Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-03-03
IMMORTALITY.
FURTHER ARGUMENTS AND
PROOFS OF THE BEYOND.
Strongly Presented by Rev. John F.
Won Herrlich-Some Thoughts
for the Thinkers.


from the body. Yet is the difference an
greater than the grub and the butterfly?
Difficulty is not disproof, nor is our igno-
rance ground for doubling. The untutored
man feels that man must be more than his
material body, and that flesh cannot be
identified with spirit. All about us is
feeting and perishable-in place to-day
and gone tomorrow. We only see nature
in her surface and phenomena all within
is whirl and culver; a running of sap and
a sprouting of foliage; falling of leaves
and a casting off of trunk and branches.
Nothing stands alone, but because of its
relations to other things. That quivering
pine outside in the church-yard is only
beautiful, fleeing thing of soil, air and
sunshine. That beautiful form, those
rounded limbs and glowing cheeks are
only the product of wheat, flour and mate
rial nourishment. These bodies of ours
are only shifting particles-in place to-day
but gone tomorrow.
When | meet my friend from whom |
had parted some years ago, do not clasp
that same material hand, nor does that
| look of welcome and kindness beam from
those same material eyes that looked me a
tender God-speed when last we parted.
Having survived so many deaths, why
should we fear the coming last one? Man
dwells in the flesh, but is not flesh. The
energetic, unaffected mind wills to move
the palsied limb, but the limb refuses
action. The trouble is not in the I'M
affected mind, but in the detected organism.
The distinction between the strong spirit
and the pOwerless limb is obvious Who
could assert that living, perceptive con-
seriousness could be made out of and be an
identical part of dead imperceptives? Yet,
unlike these fieeting perishable forms of
matter, the soul alone preserves its unity
and permanence. The soul may expand
and grow, but it never changes its sub
stance; 1t progresses and advances, but it
never alters. Man, at the end of three
score and ten, only realizes the powers and
possibilities stirring within him, and only
realizes that a millennium of millenniunls
are necessary for their great unfolding.
| We are not more than what we are by
want Of time or neglect of opportunity.
The marvellous melody of a Miss IN, or
the imagination Of a Burns, or the genius
of a Shakespeare might have slept unknown
during an earthly lifetime, or remain dor
mant for want of opportunity or develop
ment. Genius may only be an advanced
stage of every souls capability. 1t is the
same capability within us that recognizes
it in them, and says to the aspiring soul,
what they are | may become. Oh, if such
a wealth of love and depth of sympathy,
IE,,. 81 IL e
feeling are brought to life during these
few short years of earthly existence, what
will be the result of that eternity which
stretches out before us with no limit as to
time or possibility? The brutes may have
instinct and memory, but they have no as
pirations beyond their little peck of oats or
the narrow limits of a meadow pasture, no
unfulflled destiny which calls for time and
opportunity of its complete fulfillment
They attain their highest development
now and fulfill the end for which God
created them. Man alone foreknows his own
death and looks toward a coming existence
and that knowledge and foresight was given
to instruct and prepare him for it. The
conviction of Immortality stirs within u.s.
Thought cannot think itself dead nor be
mourner at its own funeral Nor can the
soul of man be imprisoned within the
narrow limits of a skull, any more than
" Paradise LOST or the creations of Shakes
peare could only be the result of cellular
tissue, or assimilated wheat -four and IN
corporated beefSteak. Could it be that
the mighty intellect. of La Place, the
love of st. John with its marvellous ten
derness, the soul of Whitfield with its
energy and eloquence, or the genius of
Milton with its mighty powers of creature
and construction were nothing more than
the product of pound or more of inani-
mate material? Separate and apart in its
essential existence is the soul of man in
carnate within his changing perishing
body, and its indepen dent being is shown
in thousand manifestations of self-life
and self-conscious existence!
The whole history of heroes and martyrs
shows that when the outer man has fallen
shattered and dying on the field of battle
or persisted at the stake, the inner man has
triumphed in victory and smiled amid its
agonies
The fact of death itself suggests the
duality of existence. 1t is the flight of
the glorious energizing soul that bears the
flame so empty and meaningless. A mo-
ment ago that hand was uplifted to clasp
your own; Il moment ago those eyes
beamed out in love and intelligence-only
a shudder and gasp, and how cold and
vacant lies that mass of clay! The spirit
has gone, hence that awful change! Does
not that mighty force and energy still exist
Does It's vanishing from our sight give any
proof of It's destruction? Has a particle
of genuine evidence ever been produced
that the real life powers of any soul were
ever destroyed or obliterated? Who asks
for proof when it is speaking within him
Oh, you who believe in the goodness of
God and His divine benevolence you who
believe in his love and the fidelity and
truthfulness of your own natures You
who caught those mysterious rays of light
which were CLEANS from realm beyond
this, or those rapturous thoughts which
were divine intuitions-were they but
phantoms of the soul-mysterious shadows
cast by no substance, snares and decisions
intended ny God to mock and deceive you
To live for time-to get a glimpse of
heaven-to have in view those eternal
shores-to be bathed in its light and
thrilled by its glory, only to die and pass
away into oblivion and darkness, oh, no
Our God it not a monster, nor our souls a
deception.
But we are not left to the analogies of
nature and the con Eictions within us,
though they are strong and irresistible.
There were reports of western continent
lying beyond that stretch of waters-there
were visions of the golden gardens of
Hesperides and fables of lost Atlantis
: beyond those rolling billows-there were
evidences born upon the waves and cast
up by the waters but the full onirmation
of its existence came from the lips of
Columbus, when he proclaimed to the
nations of Europe, 81 have seen this great
land and have stood on its bordersr'
have crossed this wide ocean and bring
you full tidings of its reality and existence.
My friends, He from whose finger-tips
flowed light and the divine power of heal
{ ing-at whose voice the dead arose and
" the blind came seeing declares to us
the stupendous revelation that " death is
swallowed up in victory" and that they
who are lowered into the grave are lifted
up into higher existence From Jesus
on the cross commencing his soul to the
care of His Father down through a vast
host of apostles and martyrs, heroes and
statesmen, sages and warriors, :" a multi
tade whom no man can number" the