Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1890-09-05
Senator ingalls, on Life and Death.
From the Euiosy on Senator Beck.l

liable, the most inalienable. 1ne JOY
OF living in such splendid and lum-
inous day AS this is inconceivable.
To exist is exultation. 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 rapture. The greatest crime and
the severest penalty known to human
law is the sacrifice and forfeiture Of
life
And vet we are all under sentence
of death. Other events may or may
not occur. Other conditions may or
may not exist We may be rich or
poor we may be learned or ignorant'
we may be happy or wretched; but
we all must die. The verdict has
been pronounced by the inexorable
decree OF an omnipotent tribunal.
Without trial or opportunity for de-
fence with no knowledge OF the ac-
cuser. or the nature and cause OF the
accusation without being confronted
with the witnesses against us, We have
| been summoned TO the bar OF life and
condemned TO death. There Is no
writ OF error, nor review. There Is
neither eXculpation nor appeal. All
must be relinquished. Beauty and
deformity. good and evil, virtre 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 rerieve.
The soul helplessly beats its wings
against the bars, shudders and disap-
pears.
The prescription extends alike to
the individual and the type. Nations
die and races expire. Humanity itself
is destined to extinction. Sooner or
later il is the instruction OF science
that the energy OF the earth will he
expended, and it will become incapa-
BILE OF supporting life. A group OF
feeble and pallid survivors In some
sheltered valley in the tropics will be-
hold the sun sink below the horizon
and the pitiIess stars glitter ia the
midnight sky. The last man will
perish, and the sun will rise upon an
earth without an inhabitant. Its at
mosphere, it, seas, it's life and heat,
will vanish, and the planet will be an
idle cinder uselessly spinning in It's
orbit.
Every hour some world dies unno-
ticed i'm the armament some sun
shoulders to eimbers and ashes on the
hearthstone OF infinite space, and the
mighty maze OF systems sweeps cease
lessly onward In its voyage OF doom
to remorseless and unsparing destruc-
tion.
With the disappearance OF man
from the earth, all traces OF his eXis-
tence will be lost The palaces, tow
ers, and temples he has reared, the
institutions he has established, the
cities he has builded, the books he
has written, the creeds he has con
structed, the PHILOSOPHERS he has
formulated-all science, art, litera-
ture, and knowledge will be oblit-
Grated and engulfed In empty and
vacant oblivion.
The great globe itself.
Yea. all which II inherit shall dissolve.
And, like this sinsubstan tial pageant faded
Leave not a rsck behind.
There Is an Intelligence so vast and
enduring that the flaming intervals
between the birth and death Of uni
verses is no more than the fash OF
fire-hies above the meadows OF sum-
mer a colossal power by which these
stupendous orbs are launched In the
abyss, like bubbles blown by child
in the morning sun, and whose sense
OF Justice and reason cannot be less
potential than those irDmutable
statutes that are the law OF being TO
the creatures He has made, and
which compel them to declare that II
the only object OF creation Is destruc-
tion, II infinity Is the theatre Of an
uninterrupted series Of irreparable
calamities, IL the final cause OF life IL
death, then time Is an ine1plicable
tragedy. and eternity an illogical and
indefeDsible catastrophe.
No, Mr.. President, this obsequy is
for the quick and not for the dead.
II is not an inconsolable lamentation.
II Is a strain OF triumph. II Ii an af-
firmation to those who survive, that
as our departed associate, contem
plating at the close OF his life the
monument OF good deeds he had
erected, more enduring than brass
and loftier than the pyramids Of kings.
might exclaim with the Roman poet,
Non omnis mortar SO. turning to the
silent and unknown future, he could
rely with just and reasonable conf
dence upon that most impressive and
momentous assurance ever delivered
10 the human race. "He that be-
lieveth in me though he were dead
yet shall he live; and whosoever
liveth and believeth In me shall never
die"
|
A middle-aged woman was wander
ing around the corridors OF the City
Hall yesterday, eating a banana as