Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1894-04-06

,
body. On my wrist AMI the second finger
OF my right hand there is scar. l made
that at twelve years of age, when, disguSted
atthe presence Of two warts, took a 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 it is the same body.
We never lose our identity. If God can
and does sometimes rebuild man five, six,
ten times in this world, is it mysterious that
He can rebuild him once more and that in
the resurrection? If He can do it ten times,
think He can do it 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 dressers
trembe as the in5ectile host takes up the
march of devastation. Resurrection every
seventeen years-a wonderful fact
Another consideration makes the idea OF
resurrection easier. God made Adam. He
was not fashioned after any model. There
had never been a human organism, and 80
there was nothing to copy At the first at
tempt God made a perfect man. Ho made
him out Of the dust of the earth. If out OF
ordinary dust Of the earth and without
model God could make a 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 q model
equals a perfect man. Extraordinary Gust
and plus a model equals a resurrection body.
Mysteries about it? Oh, yes. That is one
reason why belieye it. 1t would not be
much Of a God who could do things only as
far as l can understand. Mysteries2 On,
yes. But no more about the resurrection Of
your body than about its present existence.
] will explain to YOUTH last mystery of the
NI,,Sn
that two and two make four if you will tell
me how your mind, which is entirely lde-
pendent of your body, can act upon your
body so that at your will your eyes open. or
your foot walks, or yOur hand is extended.
SO | find nothing in the Bible statement con-
Cerning the resurrection that staggers me
for q moment. All doubts clear from my
mind. 1 say that the cemeteries, however
beautiful now, will be moro 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 '1st very tired. How
often you have heard them say, "I am so
tired - The fact is, it is a tired world. Ii
should 90 through this audience and go
round the world, I could not find person in
any style of life ignorant of the sensation OF
fatigue
do not believe tn ere are fifty persons in
is tired, or your back is tired. or your foot is
tired, or your brain is tired, or your nerves
are tired. Long jOurneying 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. It's atmosphere, its sur
rounIings and even its hilaritles are exhaust
ing So God stops our earthly life and
mercffully closes the eyes, and more espe-
cially gives quiescence to the lung and heart,
that have not had ten minutes rest fcom the
first SpiratiOn and the first beat.
If a 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
vestment is a poor heart that began its drum
beat for the march Of life thirty or forty or
sixty or eighty years ago, and 1t has mad no
Through by day or night, and whether IN
conscious or cOmatOse state 1t went right on,
for if it had stopped seven seconds your lie
would have closed. And your heart will
keep going until some time after your spirit
has flown for the auScutatOr 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
all the wear and tear of nerve and muscle
and bono 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 hu-
man race, which have had no replenishment
from the dust since the time Of Adam in par
AIrDT, Fp-ONv no cf,N
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 it once was, and all the
defects left behind, what body Will be the
resurrection body And will not hundreds
of thousands of such appearing above tho
Gowanus heights make Greenwood more
beautiful than any June morning after a
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 perfect body.
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 instruments or exquisite
upholstery? What though the grave is a
rough placg-it is n resurrection body manu-
factory and from it shall come tho radiant
and respIendant forms of our friends on the
brightest morning the world ever saw. You
put into q factory cotton, and 1t comes out
apparel. You put into factory lumber and
lead. and they come out pianos and organs.
And so in the factory of the grave you put
in pneumOnias and consumptiOns, and they
come out health You put in groans, and
they come out halleluiahs. 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 Jason that day
will come. If it 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.
in the spring, the bloom on which they treaC
will be dull compared with the rubicund o
their cheeks. Oh, the perfect resurrection
body! Almost everybody has some defec
tive spot in his physical constitutions dul
ear. or dim eye, or a rheumatic foot, or E
neuralgia brow or twisted muscle, or 1
weak side, or an infamed tonsii, or som'
point at which the east wind or a season o
! Overwork assaults him.
But the resurrection body shall be Wlthou
one weak spot and all that the doctors anC
! nurses and apothecaries of earth will there
| after have to do will be to rest without in
/ terruption after the broken nights of thei
! earthly existence. Not only will that da,
! be the Identification of we'll kept cemeteries
! but some of the graveyards that have beel
| neglected and been the pasture ground 10
cattle and roosting place for swine will &c
the first time have attractiveness glvel
them.
It was shame that in that place migrate
| full generations planted no trees and twiste
no garlands, and sculptured no marble fo
their Christian ancestry. But on the day {
| which speak the resurrected shall make tn
place OF their feet glorious. From under til
shadow of the church where they slumbere
among nettes and MULLEN stalks and this
ties and slabs aslant, they shall arise with
glory that shall flush the windows Of th
village church, and by the bell tower thf
used to call them to worship, and above tn
old spire beside which their prayers tormerl
| ascended. What triumphal procession neve
did for street, what an oratorio never di
for an academy, what an orator never di
for brilliant auditory, what obelisk neve
did for king, resurrection morn will do 10
all the cemeteries.
This Easter tells US that in Christ's resul
rection our resurrection, if we are His, an
the resurrection of all the DiOus dead. is as