Evening star., 1917-04-01
MAGAZINE SECTION for April l, 1917
eff q Man Die, Shall He
Live Again ?"

TT is the age-od question, asked at the side of
bier-asked by all the Christian world at Easter
time.
And what can one say in to it?
Every OF us Is taught in childhood to believe IN
God and an after life.
remember when was beginning to read and think
little, it occurred to that, though had been
told there is future life nobody had ever given me
any proof ... - uouL u tho nnhio ubr.rv to
read the works of the greatest men who ever lived and
find proofs for myself.
And remember how, slowly at FIRST then faster and
faster turned through wise mans book alter
another. "Surey this will know. said to myself
cor this one; or this
And suddenly the bitter truth flashed They
did know, any than did. All their proofs We're
not proofs at all In all history there had neve, % LIVED
man wise enough to prove immortality: Almost
everybody believed nobody really knew.
1t discovery that left me helpless at first: then
slowly out of my heplessness began to evolve little
system of my
In the first place it seems to easier to believe than
to disteleve.
"The world just happened" say at
created itself through the operation OF natural laws
And that sounds very scientific and satisfactory,
But who what established the natural laws and set
them to operating?
When you can dump load of bricks a lot,
and let watch them arrange themselves into house
when you can empty handful OF springs and wheels
and desk, and let them gather them
selves together into watch- will be easier for me to
believe that all these thousands of worlds could have
been created balanced and set to moving in their
separate orbits, all without any directing intelligence
Moreover if there is no intelligence in the universe,
then the universe has created something greater than
tself-or it has created you and me.
Is it easy to believe that universe without personality
could have created who have personality?
Isn't it easier to believe that personality is little
part Of the great pervadng Personality that has created
and permeates the universe?
And if there be Personality in the universe-a God
what kind of God is He!
He must be at least good as you or l. He couldn't
have made us better than Himself. The not
create the better.
And if He is good God, is it reasonable to suppose
- that He would have planted in human hearts this
( quenchabe yearning for Immortality, and left that
yearnng unsatisfed?
You and | would not have done
Go where you will, from the most savage race to the
most cultured, you find that same instructive assurance
that death is not the end. Would good God plant that
in his creatures merely to mock them?
Without Immortality the world is answerless riddle.
We born; struggle up through slow years of
development; and just we have reached our highest
point of usefulness cut off.
What neficiency! What waste
1t is hard for to believe in universe that made
ITSELF and that uthessly casts away its most precious
possession-human personality.
1t is easier to believe that back of the universe is
guiding Intelligence, of whose personality my is
tiny spark that shall not go out while He lives.
If 1 not prove that this is neither any