The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1890-04-02

God and your heart is welded to his service.
you will know where the dangers and Difficult
ties and ms ysteries and contradictions are not
Riding peacefully upon the great deeps of his
love, your greatest joy will be that you no longer
live by doubts but by afirmatons.'-Dr A. j.
Gordon.
The man whose mind is shaped to earthly
conceptions, says tha5 these things of the spir-
itual life are too vague for me; it is only in
this visible world that fad tangible realities.
Now. those WAC are deluded with the thought
that ali there is of man is his body, and is in
his body, should ask how he contains his own
history from early Childhood 10 his latest years.
and adds to this by communicating with the
thoughts of others knowledge of the history of
the ages and acquires the varied languages,
and is informed regarding mans doings and
customs and becomes indeed an epitome OF the
world-and still unsatished, he si2hs for more
worlds to conquer, and pushes his venturesome
enterprises OF exploration into the oceans OF
space. until to record what he has discovered'
what he has seen. what he Knows. what he can
demonstraby calculate. packs the book-cro~d-
ed shelves OF the worlds libraries from base
| ment to dome, And all this in and circumscrib.
| ed to the small body of human? Why, aman's
| body is only his Office which he occupies while
| transacting business temporarily in material
| affairs. Consid az the faculty OF memory. There
is abundant reason to believe that memory
| never loses anything but that it retains and
may reproduce when the right string is touch
ed, every thought. impression and event OF our
| past lives We need not go beyond the familiar
experience Of all to verify this view. Revisit
the scenes of early lie from which you have
been absent twenty, thirty, or forty years, and
the old haunts peopied with the remam-
| ofl n and a
| and voice again. Every day stray and random
recollections, gments of conversation, hoat
| ing images of forgotten things, hit before the
| mind like the quick appearing and vanishing
| of a ghost Thus the past never dles-It W Ill
| not down. And mark, this PERI etuation Is In
| the mind, not the bcdy Ms body Is composed
| of matter which changes daily, but am AWAY S
| L. If matter were L, this would be impossi bic
| 1t is known that mans body is composed of
| materials which are being constantly renewed
| all the par of the human body are subject to
| continual TT r4nsformation; every day you lose
| something of your phl steal being, and renew it
| by food st the end of eight years you have
| rev flesh. new bones, every atom and cell Is
new-you have a new body. Your head Is new.
| and The brains it contains are not the same
| brains with which you thought and planned
eight years ago If memory is but an atomic
|
some theorize, simply incrusted in the globules
| ofth brain, how is it that these globules are
dis placl d and replaced and yet memory sur
| wives their total extinction. The theory will
| not hold. Something besides matter. something
| that survives the wreck of matter, something
| permanent, some hing living. is l, is you The
| soul II the thinker-in it are stored the treas
| ures OF memory.
| The great question, then, concerning this
| world is not whether it be transient, but what
are the results OF the influences we experience
while living iu it. Unlike the stale cant, now
| happily growing less, that this world Is moth
| ing. and unlike the dupe, who makes it every
| thing, Paul instructs us that while the world
is transient, it has important shaping influences
in view of the life which is eternal The out
ward m an may perish, and the inward man be
| renewed. cay by day. And we know that if
our earthly house of this tabernacle be destroy
| ed, we have building of Coda house not made
| with hands, eternal in the heavens - That is,
| the world f1eetipg and transitory as it is, may
| help the soul TO lasting, eternal good
| Herein is principle infinitely more useful
| for us TO ponder than the vanishing years.
Eleeting as is this present world, the soul Is re-
| ceiying impressions that eternity may not be
| long enough to dim. he eternal things are not
| the measurable, visible. The eye sees not the
lasting things. What, then, is permanentf Not
| that which the eye sees. Behind the veil OF
sense is the spiritual scenery.
Some one has said that we begin to die the
| day of our birth. a man has hardly to pass
| middle age ere his world is dead. What was
| his world in early life, has gone. like dream
Companions scattered. or no more. Fields. trees
| and waters not the same. All are chan ged.and
| yet imperishaple in the soul, all remain. Pa
rent, friend, loved mate of bOyhood days, broth
er. sister children. whose early going reversed
| the order of departure-in the great homestead
| of the soul, all are living.
If there is naught but what we see,
| What is the wide world worth to me?
| But is there naught save what We see?
| A thousand things on every hand
| Ny sense is numb to understand;
1 know eddy round the sun;
| When has it dizzied any one?
I know the round worlds draw from far.
| Through hollow systems. star to star;
| But who has e'er upon a strand
| OF those great cables laid his hand p?
| What reaches up from room to room
| Of chambered earth, through glare or gloom.
| Through molten flood and fiery blast,
| And binds our hurrying feet so fast?
| IT'S the earth mothers love that well
| Will hold the notes that round her dwell :;
| Through granite hills you feel it stir
| As lightly as through gossamer;
Its grasp unseen by mortal eyes.
! Its grain no lens can analyze.
| If there is naught but what we see.
The friend loved is lost to me;
| He fell asleep who dares to say
| His spirit is so far away?
Who knows what rings round about
These thoughts-whO proves but from without
| They still are whispered? Who can think
| They rise from mornings food and drink?
These thoughts that stream on like the sea,
| And darkly beat incessantly
The feet of some great hope. aud break.
And only broken glimmers make,
Nor ever climb the shore, to lie
And calmly mirror the far sky.
And image forth in tranquil deeps
The secret that its silence keeps.
Because he never comes and stands
And stretches out to me both hands,
Because he never leans before
The gate when set wide the door
At morning, nor is ever found
just at my side when turn round,
Half thinking 1 shall meet his eyes,
From watching the broad moons globe rise
For all this shall homage pay
To Death, grow cold of heart, and say
He persisted, and has ceased to be;
Another comes. but never he"?
Nay, by our wondrous being. nay
Although his face [ never see
Through all the infinite To Be
know he lives and cares for me-"
And in this tenacious boiling we have the fore
taste of immortality.
20. Heaven!' cried Carlyle. is the white
tomb of our loved ones who died from our arms,
and must be left behind US there, which rises in
the distance like pale. mournfully receding
milestone. to tell how many toisome uncheered
miles We have journeyed ON alone, but pale
spectral Illusion? ? Is the lost friend still myster
iously here, even we are here mysteriously
with God?" Know of truth that only the time
shadows have persisted, or perishable, that
the real Being of whatever was, ard whatever is
and whatever will be. is even now and forever"
with God it is a universal Here. and an ever
lasting Now" And He has made the soul of man
'he sharer of His immortality. THE things
that temporal. the things that
not seen are eternal" These present scenes