The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-07-03

a graceful thing, and i thank God that you
and / have the great and supreme privilege
OF laying down the burden when the day
Is done tor you and for me. II Is right that
We should live while our vital powers are
strong and eXuberant and forceful. This
Is a great. a glorious world in which God
has PCT us, and there is q marvellous OPP
pOrtunity 10 unfold here and 10 become
great and strong and rich and noble and
divine. 1t is a glorious world in which God
mas put US, and it is a blessed thing. this
GIT that God has given you and me, my
to go down into the dust and sleep forever
and forever more, | am glad, at least, that
my eyes have been opened at least once
10 drink in the transcendent spiendor OF
this universe in which God has put me 10
work out my salvation. even If il be a
temporary one, fraught with fear and
LIFE is BEAUTIFUL.
But if life is beautiful. so, also, it is a
good thing when we become a little feeble
and the shoulders begin TO bow with the
oppressiveness of the weight, when the
faculties begin 20 stagger and the vision
begins TO dim, ii is a sweet and blessed
thing 10 go down.. earth 10 earth and
ashes to ashes and dust to dust before
night comes TO seal our vision forevermore
to the glory of His world.
Il have never liked the features Of
Death. The lips are too compressed; | do
not like the sunken eye; and yet, despite
its repulsion and despite its we.rdness and
despite its strangeneSs, ii is n blessed thing
that we can die; and was it not a glorious
thing that your father, and was IL not u
glorious thing that your husband, and was
Ii not a glorious thing, o citizen of Indian
apolis, that your brother citizen went out
before his powers had failed? Was il not
a blessed thing that in the very fullness of
his strength he was stricken down before
he became conscious Of his failing faculties
ana before he became conscious of his fall
ing powers?
Two weeks before he died l saw him in
Chicago, and L went up and spoke to him
and asked him how he was, and he said.
Very WE'LL and he looked the perfect in
carnation of health and power. And then
comes the blow, and then he is gone TO
of the sorrow and the pain of the going.
Death is a blessed and a beautiful thing,
and supremacy blessed and supremacy
beautiful has il come TO your beloved one.
And then, again. il seems TO me that
death is glorious when we see ii in the
light of immortality, for we all believe that
a ~staGe-perhaps there are stages behind:
j do not know. This Is a great world and
some of the greatest intellects that have
ever lived have believed in the pre-exist-
ence of the human spirit. Plato so be-
lieved. There Ia be a life of precon-
seriousness; | do not know. but this do
know, that the human spirit has in it an
element of eternity, and this is only a
part. only a step in its development, in its
expression and in its self-utterance and in
Its self-realization A very good schooling
it is. too. a great eye-opener, this world of
ours; a great soul-expander, this world of
ours: a wonderful preparatory school, a
wonderful academy in which you and L
are to learn the life and the wisdom and
the plan and the purpose and the power
and the beauty and the splendor Of the
everything and ever-loving God, and then
when we emerge from this body. where
shall we go? Well, L do not know and /
do not care where We go. Our Lord says:
In my Fathers house are many Mansions
Yea. Lord. many, many mansions. Thou
art not parsimonious; all this cosmos, all
this universe is Thy dwelling place. and in
Thy great dwelling place many roomsi
Now. 1 do not believe that we are all go
ing 10 the same place. l believe that we
are going to q place; | see no reason why
why we should lose the idea OF heaven as a
place in the idea that heaven is a state.
Heaven is a place as well as a state. There
body and the home Of the natural body is
the earth, and the home of the spiritual
body is somewhere out there, down there,
up there, everywhere throughout this great
universe that God has made. And we shall
not all go to the same mansion. but we
shall go to the mansion that is in affinity
with our spirit. If a man has lived on the
physical plane he will go 20 the physical
plane; if a man has lived on the intellect
ual plane he will go to the intellectual
plane; II a man has lived on the moral
plane he will go to the moral plane; If a
man has lived on the spiritual plane he
will go to the spiritual plane.
CURTAIN OVER NEW JERUSALEM.
LIN our Fathers house are many man
sions.' but, If we have loved, wherever
these mansions may be. we shall be most
certain to find each other there. know
that 1t is very right that God should draw
a curtain over the New Jerusalem, the city
of the sun, for our problem is not there; 1t
is here. 1t is not there in the celestial
world, but right down here ON this mum
dane sphere and plane. When we have
fought the good fight and to the end, the
liberation will come and we will go into the
perfect life and the perfect glory of the
everlasting. and o, whatever it may be, !
know this-that 1t is a life of vision. no
more struggling, fearing, yearning. strain
ing for the light of the beatifc vision. Face
to face, then we shall see no longer
through n glass darkly, but we shall see
the Father, the great Lover, face to face
and eye TO eye, and it will also be the life
of restoration.
shall we find each other?' we ought to
ask. Yes and no. No. if we have been dis.
loyal. If we have been faithless. The jux.
tapositions of earth will not necessarily be
the juxtapositions or the life that is &c
come. If we have given our spirit here, all
there is no power above, there is no power
below, even God Almighty cannot separate
heart that loves heart; cannot separate and
part a spirit that is passionately lost in q
consuming love for another spirit. So Il
will mean a restoration. / know | shall
ma my mOtner. L KNOW she mas not lei
me, for the worlds are not separated much
/ know l shall find my father. You shall
find your husband; we shall all find oul
friends when the day Is done. If we are
loyal, if we are faithful, If We are devotee
and true.
Let me also say to you that death 1:
| beautiful when we see il in the light of {
completely and a nobly lived life. Now
this is one of the paradoxes. one of the sac
felicities of our existence, that the measure
of our loss is the measure Of our comfor
and of our solace. To lay away one wht
has been a failure. 10 lay away one whS
has not wrought nobly. TO lay away on
who has not wrought well, that is most pa
thetic. 1t is most pathetic for the mother
10 give up the disobedient and rebellion,
boy: for the lover to stand over the bier o.
the loved one and know that loved one ha'
abused the great opportunities that IL,
presents: most pathetic TO lay away
spirit that has been disloyal. a spirit tina
has been faithless, but O. what a beautiful
thing to be able to say over the one we ar
done, thou good and faithful servant, entel
thou into the joy OF thy Lord
Nov this is your comfort to-day: this Il
your solace; you are I, lay away one VIII,
lived nobly: you are TO lay away one wh'
lived Justly; you are 10 lay away one wh'
lived well. You have heard of his life an,
you have seen 1t in the papers reviewed
you have read the testimonies. of the Ba
Association. Of the city and Of the State
over him but yesterday afternoon. word
so laudatory and yet so true. and 1t woul'
be an impertience for me to review befor
you this morning his public life.
LIFE OF JUDGE WOODS.
mi T,.I~r XI-@Dd- - ~ 49,