Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-03-30

REV. r. b. WILLIAMS.
Up to that same door all the millions
who now live are moving. None 81 |
those who have entered that narrow !
way have come back to tell us what |
there is beyond They have not even
come back to tell us that there is any |
such beyond as that for which Va
hope. How our hearts ache in the ,
midst of such perpleXity and doubt!
How We make plans and leave them
half finished; how We pass ON from
one stage of our career to another
How we die, and others come on in our
places to run through the same mys
terry and bewilderment OF change tina;
We have run. Such existence i mere
| ly touching upon life. II is like the
contact of the flying insect with the
surface Of the river: its wing just
brushes the stream AT one point in it
long career and then is gone again.
and that is all il has 10 do with j.: ans
that is all We seem to have to do with
life I'm the midst Of such perpieXity
there comes voice out of the Boo,
Of God saying: Il am he that liveth,
and was dead. and behold. an al"
fOrevcrmOre' Here is one who PASSED
through the door of death and came
back TO tell us what there is beyont
He was our friend. our brother. lie
walked with us mp and down the hills
land valleys of IaLea and Galilee. He
was with us in our marriage feasts.
/ |,
us at the grave of or beloved He
was our friend. our brother. He Went
away from rs. and then came back 20
tell us of life beyond. The mystery Gf
death finds its explanation at the door
of his empty sepulcher. In the light
of his experience we see that death Is
not destruction: it is transition: 1t i
not the end of life; it is the ntoldinE
OF il. Death unlocks the door of this
fesh-house which we temporarily in
habit and lets us out into higher and
broader life. Nm is not an animal
consisting of soul and body; he is a
, soul and has a body. He may live IN
the body or out of it. as bird may
live within or out of its cage. \ r,usi-
cal instrument is tuneless and silen.
when there is no hand upon its keys.
and il would remain so forever without
the touch of the musicians fingers.
The instrument may be destroyed
while the musician lives
Tic body which we see anC touch
: and handle which for time goes in
and out among us with a visible pres
Z ence: which strangely fasCinates us
. while it stays, and saddens Us when i,
d IS removed; the body which. while liz
h ing. exercises over us a witchery tina
k nothing else ever can. and when dead
: becomes more sacred than anything
I we ever knew.-this we come to thin,
of as our self or our friend.
When finally it sickens and dies. an.
becomes unresDonsive to our cries O.
affection we say our friend is dead
r We identify the cold and unrcsponsiv'
form that lies before us with the pc.
2 son, with the friend. This is our mi,
5 take. Starting with this error ever!
\ step is cherries and dark. We mus
I. remember that in its nature the son
r. islands completely apart from the phy
s steal organism. Thought. feeling, Goa
4 science, is one thing; bone. siney
Ip brain. is another thing. Because tn
{ are intimately associated; becaus
ic thought. feeling. conscience. opera
d through bone. sinew. and brain. ther'
i fore 10 say that they are of the sam
r. nature, is as if one should say that b.
NJ cause light. to be perceived. passa
f. through the eye, therefore light an
NJ the eye are of the same nature; or "
10 cause life dwells in the plant. there
~ fore the material structure Of the piai
K is the same thing as the mysterioG
life that animates it. ] know that
is difficult. in our ordinary thinking.
k disassociate the body from the persoi
a The outward form is the most obv
in Gus part. and is so wondrously near I
re us. and so mixed up with our exper
a ences that we do not see exactly no
Ill il is that it is not us. 1t cleaves to I
=. with such tenacity that we cannot Iii