Omaha daily bee., 1906-04-08

guage, religion, government, laws. customs
and habits we are ignorant. Only this
we know-that in the days when thought
first feebly stirred the mind there lived a
people whose lips, now the dust Of ages,
confessed that man shall live again
This idea is universal. Every age, every
people that has left record of tradition,
myth symbol literature or history, has left
record of its hope for Immortality. 1t is
not an accident of climate food or drink
1t is not an intoxication of the delirium of
joy; 1t is not a protest against blank de-
spair. Among the denzens OF the tropics
voluptuous prohgacy and in the habitat
of the Arctic hunter beneath the seven
stars, along the sallow sand and complain
ing surf, in Druids Swallowed AISLE
wherever men sobbed and laughed, de-
SPARED and aspired. this hope has been part
Of the warp and wool Of the experience of
life and dreams of men.
1t has never changed. The topography
and contour of continents have been re-
formed, nations have come and gone en-
pires have risen and fallen, languages have
fourished and become dead, bibles have
been rewritten, creeds have been restated.
conceptions of God have been revised, while
worlds have burned into idle cinders that
whirl on useless orbits. yet immutable un-
wearied. unfaltering and unforgotten this
idea of Immortality has survived the flight
of time and wreck of ages,
Promise of God.
This instinct for Immortality is con-
temporaneous with life and matter. With
life and matter 1t looks toward God for
its fulhllment. 1t is inconceivable that God
should teach the bird to wing its flight
through the trackless air to the desired
cline; teach the bee TO rife the flowers
secret chambers of their fragance and dis
till into sweetness; to teach the beast Of
the field the means of defense and succor-
that He should keep faith with these and
cheat man Natures embodiment has as
sured US that the idea of immortality is a
gift from God, by creative act. To as
sumo that God, in a single instance, could
deceive, is TO presume for the entire uni
verse the probability Of chaos and insanity
We can not change the name of God to
friend. of universal benehcence to deceiver,
nor claim that He speaks with perjured
lips. Reason revolts and the soul becomes
sick with horror at the very thought. God
is true He has kept faith with the planets
and marked their unerring orbits through
the immensely of space. He has impressed
the necessity OF fidelity and truth upon every
dloil OF the universe. FROM lnCOneIGnL
matter He has formed a world that should
have no significance until tenanted by man.
Every expression of thatworld moves upon
the lines of truth. God has not kept faith
with matter, and then lied to the thrilled
and throbbing soul OF man. This instinct
Of immortality is His provision and pro-
phecy of the fulhllment which He has In
store for us,
Perhaps the most conclusive argument
against Immortality is the silence OF the
dead. Christianity has based its idea Of
immortality upon the only rational ground
Of belief in assuming the resurrection OF
its founder. To see the Scared hands OF
our own dead moving with endless life
would be sufficient argument for each Of
us. Why do our dead not return TO usg
Perhaps they do, and we do not know
il. Were an apparitlon to appear be-
fore US, we would not believe our senses
for we are not prepared TO receive one
who has come forth from the tomb The
appearance OF Jesus after the crucihxion.
as alleged Is not incredible, and / be-
Ieve In the possibility Of seeing our dead
return. and the power 10 commune with
them.
Mistake of the Church.
Never since the day when the Marys
went to the tomb has man ever made the