The Penn's Grove record., 1894-03-30

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improved. Our bodies change every seven
years, and yet in one sense 1t is the same
BODY. On my wrist and the second nnger
OF my right hand there is a scar. 1 made
that at twelve years Of age, when, disguised
1.-THE presence OF two warts, / took o redhot
iron and burned them off and burned them
put. 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. II God can
and does sometimes rebuild n 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 ten times,
| think He can do it eleven times. Then
look at the seventeen year locusts. FOR
seventeen years gone, at fhe 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
tremble as the i~nsactile host takes up the
march OF devastation. Resurrection every
seventeen years-a wonderful fact!
Another consideration makes the idea oil
resurrection easier. God made Adam. He
was not fashioned after any model. There
had never been n human organism, and so
there was nothing to copy. At the first Mt
tempt God made u perfect man. He made
him out Of fine dust Of the earth. If out of
ordinary dust Of the earth and without a
model God could make a perfect man,, surely
ont OF the extraordinary dust of mortal body
hnl Win MlIuONS OF mOdelS Uou can ihdhe
each one OF Us a perfect being in the resur-
r~ertion. Surely the last undertaking would
not be greater than the first. See the gospel
algebra. Ordinary dust minus a model
equals n perfect man. Extraordinary dust
and plus a model equals a resurrection body.
Mysteries about it? Oh, yes. That is one
reason why l believe 1t. 1t would not be
much ola God who could do things only as
far as [ can understand. MysteriesP On.
yes. But no moro about the resurrection OF
your body than about its present existence.
will explain to youthe 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 indie |
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 l find nothing in the Bible statement con- |
corning the resurrection that staggers me
for a moment. All doubts clear from my
mind. L say that the cemeteries, however
beautiful now, will De more beautiful when
the boites 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 dow at the last very tired. How
often you have heard them say, 81 am SO
tired" The fact is. it is q tired world. Ii /
should go through this audience and go |
round the world. l could not find a person in |
any style of life ignorant of the sensation OF
fatigue.
1 do not believe there are fifty 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 jaurneying or business ap- |
p~lication or bereavement or sickness has put
on you heavy weights. So the vast majority |
Of those who went out of this world went
but 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 inc
mercifuly closes the eyes, and more espe- |
cially gives qutesccnce to thelung and heart, |
| that have not had ten minutes rest from the |
first respiration and the first beat.
II a umm hoy were compelled in the
army to beat his drum for twenty-four hours |
i without stopping, his officer would be court |
nartialed for cruelty. II the drummer boy
should be commanded to beat his drum for a
week without ceasing, day and night, he |
would die in attempting ii. 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 it has had no
furlough by day or night, and whether in
| conscious or cOmatose state 1t went right on, |
Tor if 1t In | stopped seven seconds your life
would have Closed. And your heart will |
keep going until some time after your spirit
has flown. Tor the auscultator says that after
the last expiration OF lung and the last throb
Of pulse, and after the spirit is released, tho
heart keeps on beating tor a time. What q |
mercy, then. it is that tho 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 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
lust out OF which the body Of Adam was
constructed may be infused into the resur-
| rection body. How can the bodies of the hui
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 dust2 That
original life giving material having been
added to the body as 1t once was. and all the
defects left behind, what a body will be the
resurrection body! And will not hundreds
Of thousands of such appearing above the
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
arst human being, we have to go back to the
same place to get a perfect body.
Factories are apt to be rough places, and
those who toll in them have their garments
yrimy and their hands smutehed. But who
cares for that when they turn out for US
beautiful musical instruments or exquisite
upholstery? What though the grave is a
rough place-it is a resurrection body manu-
factory, and from it shall come the radiant
and resplendant forms Of our friends on the
brightest morning the world ever saw. You
put into a factory cotton, and 1t comes out
apparel. You put into a factory lumber and
lead, and they come out pianos and organs
And so in the factory of the grave you nut
In pneumonias and co~nsumptlons, and they
come out health. You put in groans, and
they come out halleluiahs. For us, on the
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be the parks, or the gardens, or the palaces,
but the cemeteries.
We are not told in what season that day
will come. If it shouldb 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 panciled them. II
In the spring, the bloom on which they tread
will be duh compared with the rubicund of
heir cheeks. Oh, the perfect resurrection
body Almost everybody has SOM defec-
i've spot in his physical constitutions dull
ear, or a dim eye, or Il rheumatic foot, or a
neuralgic brow, or q twisted muscle, or a
weak side, or an inlamed tonsil, or some
point at which the east wind or a season OF
overwork assaults him.
But the resurrection body shall be without
one weak spot, and all that the doctors and
nurses and apothecaries 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 well kept cemeteries.
but some Of the graveyards that have been
neglected and been the pasture ground for
cattle and roostlng place for swine will for
the first time have attraetiveness givdn
them.
1t was a shame that in that place migrate.
full generations planted no trees and twisted
no garlands, and sculpturet no marble for
their Christian ancestry. But on the day Of
which | speak the resurrectei shall make the
place of their feet glorious. From under the
shadow of the church where they slumbered
among nettles and MULLEN stalks and this
ties and slabs aslant, they shall arise with a
glory tina. shall fash the windows of the
village church, and by the bell tower that
used to call them to worship. and above the
old spire beside which their prayers formerly
assembled. What triumphal procession never
did for astreet, what an oratoFio never did
for an academy, what an orator never did
for a brilliant audit9fy, what obelisk never
did for a king, resuA lction morn will do for
all the cemeteries.
This Easter tells US that In Christ,s resur-