The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-04-10
DEATH AND AFTER.
Meaning of the. Festival of Resurrection
In Various Creeds.

In Various Creeds.
copyright, 1895, by American Press Asso-
ciation.l
Faster as church festival symbolizing
the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the mir
acle on the truth of which Christianity
as a supernatura1ism is founded Regard
ed as the chief OF all religious festivals, it
seems singular that many of the denOmi-
nations have not observed it, though be-
lioving absolutely in what it commemo-
rates. OF late sears more and more sects
have celebrated Easter, but it is not long
since its celebration was mainly confined
In this country to the Roman Catholics
and the Episcopalians All tho churches
that claim to beorthodox hold faith in the
resurrection, physical and spiritual, of
Jesus and in tho conscious immortality of
the soul
In these days it would be difficult to
give even the names of the numberless
churches that exist and impossible to say
what their members individually believe,
however exact and explicit their formal
profession of faith may be. Christians at
large hope for salvation through the atone
ment of Jesus, for eternal bliss hereafter
in the presence of God and the angels
Death is to them a release from care and
pain, and they enter after it into state
of immortal beatitudo. This is certainly
most comforting. Any ono who earnestly
cherishes such faith should be able to bear
all the ills of this world in view of what
is in store for him:in the next 1t seems
n pity that the whole of mankind cannot
accept it and be made happy by it instead
of having diversity Of religions, each one
of which makes the same claims for truth
that Christianity does and regards itself
as tho only true religion. Unhappily, as
experience shows, belief is not dependent
on wish or will. Each and every man be-
lieves az his mind and temperament COM
pel and this fact necessarily peoples the
planet with heretics whatever the prevail
ing religion or religions.
Apart from forms of worship, so called,
there are endless differences of opinion,
most OF them radical, about God death
and the hereafter. The orthodox common
ly think of God as 4 personal being, after
whose image we are created and who Is IN
effect ourselves exalted ideal1zed, perfect
ed. The nonorthoddx regard him as per-
vading spirit, prevalent influence, per-
manent, indestructible principle, SUBTLE
universal emanation. MetaphySicians have
drawn ali kinds of inferonces about Deity,
and in attempting 60 make him intelligi-
BILE have made him hopelessly obscure. 1t
is often supposed, when one man asks
another, ''Do you believe in God?' and
the other replies in the affirmative, that
the two entirely agree. Nothing could be
further from certainty, since one mans
idea of God may lie altogether distinct
from that of the other. We may all have
faith in God, God of some sort, and yet
be as far apart as the poles. Believers Of
ten denounce believers differing in belief
as atheists, a term that those who disagree
theologically have always been inclined to
apply freely and recklessly to each other.
Many able philosophers who recognize his
existence now speak of God as unknown
and unknowable and therefore deprecate
theology and its study rs worse than use
less, because a mere waste of time.
Concerning death there are as many and
discrepant opinions as about God, ana nat
urally, since knowledge about either is
clearly impossible. Death is rarely associat-
ed, as it was a generation or two since,
with terror, except by persons of narrow
training and convictions. 1t has been re-
loved of the old theologic bugbears and is
looked ON in a moro or less phiiosophic
light, even by many assuming to be ortho-
dox. All the ancient habits and feelings
connected with it havo been changed.
Deathbed repentance, once deemed so es-
sential even by Protestants, has grown OBJ
solete, at least in cities Clergymen are
not considered in duty bound to visit the
seriously i'll, nor are they sent for to pre-
pare them for dissolution Physicians do
not esteem it to be their dGty to inform
their patients that they are near their end
unless for secular reasons. The exact con
trary, indeed, .is practiceda for 1t Is held