PRE-EXISTENCE.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12718, 14 February 1910, Page 1

PRE-EXISTENCE.

j An address by Sir Oliver Lodge on pro-existence and man's destiny created a profound impression on a gathering of men at Moseley, Birmingham. . lixistence, he said, was a series of adventures. There were three great ■ adventures which very few escaped — birth, death, and marriage. There ; was a truth in the idea of pre-exist-once in some sense, though it was nob 1 a truth easy to formulate. He did j not in the least suggest such things j as reincarnation, transmigration, or I any thing of that sort. Those were fancies. But we were fragments of riic great reservoir of mind, of spirit, ami of lite. Birth was the gradually oiuering into association with, matter. What happened before our incarnation wo had forgotten, or we nevor know. Many geniuses from Plato down thought that wo had forgotten. It was an old idea, and he confessed that ho for long thought it fanciful, poetic only. He was beginning to tlunk it was more than that. . \ What was the meaning of existonce ? We were here to become worthy of our origin, to realise our Divine connection, to develop a character and a will, to become ripe for freedom. That was the dangerous gift that had been bestowed upon us. By scientific investigation he had como to perceive gradually that the ; Christian Churches had hold of a I great truth. All they said about it need not be truth, but there was a truth in it much better than anything they had yet said. People thought they would get through their trouble and pain here before they died and hereafter would only have enjoyment and idleness. After a few thousand years doing nothing would get monotonous. As we rose in the scale of existence we should learn to woi'k ' and suffer for others.