Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-04-12
:. IDEAS OF HEAVEN
OPINIONS IN DIFFERENT LANDS ON
THE FUTURE ABODE.

THE FUTURE ABODE. -
Svhas the Ancients Thought - Ss<gular
Superstition About the Left Eye-The
Tests in the Egyptians Examination.
Errors Concerning Our Indians.
The ancient Chinese believed in the exist
ence and controlling power of spirits. Con-
fucius believed in the power Of heaven to de-
cree, to reward and punish.
A cardinal point in the Mahometan faith
is the asserted existence of angels, celestial
and Internal
The New Zealanders imagine that the souls
of the dead go to place beneath the earth
called Reinga. The path to this region is a
precipSce close to the seashore at the North
Cape. 1t is said that the natives who live in
the neighborhood can at night hear sounds
caused by the passing Of spirits thither
through the air. 1t is a common superstition
with them that the left eye of every chief
after his death becomes star. Shungie, a
celebrated New Zealand king, said he had on
one occasion eaten the left eye of great
chief whom he had killed in battle for the
purpose of thus increasing the glory of his
own eye Sometimes, apparently, it was
thought that there was separate immor-
tality for each of the eyes of the dead-the
left ascending to heaven as a star, the right,
in the form Of a spirit, taking fight for
Reinga.
The people of the Sandwich Islands held a
confused medley of notions as to another
life. The current fancy was that the souls OF
the chiefs were led by god whose name de-
notes the ''eyeball of the sum-" to life in the
heavens, while plebeian souls went down to
Akea, a lugubrious underground abode.
The Kamchatkans send all the dead alike
to subterranean elysium, where they shall
find again their wives, clothes, tools, huts and
where they shall fish and hunt.
The Druids conception of the future life is
that the soul, on being Invested Of its earthly
envelope, is borne aloft. The clouds are COM
posed of the souls of lately deceased men.
They fly over the heads of armies, inspiring
courage or striking terror. Not yet freed
from terrestrial affections, they mingle in
the passions and affairs of men. Vainly they
try to soar above the atmosphere; an i'm
passable wall of sapphire resists their wings.
In the moon millions of souls traverse ire
mendous plains of ice, losing all perception
but that of simple existence, forgetting the
adventures they have passed through and are
about to recommence.
The Scandinavians believed that "high up
in the sky is Odin's hall, the magnificent VAL
halla, or temple of the slain. No women
being ever mentioned as gaining admission to
Valhalla or joining in the joys of the Elm
heriar, some writer's have affirmed that ac-
cording to Scandinavian faith women had no
immortal souls, or at all events were ex-
cluded from heaven. The charge is baseless.
Valhalla was the exclusive abode of
the most daring champions, but Valhalla was
not the whole of heaven"
The Egyptian idea of the abode of the soul
is not very alluring. It is sled by the god
Shoth into Amenthe, the Internal world, the
entrance to which lies in the extreme west on
the further side of the sea, where the sun
goes down under the earth. At the entrance
sits wide throated monster, over whose head
is the inscription, This Is the devourer Of
many who go into Amenthe, the lacerator Of
the heart of him who comes with sins to the
house of Justice The soul next kneels be-
fore the forty-two accessors of Osiris, with
deprecating asseverations and intercessions.
It then comes to the final trial in the hall of
the Two Truths, the approving and the con-
demning, OF, as it is differently named, the
hall of the Double Justice, the rewarding and
the furnishing Here the three divinities,
Horus, Anubis and Shoth, proceed to weigh
the soul in the balance"
The most ancient Hindoo doctrine of the
future fate of man, as given in the Vedas,
was simple and rude. Emancipation from
all existence is the fullness Of felicity" says
one Of the Orientals And again, "a hun
dred thousand years Of the highest happiness
on earth are not equal to the happiness of one
day in the dewalokas."
The Persians, who had the Zoroastrian
faith, believed that "all who faithfully OBJ
served the law in purity of thought, speech
and action where body and soul have sepa-
rated, attained paradise In the next world"
As to the Greeks and Romans: "The no.
ton that the wrath of the gods would pursue
their enemies in the future state gave rise to
a belief in the punishment of Tartarus; so
the notion that the distinguishing kindness of
the gods would follow their favorites gave
rise to the myth Of Elysium."
The Mahometan paradise is found as soon
as the righteous have passed STRAIT, or
the bridge Of the world. They obtain
their first taste Of their approaching felicity
by refreshing draught from "Mahomets
Pond" Then comes paradise, an ecstatic
dream of pleasure, filed with sparkling
streams, honeyed fountains, shady groves,
precious stones, all flowers and fruits, bloom
ing youths, circulating goblets black eyed
houris, incense, brilliant birds, delightsome
music, unbroken peace. A Sheah tradition
makes the prophet promise to Ali twelve pal
aces In paradise, built Of gold and silver
bricks, laid in cement Of musk and amber.
The Mexican idea was that souls neither
good nor bad, or whose virtues and vices
balanced each other, were to enter medium
state of idleness and empty content. The
wicked, or those dying in any of certain
enumerated modes of death, went to Mietlau,
q dismal hall within the earth. The souls of
those struck by lightning Or dying by any of
a given list of diseases, also the souls Of chill
dren, were transformed to remote elysium,
Tlalocan.
The ultimate heaven was reserved for war
riors who bravely fell in battle, for women
who died in labor, for those offered in the
temples of the gods and for few others.
These passed Immediately to the house of the
sun, their chief god whom they accompanied
for term of years with songs, dances and
revelry in his circuit around the sky. Then
animating the forms of birds Of plumage they
lived as beautiful songsters among the flow
ers, now on earth, now in heaven, at their
pleasure.
The belief the best established among our
American Indians is that Of the immortality
of the soul There is only one well authenti-
Gated instance where all notion Of a future
state appears to have been entirely wanting
"a small clan the Lower Pendal OrellleS.
This people had no burial ceremonies, no no.
ton of a life hereafter, no word for soul.
Some Dakota tribes imagined four souls,
with separate destinies, one to wander about
the world, one to watch the body, the third
to hover around the village and the highest
to go to the spirit land. The seat of the soul
was variously located. The Costa Ricans
place to this day the powers of thought and
Inem0rv in the liver Most 1lsua1lv the head
was regarded as the vital member. The
stoicism of the Indian, especially the Northern
tribes, in the face Of death has often been the
topic Of poets, and has often been interpreted
to be a fearlessness of that event. This is by
no means true. Savages have an awful hor-
ror of death.-New York Press.
sheridan and Bismarck.
Because two men stand side by side and
look in the same direction, it does not follow
that thew see the same thinps Each seae