Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-11-27
THE HEREAFTER,
What Grsat Minds in all Ages Though
About This Subject.

About This Subject.
Original: The busy man with his
mind well bent on money-making, and
his mark made high up in the millions,
and even the poorer neighbor who looks
forward anxiouslv to a bare subsistence
for the winter. are alike at times re-
fiecting on the theme of a happy here
after.
Aside from the teachings of the
Bible, and the training Of childhood,
there crecps into our intellect an un-
dctinablc vision of a life eternal that
pleases while it cheers us and raises
our vision to u home somewhere beyond
the sun, and above the stars. that IN
thoughtful hours is consoling.
Cicero, the peerless Roman orator,
believed it and breathed it out beauti-
fully in his orations; Webster mA
nobly expressed it in his Girard wiz
argument; Bryant has taught it in his
Thanatopsis; C%rittenden proclaimed
in his eloquence, and even Ingersoll's
half hidden faith flashes into being un-
der the pain of bereavement while ne
eXclaims: .'Im better now!'' In spite
OF doubts lets us believe that such is
true of all our dead!
The nsw from the poets like Long
| fnnnw from, fha 1nn,a, ctJ III.
Milton, the heroes like Napoleon, the
painters like Angelo, and the inspired
teachers of enlightened Greece, con-
firm the words of Hugo that life is
eternal and death is but a change of
place.
A learned and eminent doctor lately
said; 1.-The theme is beyond my ken.
but even so is the growth of grain and
plants and trees and every living
thing" An able historian, John S. c.
Abbott. said: From the powerful
glass At Greenwich we can measure in
the worlds above us-quite space
enough for all the millions to exist"
Eternity is vast. Our little world is
but a speck compared to other worlds
above it. Abbott saw it in the room to
1--we in hereafter. The growing seeds
explain their own eternity. The hope
within-the souls great prompter-
never dreams of ending with so brief u
life AS seems our three score and ten.
The fact that space to the mind is
limitless, that thought will cross the
country, pass to Europe, mount the
tall heights beyond the sun, or be with
those we love sc suddenly is but a
glimpse at its rapid flight, It's power to
change and yet its grandcr power to
span all worlds alike. Mysterious
mind. chained in n dungeon for awhile
then out TO light again! Skipping
from sea to sea and ever ready for an
other flight! Mystery of childhood;
plaything of youth; enjoyment of man
hood; solace of age; glimpse of here
after. Is it a shadow chased like Il
butterfly at school? Is it a cheat lur-
inc us to dream of the good and
60 10 oblivion? Is it an unseen vision
thai taxes one-half our race at seven.
two-thirds at thirty-three, and deals
with partial hand great happiness and
longer life to some and less to all the
others. Do great lives fall down be-
fore their prime and cad forever as the
dead leaves fallp Or does the mind
keep brilliant like the end of Stevens in
the senate, and of Garfield at Long
Branch; Tilden writing like "a states
man and Grant making his monument
after he was given up as dead, to show
us that the body and the mind are not
destroyed as one!
What shall hereafter be? What
should it be? With savage tribes a
death in darkness brings but darkness.
The Indians almost always SO believe.
for as they die they expect to beAN.
yond, in darkness or might; witfN r.
without their guns, and game, their
happy hunting ground is just as clear
to hem as ours is to US. Pavement of
streets, mansions of houses, and silver
brooks need not all he realized to make
the happy glad. Most of the happiness
we will ever know in life are happy in
their minds and souls, and when they
are about to say good-byc to earth
there comes "A broader CLEAN of charity
that seems to open wider doors to
newer life of hone and love and happi-
ness. And All through life there is no
nobler hope or grander thought than
Of eternity. Scltishncss alone could
prompt it. and to leave out every plan
but nature, pass by every theory or
promise of the scripture, and only to
think "a the great and good have
thought will lead us to evidence in
telligent conviction that life is immor-
tai. j. w. Donovan.