The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1906-01-25
IGNORANCE OF FUTURE.
Imaginings of One Age Not Sat
isfactory to Another.

We know nothing whatever
about the next world, says the
London Spectator. Even those
who accept the Christian revela-
ton most heartily and most com.
pletely must admit with ST. John
that 1T doth not yet appear what
we shall be-" Christ taught and
His disciples believed, that the
soul of man is eternal and does
not die with the body. St. Paul
sumed up Christ's teachings on
the subject of Immortality when
he said that He had abolished
death" :" Against this ignorance
man has forever chafed. Upon the
dark background of the future
the religious imagination, helped
by the inner light of conscience,
throws beautiful and terrible
pictures. But with each succeed
ing age the pictures dissolve and
change. knowledge cannot pierce
the visible darkness which div
ides this world from the next. AS
the years grow on we gain wis
dom, but not certainty.
Wisdom that, becoming wise,
meant making slow and sure
advance.
From a knowledge proved in er-
rer to acknowledged ignorance
All popular ideas of heaven or
hell are just now fading away.
The conventional heaven failed
to satisfy the aspirations of mar
and all conceptions of the ever
lasting tortures of the damned
fade before a new consistency of
thought which cannot reconcile
eternal punishment with ''the
knowledge and love of God"
Our forefathers looked for
ward in some moods to everlast-
ing rest and never-ending wor-
ship, in others to a happy and
prosperous life in a perfectly gov
erned and perfectly healthy city.
AT times, inspired by the love of
nature, they Christianized the
classic pictures of the Elysian
fields. Today the normal man
does not desire rest when he asks
himself what life he would
choose. Rest suggests death, and
we desire more abundant life. To
most healthy bodies and healthy
minds effort is in itself delight
full. If men do not need to make
an effort for their living, they will
do it for their pleasure. Success
full effort brings more happiness
than anything else, taking life as
a whole. The thought of ever
lasting worship satisfies fewer
and fewer people today. 1t be-
longs to an age when men
thought of God as a kind of king,
who took perpetual pleasure in
homage. We still sing of Sweet
fields beyond the swelling food" :"
and find refreshment in the
thought, but no one desires to
live forever wandering amid the
beauties of nature. The thought
of an ideal civic life is still at
tractive, but the heavenly Jeru-
salem brings thoughts of Utopia
now rather than of the everlast-
ing.
We still pray against ever
lasting damnation," and desire to
get rid of the worm of remorse
that dieth not, but our prayers,
however earnest, no longer bring
visions of the burning pit. Such
visions would be called up now
adays rather by the Divine Com
edy" than by the church service
Other hopes charm us today and
other fears restrain. These again,
will change their form in the next
generation. The conditions of
this life alter, and, consequently,
the conceptions of that life to
which we instinctively look for
consolation and explanation, re-
ward and retribution change al
so. Nevertheless, these pious
opinions of the past, the outcome
as they are of a spiritual preoc-
cupation more concentrated than
anything of which the present
age is capable, are not without
their value. Imaginary they may
have been, but
God is also in sleep, and dreams
advise,
Which He hath sent propitious,
some great good presaging.
We smile reverently as we
look back. Crowns and cities,
feasts and sweet fields, all melt
away together. Still, the words OF
Christ, which cannot pass away
while human nature remains,
sound in our hearts. at is the
spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
pro6teth nothing"
Earlier Report.