The Future Life Fact and Fancies - Forgotten Books · These sirnple facts of. the air and the ﬁeld are common facts. Birds are in every land and ﬂowers grow in all climes. In

The Future LifeFact and Fancies

B"F. B . STOCKDALE

Because I live ye shall live also

T"E ABINGDON"RESSNEW"ORK CINCINNATI

"UBLICLIBRAR"

ASTOR. LENO"ANDTILDEN FQUNDATIO NS

Copyr ight, 1921, by

F. B. STOCKDALE

CONTENTS

"AGE13 m BAS IS OF C"RISTIANSC IENTIFIC C ONFIRMATIONS

T"E D OOR TO T"E K INGDOM

NEGATIVE AND "OS ITIVET"E "AB IT OF LIFE

T"E LE AFS OF LIFE

MED IUMS

T"E SILENT ANSWER

CHAPTER I

THE BASIS OF CHRISTIANTHINKING

I

C"RISTIAN IT"is founded on the assum ption that you can depend on law. It doesnot assume a law to hold up its teachingbut it does presume to trust the law thatit has discovered in realms where it has notseen the law ’s complete fulfillment, or application . It takes for granted that havingfound the law, you can apply it in all places .It believes law is reliable . The size of thething that reveals the law has nothing to dowith circumscribing the application of thelaw it reveals . A feather falls for the samereason as a mountain .

All Christ ’s teaching assumes that this istrue . As long as the laws of the universe remain what they are so long will the teachingof Christ endure . "ou cannot overthrow

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the teaching of Jesus until you have changedthe divine order of the universe .Take, for illustration, his doctrine ofprovidence . He refers to birds that eat andflowers that grow . The birds “Sow not,neither reap ; which have no store chambernor barn .

” The flowers grow ;“they toil

not, neither do they spin . The birds persist ; the flowers continue season after season .

These sirnple facts of. the air and the fieldare common facts . B irds are in every landand flowers grow in all climes . In thereahns to which Jesus refers the facts areuniversal facts : all birds are “fed,

” allflowers are “clothed . By an act of faithJesus transposes the meaning of these factsand reasons,

“If God clothes the grass , andIf God feeds the birds, will he not feedand clothe you"By an act of the mind hetransposes the relationship and by a daringof the spirit he trusts, in the reahn Wherehe does not see, the law he has discovered inthe birds that are fed and the flowers thatare clothed . Will God care for birds andnot for humans"Does he dress the lily in

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BASIS OF CHRISTIAN THINKING

beauty, beside which the grandeur of a kingis common, and then be indifferent to you"Christ not only gives these facts the widestapplication, but chides his disciples for notdoing it for themselves : “0 ye of little faith .

”

If you have “faith,” you will not be afraid

to trust in your own life the law you see

operating in the lives of birds and flowers .In the thinking of Jesus God cannot be careful Of birds and flowers and careless abouthum an bodies and souls . If you ask Christhow he knows that God cares for men, hewill answer you,

“I tell you he cares for thebir ds and clothes the flowers in beauty surpassing anything a king may know .

” Thatis enough for him . It ought to be for you .

The thing to be noted is that the law thatis revealed in the life Of the bird and thegr owth of the flower can be moved to anylife and to all kinds of life and be trusted .

If the angels have any question about God ’scare, the flowers and the birds should be sufficient for them . They would be . Christlooks at a simple fact and then achieves thetransposition of the care that fact reveals .

THE FUTURE LIFE

He does not stop to talk about the m ethod

God uses in feeding the birds : however farthe birds may have to fly for food, it is Godthat “feeds them . Whatever conditionsmay be necessary for the growth of theflower, it is God that does the “clothing ofits life .We have here the habit of the Master ’sthinking. When he finds a universal law inthe r ealm below where he dwells, he lifts thatlaw and applies it to the the world in whichhe moves . He tells us that the law you cansee is trustworthy in the realm where youcannot watch its operation . This is “faith .

”

God feeds birds and clothes flowers, and youare perfectly safe in trusting him to do thesame for you . You may rest assured thatthe angels have to do the same thing. It isvery probable that you will have to do itforever .

Take two references to prayer . Whatman is there of you, whom if his sonask bread, will he give him a stone"or if he

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ask a fish, will he give him a serpent"” Common Observation, as well as personal exper ience, shows that all parents feed their offspring. The busy robin, inthe summer time,is thus engaged . Cat or cow , mouse andman will do the same thing . This universalhabit, the outgrowth of relationship , findsstriking application, to the Divine Being inthe Master ’s mind .

“If ye”

-evil, as youare ; a mixture of selfishness and kindness asyou find yourself ; imperfect, as all that ishuman must be imperfect, when comparedwith God If ye know how to givegood gifts unto your children, how muchmore shall your Father which is in heavengive good things to them that ask him"”

The thing here to be noted is that Jesustakes a simple fact of life and appli es it tothe unseen God . We are not now talkingabout prayer, which is something to be practiced rather than preached . We are callingattention to the foundation on which Christrests the rights of prayer . The universalrelationship carries with it the universal Ohligation . Christ here takes What any man

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THE FUTURE LIFE

can see, a siInple fact in the parental world,and

,without any apology, transfers that

fact from the earthly to the heavenly Father .He moves the rule from the world seen tothe world unseen, from the human to thedivine relationship . He insists that if theearthly parent knows how to be good, theheavenly "arent must know much better .If you know when to give the thing forwhich the child asks, God will not be lesssensible . This is straight Christian thinking . It steps from the seen to the unseenwith perfect confidence because the seen reveals a law . The thing you have found isthat parents supply the needs of their children . When the child is hungry we do notbuy him a suit of clothes ; when he is needing a coat we do not buy him a dinner . Wesupply his need . The transition from you”

to God is a long di stance, but law knowsnothing Of great or small, long or short .Therefore Jesus insists that what is true inthe parental world among humans is true inall parental relationship , whether

“you” bethe parent or God be the “Father .

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Take the story of the unjust judge .There was in a city a judge, which feared

not God, neither regarded man : and therewas a widow in that city ; and she came oftunto him, saying, Avenge me of mine ad

versary . And he would not for a while : butafterward he said within himself, Though Ifear not God, nor regard man ; yet becausethis widow troubleth me, I will avenge her,lest by her continual coming she weary me .”

This is a simple story . It shows that whenpoor, friendless people persistently seekjustice they get it . It does not teach thatGod can be teased into doing anything that

you would like to have him do . The widowwas seeking justice . The judge loved hisease more than he car ed for justice . Herpersistent seeking was the cause of her getting the justice she sought . “Hear what theunjust judge saith ; shall not God avengehis own elect, which cry day and night untohim" I tell you that he will avengethem speedily . The simple fact that justice, sought at the hands of an unjust judge,was Obtained by persistence has its larger

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appli cation . It is the seeker for justice thatdecides whether it shall be obtained or not .When God ’s people cry “day and night” forjustice they get it . In the story the troublewas with the judge ; in life the trouble is withthe supplicant . The unjust judge speaksfor God and says, When day and night youcall for justice, when you seek it as thewidow sought it, you will get it .

”That is

what the unjust judge says about God .

We want here to notice the basis Of theMaster ’s thinking as well as the leap of histhought . He never leaped without a firmbasis . He was always sure of his fact beforehe ventured into the unseen . The di stanceof his going was always perfectly safe because the base from which he started wasabsolutely reliable . Before an unjust judgejustice persistently sought is Obtained . Thisis one Of the basic facts of history and life .From the hands of despots justice is pluckedby the hand Of persistence . There comes atime when it is less trouble to grant it than towithhold it . If” and what a flight theMaster ’s mind now takes l—justice is Ob

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tained from the unjust by the persistence ofthe seeker, how much more will that be truewhen the judge to whom you come is himself the embodiment Of justice"“I tell you ,

”

says the Master, in substance, God willspeedily give justice when you persist inseeking it .”

Let it be distinctly understood that we arenot talking about prayer . We are callingattention to the Master ’s practice, to hishabit of basing all he teaches on some facthe finds . He does not advance some uurelated notion of his own mind and ask youto build on that . He finds a law on whichto base the Operation of his own mind, andthen, by the most daring method of think ingthat any mind had ever followed, he appliesthat law to the unseen world, the Spiritualrealm with which he deals ; that is to say, hegives birth to Christian thinking.

III

Study his doctrine of the divineness . You will find it grounded institution of things . How did Jesus

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that God will forgive"Better, perhaps, toask, On what grounds did he ask us to believe that God will forgive"Now, turn to and read the fifteenth chapter of Luke ’s Gospel . We will not ask youto make a study of the chapter, as we areseeking only to find the Master ’s m ethod of

thinking . In this chapter you will find thesesimple facts recordedWhen you lose anything you look for it .It may be sheep , it may be money, or it maybe a son . What it is does not matter . If asavage should lose a feather from his headgear, he would look for it . If a child losesa chip with which he was playing, he looksfor it . If a father loses a son, whom he cannot seek as i f he were a sheep or money, stillhe looks for him . When he was a greatway off his father saw him .

”

Anything you have cared to own, havinglost, you are glad to find . If you have caredto possess it, you are p leased to recover it ."ou cannot make it otherwise . It may be ashepherd with his sheep , a woman with hermoney, a father with his son . For this rea

1 45


son some people break their heart if theylose their money. They sorrow more thanthe thing is worth . One cannot lose a sonand be indifferent when he is gone ; one cannot deny his fatherhood if the boy returns .These are very siInple facts ; be it notedthey are facts. States of civilization do not

change them . Be it property or pet, moneyor man, the same emotions move . Jesus insists that these universal facts have universalrelation . God is not outside their Operation .

