Evening star., 1896-11-28
THE FUTURE LIFE.
Death Only a NATURAL Phase of Pby.
steal Being.

From Light, London
One Of Mr.. NJ. ]. Savaee's lately publis,ed
sermons gives an instructive Summary q
beliefs In immortality since Christ. After
rapidly but clearly expounding the ideas OF
Paui, and the revision of them In the Ro-
man Catholic Church, AMI afterwar,l hv
Inc reformers he comes to modern times
ana presents his own view in very strIk-
Ing manner, as the following extracts will
show:
Il do not beliave that deafn came into the
world as the result Of any invasion of evil
from outside. i do not believe that death
is the result of human sin. 1 do not be
neve that 1t is any token of GcG's anger
do not believe IL Is an aftcrthousht, some
thing that God did not originally intend. ]
peneve rather that 1t is part of the di-
Vine, the universal order, that II is as natu-
raj as being born. ami that IL is as much
an indication of the love OF ,Iod as is being
born. OF course. l do not believe I'm any mn
derworid. 1t is strange to me how lonp
such Ideas persist. All these conccpiions Of
which | have been speaking belong 10 !,
Ftolemaic universe. There is absolutely nc
place for them In a Copernican universe
They are simply survivals of the worlds
ignorance of the barbaric ideas of the
past.
Death Is simply a natural phase of life
For, though can not stop to give my rea-
sons, L believe there are reasons adequate
reasons, for believing that what. we cali
death is not the end of individual exist
ence. i believe we pass through il and ont
and up and on. What are we? Where do
We go? We do not go into any under
world. We 60 not ascend into any hpaNep
just above the dome of blue; for we know
that this dome of blue Is only an optical
delusion. 1t was once believed to be a
solid dome which might be a fitting founda-
ton for celestial court
do go out rs ciSpmbOiipd thp,,rl,tS0
That / cannot believe. disembodied
thought is something 10 me utterly incon-
ceivable- believe that the souls
of those that we call dead ar. not un-
clothed, but i'm the ~language which Paul
used, are clothed upon. 1 believe that they
possess bodies not as real as these, but un-
speakably more real, thrilling with an in
tensity of life of which at present we are
perhaps utterly unable 10 conceive
Il believe, then, as the result OF our
thinking and our feeling and our loving
and our hating, that what may be called a
psychical body is being built up in U.S. or
ganized day by day. In the process OF
death We are released from this outward
shell very much as the butterfly is re-
leased from its chrysalis. There has been
going on through the whole length of life
of the cocoon the organization of another
md to us invisible form within. By-and-
by II breaks open; and the life comes forth
and enters upon another stage of its ca
reer. 1t Is transformed, lifted, goes on to
something finer and higher. l use this only
as a crude Illustration. ] believe something
akin 10 this is going on within u.s. and thai
death means the breaking. open of the chry-
sails and the scaping ON into this larger
life, and that we enter on that life-and
here is the tremendous moral power of
belief like this-Just the kind Of men and
women that we have made ourselves by
thoughts, our emotions, our actions here
only that there, as here, is Infinite oppor-
tunity through suffering, IL need he, through
whatever experience is necessary, for study
for growth, for ascent toward the high
est"