The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-04-26

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 glorifed. 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 a 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 state
in every way better. with widerroom
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 glorifed 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 well 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 crematcd.
p. p. Bliss and wife, the evangelist
singers, cremated by accident at Ash
tabula bridge. John Rogers cremated
by persecution; Latimer and Ridley
cremated at Oxford; Pothinus and
Blondina, slave, and Alexander,
physician, and their comrades, Gre
mated at the order of Marcus Aurelius.
At least a hundred thousand of
Chrlsts 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
resting places, but that time has not
come. Plenty of room yet, and the
race need not pass that bridge of fire
until 1t coUscS to it. The most of us
prefer the old way. But whether out
of natural disintegration or crema-
tiOn we shall get that luminous, buoy
ant, gladstone, transcendent, magnifi-
cent, jnexplicable structure called the
resurrection body, you will have it, /
will have it. / 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 deadr'
That far-up cloud, higher than the
hawk flies, higher than the eagle flies.
what is it made of? Drops of water
from the Hudson, other drops from
East river, other drops from stagnant
pool out on Newark fats. Up yonder
there, embodied in a cloud and the
sun kindles it. If God can make such
a lustrous cloud out of water drops,
many of them soiled and impure, and
fetched from miles away, can He
not transport the fragments of hui
man body from the earth, and out of
them build a radiant body? Can not
God, who owns all the material out
of which bones, and muscle, and
flesh are made, set them up again
if they have fallen? If a manu-
facturer of telescopes drop a telescope
on the floor and it breaks, can he not
mend it again SO you can see though it?
And if God drops the human eye into
the dust, the eve 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 originally construct
ed, and actually improve it, do you
not think the fashioner of the human
eye may improve its sight and multi
ply the natural eye by the thousand
fold additional forces of the resurrec-
tion eye?
'Why should it be thought with you
an incredible thing that God should
raise the dead?'' Things all around us
suggest it. Out of what grew all these
flowers? Out of the mould and earth.
Resurrected. Resurrected. The radi-
ant butterfly, where did it come from?
The loathsome caterpillar. The al
batross that smites the tempest with
its wings, where did it come from? A
senseless shell. Near Bergerac, France,
found flower seeds that had been bur-
led two thousand years. The explorer
took the flower seeds and planted it,
and it came up, it bloomed in bluebell
and heliotrope. Two thousand years
ago buried, yet resurrected. A trav-
eler says he found in a mummy pit in
Egypt garden peas that had been bur
led there three thousand years ago.
He brought them out, and on June 4,
1874. he planted them, and in thirty
days they sprang up. Buried three
thousand 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 homes2 In the
hollow of a staff a Greek missionary.
brought from China to Europe the pro-
genitors of those worms that now sup
ply the silk markets of many nations.
The pageantry of hammered hose and
the luxurious articles of commercial
emporium blazing out from the silk
wormsl And who shall be surprised if
out of this insignificant earthly life our
bodies unfold into something worthy
of the coming ~eternities- Put silver