The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-08-29
TOO MUCH
GRAPE USED
DR.. Prime DepIores
Modern Funeral
Customs.
DEATH Is CHANGE
TO HIGHER LIFE
Departure From Physical Body
Has More Terrors TO Aoderns
Than to Ancients.

DR.. Primes lecture last evening in
Arion hall was heard by large audi
ence. and at it's conclusion many ques-
tons were asked which were answered
by the theosophist clearly and easily.
and evidently to the satisfaction of the
inquirers, although two of them are
not known to have theosophical ten
dencies. The lecture was on Life
After Death
DIR. Prime said that many people
speak of death as something awful to
contemplate. If they could look upon
1t as the passing of the physical con-
seriousness to another life they would
have a far better idea of the change.
To him it was difficult to understand
why in any Christian country there
should be so much gloom associated
with the passing on to what all should
believe is a state of higher conscious
ness. They believe with Shakespeare
that it is the passing to the bourne
from which no traveller returns, but
MIR. Prime said Shakespeare put this
phrase into the mouth of that dement,
ed being, Hamlet, and yet in the same
breath he tells of the coming of
ghost to Hamlet to tell him of matters
beyond the grave. Seances have given
to the world knowledge or clue that
messages are received from the other
side showing that people have been
communicated with after that change
penaraIlv snoken cf as death DR..
Prime said he would like to give a
phase to this change other than that
of gloom with which most people have
a tendency to surround and cucumber
it.
Death today seemed to have greater
VI
the Chinaman death comes as matter
of course Many of them spend a large
part of their lives in prayers for their
ancestors Their idea is entirely OPP
posed to that of Christian peoples The
majority of people here believe that the
matter is ended and there is nothing
more to be done-that everything came
TO the final stage at the change of
death The theosophist asked, Why
should we suppose that after having
seen this world teeming with life that
everything comes to an end simply be-
cause the physical body has left? To
the contrary, it was a change to an
other life teeming with activities and
the change should be the last thing to
cause gloom and have it form about
the coffin. The speaker called atten-
ton to the symbols of gloom, Grape and
dependency surrounding death. Look
at the mockery on the faces of the I'M
pathetic 1t is nothing but mockery."
If the change is one to higher con-
dition of life then why lament about
it? If one believed in eternal punish
ment, meted out by a mercileSs God,
there might be some cause for the
Grape and gloom. Is it that people do
not believe anything of their faith? Is
their faith only in so many words and
that they don't believe in what they
say? DIR. Prime said the possibilities
were that most people did not conpre-
bend anything of the conditions CT life
after death. All the masters of thought
and teaching in ancient times referred
to the glory after death. He looked
with some degree of pleasure on the
present tendency to cover collins with
flowers, with something of the beauty
of nature, rather than with the horrible
black Grape and pals.
Speaking of the evolution of the soul
through the various stages of develop
ment according to theoSophical reason
ing. Mr.. Prime said that today there
were peoples quite at the beginning of
the ladder, but there are no people on
earth today who are so elementary
that they can be said to be just begin
ring in the scale of human evolution.
In the beginning of human evolution
the tendency was to physical develop
ment and men were then gigantic crea-
lures, just as the animals of the earlier
times were gigantic. The earlier stages
developed the physical body while the
mental was yet in the first periods of
its experiences. Today there is the al
most perfect form that man will attain
when he has finished his periods of eyo-
luton. and the mental development is
reaching the highest stage. The souls
that inhabited these gigantic bodies in
ancient times are the souls that inhabit
the more perfect bodies today.