Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-25

love, wisdom and sympathy change into
inanity or be blotted out in oblivion, when
even the grosser and inanimate materials
of earth, although they may be susceptible
of change and transformation, are never
destroyed nor consigned to oblivion? The
obvious inference is that destiny is mend
ing progress-continual advancement,
Unless this be true, life is dark enig-
ma; endowments and capabilities without
meaning or purpose; power to begin,
with no provision for ending; with all the
analcgies Of life broken and violated. and
the delicately-rising scale of all Gods
other methods, in this regard alone, broken
off abruptly failure and blrnder-
with all Gods proud and mighty faculties
lying and deceiving US, from day to day,
when they tell US by munitions and in
stincts of their life and further advance
ment!
Would He who planted that unerring
instinct in the little bee, which teaches it
to build its geometrical cell without mo-
ments training; who has given the beaver
that innate knowledge which directs it to
build its wonderful dam, or gave the bird
that irnpelling instinct which prompts it
to fly southwark at the approach Of winter
would He who implanted that marvellous
instinct in bird and beast and insect-not to
mislead and deceive, but to unerringly
prompt and guide them toward their best
and highest good; would He implant this
instinct and conviction of life beyond in
the human breast merely to mislead and
deceive us? Is God less kind and faithful
to nobler man than to the birds and in
sects?
The theory of immortality accords with
all the laws of Gods earthly methods and
dealings. 1t is the only solution of life's
problems and difficulties, just as Leverrier
knew the existence of new and unseen
planet by the purturbations of the others
they gravitated toward unseen Neptune,
and were not purturbed and gravitating
toward inanity and nothingness. We feel
that God is Just, that He must work with
an end and purpose in view, and that al
though He may work by laws and pro-
cesses, whose progressive evolution may re-
quire time to accomplish and show their
perfect results, yet those results must be
sure and certain. We feel that God is too
good and too wise to destroy the soul Just
when it has reached point where it can
best taste the sweets of existence, and be-
| gins to recognize the noble delights of
progress and the unbounded nights of
glory and progress that
BECKoN IT ONWARD.
Would God, nay, even iron nature, create
simply to mock and destroy? Would she
crush into death these millions of pleading
supplicating souls begging for life and ex-
| istence?
What curse and mockery would run
through all the highest hopes and noblest
aspirations of the world if, Just as we begin
to grasp the meaning of life and destiny,
we must sink beneath the dark waters of
oblivion and be blotted out forever
If this life be all, where is the compen-
sation for all this medley of good and evil.
of discord and harmony? Where good is
crushed and evil often triumphs, where
wickedness and villainy often flourish and
prosper, where saintliness often sits in
sorrow and darkness or drags out its years
in want and suffering, where hardened
nerves and calloused natures pluck the
| coveted fruits of comfort and pleasure, and
| live their lives in ease and luxury? All
through life we see unfinished justice call
ing out for completion justice to be
melted out by the perfect wisdom and
equity of realm beyond this for in spite
OF the compensating tendencies which we
| all see and recognize, and the fact that in
every memory and conscience there is a
| mysterious Nemesis-yet we all know
that the world is full of wrongs and evils,
successful vice and unfinished Justice.
| There must be another condition for COM
pleteness and an adequate consummation.
The denial of Il future life introduces
discori and despair in every direction, and
| instead of making each advancing step in
earthly progress and culture a thing to be
gloried in and sought for, it only makes it
an advancement toward a greater fall
and loss when material death overtakes us.
A theory out of all analogy with Gods or
binary ways and methods Evolution,
progress more and more lying beyond and
TO be developed by time and effort, is
COPS CLEAREsT PLAN AND PURPOSE.
We see it in the animal kingdom, from
lower orders up toward the higher species.
We see 1t in the botanical kingdom. Hun
dreds of varieties of odorous roses from
some solitary primitive wild rosebush
single pitted and odorlessl If this be so in
Gods material order and progression,
"why, in TRUTH" as the philosopher
Arnold says, "should evolution proceed
along the gross and palpable lines of the
visible, and not also be hard at work upon
she subtler elements which are behind
moiding, governing, emancipating them -?
What does nature possess in all that she
has wrought more valuable than the wis
dom of the sage, the tenderness of the
mother, the devotion of the lover and the
imagination of the poet, that she should
let the priceless things be lost by quinsy
or a fiux? 1t is hundred times more
reasonable to believe that she commences
afresh with such delicate treaures, max
ing them the groundwork of splendid
further living" Why should any scientific
mind ever think obviously about the III
destructibility of an inanimate atom of
dust, or particle of unthinking matter ?
And this great law of progress-more and
more to be known-opens up in all direc-
lions. When the unaided senses have
reached their limit, man discovers the
telescope, then the microscope and the
microphone, when, 10, there opens before
him new and enlarging regions Who
dares deny that this is not the law and
plan of God in his moral and spiritual
kingdom? For the more and more we
learn of God and spiritual things the
more and more evident become
THE CONFIRMING TOKENS OF MINOR
TALLY,
The more and more conscious we become
of life beyond this In the absence of
all contrary reasons, we must so determine
it. In fact, the probabilities of immor-
tally are million to one against the I'M
believer, and he who asserts the doctrine of
destruction or humiliation goes against all
| reason, logic, method and analogy Yes,
and declares the unfaithfulness of his own
soul and nature. He makes an all-wise
God to be little better than the mere
drapery painter, who pants the outside to
deceive and cover up the emptiness of the
inside. He loses sight of the fact that
waste and destruction are irreconcilable
with all we see of His wisdom and methods
in this life. Row, do we not recognize
that all of Gods plans and purposes are
good and benefceht in all other creative
departments? And, if so, shall we
conclude that His purpose is other
l