The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-04-23

tion. Resurrection every seventeen years!
Another consideration makes the idea OF
resurrection easier. God made Adam. He
was not fashioned after any model. There
had never been human organism, and so
there was nothing to copy. At the first at
tempt God made perfect man. he made
him out Of the dust Of the earth. Ii out OF
ordinary dust Of the earth and without
model God could make perfect man, surely
out of the extraordinary dust Of the mortal
body, and with millions Of models, God can
make each one of us perfect being In the
resurrection. Surely the last under
taking would not be greater than the first.
See the gospel algebra: ordinary dust minus
a model equals perfect man; extraordinary
body. Mysteries about it? Oh, yes; that is
one reason why believe it. 1t would notbe
much of God who could do things only as
far as I can understand. Mysteries? Oh,
yes; but no more about the resurrection or
your body than about its present existence.
will explain to you the last mystery of
the resurrection, and make it as plain to you
as that two and two make four, If you will
tell me how your mind, which Is entirely IN
dependent &C your body, can act upon your
body 50 that at your will your eyes open 90 OF
So I find nothing in the Bible statement con.
corning the resurrection that staggers me for
a moment All doubts clear from my mind,
say that the cemeteries, however beautiful
now, will be more beautiful when the bodice
of our loved ones come up.
They will come in improved condition.
They will come rested. The most OF them
lay down at the last very tired. How often
you have heard them say: " am so. hredF
The tact is it is tired world. If should 60
through this audience, and go round the
world, could not find a person in any style
of life ignorant of the sensation of fatigue. l
do not believe there are fifty persons in this
audience who are not tired. Your head Is
tired, or your back is tired or your foot IS
tired, or your brain is tired
neying, or business application, or
bereavement, or sickness have put on you
heavy weights. So the vast majority Of
those who went out Of this world went out
fatigued About the poorest place to rest
in is this world. Its atmosphere, its sur
roundings, and even its hilarities are e1-
hausting. So God stops our earthly life, and
mercifully closes the eyes, and qulets Inc Inc
feet, and folds the hands, and more especially
gives auiescence to the lungs and heart, that
have not had ten minutes rest from the hrst
respiration and the first beat.
II drummer boy were compelled in the
army to beat his drum for twenty-four hours
without stopping, his officer would be court
martialed for cruelty. If the drummer boy
should be commanded to beat his drum for
week without ceasing, day and night, he
would die in attempting it. But under your
yestmen5 is poor heart that began its drum
beat for the march of life thirty or forty or
sixty or eighty years ago, and it has had no
:urlough by day or night; and whether IN
conscious or comatose state, it went right on,
TOR if it had stopped seven seconds your life
would have closed. And your heart will keep
going until some time after your spirit has
down, for the auscultator says that after the
last expiration of lung and the last throb of
pulse, and after the spirit is released, the
heart keeps on beating for time. What
mercy then it is that the grave is the place
where that wondrous machinery Of ventricle
and artery can halt! =,
Under the healthful chemistry of the soil
Ill the wear and tear Of nerve and muscle
and bone will be subtracted and that bath OF
good, fresh, clean soil will wash off the last
ache, and then some of the same style OF
dust out Of which the body of Adam was
constructed may be infused into the resur-
rection body. How can the bodies OF the
human race, which have had no replenish-
ment from the dust since the time of Adam
in paradise, get any recuperation from the
store house from which he was constructed
without our going back into the dust? That
original, life-giving material having been
added to the body as it once was, and all the
defects left behind, what a body will be the
resurrection body! And will not hundreds
Of thousands Of such appearing above the
Gowanus heights make Greenwood more
beautiful than any June morning after
shower?
The dust Of the earth being the original
material for the fashioning of the first human
being, we have to 60 back to the same place
to get perfect body. Factories are apt to
be rough places, and those who toll in them
have their garments grimy and their hands
smutched But who cares for that: when
they turn out for us beautiful musical instru-
nents or exquisite upholstery! What though
the grave is rough place, it is resurrec.
tion body mandatory, and from it sha.t
come the radiant and respondent forms OF
our friends on the brightest morning the
world saw ever. You put into a factory cot
ton, and it comes out apparel. You put into
a factory lumber and lead, and it comes out
pianos and organs. And so into the factory
Of the grave you put in pneumonias and con
sumptions and they come out health: You
put in groans, and they come out hallelujahs.
For us, on the final day, the most attractive
places will not be the parks or the gardens or
the palaces, but the cemeteries.
We are not told in what season that day
will come If it should be winter, those who
come up will be more lustrous than the snow
that covered them. If in the autumn, those
who come up will be more gorgeous than tae
woods after the frosts have penciled them.
If in the spring. the bloom on which they
tread will be dull compared with the rubi-
cund of their cheeks Oh the perfect resur-
rection body! Almost every one has soma
defective spot in his physical constitution;
d. n r1,o of ~ "a
or q neuralgia brow, or twisted muscle, or
q weak side, or an inhamed toasil, OF soma
point at which the east wind or
season of overwork assaults him. But
the resurrection body shall be without
one weak spot, and all that the doctors and
nurses and apothecaries of earth will there
after have to do will be to rest without inter.
ruption after the broken nights of their earth
ly existence. Not only will that day be the
beatification Of we'll kept cemeteries bit
some Of the graveyards that have been ness.
lected, and been the pasture ground for cat.
tie and roofing places for swine. will for tue
first time have attractiveneSS given them.
1t was a shame that in that place migrate,
full generations planted no trees, and twist q
no garlands. and sculptured no marble for
their Christian ancestry; but on the day of
which I speak the resurrected shall make
the place of their feet glorious. From
under the shadow of the church, where
they slumbered among nettles and
mullen stalks and thistles, and slabs
aslant they shall rise with glory that shall
flash the windows of the village church, and
by the bell tower that used to call them to
worship, and above the old spire beside
which their prayers formerly assembled.
What triumphal procession never did for
street, what an Oratorio never did for an
academy, what an orator never did for
brilliant auditory, what ol,elisk never did
for King, resurrection morn will do for all
the cemeteries.
This Easter tells lis that in Christ's resur-
rectiou our resurrection, if we are His. and
+I,o ras,rrartion of all the DOuS deal is as