The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-04-19


that bounds over the lawn is bette
than the sickest patient in the hospital
But as to our soul, we will eros
right over, not waiting for obsequies
Independent of obituary. into a stat
in every way better. with wider room
and velocities beyond computation; the
dullest of us will find companionshiI
with the very best spirits in their bes
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 Goo
/ in all ages has been able to invent.
! Victorvl
This view, of course, makes it of lit
tie Importance whether we are ere
mated or sepulture1. If the latter is
dust to dust. the former is ashes tc
ashes. If any prefer incineration, let
them have it without caricature.
The world may become so crowded
that cremation may be universally
adopted by law as well as by general
consent. Many of the mightiest and
best of earth have gone through this
process. Thousands and tens of thou,
sands of Gods children have been ere
mated. p p. Bliss and wife. the
evangelist singers, cremated by ac-
cident at Ashtabula bridge. John
Rogers cremated by persecution;
Latimer and Ridley cremated at Ok
ford; Pothinus, and Blondina, slave,
and Alexander, a physician, and their
4 4nI a4 hA ~
Marcus Aurelius. At least a hundred
thousand of Christ's disciples cremated,
and there can be no doubt
about the resurrection of their
bodies. If the world lasts as
much longer as it has already been
built, there perhaps may be no room
for the large acreage set apart for rest
ing places. but that time has not come.
Plenty of room yet. and the race need
not pass that bridge of fire until it
comes to il. The most of US prefer the
old way. But whether out of natural
disintegration or cremation we shall
get that luminous, buoyant, gladstone,
transcendent, magnificent. ineXplica-
BILE structure, called the resurrection
body, you will have it, will have it.
l say to you to-day, as Paul said to
Agrippa: why should it be thought a
thing incredible with you, that God
should raise the dead?"
That far-up cloud, higher than the
hawk flies, higher than the eagle flies,
what is it made of? Drops of wa
ter from the Hudson. other drops
from East river. other drops from a
stagnant pool out on Newark fats. Up
yonder there. embodied in cloud and
the sun kindles it. If God can make
such a lustrous cloud out of water
drops, many of them soiled and i'm
pure, and fetched from many miles
away, can He not transport the frag-
ments of a human body from the earth,
and out of them build a radiant
body? Cannot God. who owns all
the material out of which bones, and
and flesh are made, set them
up again. if they have fallen? If
of telescopes drops tel
escope on the floor and it breaks, can he
not mend it again so you can see
it? And if God drops the
human eye into the dust. the eye which
He originally fashioned, can He not
restore it? Aye, if the manufacturer
of the telescope. by change of the
glass and a change of focus. can make
a better glass than that which was
constructed, and actually
improve it. do you not think the fash
ioner of the human eye may improve
its sight and multiply the natural eye
by the thousand-fold additional forces
of the resurrection eye?
why should it be thought with you
an incredible thing that God should
raise the dead?'' Things all round US
suggest it. Out of what grew all these
flowers? Out of the mold and earth.
Resurrected. The radi-
ant butterfly. where did it come from?
The loathsome caterpillar. That alba
tross that smites the tempest with its
wing. where did it come from? A sense
less shell. Near Bergerac, France, in a
Celtic tomb. under block, were found
flower seeds that had been buried 1000
years. The explorer took the flower
seed and planted it, and it came up, it
bloomed in bluebell and heliotrope.
Two thousand years ago buried, yet
A traveller says he found
in a mummy pit in Egypt garden peas
that had been buried there 5000 years
ago. He brought them out and on
June 4, 1s44. he planted them, and in
thirty days they spraug up. Buried
:, 900 years, yet resurrected.
"Why should it be thought thing
incredible with you that God should
raise the dead?" Where did all this
silk come from, the silk that adorns
your persons and your homes? In the
hollow of a staff a Greek missionary
brought from China to Europe the
progenitors of those worms that now
supply the silk markets of many ma
tions. The pageantry of hammered
host and the luxurious articles of COM
mercial emporium blazing out from
the silk worms! And who shall be sur
prised if out of this insignificant earth
" life our bodies unfold into something
worthy of the coming eternities- Put
silver into diluted inter and il dissolves-
Is the silver gone forever? No. Put
in some pieces of copper and the silver
If one force dissolves, an
other force reorganizes.
''Why should it be thought thing
incredible with you that God should
raise the dead?" The insects flew and
the worms crawled last autumn feebler
and feebler and then stopped They
have taken no food; they want none.
They lie dormant and insensible, but
soon the south wind will blow the
resurrection trumpet and the air and
the earth will be full of them. Do you
not think that God can do as much for
our bodies as He does for the wasps