Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1890-10-09
ONLIFE AND DEATH.
THE DOOM OF HUMANITY AND
THE UNIVERSE.
The Eloquence Of Senator ingalls, Turned to the
Subject or NOrtali He Talks Of the
Future Hope Of Mankinl as 1t
Exists Everywhere.

The right to live Is, in human esti-
nation, the most sacred. the most in
violable, the most inalienable. The
iov of living in such splendid and
luminous day as this is uncomfortable.
To exist is exultation. To live forever
is our sublimest hope. Annihilation.
extinction. and eternal death are the
forebodings of despair. TO know. to
love, to achieve. to triumph. to confer
happiness to alleviate misery, is rap
ture. The greatest crime and the
seyerest penalty known to human law
is the sacrifice and forfeiture OF life.
And yet we arc all under sentence
of death. Other events may or may
not occur. Other conditions may or
NAV not exist. We may be rich or
poor; we may be learned or ignorant;
we may be happy or wretched; but wo
all must die. The verdict has been
pronounced by. the memorable decree
of an omnipotent tribunal. Without
trial or opportunity for defence; with
no knowledge Of the accuser. or the
nature and cause Of the accusation;
without being confronted with the wit
nesses against us, we have been sum-
moned to the b,r OF life and condemn
ed to death. There is no writ Of
error nor review. There is neither
exculpation nor appeal. All must be
relinquished. Beauty and deformitv.
good and evil. virtue and vice, share
the same relentless fate. The tender
mother cries passionately for mercy
for her first born. but there is no
clemency. The craven felon sullenly
prays for moment in which to be
aneled, but there is no reprievc. TIE
soul helplessly beats its wings against
the bars, shudders and disappears.
The prescription extends alike to
the individual and the type. Nations
die and races expire. Humanity itself
is destined to extinction. Sooner or
later it is the instruction of science
thrt the energy of the earth will be
expended. and it will become incapa-
BILE OF supporting life. A group OF
feeble aud pallid survivors in some
sheltered valley in the tropics will be-
hOld the sun sink below the horizon
and the pitiless stars glitter in the mid.
night sky. The last man will perish,
and the sun will rise upon an earth
without an inhabitant. Its atmos'
phere. its seas. its life and heat, will
vanish, and the planet will be an idle
cinder uselessly spinning in its orbit
Every hour some world dies unno.
ticed in the armament; some sur
shoulders to embers and ashes on the
hearthstone of infinite space. and the
mighty maze of systems sweeps cease
lessly onward in its voyage of doom t.
remorseless and unspairing destruc
ton.
With the disappearance OF man from
will be lost. The palaces, towcrs
and temples he has reared. the insti
buttons he has established, tho citie
he has builded. the books he has writ
ten. the creeds he has constructed
the philosophers he has formulated
al science. art literature, and bnowl
edge will be obliterated and engulfot
in empty and vacant oblivion.
The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded
Leave not track behind.
There is an intelligence so vast an
enduring that the flaming intervals be
tween the birth and death OF universes
no more than the fash OF flreflies abov
the meadows OF summer; Il colossal
power by which these stupendous orb
are launched in the abyss. like but
bles blown by IL child in the mornin
sun. and whose sense OF justice an
reason cannot be less potential tina
those lmmutiblo statutes that are tn
law of being to the creatures He hs
made. and which compel them to d.
clare that If the only object of ere,
ton is destruction. II infinity is tn
theater OF an uninterrupted series ,
ii~eparable calamities. IT the fin,
cause OF life is death, then time is q
inexplicable tragedy, and eternity a
illogical and indefensible catastrophe
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