The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-04-11

out. Since then my BODY mas changed at
least half dozen times, but those scars
prove 1t is the same body.
We never lose our identity. II God can
and does sometimes rebuild a man five, six,
ten times in this world, Is 1t mysterious that
He can rebuild him once more and that In
the resurrection? If He can do 1t ten times,
think he can do 1t eleven times. Then
look at the seventeen year locusts. For
seventeen years gone, at the end OF seventeen
years they appear, and by rubbing the hind
leg against the wing make that rattle at
which all the husbandmen and vine dres5ers
tremble as the insectile host takes up the
march OF devastation. Resurrection every
seventeen years. wonderful fact!
Another consideration makes the idea Of
resurrection easier. God made Adam. BE
was not fashioned after any model. There
had never been human organism, and 80
there was nothing to copy. At the first at
tempt God made a perfect man. He made
him out Of the dust OF the earth. II out ol
ordinary dust Of the earth and without
model God could make perfect man, surely
out of the extraordinary dust OF mortal body
and with millions of models God can make
each one Of Us perfect being In the resur.
rection. Surely the last undertaking would
NOT be greater than the first. See the gospel
algebra. Ordinary dust minus model
EQUALS a perfect man. Extraordinary dust
and plus model equals resurrection body
Mysteries about it2 Oh, yes. That Is one
reason why I believe 1t. 1t would not be
much of q God who could do things only as
far as I can understand. Mysteries2 Oh,
yes. But no more about the resurrection OF
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 inde-
pendent of your body, can act upon your
your foot walks, or your hand Is extended.
So I find nothing in the Bible statement con-
.cerning the resurrection that staggers me
for moment. All doubts clear from my
mind. I say that the cemeteries, however
beautiful now, will pe more beautiful when
the bodies OF our loved ones come up In the
morning OF the resurrection.
They will come in improved condition.
They will come up rested. The most Of
them lay down at the last very tired. How
often you have heard them say, II am SO
tired!'' The fact is, 1t Is a tired world. II
should 60 through this audience and 60
any style Of life ignorant Of the sensation OF
fatigue. - gt - se
II do not believe there are fifty persons In
AS~1N&
Is tired, or your back is tired, or your foot Is
tired, or your brain Is tired, or your nerves
are tired. Long jou-neying or business ap.
plication or bereavement or sickness has 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 exhaust
Ing. So God stops our earthly life and
mercifully closes the eyes, and more espe-
cially gives quiescence to elung and heart,
that have not had ten minutes rest from the
FIRST respiration and the first beat.
II a drummer boy were compelled In the
army to beat his drum for :wenty-four hours
without stopping, his officer would be court
martialed for cruelty. II the drummer boy
should be commanded to beat his drum fora
week without ceasing, day and night, fa
would die In attempting II. But under your
vestment 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
furlough by day or night, and whether ID
CONSCIOUS or comatose state It went right on,
Tor II It had stopped seven seconds your life
would have closed. And your heart will
keep going until some time after your spirit
has flown, 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 tor time. What
mercy, then. 1t Is that the grave is the place
where that wondrous machinery OF ventricle
and artery can halt Hs,..s =,
all the wear and tear OF nerve and muscle
and bone will be subtracted, and that bath Of
good fresh clean soil will wash of 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 hu-
man race, which have had no replenishment
from the dust since the time Of Adam In par
adise, get any recuperation from the store
house from which he was constructed with
out our going back into the dust? That
original life giving material having been
added to the body as 1t once was, and all the
resurrection body! And Will not hundreds
Of thousands Of such appearing above the
s sGowanus 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- go back to the
same place to get q perfect body. T
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
upholstery? What though the grave Is
rough place-it Is resurrection body manu-
factory, and from 1t shall come the radiant
and resplendant forms of our friends on the
brightest morning the world ever saw. You
put into q factory cotton, and II comes out
apparel You put into factory lumber and
lead. and they come out pianos and organs.
And 50 In the factory of the grave you put
in pneumonias and sconsumptions, and they
come out health. You put In groans, and
they come out halleluiahs. For Us, on the
inal 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. II II should be winter, those who
come up will be more lustrous than the snow
that covered them. II In the autumn, those
who come up will be more gorgeous than the
woods after the frosts had penciled them. II
In tho spring, the bloom on which they tread
will be dull compared with the rubicund OF
their cheeks. Oh, the perfect resurrection
body! Almost everybody has some defeo-
tive spot in his physical constitutions dull
ear. or dim eye, or rheumatic foot, or
neuralgia brow, or twisted muscle, or u
weak side, or an infamed tonsil, or some
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 spothecaries Of earth will there
after have to do will be to rest without In
terruption after the broken nights Of their
earthly existence. Not only will that day
be the Identification Of we'll kept cemeteries,
but some OF the graveyards that have been
neglected and been the pasture ground fol
cattle and roosting place for swine will fo'
the first time lave attractiveness Giver
| them.
It was shame that in that place ungrate
fulgenerations planted no trees and twisted