The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1903-04-30
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT AND CONVINCING DIS.
COURSE enTlTLeO "lMMCaTALlTY."
The Rev. st. Clair Hester Delivers Com
fortinS Message to Those Who Arc
Uaver'ns in the Eolics in Regard to
n Life E.erla@t.n-.


vaver'ns in the Eolle' in Regard to
Life E.er!a2t:n-.
NEW YORK CITY--in the Church OF the
Messiah. Brooklyn, sunday morning, the
rector, the Rev st. Ciai" Hester, prcaGted
OIL ''Immortality-rhe Longing for 1t, FRO,
posed Substitutes, Mans Right to 1t"
The text was from job XIV: IA: IL man
die shall he live again" NJ. Hester said:
The irrepressibie, ubiquitous question,
reaeated again and again, world without
end. Men like job were asking 1t ceatar-
les before Christ, and men like JOB are
asking it centuries after Christ. 1t IS n,
vested with perpetual youth and the world
never tires OF hearing answers to 1t:
A father afflicted by the loss OF his only
SON in the morning OF beautiful youth
writes 4 book entitled Life Beyond
Death" His dedication is letter to his
inc With these words: God bless you, my
boy. tin the eyes which closed see open
again aad looking into mine. Lovingly,
father This is the answer OF one IN
grief. Under similar circumstances could
You, would you, want to give any different
answer? A wife bewails the sudden de-
cease of her husband. She finds great com.
fort in reading through his sermons and
gathering from them and publishing every
sentence that bears on the subject OF
meeting again in the world to come. Her
heart is constantly singing:
Soul of my soul, we shall meet again,
And with God be the rest
Hers is the answer OF one in loneliness
buoyed up by confident anticipation. Who
in such a position could OF would want TO
give any different answer:
The thoughts of men on the subject re-
peated, reiterated, reatfirmed throuoh thou
sands of wears of human history, form an
accumulation of evidence from which 1t is
difficult to escape, evidence tnat gains EN-
phasis by Its repetition, evidence that
arouses deepest feeling by the very earnest
ness o. its utterance. The answer OF Jesus
Christ is the only answer that entirely
satisfies the human mind and heart. It
was proclaimed amid rejoicing, melody anc
song on Sunday last in all the churches.
The echoes of Easter have not yet died
out. Their soul has gone into all the world
and their words unto the ends Of the earth.
The echoes that come from the rock -hewn
tomb within the Garden OF Joseph OF Ari-
mathca are not like those we shout among
cliffs and canyon walls that gradually soft
en- and die away. They are within the
realm OF the spiritual world and they in
crease rather than diminish. They grow
from soul to soul, from the soul or the risen
Christ to the souls that believe In Him,
and so they grow forever and forever.
II Christ alone of all VINO live or have
lived upon the earth is to live again after
death. the resurrection of the first Easter
day is nothing more than an amazing exhi-
bition of Almighty power which while 1t
impresses us 1t correspondlnGiy depresses
us because it emphasizes the difference be.
tween us and Him and makes Us despair OF
IN ia
this re your feeling His rising was to no
purpose, our pteaching IS vain, Christian
ity is a cruel system OF deception and we
are OF all men most miserable. But the
truth is His rising was promise and
pledge to Us Of ours. He was the first truit
of them that sleep.
First of all let me ask is it fact that
men desire to live again? Emerson tells
the story of two members OF the u ;. Sen
ate who were fond of discussing specula-
tive questions. Whenever possible they
inc on subjects other than shop. Their ia
yorite topic was the immortality OF the
soul, but they could never find any salts
factory reason for believing it. They sep
arated and one retired to distant State.
After twenty-five years they met at a
crowded reception in the White House.
They shook hands cordially, and standing
to one side for a moment one OF them
asked, ANY light, Albert: None, was
the reply. After pause the other asked,
ANY light, Lewis The The answer nnNSs agar asa,n
looked one another in the eye in silence
and parted, never to see each other again.
Emerson's remark apon the incident IS
that the impulse that prompted these men
to try to find proofs of immortality was 1T
self the strongest OF all proof In my opln-
ion Emerson was right.
Yes, men do desire to live again. They
are not afraid to die, to have the body de-
stroyed, many Of them, bat thev. shudder
at the idea of annihilation, OF becoming
nothing more than breath OF air or a
pinch Of dust. Even the barbarian and
the savage believe in future life, that
somehow the thinking soul may escape the
wreck of the unthinEing body. In all prob
ability it is an idea that grew out Of the
phenomena of dreams. While man sleeps
his other self waniers away at will, and
something like this nay happen, he rea-
soned, when death, the long sleep, comes
to him. In after and higher stages OF cui-
ture the conception OF immortality was at
first sad and depressing one. The Sheol
of the Jews. the Hades OF the Greeks, the
Orcus of the Roman, were abodes OF
shades, shadows, ghosts-and such future
could only be regarded with fear and dis
like. Buc in time man began to sarinise
that perhaps the next life might be an i'm
provement upon this one. The anaiogles IN
nature around him gave a strong suggestion
to this effect. The snake casts its skin and
slides forth in 4 new and better one. The
beetle breaks away from its filthy serul-
cher and enters on new career, and man
notices it and begins to hang golden scara-
baei in his temples as symbols OF his hope.
Winter retires and there comes resurrec-
tion of flower, foliage and fruits. He sees
the silkworm weave its cocoon and die
within it, and after time come forth Cad
in brighter colors and able to spurn the
earth on which it formerly crawied and fly
away and then he begins to carve butter
flies on tombstones and ventures to hope
that he may likewise be freed from the en-.
tanslements and deflements OF earth and
flesh and range in freer and happier state
the universe at will. All such simiitudes,
and there are hundreds OF them in nature,
help to strengthen mans conviction that
he will live again, make more roseate the
hope that he will survive the wreck of the
universe.
If man die, shall he live again? The
answer of Christianity is, Il believe in the
resurrection of the body and the life ever
lasting" But this answer is not unani-
nous. Modern skepticism and speculative
philosophy have proposed certain subStl-