Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-06-24


Of sin and sorrow and death and meeting US
and seeing Us and finding out all about US,
carry back no message to the skies?
Oh. there ID consolation in it! You are in
present communication with that land. They
are in sympathy with you now more than
they ever were, and they are waiting for the
moment when the hammer stroke shall shatter
the last chain Of your earthly bondage. and
your soul shall spring upward and they will
stand on the heights of heaven and see you
come, and when you are within Mailing dis
lance your other friends will be called out,
and as you fash through the pearl hung gate
their shout will make the hills tremble.
Hail reasoned spifn, to the city OF the
blessed r
I console you still further with the idea OF
q resurrection, / know there are great
many people who do not accept this because
they cannot understand it but; my friends,
there are two stout passages could bring
hundred, but two swarthy passages are
enough-and one David will strike down the
largest Goliah. s'Marvel not at this, for the
hour is coming when all who are in their
graves shall come forth" The other swarthy
passage is this 1.-THE Lord shall descend
from heaven with shout, and the voice OF
the archangel, and the trump of God, and
the dead in Christ shall rise first. I" Oh, there
will be such thing as O resurrection
You ask me great many questions can
not answer about this resurrection. You
say, for instance, s'If mans body is con-
stantly changing, and every seventh year he
has an entirely new body, and he lives on to
seventy years of age and so has had ten diff
ferent bodies, and at the hour of his death
there is not particle of flesh on him that
was there in the days of his childhood, in the
resurrection which of the ten bodies will
come up or will they all risc?"
You say Suppose man dies, and his body
is scattered In the dust, and out Of that dust
vegetables grow, and men eat the vegeta-
bles, and cannibals slay these men and eat
them, and cannibals fight with cannibals I'M
til at last there shall be hundred men who
shall have within them some particles that
started from the dead body first named,
coming up through the vegetable, through
the first man who ate it and through the can
nibals who afterward ate him, and there be
more than hundred men who have rights
In the particles of that body--in the resur-
rection how can they be assorted when these
particles belong to them all?
You say "There is missionary buried in
Greenwood, and when he was in China he
had his arm amputated-in the resurrection
will that fragment of the body fly l6, 600 miles
to join the rest of the body?"
You say, "Will it not be very difficult
thing for spirit coming back in that day to
find the myriad particles of its own body,
when they have been scattered by the winds
or overlaid by whole generations of the dead,
looking for the myriad particles OF its own
body, while there are thousand million
other spirits doing the same thing, and all
the assortment to be made within one dayW
YOU say, "If $50 men go into a place OF
evening entertainment and leave their hats
and oyercoats in the hall, when they come
back it is almost impossible for them to get
the right ones, or to get them without
great deal of perplexity. and yet you tell me
that myrlsds of spirits in the last day will
come and find myriads Of bodies.
Have you any more questions to ask2 Any
more difficulties to suggest? ANY more mys-
teries2 Bring them on Against whole
regiment OF skepticism / will march thess
two champions sMarvel not at this, for the
hour is coming when all who are in their
graves shall come forth" "The Lord shall
descend from heaven with a shout, and the
voice of the archangel, and the trump of
God, and the dead In Christ shall rise first.
You see stick to these two passages. Who
art thou. o fool, that thou rephest against
God? Hath He promised, and shall He not
do it2 Hath He commanded and shall He
not bring it to pass? Haveyou not confidence
In His omnipotence? If He could in the first
place build my body. after it Is torn down
can He not build it again?
.Oh," you say, II would believe that If you
would explain it. am not disposed to be
skeptical, but explain how it can be done"
NY brother, you believe gr5at many things
you cannot explain. You believe your mind
acts on your body. Explain the process. This
seed planted comes upa blue flower. Another
seed planted comes up yellow flower. An
other seed planted comes up white flower.
Why? Why that wart on your hngerP Tell
me why some cows have horns and othei
cows have no horns. Why. when two obsta-
eles strike each other in the air, do you hear
the percussion? What is the subtle energy
that dissolves a solid in a crueible? What
makes the notches on an oak leaf different
from any other kind of leaf2 What makes
the orange blossom different from that ofthe
rose? How can the almightiness which rides
on .he circle of the heaven find room to turn
Its chariot on heliotrope? Explain these.
Can you not do it? Then will not explain
the resurrection. You explain one-haif OF
the common mysteries OF everyday life, and
will explain all the mysteries OF the resur-
rection. You cannot answer me very plain
questions in regard to ordinary affairs AN
not ashamed to say that cannot explain God,
and the Judgment, and the resurrection. l
simply accept them as facts, tremendous and
infinite
Before the resurrection takes place eyery-
thing will be silent. The maasoleums al d
the lahyrinths silent. The graveyards silent,
the cemetery silent, save from the clesaing
of foofs and the grinding OF wheels as the
last funeral procession comes in. No breath
of air disturbing tine dust where Persepolis
stood and Thebes and Babylon. No winking
Of the eyelids long closed in darkness. No stir
ring ofthe feet that once bounded the hillside.
No opening of the hand that once plucked
the flower out of the edge of the Wild
wood. No clutching of swords by the men
who went down when Persia battled and
Rome fell. Silence from ocean beach TO
mountain cliff and from river to river. The
,s.x II LII
hushed to sleep in the bosom of the same
great hills. No hand disturbing the
gate OF the long-barred sepulcher. All
the nations of the dead motionless
in their winding sheets. Up the side
of the hills. down through the trough
of the valleys, far out in the cav
erns, across the fields. deep down into the
leyiathan sports with his fellows-every-
where, layer above layer, height above
height, depth below depth--dead dead !
dead But in the twinkling of an eve. as
quick as that. as the arcbangels trumpet
comes pealing, rolling, reverberating, crash
ing across continents and seas. the.earth will
give one fearful shudder and the door OF the
family vault, without being unlocked,
viii burst open. and all the
graves Of the dead will begin to
throb and heave like the waves Of thesea,
and the mansoleum of princes will fall into
uuSt, ana Ossehd anu SeDaSfopoi and Aus
terlitz and Gettysburg stalk forth in the
lurid air, and the shipwrecked rise from the
deep their wet locks looming above the bill
low, and all the land and all the sea become
one moving mass OF lfe-all generations. all
ages WIN upturned eountenances-some
kindled with rapture and others blanched
with despair, but gazing In one direction.
upon one object, and that the throne OF
resurrection.
On that dag you will get back your Chris
tian dead. There is where the comfort comes
in. They will come up with the same hand.
the same foot and the same entire body, but
with perfect hand. and perfect foot. and
perfect body. corruption, mortality having
/ become immortality. And, oh, the reunion
/ Oh, the embrace after so long an absence
Comfort one another with these words.