Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-09-02

face and understand. And then 7 re.
membered that the religions experiences
OF both had been curiously similar. and
that the net result of life to each had
fashioned the souls Of both of them into
recognizable likeness, not SO much to
each other as to an ideal which each,
beneath all her shrewdness or her
sophistication, held as her most precious
possession.
| Ihey had each grown in their view =
point OF their relationship to those
about them and to God, into n likeness
incomplete. faint in outline, vet un
mistaknblc.--of the Son of God. One
felt that the self that each was grow :
ing. into by imperceptible dscardings
md scarcely realized acccptances was
full Of potentialities that no mere span
of physical life could wholly bring to
perfection or wholly utilize. I've had
sort OF vision of them since that morn
ihg--not as two women. nor even as
mothers and grandmothcrs. touched ex 4.
ternnlly little by time and trouble,
and thc difficulty Of things-not what
they were to the eye, but as my own
soul perceived them, two valiant souls
that had won victory over themselves
md over their surroundings and were
serenely arming themselves for what lay
before them in time and in eternity
under q leader whom they had served
and whom they had grown to trust
greatly.
0NE Of the joys of living is to watch
~ the emergence of souls out Of bodies.
] sometimes wonder why most of the
talent of writer's is spent on making
much of the entri acts of life, the
failing in love" rather than the
friendship. the awakening to spring
rather than the realization Of the
Creator. the first loss rather than the
losing Of all the world
understand very well what people
mean when they say that there are other
chapters of the New Testament that
would give the mourners at funerals
more uuic. comfort than the one usually
r"nd from the New Testament-thc
10Th chapter Of First Corinthians, con-
ccrning the resurrection Ot the dead
The reasoning is very close In that dis
course Of St. Paul where he enlarges
on his grounds for believing that the
dead rise and on his theory as to the
laws of nature governing such resur-
rcction. If you lose part of the argu-
ment you have difficulty to catch up.
1t is like falling out Of step in great
onward march. In sense, 1t is
mighty funeral hymn that was also n
hymn Of life. But find 70. myself
tina. my mind always comes up 20 the
time and rhythm Of the words, no mat
ter how I have Jagged behind, when the
voice reading the great argument
reaches the sentence:
'As we have borne the image of the
earthly. so shall we also bear the image
Of the heavenly ~
From that moment the whole Of the
present funeral scene. the gloom of the
darkcncd interior, the faint perfume of
the fading flowers, the subducd lights.
the bowed heads. the grave. stcrnly con-
trOl,cd faces. all cease to distract my
attention from the great fact Of the
meaning of death.
T HEAR the words as though for the
l. first time-St. Paul's summing up Of
the facts of life before the sinister
threshold of the open grave. Short,
me now as I write with the Bible itself
out Of reach:
"For this I say, brethren. flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God. neither doth corruption inherit
We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be charged. But when
this corruption shall have put on in
and this mortal shall have
put on immortality, death is swallowed |
up in victory
In that argument for the resurrection ]
is the promise of an immortal spirit.
md back Of the great Christian belief
Of the resurrection is the greater belief
Of the fact of the living soul.