, 1902-10-30
PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.
The Law Of Cause and Effect.

The unthinking man saws we are a
long time dead when in reality, II the
truth be known, this earth existence is
but an infinitesimal part Of your life.
II is hut a day IN the vast span of eter-
nity-a drop in the ocean of time. This
longer life comes to us when we have
beer freed from the fettors of the body
that never has escaped the best that is
in us
No one ever feels thai he has accom-.
plished in tins life as much or as well
AZ he hoped TO have done. The poet
utterly fails 10 write the beautiful mes.
sager that drop into his soul in his mo
ments Of e>altation; the artist never
paints what he dreams. and 81 Wagner
fails to record the music that he hears.
These bodies of ours utterly fail to OK
press the highest that is in us.
No one who, even after II life well
spent, approaches the unseen world hut
feels that he had failed to do as well as ne
wished h. had done-why is this wish
w 'Ap eG'' w " W." ~ wv Ut
life over again il somewhere in the
heart Of things there is not the feeling
that it might be possible.
Let us, for the moment. suppose the
Utopiau dream to he true thai Zach
and all of us have the chance Ia come
again and again to correct thr mistakes
we have made-that we need never feel
that we are leaving this earth life per
m%anently and that we need not in the
end have any mistakes not corrected,
that we may pay to the full every dcbt
we owe. And what would be the con
ditions hat might accompany such a
state of atfairsy
II some one has been very kind to us
and we nave not seen the way IN which
to pay it in one life il would be neces
sary that we should in order to pay that
great debt to humanity find the same
conditions in the next life existing that
have been in the former-men with like
needs, emotions and passions as before.
1t would do us little good to come to a
world where different conditions of life
were to be found, or where some
sort of supernal beings existed. To pay
back our debts to fulfill our aspirations
to the letter it would be folly to hope
unless w found the same old world
rolling round as before with the same
types OF beings inhabiting it. Have we
been unkind to the helpless the debt
tpa hnya tp.nrral nug o., tL. Ial.l...
not TO the strong-and must be paid in
kind.
There is a law of divine justice and if
we have not fulfilled the law to the let
ter, il will have to be fulfilled. We may
question the existence of the law as we
look around upon the conditions that
prevail in the social and economic world.
the riches and the poverty, the happi.
ness and the misery, hui let MS see if il
will not fit in somehow in this scheme Of
many lives in which to learn life's les.
SONS,
Well may we question divine justice
while things seem SO irreconcilable, but
are they ~irreconcilable il man is only
op'b''ihE q thy ~ Nv tdtH llult ne
comesY II we fail to interpret the law
correctly the fault lies not in the law
but in our own blindness. One is born
d life of sin from the cradle. L. there
no answer to our why? Another comes
into a poor m~isshapen body. Must we
never know whyY
God gave the good things OF life we
say-but whence comes all this evilY
Were 1t not enough hat Satan planted
the seeds OF evil in ouI hearts. but why
these imperfect bodies and these unto.
ward conditions? IL ii enough to say
It is a mystery
Perhaps in another life aud with an.
other body we choose everything that
was lovely and Of good repute-sowed
The seeds Of kindness, helped wherever
W. could and whoever we could. What
harvest would be reaped in the next
lifeY Surely it would be like unto the
seed sown. The Lord OF the harvest
shows no favoritisms. Each reaps what
he sows. Suppose we we're cruel, un.
kind and harsh and no child could pass
us with a blessing. What gain would
be harvested from such sowingy Sup
pose we choose but evil continually,
gloated over it, loved it, would We not
reap what we wanted only in evilS
But how can We convince ourselves
that we have lived beforeY We do not
have to. As straightforward scientific