Arizona republican., 1909-03-01
THE EVIDENCES
 OF IMMORTALITY
The Subject of Rev. Mir. HawIey at the Methodist Church.

"The Evidences of Immortality" was the subject yesterday morning at the Methodist Episcopal church. The min ister, Rev. A. s. Hawley, disclaimed originality as to the arguments ad- vanced. The sermon was a summing up of available matter relative to the subject
 MT. Hawley said: We know noth- ing at all about what death is. Our knowledge is limited to simply noting the effects of its action on once living bodies. These actions are but the re suit of death-not the thing itself So, not knowing what death Is, we cannot argue for or against the immortality of the soul from the reason of the thing; it is not susceptible of mathe- nautical demonstration from either viewpoint; so it is written, The just shall live by Cor through) faith Has this faith a tangible foundation? Is the idea of immortality strange beyond compare with anything we can see and know here? Certainly it demands an enlargement of our powers; but could we call an intelligent being from some far-off point in space, where the laws of growth and development were inop- erative? Could we show him an egg and convince him it would produce a chick, or a chrysalis a butterfly; or a tiny germ, a man? Yet we see these transformations constantly taking place The difference between an ovule. and a man, if repeated, would convert the man into a celestial being. We have faculties that exist unharmed till the very moment of death, while the body has been wasting before the fell stroke. Love. virtue, thought, req son-all that makes man-have been plainly untouched. But are our bodies we? We use glasses to see with; walk or feel with food or iron: are with artificial drums-in fact, our bodies seem to be related to us as the engine is to the steam-simply a machine to give visible form and direction to our energies, to connect the immaterial we to the material world.
 "The taking away of wheels, bands, and belts does not injure the steam. it simply flinders its expression by pre- venting its doing things it otherwise could do. So the loss of eyes, ears, hands or limbs does not injure the living being. but cuts his connections with sections of existence by prevent ing the exercise of his energies in those directions.
 "A man without eyes. ears. tongue or limbs is just as capable of thinking, loving, reflecting as before his dread ful loss If the body was himself, he would be hree-eighths gone; but we find him only physically injured. Soul and mind are as alive as before. If the destruction of three-eighths of his body does not injure the living powers of the man, why will the destruction of the rest completely destroy him?
 Tn dreams, we feel. see, hear, taste, grieve, rejoice, think and reflect with out using the organs of our body. No man has found of the organ of memory or affection. Our living powers exist varied degrees of inanimation. such as sleep, a swoon, or trance. Does it not seeem possible that we are not dependent on our bodies after all save for the power of physical connection and contact and that we might easily live on without them? Not here, but in some sphere where sense of, and with, material things was less important"