They cannot be true in the human relationand false in the divine . Sunshine and rainare not better preachers of the divine naturethan are the deeps Of the human heart . Whata shepherd knows, a woman feels, a fatherdoes, are all parables, and set forth richlywhat they tell . Their telling is as certainas their being . What they say does not depend on where it is said or what it is saidabout . The transposing Of these sirnple

facts constitutes the gospel of the Son Of

God . These simple things are in humanlife, are part Of it . You cannot have humanlife and be w ithout them . Where life is they

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are . Unless these simple things have a widermeaning for human life than the human li fethat reveals them, then they have no meaning outside themselves . When things haveno wider meaning, then there is no possibilityof a gospel .Jesus assumes that the law he finds hereis true yonder . What is true in a “fold,

”

a dusty room, a broken home, is true inheaven .

“Likewise I say to you .

” Whatyou have seen in shepherd, busy woman,and broken-hearted father, if you had eyeswith which to see, you would see in God .

“L ikewise, I say unto you, there is j oy in thepresence Of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth .

” Christ rests the divine forgiveness on the divine relationship .

He does not theorize about it ; he writes nophilosophy to maintain it ; he simply tells

you it is. If you analyze his method Of thinking, you will find he maintains it is yonderbecause it is here . The transposing of thesesirnple facts Of human life brings us to themost daring conclusion : that hum an exper i

ence can know God will “ seek,” “find,

” and16

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THE FUTURE LIFE

We are now concerning ourselves wi th the

foundation on which he rests them . Ethics,as Christ teaches them, have a firm basis inthe very nature of things . The two foundation stoneson which he rests his demand arethe sh ple facts that the sun shines and therain falls without discrimination . There canbe no debate about the accuracy of his Observation . Wherever the sun shines it shines onall ; the rain falls on everybody within thecircle Of its falling . Neither the sun northe rain does any selecting for its action .

They fall on all alike . That is the sha efact in the world about you . How does theMaster ’s mind deal with that simple fact"“He makes the sun to shine .” Yes, but hedoes more than that : he makes it shine on

“the evil and on the good .

” This simple aotion Of sun and rain is taken as a declarationof the moral nature Of God . The way thesun acts and the rain performs is ground forthe command,

“Love your enemies .” Anybody can swap good for good, evil for evil,love for love, or hate for hate . The monkeyin the forest, the li on in the jungle could do

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that . But if you would rise to the heights Ofmoral life and in the world of action be arepresentative Of your Father, then youmust act like the sun and the rain .

This imperative call for goodness in theworld Of hum an actions is simply a demandthat you copy the sun and the rain . You areabsolutely shut out of any representativeposition unless you follow this natural universal habit Of sun and rain . You may beMethodists , or "resbyterians, or Baptistswithout climbing to this dizzy height ; butyou cannot be godly with anything short Ofit because this simple fact in the land Of sunshine and rain is a declaration of godliness .The action of the Master ’s mind is one Ofthe sublimest flights of sanctified imagination . The action of sun and rain has a meaning ; that meaning he transfers to the worldOf human actions . Sun and rain become thestandard in human activities . The law inthe natural world is made the standard inhuman li fe . When the law of sunshine andrain is contradicted in the world of humanactivities those activities do not represent

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God . Chr ist, in his unflinching demand, isnot insisting on any personal notion, but ona law Of God ’s world, as revealed by sunshine and rain ; that is to say, he founds hisdem and on law .

V

The parables Of Christ contain this samekind Of reasoning . The leaven which awoman put in the flour leavens all the flour .The “kingdom Of heaven is like unto leaven .

”

Things that impart their own li fe to all theytouch are “like” each other . In the material world yeast has this leavening power .The “kingdom Of heaven is lik e it It isnot the size Of the baking that determinesthe leavening power . Were the world abatch of flour, one cake Of yeast, giventime, would leaven it all. The size of atruth and the amount Of inertia it has tomove have nothing to do with its operationany more than the amount Of flour has to dowith the action of yeast . We discover atruth to-day and want the world to know itin the morning ; and, because they don

’t we20


think they never will . Do not fear, if it betrue, all will come to know it . Why shouldwe forget that it has taken centuries to putthe roundness Of the earth into the commonthinking of man"The number of times theearth swings round the sun has nothing to dowith the action of truth . Flight of yearsdoes not give the gospel its potency ; it givesit its chance ; its power is in itself. It is likeleaven . If length Of statement were the gospel’s power, Jesus would be out Of court ."ou can read in one afternoon every wordOf hi s that has come down to us . The energyOf yeast is not decided by its wrapping.

Here, again, the thing to notice is the transference of a truth from the material to theimmaterial world . Leaven leavens the lump .

That is a simple fact revealed in the makingof bread . Nobody doubts this truth wherewe can watch its operation . It is not doubtedun til the Master moves it ; then we doubt thevery thing we can see . We act as thoughlaw were law where we could watch it work,but as soon as it is beyond our ken we areafraid to trust it . Jesus says law is trust

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worthy everywhere . Leaven leavens thelump in making bread ; then, says Jesus, it istrue in making men .

“If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole

body shall be full Of light .” If it be defeetive it handi caps all your activities . Here

you have the relation Of one of the sensesOf the body to its activities . If you haveperfect vision, you move with safety . Ifyour sight is all right, your whole body sees ;your whole body is full Of light because youreye sees right . Jesus moves this complicatedarrangement from the sight and action of thebody to the sight and action Of the mind .

If the inner light is dark, what a horribledarkness"” As Jesus reasons you can becross-minded as surely as you can be crosseyed . He moves both cause and effect, without changing the law, from the physical tothe mental and moral realms . We know hewas correct . "ou can be nearsighted Of themind as well as of the eye . You can be colorblind mentally as well as physically . Justas surely as some men see red as thoughit were yellow some men see wrong as if it

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were right . Many men live with their noseto the grindstone, just as nearsighted people read with their noses on the book, because they are mentally nearsighted . Thefact Of the matter is that all kinds Of sightpossible to the eye are possible to the mind .

Everybody knows you can have fallacies Ofmental vision ; imperfect mental vision andlimitation Of mental VISIon handicaps everymind save the mind of God .

Crooked men do not think straight . Mental aptitude is not the only ground of trustworthy conclusions . Loyalty Of afl

'

ection

has as much, probably more, to do with thediscovery of truth as does the readiness withwhich the gray matter of your brain vibrates Your modern psychologist hasnothing on Jesus . He is but applying whatthe Master knew. Jesus saw that you musthave a perfect instrument before you canperfectly depend upon it That one factmakes Christ ’s place forever secure in thelife of the world . We must shape our ac

tion to his seeing because his “eye was single .” He saw things as they were . He

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made no mistake when he depended on thelaw that is revealed in the dependence of thebody on the kind of sight native to the eye .

Take one more illustration of this habitof the Master ’s trusting the law he finds inthe world about him . D o men gathergrapes of thorns, or figs of thistles Whata tree puts forth decides what kind of treeit is . If you pull an apple from a tree, it isan apple tree you pulled it from ; if youpluck a bunch Of grapes from a vine, it isa grape vine you plucked it from .

“A goodtree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit ; neitherdoth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit .

”

Thi s law Of kind, both as to thing and condition, we do not try to prove to men . Weput men in ward for Observation who denyits validity . The facts are simple ; the useJesus makes Of them is trustwor thy . Itmust be as true Of men as it i s of trees : Youknow them by their frui ts . This is true Ofvines and trees, Jesus declares . The law isjust as true in the lives of men . Men areknown by their actions : good comes fromgood ; bad comes from bad .

“The good stored24


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The life and death Of Jesus has Capturedthe thinking world . We ought not to forget that his thinking was behind all hetaught and all he did . We have paid too little attention to Christ the thinker . We see,so far as we follow him, that he built on law ;that he was not dealing with mere notions,mental attitudes that would change with thegrowing knowledge Of the world . Hismethod he trusted, and the thinking worldhas to do the same thing . He found a law,

and then believed it was trustworthy everywhere .

CHAPTER II

SCIENTIFIC CONFIRMATIONS

OUR scientific world is perfectly Christianin itsmethod of thinking . We have so com

pletely circumscribed the Christ in confin

ing him to the spiritual world that we haveforgotten his service to the mind Of man .

The mind that leaped from the growingflower to the care of immortal man blazedthe way for the thinking of the modernworld . It is by no means accidental thatthe sciences were born in a Christian civilization . There are no accidents in the mentalworld, as there are none in the physical .Given a Christian atmosphere, mental Christian products sprout as well as moral results .When Mrs. Conduitt, niece of S ir IsaacNewton, first told to Voltaire the story ofthe falling apple she may have been rom anc

ing about the apple, but there is no rom anc

ing about the law of gravity . And should27

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we ever change our conclusion the m ethod

of arriving will be perfectly valid ; whatever is true here will be true in all places ofwhich we think . Whether it was falling apple

,peach, pear, or plum that gave S ir

Isaac the idea makes absolutely no difference . Al l falling things tend to the centerOf the sphere to which they belong . Thesame law that keeps you on the earth keepsthe skin on an apple . That law is not a thingof our world alone ; wherever trees growthe fruit falls toward the roots . It is a lawOf the universe, not a system, in the boundless reaches of space, that would hold together for one moment if it were divorcedfrom this law . This is God ’s way of holdingthings together, and he has no other way Ofdoing it . When we thus speak, and so be

lieve, we are following Christ’s method of

thinking . Having found a law, we give ituniversal application . The same force or

tendency that causes an apple to fall towardthe roots, instead Of above and beyond thebranches, is the same law that holds togetherthe clustering systems that we have named

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the Milky Way . No thoughtful person willlaugh at you when you declare that this lawoperates on worlds we have not seen . Everyworld brought within the range of the greatHooker lens is held in place by the samelaw that causes the feather, coming from thewing Of the flying bird, to fall toward theearth . On worlds that are far beyond thereach Of our greatest telescope the law holdsgood . We think sanely when we are thinking beyond our sight . That fact isthe life ’s blood Of

’our modern think

ing ; it is Christian . For that reason youfeel perfectly sure that this same law willlast . It not only is but always will be . SO

long as matter inhabits space this law willhold it all and be operative in every place .Because there is such a thing as moralgravity righteousness exalts and brightensa nation . Right has its own tendency, andthat is Godward . S in tends in the Oppositedirection .

