Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1883-10-11
Address Delivered by the Rev. p. b.
Cabcll, of Cincinnati, Ohio, at the
Funeral of VIM. Sheffield, October
9TH, 1888.
DEATH.

| 1tn, 1888.
DEATH.
There are few words i'm our languag
which imply so much as the word life
1t suggests to the mind all that man i
or can be; his thoughts, his affections
his joys, his sorrows, his hopes and hi
fears. These form his internal life-eX
ternally it implies warmth, activity
sensation, mOtion-without these lif;
would not be. The apparent cessation
of these is cessation of life, and 4
called death.
Philosophers tell us that we neve,
understand ANYTHING fully until we Sc,
its opposite. Painters are wont to en-
hance the glories of beautiful concep
ton by contrasting with it that which
is hideous and deformed. Orators anC
Poets delight i'm antithises, and moral
lists excite our admiration of that which
is right and just by picturing in all theil
responsiveness that which is evil and
wrong. So, too, the Lord in his merck
would teach his children the loveliness
and attractiveness of life by contrasting
with it the stiffness, the coldness, the
unseemliness of death. That the deatl,
of the body, however, is not a real but
only an apparent death ought to be
known to all who read the holy scrip
lures. Our Lord did not regard it as
any death at all, for at the grave of
Lazarus He said "He that believeth on
me, though he We're dead, vet shall he
live; and he that liveth and believeth
on me shall never die.n 1t is repeatedly
declared in the sacred pages that those
who have passed from this world are
yet alive, and but for the traditions of
men, Christianity might have remained
such as it was at the beginning, the re-
ligion which drought life and immor-
tallty to light" The Christians were
able many of them to welcome the
messenger of death as an angel of Hght,
whereas it is to be feared that now the
majority of mankind regard him as the
liking of Terrors.n
In the doctrines of the New Church
now revealed from the Lord out of
Heaven, we have description of the
death of the body so full, so clear, so
comforting as to be quite wonderful, all
shown, too, as in full accord with the
sacred scriptures concerning which it is
declared that when sepulchre and burial
are mentioned in the holy pages, there
is meant resurrection to eternal life.
Natural death is like a gate or portal
on the one side of which stand men,
OH the other angels. To neither men
nor angels are both sides visible at the
same time; to the passenger alone it is
granted to see both in quck succession.
But to him, what contrast do these
present, the scene which he leaves-and
that to which he goes! On the one side
he leaves friends weeping and mourn
ing for his loss-On the other he finds
friends equally loving, equally dear,
welcoming him to an eternal home and
congratulating him on the happy
change.
On the one side he leaves perhaps sick
ness, suffering, old age, sorrow.-on the
other he finds health, ease, soon a re-
newal of youth and joy. Behind him
he leaves his natural body, all cold and
still and soon to pass away-beyond, he
finds himself in a spiritual body, alive,
active, healthy and immortal.
The time was, we are told, when both
sides of this gate of life (fOr such it really
is), was visible to man and angels; but
men by their sins caused a veil to be
drawn between, impenetrable to their
eyes, and have thus cut themselves off
from the brighter and better side.
But this latter is now in mercy so full
~ revealed that death ought no longer
to be regarded as a gloomy portal or a
stygian river, but new birth, or an en-
trance into eternal life. 1t is true there
remains inseparable from death the sor-
row which is brought by separation
from those we love, yet when we re-
that nought has happened to
them which calls sorrow-and that for
sorrow for ourselves alone is not wise or
good; even such sorrow it might seem
could almost be turned into joy. There
is another circumstance also revealed in
regard to death which should enhance
and strengthen the comfort which all
revelation gives, and that is that it nev-
er comes without our Heavenly Fathers
will-"Our times are in His hand.n
More than eighteen hundred years ago
He said mot a sparrow falls to the
ground but your Heavenly Father
knoweth it. He are of more value than
many sparrows." Therefore we con-
clude that it is not calamity to die
young, no disadvantage to the aged that
they are not sooner called; naught but
even to infancy that it can
grow in manhood or womanhood under
The care of those who always behold
His face.
And is there then no death? Does
5he sad change which comes over our
mortal part when the spirit has left it
mean nothing? Teach us no lesson?
An, yes, there is a death, the horrors of
which cannot be exaggerated. The un-
happy accompaniments of that death
IRE real, and they never pass away.
lhe stiffness, the coldness, the cruelty,
ne misery of that death endure forever.
t is the death of the soul in trespasses
md sins. Here were death to be
lvoided and feared indeed. For let us
9ut consider, in all this wide universe of
1od where all things were made for
-ctive use, there is nothing really still
'ut hands which do no good, and feet
which run on no errands of mercy. In
III this wide and warm creation there
nothing really cold but human sell
lshness, nothing SO blind as an evil un-
lerstanding, nothing so deaf as DISC
'edient soul, nothing so unseemly, so
hastily in the sight Of heaven as an evil
pirit.
May it not be the one lesson which
ur Heavenly Father would teach us
vhen he calls us together on occasions
Ike this, is that we should so live as to
void that death of which this is only
he shadow and faint resemblance. The
ule is simple which he has given us by
Which we may avoid tiff thou wilt
nter into life, keep the command
nents.u