The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1900-05-05

initiation, it may be, but this al
ternative does not satisfy those
who repeat the everlasting inter
rogatory of Job. ''If man die,
| shall he not live aga:n?'
Nature, like witness IN con-
tempt, stands mute. Science re-
turns fl lom It's remotest excursion,
shakes its head, and smiling, puts
the question by. Christ content
ed Himself with few vague and
unsatisfactory generalities: This
dav shalt thou be with me in Pa
radise.'' "Who so liveth and be-
lieveth in me shall never ole.
I'm my Fathers house are many
mansions. Saint Peter, the
greatest of the teachers of Chris
tianity, could only, respond by a
misleading analogy. He knew the
wheat which is reaped is not that
which is sown. The harvest is a
succession, not resurrection.
The evidence of superlntend-
ing moral purpose and design In
the affairs of men are faint and
few. The wicked prosper, the
good suffer. The problems of SIN,
pain; and evil are insoluble. Wis
iting the sins of the fathers upon
the children to the third and
fourth generation, making the
innocent suffer for the offences
of the guilty, Is an unjust and
cruel law that ought to be repeal
ed. Civilization has long since
rejected the principle from human
Jurisprudence. Even treason, the
highest crime known to its code,
no longer works corruption OF
blood or forfeiture of estate.>
Unless man is immortal, the
universe, so fa1 as he is concerned,
disappears altogether. If he does
not survive the grave, it makes
no difference to him whether there
be God or devil, or heaven or hell.
And it must be not only a snrvl-
val, but with continuity of cons
ciousness as we'll, if the evil are
to be punished and the good re-
warded hereafter. To intlict the
penalty of violated upon being
who does not know that he has
offended is not punishment, but
revenge. Conscious identity may
not be a necessary condition of in
telligenee, but it is essential in
morals. 1t is conceivable that a
being may know without knowing
that he knows, but he cannot sin
without knowing that he sins, nor
punished unless he knows for
what wrong he suffers.
Frederick w. Robertson, the
eminent English divine, closes one
of his discourses by saying,
"Search through tradition, histo-
ry, the world within you and the
world without-except in Christ,
there is not shadow of a shade
of proof that man survives the
grave.
Many year ago heard distin-
guished American orator deliver
lecture upon the Bible. In the
stress and pressure of the closing
days of a shortsession of Congress
he held the rapt and breathless
attention ofan immense audience,
comprisingalI that was most cul-
tured, brilliant and renowned
in the social and official life Of the
Capital.
He dwelt with remarkable ef-
fectiveness and power upon the
fact that nowhere, in nature, from
the highest to the lowest, was an
instinct, an impulse, a desire i'm
planted, but that ultimately were
found the conditions and the
opportunities for its fullest
realization. He instanced the
wild fowl that moved by some
mysterious impulse, start on their
prodigious mlgratlons from the
frozen fens of the pole and reach
at last the shining South and the
summer seas: the fish that from
the tropic gulf seek their spawn
ing grounds in the cool, bright
rivers of the North, the bees that
find in the garniture of the fields
and forests the treasure with
which they store their cells, and
even the wolf the lion and tiger
that are provided with their prey.
Turning to humanity, he allud-
ed to the brevity Of life; its in
completeness; its aimless, random
and fragmentary careers; its ,tra-
gedies, its injustice. Its sarrows
and separations. Then he refer
red to the Unsuitable hunger fol
knowledge; the efforts of the un,
conquerable mind to penetratt
the mysteries of the future; its
capacity to comprehend infnit.
and eternity; its desire for The
companionship of the departed
its unquenchable aspirations fo
immortality, and be asked, ''W h,
should God keep faith with thu
beast, the bee, the fish and tbs
fowl, and cheat man?'-Nev
York Journal.