, 1884-05-13

~ pointing upward, that there is no
Johnthe Apostle, or no Jesus Christ.
So much. he said for the importance of
the question at issue. The two questions
he intended to discuss were Does Death
End Alp and SIS the Soul Immortal?''
After five or eight years study he could
settle to his own satisfaction that death
does not end all. Then he asked the ma
terialists what can end all. His argu-
ments were secured from three sources:
Conscience, Physiology and Revelation.
In considering the first he would keep
the bible closed. Some people were un-
candid enough to think that churchmen
could not stand on the plain, outside of
revelations and discuss the question. He
proposed to do it. They did not ask him,
however, to close Shakespeare. The great
author had said: THE undiscovered
country from whose bourne no tray
eler returns. = y Thus
does conscience make towards of us all.
He understood the poet to state that we
were so made that it was as natural for us
to expect punishment after death as it
was for the birds to migrate. The bird
may be frightened out of the
instinct, but it is still there. This
fact proves what? 1t proves
that nature makes no half inches. 1t is
a principle recognized by scientists that
fixtures go with surroundings. The in
stincts prove
HER is A LIFE BEYOND DEATH.
If there is no life then there is a vice
in the constitution of things. With the
fin for the fish, and you reason to water;
with the eye, and you reason to light, and
with the conscience constrained to keep in
view future rewards and punishments, you
reason to a life beyond the grave. Every
instinct has something to match it. All
nature proves this. There were Seneca
and Plato, and their modern disciple,
Emerson. The latter was free in specu-
lating on all things divine and human
too free in fact. But he was honest.
Until ten years before his death Emerson
believed that human individuality was
lost at death, just like water
is lost when poured from
a broken jug. Afterward he changed his
faith and said emphatically that he could
be called a Christian Theist. Over his
grave was sung Longfellow's beautiful
poem
There Is no death,
What seems so is transition,
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call DEATH"
God will certainly keep the promises he
has made in the instinct of man. The
poet Tennyson said he had a supreme in
tellectual contempt for any one who
doubted the immortality of the soul.
Probably the poet would not have the
courage to express this opinion west ofthe
Missouri. He spoke of the unfledged ca
gle and its mighty impulse to fly. He
knew, he said, that there were moral Grip
pies, who had torn out of their souls this
%loftiest impulse. These flowers were
not to be judged by the color
blind. In the range of all or
ganic instinct there would always be found
something to match it. Nothing would
be proven if only
A FEW INDIVIDUALS BELIEVED
in future rewards and punishments, but.
none excepted, conscience makes cow
ards of us all" Where there is the in
stinct there must follow the rewards and
punishments to match it. If death ends
all then our consciences lie. What do
the materialists say in reply to this argu-
ment? They say it is true in regard to
conscience and but for this religion would
have remained unfounded. He acknowl-
edged that religion strengthened con-
science, but they would acknowledge that
without an arm no strength could be
added to that, member. Conscience they
claim to be purely a matter of education.
Our forefathers possessed certain tenden-
cies and inclinations which have descended
to us. Originally, in the forgotten past,
all matter was boxed together. and in the
peculiar agitation due to the shutting the
peculiar feeling called conscience slipped
in. If conscience got in in this way so
did reason and the other faculties. Other
wise there would be no sense of touch,
taste or smell. Reason is not an infallible
guide but properly guarded it will not lead
astray. There is no more reason to dis
trust conscience han to distrust reason.
If then human beings were boxed rightly
as to ninety-nine faculties, was it not rea-
sonable to suppose that they were boxed
rightly as to the other? The speaker
then alluded to William Cullen Bryant
listening to the bugles of the swan as it
flew past through the twilight and the
beautiful poem written thereon, in which
he alludes to the unfailing instinct that
guides the bird in its travels South at the
approach of colder weather and the
poets abiding faith in the
truthfulness of the instinct as to the here
after which guided himself. He then al
luded to the modern Ksop, who pictured
the bird sitting amidst the icebergs,
HIS LEI PUFFED OUT,
while he argues to himself: Now it
might possibly be a good idea to go to the
South, but how am l to know that beyond
yon glistening hillocks I may find warm
weather? The peculiar construction of
my nervous sensibilities, transmitted to
me from my ancestors, apprise me of the
fact, but can my reason demonstrate it
| will neither assert nor deny that there
Is a South will he nm Annnr1ir Dnn