PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 12, 1881

PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH.

By Editor

THIS was the subject of a lecture lately delivered in San Francisco by "Prof." Denton. The report in the Chronicle, said:—

"The professor began with the novel statement that death was certain."

Reading thus far, we thought the reporter had cleverly used a bit of irony; but further on we came to the following words of the scientific professor:—

"Walt Whitman was right when he sang, 'I know that I am deathless.'"

This brought down our ideas of irony on the part of the reporter, and at once convinced us of the entire novelty of the first statement. For is it not novel, even to a wonder, that death is certain to a man who is deathless? The contradiction itself is not novel as to rarity, for the same paradox may be heard almost any Sunday from any "orthodox" pulpit in the land. Much as Mr. Denton dislikes preachers and their preaching, we believe he received his knowledge of this very novel fact, that man is deathless, notwithstanding that death is certain, from the same source from which the preachers get theirs. If this is a part of the philosophy of death, it is a strange philosophy, and most bewilderingly self-contradictory. But the lecture was a popular one, as might be supposed; for the popular ministry have so long dealt out the same contradictions to the world, that it is generally thought they are reason, science, philosophy, and gospel combined, even when dispensed by an infidel or an atheist.