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

Hoiuheh'di Ctilhilai vi The ages. MYTH,
fable, symbol, history, care not what you
call the narrative Of that transgression against
sanitary law by which the human body lost
the invincible healthfulness of its organization
and became exposed to disease, the fact re-
mains the samoa fact so sombre that it
/ clouded the sun of human happiness when it
stood in full meridian, put the orb of human
life into perpetual eclipse, and made the
whole earth but valley Of the shadow of
death.
| That the human body was intended to be
deathless, that ii was noble enough and help
full enough to be mans eternal instrument and
residence, is clear to my mind, from the fact
that one man has been born of woman, free,
bodily, from the hereditary, physical faint, de-
generation, corruption-call it whatever name
you pleaSe-which descended from the body
of Adam to all born in descent from him. |
refer to the babe that was born without an
earthly father, and hence without an earthly
bodily tainti-iesus of Nazareth His body
was of the primeval type-perfect. Not
merely healthy, but so charged with the
forces of healthiness that even the spikes and
spears of the crucitlxion could not transit. it
with mortality. Like the angels OF which
Milton sings wounded on the dreadful held
where Michael and Satan and their sdherents
fought,
In one sense Jesus was not killed; he re-
! temporarily to the assault of evil that it might
have the shame, though it might not know the
result of mortality. Thou shalt not suffer
thy holy one to see corruption" saws tie
| PSalmi,t. In one sense, those VINO crucifed
the Savior never triumphed. They rudely at
| tackled him in his body and he retired from it.
Then they took the body and ne left and gave
it to the grave, that the grave might dishonor
| 1t with lis morhtylng processes. The grave,
robed in black, moved silently to its inspec-
| ton, but when her gloomy eyes beheld the
beauty and the majesty stretched before her,
unmarked, unmarried, by trace or faint of sin,
from head to foot. she said '.This body is
not for me-" and drawing her sable robe
around her face, kaseied down and wor-
shipped!
thus. it lay in honor where all others die in
| shame lay as in perfumed hover sacredly
guarded by her, whose fetid breath has been
blown into all human faces, born and buried
since Adam sinned; guarded until he who
owned it and needed it came and resumed it
| again.
That Jesus resumed that body, the came
body in which he had lived since his birth
and that he took it with him into heaven, thus
giving to al the earth the demonstration Of
heavens acknowledgment of its supreme fit
ness to be even the organ and residence of
| deity ITSELF Is fact not to be denied save by
those who deny all scripture.
What becomes of our bodies then, you may
| ask? They rot, | answer. Jesus took his
with him because it was fit, unmarried, I'M
weakened Traced with ali tbs old strength,
brilliant Win all the old beauty. What else
can God do with perfection than lift it into
some heavenly place, and SO make heaven
more heavenly!
! But our bodies are not ft-bsye nat The old
strength TheY sarey last us sixty years.
| They have aot the old beauty. Behold how
| their beauty, such rs it is, fades, and there
fore. being neither fit as instruments to use, or
| fit for us as residences to live in, why should
they be preserved? Why not give them to
the grave, and rejoice thai We can DO we'll quit
| of them so easily,
| What iolT 10 dream of, to wish for, the
resurrection of such bodies as these. God be
praised that the chemistry of the earth and sea
is strong enough to resolve them back to the
pure elements whence God called them,
and so. forever undo ;hs woik of sin,
and finally WaAe embodied impurity
and sorsuptibleness but dim tradition of the
universe. What horrible hallucination, tina,
is, which pictures the reassembling of these
Cast-otf bodies, of the human race, millions
and myriads, in one great concoarse, to meet
supposed necessity o. Psychological the
logy ThinS you the hills Of Heaven will
ever be tfampled by such monstrous assem-
blage! If might borrow figure of speech
from the military vocabulary to express nv
Imagination which labors for expression, |
would ask if any sane, enlightened, refined
person. can .h;,4k mat God will order all the
e..baoied results Of earthly corruption up be-
fore him, for ghostly dress parade? No.
No! The drapery of the grave falls msrciful-
ly between us and the result of sins, revolving
tragedy. Oh grave keep close thy curtain
and weave IFS iolas OF thickest stuff, that when
once thy gloomy relief is between us and the
horrors behind thee, our eyes and ears shall
see and hear no more the sights and sounds of
human misery
But if we leave our old bodies here, what
bodies have we then, in the hereafter, may be
asked ? New bodies, reply, New bodies
received as Adam received his from the boun-
! ty Of God, AS Paul says of them, speaking
of, the soul and the souls body in the hereaf
ter: "He giveth il new body as it pleaseth
him." A body no more subject to disease, no
more tormented with pain, nc, more DONNA
ted by death body not settefed and local,
but free and universal in the action of its func-
! tions, .novIrg with the ease of hight along the
lines of varied acquisition, telescope in its
powers harmonious in It's elements; whose ap-
petites are refined, whose passions are leeiti-
mate and whose desires are holy and which
shall not hinder but assist the intellect. And
TO such body as this, helpful to our intellect
shall our spirits come
| na, ~ Ill |, HAIL u. 4.