The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-23

1t in words that show that you are ae- quafnted with such questions. It Is the least of all things, my brethren. To proclaim that we believe in eternal fife. to assert it firmly. to support our Scripture. is an excellent beginning; but 1t may be very dangerous. pan assertions by the writtngs of Holy gerousf whyf because # is always q bad thing to be satisfisd with mere words, and to imagine that we possess what is really wanting In us. It b dangerous to others also. Nothing is so harmful to faith in eternal life in the public mind as . man who has no other proofs. except words. to show that he believes in 1t. 1t Is thereby concluded that it is only formality of no consequence, like so many others. You say that you believe in eternal life. Perhaps 1t was necessary that you should say so. would have pre- ferred that 1t should be seen without your assertion: but, in any case, when you have said 1t. your actions should confirm it. must acknowledge that this argument is too often missing. What a blow to faith in immortality is the inferior realism of most of those who profess to believe in iti What are we most occupied with7 Let us look at the question frankly. we must not fear to make certain of the strength and authenticity of that which has to support the whole edifice. What arc we most occupied withf Among our contemporaries. who are the most eager to secure wealth, enjoyment, unjust privileges, puerile distinctions; who manifest the smallest. the mar rowest mindf Materialists. atheistsf No. It Is even . matter of astonish- ment to find that many among them live as though they had a soul. The Christians, and the contrary, live like the remainder of the world; and, if many of them are distinguished from others, 1t is by their love of perishable goods, by their skill in producing them. by their anxiety to defend them. Do you really believe that the cultivation of comfort. tho pride of class. the Pharisaical spirit are the steps ty which we rise fro mthe dust to the stars and by which the deliverance from death is accomplished. little by littlef
 There is 6 manner of living that Is a denial of eternal life. We are steep cd in it. In the midst of the difficult ties of these times, that is the greatest difficulty of all. When the sense of the eternal is lost, the spring that is needed to organize mortal life becomes loosened. To live this life. man needs horizon. It is needfu1 that, from the black furrow over which he bends in his work. he should be able to raise his eyes to the heights from which help comes to him. As soon as ,he opening on to the infinite Is closed. and men become the prisoners of their passions, their appetites. their vani- ties or their formulas, the symptoms of asphyxia are apparent in all domains. Action loses its energy, religion be- comes petrified, poetry vanishes. art is lowered, hope dies.
 We need to learn the true life. that of which Christ had said: T am the life" That is the higher life. In each one of us there are two parts. that of God and that of death. To attain the eternal, we must learn to live in Gods part. This is not usually the case. We delight in the ephemeral. in vain sur faces; we call self what is only the inferior self. We install ourselves in the mediocre, among base things, in all that is evil and narrow. We bar ricade ourselves In selfishness. in sem suality in our own justice. and we strenuously defend wfat we call our dignity and other possessions, and which are but a halter round our neck or a chain about your feet. Thus man works for death. He becomes it's pur- veyor. he cultivates what must perish. To live the higher life, we must begin by renouncing that self. We must learn to look upon as a deliverer death that suppresses it. What would be- come of the world without the per- petual qualification by death? If all the old evil. all the old hates, all the slough of human pollution had never been swept away or ventilated or sub merged; If we were allowed to be in- famous. hypocritical. murderers. fam atics, liars, and to remain so always; avaricious, and to everlastingly retain our treasure; tyrannical, and to eternally oppress our victims; earth would become hell; no other would be needed. But we have death. death, which like fire, purifies and consumes all impurity, sorts all things, and in its crucible separates that which Is eternal from that which lasts but a day. Under that guise, whatever pain fin may inflict upon us, we should love death, as we love any bitter, but bene- ficial, remedy.
 This Is not a concession made to
 nothingness, an abdication. No-it means getting rid of cumbersome bur dens so as to better march on to the fight And whoever throws off that dangerous load acquires the power of fighting against the enemy, death. TOT uedIn IS an enemy, when II wishes to prove something against the mind, the conscience. justice. against the inn age of God that is in us, and (why not assert 1t joyously?) against God who is in us Our sdel. with all that Is holy and noble in 1t. hangs upon God. If 1t could perish. God would be attacked The loss of q man would be the defeat of God. The source of all protestations against oblivion, the in- vincible hope that animates humanity, the superhuman courage that some weak and oppressed creatures, crushed by superior force, retain until death; the source of all actions and of all forms by which faith in eternal life Is manifested Is this: Tt is in God that we have life"
 Christ possessed it; He transmits it. and this is not done exclusively through the historical channel of a tradition that has been kept up, of a life that has been made known. It is done today. as then. as always, by the direct cohesion of the soul and of God. The other means are only made to better awaken and vivify that