta man if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul?' Then we have this spiritual doctrine
of our Lords running through all his dis
courses and parallels, teaching us to look to
God or rather perhaps to look away from the
earth. Blessed are the pure in heart. the
humble, blessed are the peace makers, the
clean of heart, and oil these spiritual qualities
which GO to make up heavenly religion.
This is his doctrine, and if we take away this
it becomes meaningless. Everything that
teaches and animates that religion, inculcates
that it were better for q man to cast away q
limb, or pluck out an eye, and to enter the
kingdom Of God MANNED or blind than having
limb or eye to be eternally lost.
The learned bishop then went on to remark
that these were some of the truths revealed 10
us by the doctrine of our Lord and by our own
nature, and that they should be studies for us
every day. Another argument used by the
bishop was that men yearned and craved after
a doctrine which taught that this life is not
the end, aud that the soul is immortal; that
the desire to know is Unborn. ALI men feel it
la,e fhaf or,kf II
for knowledge is less, and in proportion as
man emerges from the depths of ignorance SO
much the more does this craving and thirst for
knowledge increase. He is never satisfied
The more man has the more he wants. See
men with riches. Are they ever content with
heaping them up? Do they not always want
to add little more?
Then again take the pleasures of this life. The
appetite is satisfied with eating, and thirst with
drinking, but whenever we come to the unnet-
ural desires, then we find that our nature be-
comes cloycd with them. But We come to the
soul of man, or man's spiritual nature, then,
on the contrary we find that man Graves for
more proper nourishment, for more proper
communion, Graves for the TRUTH and some
thing which it cannot possibly obtain in this
world.
The eloquent speaker then descanted upon
the present condition of science as compared
with earlier days. sho wing that while we had
greater knowledge of the mysteries of the uni
verse We were still as far from real knowl-
edge of them as ever. The bishop then pro-
pounded the question why all the pleasures of
this life turn to dross when brought into con-
tact with the soul; so that it casts them away.
Then speaking of ambition, and criticising il
keenly, he showed into what narrow compass
this much vaunted, much sought for ambitlan
was comprised, showing that every one of us
has his ambition, some in great and lofty de-
md int fba md not tv ne
every day life. Some mems ambition is
boundless, while with others it was confined TO
almost the family circle. The bishop then de-
picted the end of this ambition and showed
that mans very desire for fame and the goods
of this world ended in disappointed hopes and
illusory fgments of the imagination. Vanity
of vanitiea all is vanity" saith the preacher.
The bishop then touched upon the philosophy
of Descartes in mastery way and showed
there was much to be slearned from his philcs-
ophy and applied his reasoning to the true
solution of the question of the Immortality of
the soul.
The bishop then concluded as follows: l
have now shown you the noblest, best and
most praiseworthy ambition In this life is the
salvation of your soul, that the gift of your
soul is more than anything that can be given
You in this world, and that the great and
crowning ambition of your life should be to
live nearer and nearer to God. Remember
that deep down in mans soul is planted by the
hand of God the seeds of his truth.
In it is inroo.ed his divine love. Except when
men turn their minds from religion for mo-
ment to tile passion of oontroversy-and there
are such moments we all know-times, when
1t is claimed that men are no better than soul
less brutes, the soul of man revolts against
such grovelling ideas, and in a little while men
return still believe that he has a soul. And
man will ever revolt against this grovelline
claim that links him hopelessly with the brute
caeation. They will either despair, or come
back to God, and from age to age men have
and will eternally come back to their Savior.
Jesus Christ come back again and again to this
history, come back to the belief and knowledge
that they are immortal and have immortal
souls to save. They will listen to the
necessacy teaching Of that mgher me,