The Irish standard., 1901-04-20


that silent grave Of generations Of
men. But, now there was n change;
the tomb so long silent sent back
message from the land of our hope
For Jesus rose again, and after thou
sands of years of weary waiting
traveller returned from the land of
promise. We doubted. we can doubt
no longer; we hoped. now our hope is
turned into the certainty Of conviction;
we murmured, we feared, but now all
murmuring must cease, all fear is Mt
an end, for Christ the Lord is risen:
He has visited the land of PROMISE
He has seen 1t with His own eyes, and
He is come back to tell us of it's won
dcrs.
Now when l say that before Christ's
resurrection men doubted their immor
tai destiny, do not mean to convey
that all men were doubters, or that all
men denied the future life. Go back
as far as you will in the history of
mankind, read the records Of the
worlds youth, sean the story of man
uncivllized, and nowhere, believe,
will you find a nation or tribe whose
hopes were not anchored to some be-
lief in Il happy hereafter. AS the
world grew older, and culture sue
ceeded burbarism, men rose in every
age to teach their fellowmen that there
is Il life beyond the grave. These
teachers of immortality appealed to
the human mind, they appealed to the
human heart Look into your soul.
they would say, and there you will
find a sanctuary of truth. The world
may distract you and bewilder you;
it's study may beguile you into the be-
lief that ms all things else perish. SO
you, too, will return to dust and noth-
lngness. But. turn your thoughts in
ward and there in your own soul is an
awful shrine and in that shrine a di.
vinity dwells. You need but close your
eyes to the glare of the world and
shut your ears to the din Of it's many
voiced life in order to hear the die.
tates Of that Divinity, whose authority
you cannot dethr0ne whose judgments
you cannot reverse. Listen now to
that voice as 1t tells you that you are
not Of this earth, that your life is but
little gem Of time set between two
eternities, that it is journey from
God to God. Thus does the inner
voice Of human consciousness testify
to our native dignity as men. and pro-
test against the monstrous creed that
death and dust end all things.
But, the teachers of immortality
went farther They studied the human
mind in its workings, and found in
the power Of mind over matter an ar
gument for mans life after death.
Every force in the material world
around us is bounded by space and
time The sun, that agent almost god
like in the universally of it's activity,
has limits to it's power; the winds.
which cause so much destruction; the
tempest, to whose fury mans life is
but plaything; the thunderstorm, so
death-dealing In it's course; the surg
ing Of the sea, whose beating the hard
est rock cannot resist-all these are
but so much force. limited in space
limited in time. You may calculate
their power, you may express it in
terms Of space and time, and when
that power is expended, they are no
more. But with mans mind it is diff
ferent: his thought has no limits, space
does not hem it in, time can set no
boundary to it's action. Man turns his
eyes upward to the star-domed house
of God. and his thought may wander
on from spcck to speck. through mil
lions of miles, till in Imagination he
reaches the fArthest limits of space,
and beyond those limits his thoughts
can still wander: or he kneels to pray
and his thought seizes hold of God
Himself. Borne on the wings of eter-
nifty, he travels back to the beginning
of time and beyond it, or forward to
the moment when time shall cease. and
yet he has not reached the limits of his
power of thought. Yes, other powers
are shackled by space and fettered hy