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THE CHRISTIAN NATION.
Vol. 59.
IE A MAN DIE SHALL HE LIVE •f:urid those rude people believing in the existence
there was no immortality out yonder there
AGAIN*.—Job 14:14.
of the spirits of their ancestors and would be no drawing, no desire here.
By tbe Rev. H. G. Patterson.
heroes, possessed of the thought of an invisible
Human nature hungers for immortality.
world, speaking of a heaven The eye of man looks wistfully to the end.
under This hunger was put there by God, and it is
Life, like love, believes in its own immortality.
the symbol of the best bit of earth they knew, a prophecy of that which shall satisfy it. The
Heart and mind cr}- for light upon and interested above all things in the men­
Creator has in no case where investigation has
that which is beyond the grave. Nor do tion of a resurrection. In this sense, therefore,
'reached, implanted a craving or even an
they cry in vain. They have their answer
belief in a future life is both a primary adaptation of body, mind or soul, without
in two great books; the book of nature and and a primitive belief of humanity. In most creating that which would meet that craving
the book of revelation. Though the light cases it has gone beyond the mere idea of or adaptation. Owen, the naturalist, finds
may be dim in the first,there is no shadow some sort of after existence. It has imagined
a fossil 500 feet under the ground. He says
of darkness in the second. Into its clear
a place for that existence, sometimes on the animal lived on the surface of the earth,
depths men have never ceased to look since earth, sometimes under the earth and sometimes
How does he know? Why there are sockets
it was first given, and from it they have never
above the earth.
for the eye. Nature makes nothing in vain.
turned away unsatisfied. Christianity has It may be said and it sometimes is said, It must have lived where the light was. THe
translated a guess, a dream, a longing, a that t'l~e origin of the belief in immortality bee by its nature seeks the flower. There is
probability into a certainty. Christ hath may be traced directly back to the dreams of a fragrance in the air which guides it to the
abolished death and hath brought life and the barbarous ages, to a period when men flower. And shall men have the longings
immortality to light through the gospel. He
made known the fact that not only the soul
will live forever, but that the body will be
raised from the grave, and that the entire
were so low that they did not recognize the
difference between a dream and a waking
reality—to a time when persons dreamed cl.at
their friends came back to them, and waked
and catch the fragrance and not be able to
find the land where flowers immortal bloom?
S'hall faith, hope and love, best boons to
mortals given, fail in their prophecies? Can
man will become immortal. How strange it up to believe that they had been back. Thus you believe that God, who made the water
is that any man should refuse to accept these it is said began the thought of a future existence.
for the web-foot, and light and beauty for
truths brought to light through the gospel.
For my part I do not care how it the eye, and sounds for the ear, has forgotten
Socrates and Cicero would have hailed its began. The question is not how it started ; the soul. No! The only interpretation we
light and welcomed its truths, as those which the question is, what becomes of it now that can give to the soul as it stands with uplifted
their whole nature panted to know. The it is started? .No matter how it was born, eyes upon the dome of our being is: it seeks
Church of Christ in all its branches has been wdiat purpose is it to serve? What is it and therefore it shall find, "a city which hath
constrained to accept the'se truths, and the vast adapted to do? How is it calculated to influence
foundation whose builder and whose maker
majority of those who have been the mo=t honored
our manhood? In what way shall it is God."
as theologians and saints in all the Christian
be employed to lead men God-ward? How i'\. solemn murmur in the soul
ages have felt themselves shut up to tne
same belief, often with trembling and against
shall it be used to work most eflfectually in
the direction of civilization and refinement?
Tells of the world to be.
As travelers hear the billows roll
their own natural inclination. We turn to It so fits every human soul, that men will
Before they reach the sea.
the book of nature not because our faith not let it go. They cling to it with their inward
Addison puts it this way:
cannot stand without it but because it stands
and best nature.
"It must be so Plato, thou reasonest well.
firmer with it. To the Christian there is
What right has the little delicate flower Else whence this pleasing hope? This fond
comfort and strength in being able to give
lo blossom away up on the side of the mountain,
just on the border of the snow line? It This longing for immortality?
desire?
the reasons of his confidence from both the
volumes God has given. To the great eternity
beyond there is not only a highway of
has the right that it asserts by its own existence.
It belongs there. So this sweet flow­
horror
Or wdience this secret dread and inward
revelation cast up, but there are paths to
er of hope, the hope of immortality, has Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the
that highway so beaten by the feet of anticipation
and investigation that the:ij set the
grown in the soil of the human heart, and it
soul
rejoices us with its perfume and beauty. It Back on herself and startles at destruction?
royal stamp upon it.
is found everywhere in the universe of humanity,
and it is true because it is found 'Tis heaven itself pointing out an hereafter.
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
THE DOCTRiINE OF lAI MORTALITY
I. Proofs from the book of nature.
every wd: ere in the universe. The universe And intimating eternity to man."
I. The universal belief of man in a con­
never lies.
IIL Human life is not perfect without
immortalitv.
tinued life.
This has been founrl in all races of men.
Hellenic verse has its Elysian fields. The
Arctic Circle has walhalla. The Indian has
his happy hunting grounds. Jldai = m has its
Paradise. .As far back as we can penetrate
there is evidence of the fact that it has been
natural to man to believe in some sort of
e-xistence after death. "Looking at the religion
of the lower races as a whole," says
Dr. Tvlor, "we shall at lea'^t not be ill-advised
in taking as one of its general and
r)rincip?l elements the doctrine ni the soul's
future life." If any race might have been
expected to have been destitute of such a
belief, it is the natives of the New Hebrides.
Yet Dr. Paton tells us how different the ca=e
proved to be from what he had expected. He
* Requested for publication.
II. The universal longing of the soul for
c'ntinued life.
There is srmething a\\-ay out in the future
tliat draws the soul to it and for that something
the soul yearns. The soul's A'earning
proves the realit)' of that something. Astronomers
tell us that the great planet that moves
on the uppermost circle of our svstem was
discovered beause the planet next to it wavered
in its course in a fashion that was incxjdicable,
unless some unknown mass was
attracting it from across millions of miles
of space. The telescope was directed toward
yonder point, and true enough a new and
great world came into sight. There is somethin;:';
draw'ing us nut toward the future and
creating inJ us a perceptible feeling; that
something reason says is immortality. If
The tree springs from the seed, develojis
its trunk and branches, blossoms and yields
fruit. It has attained perfection as a tree, so
is it with insect and bird and beast. The bird
builds its first nest as perfectly as the !a=t
one. The honey-bee builds its honey-combs
with mathematical exactness, and fills its cells
with a nectar which science and art cannot
ecpial. There is nothing in these creatures of
God which admits of essential progress. But
with man it is not so. He enters the world
the most helpless and senseless of living beings.
By degrees he acquires power ro .act
for himself. Little by little he grows, sinking
deeper and deeper the shafts of investigation,
sending higher and higher his aspirations
for excellence and perfection, con-