The age-herald., 1900-09-24
As St. Paul Said "To Die
 is Gain."
THE SOUL SHALL SURVIVE
What of Life? What ot Death? If Mat ter Cannot be Destroyed Wherefor Should the Soul be? Sermon
 by Rev. Dr. McFerrin

quent and instructive sermon at the tfrst Methodist Church yesterday. His text was from St. Pauls epistle to the Philippians, chapter l. verse 21, "to die is gain" pr. McFerrin said in substance:
 We are confronted with two great mys- teries, life and death, and it is difficult to tell which is the greater. Life is not what 1t seems to be- neither is death. Look at life for a moment. Its transitory and un- satisfactory character, its want of perma- nency and it's want of continuance have been prolific source of the worlds unrest. The thought of what is in store for us to- morrow gives us trouble. There Is not day that does not bring changes. Signals of danger float on every breeze and human interests are continually in jeopardy. Un- certainty and painful anxiety follow us like our shadows. Diseases wait around to hurry mortals hence
 Scientists tell us that the law of life written in our constitution is that the years of our minority are one-fifth the years of our majority-that is if we are twenty years reaching our growth, death as a natural result must come at the end of one hundred years. Inspiration says that the days of our years are three score and ten, and that "all flesh is as grass'
 
 the things of this world not one will be here one hundred years from today. The silence of death will fall upen this busy scene and while others come to take our places, we shall be asleep in the graveyard. Such is the inevitable destiny of us all. What then is life? What of death, which of all things seems the most complete in its destruction? All values are worthless to hin, yVa bro1Irhf rotbiDp ipfo fhjS world and we will carry nothing out of it. Sight, less, speechless cold and decaying, the dust returns to dust. What then of death? Is it a loss a gain?
 Ingersoll standing at the grave of little child in Washington some years ago, said something like this 'We do not know which is the greatest blessing, life or death. We cannot say that death Is not a good. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life or the begin ming of another; or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate, the child dying in his mothers arms be- fore he has learned to speak, he who travels over all the length of ufes uneven road, painfully taking the last few steps with staff or crutch. Every cradle asks 
 poor barbarian weeping over his dead can answer the question as irtelligently and satisfactorily as the robed priest of the most authentic creed.'
 These sad and beautiful words are not like some of the heartaess utterances of the past. They do not exclude the exist ence of God, or deny future to man. They do not say that
 Spring shall not visit the mouldering urn, Nor daylight dawn on the night of the
 grave"
 They are the words of an agnostic, they simply say, We do not know and that one Is good a guesser as another.' Left to ourselves it is true and must ever be true to the man who stands in the cold regions of unbelief, but he who dwells in the warm summer land of faith, say with Paul, ''to die is gain"
 There are many in the inidel world who say that man is not by any means con- vinced of his immortality. The infidel, de- nying inspiration. and consequently all it's teaching, claims to rest on reason and na- ture, and yet even here he falls to learn the deepest lessons. Let us look to these guides which he proposes to follow and
 
 are some things must admit; that man exists, that he has reason, and hope, and fear and love. and longings for immortali- ty. There is the existence of truth and beauty and goodness and conscience, and the inwrought principles of right and wrong. The whole present order of things is admitted, and they inevitably point to something beyond Science has demon- Str cd ha iS 1oct Inc 1a of the conservation of forces settles for eyer the theory of annihiation, and the laws that govern matter seem to be eter- nal. Chemical affinities give the same re- suits in every age. The law of gravity is the same now as in the beginning, and so are the laws of mathematics, logic, mu- sic and morality. If the solid earth was dissolved and all the books and figures of geometry were destroyed, the law of math- ematics would remain. It is the same with the laws of logic and morality. We can not conceive of these laws as ever giving out and growing old. They are as un- changeable now as thousand years ago, and will be the same forever.
 In the lights of these look at man. Though a creature of the dust, he is more. He is more than mere vitanzed matter He
  sonality; of rising higher and perceiving the necessary laws that govern in the worlds above him. For the very principles of mathematics by which he works in his earthly sphere are the same as those which describe the orbits of the planets and gov ern the universal framework of nature. He rises still higher and grasps the lofty conception of God. You cannot think of death destroying a being with such capaci- ties. If matter can never be destroyed. wherefore should the soul be? Reason also teaches us that if this life is all there is for man. then the noblest part of creation dies. We do not need revelation to tell us that man was made to be the governor of the world His mind dominates matter, read ir.o- its. Io. nd decinherinQ itS upuatarias