A CONTRADICTION OF TERMS.
By W.
AMONG the editorial notes in the Interior of February 14, was the following:— "We speak of death as a destroyer, when in reality it is an emancipator; for, as George McDonald puts it, 'There is just one thing that death cannot destroy, and that is life.' Death is but the usher into a larger life. It marks the end of certain limitations which embarrass and embitter the life that now is." It is strange how men can, with the Scripture statements before them, thus directly deny them; but that is no more strange than that they should talk so contrary to their own reason. It is just as sensible to say that ice will not take the warmth from a thing, and that sleep is only a condition of greater wakefulness, as to say that death is but the usher into a greater life. Throughout the Bible, death is represented as a sleep. If we had never seen death, we should learn something of its nature from this comparison. In sleep there is loss of consciousness. Sometimes, when sleep is not perfect, we dream; but our dreaming is only the crude attempt of the partially dormant brain to recollect things that have been impressed upon it while awake. In sleep the mind does not go off to explore new fields of thought. In sound sleep there is perfect unconsciousness, and hours are but as a moment. In death it is the same, only there is no natural awakening from it, because the vital organs have ceased to act. In the charge which Moses gave to the children of Israel just before his death, he said: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." Deut. 30:19. Here we have death and life placed in contrast, the same as blessing and cursing. It would be no more absurd and contrary to fact to say that cursing is only an amplified blessing, than to say that death is but a larger life. Life is associated with blessing, and death with cursing. In the favor of God there is life, but those upon whom his wrath abides shall not see life. Now to claim that death does not destroy life, is virtually the same as saying that there is no difference between the favor and the wrath of God. If death does not put an end to life, we should like to have some one explain that passage in the book of Revelation, where John says that he saw those who had been slain for the word of God, "and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Rev. 20:4, 5. "The rest of the dead lived not again." This shows that those whom he saw reigning with Christ were living again. But "again" means another time, once more; and so those who live again, live a second time. But this cannot be said of those who have never ceased to live. We cannot say that a man is doing a thing again, when he has been doing it continuously ever since he first began. If a man is in a certain place, he cannot be in that place again unless he goes away from that place, and returns. So no man can live again, unless he has once ceased to live. So the fact that all the dead will live again, some for only a short time, and others for eternity, proves beyond question that the one thing that death does destroy is life. And when life is destroyed, everything else is destroyed with it. When people use such contradictory language as that quoted at the beginning of this article, we can only wonder whether they believe the Bible at all, or whether they ever think. W.