News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1894-03-29


full than any willow by the waters. Can
you think of anything more beautiful
than the temperance of those from
whom we have been parted? l do not
care which way the tree falls in the blast
of the Judgment hurricane, or if the
plowshare that day shall turn under the
last rose leaf and the last china aster, if
out of the broken sod shall come the bod
les of our loved ones not damaged, but
irradiated.
The idea of the resurrection gets easier
to understand as l hear the monograph
unroll some voice that talked into it a
year ago, just before our friends decease.
You touch the lever, and then come forth
the very tones, the very song of the per-
son that breathed into it once, but is
now departed. If a man can do that,
cannot Almighty God, without half try
| ing, return the voice of your departed!
| And if he can return the voice, why not
the lips, and the tongue, and the throat
| that fashioned the voice? And if the
| lips, and the tongue. and the throat, why
not the brain that suggested the words?
| And if the brain, why not the nerves, of
which the brain is the headquarters;
| And if he can return the nerves, why not
the muscles, which are less ingenious?
And if the muscles, why not the bones,
that are less wonderful? And If the voice,
and the brain, and the muscles, and the
bones, why not the entire body? If man
can do the photograph, God can do the
resurrection.
WONDERFUL FACT.
Will it be the same body that in the
| last day shall be terminated? Yes, but
infinitely improved. Our bodies change
every seven years, and yet in one sense
it is the same body. On my wrist and
the second finger of my right hand there
is a scar 1 made that at 10 years of age,
when, disguised at the presence of two
warts, I took redhot iron and burned
them off and burned them out. Since
then my body has changed at least half
dozen times, but those scars prove 1t is
the same body.
We never lose our identity. If God
can and does sometimes rebuild a man
five, six, ten times in this world, is it
mysterious that he can rebuild him once
more and that in the resurrection? Ii he
can do it 10 times, think he can do it II
times. Then look at the II year locusts.
For II years gone, at the end OF II years
they appear, and by rubbing the hind leg
against the wing make that rattle at
which all the husbandmen and vine
dressers tremble as the insectile host
takes up the march of devastation. Res
direction every II years-a wonderful
factl
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 attempt God made perfect
man. He made him out of the dust of
the earth. IF out of 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 res
direction. Surely the last undertaking
would not be greater than the first. See
the gospel algebra. Ordinary dust minus
a model equals a perfect man. Extraor-
binary dust and plus a model equals a
resurrection body. Mysteries about it?
| Oh, yes. That is one reason why l be-
heve it. It would not be much of God
who could do things only as faE as | can
understand. Mysteries? Oh, yes. But
no more about the resurrection of your
body than about its present existence.
A TIRED WORLD.
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 ortirAIy u, ara.saesat ee e,ez lsszdy xssAA
! act upon your body SO that at your will
your eyes open, or your foot walks, or
your hand is extended. So I find moth
ing in the Bible statement concerning
the resurrection that staggers me for a
moment. All doubts clear from my
mind. l say that the cemeteries, how.
ever beautiful now, will be more beauti-
full when the bodies of our loved ones
come up in the morning of the resurrec-
ton.
They viii 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, 81
am so tiredr' The fact is, it is tired
world. If should go through this au-
dience and go round the world, I could
not find person in any style of life ig-
norant of the sensation Of fatigue.
/ do not believe there are 90 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,
or your nerves are tired. Long journey
ing or business application or bereave-
ment or sickness has put ON you heavy
weights. So the vast majority of those
who went out of this world went out ia
tigued. About the poorest place to rest
in is this world. Its atmosphere, its sur
roundings and even its hilarities are ex-
hausting. So God stops our earthly life
and mercifully closes the eyes, and more
especially gives quiescence to the lung
and heart, that have not had 10 minutes
rest from the first respiration and the
first beat.
If drummer boy were compelled in
the army to beat his drum for "a hours
without stopping, his officer would be
court martialed for cruelty. If the drum
mer boy should be commanded to beat
his drum for week without ceasing,
day and night, he would die in attempt
ing it. But under your vestment is a
poor heart that began its drumbeat for
the march of life 80 or 40 or 60 or sc
years ago, and it has had no furlough by
day or night, and whether in conscious
or comatose state it went right on, for if
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 beat
ing for time. What a mercy, then, it
is that the grave is the place where that
wondrous machinery of ventricle and ar.
terry can halt!
DUST OF THE EARTH.
Under the healthful chemistry of the
soil all 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 resurrection body. How can
the bodies of the human race, which have
had no replenishment from the dust
since the time of Adam in paradise, get
any recuperation from the storehouse
from which he was constructed without
our going back into the dust? That orig
lnal life giving material having been
added to the body as it once was, and all
the defects left behind, what body will
be the resurrection bodyl And will not
hundreds of thousands of such appearing