The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-09-14

acquiescence sent us from those who at last
know message of good cheer and of pleasant
promise, not by any means to be disregarded.
With accent as authoritative az that heard at
Bethany it murmurs, "Thy brother shall live
again.
The fallacy of thinning and speaking of fu-
ture life in terms Of our present limited sense
knowledge has given rise TO foolish visions OF
heaven" and made many gentle and religious
minds thereby incredulous As matter of OBJ
servation no artist can paint even form in out
line outside his experience. Orcagno, in the
Campo Santo Pisa tried to represent some
quite original angels, and the result is sort of
canary bird, with sleeved pinions and female
vlsage Man never so much as imagined the
kangaroo and ornithorhynchus till Captain Cook
discovered their haunts how, then, should he
conceive the aspect of angels and new embodied
spirits; and why should he be skeptical about
them because his present eyes are constructed
for no such lovely and subtle sightss We can
perceive how very easily our senses are
eluded even by gross matter. The solid block
of ice, wherein stood, is just as existent
when it has melted into water and become dissi-
pated as steam, but it disappears for US; the car
bonic acid gas, which we could not see, is COM
pressed by the chemist into feecy flakes and
tossed from palm to palm. ST. Paul was much
better philosopher than the materaists and
skeptics when he declared s'the things not seen
are eternal" But these invisible, eternal things
are not, on account of their exquisite subtlety,
~
in an ascending but strictly connected chain, to
the most substantial and to the lowest, if there
be anything low. The ethereal body which
awaits us must be as real as the beef
fattened frame of an East-end butcher. The
life amid which it will live and move must be
equipped, enriched, and diversified in fashion
corresponding with earthly habits, but to
an extent far beyond the narrow vivacities of
our present being We need to abolish utterly
the perilous mistake that anything anywhere is
''SuOarDafural Shadowv The
angelic Regent of Alcyone-if there be one-in
the heart of the Pleiades, is ''extra natural for
us; but as simple, real and substantial to ade-
quate perceptions as chairman of quarter
sessions to lis clerk.
If death ends the man, and the cos
mic commissions finish off all the consultations,
then we arrive at the insane conception Of uni
verse possibly emptied of every form of being,
which is the most unthnkable and incredible of
all conclusions Sounder, beyond question, was
the simple wisdom of Shakspeares old hermit of
Prague, who never saw zen and ink, and very
wittily said to niece of King Gorboduc, That
that is, is"
If so very sensible recluse had gone deeper
into that grand philosophy of common sense. we
might fancy him saying to the niece of his Maj
esty, First of all, the plain fact is this, fair
Princess! that we are alive, and far advanced in
the hierarchy of such life as We know. We can
not, indeed, fly like bird, nor swim like dog
fish, nor hunt by smell like hound, but-van
ity apart-we are at the top of the tree of visible
earth-life." If there has been vast past leading
to this the individual remembers nothing.
Either he was not, or he lived unconscious; or he
was conscious, but forgets. 1t may be he always
lived, and inwardly knows it, but now ''disre
members" for it is notable that none of us can
recall the first year of our human
existence. Instincts moreover are mem
cries. and when the newly Matched
have lived somehow or somewhere long before
it was an egg If to live forever in the future
demands that we must have lived forever in the
past, there is really nothing against this. END
and beginning are Dreams" mere phrases of cur
earthly foolish speech. But taking things as
they seem. nobody knows that death stays-nor
why it should stay-the development of the in
dvldual. 1t stays our perception Of it in another,
but so does distance absence, even sleep
Birth gave to each of us much; death may give
very much more, in the way of subtler senses to
behold colors we can not here see, to catch
sounds we do not now hear, and to be aware Of
bodies and objects impalpable at pres
ent to US, but perfectly real,
ing an. organized society and a governed
multform state. Where does nature show
signs of breaking off her magic, that she should
stop at the five organs and the sixty-odd ele-
ments! Are we free to spread over the face of
this little earth, and never freed to spread
through the solar system and beyond itf Nay
the heavenly bodies are to the ether which con-
tains them AS mere spores of seaweed floating IN
the ocean. Are the specks only filled with life
and not the space? What does nature rossess
more valuable in all she mas wrought here than
the wisdom of the sage, the tenderness of the
mother, the devotion of the lover, and the
opulent imagination of the poet that she should
let these priceless things be utterly lost by a
quinsy, or fux? 1t is a hundred times more
reasonable to believe that she commences
afresh with such delicately developed treasures
making them ground work and stuff
for splendid further living, by process of
death; which, even when it seems accidental or
premature, is probably as natural and gentle as
birth; and wherefrom. it may we'll be. the new
born dead arises to find fresh world ready for
his pleasant and novel body, with gracious and
willing kindred ministrations awaiting it, like
those which provided for the human babe the
guarding arms and nourishing breasts of it's
mother. AS the babes eyes opened to strange
sunlight here, so may the eyes of the dead lift
glad and surprised lids to "a light that never
was on sea or land" and so may his delighted
ears hear speech and music proper to the spheres
beyond, while he laughs contentedly to find how
touch and TASTE and smell had all been fore
casts of faculties accurately following upon the
lowly lessons of this earthly nursery! 1t is really
just easy and logical to think such will be the
outcome of the ''life which is, as to terrify
weak souls into wickedness by medieval bells.
to wither the bright instincts of youth or love
with horizons of black humiliation.
LOCAL OPTION IN GEORGIA.
The Provisions of the New Bill and the Results