The Osceola times., 1886-10-30
THE HEREAFTER.
WHAT SHALL 1T BE? WHAT GREAT
M5NDs IN ALL AGEs HAVE
THOUGHT ABoUr TnIs

THOUGHT ABoUT TnIs
SUBJECT.
The busy man with bis mind we'll
bent ON money-making, and his mark
made high mp IN the millions, and
even the poorer neighbor who looks
forward anxiously to a bare subsist-
ence for the winter, are alike at times
rejecting on the theme of a happy
hereafter.
Aside from the teachings Of the
Bible, and the training of childhood,
there creeps into our intellects an
undehnable vision of life eternal
that pleases while it cheers us aud
raises our vision to home some
where beyond the sun, and above
the stars, that in thoughtful hours Is
consoling.
Cicero, the peerless Roman orator,
believed it and breathed it out beau
tifully in his orations, Webster most
nobly expressed !, In his Girard will
argument; Bryant has taught it in
his Thanatopsis; Crittenden pro-
claimed it in his eloquonce, and even
lngersoll's half-h,dden faith flashes
into being under the pam of bereave.
ment while he exclaims: "I'm better
now" In spite of doubts let us be-
lieve that such is true of all our dead
The answer from the poets like
Longfellow, from the deeper students
like Milton, the heroes like Napo-
leon, the painters like Angelo, and
the INSPIRED teachers of enlightened
Greece, confirms the words of Hugo
that life is eternal and death is but
= change Of place.
A learned and eminent doctor late
" said: "The theme is beyond my
ken, but even SO is the growth of
grain and plants and trees and every
living thingw An able historian,
John s. c. Abbott, said: " From the
powerful glass at Greenwich we IAN
measure in the worlds above us
quite space enough for all the mil
lions to exist"
Eternity is vast. Our little world
is but a speck compared to other
worlds above it. Abbott saw in it
the room to live in hereafter. The
growing seeds explain their own eter.
nifty. The hope within-the souls
great proInpter-Hever dreams OF
ending with SO brief life as seems
our three score and ten.
The fact that space to the mind is
that thought will cross the
country, pass to Europe, mount the
tall heights beyond the sun, or be
with those we love so suddenly is
but a glimpse at its rapid flight, its
power 10 change and yet It's grander
power to span all worlds alike. Mys-
terious mind! chained in a dungeon
for awhile then out to light again.
Skipping from sea to sea and ever
ready for another fight. Mystery of
childhood; play,hing of youth; en-
oyment of manhood; sclace of age;
glimpse Of hereafter. Is it a shadow
chased like butterfly at school? Is
it cheat hiring us to dream Of the
good and go to oblivion? Is it an
unseen vision that takes one-hslf our
race at seven, two-thirds at thirty
three, and deals with partial hand
great happiness and longer life to
somc, and less to all others! DO great
lives fall down before their prime
and end forever as the dead leaves
fall? Or does the mind keep brilliant
like the end Of Stephens III the SEN
ate, and Of Garfield ut Long Branch;
Tilden writing like IA statesman and
Grant making his monument after
he was given up as dead, to shcw us
tina. 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 dark.
ness. The Indians almost always so
believe, for as they die they expect
to be beyond, in darkness or in light;
with or without their guns, and game,
their happy hunting ground is just
as clear to them as ours to us. Pave
ments OF streets, mansions OF homes,
and silver brooks need not all be re-
allied to make the happy glad. Most
OF the happiest we will ever know in
life are happy in their minds aud
souls, and when they are about to
say goodbye to earth there comes a
broader CLEAN of charity that seems
to open wider doors to newer life of
hope and love and happiness. And
all through life there is no nobler
hope or grander thought than of
eternity. Seliishness alone could
prompt it, and to leave ont every
plan but nature, pass by every thco-
ry or promise of the scripture, and
only to think as the great aud good
have thought will lead us to evidence
intelligent conviction that life is i'm
mortal. j. w. Donavan.
Tf oil tho ,nptb.ra Ia tb;y o,,,,...