St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-04-02
IMMORTALITY AND SCIENCE.
The Idea Of a Better World Is
Not a New One.

Not New One.
Rev. Marion ID. Shutter preached yes
terday at the Grand opera house, from
Ii. Cor. w., 1S.
The belief in another life is venerable
and widespread. Ithas descended from
remote ages and is found in all lands.
1t seems to have come with the soul
itself from the birthplace of spirit.
Before a line of our Bible was written,
men walked through this world with
unfaltering conviction of another. Often
their ideas were dim and dark. mingled
with gross .SuperStitiOnS, but they
looked forward with hope and courage.
The belief received fresh impulse
from Christianity. The disciples of Him
who walked in Judea were in some way
assured-not, indeed, that the physical
frame of their Lord was terminated
but that He had assembled into higher
life. He had risen from mortality to
Immortality, from dishOnOr into glory.
What His resurrection was, theirs was
to be. Because He lived, they would
live also. In this faith they inaugurated
their campaign. They planted their
new banner upon the ruins Of old sys-
tens.
The belief, the desire, the hope, how
ever we may phrase 1t, clarifled and
strengthened, not originated by Chris
tianity, has come down to us. We:cele-
brate it in our Easter festival Science
has led us to doubt that which cannot
be demonstrated to the senses, that
which is unseen and unheard, and
hence to doubt the existence of men
when their forms are hidden from us in
the grave. In bringing us from the
realm of airy speculation to that OF
reality. in teaching us to distinguish be-
tween knowledge and faith, between
that which is proved and that which is
hoped it has done us all signal service.
But, upon the other hand, physical re-
search helps to correct the very
extremes to.which it seems to lead. 1t
ever tends from the seen to the unseen.
Science is evermOre declaring that all
around us is a world invisible, even
more full of life and activity than that
we behold. Add the microscope to the
eye and the microphone to the ear, and
we are taken at once into world of
sights and sounds that otherwise we can
not know. We are assured that beyond
theterritories thus brought within the
horizon are vaSter continents lnaccessl-
bic to human instruments. Ii there be
life and activity, motion and sound, be-
You'd the reach of the senses and their
most powerful appliances, who shall
allied moments catch visions of beauty
and hear strains of music heard at no
other time? Ii there be this invisible
realm about us, who shall say that the
spirit of man may not be living there,
when all of him that appealed to our
senses has persisted; to vanish is not to
be destroyed.
In proportion as it becomes invisible
does matter become powerful. The
forces of nature-what eye hath seen
them? The viewleSs air that builds the
tree and levels the temple: gravity that
holds the systems of the universe in it's
impalpable hand; light that paints
the landscapes: heat that breaks
the letters of winters strongest
forging; electricity that bears our mes
sages; these tangible forces suggest
that the things unseen are greater and
more potent than those which are seen.
and that the vanishing of our friends
may only be rising from weakness into
power We have also learned from
science the important principle of go
ing beyond appearances: Says MIR.
Munger; Science has laid hold of the
physical universe and shows that the
pears" What appears to be true of the
earth'S shape and stability, astronomy
has proved untrue. Matter is not COM
pact and stable, but fieXile and chang
ing. Only the force that holds matter
is constant. Death seems to be the close
of career-the final goal of pathway.
But science teaches us to distruSt the
appearance, and suggests that death
may be beginning, not gOal-nOt
closed dOOr-but an open gateway.
The modern doctrine of the cOnServa-
tive of energy proves that nothing can
be lost. Not an atom of matter or force
in the entire universe is wasted. Mani
festations vary, but the force is con-
slant. There is such thing as intel
lectual and moral force, and we know
quite as much about it as we do about
light and heat and electricity. 1t
is just as definite and posi-
tive. If the persistence of these
other energies, under all possible trans
formations is assured, why is not the
upon the same grounds? Granted the
scientific doctrine of conservation of en-
ergy-that it preserves the force that
was your soul or mine-doeS this neces-
sarily signify continuous identity and
elf-consciOnsness of the individual
soul? Evolution comes in at this point
to help us. 1t shows us that the whole
process of the universe from the crea-
ton onward was dominated by a pur-
pose and moving toward an end. That
end was man. First, that which is nat
ural; afterward that which is spiritual.
The power that worketh hitherto now
works to perfect the mental. There is
no reason to believe that the purposes
of nature will be defeated. God has not
produced his finest workmanship to