TA’

falling apple is a small thing, but it tolda universal law . When, in his moment ofInsp i ration, S ir Isaac Newton gave universal

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application to what the falli ng apple said,he was but doing what Jesus habitually haddone . Scientific knowledge is based on thedependability Of law . It is not true to saywe “assume” ; you can depend on law . "oumight “assume” the surface of the sea wouldhold you up and try to walk on it ; your assumption would not prevent your sinking .

"ou do not perform the same mental operation when you walk on the soli d ground .

You know that will support you . If it didnot, you would go down . The mind has thesame right to a native footing as do the feet .The mind has the same right to move withsafety as does the body . The right to be andthe right to be safe are one and the samething. An innate moral sense asserts itsright to mental movement in perfect safety .

The dependability of law supplies thatsafety , and to trust it is supremely Christian .

If you are assum ing when you give thewidest application to your newly discoveredlaw Of gravity, then Jesus was assuming,and all life, moral as well as mental, is based

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on an assummion . We hold that life restson certainty . We put our 0 . K . on S irIsaac ’s conclusion . He was dealing withthe physical world, and our 0 . K . only carries with it a mental attitude . Jesus, think :

ing in the same certain way, fails to carryour consent because he was dealing with aworld with which we are not so famili ar ;and, besides that, we can only consent herewith the affection as well as the mind . Letus remember that the certainty with whichChrist moved does not depend on our con

sent . He was right, he Is r ight, whether wemove with him or not . When the modernmind moves among the stars it has about itthe sense Of assurance because it knows thelaw that holds the stars in their place . Christian think ing moves with the same certitude .It moves , not among twinkling stars andwhirling worlds, but among those ethical,moral, and spiritual forces that belong tothe nature Of the unseen and eternal world .

Our beliefs , those that are Christian, restupon the laws of the un iverse .Take another illustration of the depend

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ability Of this method . S ir O liver Lodgehas pursued the quest for the atom untilhe has founda world so small that you wouldhave to group twenty-five thousand Of thembefore you could see i t with the unaided eye .In this infinitesimal world he does not findthe singular . The ion is a positive with itsnegative revolving around it . Here he hasattraction and motion . He informs us thatthe negative is circling the positive with suchincredible Speed that it makes more circuitsper second than there have been seconds inthe history Of man . SO and good . Now ,

every student knows that here he will findmotion and quantity related in terms of distance . The distance between his negativeand positive, judged by its bulk, will holdthe same relation as the planets . This weknow because the operation Of the law Ofgravity is not a matter of the size of theworld that reveals it . If you could add apound’s weight toNeptune

’ s bulk, you wouldmove him farther from the sun . The law ofmoving bodies is the same whether you aremeasuring the di stance of a planet from its

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Master spoke when he said, My sheep knowmy voice .” The world is not moving frombut toward the Christ and the world he revealed .

We have knowledge of force, the laws offriction, the conservation Of energy, motionof liquids, oceans tides, surface waves, liquefaction of gases, surface tension, laws of vibration, making combinations of tones possible and so giving us music . In all Of thesewe s imply depend on the trustworthiness Oflaw. It is only when we di sregard or areignorant of the law that we go am iss . Inwhatever world we find ourselves our safetylies in our dependence upon law . We cannotdisregard it and be safe ; we shall never goastray while we hold to the law. If you aredealing with spectrum analyses, the Speed Oflight, the flight Of sound, you feel sure Ofyour ground as long as you know the law of

that w ith which you are dealing . This isbut saying that our natur al sciences are somany confirmations of that habit of mindthat we have called “the law of Christianthinking. Jesus di d more to guide the hu

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man mind, as well as to free it from superstition, than any other leader whose thoughtswe make our own . The great scientists haveall followed his method, though the subjectmatter of their thinking has greatly differedfrom his. Christ is the first great scientist ,and his conclusions are as dependable as anything else that you build on the laws Of theuniverse Of God .

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CHAPTER III

THE DOOR TO THE KINGDOM

WE have the authority of Jesus for theidea that when one enters the spiritual kingdom it will be as a little child“ The statement that such is the only way in which itcan be entered is a declaration that you cannot enter it any other way . It does notmean, as it does not say, that the K ingdomis a childish affair . It simply declares thatit will be entered, if entered at all, as everyother world is entered . You cannot comeinto this world in any other way than as ababy . That is one Of the universals Of life .The same is true Of the spiritual world . Thatwhich is born of the flesh is flesh ; that whichis born Of the Spirit is spirit, and age ofbody does not give authority in “spirit” life .Whether one comes into the K ingdom whenhe is a child or when he is a man, he must

36


come as a child . This is only saying that

you cannot begin a thing without beginningit ; and all things that you begin you haveto begin at the beginn ing .

It is a strange thing that when we cometo the spiritual realm every man thinkshimself an authority . Now and again menwho have spent the force of their minds inthe pursuit of some study other than the spiritual li fe come over and seek to bring withthem the authori ty which they have -andare entitled to—in the world where they aremasters . The way they talk about the sub

ject is itself abundant proof that the Master was correct when he said that men comeinto the K ingdom as little children . TO

thoughtful folk the attempt Of a novelistto write a new system of theology is one ofthe most amusing things of the tim es . Theaudacity of it is so nai ve that it could not besimulated . Yet if some man should comewith a new system Of astronomy and for itshould claim attention because it was “allhis own ,

” we would laugh him out Of court .

The fact that a man is a master in one realm37

THE FUTURE LIFE

does not at all imply that he may speak withauthority in another . He may or may not .Some years ago in a newspaper interview

one of the great men of our day denied thedoctrine Of immortality. He did not believein it . A number of the members Of thechurch of which I was pastor called my at

tention to the interview . They were greatlytroubled that a man of such prominenceshould make the statement credited to him .

Some months later this same man was theguest of a brother clergyman . The minister thought it a good time and an Opportuneone to talk to him about spiritual things .Accordingly they, or rather the minister,talked about faith, repentance, justification,and communi on with God . Those wordshave come to stand for certain experienceswhich are known to the Spirits Of men . Aswords they carry no m ater ial content whatever, but they stand for a tremendousamount Of regenerating power . The factsOf experience covered by these terms aresupposed to be familiar to every minister ofthe gospel Of Christ . Whi le this great man

38


had been engaged in his laboratory the minister had been a no less diligent student, buton other subj ects . The great man had livedin the m aterial world, the minister in thatr eahn Of experience known to the soul . Thenoted scientist finally said to the minister“But, Doctor, I do not know what you aretalking about . The words you use possessno meaning for me .” Later, when the guestwas about to leave, the clergyman said,

“Ifyou have no Obj ection, I should like yourautograph in these books .” The man ac

cepted the first volum e Offered, only to findit was a “Life” Of himself . Taking his pen,he wrote his name on the fly leaf of the book .

Then, possibly to remind the minister Of thesubj ect on which they had talked, after hisname he wrote “Annals of a Barbarian .

In a widely read magazine for October,1920, through another interview this samescientist speaks on the subj ect of communication with the spirit world . A careful reading of that part of the interview appearingin quotation marks will lead any student Ofhuman life to the conclusion that this famous

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man has paid a great price for his wonderfulsuccess . The farthest he gets away fromthe material world is to a recogni tion Of the“subconscious mind .

”Then we are to pin

our faitho n some apparatus that he hopes toperfect and place at the service Of the departed, and if they do not use it—ergo, thereare no departed"This is the first time thatwe have seen the statement made that “Ifthe mountain does not come to Mohammed,there is no mountain .

It is an easy thing to confound facultywith personality . This mistake all materialists seem to make . If the departed do not

remember, and if they do not want to comm unicate with us, then probably they arenot . It would seem a simple thing for mento remember that we know that personalityperseveres from place to place, Of whichmemory takes no knowledge . The foetus isnot linked to the spermatozoon by memory .

The newborn babe does not remember thewomb ; I have never met anyone who remembered cutting his first tooth, and boyhood isso removed from the memory Of man that

40


THE FUTURE LIFE

noted that these are physical units ."Wehave been mistaken in thinking that God ’sSpirit comes in regenerating power to r e

pentant men . The only thing that has happened is that a few “myriads Of uni ts” havemoved from one part of the man ’s body toanother—migr ated, as it were, from his toesto his brain .

All this is very interesting reading, but itis the rankest kind of materiali sm . To follow it, and it alone, is to deny the reality ofanything outside of the world of matter .We simply claim that when you have got tothe end of your chase after these “life units,

”

which in themselves are so small that a thousand Of them aggregated together would notbecome visible under even the ultra-microscope, you are still in the material world, andyou have not yet entered into the “kingdomOf heaven "ou will never reach the spiritual kingdom save by the simple fact Of being born thereinto .

“You must be bornagain” is neither a Jewish nor a first-century truth ; it is one of the absolute

“musts”

Of li fe .42


Recently some small commotion has beenmade by a well-known writer who has discovered something that is to revolutionizeChristianity .

” The gentleman is the authorof some very good detective stories . Wehave greatly enj oyed reading them . Thismaster of the science of deduction has nowturned to the pursuit of the “departed .

” Hehas been accustomed to have the Ob j ect of hispursuit step out Of a carriage or dart intoa railroad coach . He has looked for thenames Of those he was seeking on a register .Now, when he starts after the

“departed” hestarts with the same paraphernalia . Hegoes after finding out the whereabouts Of adeparted soul just as he would seek for afleeing assassin . It seems never to havedawned on this creator of fiction that there isa wide gulf between Spirit and flesh . Onecannot help but smile when he makes a ouij aboard the arbiter of our faith in immortality .

