The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1902-04-05

into mythology with all the lore abou
Stygian ferry and Charon with GA
h and boat. Melrose abbey and Keni
worth castle are no more in ruins tina
in the sepulcher. We shall have Ii
more to do with death than we hav
with the cloakroom at a governors o
presidents levee. We stop at sue
cloakroom and leave in charge of
servant our overcoat, our overshoes
| our outward apparel, that we may no
: be iInpeded in the brilliant roun,
of the drawing room Well, my friends
> when we get out of this world we ar,
going to a Kings banquet and to a re
: ception of %monarchs, and at the door o.
the tomb we leave the cloak of flesl
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-
fed and gloriied.
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 Aa-
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 bou nds over the lawn in
Central park is better than the sickest
patient in Bellevue hospital. But
as to III soul we viii 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 glorifed 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 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-
its have gone through this process.
Thousands and tens of thousands of
Gods children have been cremated-P.
2. 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
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
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 toit, The most of us pre-
fer the old way. But whether out of
natural disintegration or cremation
we shall get hat luminous, buoyant,
gladstone, transcendent. magnificent.
ineXplicable structure called the res
direction body. You will have it; /
will have it.
l say to you to-day, as Paul said to
"Why should it be thought a
thing incredible with you that God
should raise the dead?" That far up
higher than the hawk flies, high
than the eagle flies, what is it made
Of? Drops of water from a river, other
drops from a lake, still other drops
from a stagnant pool, but now embod-
ed in a cloud and kindled by the sun.
If God can make such a lu~strous cloud
of water drops, many of them
;oiled and impure and fetched from
away, can he not transport the
Of a human body from
and out of them build a radiant
body? Cannot God, who owns all the
material out of which bone, muscle and
are made, set them up again if
hey have fallen? If a manufacturer
If telescopes drops a telescope on the
ioor and it breaks. can he not mend it
lgain so you can see through it? And
f God drops the human eye into the
the eye which he originally fash
oned, can he not restore it? Ave, if
he manufacturer of the telescope. by
he use of a new glass and a change of
material, can make a better instrument
han that which was originally con-
.tructed and actually improve it, do
not think the fashioner of the hu.
eye may improve its sight and
multiply the natural eye by the thou
andfold additional forces of the res
erection eye?
"Why should it be thought with you
N incredible thing that God should
'aise the dead?" Things all around MS
.uggest it. Out of what grew all these
Out of the mold and the
.arth. Resurrected! Resurrectedl
radiant butterfy-where did il
ONE from? The lothsome caterpillar.