IS THERE NO CONTRADICTION?
By R. F. C.
“DEATH is the dawn of a higher life.” So said the minister at the funeral to-day. His next words were substantially these: “The Christian while struggling with the ‘last enemy,’ can say in the language of the Apostle, ‘We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’” If death is the dawn of a higher life, we should call it the friend and benefactor of the human race. Why then did the preacher call it, in the next sentence, the last enemy? The answer is easy: Paul called it so. But did Paul say also that death was the dawn of a higher life? Not at all. No such sentiment was uttered by him. He nowhere contradicts the idea that death is an enemy, and as such shall be destroyed. It was the preacher of to-day that contradicted Paul. What would the poor low-lived inhabitants of earth do, if the dawn of a higher life should be destroyed? But death is to be destroyed by the resurrection of the saints, and in that glorious day the saying shall be brought to pass: O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? The sting of “the dawn of a higher life” is sin. The wages of sin is “the dawn of a higher life.” This is the harmony of Paul and the modern preacher. But Christ gives his people a victory over this dawn of a higher life, and Paul thanks God for it. So do I. “Death is the dawn of a higher life.” So says the Spiritualist—so says the preacher. Here is harmony. And as death is the lot of us all, saint and sinner, it follows that the liar, the thief, the adulterer, and the murderer are, at death, ushered into a higher life! Spiritualism says, Amen—so it is. But “orthodoxy” casts such wicked sinners down into the lowest hell, and this at death. Is this a higher life? Spiritualism and the Bible are perfect antagonisms—directly opposed to each other. My dear christian friends, will you not choose one or the other, and no longer try to reconcile the two? Yes, you will choose soon, and the day is at hand. Be entreated to renounce the doctrines of Spiritualism and choose the plain and harmonious doctrines of the Bible. Choose a higher life by renouncing every sin, and keeping every one of God’s ten commandments, and be satisfied to receive that higher life at the first resurrection when death will be destroyed. David said, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.” Your friend will be satisfied when David is, provided he is so happy as to get the victory over sin. So will you. Then cease to try to make a covenant with death, and to be at agreement with the grave. See Isa. xxviii, 15–18. Be assured that death will not fulfill the part of the covenant—he will not introduce you to a higher life. If you are so happy as to obtain that life, the honor will be given to Christ and the resurrection, and not to death and the Devil, the great enemies of man, which are to be destroyed. My friend, I will try to meet you in a higher life, at the resurrection of the just, when the shout of victory over death and the grave will burst from the lips of every redeemed soul. May this be our portion.