We are not obj ecting to this producer Ofentertaining romance having his notions .He may have all of them he wishes , and anykind he wishes ; but we do Ob j ect to his effort

43

THE FUTURE LIFE

to substitute his automatic writings andhis ouij a boards for the Christian faith . Weclaim a far better foundation for our faithin immortali ty than all the writings he hasever seen or all the didos that a ouij a boardcan be guilty of.We might call this celebrity ’s attention tothe fact that Jesus knew nothing of medi umsof any kind coming between himself andthe angels that ministered to him . It mightbe well for him to note that there was a dir ectness between the shepherds and the multitude Of the heavenly host that leaves no roomfor his mediums or ouij as . A m ind of hisintellectual caliber ought to know that spiritual verities are not subj ect to the samerules as matter .There is such a thing as grown-upness inthe things of the Spirit and spiritual life .There is more juvenile talk about spiritualthings by men who make a pastime Of itsstudy than about almost any other subj ectone might name . TO make a ouij a board themedium between two souls for the determination Of as serious a question as the continued

4 4:


life after death is an act too silly and absurd toattribute even to a child . Only a man whohas forgotten how to become a child couldbe guilty of such nonsense .But recently much notice has been givento another Of the world ’s great scientists .This investigator comes bringing his toolswith him . A master in the field Of matter,he also comes to speak on the subj ect Of immortality . It is very much like a plumbercoming to build a house with his ladle andblowpipe . If we wanted to know somethingabout the ion and could get this personalityto talk to us about it, we should be perfectlydelighted . When, however, he comes, gumshod and armed with his paraphernalia forthe pursuit of ions, and tells us he is studying immortality, one would be inclined tolaugh were it not for the fact that the common mind attaches all the weight of his namein the realm where he is a master to his conelusions in a world where he is a child . Ihave not met nor talked with this gentleman,but I know a childish voice even when I amnot acquainted w ith the child . The best in

4 5

THE FUTURE LIFE

Raymond is childish ; much Of it is puerile .In our judgment to print such a book is awaste of paper, especially in these times ofthe conservation of that article . We areready to acknowledge our debt to this greatman when in his pursuit for finality in thematerial world he informs us, as previouslystated, that he has discovered the ion, andhas found it so small that we should needto group twenty-five thousand Of them inorder to produce a bulk sufficiently large tobe seen with the naked eye . When he tellsus Of the swiftness with which the negativecircles the positive we are ready to accept hisdeclaration, for he is moving in the field of

matter where he is a master . But when hecomes with his scientific kit designed to locate a departed soul, we wish to remind himthat he cannot spend a life time under thespell of the material and not pay the pricetherefor . This may be a form of that vicarious law by which all men who serve men mustpay for that service .This is not a plea for ministerial authority ;it is the siInple recognition of the fact that a

46


man cannot go from one world to anotherand be a master without a change Of tools .One does not catch a spirit w ith automaticwritings, and dancing tables are moved bythe magnetism Of the folks whose hands canbe seen . Now , if Raymond

” would lift thesmall stand and put it where directed, wemight become serious about it . As long astwo pairs Of hands are necessary—hands thatcan be seen—to enable “

Raymond” to tipthe table, and thus spell out his message, wemust be excused for insisting that the departed spirit has nothing at all to do withthe Operation . If “

Raymond and his

mother cannot tip the table without the sister ’s help , we Shall maintain that the motherand the sister do the tipping.

The contention that spirit hands bringabout such results i s too foolish to merit apassing notice from the serious m inds of theworld . TO submit for final answer the question of the continui ty of personality to thetipping of a wooden table, the sliding Of aouij a board, or automatic writings seems tous to be the last word in childishness . NO

4 7

THE FUTURE LIFE

mind that is not infantile in spiritual thingswould ever think of doing such a thing .

These men, great indeed in their chosenfields Of labor, need to be told that we resentwhat at best seems to us but idle talk .

Should we move into their realm and, in ourignorance, attempt to instruct them concerning the things they have made a life studyof, we should expect—and deserve—to bepolitely bowed out, and probably invited tostay out .

It might be well to call the attention of

these writers to the fact that Jesus wouldnot submit to the testing of a spiritual relationship by any misuse Of a natur al law.

One can never wish to test what one hasnot doubted . Doubt can never move a spiritual verity from the realm naturally its owninto a realm where it is not native . It isbecause it cannot be done that it is written,Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to atest .” The whole brood of the methods ofmodern spiritualism are children Of doubt .They seek to move a spiritual verity intothe land of doubt . "ou never move the cer

4 8


THE FUTURE LIFE

are speaking of myself.” One cannot evenkeep his body alive if he waits for proof before he eats . All rational acts are acts Offaith . This testing” Of sp iritual entity byan appeal to a material something is nu

christian and for that reason is unscientific .

Christ won out by not testing, and it is notlikely that we shall make a Christian successby going in the Opposite direction .

The thing about which man has a right tospeak with certainty is his experience . Anybody that has felt pain is competent totestify . That does not give authority toexplain pain . In much alarm the writer oncesaid to a physician,

“Doctor, you are choking me .” “Yes,

” he answered,“I can see

your throat widen . A physician’s explanation Of pain is worth more than a dozen otherpeople ’s notions about it . To have an ex

per ience is one thing ; to talk intelligentlyabout it is quite another . Why don’t thesegreat men take up the practice Of medicine"Because the State has recognized that properpreparation counts for safety . If there beany subj ect in human life where the sternest

50


preparation should be insisted upon beforeone is allowed to speak it is on the subj ectof the soul. It is not possible for one toimmerse himself in a materialistic world andthen talk sensibly about the soul . “Shinneyon your own side” is good advice for masterminds just as it is good advice for the boyson the ice pond or the playground . In fact,it is good advice anywhere .

51

CHAPTER IV

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE

T"E s ingular has not yet been found .

Negative and positive are terms we applyto movement ; one thing goes around an

other ; the part that moves we call“nega

tive” ; the part that holds we denominatepositive .” There are in the world life anddeath . L ife is the positive .Let us add one more to the many definitions Of death . Death is the result of the lastcontest between soul and body, as life is theconstant warfare Of the flesh with the spirit .This defin ition does not go around the thingdefined ; it does embrace all we know aboutit . The “contest” we know in terms of ex

per ience, and we learn the“cessation” by

observation .

When Speaking Of death, if you mean thatlife ceases to be, then we utterly deny thereis, or can be, any fact to correspond with

52


the idea . A uni verse vivified by the eternalpresence of the Eternal God leaves no roomfor death . To think that life can becomedeath is to grant that death may “nibble”

away the Eternal . Such a notion makesdeath the final cause .The real question about death is notwhether life ceases but whether personalityperseveres . To Christian thinking, deathis one Of the steps that personality takes , anexperience through which the spirit passes .To say that the soul is tied to the body istoo loose a term for careful thinking . It isfar nearer the truth to say that the body isthe garment worn by the soul, and that thespirit of a man changes its clothes quiteOften . Talk with a detective who has carefully studied the matter Of finger prints. Hew ill tell you that if you wash your hands insome solution that will thoroughly cleansethem, then just Shut your hand and Openit again, then touch a pane of glass w ithone Of your fingers, he will tell you withwhich finger you pressed to the glass ; andhe will also inform you that by the impres

53

THE FUTURE LIFE

si on you leave on the gla ss you ca n be pickedout from all the rest of mankind becausethi s is a field where there are no duplicates .Literally, rivers Of Oil flow down the creasesOf your skin, as streams flow down the valleys Of a continent . That is sinIply sayingthat you are constantly discarding what youdo not care longer to keep ; but you do thediscarding. The negative moves around itspositive very slowly compared with therapidity with which we change the forms wewear . The notion that life is slow is onlythe notion of folk whose Op inions are notworth noting . In rapidity of movement theflight of light does not transcend the flightof life .B etween the time one i s conceived and theday of his birth he wears all the forms thecenturies have achieved . We pass throughthe land of reptile, fish, bird, and beast,finally reaching a human form . In nine briefmonths is covered all the distance that thelaw of evolution has brought our ancestorsthrough in all the millions of years that arebehind the human race . We wear each dress

54


so short a time that it does not even touchas by the wearing. We are born hum an.

The spir it is neither the spirit Of a reptile,fish, bird, nor beast. We are hum an in form .

We had never been anything else . The develop ing child has worn and worn out all thevestur es that have been his. We have notyet lost the habit ; we wear more forms oflife each hour than one can see stars at

night. Li fe changes its forms so swiftly thateven the mind itself does not detect it inthe act even in the great crises of experience .NO man knows just when he doffed the formOf an infant and donned the form Of a “bigboy.

” He knows he came to the experiencethat we call boyhood and also that he woreits form . We know, in terms Of experience—and that is the final way of knowing—thatpersonality persists through all the changesof a kaleidoscop ic world that we have calledliving . We change the form we wear again

and again while the negative is ci rcling i ts

posi tive once"Now ,

in this world Of living, this journeyof the soul, where changes of form mean dif

55

THE FUTURE LIFE

ferent experiences to us, life is not the negative . The notion that life is in a castle b esieged by death and that finally life will haveto capitulate is not true . Take the notionOf life and

"

death as set forth in the “GoldenLegend .

” We are at school ; the school OfRabbi Ben Israel . It is time for Judas torecite, and the Rabbi says

Well , boy"now say, if thou a r t wise,When the An gel of D eath, who is full of eyes,Comes where a sick man dying liesWh at doeth he to the Wight"”

Judas answers“"e stands bes ide him , dark and tall ,"olding a Sword, from which doth fallInto hi s mouth a drop of gall,And so he turneth white .

Here life is passive . Death, dark and talland well armed, is master . The man turns“white” because Death fed him a drop ofgall .” It is very easy ; so easy that it isnot true . It is too dark to be true . Likeall easy explanations it is wide Of the mark .

