The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-07-14

had never been. Further than that, it
would be to annihilate the future to-
ward which we are now gazing with
expectant eyes. Our future grows out
of our past. We look anxiously to the
future to fulfill the promise and hope
of the past. If we were changed and
there were no past, there could not be,
in any proper sense, a future. With
memory and hope stricken out, with
self consciousness remaining, what of
happiness or joy could there be left to
us?
This foolish wishing has relation
also to our idea of Immortality. We
are born into the world possessing the
germs of future development physical
ly, mentally, morally. We have gained
stability in all these ways through the
action of the passing years upon us.
From year to year our self-conscious-
ness, our outlook upon the world, has
acquired stability, perfection. When
we were born we did not know our
selves even. Time developed our
germinal powers of body, mind and
spirit; we came gradually to find our
selves amid our surroundings and in
relation to them. We did more than
that; we came to recognize, through
conscience and the desire for worship,
our relations to some Power, not in
ourselves nor in our physical, tangible
surroundings, yet, nevertheless, a real
Power. This feeling, too, has acquired
poise and stability. 1t has come to
be part of elf-consciousness. We
are onscious Of ourselves, not simply
in relation to our own hopes and
desires, nor yet in relation to the i'm
mediate things of this life, but also
with relation to some other self-con-
scious Being who knows us as we know
him, only with a thousand-fold more
truth and exactness. Upon the endur-
ing nature of our developed powers in
relation to this real Power, this other
self-conscious Being, is founded our
faith in immortality.
BUT Immortality, with all the ties
of family and friendship which bind US
to the past and beckon us to the
future broken up, would not be boon
to us, would not be an Immortality that
wins US to prayer and hope. What we
hope for is an endless continuance of
all the holy and blessed things that
have made this life so joyous. What
we pray for is an immortal existence in
which we shall know ourselves, know
all the treasured ones bound up with
us, and that unseen but real Power,
who knows us so much better than we
know him, and in whom, not we, but
all we love and hope for move as in a
crystal sea of peace. We believe that
by means of the years of divine tuition
through which we have passed, this
knowledge of ourselves, this love of
those who have helped and cheered US,
this sense of Power over us in whose
atmosphere of loving kindness we have
all lived, have grown so stable that no
change can shake US loose from them.
They have become part of US, nothing
can strike them away and leave US
whole. Memory and hope have grown
within us to such power, love to kindred
and friends, faith in God have grown
to such poise and completeness that
they mnst go on forever. Out of the
knowledge we have of the enduring
nature of love and faith and hope
and memory comes our last and strong
est trust in a personal Immortality.
Who then would be other than himself?
Who doubts that God knows best the
springs out of which our choicest bless
ings flow?