IS DEATH THE END?

    It’s wiser being good than bad;
       It’s safer being meek than fierce;
    It’s fitter being sane than mad. 
       My own hope is, a sun will pierce
    The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
       That after Last, returns the First,
    Though a wide compass round be fetched;
       That what began best, can’t end worst,
       Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

    —­Apparent Failure. Browning.

X

IS DEATH THE END?

We have been studying the ascent of the soul in the successive stages of its development, from the dawn of consciousness to the measure of progress which our race has now attained.  But a dark shadow falls across that history.  No one has yet lived who has reached what all have believed to be the fullness of his possible development.  At a certain period in physical history what we call death intervenes, and we are left wondering as to whether that is the end of all, or whether the soul persists and continues its advance unhindered by bodily limitations.  That death is the end of the body, in its present form, no one doubts; but whether the relations of the soul to the body are so intimate and enduring that what vitally affects one affects the other is a subject concerning which there has been eager and constant inquiry, and but little real knowledge.  Job’s question, “If a man die shall he live again?” is the common question of humanity.  The importance of the subject is attested by the prominence which it has always had in human thought.  Philosophers have given it foremost place in their speculations.  Science, while seeking to explore every part of the physical universe, never escapes from the fascination of this question.  Is the death of the body the end of the spirit?  Or, if we have not sufficient material for a positive statement, is there enough to make a strong affirmation of probability?  We are facing the deepest mystery which is ever presented to thinking men.  Heretofore we have been trying to follow a history clearly marked in the progress of humanity; now we can only balance probabilities.  But all that has been learned concerning the nature and development of the spirit of man not only warrants, but compels, the belief that death is not the end of the soul; and that to assert that it is, is to deny the revelations of the universe, and to insist that there is nothing but irony and mockery where there ought to be reason and wisdom.  In treating this subject I can but repeat thoughts which have been emphasized again and again; but it is so vital, and so near to the welfare of all, that old arguments become new, and interest in them increases, the more frequently they are emphasized.