Our knowledge Of Death does not girdle56


THE FUTURE LIFE

li fe baffle us, but we know that personalitypersists thr ough countless changes of form .

The life that was in the egg is now in thebird . The life that was in me at birth is inme still . It is li fe that creates death, andmillions of forms a day are thrown Off by themost sickly living soul . Now, be scientificand doubt the num ber . Let it suffice thatnone have counted the discarded forms ofone brief day. The simple fact is that in thisquestion Of life and death life is the positive;and it is a mistake to put it in the place Ofthe passive . Life is never passive .The idea that death is master Of anythingis heathenish and untrue . Look about you .

It is not the bulb that squeezes out the li feof the lily . It is the li fe of the lily that rendsthe bulb and leaves it in the ground to rot .It is the life Of the lily that builds new form,

for the fuller expression of itself, and pushesthat new and changing form through thecrusted earth into the land Of sunlight . Itis the life of the lily that thr ows Off its usedup form, in what we call

“fragrance,” until

miles of the moving atmosphere Of the world58


have been laden with what the lily either wasthrough with or used to attract insect or birdfor the lily’s better propagation . It is thelife of the li ly that decides the fate Of everyform it wears .It is not the chrysalis that serves notice onthe butterfly to “Get out . "ick up a chrysalis some day and take the time to watchthe birth Of a butterfly . "ou will see theslightest movement, then a little dark speck,which later you will find is a head, Showthrough . "ou will see him use his mouthto eat his way out . The first use of his mouthis not to fill his stomach with food ; he literally eats his way into a new world . B it bybit you can watch him leave his prison house ;the part that is out helps the part that isin to get out. His front feet help his hindfeet through . Then his folded wings beginto show, and soon he spreads them for a newexpression Of his growing life . If you findthe empty chrysalis, you will say, This isdeath,

” but, had you watched the process ,you would say, This is the triumph of lifea butterfly is born .

” All we care to notice is59

THE FUTURE LIFE

that what is left behind was passive : the lifethat has gone on built this passive form and

'

left it, threw it Off, when it was through withthe form it had used in its onward going.

Where we can watch the changes of form wesee that life is the master thereof. The newform takes the place Of the old ; neither formis the butterfly . The li fe, seen through thesechanging forms, is the butterfly .

Have you ever watched a chi ck break itsshell"If so, you have concluded that it wasthe chick that did the breaking . It is not thechick that is expelled ; the shell is the passiveand is broken ; "ou never heard of a shellseeking a writ Of eviction . The li fe that isthe chick changes the form from embryoto wings . The life simply uses yolk andwhi te to build a form for the life that is .L ife does both building and discarding . Mr .Edison ’s idea Of “ life uni ts” is probably correct ; but they are the m ater ial out of whichbodies are formed . They are directed . Ifthey went at random, you would have menall arms , legs , noses , or anything else .Every seed its own body, each living thing

60


moves in its own circumscribed orbit, but thelife is one thing and the “body

” another.Now , sensible thinking trusts this factwhether we can watch its operation or not .Where we can see it we come to know thatit is the li fe that counts ; where we can

’tsee it we have to believe it is so, because lawis law . Jesus trusted the laws of his Father ’sworld and his gospel still grows . Its foundations are far more secure than the finestconcrete made by man could render them .

The centuries pile on the building the weightOf their achievement, and it still stands . Itwill continue to stand because it is a livingbuilding, and the life is the deciding factor .It is not the legs Of the kangaroo that do thej umping ; the kangaroo does that ; he Simplyuses his legs .We have just again seen that we mayrely on the unseen laws Of the moral world .

Not even Hohenzollerns can induce God tochange the laws of the human mind .

Now, if you are in doubt with regard tothe application of the law of change to yourown body, ask some reputable physician to

61

THE FUTURE LIFE

tell you how many forms a day you wear .He will tell you that he does not know. Yourown sense will tell you that you have hadmany di fferentiated forms or you would stillbe the babe your mother brought forth .

When you came from that land, where youhad worn all the forms that nature knows ,you kept right on with the habit Of changing,because you lived In three months youdoubled your size, and you have doubled itagain and again . D O you tell me you havebeen living" I say you have been dying.

The infant form was discarded that theyouth might be ; the youth gives place to theman . This is not the work Of death . Deathis the name we give this law Of change whenits action goes beyond our ken ; but it is thevery proof of life . Life is always buildingnew forms . This is the only way we knowthere is such a thing as life, outside the realmof consciousness . There is no place in naturewhere life is doing anything else Is thislaw reversed because we cannot follow it asfar as the departed have gone"Not likely .

It is the act of a rational mind to trust the62


law when vision fails . Is it too w ild a thingto imagine that, ,

aswe have watched the birthof insect or bird, or have awaited with keenanxiety the coming of new little li fe in human form, there are folk in the other worldwho, w ith great interest, watch the soul breakout of this shell of a body"We know thesoul goes as surely as we know the birdhatches .

“Hurt, did you say"“The whole crea

tion groaneth and travaileth in pain togetheruntil now.

” We are not now discussing theproblem Of pain; we are calling attention tothe universal fact that life is the active agent .Death is a name we give to the forms thatlife has discarded . To interfere with theprocesses of change is sickness. We thatare in this tabernacle do gr oan, being burdened . As we “groan” we grow . We keepthrowing Off one burden for another untilthe time comes when we shall discard theentire burden Of the flesh, and the

“mortalmust put on im m ortality .

” I am not, andnever have been, the slave Of death . Deathhas never touched me . I have worn more

63

THE FUTURE LIFE

forms than the morning knows ; more imagesof the first man than there have been moments in all the reaches Of the years . I didnot need any one Of these forms only longenough to put it beneath my feet that I mightreach to other forms for larger living .

Whether I am in love w ith the p rocess orno, I keep right on, and one Of these daysI shall drop the natural and find myselfclothed in a sp iritual body . In that body and

you world I shall not escape the law Of

change ; all form must change if it lives . Weshall be changed from glory to glory .

”

“How"” Ask some one else . I am nottroubling with the “how” ; I am calling at

tention to the fact. We are asking you tolook at a universal fact, in all forms of life .L ife is the master . The seed and the soul aresubj ects Of law, the same law. F or this reason we sing

“B reak Off your fears , ye saints , and tell"ow high your great D eliverer reigns .Sing how he spoil s the host of hellAnd leads the monster death in chains .

Life is ever lord of death .

64


THE FUTURE LIFE

to-day and tod ay has become yesterday, thesame law grips the same things forever .All forms of li fe show this universal habit .

Look into the vegetable world . The bulbthat you keep through the winter waited forthe planting in the spring . How long thelife in it would wait we do not know . Weare told that a handful Of wheat waited forsix thousand years in the hand of a mum my,for the discoverer to scatter it in the soil, andnow one of the finest of wheats is feedingmillions of people . How long life wouldwait for its chance we do not know. Mr .Burbank tells us that if the chance for largerlife, better form, richer fragrance, deepercolor, comes through the mating brought bybusy bee or restless humming bird, the seedof that flower will cling to and pass on thatpossible improvement to a thousand generations, waiting to make actual the potentialadvance .In the world Of flowers the stem is bui ltto support the unformed leaf, the form forthe fertilization that shall come . In theworld Of vegetables and flowers life sets its

66

THE HABIT OF LIFE

face toward the future and spends to-daypreparing for to morrow . Every morrow isbut a repetition Of the same law. Life neverreaches that which satisfies itself. By itself,of itself, life ever faces forward and movesin the direction it faces . The everlastingprocess never overtakes the everlasting law .

The process is always pursuing the principle .Because Of this habit our berry busheshave clim bed from the land of weeds . Ourfruit trees have traveled the same long pathfrom the same far place . Now, aided bythe judgment Of man, they put a thousandyears Of haphazard mating into one briefseason ; but they keep the same Old habit ."ou could not have an evolutionary processwithout an evolutionary law . That law isthe eternal habit Of spending the present inpreparation for the future .When you turn to the insect world you

find conformity to the same rule . Let oneillustration suffice : The cicada are rather anumerous family The most wonderful Ofthem is the Rip Van Winkle of the insectworld . Commonly we call him the seven

67

THE FUTURE LIFE

teen-year locust From a small egg, laidunder the bark Of a twig, it comes to a creeping thing. Then it eats its way around thetwig and with it falls to the ground . Hereit burrows for seventeen long years, spendsthe lifetime of a dog, or cat, living in thedark . What it does down there we have noway of knowing other than studying it whenit comes to visit us. We now have its homeslocated and know when to expect it . Froma deep hole in the ground this locust comesto us with one Of the most wonderful eyes inthe world . In the dark he had no need of

eyes, probably he lived by the sense of touch,as does the mole . When he comes to thelight, for a few brief weeks , he will have needof eyes to see his foes and find his friends, andso he builds himself eyes with a thousandfacets—one at either side of what might becalled a tube . Between these eyes he hasanother set with three lenses in them . Withhis larger eyes he probably sees all aroundhimself at once ; with the smaller set he probably deals with the nearer world . This isnot a history of this wonderful insect ; it is

68

THE HABIT OF LIFE

merely an illustration of that habit of livingthings to look for the place that has not beenreached and prepare for the time that hasnot arrived .

In the land Of butterfli es the same is true .I once spent an afternoon investigating theknowledge of a caterpillar I found himclimbing a tree . "icking up a dead saplingten or twelve feet in length, I put it in frontof him and got him on a stick . When theafternoon was gone I was convinced that itknew up from down . When I held the stickhorizontally it would hold on with its fourhind legs and reach far out into space on

either side, reaching up and around in searchfor something to climb . When I tilted thestick he started on the upward way. I couldnot induce him to climb down . Before theafternoon was over I was sure he knew anygrade, for he would start forward on anytilt from one or two degrees to perpendicular . I think he felt pleasure, for when I hadkept him for some time on the level andthen should turn the stick upward, he wouldstar t with more speed than he was accus

69

THE FUTURE LIFE

tom ed to use in traveling . When, towarddusk, I rested the end Of my long poleagainst the outer end Of a lower limb of thetree, he hastened upward and dexterouslypulled around himself the outer edges of aleaf, taking the fir st leaf he came to, asthough it knew it must hasten . It soon wasensconced in a cocoon .

