The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-27
ETERNALISM.

"Eternalism-A Thing of Infinite Justice
is the title of a book written by Orlando j.
Smith. The author of this work is a hard
headed, successful business man-president
Of the American Press Association. AS q
profound and lucid treatise upon a very
obscure and probably insoluble question it
is very praiseworthy. The chapters are
short. The sentences are crisp and clear.
There is not a dull chapter. paragraph or
line in the entire volume.
For all the ills of life and for all it's mys-
teries the authors solution is that this
world, whether physical or mental, was
never created, but always existed. Matter
and mind are both uncreated and indie
structible. Both of them are in constant
and endless transformation. Both of them
endlessly combine and recombine. They
always have existed and always will exist.
Evil never was created, either by man or
God. any moro than good. Evil is a neces-
sary part of the constitution of things, just
as darkness is a necessity to light and as
north of south. The result, according to
this author, is the pre-existence of souls
their TRANSPORTATION and their perpetual
incarnation and reincarnation in a success
sion of bodies, either brute or human. .
Mr.. Smith insists that it is inconceivable
that in the beginning God should have Gre
ated the heavens and the earth, for there
was nothing pre-existing, and nothing can
never be the parent of something. In fact,
nothing is only the absence of something.
just as darkness Is the absence of light,
and it is inconceivable that night should
be the source of day. Not being able to
account for tha 1r;Ui af noottar AR Cpnifb
and his school insists that it is eternal,
or. as Colonel Ingersoll put 1t. had no be-
ginning and can have no end" We know
that our b~odies-brute as well as human-
are material, and that matter is in an end
less state of transformation. That
Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
May stop a hole to keep the wind away"
is a perfectly truthful. physical fact. These
clay tenements Of ours are a combination
through food. water and air of our myriad
ancestors, animate and inanimate. Why is
not the same true of mind? As this earth
is the universal physical reservoir, as it is
strictly true that 1--WE came from the dust
and to the dust we will return again. why
may there not be an invisible and imma-
terial reservoir Of life and mind into which
we pass at death and from which we
emerge by combination and reconciliation
at birth? This fascinating speculation has
been a problem for ages. Fully one-half
OF the human family-the A~siatics-believe
in reincarnation, and of this Mr.. Smith is
a vigorous advocate. Nor is he without
excellent company. The great poet Words
worth affirmed this doctrine in these cele-
brated words:
Our birth Is hut a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rlseth with US, our life's star.
Hath elsewhere had its setting.
And cometh from afar.
Not In entire forgetfulness,
And not In utter darkness.
But trailing clouds OF glory. do we come
From God, who is our home.
And Tennyson says:
1t may be that no lie is found
Which, only TO one engine bound.
Falls of, by cycles always round.
Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic CLEANS,
Like glmE SEES Of forgotten Dreams
OF something felt, like something here;
OF something done. L know not where;
Such as no language may declare.
Quite as interesting as this speculation
about the eternity OF matter. spirit. life
and transmigration are Mr.. Smiths other
chapters upon the life hereafter. which he