The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1883-07-11
WHAT is DEATH
And Where Are the Dead Am
Inquiry Into the Meaning
and MinistratiOn of Death,
BY the Rev. George w. Sweeney
"A Sermon ON the immortal
ity of the Mind. ol
Memphis Appeal, July 3.


Memphis Appeal, July 3. s.l
The Christian church was thronged
last Sunday night, when the Rev. Mr..
Sweeney preached sermon on tile inn
mortality Of the mind and inquired into
the meaning Of death.
r~ TIE SERMON. I'
Mr.. Sweeney said: The mysteries of
life and death are eyer most powerful
appeals to men. The problem Of man"
is the business" problem of the ages.
Is death the end and destiny of the hui
man race? Was the race made ulti-
mately for hole in the ground3 Ma
terialists tell us that life is an eflux of
material organization. Thought and
life stand related to brain as change to
cause, as bile to liver, as gastric juice
to stomach, as harmony to. a harp.
Break down the liver and you stop the
secretion Of bile. Break down the or
ganism of the stomach and there is an
end 10 gastric secretion. Break up the
harp and you break up the possibility
of harmony and, by parity of reason
ing, they tell US that to break up the or
ganization of brain by death, and all
thought, love and life are at an end.
ALL LIFE, 1T Is CLAIMED, Is EVOLVED.
1t was evolved, they say, from proto-
plasm! Materialists at this point should
remember that involution and evolution
form an equation. Something cannot
be evolved where nothing is involved
If life was evolved from protoplasm, it
was involved in protoplasm. But Ger
man universities and Lionel Beale, of
London, and the experts with the mi
croscope tell US that in protoplasm there
Is no organization. But there are move
ments and life. And there is life, there
fore, before organization, which is the
successful contradiction of materialists.
And if life existed before organization
it may exist after. The dissolution Of
death does not necessarily, therefore,
end all. And if death does not end all,
l would like to know what does or pos
sibly can. Materialists tell us again
that there is a molecular correspondence
in the ~ .-.-.-.-
LOOM OF THE BRAIN
to the cloth OF thought. But this is not
the fact as to the frontal lobes of the
brain seen under the microscope. And
if it were the fact correspondence of
molecular action in the brain is not
equivalent to identity of such action to
the life and thought. Correspondence
of one thing to another does not prove
cerebal action the cause of thought.
And this is the fallacy in the argument
of the materialists.. Another class of
materialists tell us that mind does rot
exist independent of matter for the rea-
son that the Substance of the universe
is a double-faced unity with physical
and mental sides" But this cannot be
the fact. The properties of material
and mental things are opposites. Weight
and no weight; form and no form; ex-
tension and no extension. You can say
of material things that they have weight,
form and extension. But these proper
ties cannot be ascribed to the mind in
the same sense. Such o i3iItf
A MATERIALlsTIc THEORY
of the universe cOntradicts an axiom or
certainty of our consciousness, wbIchls
that "no one thing can be and not be at
the same time and in the same sense"
If such a substantial unity has such
sides, as Prof Balm and his philosophi-
cal following affirm, then such unity
has no co-inhering two sets of proper
ties at the same time and in the same
sense directly in antagonism. We can
say oft, therefore, at the same time
and in the same sense, that it weighs
and does not weigh. 1t has extension
and no extension. In other words we
affirm thing can be aud not be at the
same time and in the same sense. But
such affirmation contradicts an axiom.
And what contradicts an axiom must
be false. The theory of the materialist,
that "all nature is a double-faced uni
ty" with physical and mental sides, is,
therefore, falsel We hold, on the con-
traIy, that these two antagonistic prop
critics call for two opposite substrata in
which to inhere. They In reason, there
fore, demand the material and inmate
rial bases. And these are the two abb
solute substanccsthat form the core Of
the world. Itell you. mind is verit-
able unity. - 81
~ = SENSATION VERIFIEs NATTER %
and consciousness veEifes. mind If we
can believe in matter, we are compelled
by the better testimony of conscious
ness TO believe in mlnd- We can say
that mental and spiritual truths and
facts arc selfevident. We do say SO
concerning vast deal of truth in our
world. But, il matter were the only
substance Ofihe universe, could we say
matter is self-evident TO matterg Re-
cent researches in the light of the mi
croscope and under The scalpel have
blanehsd the cheeks of scientists and
scholars. Dr. Boale, OF London, the
greatest microscopic in the world, tells
ms in facts Of granite that the mLve-