The leaf would fade and with it theworker would fall, to be blown under somehedgerow and buried by the autum n leaves .In its winter home it would become so plasticthat it would be nearly fluid . It would makeno mistake in the location Of thorax , head,wings, eyes or antennae. It was not dead ;it was not even inactive It was buildingwings for the flight it had never taken, andbesides was doing a dozen other wonderfulthings in that wonderful cocoon . The onlything I care to notice is that it was living bythe universal habit of nature . It was gettingready for the world to be ; preparing for thelife to come .Vegetation, insect, bird, and beast all i llustrate this fundamental habit of nature .

70

THE HABIT OF LIFE

All the evolutionary processes Of nature aregripped by the law of evolution, which keepsthe face Of all moving things toward thefuture .Let us now turn to this law as revealed byhuman li fe . We shall find that the same lawgrips us that we have seen Operative in thelower forms .Ask a physician to tell you about the

Spermatozoa . He will inform you that forthe j ourney to be taken by the human being, when first we know him, he is preparedwith most scientific precision . Had he feet,he could never walk ; had he wings , he couldnot fly ; so he is a big head with a long tail .He swims his way across the sea Of sex, andwe say he is begotten .

In his new home, the womb, with the setpurpose of the law Of life, which is the law of

God, he begins to grow . His growth is not

for the womb he is in . He grows in thewomb, but he grows for the world intowhich he will be born . SO it comes topass he forms a m onth that he will need ;eyes that will be useful when he comes to

71

THE FUTURE LIFE

the light he has never seen ; ear s that willbe necessary when the vibrating world hehas never known is to be used and studied .

Feet are formed on which he willwalk ; handsgrow that he wi ll use to grip things that arenever found in the womb . All he becomeswhile in the womb of his mother he becomesnot for where he is but for where he is goingto be . All he uses in that wonderful placeis his umbili cal cord, which he will di scardbefore he is an hour Old .

B irth does not shake us loose from theeternal grip of life ’s everlasting habit . Anyone that knows anything about the humanform knows that babyhood is as unlikechildhood as childhood is unlike manhood .

If you Obj ect to the di vision of human lifeinto babyhood, childhood, and manhood, infancy, manhood, and old age, we shall notquarrel with you . Few people have noticedhow Often a normal human being is “bornagain . All we insist upon is the simplefact that whether in infancy or age he isgripped by the habit of life and movestoward what he never has reached . When

72


THE FUTURE LIFE

says, Eyes front The baby is a man inthe same sense that a caterpillar is a butterfly ; if he keeps up the j ourney, he will reachthe place . It would be near the truth to saythat it is

“

the j ourney that makes him a man .

Any student of biology will tell you thatthe foregoing is not an exaggerated statement . It is not even a meager statement ofthe wonderful biological changes that areconstantly occurring . Watch the baby as hetries to locate a thing for which he reaches .Even as he extends his hands changes in therelation of the gray matter Of his brain takeplace, so that he is able to coordi nate hiswish with his action and touch that for whichhe reaches . This exercise, mental and physical, makes it possible for him later to liveand act without waste Of time . Man is subj cet to this eternal law : he spends to-daypreparing for to-morrow .

When we turn to the forms of life thatare not bodily, in the sense that they are notof the flesh, we stay under the same law. Allforms of education are an insistence on thesame law being followed . We seek to make

74

THE HABIT OF LIFE

them certain kinds of children, and so wetrain them . Later we send them to school .Now, everybody knows that a child does notneed school to be a chi ld . It is in what achild may become that the claim Of the schoolis located . We know he will need what theschools can give, and so we hold him by thelaw of what is to be .When our boy becomes a youth he becomes the most anticipatory creature thatwe know. He faces forward with the j oyOf that fact thrown into the relation . Thesorrow of it is that we ever lose that joy .

My own Opinion is that it is a moral sicknessthat robs us of the j oy of living discoveredby youth . We know no reason why ageshould not look forward with the same j oythat belongs to youth . The fact that henever becomes what he is going to be, neverdoes what he is going to do, we are not nowdiscussing . The illusionary side Of life ishardly a subj ect for investigation . We aresimply noting the fact that all normal lifeis lived under the law of life . The fact thatthe female Of the species knows less about

75

THE FUTURE LIFE

great transitions is because she comes earlierin life to the real reason for living . The affectional of life is far more real than thepossessional . The little girl with her babydoll is in the world to which she goes far moretruly than is her brother with his woodenhorse and hi s tin gun . But whether we trainour children wisely or unvvi sely we throw themantle Of

’

the future need across their childish sky and insist on keepingto the habit oflife .Manh ood brings no release from this im

per ative Of life . All normal men ar e livingfor what is to be . Even our mad pursuitofmoney is for what it will buy . Men wouldnever toil if the future were secure . Not formyself but for my children is the excusegiven for living beyond the strength of nerveand body . When you ground your reasonin the past you lower your product . He wholives only to spend is a worse type than hewho lives to make . When you take the pressure Of the futln e off human life you makelife abnormal and handicap the very act Ofliving .

76

THE HABIT OF LIFE

The reminiscence of age is but anothername for the forward look . They but lookthrough the door of memory to feel the joyof hope . SO far as we know, this habit oflife is universal in all worlds . It Operates inthe heart life as in the life ofmind and body .

This law is as dependable in all places andtimes as is the law we call gravity in theworld we call material . NO man has everstood where thi s law breaks down . Fromthe meanest to the highest forms of li fe weknow all are In the grip Of this simple habit .The New Testament indi cates that the angels are under its sway . Gravity is the wayGod holds things . This law is the way Godholds personality, and while he shall remaininfinite and we finite there will be somereason for going, and we shall therefore be going. The highest peak at

tained is but the platform for one ’s feet ,giving time to plume one ’s wing for flighttoward higher things . The statement thatthe angels “desired to look into” Shows theyhave the same habit . When the cross OfChrist was a future thing it had its fascina

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THE FUTURE LIFE

tion for the highest moral creatures . Itsglory but Opens vistas of other wonderfulthings to be .When we can follow life no further wesay,

“He is dead .

” Yes, the egg dies thatthe pupa may be ; the pupa gives up its formin order that the caterpillar may come intobeing . This in turn dies in the cocoon

,which

is not because the butterfly has come . Youcannot prove that any life stops . "ou cannot be true to the constitution of things andbelieve that life changes its habit becausewe can no longer watch it . When we sayanything dies we simply mean that we canfollow no further with the faculties that limitour vision . We have “magnified” what wecould not see and found the same law operating in the world below us, a world in whichthe forms of life are so infinitesim al that wecan see them only when we make them manytimes bigger than they are . In this worldwe have found the habit Of life to be the sameas in the world where we watch, with naturaleye, the same law holding all we see . In theworld Of our own experience we are face to

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THE HABIT OF LIFE

face with the same eternal rule and we areperfectly Christian when we trust this lawin the forever that is to be . “

In my Father ’shouse are many mansions . “If you wereat the end Of your j ourney, I would have informed you,

”it might be added . There is

no end . Life ’s process is as changeless as theDeity . Our faith in immortality rests noton accidents but upon law—God ’s law . Thislaw is stamped on every blade Of grass thatwaves in the breeze, on every flower thatfills with fragrance the air . Whether lifecrawls , walks, or flies, the same stamp is onevery fiber that goes to the making Of itsform . Whether the form be so small that wecannot see it, or so large that its very bulkfrightens us, makes no difference to the ruleOf life ; all alike moves w ith eternal fidelitytoward the future it has never known . Thishabit is life’s great uni versal.

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CHAPTER VI

THE LEAPS OF LIFE

IT is very easy to overlook the jump Of

things . When, in 1 609, Galileo made histelescope he multiplied the power Of the human eye eighty-one times . Our latest telescope lifts human vision three thousand six

hundred times . About a hundred years fromnow men will see the gap between the “wire”

and the “wir eless . This suggestion in themechanical world becomes bewildering inthe field Of life .If one should come from some far Off

world, with no knowledge Of the ways Of lifeon this planet, and should be given the taskof guessing how the singing bird came intolife, it ismore than likely he would not guessaright . Who, looking at an ostrich, wouldever suggest it came out of an egg"Theconnection between the bird and the egg is

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THE FUTURE LIFE

through all the centuries we have known .

All the paths that life has beaten throughthe trackless ages are traveled by a babebetween conception and birth . The distancebetween a spermatozoon and a new-bornbabe has no illustration in the distances ofspace . Yet to our dull way of thinking wedo not count this as a part of human life .We count from this end Of that bewilderingj ourney . Before one is born he has visitedall the places where the race had lived ; hehas tarried in each long enough to reap thebenefits of all . Then he came into the worldwith the fruitage of the centuries wrapt inpotential possibilities . And yet they calledhim a babe"If this j ourney were a streamthe source Of which we had to find, the starsthemselves are near enough to each other touse them as stepping-stones . The stellarspaces are a mere playground beside theleaps and bounds of unborn life . The ionis a very slow thing and fleet-footed light alaggard beside the thing we call the humansoul . Your ion moves around itself Thesoul moves around nothing . It strides from

82

THE LEAPS OF LIFE

place to place like unto a god . NO wonderis half so wonderful as the one who does thewondering.

