BODILY AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

Western Star, Issue 983, 19 September 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

BODILY AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

It is without doubt very difficult, as we look upon ft cold corpse, which still bears a likeness (but only, as it were, in stone) to a friend, to, realise that'he no longer occupies that body in which alone we have known him, but yet lives just as real a life as he did on earth, though under conditions which we are unable even to imagine. It is comforting at such times of distress to listen to the whisperings of Nature, which give us ao, many beautiful illustrations of unseen realities. We know that is impossible to destroy anything that exists, that apparent annihilation is but change of stale and form, and that many things which are rendered imperceptible for a time become again visible under new conditions in a more beautiful form—as, for exampl *, the ohange of ice into water, and of water into vapour, destined to reappear by-and*by in beautiful snowflakes. It may, perhaps, be objected that this simile is inappropriate because these bodies are material, while spirit is esteemed to be immaterial. But when men of science attempt to separate tho material from the immaterial, they transgress beyond ascertained knowledge. The ethereal atom which is supposed to lie- at the foundation of all matter is as invisible, aud its existence just as unprovable, as spirit itself. We only know p£ the existence of atoms by the force they exhibit. Yet they form the substance of all Nature, from the ether which fills space to the hard rocks of which our world is framed, their visible or invisible form depending only upon varying conditions. This is the final conclusion of science with regard to the material universe. The s 'me reasoning, applied to spirit, is equally conclusive. ,AYe visible essence only by the for?Asbtcbp; it exerts while pervading the fiutnJki

form. When separated from thislorm by that change which we call death, it ceases to exert its force upo& its old material; but it is altogether illogical to assume that, because it then ceases to be apparent as an active principle, it is one thing in Nature that can be annihilated.—-Oontempo-rang Review.