Year: 1873

ution: | .r.f tbr truer thpg' passed away '-Iev wi h ( This was the summation, MT. Bcccher sa'di { tbn rarticula-. were given before He would read from the frs, verse tO the text. lt was , a- though the voice had -nid "ln this world men experience sorrow and traL Their , hopes are di,appointmentS' their aspirations , ialurc. But there comes world m the future in which all this--the former things shall have passed away iorcyer.h This beau tiul day was good day to talk about heaven. There was no stlr in the air, no storm on the water. All things were beautiful and still. The air was full Of odors, distilled from the white alembics of the flowers. IL reminded one of the rest that remained for the people Of God.

 Let them consider the transition by which they should rise into that other state Of ex- istcnce Did souls pass immediately into blesseduess after they quilted this state Or did they lie, as the Jews believed, m a vast receptacle awaiting the last day2 The New Testament was not clear on the subject, but ! by implication its teaching was that they | rose at once into the divine presence. No alluson was made by Paul to an interval or dormant state, and yet be made constant rgference to the condition of men after death. He never intimated that the soul took a sort

 

 ingathering to the spiritual sphere. Nor did any such an idea address itself to any human instinct which desired it to be true. Paul's doctrine was Absent from the body, pres ent with the Lord.n Out of this, into that There was spring of internediateism in his doctrine If there was great sluInberous interval after death, why was there no hint Of 1t in the Word of God Mir. Beecher did not affirm with arrogant positiveness that this doctrine was true and none other, but he thought that scripture warranted the pre- sumption that they had right to believe SO.

 This doctrine, Mr. Bcecher said, did not exclude the idea of progress. They had the testimony of Christ in Matthew's gospel. Among the Jews. in order that a woman's right of property might not go out of the tribe, it was possible for her to marry all the men of a household. Christ was asked whose wife such an one should be in the next world Christ said, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God" Men in the next world were to be as the angels. There was progress. They were not to propagate, not to frame themselves into little companies as on earth. The family relation there was to be different. The pas sions which continue the race, hunger ana thirst which prompt to bodily nourishment, the cumulative powers requisite for protec. ton here, were not required in the future state; why, then, need men possess these powers or passions or longings when they had left behind them the conditions which required theml When we have left the body, we should leave behind us many burnt out passions.

 In the other life, too our minds would be disabused of many functions which it was needrul for them 10 have here. We should not carry our earthly bodies into the other life, yet we should have spiritual bodies which would identify us one from the other. The souls that emerged from death into heaven would range along an extended scale. There would be a system of progress. Those souls that were low in spiritual culture in this life would be low down the scale in the next. Each soul would begin with the capi tai acquired in this life Those who had one talent would be far below those who had five Each one would possess, as it were, a specific gravity in the other, and would rest accordingly. But scripture justified the be- lief that all would be as happy as they could bear They would develop, however, with a rapidity of which we could form no concep- tion Children who entered the next life as children would rise and develop more swiftly Chat on earth. Men of low culture here would there grow with wondrous rapidity, so that the lowest and least would speedily out grow all this worlds standards Take away from man all that belonged to his lower na- ture, and give him in force all that pertainod to his higher nature and then you might conceive of the aptitude with which he woah receive the lessons of the other. He would he in a society, too, where all would move with one intent-the evil gone, the temptation dropped out--moyed together like the Gulf Stream, nightly, irresistibly There would be also the direct influence o God-how mighty the influence, how noble the joy

 We might thus see, said Mr Beecher, how men who, when they died, were not very if for heaven, and heaven might develop what earth never would have developed. Some times when opening up long diaused well men found few old seeds at the bottom They had lain there for years. There wal no sign of life about them. They wer' brought to the the light, however and thu sun shone upon them. They began to grow and sprout and soon became healthy, vigor ous plauts One might conceive people her unGtted by force of animal passions for spiritual life, who, nevertheless, when deatl took away what was their bane on earth might begin a new life in future state Some represented q man as taking into th next world the nature, the disposition he ha in tLis. How could we conceive a man taking all bis sensual, rude, incboate natur into the oths, life He did not take 1t wit him Men grew as straw. We could con cciye germ whieh-when freed from tn chafi aud bettered, nurtured, and educated and glosed upon by the sun of Gods love would open up and grow and flourish o earth, all through much sin and darkness lived and grew some at times. But, with thorsand hindrances shredded off, we coul understand how men whom society reject

 now, may get standing room in heaven, nc high up, but starting place. If heaven VI so rigidly pure, then death must be grei sitter Look at the saint of years. How in perfect, hOw deficient, how very far down l is. What man ever walked to the gate

 heaven, aRd had the angel lay on him thi