The Monmouth inquirer., 1898-04-07
DEATH AND AFTER.
Meaning Of the Festival of ResurrectIo1
In Various Creeds.


! Copyright 1898 by American Press Asso-
ciation.l
Easter as church festival symbolizine
the resurrection Of Jesus Christ is the mir
acle on the truth of which Christianity
as a experimentation is founded. Regard
ed as the chief Of all religious festivals, II
seems singular that many Of the denomi-
nations have not observed it, though be-
lieying absolutely in what it commemo
rates. OF late years more and more sects
have celebrated Easter, but it is not long
since its celebration was mainly conflne
in this country to the Roman Catholic
and the Episcopalians All the churches
that claim to be orthodox hold faith in the
resurrection, physical and spiritual, OF
Jesus and in the conscious Immortality OF
the soul
In these days it would be difficult to
/! give even the names of the mum mberless
! churches that exist and impossible to say
what their members individually believe,
however exact and explicit their formal
profession of faith may be. Christians al
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 release from care and
/ pain, and they enter after it into state
of immortal beatitude This is certainly
most comforting ANY one 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
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 itseli
as the only true religion. Unhappily, as
experience shows, belief is not dependent
on wish or will. Each and every man be.
lieyes as his mind and temperament com
pei, 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. desxh
and the hereafter The orthodox commEi-
ly think of God as a personal being, after
| whose image we are created and who is in
| effect ourselves, exalted, idealized perfect
ed. The Donorthodox regard him as per,
vading spirit, prevalent influence, per-
manent, indestructible principle, subtle,
| universal emanation. Metaphysicians hava
| drawn all kinds of differences about Deity,
and in attempting to make him intelligi.
BILE have made him hopelessly obscure. II
is often supposed, when one man asks
another, ssDo you believe in God2' and
the other replies in the affirmative. that
the two entirely agree. Nothing could bd
further from certainty, since one man 4
idea of God may be 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 disagred
theologically have always been inclined to
apply freely and recklessly to each other.
Many able philosophers who recognize hia
existence now speak of God as unknown
and unknowable and therefore deprecata
theology and its study as worse than use.
less, because mere waste of time.
Concerning death there are as many and
discrepant opinions as about God, and nat
urally, since knowledge about either ia
clearly impossible. Death is rarely associat'
J ed, as it was a generation or two since.
with terror, except by persons OF narrow
training and convictions 1t has been re
lieved of the old theologic bugbears and il
looked on in more or less philosophis
light even by many assuming to be ortho'
connected with it have been changed.
Deathbed repentance, once deemed SO es,
sential even by Protestants, has grown OBJ.
solete, at least in cities. Clergymen ars
not considered in duty bound to visit thu
seriously i'll, nor are they sent for to pre-.
pare them for dissolution. Physicians do
not esteem it to be their duty to inform
their patients that they are near their end
unless for secular reasons. The exact con
trary, indeed, is practiced, for it is held
that any one dangerously i'll viii be mord
likely to recover If ignorant of the fact
than if deprived of hope, a great sustainef
always. This course would have been
Thought criminally culpable, extremely
wicked not many years ago, and today II
is almost universally followed and ap.
proved.
Death is not ordinarily accounted in it.
self calamitous, save for those who sur
viye, though every effort is made, ol
course, to avoid it or defer it so long al
may be. Men generally have no wish ID
die, unless particularly unfortunate in
some way (they would be morbid other
wiseJ, but when they see death approach.
ing they are apt to meet it with eompieta
resignation.
The theories-they can be nothing else
about death and the hereafter are as num-
berless as conflicting. They range between
the most consolatory and the most satur.
nine, and all of them have their earnest ad.
vocates Each and every one contains III
share of truth and harmonizes with the
minds and preconceptions of certain peo'
pie. The best rule, perhaps, is to adopt
the belief that accords with ones own
temperament The notion that man
cannot be good unless orthodox and that
a heterodoxist must be bad has ceased to
carry weight Morals and theology have
no connection. There are vicious Chris
tians and exemplary intidels- All con-
scientious persons believe what they must
and do what good they can. This is ths
practical religion of today.
.TUNIUs HENRI BROWNE