Norwich bulletin., 1917-12-01
Sunday Morning Talk
"wHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?"

A group of youngsters in the car were singing the refrain, and finding it hugely amusing. The author of the popular .skit doubtless never meant to preach, but just now he cannot help it. Where, in truth, are we all going to from here-the whole race of us, rich and poor, beggars and kings together? Where are those gig gling school girls, those. tired labor CTS, those lads in khaki over near the door, all going to? Each one has a ticket to some. station down the line, of course. But beyond that where are they going?
 The one certainty is that all of us mortals are the way somewhere. We are all soldiers in a marching procession, the front ranks of which over the hill. The crowds that fill the streets today seem the same that they have ever been. In reality, how ! ever, gaps are. everywhere. The surg that yesterday, but it is not the same multitude. Hundreds have dropped out, and tomorrow other hundreds will be missing.
 Never was there ! more wide spread interest than now in what lies beyond the veil of the human experience called death. Death has become such a tragic factor in the worlds thought In these years of
 
 his normal harvest, is conducting thousands and millions to the bourne from which no traveller returns. They are not the aged and infiTIn whose race of life %h has been run, but the young and strong, the very flower of the nations cut down untimely. They meant so much to us while here in the flesh! How can one avoid a rev. erent speculation as to their present whereabouts and occupations?
 Th0r6Qn he believed about the future life the philosopher replied:, :One. world at. a time" The same restricted outlook is. of course, all that is possible for any of us. No amount of search will penetrate the mystery of the beyond With old Omar Khayyam we admit: Strange is it not? that of the myriads
 who ~>- + y5
 Before us pass'd the door of Dark
 ness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel, too
 Only a human clod, however. can be indifferent to the country which in few years at most he must go out to discover for himself. To ad- init no interest in a future that holds such boundleSs revelations is to argue oneself less than a man. For normal minds the ultimate question becomes; If a man die Shall he, live again?" and where and how shall he live again?
 1t is a case where .dogmatism helps us not at all. The cocksure terms in which some so -called ;, theologians have described heaven have made more doubters than believers. :. Nei ther have the results of what is named psychical research yielded surety to other than certain peculiar Iy constituted minds. For most of us the matter must be left tin the realm of faith, where. indeed it has al ways properly belonged. Immortality cannot be proved. as one can dem. onstrate theorenn in mathematics. If it could. be so proved, if blue print of the celestial city could be exhibited to 2 :hesitant spilgrims, as dealers show plans of real estate all virtue would vanish from our moral striving. There is no worth in en- deavor that is compelled by the vision of an inevitable prize. We can be really good only when we realize that "now are We the sons, of God. and it doth notAyet appear. what we shall be-" .-.-. , -.s..-sss.. -s
 Amid all the uncertainties of the future one thing is certain. We shall come to the logical goal of the road we are on. Everyone comes at last. like Judas, to This own place. There are no mistakes and no miSf1ts in the great beyond. Some men are on the up grade and some are on. the down grade This is true in spite of former and certain good Impulses son. the part of the latter Let us believe that each man will come ats<last to, the only logical end of the road that each has been travelling - ,-
 THE PARSON -s