The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1884-04-09
THE RESURRECTION.


1t is impossible for us to comprehend
what the Gospel has done TO dlssipate
the terrible darkness which otherwise
would shroud the grave and the future.
The great fact of future life is now as
familiar to us as the existence OF India |
or China We no more fear when our J
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 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 annihilation, or even into an
impenetrable darkness as one peers
down into 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 1t
was dispersed like smoke in the air and
ceased 10 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 1.-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 II the doc
trine was only poetic fable unworthy
of his serious consideration. julius
Cesar, at the time Pontifex Maximus,
or supreme head of the Roman priest
hood. publicly objected in the Senate
chamber to in1icting 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 source.
Such declarations as these by such
men show us how generally the disma
doctrine of annihilation was accepted
Death was indeed the liking OF terrors.
He robbed men of all the hopes and en-
ioyments of this life, and gave then
nothing whatever beyond. When par
ents were called TO surrender TO thu
Great Destroyer the children of the
love, they we're sustained by no ray o
hope that they might ever meet then
again. When husband and wife wer
torn apart by the inexorable tyran
whom none could resist, the best thin
left for the survivor was to obliterate a
speedily as possible every narrowing re
membrance of the departed, who ha'
simply evaporated into nothingness
Who can imagine what our life woul
be If such an appalling gloom er
shrouded the grave?
That our whole Ii is not thus dark
ened by the projected gloom of the tu
ure is due entirely TO the religion {
Jesus. This has "brought life and in
mortality to light" This has told u'
as nothing else ever did or ever coulC
of an endless life to come. This ht
pointed our exultant gaze to the Ne
Jerusalem, with its gates of pearl an
streets Of gold. This has told us of II
reunion there, where "there is no moi
DEATH" of the loved and loving on,
who have been separated here below
This has taught US that Death is not,
heathenism said, the "King Of terrors,
but an angel from Heaven, whom OF
Father sends TO unbar our prison doc
and let US 90 home TO Him and the de
ones who have gone before us. Al
Easter day Is the commemoration
that sublime fact which, more thi
any other, proclaimed and proved
the world the immortality of ma
Christ's resurrection was the God-giv,
pledge of ours. He rose from the de,
not merely for II mself, but as ''the iii
fruits Of them that slept" as the fol
runner and herald to the world OF t
resurrection Of His people.
Not that He was the first to retu
from the spirit-world TO this. Nc
than once, before His own resurr'
tion, He showed His power over dea
by calling back the departed. But Il
arus and Jairus' daughter were rails
to life here upon earth. In little I'll
they were again to pass through
gateway Of death intot life that me-
ends. But Christ arose never more
die. And so is He the first fruits OF
people. We are to rise, as He did,
iife that will never end. And Of this
urrection of ours His was the prom
and the proof. Easter Day, then, Is
merely the anniversary OF His resurr
tion. Il commentaries also the ple'
which God has given us Of our own.
speaks 10 us Of Heaven, as well as
that rocky tomb from which Jesus re
II tells us to be glad and grateful In
lieving anticipation OF an endless n
ness and bliss 10 come. as well as ID