Newport weekly independent., 1902-04-04


 Victory, Word shouted at Culloden and Balalilaya and Blenheim. at Me giddo and Solferino, at Marathon, where the Athenians drove back the MedeS: a Poiters, where Charles Martel broke the ranks of the sara cens; at Salamis, where ThemistocIes in the great sea fight confounded the Persians, and at the door of the east ern cavern of chiseled rock, where Christ came out through a recess and throttled the king of terrors and put him back in the niche from which the celestial Conqueror had just emerged. Aha! When the jaws of the eastern mausoleum took down the black giant, 'death was swallowed up in yictory." l proclaim the abolition of death.
 The old antagonist Is driven back into mythology with all the lore about Stygian ferry and Charon with oar and boat, MeIrose abbey and Kenil- 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 clOallrOom at q governors or presidents leyee. We stop at such cloakroom and leave in charge of a servant our overcOat, our OverShOeS, our outward apparel, that we may not be impeded in the brilliant round of the drawing room. We'll, my friends, when we get out of this world we are going to Kings banquet and to re ception of moparchs, and at the door of the tomb we leave the cloak of flesh and the wrappngs with which we meet the storms of this world. At the close of an earthly reception, under the l 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 gloritied.
 Y Ou and do not want our bodies re- turned as they are now. We want to get rid of all their weaknesses and all their susceptibi1ities to fatigue and all their sloWnesS of locOmOtiOn. We want them put through a chemistry of soil and heat and cold and changing sea sons, out of which God will reconstruct them as much better than they are now | as the body of the rosiest and healthi est child that bounds over the lawn in Central park is better than the sickest patiens in Bellevue hospital. But as to our soul we will cross right over, not waiting for obsequies, inde pendent of obituary, into a state in ev- cry way better, with wider room and velocities beyond computation, the 5(11l1n z T., b 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. If the latter is dust to dust, the former is ashes to ashes. If any prefer incineration let them have it without cavil or protest. The world may become so crowded that cremation may be universally adopted l by law as we'll as by general consent Many of the mightiest and best spir- it's have gone through this process. 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. a slave, and Alexander, a l physician, and their comrades ere mated at the order of Marcus Aurelius; at least a 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 it 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, | gladsome, transcendent, magnificent, ineXplicable structure called the res urrection body. You will have it; l will have it.
 l say to you to-day, as Paul said to Agrippa: "Why should it be thought a. thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" That far up cloud, higher than the hawk flies, high CT than the eagle flies, what'is it made of? Drops of water from river, other drops from a lake, still other drops from stagnant pool but now embod- jed in a cloud and ltindled by the sun. | If God can make such a lustrous cloud out of water drops, many of them ] cAiInl n1nA i1a,1al1n.n nnl fntcInl fro1an