Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-04-25

small heaVcnWAfQ IlS0 Oh JVyAuA WAu8s
Where now, o grave! thy victory7
Thy bands are lOosed. thy terrOrS ned
All conquered by this mystery
The Lord is risen from the dead.
~. Y. Observer.
THE RESURRECTION A PLEDGE OF
OUR IMMORTALITY.
It is impossible for us to comprehend
what the Gospel has done to dissipate
the terrible darkness which otherwise
would shroud the grave and the future.
The great fact of a future life is nov AZ
familiar to us as the existence of India
or China. We no more fear when our
friends pass out of sight through the
doorway of death that they have be-
come extinct, and are never more to be
seen by us, than we do when they pass
below the horizon on a voyage to
Europe. And as we think of our own
| departure from these familiar scenes
and the loved associates of our present
life, we are not compelled to look with
inexpressible recoil into the dread
abyss of humiliation, or yer into an
impenetrable darkness a one peers
down into a midnight chasm to which
he can see no bottom. But this is the
terrible aspect which death and the
| future wore to the ancients, and which
they would still wear to us but for the
light which the Gospel has shed upon
them.
The great majority, even among the
Greeks and Romans, seem to have dis
believed in any life beyond the present.
| Socrates tells us that in his day ''men
in general were highly incredulous as
to the souls future existence. They
thought that at the moment of death it
was dispersed like smoke in the air and
ceased to exist" And the belief of the
common people was largely shared by
the philosophers. Cicero attempted to
prove that we still live after death, but
acknowledged that 'the contrary opin-
ion was the prevailing one, and that
even in his own mind his doubts often
outweighed his belief" Aristotle al
most contemptuously dismisses the
question OF a future life, as if the doc
trine was only a poetic fable unworthy
of his serious consideration. Julius
Caesar, at the time Pontifex Maximus,
or supreme head of the Roman priest
hood, publicly objected IN the Senate
chamber to inaicting capital punish
ment upon Catiline .:because death was
the end of all things. There was no
existence for the soul after it left the
body, nothing either of good or evil be-
yond the present life" And no one
expressed any surprise at such a senti-
ment from such q source
Such declarations as these by such
men show us how generally the dismal
doctrine of humiliation was accepted.
Death was indeed the "King of terrors.''
He robbed men of all the hopes and en-
joyments of this life, and gave them
nothing whatever beyond. When par
ents were called to surrender to the
Great Destroyer the children of their
love, they were sustained by no ray of
hope that they might ever meet them
again. When husband and wife were
torn apart by the inexorable tyrant
whom none could resist, the best thing
left for the survivor was to obliterate as
speedily as possible every narrowing re-
membrance of the departed, who had
simply evaporated into nothingness.
Who can imagine what our life would
De if such an appalling gloom en-
o1liouueu Ine SfaVe!
That our whole life is not thus dark
ened by the projected gloom of the fut-
ure is due entirely to the religion of
Jesus. This has drought life and i'm
mortality to light" This has told us.
as nothing else ever did or ever could,
OF an endless life to come. This has
pointed our exultant gaze to the New
Jerusalem. with its gates of pearl and
streets of gold. This has told us of the
reunion there, where "there is no more
DEATH of the loved and loving ones
who have been separated here below
This has taught us that Death il not as
heathenlsm said, the ''King of terrors,"
put an angel from Heaven, whom our
ratner sends to unbar u prison door,
n let us 60 home to Him and the dear
ones who have gone before us. And
Easter day is the commemoration of
that sublime fact which, more than
any other, proclaimed and proved to
me world the Immortality of man.
Chflst's resurrection was the God-eiyen
pledge OF ours. He rose from the dead
not merely for Himself, but as ..tbe first
lfu'ts OF them that slept" as the fore
runner and herald to the world Of tho
resurrection of His people.
Not that He was the first to retn,r
rom the spirit-world to this. More
man mar n 9nce, before His own resurrec-
ZION, He showed His power owe death
by calling back the departed. BIT Ia11
rus and Jairus' daughter were raised
to life here upon earth. In a little t;ma
.hey were again to pass through the
gate"ay OF death intoth life that never
die. And so is He the first frn;t " VI 10
people. We are to rise, as He did, to 1,l .
lie that will never end. And If th;s w,
direction of ours His was the promise us,
m N tne pr proof: Easter Day, then, is not
tion ne'y = tne anniversary of His resurrec.
which God has given us Of u g own p,eogt
SPEAKS to us of Heaven, as well AZ ~ ~
that rocky tomb from which Jesus ~ 40 Oh
i u tens US to be glad and grateful in uG be-.
"sy112 anticipation of an endless ho,;-