The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-01-02
ELOQUENT BUT
NOT ORTHODOX.
Grafton Of Or. L. l.. LambOrn at
the Bier of a Friend.
ARGUMENT FOR INTUITION
As the Basic Principal For Belief Is Inn
mortality, God and Heaven-A
Sermon For Thought
full Men.

county is DIR. L. L. Lamborn of Alliance,
whose fame as an orator has not peen
confined to the limits of stark county.
Two years ago he delivered an eloquent
speech at the Tabernacle in this city
and his voice has often been heard IN
and out of the county. At the bier OF
his late friend, Jacob G. Seacrist, De-
cernber 2S, DR.. Lamborn delivered the
following address,
Jacob G.. Seacrist was born in Co
lumbiana county on October 5th, lS4S'
He came to Alliance in 1860 and enlist
ed in the fall of 1861 in Company f.
Of 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. he
served three years in the civil war.
After his term of service expired ne
returned to Alliance. In 1865 ne mar
ried Alvira Patterson, by whom he mad
an issue of eleven children, all of whom
are living except the Oldest daughter'
Allie. who departed this life on the 10Th
of November, 1898. Alvira Seacrist, con-
sort of the deceased, died the 14th OF
November, 1899.
The features Of this occasion are
doubly sad. Mr.. Seacrist was in usual
health. had gone to his work in the
Hammer shop, Tuesday morning, and
while in the act of taking off his coat
TO begin his days labor, quick as
flash of lightning from fieeting cloud,
death struck him with his arrow. With
out a word, or a groan, life leaped from
off his beating heart into where the
silence reigns, and he smiling sleeps
to wake no more.
Mrs. Seacrist, the wife of the deceased
was buried six weeks ago. Mother
gone. father mantled for the grave,
ten living children orphaned IN a day.
Father, mother, home-the three divi-
nest words ever lisped by childrens s
lips-banished forever from their
tongue, except in mournful memory.
Friends! Death is the sorriest hour
in the trial of human grief. Death is
the mystery of creation. In its impress
siye presence thoughtful men stand
speechless, and dumbly gaze up through
a mist of tears, at the closed door
through which the dead one passed
There is an awful pathos in the pulse
less hush of death.
Nothing breaches as powerful of the
feebleness of man-of the vicsstudes of
earth-and the brevity of life as the
confined dead. Nothing is so impress
sive as a pulseless heart, and voiceless
lip.
Grief has no GESTURE but a sigh-no
accent but a silent tear.
Men are frightened when they weigh
the feeble arguments in favor OF i'm
mortal life. All knowledge Of the here
after is as vague as Delphic oracle.
In all past ages men have bombarded
the portals of the tomb to know their
destiny. The silent SphynX has never
solved the puzzle.
Hope rings the tocsin of immortality
in the belfry of the soul, and life, like
a wounded bird. flutters to its cover,
and ignorance blossoms into faith.
Biologists say no atheist ever lived,
certainly no man can be an atheist
from choice. The human mind can
know no terror equal to annihilation. 1t
is only when viewed as the alternative
of an orthodox hell, that the idea can
rest for an instant in the human mind
Men are honest in their religious
views. They may be false to others,
but they never purjure themselves be-
fore the high court of their own con-
science A man may be misled by a
feeble faith, but it is never bribed.
Religious faith is an involuntary
sequence of logic-a postulate of i'm
pulses; a corolory of environment-and
a result of hereditary forces. The de-
vout religionist points his doubling
brother triumphantly to his bible, and
his Savior for the faultless proof of
Immortality.
The Jews find all necessary evidence
for their faith in Moses and his miri-
cles, in their Talmud. The Scandina-
vians in Zoroaster, and the lenda Vesta.
The Buddhas in Gautuma, and the We
das. The Moslems in Mahomet, and the
Koran.
Christians in Christ and the
scriptures. The world has had sixteen
crucified saviors, and half that many
bibles.
Religion has been evolutionary. II
has advanced from pagan worshiping
a horrid image, up to the alteration OF
a loving Christ. All this is neither
strange, nor regretful. Nine-tenths OF
all religion is conduct, the other tenth
is idealism. All religions have revolved
around one primal concept; God and
immortality. Hence they have all beer
broken echos of the true. OF religious
orders many have been far off, or neal
this concept, but their orbal circuits
have ever been around this centra
truth. Reduce every religion on eartf
to it's last analysis, and the remaining
elements in the slembic will be: God
immortality and heaven. Bibles diC
lity. All persons who accept bibles a.
conclusive evidence of Immortality d.
so because their teachings harmonic
with their own intuitious. Bibles ar
witnesses that those who wrote then
believed in immortality.
If orthodox prayers invoking specia
providences from the all-spiritua
Father, or from the spiritual son o
Mary are everanswered. 1t is perfectl
philosophical andsmost reasonable, tina
an appeal to the departed spirits of ou
natural father. or mother might b
answered. to the extent, at least, tina
they continued to exist in another stat
of being.
am not a believer in special provi
dence, nor convert TO spirit communi
cations. yet / assert that spiritualisI
is the only working theory that can eve
prove immortality TO be an unquestior
ed fact