Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1902-04-02

Aha! When the jaws of the eastern
mausoleum took down the black giant.
death was swallowed up i'm victory"
proclaim the abolition of death.
The old antagonist is driven back
into mythology with all the lore abou,
Stygian ferry and Charon with oar
and boat. Melrose abbey and Keni-
worth castle are no more in ruins than
IN the sepulcher. We shall have no
more TO do with death than we have
with the cloakroom at a governors or
presidents levee. We stop at such
cloakroom and leave in charge of
servant our overcoat, our overshoes.
our ou' ward apparel, that we may not
be imp.ded in the brilliant round
OF the drawing room. Well, my friends.
when we get out of this world we are
going TO Il Kings banquet and TO a re-
ception of monarchs, and at the door of
the tomb we leave the cloak of flesh
and the wrappings with which we meet
the storms of this world. At the close
of an earthly reception, under the
brush and broom of the porter. the
coat or hat may be handed TO us better
than when we resigned it, and the cloak
of humanity will finally be returned to
us improved and frightened and puri-
fled and glorifed.
You and do not want our bodies re-
turned as they are now. We want to
get rid of all their weaknesses and all
their susceptibilities to fatigue and all
their slowness of locomotion We want
them put through a chemistry of soil
and heat and cold and changing sea
of d ipl, Cor
them a 5 much better than they are now
as the body of the rosiest and health
est child that bounds over the lawn in
Central park is better than the sickest
patien; in Bellevue hospital. But
as TO our soul we will cross right
over. not waiting for obsequies. indie
pendent of obituary, into a state in ev-
cry way better, with wider room and
velocities beyond computation. the
dullest of us into companionship with
the very best spirits in their very best
mood, in the very parlor Of the uni
verse, the four walls FURNISHED and
paneled and pictured and glorified with
all the splendors that the infinite God
in all the ages has been able to invent.
Victory,
This view, of course. makes it of but
little Importance whether we are ere
mated or sepultured. II the latter is
dust to dust, the former is ashes TO
ashes. If any prefer incarceration let
them have it without cavil or protest
The world may become so crowded that
cremation may be universally adopted
by law as well as by general consent.
Many of the mightiest and best spir-
4
Thousands and tens of thousands of
Gods children have been cremated-P.
p. Bliss and wife, the evangelistic
singers cremated by accident at Ashta-
bula bridge; John Rodgers. cremated
by persecution; Latimer and Ridley.
cremated at Oxford; Pothinus and
Blandina, n slave. and Alexander
physician. and their comrades ere
mated at the order of Marcus Aurelius:
at least n hundred thousand of Christ's
disciples cremated, and there can be
no doubt about the resurrection of
their bodies. If the world lasts as
much longer as it has thus far, there
perhaps may be no room for the acre
age set apart for resting places, but
there is plenty of room yet, and the
race need not pass that bridge of fire
until il comes TO it. The most Of us pre-
fer the old way. But whether out of
natural disintegration or cremation
we shall get that luminous, buoyant.
gladstone, transcendent, magnificent
inexplicable structure called the res
direction body. You will have it;
will have it.
say to you to-day, as Paul said to
AOT "a I, -
thing incredible with YOU that God
should raise the dead?" That far up
cloud, higher than the hawk flies, high
er than the eagle flies, what is il made
Of? Drops of water from a river, other
drops from a lake, still other drops
from a stagnant pool. but now embod-
led in a cloud and kindled by the sun
II God can make such a lustrous cloud
out OF water drops, many of them
soiled and impure and fetched from
miles away, can he not transp port the
fragments Of a human body from
earth and ont Of them build a radiant
body? Cannot God. who owns all the
material out of which bone, muscle and
iiesh are made, set them up again If
they have fallen? IF a manufacturer
OF telescopes drops a telescope on the
floor and il breaks can he not mend il
again so YOU can see through IL? And
II God drops the human eve into the
dust. the eye which he originally fash
Toned, can he not restore IT,? Ave. if
the manufactures of the telescope. bv
the use Of q new glass and change If
material, can make better instrument
than that which was originally con-
fs.r.r L.. a.