The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-10-02
IS Death H END?
Or, IF a Man Dies Shall He Live
Again.

The Yearning After Perfection is the
Souls Prophecy of its Own Immor-
tally.
Renan says one evidence for the
truth of Immortality may be found
in the nobility of behavior it inspir-
es. The idea that man is butt
1.-THE pilgrim of the day,
Spouse of the worm and brother
of the clay.
Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yell
low bower,
Dust in the wind or dew upon the
flower.
A child without a sire .
Whose mortal life and transitory
fire,
Light to the grave his chance crea-
ted form, 90
As ocean wrecks illuminate the
storm"
And then
Tonight and silence sinks forev-
ermore!" does not kindle great deeds
and strengthen any sublime endeav-
Cicero said Of the Epicurean
creed that it was utterly to be re-
jected because it led to nothing wor-
thy or generous.
If death ends all, what an impos-
ture our system Of laws on which So
ciety is founded! If we must wholly
perish, the maxims of charity and
justice and the precepts of honor and
friendship are empty words. Why
should they be binding if in this life
only we have hope? What duty do
we owe to the dead, to the living or
to ourselves, if all will be nothing?
If retribution terminates with the
grave, morality is q bugbear of hui
man invention. What are the sweet
ties of kindred if we shall not live
again? What sancity is there to the
last wish of the dying if death is a
wall instead Of q door? What is OBJ
edience to laws but an insane servi-
tude, justice an unwarrantable in
,fringement'upon liberty, the laws of
marriage a vain scruple, and govern
ment an imposition upon credulity,
if death ends all?
There was one nation and only one
that ever tried to destroy belief in
God and in Immortality. France de-
creed in national convention that
there was no God and death an eter-
nal Sleep, The Sabbath was abolish
ed. churches were turned into tenn
pies of reason, the Bible was drag
ged along the Streets by way Of de-
rision and contempt. Inidelity then
reigned and frightful was its reign.
Its crown was terror, its throne the
guillotine, its scepture the ~battleaxe,
its palace yard a field of blood, and
its royal. robes dripped with human
gore. Cutters were filled with the
torn shreds of human flesh. Prop
erty was confiscated. The morning
breeze and evening wind bore across
the vine-clad hills Of France the cries
of suffering and the shrieks of ter
ror, and to carry the metropolis and
the kingdom from utter desolation
the inidel authorities had to insti-
tute the Sabbath and public wor-
ship. We're the belief in God and
Immortality to die out in the human
heart, the hood-gates of vice would
open wide, plunge the world into
the grave of despair, and consign
humanity to the dungeons of the
damned.
All the arguments that GO to prove
the existence of Coda God endow-
ed with such attributes IS are essen
tial to our very conception of His
point out the moral nee
essity Of q future state of existence
and inequalities of the present NOR
al government will not only be re-
dressed, but the whole will be shown
to be holy and righteous.
There is sin and there is punish
ment for sin, which we daily wit
ness. But there is not for all sin
such a reckoning in this world as
meets the claims of righteousness
and justice. Do we not see evil do
ings go undetected and many bad
men pass UNPUBLISHED? See how often
the righteous suffer and the wicked
flourish. When we take a deliberate
view we are naturally led to exclaim:
Wherefore do the wicked live, be-
come old, yea. are mighty in power?
Is there no reward for the right
eous? Is there no punishment for
the workers of iniquity? Is there no
God that judgeth in the earth?'!
And indeed were there no retribu-
ton beyond the limits of this present
life, we should be necessarily oblig-
ed to admit one or the other of the
following conclusions: Either that
no Moral Governor of the world ex-
lists or that justice and judgment
are not the ~habitations of His throne.
If the moral government of God,
the existence of which our expert
ence avouches, is eyer to have it's ad-
ministrations perfected and wrought
to a complete actualizing of its own
manifest principles, it can only be in
another state of existence, and the
double conclusion presses upon US
that there is a future life. and that
that life is one of rewards and pun
ishment.
Earthly providence is a travesty of
justice on any other theory than that