Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1911-06-01
FINE MEMORIAL SERMON
Delivered by Rev. G. B. Draper Sunday
Afternoon from lob I4;I4 "If a Man
Die. Shall he Live Again2''

I
His property had been swept away
worms were eating up his body, ant
he felt himself fast Fastening to the
tomb. So he desired some certainty a,
to the future, and when he solved the
problem he said: I'm my flesh shall
see God. " Jobs life is but a type OF
our own. Temporal and perishable are
written upon everything about us. II
we turn backward in memory, how
much of life that we know but that
has over 1t the pail of death. The past
is but the charnel house containing
the hopes, joys and loved ones of 9th
er years. The happy birds which used
to call you in life's early morning in
childhood home, have long ceased to
sing. The roses which once blushed
in beauty along the garden walk have
gone back to Mother Earth. The low
GUS boys and girls that used to romp
in the old play ground are gray head
ed sires and matrons, or have Joined
the silent funeral march to the city of
the dead.
The comrades whose heart and step
were IN touch with thine own have
bid thee farewell and answered the
roll call above. Not much is left us
of other years, but remembrances
touched with memory immortality and
garnered in her sacred urn free from
the hand of death.
The past is TO us what the old bat
tie ground is to the scar worn veteran.
Limping upon his Clutches, he stands
with uncovered head where he fought
in manhood's lusty prime. He hardly
recognizes the place of so many dear
associations. Rude hands have felled
the trees and plowed the ground, there
younger brother and father fell and
here comrade, but no sign now re-
mains to tell him where they now
rest He remembers they were once
here, but they are gone, and he feels
that soon he shall also join the choir
invisible. So the past is to us all we
stumble upon the crutch of memory
into other years and all is changed.
| Here tombstone and there an hour
| hand to remind us that soon we will
be gone. And it is not strange that in
this shifting, heeting life that over
leaping all others, should come the
question, ''It man die shall he live
again.
Without doubt this is one of the
most important problems, perhaps the
most vital touching the life of man.
No man can live this life intelligently
until he has taken into consideration
that he is an immortal being. If man
lives not beyond the grave he should
emphasize this life only. His motto
should be ''eat, drink and be merry
for tomorrow we die" But if he is to
continue his existence beyond the
tomb and the felicity of that existence
is conditioned upon the conduct of this
life. he should let every act here have
respect to that world to come
| will present some considerations
that cause us to answer that we shall
live again
list. The prevalency of this idea
among men. The good and bad men
of all ages and coutries have believed
in the Immortality of the soul, the ig-
nOrant and illiterate have concurred.
The old philosophers pursued this star
of hope. They believed that after the
wreck of death man should sail upon
some fairer sea-. Plato has given us
the greatest argument upon the nature
and destiny of the soul. Socrates be-
lieved in future state. Napoleon
said: You physicians d. not believe
in the immortality of the soul because
you cannot find it with the dissecting
knife" The Indian in his darkness,
has not laid his dead away without
hopes of happy hunting ground, The
body may weaken and die, the soul
expands. An emaciated body may
sustain master mind Alfred the
Great, Tallyrand, John Wesley. Glad
stone, Helen Hunt Jackson are con
Ce
bility of disease and old age to impair
the soul within. The stars of litera-
ture, irrespective of religious belief or
character have paid homage to this
truth
Lord Byron says, Immortality ov-
ersweeps all pains, all tears all time,
all fears and peals like the eternal
thunders of the deep into my ears this
truth, Thou livest forever" r. G.
Ingersol that stubborn agnostic, did
not blot this out of his creed. When
called upon to make some remarks
over the dead body of his brother, did
not crush this flower of hope. Speak
ing of his brother he said, she mistook
death for the return of health and
said, Il am getting better Shall we
not hope~all the numberless dead who
sleep in the windowless palaces of the
tomb, are better.
Abraham looked for a City whose
maker and builder was God. Job in
the night Of his sorrow was cheered
with the hope that after skin worms
had eaten up the body in his flesh he
should see God.
End. Mans greatness is constant
of his divinity. He has
subdued and made the natural world |
his servant. He has used the mystic
fires of the universe to light his house,
cook his food and carry his voice
around the world. Places once far
apart by the power of steam have been
brought nigh; worlds far out in space,
by his telescope have been brought |
down to earth. He names and tells of |
their laws and composition, and this |
generation knows more of Jupiter and |
Saturn than many knew of our earth |
He has dug down into this planet, de-
the plan of creation and read |
the express thoughts of God Passing
from his faculties and reason, in his
heroic moral qualities, he is more than
the brute on the hillside. Take man
rs he offers himself as a martyr for his
take him as he rushes into
jhe mouth of the booming cannon in
lefense of his country, take him as he