CAN SCIENCE RENEW LIFE?
By Edison Driver
“I have been reading in the paper about the new discoveries,” said neighbor Tom, as he seated himself on the nail keg. “An’ I see they are about to discover the elixir of life. Fer a fac’ sir, they’re so near it it makes your hair stand just to read it in the paper. Think o’ livin’ five hundred or a thousand years without dying, sir!” “Yes, Tom,” replied the old gentleman from his place by the work-bench, “I ha’ thought about it ower and ower, an’ I tell ye I expec’ to see the day when a thousan’ years won’t be a minit out o’ life. But I don’t be givin’ thanks to science fer it tho, ner I won’t; fer I tell ye science can’t make life, never has made it an’ never will make it. Let me just remind ye that God took the tree o’ life out o’ this earth a long, long time ago, Tom. He didn’t want sinners livin’ here in misery forever, an’ he took that tree away. And now d’ ye think after all His trouble in settin’ the flamin’ swords there about it, an’ fencin’ it around to keep men away from it, d’ye think He’s goin’ to turn around an’ change His mind and let man discover it for himself. Not Him; an’ so these scientists that are so hot on the trail o’ life are about’s fur off ’s that ole Spaniard they call Ponthie de Leon wus when he wus seekin’ of the Fountain o’ Youth. With him it was always just ower the hill, or on the other side o’ the forest, or somewhere on the nex’ day’s march. The Indians kep’ a lyin’ to him, an’ he kep’ a goin’ an’ goin’ till he was played out, an’ his men buried him, a discouraged an’ disheartened man, in the great Mississippi. I tell ye it’ll be the same with all them what’s huntin’ life in the places where there’s none. Tom, the good Father has put the longing fer life into everybody, an’ man will never be happy, an’ his tears will never be wiped away, till he finds it; but the fac’ remains that science, nor modified electricity, nor none o’ them things will ever get it fer him. They can’t, fer God took it away, sayin’ that only through faith in Jesus Christ, and by obeying the will of the Almighty, can you get more life than what you ha’ got; an’ do you think, Tom, that He was foolin’ when He said it?” “Why, no sir,” replied Tom. “I agree with you that He was not, sir. I never was a’ hand to take much stock in sech life-discoverin’ business—because if it wasn’t there, I sez to myself, how could you find it, sir!” EDISON DRIVER.