What should we find could we but tracethe path that life had taken before spermatozoon was reached in form"When did webreak loose from that vast Spirit that we callthe life”"Is li fe Older than personalityAll Of which we know nothing about . Yetit is possible that should we have as long tolive as we have already lived we would haveeternity before us . Belief in the continui tyof personality is not more difficult than faithin that through which we have already come .When our knowledge about what has happened to us is so infinitely meager, it seemsa silly thing to ask if we shall be to-morrow.

It is near the truth to say we know as muchabout our future as we know about our

past .When we step into the realm Of mind the

wonder does not cease . It is highly probablethat could a new-born babe be given themind of a mature man, the babe would instantly know as a m an . We know that he

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THE FUTURE LIFE

does know as a man when you give him thetools of a man with which to do his knowing .

We know the faculties grow ; a new-bornbabe sees but dimly . When sight comes itis the babe that does the seeing. What isthe distance between the mind of a babeand the mind of a man" The child doesnothing . The man walks among the stars,analyzes those he has never seen, makes lightto sing and sound to shine . The mind of

the man is so far removed from the mindOf a babe that were they not related inreality, we should never relate them inthought .When we come to move in the realm wecall experience we simply duplicate the wonder. We do not get away from the waysof life because we move from place to place .Fifty years ago a woman said to a li ttleboy,

“God always sees you . The little fellow did not propose to have God spying onhim undiscovered . He started to hunt theAlm ighty and played hide and seek withGod . He was sure that if he moved quickenough he would find God peeping over

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THE LEAPS OF LIFE

some cloud in the sky, and so he would dartaround the corners Of the house to look inevery direction .

Then a great sorrow came into the home .All the fami ly, save the mother, were sick .

The baby di ed ; the father was unconscious .One day, with clouded face and breakingheart, the mother went into her room to pray .

Near to the door Of that room the boy layon hi s cot and li stened to his mother ’s prayer .He listened for some voice that would an

swer the questions that now and again hismother asked ; but he heard no voice savehis mother ’s . When she came to his side heasked, Who were you talking to"

” Hismother ’s face was beaming and softly shewas singing

In darkest shades , if Thou appear,My dawning is begun ;

Thou art my soul’s bright morning star,And thou my rising sun .

The Opening heavens around m e shineWith beams Of sacred bliss ,

If"esus shows his mercy mine,And Whispers I am his .

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THE FUTURE LIFE

Fea rless of hell and ghastly death ,I’d break through every foe ;

The wings of love and arms of fa ithWould bear m e conqueror through .

Every One she loved was on the verge Of thegrave .The boy persisted : Mother, who wereyou talking to"”She answered, God, my dear .Now the boy had another reason for finding God . He wanted to meet God, that hemight say,

“Thank you, for taking the gloomOff my mother ’s face ; thank you for fillingher heart with j oy and her mouth withsong.

”

That boy found God ; in a Methodistmeeting house, in a revival Of religion . S incehis mother said,

“God, my dear,” the earth

has made but fifty trips around the sun and,in so doing, has traveled twenty-seven thousand million miles . If you are to measure ,in terms Of distance, the experiences Of life,that boy has traveled more than all thosemiles for every mile the earth has moved inthose fifty years . He now sees God without

86

THE LEAPS OF LIFE

looking around the corner of the house, findshim without going into another room . Hesees him in the growing flower, hears him inthe song of the bird, the questioni ng Of achild, and the message Of the Christ . Hehas found God in such fashion that shouldyou locate him so far out in space that thefarthest fixed star should be the first thinghi s fleeting feet might touch, he would see

God . Should you bur y him beneath all thedead the ages have known, he would still b elieve in the endless life . If you should shuthim in the unopening womb Of endless night,he would still see God in the face of JesusChrist . Neither life nor death, things thatare nor things that are to be, can come between him and the love of God in ChristJesus his Lord . This is the experience ofhis mind, and it carries with it the affectionOf his being . Not because he has sat witha “medium”

; not because he has seen someautomatic writing or worshiped with a oui j aboard—not for one or all of these, but because he has come to see that Jesus is trust

worthy, that hisway Of thinking is the action87

THE FUTURE LIFE

of a rational mind and the measure Of thesame . The laws Of God can be depended on,whether you can watch them or not . Faithin Christ is rational, therefore fruitful, andhe “has peace with God , through our LordJesus Christ .” He has come to see that if

you live at all, you live by faith .

If we should imagine anything happening to our departed that is as wonderful aswhat we know has happened to us, theywould have a bigger life than we can fancy.

The gulf between here and there, the gulfthat wraps us in the deepest ignoranceas to what has become Of those who are “goneon before” needs be no bigger than the gulfbetween where we are and where we were .We have done enough coming to have faith inthe going of life . Whatever would kill faithwould spoil the very reason for going . Faithmust always be .What we know to be matters of our ownliving we may see in all the world about us .Life everywhere moves in a way that batfiesthe mind . L iving is one thing, thinking

quitea nother . All the mechanical wonders88


THE FUTURE LIFE

Let it be said we have no Obj ections toanyone attempting it . It is only when theybuild their fai th on their attempt that we Oh

ject. We hold that rational inquiry findsabundant ground for faith ; that to sit atthe feet of Jesus in the spirit of a child willresult in rational faith . We Obj ect to anybody’s attempt to move the superstructureof Christian faith from the life and teachings of Jesus to the land of mediums, ouij aboards, automatic writings, or electricalparatus .

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CHAPTER VII

MEDIUMS

Now and again the question of comm unicating with the departed through mediumscomes to the public attention . The questionmight be discussed from many standpoints .We are not concerned with the honesty ofthe medium ; the fact is that usually a medium

’

smessage is childish . We here concernourselves with the question Of the possibilityof mediums of any kind bringing an exper ience from one realm to another .First, let us say that to Christian faith ourdeparted do not die . To a careful reader Ofthe New Testament the notion that they donot depart very far is likely to take possession Of the mind . Christ taught that hewould continue his activity in the other worldfor those for whom he had been active here .Many will bear witness that for all purposesOf steadying and strengthening, in times Of

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THE FUTURE LIFE

need, our departed loved ones are morepotent than when they were with us in theflesh . If it is matter of memory only, it israther strange that that memory is more potent thanthe actual presence in the flesh . Itis a pure aSSM ption that death puts us out

of the life of our departed ; in fact, Jcs‘

usteaches the very Opposite, so far as he is concerned . It would seem a natural thing thatChristians would be engaged in the sametasks as their Lord . That death comes between them and us is only one side Of theexper ienCc is side . That death comes b etween us and them we have no way Of knowing and no reason to believe . Our knowledge Of death is entirely dependent on theimpression it makes on those who do not dothe dying. In experience we have no basisat all for belief as to what death does to thosewho die .Let it be distinctly understood that all attempts to “prove” our departed live arisefrom doubt . The attempt to bring the lifebeyond from the realm that necessarily belongs to faith to the land Of our human know

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MEDIUMS

ing goes against all the facts Of nature andnature ’s limitations . It is an attempt at acontradiction .

Let us now note a very simple fact of life .The great gulfs of life are experiences . Lifebuilds the barriers with which experiencedeals, or experience digs the gulfs with whichlife has to do . Living comes between folksin the same way that death does ; it makes itimpossible to tell to him who has not livedwhat living has brought to him who haslived . All the great experiences Of life areimpassable save in one direction : you mustgo to them ; they cannot be brought to you .

This is one of the fundamental limitations ."ou will find it in every realm .

Take, for illustration, the flower . Itneeds but little imagination to see that thelife Of the flower lifts its form from one stageto another, and so far from its kind in thestage below that there is no way Of takingback the experience to which the flower hascome Take the lily, fresh and fragrant inits wondrous form—by what means will itcommunicate to the bulb beside it any idea

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THE FUTURE LIFE

Of its own attainment"Take the little crawling thing, all legs and body ; put beside itthe butterfly, which is but a few monthsahead Of the thing that creeps—how will thething that flies talk to the thing that creeps"There is no way to take the life of the flyerback to the creeper . It is never done .Take the eaglet ; it has just found the use

Of its wings . It has not been in the largerworld long enough to get away from the j oyof it . Now let him alight beside a nest whereeggs are in the process of incubation . Itshould be a simple thing for the eaglet to goback for a few brief weeks in the j ourney oflife and tell to one Of its kind what it is likelyto know for itself in a few days . Anyonecan see that thi s is impossible— impossible inthe very nature Of things . It cannot beotherwise without changing all the ways ofGod .

Come into a world where we are, inthought, more fam iliar . The student of biology will tell you that there is little differencebetween a babe unborn and one a few hoursOld . Suppose that twins are coming into the

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MEDIUMS

wor ld. The one to be last born makes demand that the fir st born shall send back somemessage that shall assure him that the departed has not ceased to be . We know thatnature has made no provision for any suchdemand being granted . Also we know thatthere is no way by which the difference thosefew hours have made can be taken back tothe unborn . It is perfectly safe to state thatno such arrangement will ever be made .There are no indications of any revolutionary arrangements that will change the habitOf the centuries and take back to the unbornthe experience of the one that has been born .

The unborn wi ll have to wait . That is theonly thing God will consent to ; at least it isthe only arrangement he has made . Theunborn may not like it any better than wedo ; but, what is he going to do about it"It isso . It always has been SO , and for that reasonwe may believe it always will be so. Let usrecognize the sha e fact that it is the ex

per iences Of life that come between us . Wehave become so familiar with the iInpossib ility Of crossing these gulfs that we take it

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THE FUTURE LIFE

for granted they were not made to bebridged, but sim ply crossed in one direction .

Take two brothers , for example, one sevenand the other seventeen . Ten years shouldnot make such an impossible world betweenbrothers . This simple fact comes betweenthem ; one has passed the years of puberty .

The other has not yet crossed that C l’

lSlS .

