The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1898-03-03
OUR IMMORTALITY.
IT IS THE CABLE THAT
HOLDS Us.
A CRAVING SELF WITHIN US.
Some Rambling Thoughts.
BY "NEMo."

Copyrighted by Dave & Tabor.)
As to Immortality With all ami.
mails we share our physical needs and
frailties so that there is nothing out
of conformity to nature it this body
waste away by age or by disease. If
this mind, remarkable though Its pow
ers are, is based upon physical changes
within the substance of the brain, we
need to raise no serious protest if its
powers wane az we become aged. If
in the grave these hands and eyes,
these bones and muscles transform in
to mere gases and compounds, so that
in the place of the living being there
remain but few plnches of dust,
why should we shudder at the
thought? These, our elements, were
gathered through the years from earth
and air and they have simply returned
to their own. But if this personality,
this EGO which makes me differ from
every other person, and every other
person differ from me-if this indlvid-
uality that sits In judgment somewhere
within us, daring all things, hoping all
things, measuring all things; if this,
come to an end like the rest; if this,
though noting physical decay yet still
soaring higher and higher, undecaying
undecayed, is only to be Knocked at
with sudden annihilatlon, then may
we we'll curse God and die. For then
are we mere experimental whims of a
fiend instead of nurtured and cherished
creatures of a benign being.
xrA
What else can be true If death ends
all? The knowledge of oneself as be-
ing separate and individual, is a very
horror for it only leads us up to high
places in order to cast us down head
long as soon as we have gained a
glimpse of broad, well-ordered uni
verse. Better not to have been, than
to attain glorles that no animal ever
reached, and then have those glories
blotted out-as a dark, unwholesome
bewiIdering night blots out the day.
There Is no escaping the cruelty of the
thing, if annihllation is all that re-
mains after our noble curbings of self,
after our deeds of loYe, after our sense
of kinship WITH the good, after our
longings for fuller life and knowledge.
Look on a noble woman. Her indi-
vidual character is quite independent
of any functions that remain or any
functions that cease. She lives to i'm
press others, and to guide them, wheth-
er her own or her neighbors. Follow
her onward through the years. With
enfeebled step but with heart enriched,
she still does her unselfish errands and
plannings. Now comes helplessness
but she is yet the same individual
whose best remains brightest. At last
we hear final sobbing sigh. Am I to
believe that the mere circumstance OF
a debated lung has destroyed char
acter that neither trials nor pain nor
weakness could destroy? If so, then
matter is superior to mind and mind to
character and we would better eat,
drink and live sensuously, for tomorrow
we vanish.
~
There is another phase of the sub
iect that gives us distress if we think
of it. Reflect on the imperfect ones
the victims of heredity who know not
what they do save as the impulse OF an
ancestor compels them the bearers oi
physical and mental burdens by reason
OF wrongs which they themselves never
committed. Think on those who are
weighted down with care and trouble
almost from the cradle to actually the
grave; on those -serfs, slaves, and the
wretchedly poor-who get, not of free
will but by chance, merely the bread
crumbs that fall from rich mems tables
Think on the dwellers in the dark places