The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-07-11

IOIs duu Will iOlCNSi ~ StohA, UNIV sAN y -"
of the thoughtful. while the laws of the human
mind remain as they are, and man has knowl-
edge enough of himself to dread the POSSIBLE
tiles of the sufferings that are in him.
THE NATURAL BODY.
The question has often been ask ed me, what
will become of the natural body after death
| will answer that question. | will do more
than answer it. will give you my impress
ions of the whole subject, Of which the an
swer to your question is but part.
What is body? And what is it for!
A body is spirit formulated. 1t is
the visible expression of a vital force.
1t is thought organized into struc:urs.
1t is to spirit, what cup is to water, what
an en- inc is to steam: what a flower is to the
peril that turks in its leaves. You look at
a be and you see beauty, see strength. But
tyis not the beauty or the strength. 1t
translates them from the invisible into
s.snt. They would be without it, but they
would not be seen.
We talk about disembodied spirits. By
what right or with what reason? l know hoI
cannot conceive of a spirit without body.
think the popular imagination is fed on
the old myths, the old ignorance, the old SUI
perstitions. l feel it would be shame for me
to Jake my ideas from such a source; nay. to
allow them to be shaded with the least trace
of such color. The Bible is the most sensi-
BILE book one can read, because it is the most
truthful. have no doubt, but that the minds
of the men who wrote the several books of it
were protected by their own high qualities and
divine enlightment from falling into gross err
rors. Well, there are no ghosts in the Bible,
and yet its pages rustic with the movemant OF
men and women and angels who have come
out of the spirit world for purposes of COM
munication with this. According to its teach
ings, bodies have gone out of this world into
that and come from that world into this in diff
ferent ages and from various motives. In
deed, according to its record this interchange
of communication, this transmittance of mes
sage by actual personal messengers was kept
up from the earliest times Of which it speaks
10 the day in which John wrote the last words
of the Apocalypse.
Enoch, was translated. Elijah was swept
visibly from sight Of his waiting pupil upon
whom his mantle descended. Moses grave
was never found. Was there any grave to
find? Samuel rose before the Kings eyes in
form and feature as the king had known him.
Jesus went into the spirit land and came back
again, in the same body he had always lived
in, and took the same body with him at his
anal disappearance: The angels carrolng his
birth had vcices, WHICH proIel structural Or
cans like ours aud forms as visible as mine is
to your eyes. And SO whether winged or
Ewingless, evssS. communication that Heaven
hSs made to aythr'pgR messenger supplies
evidence that all lie Of the unseen world, is
embodied life; that all the beings that inhabit
it are beings of form and substance, of shape,
OF colos. Of nsignt and weight, as are we who
live here This evidence seems to me COM
plete. There is no ghost land. There is no
realm where their empty unsubstantial shades
fit and are blown about like patches of ami
mated vapor.
Indeed, ! cann9t CONCEIVE of mind working
save throug ii Stfusturs, | sanaor conceive
of an animate force making any manifestation
of its presence save through an organ. There
must be bodies to being, or being cannot as
sociate itself with being or produce the effects
of associated industrial and benevolent life.
conceiye, then, that the human bodY.-the
body in which the first aaaa was boen,,-Wss
constructed to be an organ through which he
was to manifest the forces of his being in all
those ways which his intelligence should sug-
gest For such purpose it was perfectly con-
structed. 1t is undoubtedly to-day far below
what. it was originally but weakened and
mar,ed as it is, it fsraaihs che woades Of the
anatomist and the greatest marvel Of the
world. l: is marvel of structural ingenuity.
There are bodies better adapted for the exhi-
bition of brute force, but there are no bodies
in which animal strength put in alliance with
ard for the assistance Of mental SOCIAL ana
spirit faCaiues that arg so.aparable to it.
A h. IN body was not made lcr a brute tc
PC 1t for a man; not built for an animal to
h,,tt he t,ap hall f,,1 e.
! dence Of an intelligent, amiable and i'm
mortal spiri.
keine 90 CJnstrgctsa aal il. s4cn 4 pur-
pose, 1t Was evideatly intended to be deathles.
1t was so perfect-so much of an honor to its
maker-that there cannot be in the whole
range of conceivable motives one discovered
Which would prompt Him or any benevolen,
being to destroyit. 1t might be destroyed,
for, ike he.ltifui vase, Il was fragile, but
like beautiful vase, its beauty constituted its
perfect protection against the assault of any
but an ignorant or malevolent force.
"By SIM" says Paul, 'came death =" That
is, bodily DEATH: That I believe. Philoso-
phically, 1t is correct. Logically, the explana-
ton is adequate, because it accounts for an et.
feet by pointing out ar adeauste cause. Early
in the history OF tbs raee-the Bible says in
the beginning of it-certain laws of health
were transgressed, and the body began to suf-
fer deterioration. The eating of the apple,
some say, is myth. 1t may be. Itmakes no
difference with the essential truth of the .ec-
ord whether symbolic actual act is pointed
out as the initial transgression. The fact and
not the particular fashion of it is what con-
Germs us as students Of this phenomenon; and
the fact is that the body being subordinate to
the Elind. q servant api aot . master. aad
being fragile and Susceptible of abuse, was