They are brothers . They eat at the sametable, speak the same language, use the samedictionary for getting out their lessons in thesame school . Yet the lad seventeen is separated from his brother of seven in such a waythat all the language known to speech cannotmake it possible for him to tell his brotherof seven the meaning of puberty . The surgeof life at seventeen is utterly unknowable toseven . A single biological change separatesbrothers in such way that even the medi umof the same speech makes no connection between them on the experience that differentiates them . If when face to face a sirnplefact so separates that one cannot take hisexperience back to his brother, why shouldwe expect the dead to tell us anything"In

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MED IUMS

the one case the older has gone beyond theyounger . In the other case the departedhave gone out of the sight of the living . Itis

,however, an experience of life that has

separated us .Now, let your older boy fall in love andthen try to tell his seven-year-old brotherwhat it means . We all know it can ’t bedone . I knew a son who spent much timetelling his father he wished the father couldknow how much he loved his girl . When thefather said,

“Well, I fell in love with yourmother,

” the son replied, O , dad, you neverloved mother like I love Lucy .

” What adiscovery for a young man to make""itythe man who has never made it, but t ell itto him you cannot . One simple experiencein the land of affection and men are separated by a boundless sea . There is but oneway to know wha t it means to love and thatis to do the loving . The medium of wordsonly muddles the m i nd . There are no medium s that can bring together those who areseparated in the land of affection .

Now , go from one experience to the other97

THE FUTURE LIFE

in the same realm . I have a simple exper iment I would like the folk tomake who havelost their mental poise on the sub"ect of medium s. When you have tried out this testand failed—sit down and ponder its significance . Go to your son, who has never knownin experience the feeling of being a father,and tell him what it means to take in yourarms a helpless little thing and call it “myboy .

” Let the mothers try the same thingwith their daughters . To give strength toyour enterprise sit down together and makea list of the words you will use . C onsult theC entury D ictionary, the Standard D ictionary, or any other, or take all of them, for

that matter, and make the list com pr ehensive . To be sure that you make no mistakeask your son or daughter if they know whatthe words mean . Having been to school,they will smile at you and say,

“Sure”

sometimes they learn at school what theschool is supposed to unteach—“This comesfrom the Greek, this from the Latin Theywill be correct about the derivation ; you willtake that for granted . Now you have your

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THE FUTURE LIFE

ing the experiences of the soul_ into the comm on speech of human life It has not yetbeen done . In the nature of things it neverwill be accomplished .

When you study this universal limitationyou find more in it than the merely subj eetive life . The incident related by S ir A .

C onan D oyle of the young man muddledwith dr ink, taken by a medium and leavm ga few hours later reformed because he wasunder the impression he had conversed withhis mother, through the medium , is studyin the subj ective life of the young m an .

Through the medium hismother has told himthings that the medium did not know. But

all he had been told was known by himself .It is more than suggestive that we are nevertold simple things we do not know. It wouldbe a simple thing for some medium to learnthe presence of a star in some place in theheavens we have not yet seen . But the departed do not bring this kind of messages .We get all complicated and tangled up incircumstantial worlds, but we remain in theland of our own limitations .

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MED IUMS

Lazarus leaves us not a word about theother world ; not because it would not be interesting but because, in the nature of

things, it could not be done . We have noepistle of the Widow’s Son that tells ushow he felt when they were carrying his bodyto the grave and the Master met the bier .The gir l to whom Christ said,

“Little daughter, arise,

” comes back to begin eating ; theMaster commanded that they give her something to eat . She returned, but brought not

with her any word of where she had been .

All the appearances of"esus after his resurrectic

‘m come inside the limi tations of life .

Now, to reason that“they” do not know

because they cannot tell us is to be blind tothe very fact of our lim itations . All that aflying bird can tell an egg must come withinthe limitations of the life of the egg. Younever reason that the teacher did not knowbecause your child did not learn . All theways of life indicate that we cannot knowwhile in the body the life of the spir it thathas dropped the mortal and put on im m or

tality .

”

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THE FUTURE LIFE

When some modern story writer comes toreform the church, the man who lets the wishbe father to the thought and tells us it is timefor the chur ch to go forward and bridge thegulf between the church militant and thechurch triumphant, we simply tell him we

wished that ourselves before he mentionedit, only we went a little further than he hasgone and found out why it cannot be . Life ’slimitations are a part of living, and in no

place where we can see both sides of life is itpossible to take the li fe to which the livinggoes to the one who has not gone . Hang ourfaith on mediums"Not yet"Wherever wehave studied the medium we have found itunable to tell the story that we should wishto have told .

We have learned that life is a matter of

going—going to where you have never been

before and then going ; going till you“think

God ’s thoughts after him”

; going till youfeel God ’s emotions with him and still keepgoing . And when the time comes that youcan say you have en"oyed more of the di vineface and favor than all the intelligences of

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CHA"TER VIIITHE SILENT ANSWER

SU""OSE in the fall of the year you shouldcatch a blackbird that was raised in the Stateof New York . Now , also suppose that youcould dissect the bird . I do not mean cutits little body to pieces . I mean the bir d .

A bird is more than body . It is somethinginside the body that does the singing, andbeneath feathers and flesh is a great impulse .If your knife were sharp enough and yoursight keen enough, you would find inside thebody a disposition . We call it the migratoryinstinct . Where, when, or how this instinctwas born is not the question . We are afterthe lessons on the dependability of law . Wehave millions of birds that migrate everyyear . It would be a very foolish bird thatargued, There can be no Southland becauseI have never seen it . When we study birdswe see that the desire is the answer . Thescientist will tell you that if you find an ih

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THE SILENT ANSWER

stinct for the Southland, the Southland mustbe . You can have no native instinct forwhich there is no answer . What we wishnow to notice is that the answer is a silentone . It has no words ; it makes no argument ; it simply is.

What is true of bird is true of fish . Salmon find the cold and crystal waters thoughthey have to go thousands of miles to doso . In the fall of the year I have watched,day after day, the small fish cir cum navigat

ing the bays on the north side of LongIsland, and in an endless procession goingSouth . The procession reached all the miles,perhaps ten or fifteen, around the bay andalong the south side of Long Island Sound .

Though the deep water at the mouth of thebay is not more than a mile wide, the fishkeep near the shore before taking the chanceof crossing. The call south was in them andthe call was the silent answer .In the animal world the same is true . Seal

would cross the sea led or unled by theirelders . If one should give all the illustra

tions that we have on this subject, he would105

THE FUTURE LIFE

have to write a whole natural history . Wesimply notice two thingsFirst . The instinct is utterly dependable .

Fish, bird, and beast trust it . It is onlywhen we

"

come to man that it cannot betrusted"That is the way our friends wouldhave us reason who want a “message” fromthe other country .

Second . S ilence is the only answer bird,fish, or beast get . This silence is well worthstudy. The reaches of geography are notthe only gulfs over which appalling silencehangs .Try and hold a conversation with a chickbefore it has peeped . "ust persuade the little thing that it is a waste of effort to try andbreak through the shell . The chick wouldhave all the arguments that are usedagainst our belief in immortality. It wouldsurely be true “that no one has ever comeback to tell us of another world .

” As faras the chick can see, the inside of the shell isthe universe . We sometimes have wonderedwhether some little thing did not come to be

lieve that . We have seen full-grown t cks

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THE FUTURE LIFE

well addr ess to his friends : If it were not so,I would have told you .

” You have here theplainest kind of a stating that silence is anaffirmation . Were there no other mansionsin the Father ’s house, he would have told us.

It is well to remember that the resurrection of"esus was not the ground of his belief in the future life . He believed in it before it happened . His faith was not conditioned on the fact that he had seen “the firstfruits of them that slept . Whatever mayhave been the foundation of his faith in thecontinuity of personality, it is certain thathe did not break the law of silence . He toldus nothing about it, save that it was and thathe would still be engaged in his own redeeming work ; that he would come for them andthey should come to him . "esus believed inmore than immortality—he believed in theperpetuity of personality ; all of which is inthe land of faith . "e did not build on “medium s, automatic wr iting, ouij a boards, orelectrical apparatus .” His final appeal wasto the laws of the universe about him andhis own consciousness .

108

T"E SILENT ANSWERIn all places where life is on its way to

larger living, a greater future, a solem nsilence is maintained . The buried bulb getsno message from some full-grown flowerabout the sunlight and the larger life ; savethe message of silence . The babe m thewomb gets no message about the great worldto which he is on his way . It is highly probable that the womb is as silent as the moon .

If the unborn ask questions, the only answerthey receive is silence . Even in the world ofspeech silence is maintained . None of the

gulfs that life builds in experience betweenone creature and another are really crossedbackward . The boy m ay ask a thousandtimes,

“What is it to be a man"” The waychildren play “grown-up

” shows the answernever comes . They may mimic, but theycannot know. S ilence is the atmosphere inwhich they live . The same reasons we couldgive for asking that the silence of the tombbe broken could be given by every livingthing that moves toward a larger future .The ways of life are the laws of God . Theuniversal silence that surrounds the life that

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is with regard to the life that is to be, is God’s

declaration that you will have to put upwith it . The questionings of doubt about thefuture life are declarations of dissatisfaction with the ways of God .

Where we can see both sides of thissilence we see the cause therefor . To get awireless you have to have a receiver . Themessages are going all the time . The reason

you do not get them is because you have noway of “picking them up .

” The vibrationsare in the air, but, you have nothing withwhich to read them . The absence of facultyis the cause of ignorance . It is probablytrue that even the Almighty does not knowanything that he is not willing you shouldknow ; but how are you going to know it""ou have to have a knower as well as a factbefore you can have knowledge . Facts arefacts . Knowledge is the number of facts wehave come to know . It is a pure gratuity toassume that our departed could tell us anything . Our want of a “receiver handicapsthem . Many a mother wants to tell whather daughter later will find out ; many a

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Documents

The Future Life Fact and Fancies - Forgotten Books · These sirnple facts of. the air and the ﬁeld are common facts. Birds are in every land and ﬂowers grow in all climes. In