Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1900-08-29
Ingalls, on a Future Life.

Il
Ingalls, on Future Life,
The following article was written
last April for the New York Journal
by j. j. Ingalls, during his last illness
and appeared in the New York Journal
under the caption of
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
When Voltaire said if there were No
God 1t would be necessary for man to
invent one, he formulated, unconscious.
ly perhaps, the fundamental truth OF
existence.
a universe without God is an in
tellectual absurdity which reason re.
lects spontaneously. God is indispen-
sable. Fate, force and blind chance do
not satisfy the mind. If all the letters
IN the play Of Hamlet were shaken In
dice box and thrown at midnight in q
tempest on the desert of Sahara they
might fall exactly as they are arranged
In the drama. 1t may be admitted that
If destiny kept on casting long enough
they would inevitably at some time SO
fall, which would render the Bard OF
Avon superflous and unnecessary. But
this does not disturb our belief in
Shakespeare.
Irrespective of creeds and theology.
they are wise who would recognize God
in the constitution, because faith In q
Supreme Being, in Immortality and the
compensations of eternity conduces
powerfully to social order by enabling
man to endure with composure the in
justice of this world in the hope Of
repsration in that which is to come,
= Inssmuch as both force AMI meter
are infinite and indestructible, and can
be neither added to nor substracted
from, it follows that in some form we
have always existed, and that we shall
continue in some form to exist forever
Whence we came into this life no one
knows or cares. Evolution, metem.
sychosis, reincarnation are not beliefs.
They are parts of speech interesting
only to the compiler of lexicons.
sour appearance!hereis not voluntary.
We are sent to this planet on some
mysterious errand, without being con-
suited in advance. Many of us would
not have come had the opportunity to
decline with thanks been presented.
To multitudes life is an inconceivable
insult and injury, an intslerabIe af-
front, torture and wretchsaness in
describable from poverty, disease, for
tunes sings and arrows; wrongs de-
hberately inflicted by some unknown,
malignant power, as Job was tormented
by the devil, with the consent of God,
just to try him, till at last the troubled
patriarch cursed the day he was born.
Worst of sll, we are sent here under
sentence OF death. The most grleyous
and humiliating punishment man can
intltct upon the criminal is death.
Human tribunals give the malefactor.
q chance. His crime must be proved.
He can put in his defense. He can ap-
pear by attorney and plead and take
appeal. But we are all condemned to
death beforehand. The accusation and
the accuser are unknown. An inexor-
able verdict has been pronounced and
recorded in the secret council of the
skies. We are neither confronted with
the witness nor allowed day in court.
From the hour of birth we are beset
by invulnerable and invisible enemies,
the pestilence that walketh in darkness
and the destruction that wastcth at
MONDAY. Fatal germs, immortal
bacilli, heayen-sent microbes inhabit
the air we breathe, the food we eat, the
water we drink, poisoning where they
fly and injecting where they repose.
c Science continually discloses maleyo-
lent agencies, hitherto undetected,
which vainly try to extirpate o. to
build frail and feeble barriers against
their depredations.
Theology complacently announces
that for the majority of the human
race this tough world is the prehde to
an eternity in hell. Ii any trembling
sinner desires comfort and consolation
in these awful miseries let him read
the sermon of Jonathan Edwards from
the text, Their feet shall slide in due
time.'
He'll would be preferable to annihila-
tion, it may be, but this alternative
does not satisfy those who repeat the
everlasting interrogatory of Job, If
a man die, shall he live againY
Mature, like a witness in contempt,
stands mute. Science returns from
its remotest excursions, shakes tits
head, and. smiling, puts the question
by. Christ contented himself with q
few vague and unsatisfactory generali.
ties: This day shalt thou be with me
in Paradise" Whose liveth and be.
lieveth in me shall never die:' "In my
Fathers house are many mansions
Saint Peter, the greatest of the teach
ers of Christianity, could only respond
by misleading analogy. He knew
the wheat which is reaped is not that
which is sown. The harvest is sue.
cession, not a resurrection.
The evidences Of experimenting
moral purpose and design In the affairs