The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-10-10
Of longer viewsY Why climb except for the

# of longer views? Why climb except IoT ~
y hope of seeing far?'
i DR.. Slater makes an earnest plea Tor LIS
i study of the profoundly interesting quesuon
Whittier are we going? We study the track
whence we came, in anthrapology and history
/ The look ahead is surely of more instant con
Germ There is no ground, either theoretical OF
practical, upon which we may hesitate to con
slider the subject of living for the future. II
] is true enough, perhaps, that our ancestors
thought too much about the future and too
| little about the present. Nowadays the pendu-
/ lum has swung too far the other way, and IN
some quarters the gospel Of the kingdom is al
most identified with model tenements, district
nurses and eugenics, so that many OF us nave
become curiously Indifferent to the relative
values of sociology and character. : 1t does not
follow that "a daily bath is complete substl-
tlte for the holy communion DIR. Slater
urges us to give ourselves the pleasure now and
then of brief excursion into the world where
we shall be after the death of the body His
purpose is avowedy not philosophical but prac-
teal, not metaphysical but ethical In the book
are no arguments in support OF immortality It
SELF "but, says the author, 80 those who believe
in personal Immortality without being able to
attach to that belief any sense of reality or any
practical consequences, may perhaps be led IN
to certain differences, conjectures, and hopes
that will be not without interest for the intel
lectual and moral life. =
A few extracts from DIR. Slater's book will
show the trend of his thought:
In the first place. future life will not be
idle There must, if the soul really lives
hereafter and is not merely preserved en-
bamed in arrested state, be endless spirit
ual indignation, in order to prevent the Tar easier
disintegration that easily overtakes US. =
In some form or other. the discipline and the de-
light Of work must not be altogether lacking
II the future life is not to be an idle life, Its
activities must be such belong to the realm OF
the spirit. BY the spirit Cor sou) will be meant,
throughout this discussion. all OF the mind that
can survive physical death And soul
which had lost all Of powers Of contact with
the rich and wonderful treasures of memory and
imagination, which could longer perceive or
conceive and reason as we do Cor in some better
way would be no friend OF ours. He might be
angel but we do not want to be angels; we
to be ourselves.
or the activities possible then, in spiritual
world, the first and perhaps the greatest may be
the silent influence for good upon other spirits
of error, steady, persistent reminder Of past
privilege and aspiration. Matthew Ar
'.hours of insight'-hours sometimes of
purely Intellectual insight, when the worth OF the
moral ideal is suddenly and briefly revealed in all
its beauty. But how often, when your good angel
says Rem mber," you ask in vain whether in
petuance or in prayer, Remember what?" The
answer comes only as before like a distant bell
member" / is LIES warning signal. eternity's
cipher message to time, the futures summons to
the present. There are many that send that
message by night and by day; many that
live beyond the mountains, and some that sleep
beyond the all Of them friends.
Dr. Slater's chapters are never dogmatic
and the inquiry he invites is SO fascinating that
many should be tempted to make it. It may
we'll be that his book will seem to make the
inquiry profitable as well as alluring