Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1907-08-23
BELIEF IN LIFE HEREAFTER.
BY Rev. Edwin w. Casv

-
Life, 1t Is said, is not a blind alley"
but a thoroughfare; death, 4 bend in
the road that stretches on through the
undiscovered country. Belief in God
and in the future life makes men pa
tient in suffering. hopeful in despair,
calm under ca!umny, philanthropic,
self-sacriticing. patriotic and heroic.
1t has inspired the greatest classics in
literature. Moses, Homer, Virgil, Dan
tie, Goethe. Bunyan, Milton, all write of
heroes living beyond the present life.
The chief discoveries and inventors
first saw by faith the Invisible wotll.
Socrates, CALLED, COpernicus, Newton,
Faraday, Watt, Fulton, Morse and Ed
son, the nearer they approached the
Creator in their vast researches the
more they believed the future to be a
life for the adjustment Of Inequalities.
for the continuance of development, Of
studies and discoveries and for the re-
union Of souls.
The tendency of those who decry the
future as SO predetermined us to be un-
practical is to sink down into material
i'ii t'Ai III plllS lOcJl,
fire, clothing and housing. reducing life
to getting a living" whereas life here
is only the husk of the life beyond, the
corn, the husk being valuable till the
corn is %garnered.
Christs great power owe mankind
was because he truthfully exclaim-
ed: Il am the resurrection and the
ljfn Without yl, rI-;.
tianity would have persisted at its
birth. Other religious worship ut the
tomb of dead leaders, while Christon-
dom eXclaims: 81 know that my Re
dee1ner liveth.' Humanity everywhere
Graves life. Browning beautifully says:
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death;
Ills life whereof our lives are scant,
Q life, not death, for which we pant;
More life and fuller, that l want.
Is not Immortality really here and
now and time but a fragment of the
whole life? We are passing through
eternal atmospheres, as the earth
through air, unconsciOusly, while the
eclipse Of death is only a shadowy
~~oSA oNAchS lhS AASAI Vi IL Alloll
Life should mean amending bliss or
1t is not worth living. he gates of
God must open or all is a failure. Life
must mean cheer, st~ereotyped in tina
for Us and joy for ever more.
Ii character dies, it is the %catastro-
phe OF the universe, the failure Of Gre
alton, the fall of the Godhead and the
ont "a .f ,h,oc r,In> +lo ~,,x.
fcal becomes grander than the spirit
ual. The sequoias of the Yosemite and
b rocks from which they grow, be-
come nobler than man, the masterpiece
of God.
lar MacLaren once said: Let us re-
lnforce this world with the world
WHICH is to come.'
Lift off the roof from your low, mar
row cottage, let the higher world in.
The soul needs air from it's native
skies
Think of the millions who have sin,
poverty, want, disease, loss, bereave-
ment and unnamed secret trials for
their portion in the present life.
Though a multitude Of philanthropies
are organized TO TGlleNe SUCH suffering,
Gods mightiest philanthropy, the hope
of eternal life, is greater than all hui
manitariau agencies INC alone makes
life worth living.
Robert Ingersoll said he did not be-
lieve in living here on skim milk that
he might have cream in heaven, but
Paul explained: 81 have suffered the
loss of all things that I might win
Christ and the crown" Jesus himself
endured the cross for the joy that was
set l'efore him, md now awaits our
coming to his many mansioned home,
where we may have life more abun-
dainty"
This world cannot satisfy the long
iags Of the soul any more than a cage
can satisfy a bird with wings. Life
IS truly called q voyage, q journey. Il
dressing-room, a vestibule, and there
fore must have a destination, a home.
a palace in the capital city Of all
worlds.