The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1895-04-26

Christ came out through q recess and
throttled the King Of Terrors, and put
him back in the niche from which the
celestial Conqueror had just emerged.
Ahal when the jaws OF the eastern
mausoleum took down the black giant,
death was swallowed up in victory.
i I proclaim the abolition of death.
The old antagonist is driven back into
mythology with all the lore about
Stygian ferry and Charon with oar
and boat. We shall have no more to
do with death than we have with the
cloak room at a governors or presi-
dents levee. We stop at such cloak
room and leave in charge of the serv-
ant our overcoat, our overshoes, our
outward apparel, that we may not be
impeded in the brilliant round of the
drawing room. Well, my friends,
when we go out of this world we are
going to kings banquet, and to re-
ception of monarchs, and at the door
of the tomb we leave the cloak of flesh
and the wrappings with which we
meet the storms of the world. At the
close of our earthly reception, under
the brush and broom of the porter,
the coat or hat may be handed to us
better than when we resigned it, and
the cloak of humanity will finally be
returned to us improved and bright
ened and purified and glorified. You
and do not want our bodies returned
to us as they are now. We want to
get rid of all their weakness, and all
their susceptibilities to fatigue, and
all their slowness of locomotion. They
will be put through chemistry of soil
and heat and cold and changing sea-
sons, out of which God will recon-
struct them as much better than they
are now as the body of the rosiest and
healthiest child that bounds over the
lawn is better than the sickest patient
in the hospital.
But as to our soul, we will cross
right over, not waiting for obsequies,
independent of obituary, into a state
in every way better, with wider room
and velocities beyond computation; the
dullest of us into companionship with
the very best moods, in the very best
room of the universe, the four walls
furnished and paneled and pictured
and glorified with all the splendors
that the infinite God in all ages has
been able to invent. Victory!
This view, of course, makes it of but
little Importance whether we are Gre
mated or sepultured. If the latter is
dust to dust. the former is ashes to
ashes. If any prefer incineration, let
them have it without caricature. The
world may become so crowded that Gre
nation may be universally adopted by
law as we'll as by general consent.
Many of the mightiest and best OF
earth have gone through this process.
Thousands and tens of thousands of
Gods children have been cremated.
p P. Bliss and wife, the evangelist
singers, cremated by accident at Ash
tabula bridge. John Rogers cremated
by persecu ton; Latimer and Ridley
cremated at Oxford; Pothinus and
Blondina, slave, and Alexander, a
physician, and their comrades, Gre
mated at the order of Marcus Aurelius. |
At least a hundred thousand of |
Chrlst's disciples cremated, and there |
,an be no doubt about the resurrection |
If their bodies. If the world lasts as
much loE ger as 1t has already been |
quilt, there, perhaps, may be no room |
lor the sarge acreage set apart for |
'esting places, but that time has not
come. Plenty of room yet, and the
ace need not pass that bridge OF fire |
Until it comes to it. The most of us |
prefer the old way. But whether out |
If natural disintegration or crema-
ion we shall get that luminous, buoy
INT, gladstone, transcendent, magnifi-
,ent, inexplicable structure called the
body, you will have 1t,
will have it. say to you to-day, as
Paul said to Agrippa; why should it
De thought a thing incredible with |
you, that God should raise the dead!"
That far-up cloud, higher than the
lawk flies, higher than the eagle flies. |
what is it made of? Drops of water |
rom the Hudson, other drops from
East river, other drops from stagnant
POOL out on Newark fats. Up yonder
here, embodied in a cloud and the |
Jun kindles it. If God can make snch |
. lustrous cloud out of water drops, |
many of them soiled and impure. and
etched from miles away, can He |
lot transport the fragments of hui
nan body from the earth, and ont of |
hem build radiant body? Can not
Tod, who owns all the material out |
IF which bones, and muscle, and
desh are made, set them up again |
4 they have fallen? If a manu-
Iacturer OF telescopes drop telescope
IN the floor and it breaks, can he not
mend 1t again so you can see though It?