Middletown transcript., 1894-04-28
A SERMONETTE.


known.-I. Cor, xiii, II.
There is not as much scepiicsm in
The world nowadays as there was twenty
years ago.
4 careful survey of the times will
convince you that the old lines of doubt
have been abandoned and that men are
thinking afiirmatively about the future
life.
Not that men are going back to
Church dogmas. On the contrary, they
are getting further from them, if possi-
BILE.
But they are silently formulating a
religion of their own-a peculiar kind
of religion, which the clergy are in
clii ed to look at askance, but which
| contains the essential principles on
which an honest life here and the hope
of life hereafter are securely based.
The people were never more averse to
creeds than now. That is a rather
startling characteristic of the age.
Thoughtful men have feared that the
multitude, after slipping the mooring
of Calvinism, would drift out to sea or
on lee shore, because it frequently
happens that when one gives up his old
faith he lives the rest of his life with
out any faith at all
This danger, however, has been safely
passed. The tendency is toward a
wider and deeper faith than we have
ever had. II the Church would recog-
nize this fact and fit itself to the new
condition Of affairs it could easily be-
come the leader Of the people in their
explorations. But If the Church per-
sists in emphasizing the formulas of
other days and continues to ignore Il
sourcesof Information except those 10
which ithas been accustomed the 9 ,ple
will so on without it and find leaders
among themselves.
In Illustration Of this general state
ment, and also in proof of it, we may
safely assert that at no hour in the
worlds history has th re been So much
interest in the subject of mans immor
tality as now. Nor has there been 50
much legitimate curiosity as 10 the
conditions which will prevail in that
other life 70 which we are fastening.
Whether this is the result of that odd
movement called spiritualism, which
started in the forties and spread like
prairie fire; which loudly declared that
communion between the two worlds is
privilege to be enjoyed by every
shadowed home; or whether it came
from combination of other causes, is
matter Of inferior consequence. When
the thirsty man has water to drink he
simply drinks it and is thankful, not
stopping to inquire from what mountain
range the river flows on whose green
banks he reposes in peace.
But besides the bare fact of continued
life We desire to know what our rela
tions to each other will be after we
cross the golden threshold Is our love
4 merely temporary contriyance, a
volative clement which will evaporate
at death, bond of union based on the
necessity of perpetuating the race
which will be broken at the grave, OF is
it the mutual attraction of souls which
nave luckily found each in this life and
which will continue in force in all other
lives which may lie ahead of US?
Much depends on the answer to that
question. If love is an earthly conven-
ience, and only that, then practically
the end comes when the curtain drops
on our little drama, comedy or tragedy,
rs the case may be. But if the mothers
love or the lovers love, being a love of
souls and not of bodies, is part of the
soul itself, then both We who remain Il
little longer and they who go amid our
sighs and tears can wait patiently, as
one waits in Europe for the C, IN ng
tie Gear one OF waits in America for
tha return home,
The problem is not difficult to solve
If ne face facts bravely. That we
shall recognize each other in the life
beyond needs no argument Common
sense simply says, 'Ofcourse We shalT,"
and that ends ali controversy. T ,at
we shall know each oth5r better than
we do now goes without saying saying
That We shall see through all disguises,
even as We shall be seen, seems to be
yerv certain. There will be no decer-
ti0ns, for soul will look at soul and
motives cannot be concealed.
That this clearer sight will alter a
great many Of our relationships becomes
perfectly evident, just as it is eydene
that if our hearts we're laid bare III this
life our relations to each other would
be changed.
If love, therefore, our present love-.
is connected in any way with our physi-
Cal passions or is at all dependent on
them, then death, which depriyes us of
our bodies, will bring that love to an
end. We may know each other there,
but the peculiar attraction which binds
us will cease to exist. There will be
no fuel for its iiame and the flame
must needs die out. Clearly that kind
of love is merely earthly expedient,
or incident, or even accident, and viii,
have fulfilled its mission when the
breath leaves the body. Il cannot go
hence when we go, but must be left be-
hind because there is M element of inn
mortality in it.
But the other kind of love, which
rests on unity of purpose, on divine
sympathy, OH admiration for qualities
of character the love which has its
origin in what the loved one il, not in
what he has-that is as much rait of
the soul as ambition is of courage, and
ean no m,,rp die than hp snuI il s.l.io.