St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-08-19

need reason to prove that what we call
soul. mind, spirit, is distinct from body2
Tell me, is not that substance that
thinks. perceives, wills, distinct from
that which sleeps. eats. and feels? Is
not this frame of flesh and bone, that
may be cut asunder and scattered in
different places, dissimilar from that
which constitutes our simple spiritual
conscious self, which cannot be DIVIDED?
You cannot doubt this. Then it will
follow that the soul is distinct from the
body, and need not necessarily perish
with it.
$50 that, Notwithstanding the appear
ance, the fact that the soul is known to
exist as it does here is a strong and fair
presumption that at death it will not
cease to exist, but will be permitted to
develop its wonderful faculties in a new
state of mighty power and activity.
But there is more than this. Look
at the fact of universal belief in the i'm
mortality of the soul.Itis a belief as wide
q nation so learned as to overthrow their
belief in this truth. None SO ignorant
but it has found a home in their souls
the human tribes in their infancy-ln
the dim twilight of the past. as well as
in the pride and pomp of their strength,
have always had their heaven and hell
for the soul after death. Cicero con-
cludes: Whatever there is that thinks,
%perceives, will is divine. and therefore
immortal Says Atticus: Nobody shall
drive me from the belief in the doctrine
of the divinity of the soul.' Says Sen
eca: i took pleasure to inquire into the
eternity of the soul and to believe it.
l resigned myself to SO glorious a hope,
for now | begin to despiSe the remains
of a broken constitution as being that
which shall remove me into the posses
sion of endless ages. Leonidas before
fighting his last battle invited his SOL
diers to sup with him on the morrow
in the new existence Since the
world began. on monuments and
tombstones, men have written their
belief in immortality. The ignorant
African sends by the dying friend ten
der messages to the departed who they
believe still live.
The Indian of our forests, oppressed
with want and pinched with cold and
hunger, implores the Great Spirit to free
his soul from this prison and let it go to
those bOundless hunting grounds where
want and sickness shall be felt no more.
After urging this point with further
illustrations, the speaker opened on an
other phase of the theme. Notice in
the third place. mar is fitted for an i'm
mortal existence, but is not fitted for
confinement to this life" He then
showed the unftness for confinement to
this life in our unborn sense of right
and wrong, showing that there must be
a future life in which the good receive
their reward and he evil their deserts;
also that there was an unttneSS for con-
finement to this life from the hopes and
fears of man. OF this he said: I'VE
are not prisoners of hope and fear SIM
ply by reason of being under the lntiu-
ence OF religion education. But we are
SO by constitution. We have no means
of escape from the expectation of some
thing to come. 1t is impossible to shut
out those aspirations for a brighter and
a better world than this"
After speaking of how the mind was
just beginning to develop in this life he
concluded: What is the power; what
is the accident, what is the divinity that
thus creates is for eternity and the n
blasts us upon its threshold? Who will
believe that this great creation was thus
fitted up and hung around with objects
of beauty and splendOr, this covering
over our heads studded with gorgeous
suns and beset with shining stars, the
ground beneath our feet protected by
the SHOWS of summer or carpeted with
the soft verdnre of summer. these land
scapes sketched by the divine hand.
who can believe that the Creator should
thus fit it up only TO become the tomb
of man and all his hopes? No. nature
revolts from it: reason forbids it. The
Maker of all things has shown a better
adaptation of means to ends than this" Z