DEATH | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1879

DEATH.

A MIGHTY sceptered monarch sways The realms of mortal breath; For every human soul obeys The mandate stern of Death. Death never smites a feeble blow, Nor waiteth long between; He cometh from the depths below This harvest ground to glean. He hangs a fearful gloominess About the wizard sea; A never-failing loneliness, When flowing pleasantly. But when the howling tempests rise, Death hasteth to the fray, And o'er the billows swiftly flies In ruin's dread array. In plaintive sounding melody The breezes whisper low:— "The agency of death shall be Through time's all-ceaseless flow." Death rideth on the stormy blast Amid the lightning's play; And shouteth when the war-clouds fast Their many victims slay. He floateth on the noiseless breeze In fragrant summer time; And hideth 'mid the leafy trees, Whence music sweet doth chime. He glideth where deep waters flow, And spreads the ripple wide; And stands where fetid marshes low Extend their sluggish tide. He saileth on the sun's bright beam, Like love's resistless glance; And where the festive torches gleam, Whirls in the giddy dance. Death mingleth tempting pleasure's cup, And crowns all earthly joy; He hovers where the song goes up, Commissioned to destroy. He filleth every spot of earth, Like all-pervading light; And all that claimeth mortal birth Death smites in giant might. There's horror in the very air When o'er the dead we bend; There's mingled terror everywhere If Death an arrow send. What wonder then we stand aghast When summoned far away? For Death, unwelcome till the last, Attends our steps each day.

—Sel.

that time. My experience with Spiritualists when they have been asked if they had intelligent communications from their affectionate friends, has been in duration of time, like the heathen's worship of idols—they have been ridiculed by the Spiritualists in formation by the simple statement of my faith in the Bible, to the effect to nothing in common with the Pantheism of the present day.

Dr. [name illegible] and a letter from [name illegible] from which I quote:

"I estimate the common claims of the believers, that they believe in a God, no stronger foundation for a foothold, and hence the spiritism that I was dealing with which they hold and transmit, to proclaim the fact that something good and that the spirit is well-nigh at the gain both for us to-day and for the house to come."

"As I have known for the past eight years, I have held it sacredly and in keeping my own experience of the truth which I most solemnly believe, that it was sanctioned and consequently witnessed thereto."

"For I believe with what I possess of the spirit. There was no spirit of a demon, but I had confidence in its final ruin."

possessing it in all its action. Thus I am possessed of the truth and his life, and no evil in the final statement.