Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-05-08
Spiritual Bodies.

How are the dead raised up ana with Wnat
body do they come ?-1. Corinthians XIV, %.
We should be sorry to wound any
ones religious sensibilities, but the
resurrection of these mortal bodies Is a
very grave question, and we can AFFORD
to look at it from every reasonable
standpoint.
at has been a cherished dogma of the
Christian Church for centuries, and
should therefore be discussed with
gentle courtesy as well as an honest
firmness.
If we could disabuse ourselves OF the
ideas on this subject which we have re-
ceived by inheritance, and consider 1t
on it's simple merits, thoughtfully
weighing for ourselves the arguments
in favor and against, we should have
less difficulty in reaching conclusion;
but it is so inwrought with the history
of the Church that we find it difficult
to Judge without bias which amounts
to prejudice.
Let us be entirely frank in the asser-
ton that, while it is a Church dogma,
it is certainly not Christ dogma. Inc
Master nowhere declares that we shall
carry with us into the other world the
tabernacle of flesh which is our resi-
dence in this life. Though there are
some few passages of Scripture which
intimate such possibility, it is only
by strained Interpretation, and we
can hardly read st. Paul without see
ing that he recognized a spiritual as
we'll as a natural body, the latter to be
resolved into dust and the former to be
our habitation in the future life.
There are very few of us who would
not be glad to exchange the body OF
| this DEATH for a tabernacle better
suited to the environment which the
soul will have in heaven.
| The old farmhouse in which we were
| born seemed a palace to us during the
years of our childhood, and we still re-
call with genuine sentiment the clam
| boring honeysuckle and the quaint
doorway and the stately furniture in
the parlor. Since we have grown to be
men we visit the dear home from time
to time, but would hardly be willing to
| live in the midst of its many inconven-
fences. In like manner we delight in
our bodies as temporary residences, but
| if disembodied spirit were command
ed to re enter the fieshly house which
| was discarded at death it would feel a
painful sense of incongruity. The
thought that such may possibly be the
case is surely very repulsive. and we
wonder that the good Lord who babe
the grub leave its coarse encasement
behind when it became a butterfly
should not grant an equal privilege to
men.
So far as the great majority are con
cerned, their bodies are actually worn
out at death, and resemble machines
which have fully subserved their pur-
nose and can be no longer useful. Men
of science tell us that these bodies are
| so constructed that repair after GER
| tain lapse of years is impossible, and
that the prophecy of doom is inter
woven with every physical fibre and
function. On the other hand, the spir-
it becomes brighter and younger with
| time. Countless summers may come
and countless winters go, but the spirit
of man grows not old and has no pre-
monition of decay. At that supreme
moment, when fieshly ruin is complete,
and the body through sheer exhaustion
sinks into the grave; at that moment,
when we reverently put above the sod
tablet with the ominous legend, I'm
| Memoriam," as though the end had
come and the body would thereafter
resolve itself into dust and never more
be seen-at that moment the soul, glad
| in it's new found freedom, breathing
for the first time the air of liberty, un-
chained, unhampered, unconfined,
plumes its royal wings for flight to the
throne of God. How grateful such a
soul must be for permission to quit its
narrow quarters, to get away from the
limitations of muscle and nerve and all
the entanglements of the flesh What
bliss, after the lingering Imprisonment,
to be clothed upon with spiritual
body-like unto the earthly body in
presentment, perhaps, but OF that we
know naught-and feel that the In
| glorious regime of the flesh has been
/ terminated by the magnificent coup
dictate of death
And when we have once escaped from
this rude tenement, this house of dust
in which the princes of immortality
must live for an allotted term, will you
think so poorly of the Great Kings re-
sources, will you so limit His wisdom
and power, as to declare that the cast
off garment of the soul will be cleansed
and refitted and worn throughout eter-
nity? When we are done with the body
shall we not have done with it forever?
Once in the ground, shall it not be left
there, the gentle earth taking it to it
self and transforming it by magic chem
istry into the flowers of the pasture and
the wheat of the field? Why should
the Eternal One regather these scatter
ed particles from the four corners of the
earth and the depths of the sea, and
by a miracle of recreation fashion them
once more into a home for the soul
Shall flesh and blood enter the king
dom of heaven, whose Sovereign is
Eternal Spirit? And shall we, when
when once rid of our deformities and
ailments, be doomed to reoccupy the
old fashioned house and submit once
more to it's inconvenience?
1t cannot be; it will not be. God,
who made US, is too large in His love
and too gracious in His provision for
our comfort to desire that we shall ever,
under any circumstances, move back to
the habitation which He has Himself
caused to fall into ruin. Not these
poor bodies will be our future home,
| but bodies far more comedy, of finer
fibre and material, in which our souls
will be proud to dwell. For time only
we live in the flesh, but when the glori-
Gus change shall come, the alchemy of
death will separate the mortal from the
immortal, the former crumbling into
atoms, the latter putting on as we'd
ding garment that spiritual body to
which st. Paul refers with such sub
| lime eloquence and which will be a
worthy residence for one who is to live
eternally in the presence of our Creator
and Father.-NeaO York Herald.
Trust Those Who Have Tried"
Catarrh caused hoarseness and diff
| Guilty in speaking. 1 also to great
extent lost hearing. By the use of
Ely's Cream Balm dropping of mucus
hac opaSod vOice and hearing have