Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-10-11

poor, duu Ilduy Ol IueIu LOW III tue SCtle of being as the average Chinaman, yet life is as dear and as sweet to them as to the most opulent and highly cultured members of society. The criminal classes in all civilized, and in most un- civilized, countries cling to life with desperate tenacity. Had they thousand lives, there is little doubt that the most of them would prefer to spend their days Tn states prisons, rather than die once for their crimes. On the contrary, multitudes of the Chinese commit hari- kari out of sheer indifference to life; or rather because they prefer death to life, This Is proof conclusive that vitativeness, Is below par with the Chinese which taken ill connection with their we'll known average stolidity concerning the future life, argues some relation Of the vltatlve instincts to the religious faith concerning futurity. As to particular observations, have found 1t over and over matter of comparative indifference to them, of what ever nationality who Is scant of vitality and feeble in vitative- ness, whether or not there was any future life for him, and this irrespective of the strength or weakeness of his relig- lous sentiment. Hope may be never so bright and faith never so serene, but he will be exercised mainly on other themes, rather than on the perpetuity of his own existence. He has not found life so full Of blessedness and sweetness that it's everlasting continuance is a matter of so much importance or 50 desirable a thing in his estimation.
 Thou art so full Of misery
 Were IL not better not to be-?
 Is full often the burden of his reflection.
 Life has been a weary load to such One rather than a round of joy, and to drop 1t off and lie down in an eternal and unbroken sleep may be, after all, the one great compensation for all the weak nesses and miseries of human life
 But out of the robust heart of the man of strong, full vitatiyeness, comes the passionate cry for continuance-co -continu- ance of life-on any conditions. rather than be plotted out of existence for ever and be no more. That Is the one thing too dreadful for endurance even in con temptation. To live, to be, is the sum of all blessedneSs; and to die, to cease to be Is the horror of horrors. Is 1t reasonable that 1t should be so? He queries; is it consistent to suppose that the cup of life, full and oyerflowing with sweetness as l
 have found it, will be dashed from my lips forever by the hand of death, while I
 have yet only begun to taste 1t? Then
 reason replies: It IS not consistent" Then
 faith answers: Believe and doubt not;
 you shall live forever" Hope finishes the
 scene by Ringing sunshine on the land of
 the hereafter, and the soul is assured of
 its immortality not only, but charmed
 with the prospect. Then, oh lifel Oh be- yondl Thou art strange thou art meet;
 is its exuiting cry. Nevertheless, when
 the sky of hope Is overcast with clouds, | as 1t often is with Us all; and when faith fails to support, as 1t sometimes will do;
 when reason staggers under the powerful blows of the skeptic. the final refuge of the sOul-its last and sole unimpregnable
 stronghold-is in that innate feeling that
 1t cannot die, which neither reasons, nor believes, nor hopes, but simply feels that
 its grasp Of life Is too strong ever to be rehnqulshed. 1t can be made to fly from
 its faith Ill the revealed word, to forsake | its hope of heaven, and to admit and give | intellectual assent to the doctrine of an
 initiation; yet that root will live and ] again give forth its blossoms of spiritual faith and spiritual hope. That innate feeling IS always in proportion to the strength Of that fundamental principle oi
 life which we call yltatlYeneSs. When the
 foundations of the universe were laid il
 was there, and became part thereof |
 IS planted Datnral feeling; it rises a spir
 ltual faith. It blossoms ill the upper hea
 ven spiritual hope, Although the foli age of that faith, which is its literature
 it's creeds and its formulas, its thousand
 theories and speculations, it's fancies anC
 supershhons even may be torn and scat
 tered in the whirlwinds of theological anC
 archaeological strife and contention; al
 though the blossoms of that hope, whicl
 are beautiful and special anticipations
 may be ruthlessly cut off and killed by tht
 cruel frost of skeptical criticism; yet for
 ever that innate feeling. that root of tn,
 whole matter will survive, and througl scent of water will it will bud again Ger mane to this subject is the question, is thu
 soul of man immortal in all its parts, O. only in part? If the latter, what part as cends to the upper life and what is drop ped with the lower? Which do we keeI in the hereafter and what cast off as nt longer useful? The coarse and savage
 mind which can conceive of no nobler em ployment than hunting to death his fel low creatures must needs retain his butch erlng prOpensities.
 'tAnd thinks admitted t9 that equal sky, His faithful dos shall bear him company" , The more advanced philosophers thinl l we drop off those faculties which relatt strictly and exclusively to the lower life and retain those only which belong to
 higher sphere of action. This sound
 plausible hut is 1t true that We posses any faculties which relate us strictly anC
 exclusively to our present state? It ma,
 be regarded as quite certain that some 0
 the faculties perform certain function / below that are not necessary above, a the physically reproductive, or the bodil,
 alimentive functions. Nevertheless it i not impossible, or not improbable, tha
 the faculties themselves are retained fo , performance of a more refined, yet anala gous function in the higher life.
 The ugly caterpillar erawls to and fir, , on its stUbby feet, and feeds on the flor of plants. Resurrected, he still travels not on the earth but in the air; no longe } condemned to creep, he Is enabled to fly
 His slow and clumsy method of locomo r tlon Is translated into swift and graceful t aerostation. He still feeds, no longer however, on coarse leaves and stalks, bu l on the delectable dew they distill. H 2 still has a system to nourish and to trans 7 port and he has lost no faculty, onl !. each has changed its function. He r still related to the new world about hir } IIlOtiSI HIS Olu ldCu1ll6S, Only Dy LII r new functions. There are also innumeI 9 able hints in human conduct and phase !: of human character that point to the cor : cluslon that every faculty of the huma t mind possesses within itself the capacit
 of double function-an out-reachin 5 function and an up-reaching one-a earth sphere and a heaven sphere. Thi : Is as true of the lower range of huma l propensities as of the higher endowment }, of the intellect and of the moralities, an : 1t indicates that the soul will retain il n present symmetry iH after fife. The pro $ ductlye and sustaining forces of th s physical system like the present one { l. reproduce or sustain, they will be en t ployed in some higher yet analogous funt n tion. They are primal and eternally col " tinuoQs forces, and not merely temporaI b manifestations as we are apt to loo IS upon them to be.
 e The reproduction and sustantation q organic growth like the human body, Il but an incident m their vast and varie it relations to the universe The amatiV
 propensity is undoubtedly the inspiratic Y to the marriage of men and women; othe 2 wise men would marry each other ar a just as readily women would do the sam le yet have named this principle and jud lt ed 1t by one manifestation solely, whiC n Is temporary and transient, and ha7 r. leaped to the conclusion that its use al IS duration are but temporary and transfer 1t in the economy of creation. And even h. this manifestation in o11r hasta and nar