The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-10-17
HONOR MEMORY IF DEPARTED KNIGHTS Council of Knights of Columbus
 Hold Services IMPRESSIVE FIX Rev. Father coyle and Sterling A, Wood Deliver Fitting Addresses.
 The Former Explains Cath.
 oIic Doctrine of Death.
IMPRESSIVE EXERCISES

The Knights of Columbus held services at their hall yesterday afternoon, in memory of their oead-Michael J, Null lauv, pr. Eugene Crowell Reilly, Thomas McNamee the Rev. P A. O'Reilly, Jas. A. Blount. M. M. Boggan, P. A. oByrne and Dennis Dugan.
 The exercises were public and the hall was well filled. Capt. Frank P. o'Brien, deputy grand knight of Birmingham /. council No. 6s5, presided. The order of the services follows:
 i. Hymn-.This is the Day of the Lord'-Bros Chas. M. Houppert, Chas. Herbert. John crakenberger and Mir. Frank Singleton.
 2. Roll call.
 8. .'veni Creator" = Bros. Chas. M. Houppert, Frank P. oBrien and Mrs. O.. W. Colgan.
 4. Sermon on Death-Rev. Bro. James Coyle.
 5. Solo-Miss Alice Fallon.
 6. Violin Solo-Bro. Oliver Chalifoux. I, Come Jesus, Redeemer' Bro. Chas M. Houppert.
 8. Oration-Bro. Sterling A. Wood.
 9. Ave Maria"-Bro. Chas Herbert.
 TO- Questions and Responses Bro Frank P. OBrien, deputy grand knight, and Rev. Bro. James Coyle, chaplain.
 il. Ritual
 12 Prayer Rev. Bro. James Coyle.
 Mrs o. ". Colgan and Fred L. Grambs | organists.
 The musical numbers were well ren- dered and the discourse by Father Coyle and the address by Mr. Wood were heard with close attention.
 Father coyIe's Sermon.
 Father Coyle, whose theme was Death" spoke as follows:
 There Is no death. what seems so Is | transitlon
 | This life of mortal breath
 Is but suburb of the vale elysian, Whose portal we call death."
 Christ, our divine master, once said, "If any man shall keep my law he shall l not taste death forever" What did the Christ who was the God of truth mean by these words?
 Did He mean that If any man observed in all details His law he should not die, his soul should not leave his body, his l iCib LII Ol ddyS bO ~'S, this is not the meaning that should be attached to the words of the Savior. | We know from sad experience, from daily observation of the world around us that there is nothing in nature im- mortal, that all things earthly have in themselves the clements of decay and corruption, that things of earth live, bloom and die The fairest flowers are short lived; they flourish for a season, they delight us with their beauty and fragrance, they wither, they faoe, they are gone. The strongest oak that ever | grew in field or forest, though 1t braved the storms and hurricanes of centuries ah. 1t too shall die: a time shall come when the life-glving sap no longer shall course through trunk and branch arc leaf. when the leaves that withered ir the autumn, shall not be renewed with returning spring when the branches that lose the brunt of rude wintry blasts shal l fall at the breath of the zephyr, and thai trunk that once bore itself proudly aloft | shall lie prostrate, moss-covered ant 1 low.
 So With Man.
 And so with man. No matter how grand or how great the deeds he wrought though he led victorious armies OCT 6 thousand fields of glory, though ht carved his name in poets lays on tho tablets of the temple of fame, though he ruled with gentle sway and held subject in bonds of love, as one old man today | by Tiber's banks is doing, hundreds oi millions of his fellowmen, yet time shal come when all this will avail naught A summons shall sound, that may not bt disobeyed by soldier. poet or pontiff, fol 1t hath been decreed that man must die
 By one man sin entered Into the world and by sin, death" None may escape that universal decree. Christ tht Savior died Mary, immaculate, the ont sole, solitary, stainless creature our ract can boast of In all the years from Adam till now. She, too, paid natures debt she died
 And yet Christ said: "1r any man shal keep my law, he shall not taste deatf forever" What is the meaning of these words2 An, there Is death that con sists not in the separation of the sou from the body, but in the separation o the human soul from the God who mad, 1t.
 Mans soul is made like God, Is mad, for God, and on the fufillment of cer tain conditions, namely the observanc, | of Christ's law shall enjoy God here after when freed from thralls of earth and this is life everlasting and, th' l
 1 opposite Is eternal death.
 Law of Christ
 Now what Is the law of Christ, on tn, fulfllment of which depends life ever lasting? It Is, first of all the natural law those rules of right living, upright con duct, and sound morality that God him self implants in each mans heart-a birth in each mans heart no matte what race, or color. or creed, or cline.
 These laws are known to all men; the! are contained. not In ponderous tome and musty records; they are printed il the living heart, and conscience is thei safe interpreter Then there are the tel commandments given of old by God fl thunder and lighting to the Jews. an, through them to all men. They, too, ar the law of Christ for when Christ cam to abolish the old covenant and the irol dispensation, and to establish the law o love and new and eternal testamen for men, He did not abolish these com mandments He reaffirmed them.
 Then the laws of the church by Chris established, is also the law of Christ for when Christ founded an infallibl | .o.ot,n,, soctatv to pernetliafe TJis ynts sion forever, to 1t He gave His own law